The Place of History in Nation Building.

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THE PLACE OF HISTORY IN NATION BUILDING “History is to a people what memory is to the individual. A people with no knowledge of their past will suffer from collective amnesia, grouping blindly into the future, without guide-posts of precedence to shape their course” ‘Babs Fafunwa’ (1974) The above excerpt clearly shows that, history as a phenomenon and an academic field of study has registered much impact in various areas of human life and society. As noted by ‘Marcus Garvy’, “people who live without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture, are like trees without roots”. ‘Karl-Heinz Hansen’ already has it that,” a people not prepared to face its own history cannot manage to face its own future”. This implies that, “if you understand the beginning well, the end will not trouble you”. That is to say, a society achieves its greatness at the consequence of history. Therefore in a common-sense, history is the study of the important past events, i.e. the eventful past. On the other hand, it is important that we examine the concept of nation-building. Naturally, the concept cannot be isolated from the parent word “nation” which means a group of people or human species with mutual existence, common historic experience, shared values and customs that occupy the same geographical area. Arriving from this, nation-building can be viewed as a normative concept that has to do with the indices that make a nation’s existence solid, and such ingredients are found in law, history, justice, peace, and traditions. But of all these, the “history” factor is the most potent because it is that which brings other parameters together. It is from the above perspective that it becomes apt to examine, project and profess the role of history in nation-building. What does history has to do with nation building? Does history has a role to play in reshaping a modern society? “I

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