Ideology In Nigerian History Textbooks

Within the Nigerian society,there has been a resurgence of interests in the 1967-1970 Civil War which reportedly claimed the lives of over two million people.The narratives of the war are increasingly depicted in the media via films,music and art,including the reemergence of secessionist movements.Studies on the war claim that official narratives gloss over complex issues of justice,continued omission of events and misrepresentations.However there exists a dearth of research on the representation of the Nigerian Civil War in school textbooks.Using Fairclough's conceptual framework of relationship between text and its social condition of production,this research aimed at examining the representation of the Civil War in Nigerian high school history textbooks and its reflection of ideology.The research employed two methods of text analysis namely,categorical analysis and historical narrative approach.First,three(3)selected school history textbooks were purposefully sampled and analysed using an instrument of pre-set categories adapted from Berkel's analytical instrument.Secondly,in the historical narrative approach,narratives of central events of the War in the selected textbooks were compared with narratives of four(4)other literary books.The findings of the research reveal that textbooks by and large promote a narrative characterised by omission of some central events,glossing over details on war casualties,failing to include recent scholarship and multiple perspectives.While textbook authors emphasize military advance and political propaganda of both warring sides,they fall short in describing the living conditions of the ordinary people.Nonetheless the Federal Military Government's 3Rs(Rehabilitation,Reconstruction and Reconciliation)post-war policy was well highlighted,promoting government's effort in unifying the country.As a whole,these representations point to an ideology of nation building-sustaining the peace and keeping the fragile inter-ethnic Nigerian society united.The emphasis on representations on the post-war reconstruction policy and the seeming liberality of textbook authors in critiquing government's past actions is a reflection of Nigeria's national development plan and educational objective,part of which is to build a united and free democratic society.It further reveals that where history textbooks can be sites of dominant socio-political relations,they can also be sites of contestation and compromise.