Q: Before you continue it is a sad thing that history is not being taught in schools and people are not been encouraged, what is your reaction?

A: My reaction to that is that it is one of the reasons I republished this book. The first statement my father made about history is that if you don’t know your past you don’t know your future, if you don’t know past you cannot plot your future. That is the biggest problem of Africa, not just Nigeria. In Nigeria- we have a short memory. People have forgotten what happened, five, three, ten years ago and if you don’t remember the past you make the same mistakes over and over again, it means you are not learning from past experiences. As a human being you know that if you touch fire at the age of one and it burns you, that memory is there, when next you see fire, you won’t go near it.

As a society history is important to us and one of the issues about modern day Nigeria is that the socio- political system that we have borrowed from the British and Americans doesn’t incorporate our culture. That is why for example, a local government chairman can collect money from the Centre and spend it without any accountability. But if the money was given for example to different clans in the local community, they have a clan system, they meet every year or every month, they have accountability built into the clan culture, that is our culture. The local government chairman does not fit into the culture hence there is no accountability if you give him the money.

So if we evolved our system more with our traditional systems in mind then we will have recourse, which is where Africans are missing their history by not incorporating tradition into their political and economic policies. If you tell somebody from the village that he is going to be ostracized for doing this or that, he will comply but if you tell him, ‘I’m taking you to court’ he will not be bothered. So the Japanese, after the Second World War, incorporated their own culture into their system – their economics and politics, this is what the Africans have not done. We have to use those things in our culture that are positive and incorporate them into our modern political and economic systems going forward that this is the importance of history.

Q: How did he start, was his own father educated?

A: My father lost his dad at an early age, around the age 9 or 10. His elder brother who was a teacher in Awka, who he lived with, brought him up. His initial schooling was from a local school in Awka, under the tutelage of his elder brother, then from there he went to Dennis Memorial Grammar School, and then to Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. To answer your question, no, his father was not educated in the English sense.

Q: Let’s talk about his achievements in U.I. from somebody who was taking over from the British, there would be challenges. How did he overcome them, did he tell you about it, did he write it in the book?

A: This is what I obtained later when I was much older. Definitely there were a lot of challenges. He had issues where some people said, why must an Igbo man be a VC in Ibadan, those elements came up, leading to court cases. Some elements in the society were not happy. But my father had a lot of respect from the students. Once or twice they had some students’ unrest, my father actually appeared in the hall to talk to them and when he came – first of all they were actually surprised that a whole VC could come to the hall and address them, something that had never happened before. In fact Jim Nwobodo was in U.I when my father was teaching, also Wole Soyinka was a student, maybe those are the people you ask more about my dad, these were the people that were students in Ibadan at the time.

Professor Dike delivering his convocation speech while Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa listens

Q: Apart from these, which other ways has your dad been immortalised?

A: We have Kenneth Onwuka Dike Centre, KODIC, which is a centre that was set up around 1985. We have a large piece of land in Awka, which I am trying to develop for the Centre. The issue with my dad is that he was never a politician; Nigerians only give money to politicians. Going back to the issue of history not seen as an important discipline, you think that a man like this that achieved so much and is well renowned in the field, would have been given more national recognition. The Government gave him CON under Shagari and he received two Presidential awards under Goodluck Jonathan.

One of the things I’m personally upset about is the naming of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka which my father started. When Enugu and Awka were in Anambra, there was no Enugu State; then it was called Anambra University of Technology.

After U.I. there was the Biafran war, and my father was roaming ambassador for Biafra. After the Biafran war, he went to Harvard, taught in Harvard for 10 years, setting up the African History Department in Harvard. He was professor emeritus at Harvard. After Harvard, he retired and came back to Enugu and set up the first University of Technology in Nigeria-Anambra University of Technology. That university has since produced two universities – Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka and University of Technology Enugu.

Now why would a university started by Kenneth Onwuka Dike the first VC of University of Ibadan be named after Zik, when in fact Zik established a university in Nsukka? The politics is that ‘oh we want to keep the name ‘University of Nigeria-Nsukka’ therefore we don’t want to change Nsukka’s name to Zik’s name.’ However, Zik started Nsukka, Kenneth Dike started Nnamdi Azikiwe University, talking about an unsung hero! The man actually started a university, he is the first VC in this country and you go and name the university he started after a politician. I don’t have anything against Zik but Zik already has a university, University of Nigeria-Nsukka so name it after Zik. What better way to immortalize Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike?

Q: Your dad headed the organizing committee of the International Congress of Africans in Ghana in 1963 and you said he was not a politician, what was that?

A: My father was actually involved in that. Everyone is a political animal. My father was involved with organizing FESTAC for Nigeria, and anything having to do with African culture or African history. My father having pioneered this new approach to African history obviously was considered an important person all over the world. So, anything that was considered to do with African history, he generally tended to be involved in it. When he became VC of Ibadan, anybody of substance that came to Nigeria visited Ibadan. If you look at the university’s guest book, which was in the VC’s lodge, everybody that visited Ibadan signed that book, for example Martin Luther King Junior. So any dignitary that came to Nigeria ended up going to Ibadan so you can imagine the exposure he had. And He also attracted the Ford Foundation that funded a lot of university projects.

Emeka Dike:
“His legacy goes beyond the book, his legacy is the history scheme, people like Prof. Ade Ajayi, and his other colleagues who he inspired to do important research work in African history. He inspired them all and they all worked together to produce what we call Nigerian and indeed African history today. The sad thing is, the young generation, where are they? Are they taking off from where these people left off? And the answer is that nowadays, we have more non-Africans who are experts in African history than Africans!”

Q: He was also the chairman of Association of Commonwealth Universities at a point…

A: I think because he defined African history, he was the father of ‘modern African history’. He was an obvious choice to chair or inspire anything to do with African history. He was the source, before him they said we didn’t have a history. It is difficult for me to give you all details, but definitely he had contacts with the UK, having schooled there and all that.

Q: Before we move on to your book, what was growing up under your father like? Was he such a strict disciplinarian, what did you learn from him?

A: He was a very principled man, hardly raised his voice, very gentle. He didn’t have to raise hisvoice, his mere calling you and talking to you were enough. I never saw him lose his temper, he was always cool, very cool and in control and also very humble and very unassuming. Of course, we were brought up to learn that there are some things you could not do because you come from a responsible family and everybody seemingly was looking at you, so you had to do the right thing. That pressure was always there to set a good example.