Notes On Igbophobes, Igbo-Haters And Igbomaniacs (3)

BY DOUGLAS ANELE

Douglas Anele

Concerning the serious weakness in the Igbo character that ended our discussion last week, Prof. Chinua Achebe captures it succinctly in his eponymous work, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, by affirming that as a group its success “can and did carry deadly penalties: the dangers of hubris, overweening pride and thoughtlessness which invite envy and hatred or, even worse, that obsess the mind with material success and dispose it to all kinds of crude showiness.


There is no doubt at all that there is a strand in contemporary Igbo behaviour that can offend by its noisy exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness.” This deadly character flaw has over the years led to insensate generalised hatred of Ndigbo by Nigerians from other ethnic groups, especially those who see them more as unwanted uppity competitors rather than as compatriots.

It must be pointed out that the character problem Prof. Achebe refers to can also be found amongst the Fulani, Hausa, Ijaw, Yoruba, etc. Nonetheless given the ubiquitous presence of Igbo people all over the place, their own hubris, showiness and noisy exhibitionism tend to be more noticeable, offensive and widespread.

Unfortunately many nouveaux riches of Igbo extraction like Obi Cubana and his close associates seem not to have learnt the lesson encoded in the Igbo proverb that oke soro ngwere maa mmiri, ahu koo ngwere o gaghi ako oke (if a rat plays with the lizard in the rain, if the body of the lizard dries off, the same will not be the case for the rat).

The preceding remarks points to a negative side of the Igbo character. But as a nuanced thinker Achebe also notes that in other countries an ethnic group as industrious as the Igbo would trigger healthy competition and the rebirth of achievement and learning.

Unfortunately in Nigeria “it bred deep resentment and both subtle and overt attempts to dismantle the structure in place for merit in favour of mediocrity under the cloak of a need for ‘federal character’ – a morally bankrupt and deeply corrupt form of the far more successful affirmative action in the United States.”

Accordingly, those looking for the main reason why Nigeria has become a horrible caricature of what a nation should be need look no further because, as the renowned novelist wryly remarks “The denial of merit is a form of social injustice that can hurt not only the individuals directly concerned but ultimately the entire society…whenever merit is set aside by prejudice of whatever origin, individual citizens as well as the nation itself is victimised.”

In short, all the policies meant to pull down the Igbo have boomeranged. Nigeria is now a giant with the feet of soft clay, a big-for-nothing agglomeration of peoples afflicted with a succession of some of the most selfish, incompetent and shameless leaders in the world.

The late Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, was a prominent unapologetic Igbophobe and Igbo-hater. For instance, he vehemently kicked against the sizeable number of Ndigbo in northern Nigeria and the preeminent positions they occupied in different aspects of life there.

Again the Sardauna championed some of the discriminatory policies of the First Republic that favoured northern Nigeria to the detriment of the south generally and Ndigbo in particular. Indeed, in an interview with a British journalist shortly after independence he affirms that as premier he would rather employ a foreigner than an Igbo, a fellow Nigerian, to fill any vacant position in his region simply because the Igbo, according to him, are ambitious and have a tendency to dominate others.

Apparently Ahmadu Bello was not interested in merit or in employing qualified Igbo to foster national unity. His main focus was to exclude the ‘uppity’ Igbo from being employed in the north. As we observed earlier, after the Biafran war members of the dominant faction of the northern conservative military-civilian establishment in the corridors of power continued the Sardauna’s apartheid policy against the Igbo.

For them, Ndigbo are lower class citizens that should ingratiate themselves before Fulani caliphate colonialists in order to make any headway economically and politically at the federal level. And the obnoxious quota system was a readymade tool to ensure that merit was sacrificed on the altar of “federal character” as defined and implemented by those running what Prof. Ben Nwabueze describes as the “invisible government” controlled by the northern elite.

Of course, without lowering standards it would have been virtually impossible for northerners to compete and outperform Ndigbo in various aspects of human endeavour that depend on individual initiative, creativity, industriousness and self-reliance. This is very evident especially since 1970 in the education sector where cut-off marks for admission at various levels of formal education run by the federal government are deliberately lowered to accommodate underperforming northern candidates whereas their Igbo counterparts with far better scores are denied admission.

The same discriminatory system is applied in employment into federal ministries, departments and agencies. All the same, Ndigbo have continued to play the role of primus inter pares with respect to the informal economy of northern Nigeria (and other non-Igbo majority areas) in spite of those obnoxious discriminatory policies and periodic violence targeted against them.

On the other hand aside from recent increase in the number of cattle dealers in the south-east due to deliberate pro-north policies of selfish bulimic factotums of the Fulani oligarchy like Orji Uzor Kalu, Hope Izodinma and Dave Umahi, majority of northerners in Igboland are barely managing to survive as beggars, low-grade artisans, gatemen, petty traders, okada riders and keke operators who mostly live in very squalid conditions.

Consequently if all the northerners in Igboland were to pack and relocate to their respective states, it would make a tiny mark, not a dent, on the socio-economic condition of the Igbo towns where they lived whereas if people of Igbo extraction had left the north en masse some time ago as proposed by a rag-tag collection of irascible northern youths the negative economic impact on the north would have been serious.

This claim will irritate northern Igbophobes and Igbo-haters who often shamelessly and falsely claim that Igbo people put unnecessary obstacles that prevent members of other ethnic groups from establishing and progressing in Igboland. Igbophobes and Igbo-hatersmaking such claim conveniently ignore the fact that Ndigbo living outside Igboland face even greater obstacles than the imaginary bottlenecks they are complaining about butstill continue to soldier on because of two main reasons: one, their indefatigable can-do attitude and, two, they take the concept of One Nigeria seriously.

That said, with the decades-old divisive policy of Igbo exclusion by the northern ruling cabal and their acolytes from the south now taken to a whole new level by the current nepotic administration of President Muhammadu Buhari it is time for Ndigbo to begin a critical re-examination of what it really means to be an Igbo in Nigeria.

It is probably true that majority of Nigerians from other ethnic groups are Igbophobes and Igbo-haters. This is particularly true amongst a segment of northerners who still think that having lost the civil war Ndigbo should be satisfied with whatever situation they find themselves in the country and be grateful.

IGBO POLITICS: 2023: APGA Vows To Win More Guber, National Assembly Seats In Nigeria

BY CHIJINDU EMERUWA

ABUJA (DAILY POST) The National Chairman of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), has boasted that it will win more gubernatorial and legislative seats in Nigeria come 2023 general election.

Ozonkpu Victor Ike Oye, said this in a statement forwarded to DAILY POST on Sunday, by the National Publicity Secretary of APGA, Barrister Tex Okechukwu, at the end of the enlarged meeting of the National Working Committee of the party held at its National Secretariat in Abuja.

The APGA National Chairman also reiterated that the party will spread more and even overtake other major political parties in Nigeria.

Oye said, “APGA is consistently rising, spreading all over the country as the most formidable political party giving its pacesetting antecedents in all democratic ramifications.

“Nigerian people have seen that APGA is transparent, diligent and determined to take the party to the next level, unlike other parties. They are indicating interest to join from all over the country and even from the diaspora.

“Even the defectors are full of regrets and are making frantic efforts to rescind and reverse their mischievous mistakes by decamping to APC”.

He further stated that APGA is the bride and pride of contemporary Nigeria politicians.

Oye said, “the usual sincerity and determination of all the stakeholders in the party, particularly in the immediate past election that produced Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo as governor and Dr. Ibezim as Deputy governor-elect of Anambra state respectively speaks volumes.

“Every astute politician in Nigeria particularly in the southeast has found APGA as the only political haven and are hurriedly taking advantage of that, by trying to join. Other political parties are overwhelmed with the irreversible political crisis”.

Continuing, the national Chairman further reiterated that Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State did excellently well and that Soludo will definitely do more and improve in the established legacies of Obiano’s administration in the state.

“Professor Charles Soludo stated categorically that he has contracted with Ndi ANAMBRA, and that he will bring his wealth of international and national experiences to bear in developing Anambra State, that he has resolved to make Anambra State a haven for investors and even for leisure seekers, he promised massive infrastructural development, security will be at its best, provision of jobs for the youths of Ndi Anambra, partnership with public and private sectors etc”, Oye said.

He, however, used the medium to commend the National Working Committee (NWC) and other party faithful for their unshakable and maximum cooperation since their inception more particularly during the trying times of the immediate past gubernatorial election.

According to the statement by the APGA spokesman, the National Secretary of the party, Dr. Labaran Maku, Deputy National Chairman Northern Nigeria, Adamu, the Deputy National Chairman southern zone, Chief Uchenna Okogbuo and all the national vice-chairmen and members of the APGA NWC were present during the enlarged meeting held in Abuja.

In another development, the Yobe State Executive Committee of the All Progressive Grand Alliance has honoured its national chairman, Ozonkpu Victor Oye for an excellent leadership award.

The State leadership of the party described him as a Colossus and a go-getter.

In Memoir, BU’s Louis Chude-Sokei Writes Of Navigating “Multiple Blacknesses”

BY SARA RIMER

Louis Chude-Sokei’s Nigerian father helped lead the Biafra rebellion and was killed fighting for that short-lived country in 1968, before his son turned two. His Jamaican mother set up hospitals for the wounded and airlifts for starving Biafran children. By the time Chude-Sokei was a teenager, he’d moved from a refugee camp in Gabon to a strict religious home for “left behind” children in Jamaica to the gang-ridden Los Angeles neighborhood where he and his mother eventually settled. There he lived amongst the vibrant African diaspora of his extended family—all the while hearing people tell stories of his parents, “the JFK and Jackie O of Biafra.”

Growing up, he secretly read David Copperfield and other British Victorian novels in Jamaica, became a devoted fan of David Bowie, and got good enough at football—a game he didn’t even like—to make his high school football team so he could avoid the violence of his neighborhood.

These stories and many others populate Chude-Sokei’s new coming-of-age memoir, Floating in a Most Peculiar Way (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021). These days Chude-Sokei is the director of BU’s African American Studies Program, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of English, and holder of the George and Joyce Wein Chair in African American Studies.

“This is the story of a young Black man trying to find himself in a world where he never quite seems to belong,” Ijeoma Oluo writes in the New York Times Book Review. The author is “too African for Jamaica, too Jamaican for America, too American for Nigeria,” Oluo writes.

Chude-Sokei is also editor-in-chief of The Black Scholar, ranked by Princeton as the top journal of Black studies in the United States, and an expert on the literature and music of the Black diaspora and the relationship between race and technology, from robotics to artificial intelligence, among many other subjects.

BU Today talked with him about Floating, which owes its title to a David Bowie lyric, and how in writing it he set out to reconcile the “multiple Blacknesses” of his life—Igbo, African, Jamaican, Black American—and to challenge readers to see beyond the conventional narrative of Black/white in America.

Q & A WITH LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI

BU Today: What have you been told about your father?

Chude-Sokei: Very charismatic. Good-looking, tall—really tall. Myth and romance make everyone tall. He was the titular head of the family clan and supposed to marry an Igbo woman from a titled clan. My mother, however, came from this Jamaican lower middle-class family, where she’d been taught that Africans were primitive. Yet she married an African, six weeks after they met in colonial London. And moved with him to Nigeria.

What was your sense of yourself at Jamaica’s Seventh Day Adventist Home for children, where you lived from about age four to nine, when you joined your mother in Washington, D.C.?

My goal was to be just like a Jamaican kid. Though Jamaican kids all wanted to be like African Americans we’d see on TV.

You write that when your mother was at work you would dig into her boxes stuffed with newspaper clippings about Biafra and the war and photos of your father and your godfather, who was the president of Biafra. 

Was that sort of like your first archives?

Absolutely. She worked multiple jobs as a nurse at different hospitals, and didn’t talk about the Biafra war, or the genocide. I started looking through all the boxes in the apartment trying to figure out—what is all this stuff? And I’d pull out a magazine with my godfather on the cover. Or a photo of my dad! And clippings about the plight of the Igbos and pictures of emaciated kids.

How were you starting to form your identity as a boy in Washington, D.C.?

In the same way I did in Jamaica. What’s the Blackness here? As I tell in the book, that’s when I discovered the American skin color thing by being called the “n-word” by a white kid. I didn’t know what it meant. I don’t think he knew what it meant, either, other than it’s something you say to a Black kid to make him angry. I also got insulted by an African American teacher who said Africans are an embarrassment to “real” Black people because of the post-colonial violence on the continent.

That was a moment of realizing that American racial differences are very different from what I’d known. In Jamaica there is awareness of racism and colonialism, but it’s more abstract because everybody is Black. People in positions of authority are Black, same thing in West Africa. When you come to America, you feel minority status. That status and its implications are what I began to learn.

Because I was always surrounded by immigrants, it was hard to be subsumed into the American Black/white narrative. They may have gotten on my nerves, but you could never get away from the African diaspora. Folks would sit around and drink beer and eat curry goat and there’d be the Yoruba, and the Igbo and the Jamaicans and the Trinidadians and Haitians and South Africans. It was not academic, nor was it politically correct. A lot of them thought racism was simply Black Americans complaining about America, a country these immigrants almost died trying to reach. They’re like, we just survived a genocide! Trying to argue with them about systemic or structural racism was indeed a challenge.

"We know that America by 2050 or so is going to be browner and less white. Well, Black America is going to be less traditionally Black because of Black immigrants, more of whom have arrived here over the last few decades than during the slave trade."

—Louis Chude-Sokei

Your mother tells you that you first heard David Bowie in the refugee camp in Gabon. What was it about Bowie that so mesmerized you?

It’s easy now to talk about the metaphoric alien that refuses to assimilate, or the Spaceman who decides it’s better to float than come down. But these meanings came from growing up in a Seventh Day Adventist House in Jamaica where reggae was forbidden because it was Rasta or secular. We could only listen to gospel and country and western, which is popular in Jamaica. We couldn’t listen to pop music, except when the girls would sneak in a radio and listen to the Jackson Five. But imagine if that’s your musical universe. Then you hear Bowie. To discover that much of what he was singing was essentially science fiction bolstered my interest in that genre.

Can you talk about that big turning point in high school, when you let a bunch of your neighborhood friends into the gym one night, unlocked the storage room, and they stole sports equipment? You didn’t take anything, but you were all caught and faced a disciplinary hearing.

One of many turning points. I’d also been a victim of serious violence. Friends were jailed or shot. There was a time when it was about fists and knives, but then guns began to show up. I was kicked off the football team and shunned by all the cool guys because the assumption was that I was a snitch.

That’s when I started hanging out with the nerdy kids. Some white, some not. But the white ones all loved Bowie. And were shocked by this Black kid with impeccable sports and thug credentials listening to Bowie and obsessed with sci-fi.

That period is also when I discovered, behind the gym, the college guidance counselor’s office. I was trying to figure out what’s next. I didn’t want to get killed. I didn’t want to go to jail. And I wanted to placate my immigrant family. College was the answer.

What do you hope people take away from your story?

That this is also a book about the complexities of race and racism, not the simplistic binary that is currently dominant. It is safer to reduce race to a Black-and-white debate, when there are so many other nuances and ethnic groups at work at the same time.

This is a story of someone who’s navigated that, internationally and nationally, for his whole life. When I got to college, I was already interested in this thing called diaspora, which you can’t talk about without talking about colonialism and racism, but also immigration. Of course, while learning about this, the cops are harassing my friends and me all the time. We would be pulled over and thrown into gutters, with them stepping on our backs or tossing us in jail overnight only to release us with no charges. That came from being a Black American kid around South Central LA. But amidst all of this, there is still xenophobia within the African American social world and a privileging of African American experiences over other Black or immigrant struggles.

The book is also the story of someone who knows that American notions of race and ethnicity are changing. We know that America by 2050 or so is going to be browner and less white. Well, Black America is going to be less traditionally Black because of Black immigrants, more of whom have arrived here over the last few decades than during the slave trade. Black people with different experiences of race and racism are changing the dynamics, and that is one of the most important facts about Black America today in my estimation.

As the director of African American Studies and editor of The Black Scholar—one treats American Blackness with respect and acknowledgment, because it is intellectual and politically essential to all Black thought and experiences. But at the same time, one is something else. That something else still awaits a full emergence. That’s what this book is trying to signal.


Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald, Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times, where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan.

F.C. Ogbalu: Father Of Igbo Language, Literature

BY CHIKA ABANOBI

For sure, Frederick Chidozie Ogbalu, popularly known and addressed as MaziF.C. Ogbalu while alive, was not the first person to write a book in Igbo language. For instance, there was Bishop Ajayi Crowther’s first Igbo primer, a 17-page booklet containing Igbo alphabet, words, phrases, sentences. Written in Isuama dialect (used by emancipated slaves of Igbo origin who settled in Sierra Leone and Fernando Po in the 1800s), it was published in 1859.

There was J. C. Taylor’s New Testament Bible written in Onitsha dialect of Igbo. Although Taylor, born in Sierra Leone to parents who were Igbo freed slaves, grew up speaking Igbo as his mother tongue, his translation, however, never saw the light of the day, never got published because of the disagreement that arose between him and J. F. Schön, a German CMS (Church Missionary Society) missionary and language expert who felt that the dialect was not a universally accepted one in the then known Igbo world.

There was Archdeacon Henry Johnson’s 1871 Book of Common Prayer as there was Archdeacon Thomas J. Dennis-led Igbo Language Translation Committee’s 1910 and 1913 publication, respectively, of Ije Nke Onye Kraist (the translated version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress), and Igbo Union Version Bible which later became enmeshed in controversy after being rejected by Onitsha Igbo speakers, although much of the work on it was done by Archdeacon Johnson, a Yoruba, who was a highly intelligent and versatile translator, who not only developed an advanced Igbo orthography different from the Isuama dialect but also translated into Igbo the books of Matthew and Mark; Julius Spencer (born in Sierra Leone to a Yoruba father and Igbo mother, he translated the book of Acts) and, David Anyaegbunam (an Igbo who had worked for the CMS as a catechist, he translated the book of Psalms and all of the Pauline epistles).

There was Israel E. Iwekanuno’s 1924 Akuko Ala Obosi (a 262-page historical offering written in Onitsha dialect), as there was the 1932 Pita Nwana’s Omenuko. Originally published in 1933 by Longman, Green and Co. Ltd, London, it is widely acclaimed as the first novel written in the Igbo language. Ogbalu, born in 1927, was six-years-old when this book which tells the life story of Igwegbe Odum, an Aro Igbo businessman/politician, who migrated to Arondizuogu, was published. The book came long before D.N. Achara’s Ala Bingo (written in the 1940s in the old Igbo orthography before being translated into the new in 1963). Tagged akuko aroro aro (fiction), Ala Bingo is about the various experiences of life of a chief who goes to work in one year and returns the next year. Not to forget the 53-page Ije Odumodu Jere. Written by Leopold Bell-Gam and illustrated by Uthman Ibrahim, it was published in 1966 by Longmans.

But, in terms of contribution to the development of Igbo language, culture and literature, Ogbalu towers above them all, not only by dint of his copious Igbo literary offerings but by his1949 founding of Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC), to hasten and re-invigorate the battle for Igbo language. He went to bed dreaming about the development of its language, literature and culture, and he woke up in the morning still thinking about it. He walked as much as he ran, and flew with the ideas he had about its development. And, when he breathed his last in 1990 after a fatal motor accident, he died with the dream. And, looking back at events that unfolded afterward, it will not be out of place to say that he died with the dream and the dream died with him.

Before he and his SPILC stepped in to bring some order and sanity into the chaotic scene that was Igbo orthography and language development, any mathematical figure above 400 was given an amorphous name called nnu kwuru nnu (nnu being the name that Igbo called 400 in numeracy and nnu kwuru nnu, the hundreds/figures above nnu). If a child wants to divulge a secret, he says that his mother is struggling with the door. But by dint of meticulous linguistic research that saw members of the committee traversing the length and breadth of Igboland, they came up with Igbo names for figures beyond hundred, thousand, million and even billion. And, that was how we got, in Igbo numerology, figures like nari (hundred), puku (thousand), njeri/ijeri (million) and nde (billion). They even added, for good measure, words like Mahadum (university) and ekwenti (telephone) to the burgeoning Igbo vocabulary.

At various stages of the enterprise, Mazi Ogbalu sponsored the publication of a number of periodicals in Igbo to provide forums for discussing matters of interest, and outlets for budding writers in the language. They included: Anyanwu (The Sun, the first Igbo newspaper), Onuora (The Voice of the People), Igbo Ga-Adi (Igbo Shall Live), Odenigbo (That which is Famous in Igboland) and Igbo (The Journal of SPILC).

From his prolific pen flowed out many Igbo publications, ranging from novels to poetry books, folktales/fantasy books, textbooks and journals. They include the popular Mbediogu (1975), Nza Na Obu, Dimkpa Taa Aku A hu Ichere Ya (1972), Ebube Dike (1974), Obiefula, Uwaezuoke (1976), Nmoo Nmoo, Igbo Mbu (1-6), Ilu Igbo, Omenala Igbo (1974), Ndu Ndi Igbo, Onu Ogugu Igbo (1981), Okowa Okwu (Igbo Dictionary), Junior Omenala Igbo, Ayoro (Poem for) Umuaka, Abu Umuaka (1979), Junior Igbo Course, Igbo Institutions and Culture, Okwu Ntuhi (A Book of Igbo Riddles, 1973), Mbem and Egwu Igbo (1977), Edemede Igbo, The New Practical Igbo Grammar, School Certificate Igbo (1974), Onu Ogugu Igbo, Igbo Idioms (1966), Uyoko Mbem Igbo (Anthology of Igbo Poems, 1984), Mbido Maka Umuaka Nta Akara (1977), Akwukwo Ogugu Igbo (1972).

In all, he published about 100 books, but his first child and daughter, Dr. Mrs. Elizabeth Ijeoma Jidenma, Managing Partner, Leading Edge Consulting, contends that they are probably more than that. “While he was alive, he himself did not know the number of books he wrote,” she said. “In fact, there were books he wrote that others drew his attention to after he had forgotten all about them. And, he would only remember them whenever they were mentioned, simply because he did not keep records of their publication.”

“F. Chidozie Ogbalu sometimes called the “father” of Igbo language and culture, was a lifelong teacher and champion of his Igbo heritage,” Prof. Frances Pritchett of Philander Smith College, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, observed in the introduction of her 2003 posthumous interpretation of Ogbalu’s Ilu Igbo, the Book of Igbo Proverbs into English: “He … took a great interest in the Igbo-related controversies of his time. These controversies revolved around efforts to standardise the writing and spelling of Igbo language, and to improve its numeral system.” If the two-tailed lizard is not killed, one with three tails will emerge. All lizards lie on their stomachs, so we cannot tell which has a stomach-ache. But, then, one should not use the fact that craw-craw itches to scratch himself into blindness.

Wherever a crying child points his finger, if his mother is not there, his father is. Towards resolving the controversy, Ogbalu published two seminal works,An Introduction to Official Igbo Orthography and An Investigation into the New Igbo Orthography. He also founded and developed SPILC to spearhead the fight for an appropriate Igbo orthography. It was in the course of the fight that he took the title, Mazi, in place of Mr. and ever after was to be addressed as Mazi Ogbalu. The monkey said that his eyebrows almost spoiled his beauty.

Prichett opined that the SPILC (in which Ogbalu later became its first Executive Chairman) had lofty aims, such as promoting the study and knowledge of Igbo language, sponsoring lectures, conferences, and teaching materials, encouraging young writers; and raising the consciousness of the Igbo people so that so that they would not lose sight of their cultural heritage. If someone you hate has a rash, you call it leprosy. She recalled that the SPILC seminars, “one of which I was privileged to attend in 1979” were influential in the establishment of a Department of Igbo Language and Linguistics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. “Dr. Ogbalu was able to bring together people who shared his aims, and many of them are striving to keep SPILC alive now that it has lost its great leader. In the course of his all-too-brief life, Dr. Ogbalu published a remarkable number of works that gathered and preserved Igbo oral literature.”

Ogbalu himself stated as much in his paper entitled “Problems and Prospects of Publishing in an Indigenous Language: The Igbo Experience,” presented at the 1986 conference held at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), on the development of Igbo language, culture and literature. That was seven years after the one Prof. Pritchett attended and four years before he was killed in an automobile accident.

“The story of how I got involved in publishing might throw some light on the problems and prospects of publishing in Nigerian language,” he remarked at the beginning of the presentation. “… In 1948, I remember, Rev. T.T Solaru was appointed the first Nigerian publisher (or is it manager?) in the then Oxford University Press based at Ibadan. He came to Dennis Memorial Grammar School, Onitsha, where I was serving as a tutor and delivered a lecture in which he outlined his work in that enterprise. After listening to him, I felt that the way had been opened for me to meet the challenge which my principal, Rev. E.D.C Clark, had thrown at me when I wrote a militant article in the Nigerian Spokesman on the Igbo orthography controversy.

“Rev. Clark had frowned on the article, because it was loaded with the nationalist feelings of the time, and coincided with the meeting of the Synod of the Diocese on the Niger (July 1948). He concluded his reprimand by saying that what I should have done was to produce books in Igbo to vindicate the claim that the Old (Union) Igbo Orthography was better than the New (Adam-Ward) Orthography which I had attacked strongly, rather than my getting involved in writing a newspaper article.

“There were no books in print written in Igbo except the Bible, the Hymn/Prayer Books, Azu Ndu and two or three other primers each hardly up to twelve pages: all these were in the new orthography. It is true that books like Omenuko, a translated version of John Buyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, (Ije Nke Onye Kraist), R.E. Iwekanuno’s Akuko Ala Obosi, all in Igbo, as well as Ibo Grammar and Ibo Dictionary by Rev. T.J. Spencer had been published, but they were all out of print. At least, with the exception of Pita Nwana’s Omenuko, I had not at that time come across any of them. One could see my problem as a teacher of Igbo language and why the outburst referred to above was justified.

“I decided to produce manuscripts for the publication of books that could meet my students’ needs. Unfortunately, neither Rev. Solaru’s O.U.P. nor any other publishing house would accept manuscripts in Igbo, not even Thomas Nelson and Sons, which now publishes a number of my works. In the fifties and sixties, publishers discriminated against Igbo, even though they were publishing freely in Hausa and Yoruba. As a leading official of the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture, which I founded in 1949, I did not spare them in my speeches, newspaper releases and articles. That was why, when the first publisher to appoint an Igbo editor to his staff did so, he had to write, appealing to me to minimize my attacks. The point I am making here is that because publishers (almost all of them Ibadan-based) discriminated against Igbo, I was forced into publishing.

“In 1957, I established my own printing press, the Varsity Press, in Onitsha. I was compelled to do this because of the immense delays I suffered at the hands of printers. There were also many disagreements over quality of paper and binding, typefaces (most of which were battered), outright suspension or cancellation of works already in progress without notice and regard to the fact that the deposits I paid were eked out of my meagre salary.

“The Varsity Press contributed a great deal in paving the way for me, because I could influence the quality of paper and work done and time of delivery. In fact, that printing press could have probably grown into one of Nigeria’s biggest book manufacturing and printing presses were it not that it was completely burnt and razed to the ground during the Nigerian Civil War. Woodpecker says that after his parents die he will break off the trunk of the apü tree, but after they have died, a boil grows in his mouth. It was resuscitated with a hand Adana purchased without rollers from a printer who had, before fleeing as a refugee, hidden it in the ground at Amawbia.”

The reason one chews a chewing stick is so that the ear can begin to dance. The press provided outlets for many Igbo writers who, otherwise, might have remained unpublished and unknown. In fact, some of the most successful Igbo books in different genres came out of the press. They include works like Ude Odilora’s moralist novel, Okpa Aku Eri Eri; E. Obike’s longest published Igbo epic poem, Eke Une, J. Munonye’s picaresque novel, Aghirigha, and several others. If the hand holds the spoon, the mouth is overjoyed. Tortoise says that his brothers did something good when they sewed him a coat of iron.

Born on July 20, 1927, to Michael Obiefuna Ogbalu and Elizabeth Nwamgbogo Ogbalu of Adagbe, Abagana, in Njikoka Local Government Area, Anambra State, Fred, as he was fondly called by his childhood friends, had his primary education at St. Peter’s Central School, Abagana, where he obtained the First School Leaving Certificate with distinction in 1940. Early the next year, he proceeded to Dennis Memorial Grammar School (D.M.G.S) Onitsha where, in addition to his studies, he joined the Society for Promoting African Culture (S.P.A.C), founded by a perceptive and far-sighted teacher, National Ohiaeri. It was this society which gave him some stimulating glimpses of the significance and meaning of African culture, and particularly of Igbo culture.

He later displayed a brilliant performance at the then Senior Cambridge School Certificate Examination held in November-December, 1944, where he passed in Grade 1 with what was then known as exemption from London Matriculation. That is to say, he passed at a sitting, a prescribed combination of subjects at the level required for direct admission into London University or to any other British University. The pear says that he caused the rich man to eat ashes.

On leaving the secondary school, he entered the Teaching Training College at Awka, where he obtained the Higher Elementary (Grade ID Teachers’ Certificate with a number of merits in 1946). In 1953, he obtained the then Nigerian Senior Teachers’ Certificate in Geography and History. The following year (1954), he achieved a degree of the University of London in Economics as a private candidate.

After leaving the teacher training college, he was posted to teach at Ubulukwu in present-day Delta State in 1947, later to his Alma Mater, DMGS (1948) and much later to St Augustine’s Grammar School (S.A.G.S), where in 1949, he and his friends and colleagues founded the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture (SPILC). One whose house is burning does not hunt rats. The Society was to be one veritable instrument with which he was to register most of his achievements for the language and culture of the Igbo people for the rest of his life.

“Anybody with the least acquaintance with Igbo literary history in the twentieth century will agree that from the forties up to now, and perhaps for some time to come, a huge, pervasive and perhaps infectious Ogbalu factor runs through the period,” Prof. ‘Nolue Emenanjo, remarked. For Prof. Ernest E,enyonu, “Mazi F.C. Ogbalu sowed the seeds of Igbo Language and cultural studies, and they fell on good soil.”

The corpse in the ground told the flute player that he heard him, but the clay soil would not let him get up, so wrote Ogbalu in Ilu Igbo.

Sacrificial Literary Geniuses

BY MICHAEL JIMOH

Christopher Okigbo image courtesy of The Guardian

Byron. Fitzgerald. Marechera. Okigbo. Plath. Shelley. They were all great writers who died young, some in their twenties, thirties, only one making it past forty. They were all dreamers, idealistic, adventurous and most often geniuses but sometimes unmindful of their private lives. What is it with these writers who seemed to have been destined to die young? Michael Jimoh writes on some of the world’s famous writers who died prematurely.

In August 1967, a 34-year-old Nigerian poet in battle fatigues and armed with his regulation rifle went to the warfront hoping to realise his compatriot’s dream of a free Republic of Biafra.

Three months before, on May 30 in the same year, Lt Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had carved out Igbo-dominated Eastern Region from the Federal Republic of Nigeria leading to the 30-months civil war.

Christopher Okigbo is Igbo by birth, born on August 16, 1932 at Ojoto in modern day Anambra state. At the start of the hostilities, he was teaching at Ibadan, capital of Western Region and an outstanding poet in the continent. With war drums sounding ever louder, Okigbo promptly relocated to the East and volunteered to fight in the Biafra Army.

Only days short of his 35th birthday, he was shot and killed in the battlefront by federal troops at Nsukka.

Of course, the federal soldiers didn’t know who he was or, perhaps, if they knew they didn’t care. To them, he was just one of the rebel enemy soldiers fighting as a secessionist in the newly declared Republic of Biafra.

Thus was the life of an otherwise brilliant career of one of Nigeria’s most promising poets cut short.

What might have been if the clarinet-playing, pipe-smoking, accomplished poet had lived much longer, up to sixty, say, seventy or even eighty? Those of his generation who did, Achebe, Clark and Soyinka were richly rewarded – a Booker, a Nobel and other highly regarded international and national prizes – for their works.

Okigbo himself had set the pace by becoming the first poet laureate in Africa after he was awarded first prize in the 1966 Festival of the Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. He turned it down, insisting that writers should not be classified according to race or ethnicity. Writing, he famously said then, “must be judged as good or bad, not as a product of a specific ethnic group or race.”

If he had lived longer, it is doubtful if Okigbo would have been counted out of the bigger and more prestigious prizes. Indeed, literary theorists and historians have proposed that Okigbo would certainly have been one of the early candidates for the Nobel in Literature – and with good reasons.

Okigbo already had a well-fostered reputation as one of the leading poets of his time. His productive output was going swimmingly, like the Idoto River flowing steadily in his birthplace. He would have added some more publications to the already existing ones considering his creative output in his brief existence: Heavensgate (1962,) Limits two years later and Silences the following year.

Starting off as a librarian at University College, Ibadan, where he sated his voracious appetite for reading, he contributed poems to Black Orpheus and was West Africa editor of Transition, a literary magazine. His star as a literary heavyweight was clearly ascending.

But the call to patriotic duty put an end to all that. Okigbo was only 34 when he died.

Another writer who also died prematurely, though not in the course of fighting a war except battling his own demons, was the Zimbabwean, Charles William Dambudzo Marechera, born on June 4, 1952 in Vengere township of Zimbabwe then known as Rhodesia.

Dambudzo had a hardscrabble early life but was a gifted child, a special endowment that will take him to privileged institutions such as the only Catholic school for students like him and then New College, Oxford England.

Spotting short dreadlocks long before it became faddish among young men and women all over the world today, Marechera was as gifted as they come but was also reckless and without restraint in his personal life.

Departing Africa for Europe on a scholarship, Marechera tried to remember what he left behind at home, recalling that “I suddenly remembered that I had, in the rude hurry of it all, left my spectacles behind. I was coming to England literally blind…I was on my own, sipping whisky and my head was roaring with a strange emptiness…I think that I knew then that before me were years of desperate loneliness, and the whisky would be followed by other whiskies, other self-destructive poisons.”

A confirmed non-conformist weighed under the burden of colonial rule with all its segregationist laws, Marechera never really outgrew his disenchantment with the Western world and all that it represented. His “Dambudzo Performance” wherein he suddenly snapped at an award night in his honour at The Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979 is the stuff of legend.

The year before, he had written and published House of Hunger, considered the Bible of visceral literature, an unvarnished creative piece straight out of his guts aptly dubbed “gut-rut.”

Like Okigbo did in Dakar eleven years before, Marechera became the first African writer ever to win The Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. Publishers in Europe (England and Germany) breathlessly anticipated future masterpieces from him. They never came. Parceled off from London, Marechera found his way to Cardiff, Wales, where many more whiskies followed.

It was while in Wales that a vicar in Cardiff who witnessed, firsthand, Marechera’s constant inebriety wrote to his publisher James Curry of his concern about the Zimbabwean writer. “I would doubt if Mr. Marechera will be alive for very much longer – he hardly eats and only drinks.”

It turned out to be quite prophetic. On his return to his natal country, Marechera pub-crawled shebeens there, wrote there, slept there and became destitute before dying of complications from AIDS in 1987 at 35.

Writers dying prematurely isn’t quite a novelty. Why it is so is not exactly clear. Could it be a date with destiny? Or just plain carelessness on the writer’s part?

No one exemplifies this more than Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was a month shy of his 30th birthday when he drowned in his own sailing boat, Don Juan, in the Gulf of Spezia Italy.

Could the boat accident have been prevented or was it a death foretold? The answer to both questions is yes.

In the late afternoon of July 8, 1822 Italian port authorities had warned the poet and two companions of a possible foggy weather when he set sail from Lerici to Livornio. Apparently, the poet’s wanderlust got the better of him.

As for the second question, Shelley himself had foreseen his possible demise upon the waters of Italy. In his celebrated poem, “Adonais,” Shelley writes that “The breath whose might I have invoked in song/ Descends upon me; my spirit’s bark is driven,/ From the shore, far from the trembling throng/ Whose sails were never to be Tempest given;/ The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!/ I am borne darkly, fearfully afar…”

In a publication by The Guardian of London of January 23, 2004, Richard Holmes looked into the circumstances surrounding the death of Shelley and concluded that the “sudden tragedy set a kind of sacred (or profane) seal upon his reputation as a youthful, sacrificial genius.”

Also considered “a youthful, sacrificial genius” was the untimely death of Shelley’s contemporary, rival, friend and compatriot, Lord George Gordon Byron, an unrepentant, unapologetic sybarite. He was born privileged, a lord, in January 22, 1788 in London. Gifted beyond measure, Byron’s personality and poetry would capture the imagination of Europe for years, culminating in his teaming up with the Greek nationalist fighters where he died of fever.

In March 1812, Byron’s first canto – Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage – was published to wide acclaim and reception, prompting one critic to comment that the poet “woke to find himself famous.”

Published in 1819, Don Juan, for which Shelley’s skiff was named, even had more public reception and appeal. Byron’s popularity rose correspondingly all over Europe. His scandalous relationships with men and women rose almost in equal degrees, famously fathering a child with his half-sister.

At this stage in his career and personal life, Byron was having the time of his life despite being hobbled by a clubfoot. It didn’t stop him from traipsing or boating across Europe, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and then Greece where, in his bid to aid the Greeks gain independence from Turkish rule, Byron died of fever in Missolonghi on April 19, 1824. He was just thirty-six.

Across the Atlantic from England, the United States of America has had its own share of gifted writers biting the dust early. The most famous instance is none other than Francis Scott Fitzgerald himself, famous for The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, This Side of Paradise, etc.

If there was one gifted writer who had the greatest potential to become great among his contemporaries, Fitzgerald was it. He counted among his close friends Earnest Hemingway, Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos. Born September 24, 1896 in Saint Paul Minnesota, Fitzgerald showed early promise in school before proceeding to Princeton where he became a prominent member of literary and dramatic societies.

Not unlike much gifted individuals without much focus on academic life, he soon left Princeton, joined the army and then started penning short stories. Initially, success as a writer eluded him until he published the immortal The Great Gatsby in 1925. Fitzgerald worked for some time as a script/ screen writer in Hollywood, mainly for cash. He was always broke and part of the reason was his extravagant lifestyle, a lifestyle he shared ostentatiously with his wife, Zelda Sayre. They were also great imbibers, with Fitzgerald depending on the bottle more and more as his creative output declined/ waned. He himself would later claim in an interview of the “crack up” he suffered because of his needless indulgence.

Fitzgerald died four days before Christmas in 1940 at 44.

The lone, famous woman among the sacrificial geniuses of literature remains Sylvia Plath, tortured poet, short story writer, novelist and spouse of Ted Hughes, a much senior colleague and fellow poet. They were married briefly for six years, a union that was mostly tempestuous with Plath complaining of abuse by Hughes.

Despite that, Plath produced enough literary works to have been awarded the Pulitzer posthumously for The Collected Poems. She also wrote her most famous work, The Bell Jar. A gifted poet, Plath is credited with beginning a new genre of poetry called the confessional poem. She was born a Bostonian on October 27, 1932 and went to prestige schools like Smith College in her natal city and then Newnham College, Cambridge in England.

Though an American, Plath lived with Hughes in England for some time. She died there on February 11, 1963. She was a mere 30.

It must be said that Plath herself suffered bouts of depression through much of her adult life, occasioned sometimes by the loss of a loved one like her father after he died, and her disappointment at failing to meet and speak with Dylan Thomas, a celebrated poet, at a literary soiree once.

What did Plath do to herself afterwards? She “slashed her legs to see if she had the courage to kill herself.” After several unsuccessful attempts at suicide, Plath finally did take her life by gassing in her kitchen oven.

So, propelled by self-destructive forces, the environment in which they lived or circumstances surrounding them, nearly all of the writers above presented themselves as sacrificial geniuses on the altar of literary creativity.

Besides, a Nigerian novelist, poet, dramatist and senior journalist, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, has a word or two on the possible reasons for their abridged lives.

“Highly talented people,” Uzoatu began by telling THEWILL, “who achieved fame early enjoyed something of a blessing in disguise in dying early because most of their latter works becomes a parody of their earlier ones. A typical example is William Wordsworth. He lived so long that critics said he had the longest decline in English literature. Back home, someone like Okigbo, because he died early people like to remember him as a genius. But if he had lived longer people would not like to see him as a plagiarist because he plagiarized so much. Because he is dead, people will just remember the ideal.”

Continuing, Uzoatu gave the example of Johnny Rotten of the rock band The Sex Pistols who said: “Live fast, die young and have a fine corpse.”

English Prof. Chris Abani Talks About Identity And Language In His Memoir ‘The Face’

BY KATHERINE MCDONNELL 

English Prof. Chris Abani, director of NU’s Program of African Studies, discussed his memoir “The Face: Cartography of the Void” on Friday as part of the Global Lunchbox speaker series.

A Nigerian-American author, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright, Abani uses many forms of literature to produce pieces with unique themes and genres. At the event, he said language can create and shape identity.

“Everything is a story, a narrative,” Abani said. “Language is the first and most powerful technology ever invented by humans.”

Abani said his experiences with Nigerian and American cultures and languages inform his stories. His understanding of other languages, like Igbo, helps him write pieces that go beyond individual genres, he said.

Igbo culture also helps Abani view narratives in a sense larger than the self, he said.

“In Igbo, you are not just yourself, but a cosmology,” Abani said. “When you greet someone, you greet them and the cosmology –– being the stories –– that follows them around.”

Writing, as Abani sees it, is a continuum. He said writers cannot settle on a single place or genre if they want to accurately capture the nuances of stories and characters.

Mentorship is the key to understanding this complex relationship with self and the stories that make up the world around us, he said.

Abani advised others to approach mentorship through apprenticing yourself to your craft — learning from those who came before you and creating as much as you can. Mentorship helps point people in the right direction, he added, and create answers for themselves rather than finding answers from others.

“Storytelling at its core is an expanding archive of human knowledge, of human consciousness,” Abani said. “Mentorship is really about helping someone get to where they want to go, rather than telling them where to go.”

Danny Postel, an administrator for the Global Lunchbox speaker series, said Abani’s works are more than works of literature, but an analysis of language and identity.

“Abani’s memoir is an exploration of the very nature of identity,” Postel said.

Postel said the Global Lunchbox speaker series are a great opportunity for students and faculty to connect with scholars of all fields. The events, which highlight research from social scientists on global issues, take place every Friday.

Ian Hurd, the event’s moderator, said a unique part of Abani’s work is his ability to tap into the core of what it means to be human.

“Being human — it’s about telling stories,” Hurd said.

And Abani looks to explore cultural intersections throughout his life in his stories. He said his memoir expands on his ideas about the cross-sections of language, identity and culture.

He added that an important part of his writing process is being willing to make mistakes. Failure has led Abani to his newfound understanding of how storytelling functions at a greater level, he said.

“Failure is an integral part of the process,” Abani said. “If you’re not failing, you’re not doing anything interesting.”

Hairstory As History: Nkemdiche: Obiora Nwazota’s Quest To Bring Igbo Culture Into Our Contemporary Lifestyle

BY MICHAEL WORKMAN 

CHICAGO, IL (NEW CITY DESIGN) This sumptuously designed and illustrated volume by Obiora Nwazota and his team is bound like a children’s book, but is also a designed art object in its own right. Presented as a social “hairstory” folktale, it telescopes and uses the value and sacredness of hair in traditional as well as contemporary Black and brown cultures to thread a well-imagined conceit of the bearded women of Igboland. It’s a place also known as modern-day Nigeria where, in this alternative timeline looking back onto a practice that never existed, the women would languish beneath the Udala trees, “grooming their beards” while they “swapped stories and exchanged juicy gossip.”

Made with a clear objective to evoke the ancient dignity and nobility of African cultures that existed before the wretched history of the global slave trade, the book goes beyond the goal of a modern vision of a people and culture that often gets reduced in masscult depictions to that of Black oppression and suffering. “The physical design of the human being doesn’t go out of style,” Nwazota says. “All of a sudden, it opens up when you’re investigating any of these things, if you come at it for the purity of what it is, it’s equally as modern as it is old.”

“Nkemdiche” is published by Ọkpara House, whose stated mission is to reclaim and assert the “relevance of Igbo culture on contemporary lifestyles within and beyond the Igbo community,” and the production crew behind the volume has adroitly integrated their efforts to produce a cohesive, moving and visually literate art object. Nwazota, a co-founder of Chicago’s celebrated Orange Skin boutique, and a longtime Igbo culture booster, has conjured this sweeping folktale, in a way that is moving for adults, but likely to spark in a profound way the childhood imagination about people and places otherwise poorly represented in the children’s literature of the States. Told alongside illustrations by Paris-born Chicago artist Lucie Van der Elst, the images are rendered in bold, solid collage-style colors, often integrating traditional Igbo fashions and textural designs, punctuated with bursts of fragmented imagery and rich, deep black skin tones that recall a Kerry James Marshall canvas, while also binding the visual narrative as the story progresses, illuminating it marvelously.

Asked about the idea to make this volume into a design object in and of itself, Nwazota describes his efforts to visualize African culture in an immediate and corrective way. “It was very intentional in the sense that, having explored the things from that era—okay? The normal idea of the imagery, the African imagery, when we see Africa—normally, it’s safari, it’s conflict, all that funniness. But when you think about African culture, you are thinking about masks, you are thinking about people maybe running half-naked with token animals like a giraffe or lion, and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, that is not how we see ourselves.’ So, if you’re going to also talk about that same period, the way we see ourselves—that is what I wanted to capture in the design, the nobility of the same era. I wanted something as timeless but also filled with curiosity, but a curiosity you could actually identify with. In the same way you can get on a plane and the next day have a baguette in Paris, I wanted to show in this same way this thing where everything is so traditional and different but at the same time you can relate to it somewhat. So I think that is what’s very present in the book.”

It’s also notable how well the body text itself integrates the cultural background of its subject matter, as rendered by Mark Jamra and Neil Patel of Portland Maine’s JamraPatel studio, who set it throughout in Kigelia, “the first system of fonts for the most prominent writing systems in Africa.” Lyon-based Thomas Huot-Marchand’s 205TF studio’s display type flows seamlessly throughout, while Chicago’s Nick Adam and Bud Rodecker’s Chicago-based Span studio have brought it lovingly together in their typesetting and halting cover design.

“Nkimdeche” is what is known as an instant classic, the first in a series planned by Nwazota to fill a long-simmering void in children’s literature to portray the life and worlds of Black and brown people. If this slim, important and mighty little design object of a tale doesn’t deserve a Caldecott Medal, none do.

“Nkemdiche: Why We Do Not Grow Beards,” written by Obiora Nwazota with illustrations by Lucie Van der Elst, Ọkpara House ($23), hardcover. For more information and to order, please visit OkparaHouse.com.

Michael Workman

Michael Workman is an artist, writer, dance, performance art and sociocultural critic, theorist, dramaturge, choreographer, reporter, poet, novelist, curator, manager and promoter of numerous art, literary and theatrical productions. In addition to his work at The Guardian and Newcity, Workman has also served as a reporter for WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, and as Chicago correspondent for Italian art magazine Flash Art. He is currently producing exhibitions, films and recordings, dance and performance art events under his curatorial umbrella, Antidote Projects. Michael has lectured widely at universities including Northwestern University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and The University of Illinois at Chicago, and served as advisor to curators of the Whitney Biennial. His reporting, criticism and other writing has appeared in New Art Examiner, the Chicago Reader, zingmagazine, and Contemporary magazine, among others, and his projects have been written about in Artforum, The New York Times, Artnet, The Financial Times, The Huffington Post, The Times of London, The Art Newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Art In America, Time Out NY, Chicago and London, The Gawker, ARTINFO, Flavorpill, The Chicago Tribune, NYFA Current, The Frankfurter Algemeine, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Village Voice, Monopol, and numerous other news media, art publications and countless blog, podcast and small press publishing outlets throughout the years.

2023: Challenges Of The South East

BY SUNNY IKHIOYA

(VANGUARD) Every human being or society has the natural propensity to be wicked and violent, if the enablements for peace and stability are not in place, but is the recourse to violence the answer to these challenges? Will this be the answer to the much marginalised situation that the Igbos of the South east have faced since the end of the civil war in 1970?

When the Russian communist revolution took place in 1917, ending centuries of imperial rule and setting into motion political and social changes that led to the formation of the Soviet Union, the world took notice.

What Karl Marx, the philosopher predicted in 1848, had come to pass. His thesis was that capitalism would inevitably self-destruct, and would be replaced by socialism and ultimately communism.

According to Ernest W Adams, “Britain, like the United States, was never quite as oppressive towards its peasants and industrial working classes as some of the other nations of Europe were.

“It was bad, make no mistake, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad to be a British peasant, as it was to be a Russian peasant under the czars. And, Britain made a number of important reforms that took the wind off the sails of the most extreme revolutionaries. The UK offered universal male suffrage in 1918, undoubtedly in part to recognise the sacrifices of so many men in the first world war, but, also in response to the Russian Revolution.”

In other words, in places where peasants were well treated, there was the least likelihood of a people’s revolution and vice-versa. When you look at the regions and countries with the highest rate of terrorism in the world today, they are places where the peasants, the ordinary folks have been left on their own; no food, no proper education and other basic needs.

They include Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, northern Nigeria, among others. The common trend is of a people who have been abandoned by their governments and so, they fall easy prey to religion and ideological doctrines. They see themselves as those with nothing to lose.

In the French revolution, at least four of the top ten leaders (Jacques Pierre Briscot, Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine and Georfes Danton), all were executed through the guillotine, the same instrument that they had used to eliminate so many of their rivals.

What does this tell us? We must learn from history and never allow past mistakes to be repeated. Happenings in the South east are not ideal for development and progress of the people in that section of the country.

The leadership in that region must put heads together and pull their people, from the trap that their youths are presently encircling them in. It is a no win situation for them, especially if people from other parts of the country are not keying into their methodology.

The whole world knows that by all standards of fairness, the Igbo of the South east deserves to be President of the country, come 2023, but how this will materialise depends on the Igbos. Every Igbo man is pan Nigerian, and has his kith and kin cut across the length and breadth of the country, which gives him a networking advantage.

They have the resources to make this happen but need to do this in humility and with respect for their fellow Nigerians. That hubris, that pride and arrogance must be subdued, that feeling of ‘I am the best,’ must be totally expunged from their mindset. The spirit of ‘I’, instead of the ‘we’ must be cleared, while the feeling of force over dialogue must also not come into play. That is why they must reexamine their strategies.

Politics is a game, if you do not play it right, you will continue to end up on the losing side. I am not a fan of Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, director of publicity and advocacy of the Northern Elders Forum, but I totally agree with him that bringing the presidency to the South will not be by force. If you are to go by force, it will no longer be a democracy. We must decide on what we wish to practice.

It is also noteworthy that, while the Igbos are flexing muscles, they have not really narrowed down on the list they want to pick their presidential candidate from. While they continue with their belligerence against themselves and the world, supporters of Bola Ahmed Tinubu are already doing underground work, lobbying and campaigning to make their candidate become the next president.

You do not sow yam and expect to reap corn, you must work hard, plan and adopt the right strategies. Identify the weak areas and collectively agree on what path to follow. As it is now, it will seem as if Igbo leaders are waiting to ride on the notoriety of IPOB, to become popular candidates.

The ones that have been bold enough to tell the truth are being hunted down and threatened, others are keeping quiet, including governors of the region. They are not able to come out with a working security outfit, like the South west have done. We must try to build a united country that is free from unnecessary ethnic and religious sentiments.

History has shown that the Azikiwe-Awolowo division/betrayal was inspired by the British. If you have listened to the testimony of Mr. Smith, a Briton who witnessed it all in Nigeria, Azikiwe was blackmailed by the British into that alliance with the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, not withstanding the fact that Zik by nature was a pan Nigerian.

Ordinary folks have been made to fight this imaginary war over the years. The achilles heel of the Igbos is the tendency to assert their superiority through bullying in whatever form, the same way some of the Fulanis are doing now that they are in control of leadership of Nigeria. We must all remember the fact that, no empire lasts forever. No matter how good, everything is dependent on time, circumstances and chance.

This is the chance for the South east but will they take it? Some have said that, even if the presidency is zoned to the South east on a platter of gold, they will not be able to produce a candidate, because it will be impossible for them to agree on one among themselves.

The South had only come this far in the pursuit of the 2023 ticket, because of the strong leadership that Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has provided for the southern governors forum. Even within this forum, you can see the South east governors dragging their feet. Let us see if they will prove us wrong.

Ikhioya wrote via www.southsouthecho.com

Owerri (Owere), Where Three Is A Crowd

BY FRANK MEKE 

OWERRI (SUN NEWS ONLINE) There’s something magical about Owerri, capital city of landlocked Imo State. This magical expression is about the people, so simplistic, accommodating and loving.

Ofe owere, the most expensive culinary identity and hospitality offering of the people, is the most popular soup in Igboland. Yes, there are other Igbo soups, ofe owere, a soup named after the gregarious indigenous people of owere, ranks number one within the town and outside.

In this town, which could be likened to Las Vegas, hotels and hospitality outfits abound. It is indeed an economy and industry.

Sadly, regulation and enabling environment for its sustainability are hugely lacking, coupled with poor penetration to the rural areas, where culture of the people hold sway.

From ngba (traditional wrestling), football competitions, traditional marriage, women, youths and men meeting (umunna, ndi Ada, ndi nne na nna), it is usually a coalition of colours and tongues, celebrating the return of sons and daughters who left home to greener pastures, and came back home to rejoice with expectant relations.

Over the years, that is how we roll across the East. Most us born outside this clime, take time to mingle. The love of relations, aunties and uncles were worth looking forward to.

I love the pounded yam of my mother’s people, with the oha soup delicacy. The village to village masquerade dance, the football games and the entertaining umu ada dances and xtmas choir.

Oh dear, Owerri, the soul of Igbo nation appears buried. The politicians have destroyed the heritage and culture of the people. The good old days of holidaying and visiting Owerri is gone and is like a dream.

We watch the known and unknown gun men steal our peace. An average owere man or woman, hates violence. It is taboo, to speak or generate violence in Owerri land.

It is a sacrilege to fight on days of celebration, it offensive not to love your neighbors and relations. To disturb the peace of palm wine and ogba mingled with stock fish, loving Owerri man, is to offend the gods. To frustrate the sharing and expression of hospitality to visitors, is to get the owerri man, to report you to Amadioha.

There no peace in owerri land today. It is not the making of the people. We went to bed and allowed the enemies to invade our once peaceful land.

We are like conquered people. Harassed daily by strange faces, both known and unknown. It’s even more painful that supposed known gun men, the security agents are now at behest of making the poor and innocent uncomfortable.

The fearless and outspoken but hospitable owerri person cannot move around the city without daily encounter with strange men in and out of uniform. Check points turned to points of untimely death now stir the people in the face.

Heavily hooded security agents now replace our masquerades. Police stations now turned village squares where the innocent and simplistic are put on judgement seat.

It is an offense to ride with friends and family around owerri. Three is a dangerous number and a crowd. No mercy for the tradition and culture loving owerri man.

There are now boundaries everywhere, some local areas, are profiled and if you dare, reveal your affinity, it is God that can save you.

Daily, strange and disturbing news of harassment of indigenes and their visitors abound. As much as one acknowledges that this is not best of time security wise across the country, it is benumbing to hear of tales of strange blanket condemnation of the innocent.

I recall an encounter of Borno state governor, Professor zulum with security agencies who he upbraided for subjecting innocent travellers on Maiduguri road to hardship

No doubt the lives of our security persons Matter and their sacrifices appreciated, it’s however unacceptable to chase innocent out of their homestead or to generate unbridled bitterness, inimical to return of peace to a land and its hospitable people, traumatized by senseless unknown gun men.

Can two people do anything meaningful except they agree? Do you secure a place without the people? In other places where there security challenges, it is apt and desirable to woo the people, unfortunately the reverse is the case in Nigeria.

To most of our security operatives, the road blocks are opportunities to drive the people away, label the innocent and punish those who ordinarily if well treated as fellow citizens deserving of dignity, would have assisted with information and tips to nab the nefarious in our midst.

The situation across the once peaceful eastern states not just Owerri alone, is sad. The fearful militarization, portend return to anarchy.

The people are not safe not because there are no presence of security persons but because between the unknown and known gun men, there exists a huge deep blue sea divide.

Significantly, the government of Hope uzodinma, seems unmoved by the overzealousness on the part of the security agencies. And for a government that depends more on diaspora investment, to allow imolites to go through this molestation, won’t help the hunt for the unknown gun men.

I should think that the Igbo nation has enough traditional engagement processes and platforms that can arrest the violence and help the speedy restoration of peace in Imo state.

Like many other Owerri persons, the village is no longer attractive as a destination for physical and spiritual reinvigoration. From covid 19 pandemic, now to a security lockdown, Owerri is a hard sell for holidays and recreation.

And for the love of Ofe Owere, it is wise to save your life, family and friends and watch your movements if you must visit owerri during the festive season and after.

Let me advice, if you must visit. Don’t argue with any man with a gun, respect security agents if accosted, no shouting, no finger pointing. If you are drunk, stay home. Hold seriously to your temper, bear the humiliation and walk away if allowed to go.

Don’t go grandstanding with your” mint car” and naira notes. The security agents are human and not all are free from the temptation of the flesh.

Don’t turn the check points to lecture room on English language, speak Igbo if the officer understands, and if he is not Igbo speaking, dialogue in low voice in pidgin English. Avoid night movements and parties. Sleep wherever the night meets you.

Don’t push your luck for a dead man is a dead man. If you allow yourself to be killed, there are still thousands of unresolved accidental killings across the country.

If you ask me, please stay away. There are many xtmas celebrations ahead. Is someone out there, reading this? It is no dream, at least you can wake up safely from a dream but you cannot wake up if you are shot dead simply because you cannot read or interpret the signs of the season.

INTERVIEW: Cheluchi Onyemelukwe, Winner, Nigeria Prize For Literature

Cheluchi Onyemelukwe functions as a writer, lawyer, law lecturer at Babcock University and gender advocate, but it’s her literary genius that is making waves at the moment. Early this November, she was announced as the winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by Nigeria LNG, with her novel, The Son of the House. Also the winner of the 2019 Sharjah International Book Fair prize, and the SprinNG Women Authors Prize, her novel was equally nominated for the Giller Prize in 2021. HENRY AKUBUIRO chatted with her on her latest feat and her flourishing writing career.

It has been a wave of validations, rave reviews and publishing contracts from across the globe for your book, The Son of the House. Did you see all this coming?

(laughs) How can anybody see this coming, especially when you had experienced years of rejections? You probably hoped there would be people who would read the book and enjoy it. But the kind of back-to-back good things that have happened to this book, I wouldn’t say I was expecting them, though I had a feeling it was a good book. Maybe if it had been published when I wrote it, it wouldn’t have attracted the same attention.

When did you write it?

I wrote the first draft in 2013. I sent it out for four years before it was accepted for publication. But it wasn’t until in 2019 that it came out, followed with rave reviews and other good things back to back. It has been very exciting.

What encounters —physical, spiritual or scribal —that aided your journey as a writer?

I was raised in an environment where books and stories surrounded me. Those were my first encounters. My parents —my dad in particular —really enjoyed books. He would give me books. We had a lot of books to read. So that made me think I could be a writer. Then I would write short stories when I was in secondary school, and people would enjoy them. But when I went to study law, it kind of diverted me, though I knew I would always come back.

In those early days you were penning short stories, did you ever think you were going to be a consummate creative writer? When did you start taking writing seriously?

I have always taken writing seriously. I have now written a law text, articles, and all that, but my primary goal of being a writer was writing fiction. I have always written fiction. I wrote some poems in university, but my main genre has always been prose.

How close to reality is your award winning novel, The Son of the House, in the Igbo and Nigerian societies? Are there specific social contexts that inspired this novel?

I wanted the novel to be a realistic depiction of the context in which I grew up, whether you are looking at people having health issues in their homes, sometimes not being treated well; whether you are looking in terms of the different plot lines I have in my book, which are imaginatively created from a genuine background. Igbo communities are different in terms of how they approach certain things. But what I describe in my book I have heard people say to me was what happened to somebody that they knew, and things like that. I wanted it to be deliberately rooted. It was very brave for it to be rooted in the cultures of certain communities in Igboland and their understanding of the dynamics of living in those areas.

Which of the characters in the novel gave you the most challenge, and at what time did you finally say, “Yes, this is it? I got it.”

(laughs) I honestly think I have different challenges with different challenges with different characters. With Nwabulu, for example, having lived the life she did, one of challenges I had was depicting her realistically without making her too much of a pitiful character, realising she still has elements of urgency. So finding that balance of not being so melodramatic while still invoking feelings in the reader that I wanted was something I had to find. I remember sending the manuscript to an agent who said he felt that sense of place and really wanted to feel more of that character, and I understood what he was saying, because that was a struggle that I had to present to her in a full-fledged form. You see her and you see a human being who’s struggling but still has some power.

With Julie, it was more of getting away from Nwabulu really. I had to take a little break to put on my thinking cap. Her character is interesting and in a sense rootless. She invokes some kind of sympathy in the reader. She makes some choices, and you look at her and say, “How do we look at her? Maybe if I were in her shoes, I would have done the same.”

Did you at any point feel like stopping the story out of frustration or distraction?

I didn’t at any time feel like stopping the book. The reason was that I already had books that I stopped before then (laughs). So I was determined to get till the end, even if it never went anywhere. There were parts of the story that were easy and other parts that were difficult, but I was determined to get till the very end. And when I did, I was very happy. It still had to undergo a lot of changes from the first draft till the time it finished.

How long cumulatively did it take you to write the book?

It took me maybe 18 months to write. Initially, it took me about a year to write and I took some time off and did some significant rewriting over a period of six months.

What was at the back of your mind the night before the Nigeria Prize for Literature?

(laughs) As a person of faith, I had prayed about it. I was also well aware that the other competitors that I was up against were good, and it could go either way. So I needed to come to a place of peace where, regardless of how it went, life would go on and my writing would go on. I exercise every evening, so the night before, I exercised and did a bit of what we call prayer walk. I actually felt good. Incidentally, the following day, the day of the announcement, one of the first alerts I saw on my phone was the Sharjah prize that I won some time ago. I strongly felt it was an omen, for it was given exactly the same day two years ago — you know how Google Photos brings up your memories, and I said, “Wow, this is going to be interesting!” (laughs).

You have won the Nigeria Prize for Literature, joining a long list of winners, and we all know 100,000 dollars doesn’t come cheap anywhere in the world. What do you consider the most important thing NLNG has done with this annual prize?

One of the most important things it has done is providing support for writers. I know people like to talk figuratively, but maybe because I am a lawyer, I say it as it is. Practically, many of us have made little or nothing from writing in terms of money. So giving that support, even if one never gets anything, is something to be appreciative of. Beyond that, the validation the prize gives is something to relish, because other good writers have submitted their entries, and you have been chosen as a winner, there is a certain validation that it gives to you. I don’t know any writer who writes primarily for a prize, for it can go anywhere. You may even keep coming second each year without winning it, and everybody knows you are good. I can see the prize even doing more for writers if we continue to push it.

Are you thinking of giving back to society? How do you intend to spend this money? Hope it’s not going to be the case of winner-takes-all?

(laughs) How does one answer that question? I have mentioned it before, but I will repeat it for this audience: I am really thinking of doing something for younger writers from 18 to early 30s. At that age bracket, you would like to encourage people and tell them that there is a place to go. I haven’t fleshed out the ideas, but, in the coming months, I will do that, whether it is a small grant, something that encourages one to keep thriving.

In your writings, are you always guided by feminism, because there is a criticism which has gained currency over time that many female Nigerian writers always write from that perspective, even with the passage of time? If you look at the trials of Nwabulu and Julie in the hands of a wicked, male controlled society, we get a déjà vu.

(laughs) I can imagine while many people say that —that female writers tend to write from that perspective. I think there is still a lot that needs to improve in the crusade for gender equality in Nigeria. So you can’t leave your constituency and start talking about every other thing. From many female writers, they come from personal experiences —what they see around them. When I was younger, I was thinking I was going to succeed from the same platform as boys. I think I have tried to do that in my various fields. But we can’t get out of the fact that there are some things we need to address from the experiences you have had as a woman in Nigeria. So that comes out in your writings.

So which brand of feminism do you subscribe to —we have those who believe in womanism, motherism, complementary, gender equality, and what not? Where do you fall?

I try not to attach a label to myself. All of them, however you look at them, whether you are coming from a feminist perspective or womanism perspective or humanist perspective, bring something to the conversation that’s ongoing, regardless of people’s aversion to different strands of it —all kinds of things have been written about social media feminism and feminism that doesnt actually do anything, and things like that. What we are all saying is that there is an issue we need to create an environment that is much more equal, that recognises the humanity in all of us: men and women. That’s what all of that is all about.

As a writer setting out, which writers inspired you? Which one do you have the best connection with?

I really enjoyed Chinua Achebe’s novels as did most people. I enjoyed them on a different level. I found him, and which was even when he was here, to be like a forefather, especially for Igbo people: you can actually translate everything you are reading into Igbo. I think it takes you to a whole level of kinship: the way he infused his politics into his writings, and his politics not being what you consider as government. So there is definitely that bond. Beyond that, I enjoyed reading all the early female writers, including Buchi Emecheta whom I read as a young person, which shaped my thinking. But I read very widely, all over the world. But these are people you look at and consider them almost like people you know from your family, as it were.

Buchi Emecheta, especially, has been lampooned by many critics for demonising his male characters. Do you have a different view from hers, because the male characters in her novels come across as useless, wicked husbands?

(laughs) Sometimes those people make good fictional characters; you don’t have a character that’s good all round, and you will sense it’s easier to write about them. But I can understand why people may feel about how those characters can be caricatures of real men. For me, I want to portray everything, both the good man and the bad man, and I think I do that in my book. There are terrible men and there are terrible women, and I think we are all capable of growth, but privilege gives men more opportunities than women.

Post-Chimamanda’s debut as a novelist in 2003/4 and an award winning writer, so many women have found their voices, hogging the limelight as writers. Is there anything her personality did for female writers like you?

I think Chimamanda Adichie and her success did what successful people do. It’s like what Venus and Theresa Williams did for tennis. It just tells you what’s possible — that this is possible —It inspires you. If you ever have a drive, it tells you, “This can be me”. We can look at it as small, but this is not small. You can tell yourself and say, “This is doable.”

How did you handle the time flux in the novel, because the narrative spans across four decades as regards Nwabulu and Julie?

It wasn’t really difficult for me, because that was what I set out to do. I tried to sort of imagine the story,, when we think about some of the stories we tell each other —about maybe we see a family that’s not doing well, and we say maybe somebody died during the war, and actually that’s when their troubles began, and then something else happened, and so on. By the time you talk about this, you have gone through a period of time. That was how I conceived this book— that people would read it and find themselves in different chunks of time without feeling, at any point, nothing changed. So I let the story drive the time.

What’s your connection with Nwabulu, because she seems to be your most favourite character?

(laughs) I wouldn’t say that. It’s funny, because people have asked me if I am Julie, which could be interesting. However, I would say Nwabulu was a character I have been dreaming of writing about since I was a child. The questions I created around her have always been questions I have always asked: how do we manage poverty? How much harder is it for women to live in society?

How do you feel as a writer an idea suddenly comes to you and there is no time to put it together?

As a writer, that can be tough. I have learnt that, if you don’t take hold of it, you’ll lose it. You wake up the next day and remember that you had an idea, but the idea is gone. It hurts. My phone has been of good help in that aspect. I always text things to myself, email and Whatsapp things to myself (laughs). That’s what I do. If I don’t have my phone handy, I try to continue thinking of that idea so that my brain registers it.

You are a lawyer and a writer, how do you combine these endeavours without letting one suffer?

It’s very hard. I haven’t mastered it all. Right now, my writing suffers from my legal profession, because I devote more time to law and teaching than I do to writing. I am trying to feel at peace with that, because these are things I think, at this time in life, I must do.

Winning the Nigeria Prize for Literature comes with high expectations, where do you go from here?

We all have different callings in life. As a lawyer, there is a kind of law you would practise and you would make more money than you would get with any prize. But that’s beside it. I am working on another book already. Writing is something I desired to do before ever before I became a lawyer. I imagined that, one way or another, it would take time, but a new book must surely surface.

Now you are writing another novel, do you want your book to stand on its own or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

That’s an interesting question. But I think, by inclination, I would like to write books that would stand on their own. But you find that, if you have themes that resonate deeply with you, they are most likely to come out in other books.

Professor Akachi Ezeigbo, for instance, did it with her Umuga trilogy, are you not thinking along that line?

I want my next book to be totally different. People have asked me about a sequel, and I said, well, I won’t like to shut the door on it; but it’s not what I am thinking at this moment.

If you could tell your younger writing self something, what would that be?

I would say, “Keep pushing; please, create time for writing as you push for other things.”

What have you learnt from this novel, especially the writing process?

I have learnt you need to be patient. Sometimes you need to be patient with the writing process itself. Sometimes you need to be patient with the story. Sometimes you need to be patient with the publishing process. Every aspect of writing requires patience —I don’t necessarily mean 10 or 12 years. Sometimes you need to spend more time thinking more deeply about your story and come back to it with a different perspective. With all that I went through with this book, I would say patience is a virtue every writer must cultivate.

There is so much importance attached to having a son in the Igbo, and when it happens to be the only son, the importance grows. How do we rewrite this story in our society?

I would even think we are rewriting it as we speak. But we have a long way to go. Honestly, I don’t know how we can solve it, because it’s one that is connected to our history and culture. When we think of the Umunna system, it’s all part of it. If we are talking about changing it, we must talk about individuals, about women and what we want, who have three or four girls, should that be the end of the world?

What does literary success look like to you?

Literary success is people reading you, finding resonance in your story, being able to reflect on different issues and find something to take away. As a reader myself, that’s what we consider a successful writer. Then you think of people who have done that all over the years —that’s what we all want.


Finally, how would this prize shape your craft? Is it going to make you a more cautious writer, a fearful writer or a prolific scribbler?

(laughs) This is the question of the hour. I am trying very hard for it not to be any of those things. As I am working on my new book, I just tell myself, “Just focus on the story”. If you don’t do so, it puts pressure on you and you begin to ask yourself, “What did I do with the other story that works?” It’s normal human behaviour. But I think one has to remember that this is one’s passion, whether it wins a prize or not, whether people love it or not.

-----------------------SUN NEWS INTERVIEW