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The Olowu of Owu Kingdom, Abeokuta, Oba Professor Saka Adelola Matemilola, has raised concerns over the deliberate rewriting and distortion of African history, warning that inaccurate historical narratives could mislead the public and undermine the preservation of indigenous heritage.
Matemilola made the observation during The Toyin Falola Interview, held on Sunday and streamed across various social media platforms. The interview, themed “Indigenous Education, Character Formation and the Making of Citizens,” brought together the monarch and a panel of scholars to examine indigenous knowledge, culture, education, leadership and citizenship.
The panel, led by Professor Toyin Falola, featured Professor Gabriel Olatunde Babawale, Professor of Political Economy; Professor Bridget Itunu Awosika, distinguished Professor of Home Economics at Adeyemi Federal University of Education; and Dr Olabimpe Olori Adeyemi, a linguist, poet and chanter who teaches linguistics and Nigerian languages at the University of Ilorin.
Responding to a question on the changing accounts of history by traditional institutions, the Olowu described historical revisionism as a serious problem and warned that the motives of those producing historical accounts could affect the accuracy of what eventually becomes accepted as history.
“Oh, that’s a very serious one, Prof, that you raised, very serious one,” Matemilola said.
“People who write history depend on their motive,” he added.
According to the monarch, some historical accounts are deliberately altered in ways intended to deceive or mislead the public.
“There are so many history books out there or articles out there where people, because of their deliberate intention to either deceive or to mislead… they will rewrite history,” he said.
Matemilola identified public acceptance of repeated claims as another dimension of the problem, noting that many people may accept historical narratives without independently examining their accuracy.
“Unfortunately, if they are able to make a lot of noise about it, people hear the story and then people are so gullible that very few people will go and double-check to see how correct this version of things are,” he said.
For the Olowu, the challenge has become more complicated in the digital age, where information can be produced and circulated rapidly. Historical claims can therefore gain wide public attention before their accuracy is properly established.
The monarch’s concern extends beyond written history to the preservation of indigenous knowledge within traditional communities. He argued that traditional institutions have a responsibility to ensure that their histories, genealogies and practices are properly recorded rather than left entirely to memory or informal transmission.
In Owu Kingdom, he said, efforts were already under way to create a systematic record of the history of individual compounds and their contributions to the kingdom.
According to Matemilola, each agboole, or family compound, has a responsibility to document its genealogy, migration history and traditional roles.
“We’re using this opportunity… to ensure we gather all those roots,” he said.
“So, we can document that and capture that, and each compound has responsibility for that, and we then gather them together, and we do that in our library here to have the master archive here,” he added.
The initiative, according to the monarch, is intended to ensure that historical knowledge is preserved in a form that can be consulted by subsequent generations.
Matemilola also disclosed that the Owu Kingdom had produced a documentary titled The Making of an Owu after his enthronement. The documentary, he explained, was part of an effort to formally record the kingdom’s traditions and institutional processes.
“It’s to formalize the documentation to ensure that there is no deviation, that at least everybody understand what needs to be done,” he said.
The documentary covers the selection of the monarch, the role of kingmakers, relations between the traditional institution and government, the seclusion and enthronement processes, the installation of chiefs and the procedures for installing traditional rulers in Owu towns.
The Olowu’s emphasis on documentation reflects his broader argument that indigenous institutions must take active responsibility for preserving their histories. Rather than allowing accounts of the past to depend solely on oral transmission, the monarch advocated creating accessible records that can provide reference points for future generations.
