by Ijeoma Wogu

Do you know that if your Grandma suffered from Peptic Ulcer Disease, and your Father also suffers from same there’s a 50% chance that you may suffer from it too?

My mother is a lawyer and she’s a very wise woman. She encourages her children and those around her to learn from experiences. She tells us stories, the stories of our lives and the stories relevant to us, of the lives of the people we’ve come to know as our family members. She gives a perfect account of events that took place up to 20 years ago and most of her stories start like this “when I was pregnant for you,” (Hi Mom! :D)

You see, history is very important. This leaves me wondering why ‘History’ as a subject taught in secondary schools, has recently been scrapped from the Nigerian curriculum. Do you know that if your Grandma suffered from Peptic Ulcer Disease, and your Father also suffers from same there’s a 50% chance that you may suffer from it too?

• In the practice of medicine, medical history is taken when every patient is brought in for treatment and recalled, when a case is presented to an authority (senior doctor or nurse as the case may be). Without medical history, a sick or injured person can be misdiagnosed and the sick person may die for lack of information. People should really ask more questions.

Disclaimer: the stats in the example I gave above (Peptic Ulcer Disease) has no clinical proof. Now, I think I just succeeded in showing you why it is important to ask questions!

Recently, on Instagram, (A picture sharing social media app also owned by Mark Zuckerberg), I came across  a profile, @CultureCustodian and what I saw really excited and inspired me. You should check it out if you can, it is specifically for the Nigerian audience. A lot of people keep diaries for reasons best known to them but in most cases, so that they would have archived their thoughts and life experiences as well as their feelings to remind themselves later, or to tell their stories to those lucky enough to find these diaries and  interested enough to read the entries. The final aim being that they and the world do not forget them so quickly.

“….to leave my footprints in the sands of time.”

I throw that phrase around a lot when I’m around my friends and we do something epic. With my friends, life’s always an adventure. I’m not saying that I’m a spontaneous person either. I always tell people about my experiences with other people and about places I’ve been to. This is partly because I am my Mother’s child. I totally get it when people say that I always have a story for everything that happens; the thing is, constantly getting oral history about my family from my Mother has helped (a great deal!)  to condition my brain, so that when I hear or see anything I’m reminded of something else; voilà! there’s this cascading reaction that almost never ends because a clap will surely lead to a dance.

This explains a lot about my person. For instance, it is the reason why I can write examinations without studying a leaf and still make at least, a C grade. So, my dear friends from Secondary School there you have it! My Secret! (Lol). It is also the reason why I seem to talk a lot (that and adrenaline). It is also the reason why I seem to be well versed in most relevant topics, cutting across a very wide range of subjects ( Twitter is also responsible for this). For example, I know a lot about Football and Literature and they’re not even related!

Ms Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her now popular speech delivered at a TedXEuston event titled “THE DANGER OF A  SINGLE STORY”. You can search for it on YouTube, practically begged the world to tell their stories. (That was a beautiful speech, you go girl!). There are so many books in the world today and I assure you that if you start now, you can never read them all before your time, so I implore you to read more books. Thanks to one of my heroes of the present day, OKECHUKWU OFILI, I can read books written by You and I, and many other young Nigerians and Africans, right on my mobile device. Check out his award winning app on Google Play Store called “OKADABOOKS”. Reading they say, makes a man.

It is important to be knowledgeable. Yes, this is the conclusion of my rather engaging story. When you get old, you begin to forget details. There are medical cases like Alzheimer’s disease which cannot be cured (at least not yet). And there are devices like dictaphones and voice recorders with which you can afford to tell your stories to your unborn grandchildren, if you so desire. There’s also the internet, I have two blogs, hosted on WordPress.com (WordPress is cool) and I intend to tell my stories through them. Pictures are great for preservation of memories and an autobiography is also brilliant.

 Because Mothering Sunday is this week, I would like to give a special shout out to my best storyteller, My Mother. She taught me everything I know about story telling and I appreciate her for being a hard worker. And to another special heroine, who’s also a Mother, Bola Essien-Nelson (author of “The Diary of A Desperate Naija Woman” series), for sharing through her books and her blogs. Have you read THERE WAS A COUNTRY: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF BIAFRA by Late Prof. Chinua Achebe? 

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Ijeoma Wogu is a budding blogger who’s in love with the concept of Old Nigeria and African literature; a Social Media enthusiast stewing in medical school and the curator of Nigerian ‘New school’ music. She also speaks French.

30 Days, 30 Voices series is an opportunity for young Nigerians from across the world to share their stories and experiences – creating a meeting point where our common humanity is explored.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija