How Can Nigerian History Be Written Without the Igbo? 

By Chuka Nnabuife 

EVEN the most accomplished propagandists might once have doubted that Nigeria would reach a point where its history could be taught to children with one of its foundational peoples deliberately marginalised or erased. Yet that is the unsettling reality now confronting the country’s basic education system.

Until recently, the idea of excluding the Igbo from the study of Nigerian history would have seemed absurd. Today, it is being openly debated. Reports of the non-inclusion — or severe marginalisation — of Igbo narratives in a junior secondary school History textbook have provoked public outrage. Beyond the immediate controversy lies a deeper concern: if such distortion can occur in History, what prevents similar erasures across other subjects?
At the centre of the storm is a textbook titled 'Living History,' reportedly authored by J. M. Itsekure, O. O. Olajide, and T. E. Taiwo. The book has circulated widely as a proposed junior secondary school History text and has been condemned on social media for allegedly excluding Igbo history while providing coverage for other Nigerian ethnic groups.
The Federal Ministry of Education has denied approving the book, stating that it was never submitted to the National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), the statutory body responsible for evaluating and approving school textbooks. According to the Ministry, 'Living History' is not on the official list of approved History texts. Nevertheless, the controversy has already exposed a troubling truth: Igbo history is increasingly being pushed to the margins of official narratives taught to Nigerian children.
The publisher, Accessible Publishers Ltd, has rejected claims of outright exclusion, insisting that the book contains Igbo-related content. These claims, however, remain unverified. Even so, the debate itself underscores a more enduring problem: the gradual relegation of Igbo history to footnotes, token mentions, or complete silence within accounts of Nigeria’s past.
This trend is especially jarring to those familiar with Nigeria’s historical record. The Igbo are not a peripheral group in the making of Nigeria. They are a principal people whose influence on the country’s political, economic, educational, and social development is fundamental.
Whether or not 'Living History' ultimately proves culpable, one fact remains clear: there is an emerging pattern of historical distortion in what Nigerian children are taught. As Francis Bacon observed, “Some battles cannot be won by politics or banter; they yield only to rigorous thought.”
How did Nigeria arrive at a point where omitting the Igbo from a History textbook became conceivable? Who benefits from such omissions, and for what purpose? How did one of the country’s three major ethnic groups descend, in official narratives, from centrality to near-invisibility? What version of Nigeria is being presented to its children, and to what end?
One wishes to dwell on enlightenment on this matter because Joseph Joubert, in Pensées (1842), reminds us that “Noise can dominate a moment, but reason shapes generations.” It is therefore necessary to restate, calmly and factually, the contributions of Ndi Igbo to the transformation of modern Nigeria —contributions that some historians, commentators, and institutions have sought to diminish. As Joubert further noted, “Debate seeks victory; intellectual engagement seeks truth.”
One of Nigeria’s most distinguished historians, Prof. Tekena Nitonye Tamuno — an Ijaw scholar and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan — warned against precisely this trend. He observed that public discourse in Nigeria had increasingly normalised the denigration of the Igbo. Even when credited for their  due achievements, Ndi Igbo were often portrayed as domineering or disruptive, a characterisation unsupported by historical evidence.
A dispassionate review of Nigeria’s development tells a different story. Many pillars of modern Nigeria—economic dynamism, mass education, indigenous higher institutions, commercial integration, and civic consciousness—were significantly shaped by Igbo initiative and enterprise. Far from deserving reproach, Professor Tamuno argued, the Igbo deserve recognition for their transformative role in Nigeria’s modernity. He was unequivocal in his assessment: “The Igbo are the makers of modern Nigeria.”
One of his most compelling illustrations was the economic performance of Eastern Nigeria between 1954 and 1964. During this decade, scholarly accounts show that the Eastern Region recorded extraordinary growth. The Harvard Review described it as the fastest-growing regional economy in the world at the time, outperforming China, Singapore, and the emerging Asian Tiger economies (Tamuno, 1970; Forrest, 1981). This achievement was all the more remarkable given that Eastern Nigeria had the weakest revenue base among the regions.
Growth was not resource-driven but productivity-led — anchored in trade, education, and community mobilisation — what development economists now describe as human-capital-led growth (Todaro & Smith, 2015). Education lay at the centre of this transformation. The Eastern Regional Government invested approximately 45 per cent of its total revenue in education, an allocation exceptional by global standards.
Through Town Development Unions, Igbo communities pooled resources to build schools, supported by matching grants from the Eastern Nigeria Development Corporation. Institutions such as National High School, Okigwe; Ngwa High School; and Mbaise Secondary School remain operational today, providing tangible evidence of the durability of this model. As Afigbo (1981) observed, education in the East was not an elitist privilege but a collective social project rooted in communal responsibility.
Healthcare and infrastructure followed the same logic. Every administrative division in Eastern Nigeria had a Joint Hospital under the Eastern Medical Services, ensuring broad access to medical care. The region also developed what contemporaries described as the most extensive modern road network in West Africa, facilitating trade and integration (Forrest, 1981). Unlike regions that prioritised prestige projects, the Eastern model emphasised social reach, durability, and mass welfare.
Igbo contributions to Nigeria’s intellectual architecture were equally profound. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), founded under Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, was Nigeria’s first truly indigenous university. Unlike colonial-era institutions designed to serve imperial administration, UNN was conceived as a development-oriented university, pioneering faculties in law, engineering, business, journalism, music, and the performing arts.
The early prominence of UNN graduates in Nigeria’s public service was not evidence of ethnic conspiracy, as critics alleged, but the predictable outcome of deliberate educational investment. As Crowder (1966) noted, accusations of “Igbo domination” reflected political anxiety rather than academic imbalance.
Azikiwe’s influence extended beyond Eastern Nigeria. His advocacy was instrumental to the establishment of University College Ibadan following the Eliot Commission, while the University of Lagos emerged from the ideological input of his political party, the NCNC-led federal coalition government, with an Igbo, Aja Wachukwu, serving as Minister of Education. Yet such contributions — including the pioneering role of Professor Eni Njoku as UNILAG’s first Vice-Chancellor — are often minimised or omitted from institutional histories.
Commerce offers another telling example. In fact, this development brings to the wisdom in Gov. Chukwuma Soludo's keenness for rescuing the Onitsha Main Market from the hands of the ignorant. The Onitsha Modern Market, built by the Eastern Government in the 1950s, was the first modern trade emporium in West Africa. Long before “globalisation” entered development discourse, Onitsha functioned as a continental commercial hub, attracting traders from across Africa. Its economic multiplier effects far exceeded those of prestige structures such as stadia or skyscrapers built in other regions which narratives of Nigerian history tend to trumpet. As Rodrik (2007) argues, integrated markets are far more consequential for long-term growth than symbolic monuments. Through the market emporium initiative, the entire Eastern region and neighbourhood has remained a buzz of commerce for over seven decades.
Equally transformative was the Igbo commitment to information, enlightenment, and the creative arts. Beyond the famous Onitsha Market Literature — which influenced the landmark African Writers Series and Nigeria’s Nollywood phenomenon — Eastern Nigeria established the first modern public library system in West Africa. Prof. Tamuno recalled that children across the region possessed library cards and regularly borrowed books well into the post–civil war decades, an extraordinary democratisation of knowledge.
'The Eastern Outlook,' Nigeria’s first government-owned newspaper, further boosted literacy and public awareness. These initiatives reflected what Chinua Achebe described as the Igbo cultural emphasis on inquiry, debate, and self-improvement.
Despite this record, post–civil war narratives have systematically diminished Igbo contributions while amplifying those of other regions. Professor Tamuno attributed this selective memory to control over media institutions and academic storytelling, warning that such distortions ultimately misinform both the marginalised and the beneficiaries of falsehood. Achebe’s metaphor remains apt: until the lion tells its own story, the hunter will always dominate the narrative.
To recognise Igbo contributions is not to deny those of other Nigerian peoples. It is to insist on historical balance and intellectual honesty. Facts show that Igbo should be hailed not bashed or skipped. Recognition is not a zero-sum exercise; it strengthens national cohesion by replacing resentment with understanding. Nigeria’s future cannot be built on myths sustained by silence or fear. It must rest on a truthful reckoning with the past.
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns, the danger of a single story is profound. On the evidence, the Igbo story is not one of domination or sabotage, but of industry, innovation, and nation-building — a legacy deserving acknowledgement, not erasure. If anyone still pretends to be ignorant of how the Igbo nation transformed modern Nigeria let him cast a glance at the development templates of Gov. Soludo in Anambra State and recall how the great Zik of Africa and his era rejuvenated the then nascent nation with radical ideas.
You can't quench a wildfire with spittle. No matter how many spits. John Stuart Mill captured the essence of this struggle in On Liberty (1859): “The loudest voice may prevail today, but the clearest mind prevails tomorrow.” Those promoting the distortion of Nigeria’s history may command noise for now, but truth, ultimately, is more enduring.

* Nnabuife , Managing Director of Anambra State Civic and Social Reformation Office, ANCISRO, writes from Awka