The Role of History, Historiography and Historian in Nation Building

Some scholars outside historical scholarship view history as a past, that only has relevance when it is needed or ‘past’ that should totally be forgotten. Such people see these academic disciplines as archaic if not completely useless. Others hold it in low esteem. This may not only be seen as misconception of history, as a process and discipline, it has as well affected the unity, progress, peace and harmony of our beloved country and has as a result generated mutual mistrust, inter religious and communal conflicts among Nigerian diverse nationalities. Past studies conducted have proved that the 1985 Kafanchan, Tafawa Balewa, and Plateau/Jos religious crises, Shagamu communal conflict, the Asaba, Ogomi and the Niger Delta Militant issue to mention just a few, were all devastating and had fundamentally occurred following the failure to understand histories of the past, which claimed that in the past there were both relative peace, intergroup relations, good governance, general security to life and property. The study also examines the concept of history as a discipline, a science and a process of change, the term historiography, position of a historian and their tremendous contributions in nation building project. At the tail end, problems confronting historical studies, historian and centres for historical research and documentation have been highlighted and the study has in the same vain suggested a way forward.