See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/298353091

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ORAL SOURCES IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NIGERIAN

HISTORY IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTUARIES

Article · April 2009

CITATIONS READS

0 25,443

1 author:

Abubakar Zaria Ibrahim

Ahmadu Bello University
20 PUBLICATIONS   3 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN) Conference, Jalingo 2012 View project

Festschrifts View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Abubakar Zaria Ibrahim on 15 March 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 ·JOURNIl OFLIBERAlIBTS
(ZAJOLA) ISSN: 2141-3584

----
Zaria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA)

Volume 3, Number 1, April, 2009

© Zaria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA),

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

All rights reserved.

Faculty of Arts
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Published & Printed

Ahmadu Bello University Press Limited, Zaria,
Kaduna State, Nigeria.
Tel.: 069879121, 08065949711.
E-mail: abupresslimited2005@yahoo.co.uk
Website: www.abupress.org

II
Zaria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA)
Editorial Board Members

Editor-in-Chief
Dr. Gbenga Ibileye

Assistant Editor I
Dr. Doris Obieje

Assistant Editor 11
Nasir Abubakar

External Members

Prof. M. T. Ladan
Prof. A. A. M. Shaibu
Dr. Z. T. Abdullahi

Editorial Advisers

Prof. Dapo Adelugba

A.B. U. Zaria/Unibadan
Prof. Alex I. Okpoko
u.N.N.
Pro. Attahiru Jega
B.U.K.
Prof. Victor Aire
Unijos

111
Zaria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA)

Table of Contents
Copyright 11

Editorial Board Members 111

A Stylolinguistic Analysis of Lexical Choices and Phraseology in Our

Children are Coming! By Isidore C. Nnadi, PhD

Art As Development: Artistic Representations on Residential Buildings in

Akure of the 20th Century By Igbaro Joe 12

Between Europe and Africa: A Developmental History of the "New

Art" Culture By Umoru Oke Nanashaitu and Igbaro Joe 29

Distinguishing Between the Simple Past and the Perfective Through

Literature By 'Dill Ofuokwu 40

British Colonial Agricultural Policy and Export Crop Production in

Katsina Emirate 1903-1925. By Dr. Mamman Musa Adamu, 50

Victims of Crime and the need for Remedial Measures: A Journey into
Pre-Colonial Nigeria. By Dr. J. E. Gyong 64

Culture, Cognition and Inferential Communication in Martin Owosu's

The Sudden Return By Ogoanah, N.F. 80

Education and Nation Building: Some Reflections on Curriculum

Development in Nigeria to 2010 By Dr. Sole Mohammed 95

Effects of Socio-Economic Variables on Teaching English as a Second

Language in Any Given Nigerian Classroom By Dr. Enesi, A. O. 104

Democracy, Corruption and Development in Nigeria

By Abdullahi Yahuza Zainawa 117

How to Fight poverty: Tanure Ojaide as a Case in Point By Kola Eke 124

v
Principle of Non Intervention in the Internal Affairs of African Nations
and the Nigerian Led Ecomog Operation in Liberia. By Umar M. Ka'oje 136

Languages and Domains: Nigerian Situations By Ayeomoni, Moses

Omoniyi (Ph.D) 146

Leadership Accountability and Health Care Delivery in the Rural Areas

Of Nigeria By Nseabasi S. Akpan, Ph.D and Abiodun J. Oluwabamide, Ph.D 159

Literature as a Mirror of Society: A Literary Analysis of Idris Mohammed's

HAMystical Ring" By Amodu, Eneojoh Jonah 167

Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbos Inquiry into Human Trafficking in Trafficked

By Onyijen, Kingston O. 177

The Emergence of Nigeria's Diaspora Literature: A Critique

By Mbaiver Nyitse, Ph.D 187

A Consensus View on Paradigmatics and Syntagmatics

By Ahmed Mansur (Ph.D) 198

th
A Diachronic Study of the Poetics of 20 Century Nigerian Poetry
By Uchenna Oyali 206

The Nigeria Police Force as a Colonial Heritage: A Re-Appraisal

By Sule, Israel Dantata 220

The Law and Practice of Police Interrogation in Nigeria,

By Maliki, Ahmadu Seidu 233

Quest for Servant-Leadership in Tanure Ojaide's Poetry

By Kola Eke, Ph.D. 247

A Speech Acts Analysis of some Consumer Goods Advertisements in

Nigerian Pidgin By Alege, Tosin C 257

Social and Economic Character of Oil Enclave Economies

By Yohana Kagoro Gandu, PhD 273

Stylistic Range of Metaphor in Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story

By Ray N. Chikogu 288

VI
 Sustainable Architectural and Environmental Innovative Designs:
A Re-Evaluation Of Collapsed Structures and Public Arts
By Onyeagoro, Johnson Chima 302

The Risk Of Terrorism In Nigeria By Folashade B. Okeshola 311

The Grand Strategy of the Etsu Nupe Masaba cl859-1873, in the Foundation
of Modem Nigeria. By I.S Jimada 318

The Role Of Fate In Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim

By Ezekiel Solomon Akuso PhD 324

Reconstructing the Personality of the Slave: Rethinking Nineteenth

Century American Slavery in Toni Morrison's Beloved
By Edward Ocbigbo Abah (Ph.D) 332

Administration of Land in Kumbotso District (Kano Emirate) 1916-1953

By Muhammadu Mustapha Gwadabe Ph. D 345

Identity Transformations and Politics of Identity in Contemporary Nigeria:

The Islamic Shariah as a Religious Revivalism and/or the Politics of
Masquerading By Muhammad Kabir lsa, 360

Rethinking Public Sector Reforms in Nigeria By Massoud Omar 378

Some collections of Laterites at Tsauni Iron Smelting Site: Iron Ore or What?
By Dr K. Odofin 392

Significance Of Oral Sources In The Reconstruction Of Nigerian History

In The 20th and 21 Centuries By Abubakar Zaria IBRAHIM
s1
399 '

The Arabic Literary and Prosodic Features in the Nupe Ajami Poem
"E:a Ga Yatun" of Shehu Abdurrahman Tsatsa (d. 1829)
By Muhammad Umaru Ndagi, PhD 409

Godfar' .erism and the Democratisation Process in Nigeria's Fourth Republic

By Aliyu Yahaya 433

Vll

:!!!~==---- ------------ -
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ORAL SOURCES IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF
NIGERIAN HISTORY IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES

By
Abubakar Zaria IBRAHIM

Department of History,
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Abstract
The danger in the thought that oral traditions are not a reliable history source material is
enourmous that it has skulked into the minds of some students of history. This is a
Eurocentric view that the early Africanist historians have always argued against. The
long commitment of Nigerian, and of course African and Africanist historians to oral
sources, whether these sources be traditions or personal narratives, derived from a healthy
skepticism about permitting written sources, often produced by outsiders to the country
and the continent, to stand as the only recognized evidence of the Nigerian or indeed
African past. This paper attempts to establish that had the earliest generation not
developed this skepticism a lot of African history would have been lost.

Conceptual Definitions
Various scholars have given different meanings to the term "oral sources". Jan
Vansina, (1965:19-20) defines oral tradition as all verbal testimonies which are reported
statements concerning the past. According to Vansina not all oral sources are oral
traditions, but only those which are statements =sources- which have been transmitted
from one person to another through the medium of language. But our observation
Vansina's 'Typology of oral tradition' shows us that personal narratives could also fit in
the categories. His category V, 'Commentaries', has the sub-category of legal, auxiliary,
and sporadic traditions. And their types are; precedents, explanatory, and occasional
comments. It is in explanatory and occasional comments type of tradition that the
narrative comes in.
To prove that oral tradition and oral sources are the same and can be used
interchangeably, E.J. Alagoa (1977:67) disapproves Vansina's ruling out of rumour and
eye witness accounts in the definition of oral tradition. Alagoa points out that rumour and
eye witness accounts obviously contain information concerning the past times and
situations. Patrick Peter Cudlip (1972: 16-77) joins this debate to support that the blanket
term of "legend" should be used for all traditional stories about the past. But there is
also a problem with his suggestion because legends are group of popular stories handed
down from earlier times, and whose truth has not been ascertained. They are sort of tales.

399
Zaria Journal ofLiberal Arts (ZAJOLA) Volume 3. limber I. April. 2009

The question here is where will personal narrative and eye witness account be placed?
Certainly not in legends.
Barbara M. Cooper, however, defines oral traditions and oral sources separately.
She sees oral tradition as " ... stories about the past, that local population produce and
reproduce through oral performative transmission as a means of preserving their own
history and consolidating or contesting a sense of belonging and identity. They can be
cosmologicaUy grounded; they often begin with myths of creation and go on to provide
tales of origin of particular communities; they frequently celebrate the exploit of more or
less legendry cultural heroes and they are dramatic and episodic."
However, she defines oral source to mean "personal reminiscence ... in an
inter~iew format and it may focus on the life history of the person being interviewed, on
specific events of interest to the historian or on the subject idiosyncratic memories of a
family, neighbourhood, community, or movement." Cooper's definition of oral sources
could, however, include oral tradition.
Gilbert Garrighan (1940, pp. 118 - 119) defines oral sources as "the category of
sources by oral transmission inclusive of all materials as involves communication
through the spoken words." He further explains that oral transmission of incidents or
events from the remote past generally goes under the name "popular tradition" and it is
found when written records are meager. It generally comes to the surface long after the
occurrence of event which it transmits. In this respect, therefore, our understanding is that
oral source and oral traditions can be used interchangeably, with the caution that each
may have its boundaries.
The next concept that needs to be defined is "reconstruction". In history,
reconstruction is the act of forming a picture of an event of the past by putting together
evidences that are left by that past. The debate between Alan Munslow, (1997)
Deconstruction of History, and Richard Evans, (1997) In Defense of History, for
example, has vindicated historical reconstruction as the most scientific way of
understanding and bringing about the knowledge of the past. Reconstruction is done
through evaluation and use of historical data. These are evidences, such as the oral
tradition, that are converted into facts by observation, corroboration, criticism and
analysis which ultimately brings back the past into the limelight.
The concept of Nigerian history also needs to be defined. History, in general, has
two broader meanings. The first is history as a process. This meaning is wider, larger, and
all encompassing. In this light Nigerian history could be said to be the process of
existence Nigeria went through from the first appearance of matter in the area, the whole
movements, the whole motions, the whole changes that have taken place in the area.
From the appearance of Homo- Erectus to Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens or modern man, thus
all activities that could go back to millions of years are included. The relationship
between man and himself, man and fellow men, and man and the environment, the
emergence of households, communities, states. kingdoms. and empires, the social,
economic, and political relationships, the coming of the Arab travelers and traders and
their contact with individuals, groups and societies. the coming of the European
explorers, traders. missionaries and colonialists. the struggle and movements for the
400

~--
------~-----
--------
Zaria Journal ofLiberal Arts (ZAJOLA) Volume 3. Number 1. April, 2009

achievement of independence, from independence to date, All these and more are the
process of Nigerian history, and it continues,
The second meaning of history is the attempt to understand the above mentioned
process, In the case of Nigeria, just like any other part of the world, we can say that this
attempt is an intellectual activity to understand and explain the process through study,
way of discovering knowledge, It is to be noted that this study cannot cover the whole of
the process, therefore, it is some parts of the process that are selected for reconstruction
so as to bring their existence to the knowledge of the people, The study is not random, it
has principle, way of being done, This is called methodology,

The Significance of Oral Sources

Oral sources, in the form of traditions, began to develop in a number of societies
which had no writing culture, but having certain members of the communities whose duty
it was to remember their histories, or that of their rulers. Thus in a Yoruba court, for
example, a professional oral historian was retained by the Oba, and he was usually
responsible for reciting dynastic lists (Crowder, 1976: 15). At some point of transition,
when the people in the Nigerian area came into contact with the art of writing, oral
traditions of antiquity were turned into writing; they then became historical plays,
bollards, or sagas (Alagoa, 1984:33). This must have started since around the 10th century
A.D. when the communities around Borno and Hausaland were said to have come in
contact with Arabic writing which was introduced with Islam through the Sanhaja
Berbers, the Tukrur, the Malinke, the Seifawa and other north-east Africa nomads.
We intend to treat our period of study in two parts so as to conveniently discuss
the writing of Nigerian history, The first part is from 1900 to 1950 and the second part is
from 1950 to 2008. There were two types of the writing of Nigerian history during the
first part of the centauries, all in which oral tradition played a very critical role. The first
type of history writing is that conducted by Islamic scholars, which was a continuation of
the Sokoto caliphate literature, and the one conducted by western educated Nigerians
who wrote on their various communities, The second type is the administrative historical
studies that are found in the colonial records. The colonial administrative reports are full
of assessments that are basically anthropological but full of historical data from oral
tradition,
An enormous part of the archival materials in Nigeria prepared by European
travelers, the missionaries and colonial officers up to the end of colonial administration
are based on oral data, Such documents are rich in suggestive references to both
diplomatic and domestic affairs ranging from correspondence through full-dress
narratives to chronicles of dynasties and non-royal lineages that went back to hundreds of
years, Travelogues are also prepared mainly by using oral sources. They may be deficient
in bulk and depth, yet they provide some details about key events. Examples are the
travelogues of Hugh CIapperton and those of Heinrich Barth (Henige, 2005: 170). The
colonial administrative reports ended with the achievement of independence.
There was a large body of written history by Islamic scholars and western
educated elites that continued beyond the 1950s. Scholars like Waziri Junaidu bin
401
Zaria Journal o} Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA) volume 3, Number I, April, 2009

Muhammad Buhari of Sokoto, Adamu al-Ilori, Ibrahim Madauci of Zaria wrote the
histories of their peoples. There was also a bulk of writing from the iwe-itan Oyo writers,
the Chamba of Adarnawa area and the history of Lafiya. These and many more are found
all over the country. Such history may be scarce among the non-monarchical Ibo
societies, yet they are said to form about 80% of Nigeria's written history in the 20th
century (Henige, 2005: 170), This indicates the importance of oral sources during the
period of study.
The second part of our period of study, 1950 - 2008, saw the continuation of the
non-academic writing of history, from the Islamic scholars and Western educated
Nigerians, and the emergence of the academic writing of history by trained historians
from various universities within and outside Nigeria, The activity brought the emergence
and intellectual use of oral source for scientific historical studies. The flag-bearers in this
field were K.O Dike and A.S Biokaku who first called out for recourse in the use of oral
traditions.
Dike, on a visit to Bonny and few places in the Niger Delta in the 1950s,
realized the inadequacies of relying solely on written sources of the area for historical
reconstruction. He noted that the written materials were external in origin and external in
orientation. He thus made a great deal of appeal in relation to the inadequacies of the
external approach to African history, and therefore the need for internal sources of
internal orientation. Biobaku's The Egba and their Neighbors, published by Oxford in
1957 made use of oral traditions in addition to materials in the British Public Records
Office in London. Both Dike and Biobaku later directed schemes for the recovery of local
history through inter-disciplinary study in the Benin and Yoruba historical research
schemes (Alagoa, 1984:33).
The study and use of oral traditions received uplift with the coming of Jan
Vansina. His contributions first came to the public notice with his article in the first
volume of the Journal of African History in 1960, ''Recording of the oral history of the
Bakuba". In it he made a brief statement of the merits of oral tradition and the need for its
systematic recording and analysis. This was followed by an account of his work among
the Kuba people of Congo. His seminal theoretical work on the subject was, however,
published in French in 1961 and was translated into English and published in 1965 in
Chicago as Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology. He followed this work
with publication of books using oral sources to reconstruct the histories of African
communities. Vansina multiplied his influence in the development of oral tradition
studies by teaching the subject in various universities (Ibid.). His work was
enthusiastically taken up as a justification for the enterprise in the use of oral sources and
became one of the most influential works ever written on African historiography.
There have been serious debates about the use of oral sources in historical
reconstruction since the rise of African history as a formal discipline in the mid 20th
century. But African historians like Vansina and Alagoa have worked tirelessly to
develop a rigorous approach to the use of oral sources to recover the histories of many
non-literate peoples. They proved that oral sources consisted of, at least in part, orally
transmitted memories of actual past events.
402
Zaria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOUl) Volume 3, Number 1, April, 2009

From the earlier definitions of oral sources it is clear that there are various types.
They include the narratives as derived from eye witness accounts, the legends, the tales,
the poetries, the songs, the formulae, the lists, and the commentaries. Vansina groups
them into five categories while Phillip Steven Jr. (TARIKH Vol. 1 no 6 1978: 21-27)
recognizes four broad forms, and they are; the myth, the legend, the songs, and the
popular history. The commonly available oral sources among the Nigerian cultural
groups, however, are the formulas (including tittles and names), the poetry, the lists
containing genealogies, tales, the commentaries, the precedents in law, and the personal
narratives.
It is important at this point to ask and attempt to answer the question: why is
there the need to use oral sources in the reconstruction of Nigerian history in the 20th and
the 21 st Centuries? It is the explanation to this question that will also tell us the extent of
the significance of the oral sources in the period. On a clear note, one can say that in the
first half of the 20th century the non-academic writers could better dispense with the oral
sources as the readily available material which is full of data about their people's
activities. This is also in connection with the fact that such writers did not have any
formal training for the use of other sources than the oral one. On the other hand,
however, the second half of the century (especially from the 1950's when the scientific
study developed) saw the inadequacy of the written, archeological, anthropological,
linguistic and other source materials of historical reconstruction in the Nigerian area.
1.0 Fage (1981:40) asserts that since 1949 historiography in Africa has become
increasingly similar to that of any other part of the world. He agrees that it has shown
problems, for example, the comparative scarcity of documentary materials for early
periods and the consequent need to develop other sources such as oral tradition,
linguistics and archeology. Philips O. Curtin (1981:60) also affirms that "the decades of
the 1960s opens with the publication of Jan Vansina's Oral traditions showing the
critical control that were necessary if oral traditions were to become a dependable
source". He also agrees that the historical works of the zo" century Africa based on oral
traditions have been an impossible achievement.
Let us now look at the relative paucity of, for example, the written records. The
written records up to the 1950s were largely external in perspective and concept, so do
not represent the real African past. Y. B. Usman (l974:XXXV) points to the fact that
some of the 19th century and earlier travelers' accounts were written by either Arabs or
Europeans that have not visited the areas they wrote about. Such travelers collected their
information from other people who had visited the area. An example of this is Hasan Ibn
Muhammad Al-Wazan al- Fasi (Leo Africans) who passed through Agades on his way to
Timbuktu in C 1510-1515. In his History and Description of Africa, ms dated 1526, a
confused geography of Kasar Katsina of the early 16th century appeared. Joseph Oupuis
also collected information on trade routes from traders in Ashanti, Ghana. In his
accounts, some of which were written down in Arabic, Katsina featured prominently
though he had not been there (Ibid.). Now, how can a scientific reconstruction of the
history of Katsina be possible with such written records by outsiders who have not
actually known the area?
403
Zaria Journal v.f Liberal Anf (ZAJOLA) Volume 3. Number J. April. !U()Y

On the perspective of such records the example of Heinrich Barth is explanatory.

His obsessive racist outlook is manifested in his description of the contemporary political
situation and history of Katsina and the region. Y. BUsman (Ibid.) puts it thus:
He was continuously remaking on the physique of the people,
the skin colour and countenance. All these he closely
associated with their character. He saw the society as divided
between two races, with the Fulbe, with their "finer" features
being inherently, genetically superior. As a product of culture
that was becoming obsessed with classifying people in racial
types and placing them in order of superiority and inferiority,
he was ill-equipped to see beyond the surface of the historical
events that he observed or heard about.
A careful evaluation of pre-colonial and postcolonial records left by the
Europeans in Africa reveals that they produced little in a way of overly historical
publications. What interested them was themselves, a history of trade and diplomacy,
invasion and conquest, heavily fused with assumptions of racial superiority that buttered
the colonial administration. Where the Africans were mentioned or written about, the
essence was simply to show them as barbaric whose will and judgment were too weak
and ill-directed, implying that superior beings came and did what the Africans could
never have done themselves. Alagoa (op.cit) also points out that those pre-colonial
written records cannot be relied upon as comprehensive source. Most of such records,
either derived from Arabic or European sources are external materials liable to distortions
and misrepresentations. Thus, to learn the reactions and initiatives of the Nigerian
peoples to the process of their formation, the oral source is very significant.
Even published written sources such as books, articles, mimeographs, etc that
dealt with the societies of the Nigerian area dealt with their histories as that of part of
West Africa, coastal Africa, central Sudan, Hausaland or the Sokoto Caliphate. In these
cases, most of these societies have no particular written accounts on them. On the
economy of the societies, most written European records seem to be more interested in
the 'exotic' forms of long distance trade. However, oral sources give a different view of
the economy. It is important to note that written records relating to social and economic
history, where they take the form of reports of experts and observers, can be of less value
for comprehensive reconstruction than oral sources of the outlook and way of life of
individuals who are not authors. This has been judiciously established in the
reconstruction of Nigerian history in the zo" and the 21 si centuries. It has been found, for
example, that the true significance of written documents produced by authors connected
with the Gwandu government over the mid 19th century can only be appreciated after a
study of oral traditions of Kebbi (Smith, A. 1987:131- 148). It is clear then that written
records are inadequate in the zo"
century, mostly external in perspective, and therefore
do not represent the real Nigerian or even African past.
Despite the limitations of the written record and other sources, European writers
were very critical of the use of oral sources in historical reconstruction. This is also
coupled with the intimidating preposition that Africa had no history due to lack of the art
404
Zaria Journal ,,/ Liberal Arts (ZAJOU) Volume 3, Number 1, April, 2009

of writing. These challenges strengthen the need for the use of oral sources so as to cover,
the wide gap left by the inadequacy of the written, archaeological, anthropological,
ethnographic and linguistic sources, and also to debunk the preposition that Africa had no
history.
The long commitment of Nigerian, and of course African and Africanist
historians to oral sources, whether these sources be traditions or personal narratives,
derived from a healthy skepticism about permitting written sources, often produced by
outsides to the country, to stand as the only recognized evidence of the Nigerian or
indeed African past. Had the earliest generation not developed this skepticism a lot of
African history would have been lost. Moreover, European writers like Hegel, Hugh
Trevor-Roper, Margery Perham, etc. could have gotten away with their atrocities of
labeling Africa as "a continent without writing, so without history". This challenge was
taken up by African historians who courageously responded by using ample oral sources
to prove that Africa has history.
K.O. Dike's article of 1955 in which he responded to Madam Perham was
authentic and equally challenging. To strengthen his response, Dike (1980: 13-22.),
emphasizes that further progress must be made in the detailed investigation of small scale
societies and states that characterize the large majority of African people. He points that:
"Investment in this area of historical knowledge implies the training and support of many
more researchers, equipped with the tools and techniques of the social scientist which are
indispensable for the analysis of non-literate, small scale societies". The questions we
must ask here are, how do researches analyze non-literate societies? And what were the
tools and techniques of the social scientist? One of the ways in which non-literate
societies are analyzed is obviously by the use of oral sources. The tools and techniques
referred to here by Dike are nothing other than corroboration, evaluation, criticism and
analysis of sources as taught by historical methodology. These give the historian the
wherewithal to reconstruct the history of any given event or society. In oral tradition we
find many references to conflicts, rebellion migrations, invasions, conquest, intrigues,
and social unrests. With these components, oral sources could be regarded as instruments
upon which each successive phase of political and economic conflicts are engraved,
hence there is the potentiality for reconstructing the Nigeria past in them.
The past is interesting to the historian precisely because of change, and he seeks
ways of reconstructing the change. It is established that one of the alternative ways of
reconstructing the past is the use of oral sources. Even Herodotus, recognized as the
father of history in the western world, palpably relied on oral data he collected in the
field. He ushered in a period of more than two millennia that was marked by historians
and others seeking oral data and then writing it down (Henige: op.cit). Garrighan
(Garrighan: op.cit) blatantly mentions that prior to the composition of the gospels, the
contents existed in human memory as oral tradition.
And until the zo" century most of the people in the world were not literate
enough to read a book, let alone to write one. In this regard the notion of discovering the
past by questioning people rather than opening a book was not new, it was the scope that
was new. Every society, before the development of the writing technique, preserved its
405
Zaria Journal '1/ Liberal Arfl" (ZAJOU,) Yolume 3, Number I. April. 2009

history in oral traditional methods. Moreover, even after the establishment of writing a
large number of information continued to be carried in the memories of participants in
both important and non-important events. Using what was kept in memory to undertake
various historical studies all over the world has proved that writing did not succeed in
capturing all the important information even in societies in which it is fully established.
In every society, therefore, the oral source is a major vehicle of recording and
reconstructing history.
Victor Low, (1972:40) on the emirates of Gombe, Katagum, and Hadeja testifies
that:
In the relative absence of written sources from this region and
period, as well as linguistic and archaeological evidence, oral
histories...... have proven far the most plentiful and
rewarding avenue of approach. The potential of oral
testimony for reconstructing the shape and content of
traditional societies has been demonstrated by such pioneers
as M.G. Smith and Jan Vansina.
Joseph Miller (1980, p. 45) classifies how close attention to the ways in which
cultural understanding, political struggle, and memory structured oral tradition can
provide very important methodological insight.
Recognizing those limitations of other sources makes it necessary for the
acceptance and use of oral sources in the reconstruction of Nigerian history in the zo"
and the 21 SI centuries. Oral sources, according to Y.B. Usrnan (op.cit), are better placed
when they come from elders of whatever social strata. Such elders are capable of having
the knowledge of the history of their societies and peoples. They are also expected to be
versed in the history of their settlements in some details so that basic information for
resolving issues on land, housing and succession dispute or to offices and all other
aspects of political and social relations are derived from them. They are the reservoirs of
traditions and customs of their peoples. It is clear then that oral sources from such elders
and other eye witnesses serve in a great deal and capacity to fill the gap left by other
historical sources materials.
A further significance of oral sources in the reconstruction of Nigeria history in
the zo" and the 21 st centuries is that evidence derived from some central, but sometimes
neglected, participants in the historical process such as workers, women, minorities and
ex-slaves has not been limited to their histories, however, it reveals biographies of other
well-known persons, provide perspectives, details and colours that are not available in
written sources. They serve as well to supplement inquiry into more recent events seeking
to provide a better balance by subordinating the official records to the recollection of
those whose voices seldom appear in written records. In effect, oral sources are
contributions to the life history genre, in which individuals, great and small, testify to
their lives, the lives of others as they saw them and events from a perspective far different
from a foreign one.
In this light, one can say that the significance of the oral sources in the
reconstruction of Nigerian history In the zo" and the 21st centuries is justifiably
406
laria Journal of Liberal Arts (ZAJOLA) Volume 3, Number I, April, 2009

enormous, Other historical sources such as anthropology, linguistics, ethnography and

archeology confirm and strengthen the importance of oral sources in historical deductions
and reconstructions, Anthology, which on its own is not history, confirms the data
collected by the use of oral sources in areas such as genealogy of families, while
ethnography confirms oral sources data on music, the study of dance forms, festivals,
forms of material culture, etc. Linguistic, which can show the relationship between
languages but cannot say when they separated from each other or form the larger group
thrives in relation to the study of oral sources and the explanation of other non-written
sources, It derives wider benefit from the comparative study of dialects as may be found
in oral sources, To archeology, oral sources indicate old settlements and sites, migration
routes, patterns of the settlement and other activities, This suggests possible sites for
excavation, The artifacts uncovered in such excavation can give support to very definite
types of oral source, This provides further confidence on the ability of oral sources in
penetrating the distant past.

Conclusion
It is evident that the writers of Nigerian history in the first part of the zo" century
largely relied on oral sources to write the histories of their various communities, And
they are mostly Islamic scholars and western educated Nigerians, These types of writing
have continued up to the present, only that most of them hardly get published. The
colonial administration also, up to the independence in 1960, kept a lot of information
that we can call administrative history, and almost all the information about the people of
the Nigerian area and their activities, social, political and economic, derived from oral
sources. In the early period of the second part of the 20th century when the academic
activity of historical reconstruction took shape, the first writers of the academic type,
neglected multiplicity of methods owing to over dependence on written sources, even
when they were inadequate, misrepresentative and misleading. That neglect was due to
none-valuation of oral data. But it came to the knowledge of the Africanist historians that
"no tool-kit which offers another way into the African past should willfully go untried" as
Victor Low puts it. They therefore employed the use of oral sources. Moreover, while the
academic discipline of history could be said to have a Western origin, most of the works
of Nigerian and indeed African and Africanist historians in the zo" and the 21 SI centuries
challenged the complacency of Western historical assumptions. Nigerians rely on the
Africanist mode of historical thoughts, the frequent use of oral sources. In as much as
history as a study involves the reconstruction of the interactions of people overtime, the
people of the Nigerian area have a history that contributed to the mainstream history of
the world. The inadequacy of qualitative written and other source materials when the
scientific study of history developed in the area by the 20th and the 21 SI centuries did not
hinder the qualitative reconstruction of the history of the area due to the collection,
presentation, interpretation and the use of oral sources. Oral sources became central
features in the writing of Nigerian history by this period and made a lot of
historiographical and methodological contestations. Moreover, as the discussion in this
paper has shown, their significance cannot be over emphasized.
407

------------------------------------------- -
 Zaria Journal of Liberal Am (ZA10L4.) Volume 3. Number I. April. 200Y

Works Cited
Adeleye, RA., Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigerian the Sokoto Caliphate and its
Emirates, Longrnan, London, 1971.
Ajayi, J.F.A. (Ed.) History of West Africa, Longman, London, 1971.
Ajayi, J.F.A. and Smith, R Yoruba Warfare in the irjh Century, Ibadan University press,
1971
Alagoa, E.J. The Teaching of History in African University, AAU Publications, 1977.
Alagoa, E.J. ''The Nation and the Records: the place of oral Tradition"
Chafe, K.S. State and Economy in the Sokoto Caliphate: Policies and Practices in the
Metropolitan District, A.B.U. Zaria Press, 1999.
Erim, O.E. and Uya O.E (ed.), Perspective and Methods of Studying African History,
Fourth Dimension, 1984.
Evans, RJ. in Defense of History, Granta Press, London, 1997.
Garrighan, G.J. A Guide to History method, Greenwood Press Connecticut, 1940.
Gonja, A. UNESCO Research Project on Oral Tradition, No. 1, Ghana, 1969.
Kwanashie, G. et al (eds.) A Little New Light: Selected Historical Writings of Professor
Abdullahi Smith, Vol.l A. Smith Historical Research Centre, Zaria.
Low, V.N. Three Emirate of Northern Nigeria: A Study in Oral History, Northwest
University Press, lllinois, 1972.
Miller, J. (ed.) The African past speaks, Wm Dawson and sons, folk stone, 1980.
Munslow, A. Deconstruction of History, London, 1997.
Perks, Rand Thompson, A. The Oral History Reader, Rutledge, London, 1998.
Philips, J.E. (Ed.) Writing African History, University of Rochester Press, London 2005
Smith, M.G. "Field Histories among the Hausas" in Journal of African History, Vol. Il,
1961.
Smith, R et al (Eds.) Tarikh vol. 5 No.I, Historical Method, Longman, London, 1978.
Usrnan, Y. B. ''The Transformation of Katsina C' 1796-1903: The Overthrow of the
Sarauta System and the Establishment and Evolution of the Emirate",
Unpublished PhD Thesis, A.B.U. Zaria, 1974.
Vansina, J. Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, Rutledge and Kegan
Paul, London 1961.

408

------------------- ----

View publication stats