INTERVIEW: Ourselves @ Work: Home Is Where The Hustle Is

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Chibundu Onuzo. Image: Facebook

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Lagos is a city of travelers, hoping to either find their luck or make it from scratch.

GREGORY WARNER, HOST:

You're listening to ROUGH TRANSLATION from NPR.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Every few years, I grow discontent with my staid, predictable life in London. I wonder if I should move back to Lagos, where all the action seems to be happening.

WARNER: This is from an essay called "Frontier Town" we encountered in the Travel Quarterly Strangers Guide. The writer, Chibundu Onuzo, thinks longingly of the city of her birth, Lagos in Nigeria. But she's also wary of who she might become if she left London and moved back home. We asked her to read this excerpt.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Reading) Lagos is the only place I know where the noun oppressor is used as a compliment. For most people, the change creeps up on you without you even noticing. The more successful you become in Lagos, the more deference you get. The more deference you get, the more likely you are to end up an oppressor unless you deliberately swim against the tide of cultural expectations. Would I become an oppressor if I moved to Lagos? I don't know. My instincts are egalitarian, but life is a lot easier in Lagos when people perceive you have money. The police talk to you with respect. You don't wait for hours in the bank. I notice this about myself when I'm in Lagos. I start caring more about my clothes, my shoes, what Lagosians would call my packaging.

WARNER: Lagos feels like home to her. But would Lagos change her? Would it chip away at the version of herself that she wanted to be? In the essay, Chibundu talks about one person from whom she might seek advice on this question - her older brother, Chinaza Onuzo, 10 years her senior.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: We met properly when I was a young adult, and he was taking his first steps into a career in private equity. By this time, I was in boarding school in England, and he had returned to Lagos to become a full-time hustler - or so it seemed to me.

WARNER: Her brother Chinaza's side hustle, as she calls it, is trying to transform the landscape of Nigerian cinema to make Nigerian films for export. He produced "The Wedding Party," which is one of the highest-grossing Nigerian films, and he's had films on Netflix and Amazon Prime. If anyone had some advice for her about the price of making it in Lagos, he might.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: In Lagos, everything is heightened. But can I live at that feverish pitch for longer than a three-week holiday? What does Chinaza think? I want to know.

WARNER: Chibundu is the author of three novels, the first of which won the Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. She's also a frequent contributor to The Guardian and other outlets where she often writes about Nigeria. But there was much she did not know about her own brother's story - how exactly he'd risen up in Lagos and what he had to confront about himself.

CHINAZA ONUZO: Hey, Chibs. How are you?

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Chinaza, why's your camera not on?

CHINAZA ONUZO: 'Cause I can see your stack of books, and I was like, it's a very big stack of books.

WARNER: This is ROUGH TRANSLATION. I'm Gregory Warner. If you've ever thought to yourself that you need to be hustling more but worry that hustling might turn you into a hustler or something that you're not, that's exactly how Chibundu felt going into this conversation with her brother. Their conversation was so thoughtful and wide-ranging, we're going to play an extended excerpt of it here mixed in with Chibundu's own writings. And then we're going to check back in with Chibundu about how this conversation changed her. It's ourselves at work on ROUGH TRANSLATION, back after this break.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WARNER: We are back with ROUGH TRANSLATION. I'm Gregory Warner. Chibundu had lots of questions for her older brother about the person he had become in Lagos. But she started the conversation at the beginning. Who was he when he first left Nigeria at age 15?

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: So you moved to England when you were 15 to go to boarding school...

CHINAZA ONUZO: Yes.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: ...In Winchester. And what was that like?

CHINAZA ONUZO: When I was at Winchester, I was from Nigeria. So basically, I had a completely different experience than pretty much everybody else at school.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: And obviously, we know you - like, your siblings know you as Chinaza. But everybody in the industry and most of your friends now call you Naz. And if I - again, I might be making this up, but I feel like the name Naz came from Winchester College. Is this true?

CHINAZA ONUZO: So basically, there was this thing that they did when we were in Winchester where they used to give the Black kids nicknames of actors. It was weird. Don't ask me why. So they basically said, oh, we should call you, Will. And I'm like, no, I don't look anything like Will Smith. That's so random. And then they were like, oh, but we cannot pronounce your name. Chinaza is too difficult. I'm like, OK, fine. You can call me Naza. I'm like, Naza, that's weird. That's also hard. And I was like, fine, call me Naz. Like, literally - like the rapper? And then, like, yes, but with a Z. So that's literally how it stuck.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: OK. I'm just saying, your friends at your boarding school wanted to call you Will Smith because you are Black. But this is not - I think - and this is also, like, a generational thing. I'm, like, definitely a much younger millennial than you, so I'm shouting microaggression from the rooftops. But - OK.

CHINAZA ONUZO: So, I mean, I suppose it was...

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: But anyways, OK...

CHINAZA ONUZO: That's fair. That's fair. I will now re-examine my life. Oh, woe is me.

(LAUGHTER)

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: OK. Right. First, you've gone to one of the oldest boarding schools in the world. Then you go to Duke. Then you get your master's. Did you - was that another culture shock for you? Or had you sort of become acclimatized to this very privileged, very white sort of species by going to Winchester first?

CHINAZA ONUZO: Wow. Really?

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Yeah. Really.

CHINAZA ONUZO: Very privileged, very white - really?

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

CHINAZA ONUZO: OK. So - but that's the thing, though. So actually, let me put it differently. So one of the things that Winchester does is that it expects you to conquer the - like, conquer the world. Like, it basically says you are a member - so this is going to sound a certain way - but that you are a member of the elite.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Go on. Do it.

CHINAZA ONUZO: And so if you do the work, you can achieve anything you put your mind to, right? I then applied for jobs. It's not two or three interviews. It's 10, right? You name it. I interviewed - Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, et cetera, et cetera. But no - no offers, like, literally.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: My brother moved back to Nigeria after graduating with an economics degree from an American university and a master's from a British university. He knew what he had to offer. And if you failed to hire him, that was your loss, not his. This extreme confidence is typical of Lagosians.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Sometimes I find my own self-confidence eroded by living in London, where I am an ethnic minority. I need some of that Lagos mentality. A microaggression is somebody else's problem, not mine. I know who I am. I know what I'm capable of. If you don't recognize it, get out of here.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHINAZA ONUZO: So that is the - you know, they say it like, you always have a next goal. So the next goal for us over the next five to 10 years is to basically build out a global creator from Nigeria. So that's our goal, right? So like how the Koreans have done, the British have done, the Indians have done, we want to basically build global creators from Nigeria. It doesn't even have to be us. We just want to enable the creation of that.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: So this is also, like, my whole thing that I find fascinating about you because I didn't think, as an outsider, you would have been able to break into the Hollywood film industry or the film industry in the U.K. I can't think of many Black producers in the U.K. that would have a string of films or televisions. Like, you didn't go to film school. You don't know this person. You know - you don't know that person. Like, you just said, oh, I want to make films. So yeah, I guess it's two questions in one. How did you break into the Lagos film industry?

CHINAZA ONUZO: So one of the things about - in film industries in general, like, the more structured it is, the harder it is to break in, right? In general - because the barriers to entry are higher just by the nature of it. In the U.S. and U.K., it's like, oh, those entrepreneurs over there are special. But in Nigeria, everybody's an entrepreneur - you get what I mean? - because we believe that that is the culture. It's just that, like, Nigeria rewards entrepreneurship. But paradoxically, Nigeria also punishes failure a lot. The risk of success are high. The risk of failure are also high. So people are like, I cannot fail, and I must succeed.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: So part of the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with you is, sporadically, every two or three years, I think, what life would be like if I moved back to Nigeria? Was there any incident that made you think, gosh, I wish I hadn't moved back to Nigeria?

CHINAZA ONUZO: No. Well, I mean - OK, I take that back. So when I moved back, the car that was available for me to drive was this old - so my uncle, Uncle Frank, lent me his old Maxima or something that's an old car. So we were coming home on Third Mainland Bridge, and there was a broken-down truck on the side of the road - no hazard lights, no caution, no nothing. He was just parked in the middle of the road. And then I saw it. And then I tried to change lanes. The bus next to me did not let me in. It literally was like, I'm not letting you overtake me.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: You will not overtake me. I'm going to win.

CHINAZA ONUZO: The bus sped up. So literally, there was - I was literally about to crash because the bus driver next to me was refusing to let me in. So literally, I had to speed up and swerve around it - missed it by inches, right? And so that was Nigerian culture in a nutshell. Maybe that was, like, two months after I was back in Nigeria.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: OK. Well, my question for you is, why didn't you slow down (laughter)?

CHINAZA ONUZO: No, because I couldn't slow...

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: You went into the head-to-head...

CHINAZA ONUZO: So I couldn't slow down.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Laughter).

CHINAZA ONUZO: No, no, no, no, no. So I was - because it wouldn't have worked because there were two - there was a car behind him. I wouldn't have been able to - like, in the split-second assessment, slowing down would have been worse.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: OK. It sounds like you'd acclimatized pretty well in those two months. You're like, we - I will speed up with you.

CHINAZA ONUZO: No, no.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: And I will risk my life, but I'm going to win.

CHINAZA ONUZO: No. I mean, I clearly looked at this knowing that option, I think. But, like, the decision was like, yes. So, I mean, there are few times where you almost got robbed, et cetera, like - but stuff like that. I mean, thankfully, I haven't been robbed in traffic. I mean, they've knocked on my window a couple of times, those types of things. I was at a bar when robbers were outside.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I guess this is the Wild West thing that sort of does make me apprehensive about moving back to somewhere like Lagos. Like, you're just saying casually in conversation, yeah, I was in a bar, and there were robbers outside. And yes, it's not that - yeah, but it's - I'm like, perhaps, I don't know if I'm ready to just accept that that would be just a part of the background.

In the Wild West, at least that of Hollywood's imagining, a man could walk into a saloon for a drink and end up shot dead by an outlaw. In Lagos, a person can drive to work one day and end up robbed in traffic at gunpoint. There's a certain badge of honor to almost dying and then carrying on as if nothing has happened. Lagosians don't just have a stiff upper lip. Their upper lips are made of concrete. But at what cost?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I feel, actually, we've had a couple of conversations where you've basically called me a slacker.

CHINAZA ONUZO: So...

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: You have.

CHINAZA ONUZO: So I wouldn't use the word slacker because I am not Ferris Bueller's dad. So what I have said is that you should go for the things that you want. That is what I've said because you always choose - when the thing that you want feels like there's conflict, you shy away from the conflict. And so my general point is that you shouldn't run away from conflict if it's part of the thing that you want. Let's go there and figure it out one way or another.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: So basically, I need to step on the accelerator when the van is next to me instead of pressing the brakes, basically. I need to get more of that - no, I'm going to accelerate past you. OK, yeah.

CHINAZA ONUZO: No. So I wouldn't say that. See, that's the thing. There are different types of entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur is somebody who feels so passionate about a problem that they think they are the only one who can solve it. It is actually divorced from whether they are aggressive, whether they are whatever. What you have is belief.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: And that's it. I don't know. I mean, there are many things I believe, you know? I believe that, OK, like, the U.K. government is - their policy towards young people is faulty. There are many - there are things they should be doing to make sure that young people in this country have more opportunities. I believe it, but am I going to believe it enough to actually go and stand for government in this country? I don't know. Would I be more likely to enter politics in Nigeria? I think I would.

CHINAZA ONUZO: No, but let me ask you a question. This is a simple question based on what you just said.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Mmm hmm.

CHINAZA ONUZO: If you went to - what's your council? - your local government. So if you went there, and you walked up to them and said, I want to do X, Y, Z - here's a proposal - and I want to do an after-school thing for this, that and the other, would they say no?

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: No, they wouldn't say no, actually. No, they wouldn't say no. They wouldn't say no. You're right, actually. Mmm hmm.

CHINAZA ONUZO: And then, after you started that thing, as a celebrity author, you say, oh, can you give me X amount of pounds? Have them pilot it in X. Can we take it citywide? Can we take it countywide? Can we take it nationwide? If you really believe that that was what you should do, you have - you can do it. You just don't believe it enough.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: But you see, you've already brought your Lagos mentality to my throw-away idea. See, that's my point. Like, I'm already tired. Like, I just wanted to do something small. You're like, let's take it council-wide. Let's take it England-wide. Let's take it nationwide. Let's go for world domination. I'm like, oh, my - I need a nap. I need a nap (laughter).

WARNER: ROUGH TRANSLATION also needs a break - just a short one. We'll be right back.

(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE DOT SESSIONS' "SYLVESTOR")

WARNER: We're back with ROUGH TRANSLATION. I'm Gregory Warner. When Chibundu told her brother that she'd be more likely to enter politics if she lived in Nigeria, that's a trend that she's seen before.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: There's a long history of writers getting involved in politics in Nigeria - not because they want to, but just because they feel compelled to.

(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE DOT SESSIONS' "GREYLEAF WILLOW")

WARNER: She points out the Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka, was imprisoned during the Nigerian Civil War. Chinua Achebe campaigned internationally for Biafran independence.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: And it happens often, actually. Soyinka and Achebe are just two very prominent examples, but there are others. Because of the prominence your writing gives you, you can't stand on the sidelines when push comes to shove. Whereas, in this context, I don't think people expect you to write a - you know, even if you do write about politics in London, for example, I don't think anyone then expects you to then go on and become a politician, etc., etc.

(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE DOT SESSIONS' "GREYLEAF WILLOW")

WARNER: In the Stranger's Guide essay that introduced us to Chibundu, she worried that Lagos would chip away at her moral stance, turn her slowly into an oppressor, flashing the outward signs of success in exchange for access. But this was the flip side of that fear - that she'd feel obligated in Lagos to become a reformer - something that she doesn't feel quite ready for, in Nigeria or in England. Just a few hours before this call with her brother, she'd actually gone to her local youth center in London and volunteered to organize a mentorship program for the summer.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I literally - after I had the meeting, and I go home, I was like, what have I gotten myself into? What have I taken on? Have I taken on too much? I'm doing so much this year. And then I left, and I was like, have I just overpromised (laughter)?

WARNER: So you felt self-doubt as soon as you put action to your belief?

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Hundred percent.

WARNER: And then immediately, you're thinking, oh, my God, I...

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Laughter).

WARNER: And so what was that doubt around? Was it...

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I didn't like feeling overwhelmed, and I didn't like feeling that I had taken on too much.

WARNER: Which is why she worried about moving to Nigeria, where it seemed that all her friends and family were taking on as much as possible.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: It's funny. People talk about how, like, oh, you don't have to turn every hobby into a job - that that's capitalism - that makes you feel like everything you enjoy doing, you have to monetize it. And people talk about that in the Western world. But, like, in Lagos, this is to the - like, times 10. So, you know, you enjoy eating ice cream, so now you're going to have a blog about eating ice cream and sell advertising about it. It's like, I just wanted to have vanilla ice cream. But - you know, but now it's turned into, like, a side hustle. And, like, Lagos is, like, the city of side hustles. Everyone is doing something on the weekends, doing something.

WARNER: And Chibundu wondered, did she have the energy to live in a place where everyone's finding their hustle - everyone's pressing their advantage?

CHINAZA ONUZO: So there's a Nigerian phrase called shine your eye. So what is effectively means is that everybody's out there to take advantage of you - right? - so you have to live your life accordingly. But that was - one of the earliest decisions that I made was to not do that.

WARNER: Chinaza tells her this story about when he first moved to Nigeria, in his early 20s. And he hired a motorbike driver - an okada driver - to take him a fairly long distance. The ride took almost an hour. But before they set out, they settled on a price - a hundred naira - which, back then, was worth about $1.

CHINAZA ONUZO: And so once he drops me, he's like (non-English language spoken) - so that was boss - it's very, very far. Please add something for me - just 50 naira. And I said, no, we agreed 100 naira. We agreed 100 naira. And I walked away. That 50 naira would have made no difference to me, but the idea in my head was that I had told you this was the price, and I had overshot what was reasonable based on that price. But since we had agreed, it was more important for me to be like, you cannot convince me. And I walked away. And I was like, but Naz, that 50 naira would have made all the difference in his life. But for you, you just didn't give him that extra 50 naira to win an argument. So - and I always remember that because that is the consequence of always winning. You end up in these weird zero-sum games that don't have to be. So that's - I always use that example to remind myself about, there have to be - that this need to win at all costs is - there's limits.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I think that's interesting, like, how there's value in - that sometimes you might lose because someone might take advantage of you. But what you lose by being hard all the time is even greater.

CHINAZA ONUZO: So the question is always, what do you believe in? What do you believe to be true that no one else does, right? That is the thing, right? And that is what makes an entrepreneur. And that is not a Lagos thing. So the question that I always tell me is, like, what do you believe in?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I think it's been actually really good to hear what you're saying about belief. I think I do have more self-doubt than you. Or maybe you do have self-doubts and you don't present it as much. I think I do eventually sort of psych myself into going after what I want, but I think I do with a lot more handwringing and, like, oh, is this the right decision, or should I do it? Or should I not - I don't know.

CHINAZA ONUZO: People always look down on belief or conviction because in this hour, it is like conviction is a fool's errand. Can you really be sure? Can you really know? You cannot know. But what do you believe? And what are you willing to do to make your belief happen? Because you see, the truth of your belief is, how much are you willing to do for it to be tested?

WARNER: Chibundu, I want to ask you about this last part of your conversation with your brother about belief, because when I listen back I think a second or third time, I started hearing you guys discussing belief in a bigger way, something, like, about belief that wasn't just about success or making it.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I think we're talking about how do you do something you say you believe in? So he's not talking about making money or writing books or whatever. It's just if you have something you say or think you want to do, how does this thing move from an idea into action? I think that's what we're talking about.

WARNER: Chibundu came into this conversation with her brother doubting that she had the energy to hack it in a place as entrepreneurial as Lagos. But talking to her brother, she remembered how she feels whenever she goes back home.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: I sort of feel more confident. And it's funny, actually. I went to the airport, and the guy who was checking our passports when I landed in Lagos, he wasn't wearing a uniform. And I told him off, and I was like, why aren't you wearing a uniform? You should be wearing a uniform. And I didn't think I would dare do that at immigration in London. But then I just have a sort of confidence. It's like, I'm home. You know, nobody can tell me anything. This is my country. And that was my energy in Lagos, this big, Chibundu energy. So I just moved through the world very confidently. And I am trying to import some of that energy here as well, actually.

WARNER: Here to London, she means. That's her plan now. She's still not quite ready to move to Lagos, but she's going to try to import that confidence and that energy to make a small difference in her adopted country. Chibundu told our producer, Justine Yan, that despite her doubts, she is going ahead this summer with the mentorship program at the youth center.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: Like, the amount of effort you put into it shows how much belief you have. And yeah - and he's right. That's not a Lagos thing. That's not a U.K. thing. That's just like - it has to be inside. It's about what's inside you. And yeah, we're going to do it this summer. It's going to be good. And I think actually, again - my brother has infected me.

JUSTINE YAN, BYLINE: So this is your side hustle.

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Laughter) I think side hustle is - side hustle is strong. But this is (laughter) this is my side project, my side - passion project.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WARNER: On our next episode of @Work, how do you drive an 18-wheel truck while at the same time homeschooling your kid?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You know, we've had dry-erase markers where she's just writing down the side of the window a math problem that she's struggling with. And so we're walking through it together.

WARNER: Women truckers tell their stories of freedom and loneliness in the long haul. That's next week on ROUGH TRANSLATION.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING HOME")

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Singing) So when are you coming home? I know I missed it, but I'm healing, and I'm learning all the time. When are you coming, coming home? If you walk away...

WARNER: This episode was produced by Justine Yan, Pablo Arguelles and our lead producer Adelina Lancianese, edited by Bruce Auster, who is our senior supervising producer. The ROUGH TRANSLATION team also includes Luis Trelles, Tessa Paoli, Nic M. Neves and Bhaskar Choudhary. Editorial insight from Sana Krasikov.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING HOME")

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Singing) It's what I deserve.

WARNER: Chibundu Onuzo is not only a writer. She's also a singer. In fact, this is one of her tracks called "Coming Home."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING HOME")

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Singing) Maybe I said I'm sorry. I treated you like a fool.

WARNER: Big thanks to the magazine Strangers Guide, where we Chibundu’s essay. If you don't know Strangers Guide, we're big fans of it here at ROUGH TRANSLATION. They devote each issue to a single place, and then they commission local writers and journalists to talk about that place. It's very thoughtful, beautiful photos. Check it out.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING HOME")

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Singing) I'm learning all the time.

WARNER: John Ellis composed our theme music. Additional music by FirstCom Music and Blue Dot Sessions, mastering by Josh Newell, fact-checking by Ayda Pourasad, legal guidance from Micah Ratner and Eduardo Miceli. NPR's standards editor is Tony Cavin. Emily Bogle is our visuals editor. Our supervising producer is Liana Simstrom. Our senior vice president for programming is Anya Grundman. I'm Gregory Warner, back next week with more @Work from ROUGH TRANSLATION.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING HOME")

CHIBUNDU ONUZO: (Singing) When are you coming, coming home?

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Escalating Assault On The Church

Rev. Father Vitus Bogoro killed on his farm in Kaduna State, Nigeria

BY ANDY EZEANI

In the face of numerous killings of Christians and attack on churches in Nigeria under the watch of Muhammadu Buhari as President, officials of his government have had to deny at various points that the configuration and policies of his government are anti-Christian. Indeed, the government mounted a strenuous defence before the international community some months back when the same allegation gained loud refrain at the United States Congress. Among the evidence it held up as defence, the state presented Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, who is a pastor, as Exhibit A, to prove that the government is religiously plural and, therefore, not anti-Christian.

The truth, of course, is that Nigeria has been taken over by terrorists, bandits, jihadists and criminals of all forms who now visit hapless Nigerians with terror and violence. The government has stopped short of raising its hands in surrender in the face of these ferocious acts of terrorism. Every person in Nigeria at the moment is literally on his own, with kidnappers and killers having a field day, attacking where ever their evil spirit leads them.

Killing has become too common in Nigeria in recent times, to the extent that any report of ten or twenty people killed on any particular day or instance, is no more news. Indeed, what will be news will be a day that passes by without dozens and scores being killed in the country. There are, in addition, many unrecorded and unreported cases.

In this reign of terror, the point made by government officials, that there is equal danger and threat to all lives in Nigeria, irrespective of creed or faith can be understood.

Beyond official state policy however, within the prevailing orgy of killings, kidnapping and sundry violence across the land, the incontrovertible fact is that Christianity is passing through an unprecedented horror in Nigeria, the type neither it nor any other religion has gone through under any dispensation since Nigeria came into being. To the Church in Nigeria, this is a time to watch, pray and now defend itself.

There may be terror and violence all over the place, quite alright, but there are bases to believe that there is method and purpose in the madness. The picking and killing of Christians and Christian clergymen in Kaduna and in various parts of the country, have become too pointed and regular to pass as random handiwork of rogues.

The Catholic church in particular has become the prime target in recent times. In a matter of about 24 hours last weekend, the church lost two priests, killed in their prime, in separate locations, by the euphemistically-tagged bandits. By whatever name the terrorists and murderers come, they are, without doubt, anti-Christ.

Catholic clergymen have never been known for being rich in material possession. Under normal circumstances, you will not expect to find up to N10,000 in the pocket or residence of a Reverend Father. They do not keep earthly valuables either. Over time, some of them, courtesy of their communities, have upgraded to driving SUVs, a practice that has not gone without reproof by some among the faithful. In other words, priests cannot be said to be attractive target for anyone robbing for material gain. So what else, but a drive to emasculate the Church accounts for the escalating violence and attack on Christian clergymen all over the country?

On Saturday, June 25,2022 in Kaduna, which has become the undisputed pre-eminent killing field in Nigeria, Rev.fr. Vitus Bogoro 50, chaplain of the Catholic Community of the Kaduna State Polytechnic and chairman of the Nigerian Catholic Diocesan Priests Association, Kaduna was murdered at Prison Farm, kajama, along Kaduna – Kachia Road, Kaduna. His offence? Nothing else but that he was a priest.

Fr. Bogoro’s killing followed on the heels of the murder of Rev. Joseph Bako Aketeh, killed eight weeks after he was abducted on May 8 2022 from his pastoral residence at St. John’s Catholic Church, Kudenda, Chikun LGA of Kaduna State by the same anti-Christianity elements. The terrorists who took Fr. Bello Aketeh away before killing him first killed Mr. Luka, the security guard at the priory.

Sunday June 26 2022, a day after the killing of the priest in Kaduna, Rev.Fr. Christopher Odia 41, Administrator of St. Michael’s Catholic Church, Ikabigbo of the Catholic Diocese of Auchi was murdered early in the morning as he was preparing for Mass on Sunday morning. How better else can any group of people guaranty their place in hell? Fr. Odia also served as Principal, St. Philip Catholic Secondary School, Jattu.

These individual killing of the priests came barely twenty days after the horrendous mid-morning attack at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State. The Pentecost Sunday massacre left 38 innocent worshippers dead inside the church. Federal Government’s quick pinning of the attack on elements of the Islamic State, West African Province (ISWAP) as against Fulani terrorists that were initially fingered, was scoffed at by both the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu and many others. Reports give the impression that Amotekun, the South West security outfit, has been left to solve the problem.

A week before the St. Francis Xavier Owo tragedy,32 worshippers were killed in an Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) church in Kajuru, Kaduna State. All these within barely one month. And what is presented here is just a highlight.

It may be nice to have Pastor Yemi Osinbajo around the corridors of power, but it is obvious that much more is required to prove that Christians are safe in the country. While the reality may be that government has lost substantial control of security, it must still strive to take extra measures to combat the escalating attack on Christians, priests and churches. The frequency and flow of such attacks have a way, not only of creating a bad impression about the government, but also of indicating that the attacks on churches and Christian clergymen are premeditated.

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Okigbo And The Makerere Conference

Christopher Okigbo

BY JAMES GIBBS

What happened at and after the Makerere Writers Conference held in June 1962? The significance of the Conference of Writers of English Expression held in Makerere College, Kampala, during June 1962, continues to be pondered, and rightly so. As I write, a conference to mark the sixtieth anniversary of that gathering is being organised by the Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL) and Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), and is scheduled for June 23-26. It is to be hoped that questions raised by the original meeting will continue to be considered. There is certainly much about what happened 60 years ago that should be examined closely and, indeed, I note that, myth-making is still in progress. This was illustrated by the use of a photo-shopped picture to illustrate the article about the PAWA Conference by Akintayo Abodunrin carried in the Nigerian Tribune of June 19, 2022.(See ‘Ibadan hosts Pan-African Writers conference, 60 Years After Kampala’.) This is not the first time that this particular photograph has featured in relation to an event marking an anniversary of the 1962 Conference.

In London, during 2017, the same picture was used by the organisers of a London conference marking the 55th anniversary of the Makerere Conference. It is reproduced below, along with a ‘key’, and the full title that includes the words ‘artist impression.’ At the 2017 anniversary meeting, the picture filled the cyclorama behind the speakers who included Wole Soyinka. During an early session, I raised the question of the origin of the photograph, and went on to point out that whatever it showed it did not reveal the organisation that had funded the event. That is to say, it did not hint at the presence ‘behind the scenes’ at Makerere of the Central Intelligence Agency. As has since become common knowledge, the 1962 Makerere conference was financed by the CIA, then operating clandestinely through the Farfield Foundation and the Paris-based Congress for Cultural Freedom. The betrayal of trust involved in this deception has been chronicled in detail by Frances Stoner Saunders in her exposé of ‘The CIA and the Cultural Cold War’ entitled Who Paid the Piper? (1999).

The ‘photo-shopped’ photograph used in London in 2017 that has now resurfaced was a shoddy piece of work on several levels. To ‘pick apart’ the photograph, we must start by saying that it shows the heads of some of the writers present at the conference ‘grafted’ onto to bodies in a fairly formal picture of a group that may be of members of a Makerere College Society. This is monstrous enough and to imagine all is explained or excused by the description ‘Artist impression’ is preposterous. The deception is compounded by the fact that the picture does not show all who were present. A full ‘gallery’ would include, for example, critics, publishers, and editors, at least one of whom was a long-serving agent of the CIA.

The objectionable photograph is, I understand, the work of Dada Khanyisa for a website called ‘Chimurenga Chronic’. It was irresponsible of the London 2017 conference organisers to have used it in 2017 without a clear ‘Warning’, and it is sad to see it being used again, once more, without warning. Incidentally, it may be of interest that when Soyinka was button-holed after the first session of the London conference, and asked what he made of the picture, it was apparent that he had not ‘recognised himself’ in the podgy, suited figure on the extreme left. In part explanation,he pointed out that he had stopped wearing ties and suits long before June 1962!…It is to be hoped that the 60th Anniversary gathering will get off to a better start than the 2017 event, and that there will be a determination to get to the bottom of what really happened at Makerere in 1962. Despite the presence of Soyinka – and it should be said of Cameron Duodu -at the 55th anniversary in London, the gathering did not by any means sort out all the issues raised by the 1962 conference. Many loose ends remain. Serious research into archives are among the steps required to discover who expected what from the gathering.

Over the years, details about individual experiences at Makerere 1962 have emerged but the conference is still surrounded by uncertainty. Perhaps fifty-five years was too strange an anniversary to celebrate. It smacked of organisers who had failed to mark the fiftieth anniversary sufficiently and feared that none of the original participants would be alive at the time the sixtieth celebration – that has now ‘come along’.Perhaps the 60th Anniversary Conference will fare better?

Christopher Okigbo and Makerere 1962

To shed light on the 1962 Conference and to gesture towards areas where work is still required, I am going to bring together some reports and thoughts about the experience of the poet Christopher Okigibo at Kampala. I am doing so in the hope that it will provide an insight into what was going on below the surface and behind the scenes. Okigbo presents himself as a suitable subject for this exercise because he has been the subject of a scrupulous biography, Thirsting for Sunlight by Obi Nwakanma (2010), and because a significant ‘industry’ has gown up around him his life and works. For example, during 2007, he and his works were considered at a four-day conference held in Boston. Okigbo was easy to find at the Makerere Conference: he put himself forward, contributed to discussions, delighted in shocking the more staid of his fellow delegates, and generally ‘made his mark’. He did this by, for example, declaring that he did ‘not read his poetry to non-poets’ and he also took a leading role in ensuring that the social side of the conference was ‘memorable’. First some background to his presence at the Conference:

Okigbo graduated in Classics from University College, Ibadan, and embarked on a career in the Civil Service. However, that did ‘not work out’ and he moved into teaching. In the meantime, he had begun to write poetry and had had some success, notably with verses published in the Ibadan-based Black Orpheus. That publication had been founded by Ulli Beier, and had been put on a fairly solid financial basis thanks to grants from the ‘Farfield Foundation’ – that Saunders and others have exposed as a CIA front. Okigbo’s writing has long intrigued and pleased. By 1962, he had already attracted the interest of Donatus Nwoga, who was a member of the Nigerian delegation at Makerere and who must be briefly introduced here. By the time he set off for Makerere, Nwoga had completed a Dublin PhD and secured a lectureship at the University of Nigeria. He was, in fact, one of the first Nigerian literary critics to establish a reputation and it was inevitable that he would engage with Okigbo’s work. The two men had much in common: they were near contemporaries, and both had been brought up in Igbo families that had been exposed to Catholic missionary influences.

The Makerere Conference has become known as a ‘Writers Conference’, but this has tended to obscure the presence of critics, such as Nwoga. The same, misleading ‘short-hand’ has tended to obscure the presence at the Conference of others who were not writers. The ‘delegates’ included, for example, broadcasters, editors, and publishers, and people who were ‘more than publishers’ – see below. Okigbo clearly made an impact on the deliberations of the Conference. He did this, first of all, by his contribution to a discussion at the heart of the conference: the answer to the question: What is African writing? To this Okigbo responded abruptly, ‘finally’, and, as many must have felt, frivolously, by saying: ‘There is no such thing as African writing. There is only good or bad writing.’ (Nwakanma: 182.) Of Okigbo’s other contributions, Nwakanma records that in the session on Language and African Literature the poet threw ‘many of the writers into guffaws when he wondered aloud about the kind of Pidgin English Nigerian prostitutes spoke in Lagos.’ This topic – The Language Issue – has, of course, been of consuming interest to many, including one of the younger writers at the conference, ‘James T Ngugi’. One can’t imagine Ngugi wa Thiong’o – as he was later known guffawing at Okigbo’s irreverent answer.

At one of the reading sessions, Okigbo, declared, as noted above: ‘I don’t read my poems to non-poets!’ Nwakanma describes this as an ‘impish’ moment, however delegates at Makerere might have categorised it in other terms, as, for example, aloof, pompous or elitist.

‘A cool place for a conference’

Whatever others made of him, Okigbo described Kampala in positive terms. He thought it was ‘a cool place for a conference’, and, ever alert to recreational opportunities, he said it offered ‘more than adequate outlets at Top Life and White Nile’. (Night clubs visited by delegates.) However, he went on to describe Makerere / Kampala as ‘a literary desert’ and he expressed the hope that the Conference would do ‘what irrigation does to the Sudan.’ (It being understood that the image was of a ‘literary desert’ in need of water.)

Nwakanma gives further insights into Okigbo at Makerere by writing: ‘During the conference Okigbo was always to be found in the company of the Ugandan playwright and journalist Robert Serumaga and he struck up an easy friendship with the South African writers and exiles, Bloke Modisane and Lewis Nkosi.’ (181)While in Uganda, Okigbo also got to know Langston Hughes and Otis Redding. Nwakanma offers that the latter’ shared many views, especially on the meaning of international blackness and against racial essentialism in cultural production.’ The lastsentence of the paragraph on these interactions reads: ‘Okigbo and Robie Macauley, Editor of the Kenyon Review, discussed the possibility of publishing Limits and the early version of “Laments to the Silent Sisters.” But nothing came of it.’ (181)

In sifting these pieces of information, it is interesting to note that Serumaga’s name is omitted from some lists of those present at the conference. The fact that Nwakanma’s book makes it clear that Serumaga was not only present but interacted with Okigbodraws attention to the need for fuller, more authoritative documentation of the conference, and who came and went during it. Perhaps Serumaga’s established contacts with the University and his interests in both journalism and playwriting made him ‘persona grata’. He certainly sems to have moved in and out of the conference easily, and to have mingled with the visitors.

I want to draw this article to a close with the image created by Nwakanma’s reference to Okigbo in conversation with that other delegate who is glossed as the editor of the Kenyon Review, Robie Macauley. Macauley was indeed an influential editor, but he was also a long-serving CIA agent.

Macauley’s commitment to espionage is alluded to in on-line sources and in exposés of the CIA. From these it is possible to get a sense of how Macauley might have attempted to manipulate the ’soft power’ the CIA leveraged through its links to publications, its budget of $900,000,000, and the support it received from disenchanted Communists. Macauley was an experienced operator, how did he engage with the impish, witty, Okigbo? Did he, for example, dangle the prospect of publication in the Kenyon Review before the poet? If so, it can be seen that Okigbo did not swallow the bait – since ‘Limits’ first appeared in Presence Africaine (1966).

More research must be undertaken into what happened at Makerere in 1962. In the meantime, we must insist that coverage of the 60thanniversary conference risesabove photo-shopped images that have been concocted, confected, contrived, compounded, and cooked up. As a first step in searching for the truth about what happened in Uganda sixty years ago, it must be recognised that Dada Khanyisa’s ‘artist’s impression’ cannot be taken at face-value.

Gibbs writes in from Bristol, United Kingdom.

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INTERVIEW: Chikwendu Aiming To Become UN Woman-In-Fine Arts Ambassador

VANGUARD INTERVIEW

Oge Chikwendu

Over the weekend,in the very busy city of Lagos, at the Terra kulture Art Gallery and Events Place, Victoria Island, our crew met up with one of the most unique and upcoming Nigerian Female Fine Artist of the 21st Century; Oge Chikwendu.

OgeChikwendu is an artist who closes generational divides by merging contemporary arts and age-old artefacts on innovative surfaces. She’s currently vying to become the first female ambassador of Fine Arts in next edition of the United Nation’s Women – in – Fine Arts competition.

The competition titled “Choosing the Next Professional Female Fine Artist in Nigeria” is slated to hold between the 13th and 15th of July 2022, at the Eko Hotels and Suites Lagos.

Oge Chikwendu hails from Alor in Idemmili South LGA of Anambra State. In this interview, she speaks about her works and career. She gives a peek into her journey so far and tells the plans she has as she becomes the first UN Women’s female ambassador for Fine Arts in Nigeria.

She bemoans the challenges faced by women in Fine Arts, comparing it to some of her personal experiences during preparation for the competition. She enjoins African women, African artists and the black race to be proud and showcase ‘their rich heritage in Arts to the world. She also decries the lack of sponsorship and international opportunities as limiting factors against local female artists.

Expatiating on the importance of sponsorship, she narrated how lucky she was to have a sponsor and used the opportunity to appreciate the endorsement of African Business gurus, Chief and Mrs. Chris Ekwenibe, the brains behind Onitsha South Urban Mass Transit, who took her up as a beneficiary after she presented a piece of Chief Ekwenibe’s mother at her funeral, last October, in Neni, Anambra State.

Excerpts from the interview:

Introduction

“My name is Oge Chikwendu, I’m a Fine Artist from both the University of Nigeria Nsukka and the Yaba College of Technology Lagos. I’m amongst the 8 contestants competing to become the first female ambassador of fine arts in this maiden edition of the United Nations Women-in-fine arts show.

The show has as theme: Depicting the current unity situation amongst cultures in Nigeria specifically using paintings and sculptures, so I have painted seven works and made three larger-than-life sized metal sculptures along these lines.

What she’ll do when she becomes a UN woman-in-fine arts ambassador

I hope to shed more light on the African woman’s struggle through arts. I also hope to organise more competitions for women artists to showcase their works and I’ll lend my voice to speak against discrimination and violence against women.

Major challenges of being a female artist in Nigeria

Well, first, a lot of people don’t take you seriously so you need to work extra hard to prove yourself. Also funds and opportunities are more scarce and less available to women so, you need to strive harder.

Art as business venture in Nigeria

Everything about our country is arts. Our culture, our diversity, our religion and our language. There are a lot of exploring and tapping to do from our way of life as Nigerians. TheTiv woman dresses differently from the Igbo woman, yet they are both colourful and beautiful.There are many untold stories about our ways of life, so much that we can depict them using colours, forms and artefacts. That’s a business venture.

Advice for younger artists

Keep exploring, keep being innovative and create more stories of your history and heritage, using your immediate raw materials. Think globally, act locally. Someone is always watching.

Final words

I appreciate God for life, my parents for educating me, and my sponsor, Chief Chris Ekwenibe for supporting me on this journey. I hope to make you all proud. I have so much love for all of you.

From Garfield To Black Panther: Nnedi Okorafor On The Power Of Comics

Nnedi Okoroafor. Image: Neilson Barnard/Getty

BY NNEDI OKOROAFOR

My path to writing the big black cat started with a fat orange cat.

I’ve always been attracted to comics. Even before the word, it was the black line that drew me (pun intended). It began when I was about seven years old in the early ’80s with . . . Garfield. My father was an avid Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reader, and every day he would sit at the dinner table and read it. It was while hanging around him that I noticed that there was a comics page every day. The Family Circus, Hi and Lois, Bloomsbury, Calvin and Hobbes, Momma, Ziggy—there were so many I enjoyed. And, oh man, on Sunday, there were pages of comics, and they were in color! I loved these little stories told in pictures. But I became most obsessed with Garfield.

It was more than the hijinks and jokes. There was something about those dark lines, how they looped and swirled to create images and how those images molded with the “drawings” of letters that were words, communicating thoughts and ideas with the pictures. Even before I was writing stories using prose I was marveling at the dance of symbolic representations of sound and images.

Nevertheless, I didn’t arrive at comic books until much later in life. When I was a kid, I’d see the local comic book shops. I was interested and so, yes, I’d walk in there. I had seen boys at school with comic books and their colorful covers with titles in electrical-looking fonts. The excitement of those boys and their flimsy books intrigued me. And since I was very little, I’d always had dreams of flying. Heroes in capes with super powers were definitely in my realm of wonder.

However, when I’d push that comic book shop door open, the bell on the top of the door would ring and then something problematic would happen. I’d like to compare it to that moment when Luke and Obi-Wan walk into the bar or that record-scratch moment in Westerns when the stranger walks into the saloon. The comic book shop was always full of white boys; the person behind the counter was always a white guy. None of this bothered me; I’d grown up in a white neighborhood. What bothered me was their reaction to me. The staring, and staring.The comic book shop was always full of white boys; the person behind the counter was always a white guy.

I’d slowly walk in, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. However, the silent scrutiny and feeling that I had invade a place where I wasn’t welcome would be so strong that I’d leave soon after. On top of this, I was unfamiliar with comic books, how they were shelved, so I didn’t even know what I was seeking. Let alone the fact that when I glanced at all the covers, I didn’t see anyone black or female or outside a male gaze.

It was the late ’80s. I was between eight and twelve years old in those years, the child of Nigerian immigrants, an athlete playing and grandly excelling in the sport of tennis. I was navigating through a lot of blatant racism, prejudice, and xenophobia. I knew when to avoid a space, even if I didn’t fully understand the depth of it. Comic book shops remained an unwelcoming place on several levels for many years. I can’t state it enough: to be white and male was such a privilege if you loved or wanted to love comic books.

My discovery of superheroes didn’t happen until I was nineteen years old and paralyzed from spinal surgery complications when doctors tried to straighten out my acute scoliosis. That’s a lot crammed in one sentence, I know. I wrote a whole book about it called Broken Places & Outer Spaces. I was a semipro tennis player and a track star with severe scoliosis that was increasing in severity every year.

I was eventually told that I could either have the spinal surgery to straighten it out or become crippled by 25 and have a much shorter life due to compressed organs. When I had the surgery, I was in the anomalous 1 percent of patients who mysteriously respond to the surgery with paralysis. So I went from super athlete to paralyzed from the waist down in a matter of nine hours. I’d lost my super powers.

It took me months to regain sensation in my legs (and the doctors didn’t know whether I would until it gradually happened). After a month in the hospital, and then another several weeks of rigorous physical therapy, I got out of that wheelchair and began using a walker. Eventually I graduated to a half walker, then cane, then finally using only my own two legs. But that summer, while I was still using the walker, I spent a lot of time in front of the TV. And that’s when I discovered the X-Men. I especially loved Storm, who could fly.

But the one who intrigued me most was Wolverine because he was so angry and he had a skeleton that was unbreakable. As a 21-year-old who’d just lost her super powers and was now trying to figure out who the heck she was, this discovery gave me strength. It was the first time I understood why so many loved superheroes. The first superhero comic I read was Wolverine.

I went on to consume comics through graphic novels, including Persepolis, A Contract with God, Bone, and two more iconic cat narratives in The Rabbi’s Cat and We3. I read these while I earned my second MA and then PhD. I came to more superheroes through Grant Morrison’s Animal Man and Vixen and Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

And then, years later, while I was a professor at the University at Buffalo, I learned about a country in Marvel’s Africa called Wakanda and I said, “Hmmm, interesting.” I thank Ta-Nehisi Coates for introducing me to King T’Challa. Yes, yes, I was late, but we can’t always be on time.Even before I was writing stories using prose, I was marveling at the dance of symbolic representations of sound and images.

Writing Black Panther: Long Live the King (2017–2018) was a marvelous experience. Initially, I came to it looking at King T’Challa and the country of Wakanda out of the side of my eye. I’m Igbo (a Nigerian ethnic group), and among the Igbo there’s a common saying, “Igbo enwe eze,” which means, “The Igbo have no king.” Being a series of democratic societies consisting of small independent communities, historically, Igbos didn’t have a centralized government or royalty.

I grew up hearing this phrase, and between this and also being an American, any type of monarchy gets my side-eye of disapproval . . . even a mythical one. Then I realized, in writing Black Panther, I could affect him and his country. I could enter into direct conversation and be heard. It was like visiting a country for the first time, and not as a tourist, but as a diplomat. I couldn’t be passive during my visit, and that made my visit even more interesting. I got to listen to, know, and speak to T’Challa and the people and land of Wakanda.

Black Panther and Wakanda hold a powerful place in the Marvel Universe. I’ve always viewed Wakanda as a proper return of African Americans (the direct descendants of enslaved Africans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade) to the continent of Africa. Because one can never go back in the past, the gaze is into the future, and that was where the reconciliation was made . . . at least the beginning of one. There’s a sense of homecoming and belonging in Black Panther that is celebratory. One gets to claim Wakanda as a space and make an African connection.

One of the reasons I agreed to write T’Challa, Shuri, the Dora Milaje, and Wakanda was because I wanted to further develop that bridge. I focused on bringing T’Challa closer to the common people of Wakanda and later, when I wrote Shuri as the Black Panther, bringing her to the rest of Africa.

Comics are powerful indeed. King T’Challa, the mantle of Black Panther, and the country of Wakanda have all evolved so much over the decades. I look forward to what comes next.

Nigerian writer Ben Okri once wrote in his book Birds of Heaven, “The happiness of Africa is in its nostalgia for the future, and its dreams of a golden age.” I think this is true both on the continent and in the Black Diaspora beyond. Wakanda Forever.

Prof. Chukwuma Azuonye (1944-2022)

Professor Chukwuma Azuonye

BY OBI NWAKANMA

Chukwuma Azuonye, poet and Professor of African Literature, died in Massachusetts, the United States, on May 8, and his final remains were interred June 10 at the Milton Cemetery in Massachusetts, the United States. He joins an increasing list of iconic Nigerian intellectuals including Abiola Irele, Isidore Okpewho, Oyekan Owomoyela, Akin Euba and Fela Sowande, among many, whose earthly remains now lie in alien lands far from the homeland, from where they strayed, some in search of meaning, some in search of the golden fleece, and all ultimately into exile.

In the case of Azuonye, he will now lie by his second son, Nnamdi, who perished in an automobile accident a decade ago, and whose death shook Chukwuma to his very timbers. Born in Isuikwuato, now in Abia state, Chukwuma Azuonye studied English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1965-1972. Quite early at Nsukka, his literary and intellectual gifts had come clearly to fore. He was editor of The Muse, the Literary Journal of the Nsukka English department, and Omabe, the Nsukka Poetry Monthly.

The civil war however interrupted his studies at Nsukka. Like other young men of his generation, on whom the holy task fell, to defend the shrines of their gods and the bones of their fathers, in a civil war that was brought to the East of Nigeria, Chukwuma Azuonye volunteered to serve the young republic of Biafra, not as a combatant, but as a publicist. He was deployed as a correspondent for the Biafran War Information Bureau. The work done by the Biafran War Information Bureau under the renowned poet and scholar, MJC Echeruo, who was also Azuonye’s teacher, has not been fully documented, but that bureau drew to it, some of the finest literary minds available to the republic.

It was certainly a nod to Chukwuma Azuonye’s gifts that he was shielded from combat, but tasked with documenting, archiving, and preserving the stories of the battlefront, and of the soldiers of the young republic. He was in a sense a war historian. But the effects of the war was to weigh on him psychologically too, for like most of his generation, he did not really, fully return from that war. There was something restless and unresolved in his mind – a quest for which even he did not have a name; but it drove him towards a full discovery of the Igbo world; its language and its lore.

At the end of the Civil war, when the dream of Biafra collapsed, Chukwuma Azuonye returned to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and earned his degree in English in the First-Class honours in 1972. In 1973, he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to the School of African and Oriental Studies of the University of London, where he did graduate work, and completed his doctoral on African Oral Literature, with a dissertation on the Ohafia War Songs.

In 1976, Chukwuma Azuonye returned to Nigeria, to the department of Languages of the University of Ibadan as Lecturer. By this time, Professor MJC Echeruo had moved as Head of English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to Ibadan, as the first African Head of the English department at the University of Ibadan, and subsequently, its first Dean of the College of Postgraduate Studies. Important work was going on at Ibadan, and the universities in Nigeria were still in their golden age. At Ibadan, in Languages with Azuonye were the likes of the famous literary critic Abiola Irele, and Isidore Okpewho who had also just returned from his studies in the United States, and was doing path breaking research in Oral literature, where he would earn his most significant plaudits. Echeruo was at the head of that pile, with his work, Victorian Lagos, just breaking into the scene, signifying one of the earliest works in the emerging methodologies of modern cultural studies.

Azuonye fitted naturally into the phalanx of stars in the Ibadan humanities, doing strategic work of recovery in the postcolonial era, with his own research primarily on Igbo Orality and African Diasporic cultures.

In 1981, he left the University of Ibadan and joined the faculty of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka’s Department of Linguistics and African Languages. He would subsequently serve as the Head of the Department from 1986-1988. The Nsukka phase of his life might be legitimately described as the most exciting and productive period of his artistic and intellectual career. The literary scene of the so-called Nsukka School was at its nadir. Azuonye was quickly made editor of Uwa Ndi Igbo, the journal of Igbo life founded by the famous novelist, Chinua Achebe then at Nsukka, and he was also one of the editors of the Okike Literary journal.

In these endeavors, Chukwuma Azuonye helped to extend and enrich the cultural environment and output from Nsukka. It was in this period that he became a collaborator with the legendary critic, Professor Donatus Nwoga, on the project of the recovery of a lost tradition of the Igbo Script, which resulted in one of Azuonye’s most intriguing works: “The Nwagu Aneke Igbo Scripts: its origin, features and potentials as a medium for alternative literacy in African languages.” It was a most sophisticated and daring work, whose scope remains even now, overwhelming and complex. Unfortunately, it was work which he could not complete, owing to circumstances, which including the sudden death of his co-investigator, Professor Nwoga, and Azuonye’s slowly failing health, stymied the work.

in 2007, which had brought together one of the largest body of writers, scholars, and poets to celebrate the life of one of Africa’s greatest poets of the 20th century. It was a most impressive outing which had also led to Azuonye’s relentless and methodical work that led the UNESCO to adopt Okigbo’s papers as an important part of world heritage. It was also in a sense, Azuonye’s last hurrah. His rapidly declining health forced him increasingly to seclusion. He fought bravely but death undoes us all.

He was married to Dr. Chioma Azuonye, whom he met in London as a student, and they shared a devotion that was pagan and fierce. Chukwuma Azuonye’s death closes an important chapter on the life of one of those really remarkable figures of Nigeria’s modern intellectual tradition. He was an impressive intellectual: eloquent, and precise. He had the rare gift of subtlety which often came to light, for instance, in dissecting a poem like “Sophia,” that very difficult work by Echeruo, with its matrix of imagery, as no one else possibly could among his peers, with such elan and aplomb. A star indeed has departed.

Akwaeke Emezi’s Poetry Collection Makes Space For Many Selves

BY CHINELO ANYADIEGWU

Akwaeke Emezi

Hello, Hello! Welcome to my column, Queer Naija Lit, where I’ll be reviewing some of my favourite queer Nigerian books.

CONTENT WARNING: EVERYTHING deserves its name. Between the first and last pages, my mind became a thunderstorm of questions. What is time? What is being? What is life? What is death, to a god? Each poem presents an experience like lightning. Look: love. Here, pain. See where they connect. At the center of the thunderstorm is stillness. There, clarity is born. If you feel confused and a little unsteady then, congratulations, you’re ready to read Akwaeke Emezi.

What is time?

In colonial reality, time is a wound. Colonial time announces itself by the suppression of other times. It is the present, absent. In Emezi’s work, time is mended by stories that reach across, into, beyond, and before the bifurcation of “this” time.

It’s common to think of time as linear, but Emezi’s poems convey a story that doesn’t go from point A to B. Rather, it explores moments: freedom, peace, reckoning, and hurt can be represented through time — by which I mean experience. In Igbo culture, experience is the focus of a story and, by extension, life (what is life, if not one long story/experience?).

I grew up hearing stories from my family that didn’t hold their center in a particular time or region but in experience and shared understanding. Simultaneously, I was hearing a linear story about my country and people that only made sense if I didn’t look beyond the last few decades. I was — through spiritual and academic colonial institutions — conditioned to think of myself through a lens that denied my existence. When you have two means of storytelling next to each other — like with most binaries — we’re taught to pit them against each other. The “and” of the colonial mind is really a “versus.”

Emezi recognizes this cultural conflict in their narrative, but they step out of the narrative of oppression and into truth. Binaries can show us where things separate, but also where they connect — like a door hinge, or the two faces of a coin.

When I look at time as an experience the way Emezi writes it and compare it to linear, measured time, what becomes obvious to me is the way they are connected, and that one way of perceiving — the linear way — is deemed more real than another.

The consequences (and intent) of this are dire. Experiences and realities that can be validated through linear time thrive. Meanwhile, experiences and realities that can’t be translated into this metric are invisibilized and subjugated. Specifically, the people and environments living in non-privileged realities are subjugated.

Not in Emezi’s book. CONTENT WARNING: EVERYTHING exists in the reality of the spirit that wrote it. Emezi is who they are, an ogbanje and a god-child. The book is an embodiment of their reality, which is also Igbo reality.

What is being?

Colonization forced a majority of the world to think of beingness as one thing. There’s one (white) human, one (white) reality, one (white) self. This narrative is a modern descendant of Plato’s search for Ultimate Truth, which is fear and control. Colonization is an empire’s attempt to take all that is. I can’t imagine the size of the ego necessary for a person to believe they can know and be all that is, and yet, the proof is in life right now. It’s in the ways we’re still conditioned to try to define everyone else and the ways we’re prevented from defining ourselves. Like Toni Morrison says, definitions belong to the definers.

Our ability to know and define stops at us — and even that is tenuous. To reach beyond the self and attempt to define (control) all reality — and therefore the experiences of people that aren’t you — is violence.

When Emezi writes, it is from deep within themself, made possible by their acceptance of their reality. The book is filled with selves mirroring each other, asking hard questions. This mode of storytelling is grounded in our culture. Duality is an important concept in Igbo culture. Life is possible when two exist. The earth and the sky, day and night. Time and being create life and death. While colonial reality seeks to suppress difference, Igbo culture recognizes that difference itself is life.

A poetry book is brilliant fabric to weave reality with. In physical form, each end of the book serves as a container that the selves in the poem differentiate and reflect within. The difference in the book serves a different purpose from the conflict and suppression that is the current dominant narrative. Instead of suppression, Emezi writes towards connection and integration.

One poem, “Self Portrait As An Abuser” (one of many portraiture poems in the book) fractures the selves in two. One self seeks to live by taking. This self fears being alone, fears being unloved. The other self, on the other end of the page, is healed enough to tell the story as a warning. Between these stories, another narrative emerges.

I literally mean Between. When the stories are read through the space that separates them, a third narrative emerges. The hurting self tries to tell the spirit inside it to live. It doesn’t end there. I count at least ten narratives in this poem alone, and the entire book is like that, yet no two poems are the same. It’s brilliant.

This is a book to be read and re-read, like all true stories. People aren’t ever just “one” thing. We grow, change, heal, and hurt. That’s life. Stillness (which is not rest) belongs to spirit, the internal consciousness. We dip into it from time to time, but permanent stillness is death.

It’s important to place Emezi’s work in context. It makes sense that this was a book written by an ogbanje. An ogbanje is a trickster spirit, and what is colonization if not trickery. Substitute that, unname this, redraw these lands, rename these people, destroy their artifacts. Weave a web of fear over the world so we pretend all is well, as people are hurt. Trickery.

So of course, it takes an ogbanje to see where the oppressors’ tricks fail and spin old realities into new worlds.

Emezi is also the child of an alusi (deity) , Ani. The earth mother. She holds life and death, the harvest, marriage, communal laws, and spiritual practices. Ani is the ground everything is built on, and she is where we return when we leave this realm. The python that swallows everything.

That Ani sends her child as an ogbanje makes sense. The child of Ani has to be everything, a reflection of their mother. For Igbo people right now, that means they have to be part trickery. They are a reflection of the liminal space that the colonized culture — fighting for its own reality — occupies.

It matters that a god of my people showed their face and is queer. It matters the way they continue to experience violence in this embodiment. This mirrors colonial interactions with African liminality and the ways we experience the embodiment of spirit. Their stigmatization by cis-het Nigerians invested on some level in the upholding of colonial reality makes it clear what the arms of oppression are orchestrating us to kill internally. Our own spirits, our own people, our own gods.

I, and any of my people who know to look, know what we see. What we feel in Emezi’s telling. To tell a story is to survive it. To tell a story with all your faces present, as Emezi has done, is to live. As a people, if our gods are alive, so are we.

The whole story matters, it always does. So, thank you Akwaeke, for giving us everything.

Organizing At The Intersection Of Culture And Generational Courage

Nnedi Stephens; Image: Reno Gazette Journal

BY NNEDI STEPHENS

“... when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.” - Chinua Achebe

These powerful words, as well as their author, strike home for me as the eldest of Nigerian immigrants and as a candidate for public office. My core mission and my vision for change as a community organizer, public servant, unionized campaign staffer and now progressive hiring specialist has centered on doing everything I can to make the levers of power more accessible to communities that have been traditionally marginalized.

My name is Nnedi Stephens and I am running a campaign for State Senate District 13 that embodies the core values of accessibility, inclusion and transparency.

This district encompasses the section of the Reno/Sparks metro area one block west of the University of Nevada, Reno down toward the Plumas/Moana area, eastward to the section of Sparks that borders Hidden Valley and upwards toward McCarran Blvd. We are facing devastating challenges that are making it harder to live and raise families here. Median rent and home prices are skyrocketing. The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing issues such as the health care provider and teacher shortages, as well as the lack of access to affordable mental health care — especially for those in crisis.

These are tough issues to properly address because so much of their root causes are systemic. Low wages and long hours for teachers and educational faculty, the stigmatization of seeking treatment for mental illness, and the structural wealth inequality we see between Black, Indigenous, People of Color and their white counterparts are keeping our communities from reaching their truest potential. I am running to bring new energy to Carson City and help build the coalitions of stakeholders needed to tackle these problems head on. The beginning words I shared from Chinua Achebe are a call to action to ensure that none of us are complacent in the face of our neighbor’s suffering, even when it means jumping outside one’s comfort zone to help one another.

Chinua Achebe is often referred to as the “Father of Modern African Literature” for being one of the first African novelists to gain international recognition for sharing the story of Africa’s brutal colonization through the lens of those who suffered it. He talked about the importance of telling your own story and sharing an accurate retelling of history, contrary to the anti-“CRT” crusaders who want to segregate our textbooks and isolate students who look like me from learning about the history made by courageous people who represent and fought for their rights. These words remind me of my Nigerian godfather who worked so hard to build a local small business and a legacy for his children and godchildren rooted in the rich culture and traditions of Igbo culture.

Every time I saw him, he was always sure to remind me never to forget where I come from and to work hard so that the generation after me may prosper. It has been hard to work through the grief of losing him last month while running a campaign, but his example shows me that the work I put in today serves as a foundation for those who will come after me tomorrow.

The immigrant experience is varied based on ethnicity, nationality, belief system (or lack thereof) and so many more identities that shape the way in which we interact and interpret the world around us.

One common thread you will find, however, is courage.

The courage to relocate to a different country and a different culture.

The courage to work as hard as possible to give your kids the best start at life possible.

I will end by sharing a Igbo proverb that reads:

“Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.”

I am running as the candidate willing to stand up for what is right and to create a better world for generations to come.

I humbly ask for your vote in this June 14 primary to be the next State Senator from District 13.

Born and raised in Reno to hard-working Nigerian immigrants, Nnedi Stephens is a graduate of Wooster High School and the University of Nevada, Reno with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering (biomedical emphasis) and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish.

They are the 2nd vice president of the Young Democrats of America (YDA) and have made history in various different organizations as an openly LGBTQ+ Nigerian-American. As vice president of search for Meso Solutions, Nnedi works directly with organizations across the country to ensure equitable and inclusive hiring practices for executive level positions. They are running for the Nevada State Senate as a Democrat in Senate District 13. Their website is nnedifornevada.com. Connect with Nnedi on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Farewell, Alexander Madiebo

Biafran War General Alexander Madiebo (1932-2022) 

BY AHAMEFULA NJOKU

Shortly after the book, ”The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War,’ written by Alexander Madiebo, who was a Lt Colonel in the Nigerian Army and later promoted to a Major General was published by Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu in 1980, l saw my father reading the book on a daily basis. At that time, l did not realise my full connection to the events and some personalities in that book or indeed that of the entire Igbo race for that matter. l later realised why he was reading the book with great interest. My father, an entrepreneur at the young age of 34 years in 1967, was one of the richest men in Port Harcourt with ownership of four houses there, a lot of landed properties, two brand new cars, the best photo studio, Sams Photos, with 13 members of staff and a manager, often frequented by Nigerian President Nnamdi Azikiwe, opposition leader Obafemi Awolowo and even Europeans, including those working in the crude oil industry. All these were lost, including three of my siblings to the Biafran war.


Many years later when l read the book from cover to cover, it dawned on me that Madiebo who hails from Awka in Anambra State and recently died at the age of 90 years was not just a master story teller but a world class military strategist.

When you read his book, you learn many invaluable lessons of life. The most important lesson you would learn is that every action a human being takes carries consequences.

For example, it was Madiebo and one or two other persons who convinced Chukwuma Nzeogwu after the January 1966 coup failed in the South of Nigeria and General Aguiyi-Ironsi had become the Head of state of Nigeria to surrender himself to the authority of the new leader. Had Nzeogwu done otherwise and proceeded to ”complete” the coup in Lagos and southern Nigeria, the history of Nigeria could have been different today and maybe the 1967 to 1970 civil war may have been averted.

In my work with some Nigerian politicians, businessmen and indeed many human beings, l have observed that many of them pay scant attention to strategy or often ignore good advice based on research, experience, feedback. A few of them who are patient and wise enough to adopt a strategy for what they want to achieve often do better than others who do not. The reason is obvious. To formulate a good strategy for whatever you want to do and execute same is very tasking. Many human beings do not have the patience, wisdom or resilience to execute same.

Madiebo in that classic book also told the story about how his course mate at the United Kingdom elite military academy, Sandhurst, General Yakubu Gowon had tried to get him out of harm’s way by penciling down his name for a course abroad at the height of the 1966 crisis. But Madiebo, a very wise man, turned down the offer because he felt he needed to be around to protect his wife and children as the uncertain events of 1966 unfolded. Had he accepted the offer, he would have been outside the country when the epochal events of 1966 to 1967 unfolded and perhaps he would not have played the central role of the General Officer Commanding of the Biafran Army and a war tactician of the highest order.

Madiebo also told a story of how he advised an Igbo officer to leave the Kaduna Army Officers Mess at the army barracks in 1966 after the counter-coup because of the mutiny by ‘northern’ soldiers against their southern colleagues. Madiebo left, but the Igbo officer who refused to heed his advice was later that night arrested at the same officers’ mess and was killed. This story often reminds me of the famous statement by one philosopher that, ”He who cannot be advised cannot be helped.” In life taking a good advice from someone who is more experienced and more knowledgeable than you can make a big difference in your life. If you take the advice, you move to success, if you do not, sooner than later you would come face to face with failure to your utmost regret.

Another lesson one can learn from Madiebo’s book is the importance of planning and organisation in whatever anybody who wants to be successful in life does. In all the battles he plotted in Biafra, he did a lot of planning and succeeded in defeating the enemy with minimal resources. His story of how he escaped from Kaduna to the Eastern part of Nigeria in the water tank of a train after hiding in the bush is another interesting narrative full of wisdom and strategy.

Madiebo also has a great sense of humour. Although the events he narrated were very serious and grim, underneath them was a mischievous sense of humour. He told a story about a telephone conversation with Lt Colonel Emeka Ojukwu who was in charge in the army formation in Kano. When Ojukwu was being told of the events of the January 1966 coup, he kept saying, ”good, good, good” to every statement made to him. One could not then decipher whether he was in support of the issues being discussed with him or against.

Ojukwu, the Oxford trained historian in one of his displays of a sound knowledge of the English language, once sent a signal to Madiebo. Ojukwu in a very short message was trying to give a background to a situation that required that Madiebo take over a particular war assignment from two officers who ought to have carried out the assignment. To paraphrase him, he told Madiebo that a certain Biafran officer ”hopes” while another officer is ”hopeless.” This was Ojukwu’s way of telling him that the two officers cannot be in charge of the impending battle.

He also narrated an encounter with Frederick Forsyth, the celebrated British Broadcasting Corporation Correspondent and famous author who he frightened off from his area of operation because he didn’t know whether Forsyth was a spy for someone or a genuine sympathiser. Another funny narrative of his was how Achuzia, a civilian was given the title of a Lt Colonel by Ojukwu for his bravery during the war. But Achuzia was posturing as a full Colonel. According to Madiebo, in the military tradition, a Lt Colonel could be addressed as a Colonel although he was not a full Colonel. Achuzia was protesting that Madiebo was ”demoting” him from the rank the Head of State had bestowed on him by designating him as a Lt Colonel. Still on Achuzia, Madiebo told another story of how Achuzia, a fearless soldier went into another battle without adequate planning and lost. While trying to evolve a battle strategy, Achuzia who had grown impatient told Madiebo to stop all these ”Sandhurst” planning and allow the boys (soldiers) to fight. After the battle was lost, Ojukwu now directed Madiebo to take ”personal” charge to recover the place. And Madiebo did. I later met Ojukwu, himself, in 1994 and had a good relationship with him.

Madiebo is a foremost military tactician and strategist. He narrated how he was on a routine visit of the front lines of the Biafran war fronts before the first shot was fired and saw some young Biafran soldiers with their rifles engaged in idle chats. He reprimanded them and told them to start digging trenches to keep them busy and create a defensive strategy. When the war started shortly, it was those trenches that saved the soldiers from artillery bombardments and death.

One of Madiebo’s fascinating narratives was the ‘Abagana Ambush’ where the dreaded Nigerian commanders, Colonel Murtala Muhammed set up a convoy of ferrets, armoured vehicles, transport vehicles and hundreds of Nigerian soldiers and military stores to ”link up” Onitsha. However, the convoy was destroyed by a Biafran ambush party. Some of the arms and ammunition recovered were used by the Biafran Army that was suffering from scarcity of these military wares.

I later realised my further connection to Madiebo when l found out that he attended my school, Government College Umuahia. In his own book, ”The Last Flight: A Pilot Remembers The Airforce And The Biafran Air Attacks,” another Old Boy of my college, Capt August Okpe observed that Government College Umuahia produced 13 senior and mid-level officers in the Nigerian armed forces who later transfered their services to Biafran Armed forces at the onset of the civil war hostilities.

As the Chairman of the 2007 Dinner Committee of the Lagos Branch of the Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association Awards And Dinner night l interacted with some of these gentlemen including Lt Colonel Anthony Eze who also played a prominent role in the war. It was Eze that told me that if a complete account of the Biafran war was to be written, Ojukwu, Madiebo and himself would have to sit down together and write it. They never did.

However, anybody who wants to know why Biafra failed should read Madiebo’s book. And l think Ojukwu in many of his interviews after the ill-fated war, agrees largely with Madiebo that Igbos should not fight another war.

Madiebo also made me to develop interest in military books for which l can modestly say that l am a connoisseur. It has influenced me to the extent that l do not do anything serious without evaluating it and painting possible scenarios around it, including its outcome and potential consequences.

In conclusion, l wish to send my condolences to Madiebo’s wife, children and family. As one great philosopher said, ”If we are related, we shall meet.” I met Madiebo in several ways after l first met him in that book which my father was reading in 1980.

Njoku, a lawyer, author and political strategist, writes from Abuja.

------------------THIS DAY

Tribute To A Dogged, Selfless Environmental Lawyer, Lucius Nwosu

Lucius Nwosu

BY ALEX ENUMAH

It would not be out of place to input the saying: “He came, he saw and conquered” on legal luminary and environmentalist, late Lucius Ezeakammadu Nwosu (SAN). This is so not because of the many legal victories to his credit but the joy he brought to many Niger Delta communities, who but for the late Nwosu would have been wiped out by environmental degradation occasioned by the activities of oil companies operating in the Niger Delta.The late Nwosu is a rare gem, who like Moses, chose to suffer with the oppressed Israelites than enjoy the pleasures and fancies of the palace of Pharaoh by making the issue of environmental degradation his personal cross.

Having a father, who worked for the Shell Petroleum Development Company and one who himself worked with the oil giant while as a secondary school student, one would have expected that the fiery lawyer would have upon graduation from university, sought a juicy position in any of the major oil companies but, rather chose to be on the other side in order to fight the rising environmental and oil pollution in the Niger Delta region.

Although the light may be said to have dimmed for one of Nigeria’s respected environmental rights lawyer and philanthropist, no doubt the late senior lawyer had left his marks on the sand of times. To many, he is a true lion at the bar, whose quiet and peaceful exit was uncharacteristic of him because he was not a man of the people, egalitarian and effervescent. He cannot enter a place without people noticing. But as the Igbos would say, that is how he and his “Chi” (God) made their covenant.

 
Lucius Ezeakamadu Nwosu lived the full force of his name. He abhorred cant, and detested injustice and oppression. Born 70 years ago, he hails from Udo Ezihinitte Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State; attended St. Nicholas Primary School, Oro-Evo, Woji, Port Harcourt, Rivers State from 1958 to 1961; All Saints Primary School, Udo, Ezinihitte Mbaise from 1962 to 1963, and Mater Miseri Cordae Primary School, Rumoamasi, Obio-Akpor, Port Harcourt, Rivers State from 1964 to 1965. He was also at Our Lady Lourdes Secondary School, Ozuoba, Port Harcourt; Birabi Memorial Grammar School, Bori-Ogoni from 1966 to 1967 and Government College, Umuahia, Abia State.

 
After his secondary education, he engaged in personal studies through which he obtained his GCE ‘A’ Level and thereafter proceeded to the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus where he studied Law from 1976 to 1980. He did his Law school programme at the Nigerian Law School, Victoria Island, Lagos and was called to the Nigerian Bar in July 1981. Nwosu began working while he was still a secondary school student as he was employed as a contract staff in the Land and Legal Department of the Shell British Petroleum Company of Nigeria Limited in 1973 and in the Hydrocarbon Division of the Federal Ministry of Mines and Power, Port Harcourt from October 1975 to September 1976.

 
After qualifying as a lawyer, the late Nwosu, commenced his legal practice as a member of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in the law firm of D. A Akintoye & Co, Ilorin, Kwara State from 1981-1982. From August 1982-1986, he delved into rigorous legal practice, starting as a junior counsel at Sotonye-Denton West & Co. In August 1986, he established the law firm of Lucius E. Nwosu & Partners with the firm’s range of practice and expertise spanning tortuous hydrocarbon environmental law, bankruptcy, conversion of landed hereditaments, oil and gas law, energy, corporate law and real estate.

 
As any Port Harcourt boy, Nwosu loved the city, but was enraged by the misfortune which oil brought to the otherwise “garden city” of his birth. To his chagrin, there were no gardens left in Port Harcourt; instead, soothing now falls from the skies on everything from its polluted environment. Proximity to this environmental anomaly and tragedy compelled Lucius Nwosu to act rather than flee. F,rom then on, he devoted his legal mind to fighting for environmental justice for the helpless people of the oil rich Niger Delta.

 
As one of Nigeria’s foremost environmental law specialist and practitioner, Nwosu, over the years, applied his brilliance, doggedness, perseverance and selflessness in offering excellent legal services to his various clients and particularly to the Niger Delta communities for whom he waged many battles against environmental degradation and pollution, battles through which he often obtained reprieve for communities in the oil producing regions of Nigeria. Characteristically, he often worked for these communities on a contingency basis as he disliked placing a burden on his clients by demanding professional fees prior to rendering his outstanding professional services.

 
Amongst the remarkable cases to his credit included:1. SPDC vs. Farah (1995)3 NWLR Pt.382 where he contributed significantly to jurisprudence in the area of Heads of Claim in compensation matters.

2. Consolidated Suit Nos. FHC/PH/CS/84 & 85/94: CHIEF T. EDAMKUE VS SPDC. where he contributed significantly to jurisprudence in the area of Representative Actions and Heads of Claim in compensation matters recovered damages in torts arising from the spillage of crude hydrocarbon from the polluter for the Duboro and the Baen communities of Ogoni land. The decision of the Federal High Court was upheld by the Supreme Court and is reported as SPDC Vs Edamkue (2009) LPELR- 3048(SC).

3. Consolidated Suit Nos: FHC/CA/CS/30/98 and FHC/CA/31/98: CHIEF (HON.) SIMEON MONOKPO & ANOR VS. MOBIL PRODUCING NIGERIA UNLIMITED & ANOR. where he contributed significantly to jurisprudence in the area of trial proceedings in Civil Litigation and recovered damages in torts arising from the spillage of crude hydrocarbon from the polluter for his Ogoni and Ikot Abasi Clients. The decision of the Federal High Court was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court (SC/20/2001) where the apex court ordered a trial de novo. The suits (subsequently re-numbered as FHC/UY/CS/57 & 58/2004) were settled out-of-court as the polluter preferred not to face Lucius during a fresh trial.

4. Suit No: FHC/PH/CS/248/98 – HIS MAJESTY CHIEF (DR.) ALFRED PAPAPREYE DIETE-SPIFF & 7 ORS. vs. MOBIL PRODUCING NIGERIA UNLIMITED & MOBIL INCORPORATION OF USA where he obtained judgment from the Federal High Court and eventually recovered damages in torts arising from the spillage of crude hydrocarbon from the polluter for the Peoples of Twon Brass in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

5. Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/354/98: HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, S.O.E ARONG & 16 ORS. vs. MOBIL PRODUCING NIGERIA UNLIMITED & MOBIL INCORPORATION OF USA where he also obtained judgment from the Federal High Court and eventually recovered damages in torts arising from the spillage of crude hydrocarbon from the polluter for the people of Andoni/Ngo Clan of Rivers State.
6. Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/353/98: CHIEF M. O. JACK WILSON PEPPLE & 3 ORS vs. MOBIL PRODUCING NIGERIA UNLIMITED & MOBIL INCORPORATION OF USA for where he obtained Judgment from the Federal High Court and eventually recovered damages in torts arising from the spillage of crude hydrocarbon from the polluter for the Amanyanabo of Bonny in Council, Chiefs, Elders and people of Bonny Kingdom of Rivers State.

7. Suit No. FHC/PH/CP/11/2000 – SIR KOLOINDI ANISO & ORS. (for themselves and on behalf of the entire people of Odi Community in the Kolokuma/Opokuma LGA of Bayelsa State) vs. THE PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA & 3 ORS. Here Lucius E. Nwosu, SAN leading his learned brothers, R. A. Lawal-Rabanna, SAN and I. A. Adedipe, SAN recovered compensation from the Federal Government for the Odi community who were massacred and their community destroyed following military operations targeted at “militants”.

 
8. Suit No: PHC/1950/2007: DAGOGO WILLIAM BROWN & ORS. vs. SPDC where Lucius represented the Chiefs, Elders and entire members of Buoye Omuso Brown Major House of Finima and on behalf of His Majesty, King Edward Asimini William Dappa-Pepple, (perekule XI) The Amanyanabo of Grand Bonny, The Bonny Chiefs Council, Elders and the entire peoples of Grand Bonny and successfully got Judgment from the Rivers State High Court setting aside a Certificate of Occupancy illegally obtained by Shell over a section of the Bonny land which they have been using for their Oil Terminal operations. Shell’s Appeals from this decision through the Court of Appeals right up to the Supreme Court were dismissed and ownership of the said land reverted to the respective Bonny people.

9. Suit No. PHC/1198/2005: SPDC VS. AMADI. In this case, Lucius E. Nwosu, SAN also got Judgment from the Rivers State High Court setting aside a Certificate of Occupancy illegally obtained by Shell over a section of the Rumucheta and Rumukwurukuru Families of Mbgesilaru Town, Okporo, Port Harcourt land which Shell uses for their Residential Area along Aba road, Port Harcourt. Shell’s Appeals from this decision through the Court of Appeals right up to the Supreme Court were dismissed and ownership of the said lands reverted to the Rumucheta and Rumukwurukuru Families of Mbgesilaru Town, Okporo, Port Harcourt.

10. Suit No. PHC/321/2006: PRINCE RAY ELEWA & ANOR. VS SPDC. Here Lucius similarly got Judgment from the Rivers State High Court setting aside a Certificate of Occupancy illegally obtained by Shell over a section of the Rumuibekwe Family land which Shell uses for their Residential Area along Aba Road, Port Harcourt. Shell’s Appeals from this decision through the Courts were dismissed and ownership of the said land reverted to the Rumuibekwe people.

11. Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/434 /2012: HRH SIR (DR.) BENSON M.H. EGWENRE, JP (ORUK XV) VS. SHELL PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY OF NIGERIA LIMITED & SHELL INTERNATIONAL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION BV.In this suit, Lucius successfully represented the Ataba Community in the Andoni Local Government Area of Rivers State at the Federal High Court, obtained Judgment against Shell and her parent companies whereupon they opted to have the matter settled and the Plaintiff’s environment which they polluted, cleaned-up.

12. Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/435/2012: CHIEF PATRICK POROBUNU & ORS. vs. SHELL PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY OF NIGERIA LIMITED & SHELL INTERNATIONAL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION BV. In this suit, Lucius successfully represented the members of the Gan Zorkpa Kindred of Tekuru Island, Bodo in Gokana Local Government Area, Rivers State at the Federal High Court, obtained Judgment against Shell and her parent companies whereupon they opted to have the matter settled and the Plaintiff’s environment which they polluted, cleaned-up.

13. Suit No. FHCAB/CS/774/2011: FEDERAL INLAND REVENUE vs. NNPC & 4 Ors. In this suit, Lucius successfully represented the Federal Inland Revenue Service and Nigeria as a whole, where the International Oil Companies (I.O.C) sought through unconstitutional foreign Arbitrations, reliefs to “Stop NNPC from Lifting its Share of Oil from Nigeria’s wells till the I.O.Cs had lifted enough Oil to cover unsanctioned back taxes, and a combined claim of Ten Billion Eighty Five Million United States Dollars ( $10.85 Billion USD) ”

 
14. Suit No: FHC/PH/CS/231/2001: CHIEF ISAAC OSARO AGBARA & ORS. vs. THE SHELL PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY OF NIGERIA LIMITED & ORS. – The Ejama people’s claims for environmental pollution and remediation in this suit lasted for 30 years in various Courts in Nigeria including four Appeals to the Supreme Court by Shell and her parent companies. Lucius succeeded in obtaining compensation for the Ejama people in 2021 following the 2010 Judgment of the Federal High Court in their favour. This suit further demonstrated his long-staying abilities in the conduct of cases.

15. Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/54/2012: HRH OBONG (DR.) EFFIONG B. ARCHIANGA (JP) & 9 ORS. vs NIGERIAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION & 2 ORS. – Here, Lucius obtained the Judgment of the Federal High Court at the suit of the Ibeno Clan in Ibeno Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State people for the colossal crude hydrocarbon spills from Mobil’s facilities which devastated their homestead. The matter is on Appeal.

 
Nwosu was married to Dr. (Mrs.) Chinelo J. Nwosu and the union is blessed with five children. His hobbies included boating and travelling.