Writing Women into History: The Nigerian Experience

Abstract

The writing of women into the history of Nigeria, indeed into African history, has hardly begun. Compared with the history of many other parts of the world, the writing of the history of Africa itself is a fairly recent development. Efforts in this direction have had to contend with two difficult problems which are bound up with Africa’s historical experience. First, African historians have the uphill task of eradicating the prejudices and misconceptions about the African past which have been perpetuated by many western writers, such as G. W. H. Hegel, Reginald Coupland, C. G. Seligman, Hugh Trevor Roper, and others who have claimed that Africa and Africans had no past to speak of, and that the only viable African history is the history of the invaders of Africa, notably, the Europeans. Secondly, while destroying this myth of the African past, African historians have also the responsibility of undertaking the scientific investigation of human development in Africa; the reconstruction of the African past with the attendant problems of writing the history of non-literate peoples posed for them a particular challenge. For this purpose, many African states, on becoming independent, established Institutes and Centres of African Studies which adopted a multidisciplinary approach to the study of African history and culture.