Alaafin counsels on utility value of history

People live in the present. They plan for and worry about the future.
History, however, is the study of the past. Given all the demands that press in from living in the present and anticipating what is yet to come, why bother with what had been?
Given all the desirable and available branches of knowledge, why insist on a good bit of history?
There has never been any controversy about the value of history for nation building or the development of an individual, his society or larger community.
Speaking on the utility values of History in an EXCLUSIVE interview with ‘BODE DUROJAIYE, His Imperial Majesty. The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba [Dr.] Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, submitted that, “by recognising what we hold in common we can begin to live in peace. We can all recognise our relationship to each other and to the past”
The assertions of Oba Adeyemi further emphasised the importance of history.
As he puts it, “History is a vast umbrella subject. It encompasses all disciplines, not just political and cultural history. It therefore includes literature, religion, the social and natural sciences, the arts, technology, and mathematics. To be ignorant of the political and cultural history of a people is also to be ignorant of the contributions of that people to all areas of intellectual activity”.
The importance of history has also been further demonstrated by the monarch in the statement that ‘’without knowledge and keeping historical events and issues, there will be nothing to build on. History is the foundation of all things; everything has a history and knowledge is built always on examples of one past event or another, it is thus a reference point. It is therefore important to know the foundation of what is built as a guide to subsequent developments.
‘’ Society ‘looked up to history for knowledge of the accumulated wisdom of the ancestors, the sense of values, the morality and the norms upon which society was founded. Thus history occupied a unique position in traditional African society and that history was prominent as a subject in the preparation and training of the citizen’’.
The Paramount Ruler added that “historical information was imparted privately by parents, grandparents, heads of lineages, and others from the level of the nuclear family to the largest lineage group’’.
Alaafin went further, ‘’Samuel Johnson who later wrote the History of the Yoruba was not pleased by the arrangement in which ‘educated natives of Yoruba are well acquainted with the history of England and with the history of Rome and Greece but of the history of their own country they knew nothing whatsoever. For that reason he wrote the seminal work on the History of Yoruba.
‘’The colonial officials, however, ensured that history was given ample time on the school Timetable. The subject was among those selected for examination by the British Examination boards that were invited to assess secondary school performance in Nigeria: the University of London from 1887, Cambridge University from 1910 and Oxford University from 1929’’.
The Philosopher King asserted that, ‘’unless we know what we are and how we came about to be what we are, we shall certainly be unable to know where and how to go further. History as a discipline has been relegated in Nigeria whereas the discipline is the bedrock of any nation. History instils patriotism and nationalism in the minds of citizens of any nation’’.
Conclusively, Alaafin tutored that “every situation has its roots in the past and the past survives in the present; the present is indeed the past undergoing modification”.