Monday, 21 July 2008

Lagos: Mega City, Mega Miseries!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Mr. Tunde Fashola, Governor of Lagos State, has, within the few months he has been in office, demonstrated clearly that he is a young man with well thought-out ideas, vision and mission to create a new, decent Lagos out of the chaos, waste and near-dilapidation that had hitherto defined the city.

Although many blocked canals and drains are yet out there begging to be reopened to solve the perennial problem of flooding in Lagos, and continuously burning heaps of refuse emitting toxic smoke near Ojota still welcome people entering Lagos from that end, no sincere person can deny that Lagos is fast acquiring a refreshingly new face. The roads which were once famous for their horrible, car-destroying, hypertension-multiplying craters are beginning to experience rapid transformations.

The other day, somebody was saying that while a very horrible road in his area was being rehabilitated, Fashola used to come in the middle of the night with ‘Keke Marwa’ (tricycle) to inspect it. Some swear he sometimes moves around town on ‘okada’ (motorcycle) to inspect on-going construction works or see for himself the exact state of the State he is governing. It is possible that Fashola actually does all these, but what we all know is that when such stories begin to be circulated about a leader, it says a lot about his popularity rating among the masses.

What I particularly like about him is the quiet manner he goes about his work. Unlike many of his colleagues who would do a ten Naira work and advertise it with hundred Naira, the man seems content to let the people to discover what he is doing by themselves. That may be a longer, more tedious route to fame, but when eventually it is achieved, it is usually more edifying and long-lasting.

Each time I drive through Ikorodu Road now and do not encounter again those horrible traffic hold-ups that used to keep one for hours, I express gratitude to him in my heart. Fashola’s transformational efforts have not been limited to roads; he is equally reshaping the entire metropolis and making it conform to what he thinks should be the original master-plan. And for a very badly mismanaged city like Lagos, populated mostly by people who have known only indiscipline and chaos as the only norms of existence and survival, such a target he has set for himself would prove a task really too daunting.

Just as Fashola does so many good things quietly (including even repainting houses in Lagos), the demolitions he has been carrying out which have plunged many families into untold misery and unspeakable trauma have also been quietly executed. And just as the media underreports his good works, they also treat the issue of the many traumatised victims of his efforts to give us a new, mega city with something akin to half-heartedness. Even if many media people cannot be found residing in the various large slum settlements which Fashola has been scraping off with effortless ease, it still remains their responsibility to give such developments due and just treatment.



Gov Tude Fashola


The young, athletic governor appears well-meaning, focused, resolute, strict and principled. But I would hate think that he is wicked, heartless and callous. In his heart, he is probably more pained than I am over the unspeakable miseries his attempts to rediscover Lagos is circulating among the populace. Unlike Mr. Nasir El-Rufai, the former Emperor of Abuja, he could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have mistaken raw sadism for principles and courage. I am willing to believe that he fully appreciates my insistence that the wellbeing of human beings with red blood equally running in their veins as it does in him, his wife, Bimbola, and their children (despite differences in status) is as important, if not more, than a beautified environment, and that concern and care for both of them should in no way be mutually exclusive. You can demolish houses, Okay, but what do you do with the mass of displaced human beings?

A few days ago, I was shattered by reports of massive demolitions of countless “houses” that served as homes for multitudes of Lagosians in Abule-Nla (Olaleye) in Ebute Metta, Lagos, without any thought for any alternative shelters for them. As the bulldozers moved in with demonic zeal, mowing down structures and turning them to rubbles, many hapless people suddenly discovered that they had become homeless. Just like that!

Families, including old, ailing men and women, nursing mothers of very tender babies, pregnant woman and frightened, shocked little children, who had all been made to hurriedly escape from the only homes they had known by the murder and destruction-breathing bulldozers, were seen weeping, mourning and flocking about under a very heavy rain, bemoaning their fate and, perhaps, cursing the day of their birth and lamenting the abject poverty that had condemned them to find shelter in those shacks. The sight could melt the cast-iron heart of the most callous Nero. One could imagine some wives looking at their helpless, defeated and humiliated husbands and wondering why they were so unlucky to have married such poor men, unlike some of their more fortunate class or age mates who had married more successful men. The humanitarian crises this singular action has created for these set of human beings whose only offence was that they were too poor to afford decent accommodations in a society that cared less whether they lived or died have been quite has been quite overwhelming. As I write now, nearly a week after the bulldozers had executed their massive havoc and destructions and returned to base, hapless families are still stranded, yet to find any shelter anywhere, punished ceaselessly by the heavy rains and the tormenting sun, and terrorized by the dangers of spending the nights in the open in a place like Lagos. Somebody should just tell me the meaning of this!

Yes, over 80% of Nigerians live in unimaginable penury and utter, unspeakable deprivation, caused largely by the greed and criminal accumulation of the thieving rulers, but must government always go out of its way to rub it in, and brutally underline their belief that these set of Nigerians are worthless and dispensable?

I am not saying that Fashola did evil in seeking to improve the face of Lagos, but I had expected that he should as well have been even more worried that his fellow human beings have been so terribly impoverished in their own very richly endowed and high-earning country and forced to take refuge under those shacks. Agreed, these Nigerians had sought shelter under “illegal” structures, but wouldn’t they jump at any opportunity to be moved into decent quarters? It is only fair and just that in executing all its big dreams, government should not be unmindful of the magnitude of human suffering its actions regularly create. My colleague and friend, Mr. Dianam Dakolo, once wrote a very touching column entitled: “Government As Public Enemy.” I think that it is still possible for governments to take tough decisions and still remain people-friendly.

Years later, when historians would remember and applaud Fashola for giving Lagos a face-lift, there is no doubt that not even a footnote would be reserved for the hapless causalities of his gallant efforts.

I would love a beautiful and pleasant city of Lagos, but certainly not one constructed with the blood of peasants and retrenched workers. Patriotism would continue to remain scarce in this nation so long as government continues to be seen as an oppressor and public enemy. Who can ever hope to appease children whose parents had died of heart failure because their homes were destroyed?

For every human tragedy created in the wake of these mindless demolitions, a dozen or more embittered people enter the growing list of the State’s enemies. By the way, doesn’t government also have a duty towards the homeless, to ensure they are adequately sheltered?

Yes, the people were duly served with quit notices, and even allowed several months of grace after their expiration, but does anyone consider that these our fellow human beings may have been too poor to relocate themselves, even to their villages? Who protects them against bloodsucking landlords?

Indeed, I like Tunde Fashola very well, and that’s why I am telling him to endeavour to make the rehabilitation human beings an inevitable counterpart of his ongoing rehabilitation of physical structures in Lagos.

scruples2006@yahoo.com 

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

Posted by Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye at 20:56:39 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Four Indian Universities to Celebrate Things Fall Apart in October


Four Indian Universities – Osmania University, Hyderabad; Mysore University; Kolkata University; and the University of New Delhi, will kick off conferences to mark the celebration of the 50th year of the publication of “the noted Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe’s highly influential and widely studied first novel “Things fall Apart,” starting with opening proceedings at Osmania university, the last week of October.


According to the convener of the sub-continental conferences, Professor Bala Kothandaraman, each major Indian university will host individual seminars organized by their local English Departments - made possible by funding from the respective universities and the ICCR (the Indian Council for Cultural Relations).

Professor Lyn Innes Professor Emeritus of the University of Kent, Canterbury, England, will be the keynote speaker. In addition, Professor Kothandaraman provides that the seminars will celebrate local Indian and Asian scholars and highlight their vigorous and extensive Achebean and African Literary scholarship. Also invited to these ambitious celebrations are noted scholars from America, Europe, and Africa.

The Keynote speaker, Professor Lyn Innes, was born in Australia. Currently Professor Emeritus of the University of Kent, Canterbury, England, she graduated from the University of Sydney, before spending 12 years in the United States as a Postgraduate student and University lecturer, first at the University of Oregon, then at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama (1968-70), and finally at Cornell University. At Cornell, she completed the Comparative Literature doctoral programme revolving around Irish, African and Caribbean literatures (Francophone and Hispanic as well as English). After completing her doctoral thesis on Black and Irish Cultural Nationalism, she taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where the Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, was Professor of African Literatures, and became Associate Editor of OKIKE Magazine: A Journal of African Creative Writing, which Chinua Achebe had founded. In 1975 she went as an exchange lecturer to the University of Kent, and remained there.


At the University of Kent she helped introduce the undergraduate degree in African and Caribbean Studies, which has now become a degree in English/Postcolonial Literatures; developed courses in Australian literature; taught various Irish literature courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels; and joined with colleagues in English to establish a Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies and an MA in Postcolonial Studies. She is a member of the editorial board of Wasafiri and of Interventions.


Her publications have developed the lines of interest established early in her career. They include two collections of African short stories co-edited with Chinua Achebe, and a critical book, Chinua Achebe (1990). Her other books are The Devil's Own Mirror: the Irish and the African in Modern Literature (1990); Woman and Nation in Irish Literature and Society, 1880-1935 (1993); and A History of Black and South Asian Writing in Britain, 1700 - 2000. She is currently engaged in a diverse set of projects: compiling an anthology on the afterlife of the Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly, writing an Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures, and researching the history of black and Asian writers and artists in Ireland.

Professor Kothandaraman believes the series of seminars throughout India will provide “an ample occasion for some of the most expansive analysis of the contributions of Achebe’s oeuvre to world civilization.” A fitting tribute, according to the professor to “ a body of work that is required reading in schools and universities in India and around the world; and a novel (Things Fall Apart) that remains one of the most widely read and influential books ever written.”

Posted by Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye at 17:39:57 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

Nigeria: Very Rich, Very Irresponsibly Managed


By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

 

Last Wednesday, we had a very important and urgent need to be in Kumasi very early the next day. It was already midnight (Nigerian Time --11pm in Ghana), and we were still in the heart of Accra, surrounded by its brilliant lights, soothing serenity (there was not the faintest hint of any generator anywhere) and profound modesty, wondering what to do. But a Ghanaian who was with us did not seem to share our worries. He simply told us to hit the road, that in the next three hours, we should be in Kumasi.

I looked at him with surprise and disbelief. Who was sure nobody had hired him to lure the three of us into a well-laid ambush by violent robbers? When I expressed my concern about armed robbers, his answer was sharp, with a tinge of impatience.

“There are no armed robbers!”

When I repeated the concern much later, he said something he should not have said, but which Nigerians need to continue hearing no matter how painful we find it: “I have told you… no armed robbers! This is not Nige…!” He cut himself short. It occurred to him, a bit too late though, that he had gone too far in his bid to emphasize that point. Just like the way I felt when I shouted to some Nigerians at one place we had gone to in Accra some days later when the driver was about to run over a bag: “Remove that Ghana-Must-Go bag!”

When I called a Nigerian friend and he reassured me that the long journey from Accra to Kumasi was safe, we hit the road. At the one or two places where very friendly policemen had stopped us, they merely looked at the vehicle and waved us on with their torches, without the slightest hint that they wanted an ‘egunje.’ And so, after a long journey through lonely, lengthy stretches of the expressway, and vast quiet countryside, we embraced the warmth of the clean, well-lit streets of Kumasi early that cold morning, and found our way to the serene ambience of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Ghana is a very poor country. Beyond the glitter of an efficient system is poverty that is real and palpable. But Ghana has been lucky with its leaders. What nation would not prosper under the watch of a visionary, patriotic leader who is not afraid of his people who had elected him in fairly free and fair elections, but lives among them (instead of hiding himself in an impregnable fortress like Aso Rock), and is able to inspire the citizenry to believe in him, and buy into his determination to put in place a workable system? It is only thieving, failed leaders that live in perpetual fear of their people.

Throughout my stay in Ghana, I never dialled any number twice with my Ghana MTN line, no matter the country I called! But in Nigeria, if you dial a number saved in your phone, what you would probably hear is: “This number does not exist on the MTN network.”

Then you try again: “The number you have dialled is incorrect.”

And you dial the third time: “The number you have dialled is switched off.”

Fourth time: “The number you have dialled is unavailable.”

And if you have the patience to try the fifth time, it may then go through! What a country! Ghana Telecom Service Providers are effectively monitored and regulated, unlike what Ernest Ndukwe claims he is doing for us here. The begulatory body ensures that no service provider sells lines more than it has the capacity to manage. It once, reportedly, called MTN to order, when it attempted to roll out lines like it does in this our lawless jungle.

Each time I recharged my line with 2Ghana Cedis (N230), I would make several calls both to Nigeria and within Ghana, and would still have much credit remaining. But here, the thing finishes with incredible speed.

It offends me each time anyone attempts comparing Nigeria with Europe or America. From Swaziland, Botswana to Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia to Uganda, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast to the Gambia, Nigeria is, perhaps, the only country in the whole of Africa that is yet to achieve stability in its energy supply. We are here still grappling with pitch darkness and watching our pitiably blank and hare brained leaders telling embarrassing, infantile stories about their inexplicable failure and insufferable incompetence, while very poor countries we can easily buy up have since left us behind on this issue of power supply and provision of other social amenities.

In most of these countries, one can conveniently walk to any public tap and drink water, but whoever tries that here any time some liquid manages to trickle from any public tap would be guilty of attempting suicide.

At Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Americans, Britishers, Chinese and people from diverse nations of the world are proudly enrolled as students. In 1993, I met an America Professor of Economics who proudly announced to me that while he studied for his Masters Degree at the University College, Ibadan, (UCI) in 1958, he stayed at Kuti Hall. I wonder if he can advise any American child today to get near that same Kuti Hall he spoke so glowingly about, or encourage the child of his worst enemy to attend a Nigerian University.

 

While a friend and I took a walk around midnight on Saturday, we felt so safe, despite the several trees in the well landscaped and beautified compounded that lend the school its serenity, but which could provide cover for any cultists to strike. As we stood on a walkway, about eight American youths hopped across, chattering, laughing and feeling so much at home. I am told that children of countless Nigerian government officials are enrolled in the school, generating huge funds to Ghana with which it now offers divers scholarships to its own citizens. Yes, Nigerians would prefer paying all the money to Ghana than improving and making our own schools safe so that youths from several parts of the world can also come here (as used to be the case) to study. Indeed, the KNUST faculty Guest Houses can comfortably diminish some things that pass for “big” hotels in Nigerias.

Ghanaians do not have the drive and innovativeness of Nigerians. Under sincere and honest leaders who are not mere common criminals whose eyes and hearts are only focused on the treasury, what would stop Nigeria from becoming one of the greatest countries in the world?

But what do we get here: the Babangidas, the Abachas, the Obasanjos: rulers who derive peculiar animation from prospering by marketing the nation’s entrails.

Obasanjo’s only noticeable achievement while in office was to join the emergency Billionaires’ Club with such fanfare and brazenness that sent all the others scampering for safety . But while leaving office, he left us in the hands of an Umoru Yar’Adua whose only understanding of leadership seems to be to perennially grope for direction.

So, while our leanly endowed neighbours like Ghana are gradually laying solid foundation for greater tomorrow, Nigeria is decaying and sinking into unimaginable depths. Laden with insufferably inept legislator, and an odious character like Maurice Iwu as INEC Chairman, what options are left for a country so immensely rich, but so irresponsibly managed? What a tragedy.









Posted by Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye at 15:52:19 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Saturday, 12 July 2008

Now, Will President Yar’Adua Be Kind?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

About forty days after Mr. Umar Musa Yar’Adua was sworn in as Nigeria’s president and the nation was saturated with loud calls on ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo to leave alone the new man he single-handedly imposed on Nigerians to implement his own ideas and programmes to “move the nation forward”, I published a piece in my newspaper column and on several internet news sites entitled, “In Nigeria, Yar’Adua Reigns, Obasanjo Rules,” asking those trying to shout our heads off whether they were sure “Yar’Adua himself [was] even desirous and eager to be rid of the overbearing influence of Obasanjo?”
I said: “Is he really ready to take charge? Are we sure that the ‘Servant-leader’ is not even too grateful that Obasanjo’s meddlesome and looming shadow are providing perfect alibi for what is gradually appearing as his stark visionlessness? I would certainly want to know those great ideas of Yar’Adua’s which Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness is preventing him from unfolding! The truth, as we know it, is that Yar’Adua never wanted to be president, and so, he never sat down to draw up anything that vaguely looks like a blueprint for the country’s redemption. When he was conscripted by Obasanjo and imposed on both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Nigerians at a time elections were merely a couple of weeks away, he was too preoccupied with the thought of winning elections to have any time to concentrate and think about how he would rule Nigeria … it soothes Yar’Adua, [therefore], to still have Obasanjo in charge, while he enjoys the perks of office without the responsibilities that go with them. And at the end of the day, when another four years of devastating failure must have been successfully enacted, Yar’Adua can conveniently come up with the theory that he was not allowed to implement his ‘superior ideas’.”

The essay, judging by the reactions it generated, won me many friends who thought that my judgment of the ‘Servant leader’, though too early in the day, could hardly be faulted.

 But there were a few who maintained that it was unfair to state like I did that the president (who was barely a month in office) presented the perfect picture of “a pitiably confused leader groping his way through an impenetrably dark alleyway.”

Well, I have since been vindicated because the crippling directionlessness and benumbing passivity which President Umar Musa Yar’Adua presides over in Abuja today have clearly validated the ‘heresy’ I dared to utter about forty days into his regime, so much so that it has since become a permanent feature in virtually every public commentary or formal and informal discussions on the present regime. Unlike the time I first expressed it, the view has now become all too common and very obvious to elicit any more surprises. In fact, I doubt if it still has the capacity to make the president feel embarrassed.

Okay, I have been proved right, but where has that left us? Nigeria is presently weighed down by so many big problems, but here we are, stuck with a president who can neither be hurried nor bothered that the nation he is supposed to be ruling is dying every day.

 Yes, we have a ruler who cannot be made to allow even the slightest hint of urgency in his moves and seems not to have the barest idea of what it means to be perturbed that he had flopped on virtually every promise he had made to the nation. In fact, it does not appear he can even be brought to lose any sleep that he has failed even before he started, and that most Nigerians have since lost every confidence in him. Many are no longer able to feel there is a government in Abuja ! What is plastered everywhere are utter hopelessness and despair.
Here is a president who evidently came into office without any ideas, focus, any coherent action plans or even an average understanding of what he was coming to office to accomplish. And so, each time his attention is called to the mounting problems begging for his urgent intervention, he appears startled and looks as if he feels he is being unduly bothered. It looks very much like what he would prefer is to merely sleep through the problems with the blissful hope that he would wake one day see all of them solved.
Maybe we should not even blame Yar’Adua, because, come to think about it: what exactly did he promise Nigerians during his so called campaigns in which he was an imposed, “unwilling” candidate?
Okay, I remember that he kept saying something about “Energy Challenge” which he intended to tackle headlong. But since he came into power, the energy situation has worsened beyond what anyone had imagined was possible in a richly endowed and high-earning country ruled by a human being. The Obasanjo junta had allegedly squandered about $16 billion to plunge Nigeria deeper into thicker darkness, and the toxic revelation had caused Nigerians untold mental torture. But to demonstrate his utter disdain for the feelings of Nigerians on this heartless pillaging of the nation’s resources, and his unambiguous opinion on the astounding revelations at the power probe panel, President Yar’Adua recently appointed three governors (Liyel Imoke, Segun Agagu and Danjuma Goje) who had served as Ministers of Power in that darkest period of Nigeria’s history to serve in the so-called Presidential Implementation Committee on Power.
What this should mean is that in the thinking of the president, these men deserved to be applauded by all of us for colluding with Obasanjo to ensure the nation remained in impenetrable darkness. What Yar’Adua has dropped is a bold hint on what he would do with the power probe report once it gets to his table. What an unlucky nation!

If till now there is hardly any evidence that Yar’Adua has been able to achieve an appreciable grasp of the enormous task facing him as Nigeria ’s president, then it would be most foolish to hope that he would still not be groping for direction even after two years from now. In fairness to the man, it could well be said that since he had raised no hopes from the beginning till now, no one can justifiably accuse him of dashing any.
But how long can a continuously decaying nation defer its reclamation by endlessly waiting for a president who is yet to start charting a very clear direction?
If Yar’Adua would be kind, that is, to himself and Nigeria, he should put a halt to all these blind pursuits and dumb guesswork, hand in his papers, retire to Katsina in peace, and save the nation further trauma of having to perennially wait for a man who may never be able to either comprehend or respond to the challenges of such a high and strategic office.
Although hangers-on and parasites feeding fat on the grounded system may hold a different view, certainly, the line of action I am recommending to Yar’Adua would attract a kinder verdict from history to him than going on confusedly like a child handed a terribly complicated, strange toy to decode, and traumatizing the whole nation in the process.
Indeed, quitting now would be more redemptive of Yar’Adua’s person than being remembered later as the groping undertaker of a richly endowed but seriously ill nation?

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scruples2006@yahoo.com
 www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com







Posted by Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye at 18:25:13 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, 07 July 2008

President Yar’Adua, Give Nigerians Prepaid Metres!

(Published on Wednesday, May 28, 2008, a day before Nigeria ’s ‘Democracy Day’ and President Yar’Adua’s one year anniversary in office)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
By this time tomorrow (May 29, 2008) President Umar Musa Yar’Adua would be one year in office. As usual, he may call for “low-key, sombre celebrations” and “sober reflections” which would not be extended to the obscene gaiety, excessive mirth, hugging, necking and backslapping amidst endless flow of champagne and sumptuous delicacies, in short, the bacchanalian revel that would take place in the name of State Banquet later in the day.

 He would also record a speech in which he would appeal to us to make further sacrifices and exercise more patience to allow the great seeds of growth, development and incredible plenty which he has been carefully sowing and watering for the past one year (and which he may continue to sow and water till he leaves office) to germinate, grow and spread unimaginable prosperity all over the nation. He would probably spice the speech up with a long list of the phantom achievements he had recorded since he was sworn in and grab the headlines by announcing some really ambitious and big projects he would undertake between tomorrow and the “second quarter of next year.” Needless to add that he may well forget the whole thing before Sunday afternoon.



Pres Yar'Adua: Floored By the 'Energy Challenge'?

If he is able tomorrow, he may also attend a parade at the Eagle Square, give a short address, or send his irritatingly dull deputy to stand in for him, while he stays at home to rest and conserve some strength for the State Banquet, where Turai, his wife (and she that must be obeyed), cannot wait to star without moderation. Indeed, not even the Servant Leader himself can deny her this day!

 It is unlikely, too, that the contractors, hangers-on and jobless fellows whose eyes are fixed on the next cabinet reshuffle would heed his call to observe tomorrow as a day of sober reflection. No doubt, newspaper pages would be dominated by full-page colour adverts extolling his “sterling virtues and great vision,” and the “unprecedented achievements of this great son of Africa who has just under one year taken Nigeria to great heights” – the same words they had deployed to seduce Gen Olusegun Obasanjo into his present grief.

 (By the way, when last did anyone witness where Obasanjo was referred to as the Founder and/or Father of Modern Nigeria ? The last I heard was Founder and Father of Modern Corruption!)
But if Yar’Adua would take my advice, he should ask everybody to stay at home tomorrow and excuse himself from any grand design by unconscionable fellows in and around government to celebrate failure. I mean abysmal and all-round failure!

 He should also be man enough to stand up to his restless, limelight-crazy wife and tell her that any State Banquet tomorrow evening would constitute an obscene provocation to long-suffering Nigerians. What exactly would Yar’Adua be celebrating? Does he need anyone to tell him that his one year in office has been one woeful story of overwhelming failure? Sometimes I am tempted to feel that this country would have even fared better if this government (or any other one like it) was not in place. At least, the country would have moved faster on the path of development without the crushing burden this burden constituted.

 Last Saturday evening, I entered a filling station to buy fuel and the crowd I saw there almost scared me. It was when I looked closely that I saw containers of different sizes in the hands of the people. Oh, all those people had come to purchase fuel for the countless generators they use to generate power for themselves in a failed state like Nigeria . As I looked at this large crowd and it occurred to me that many of them may even be storing the fuel under their beds, I shuddered. No doubt, it is only God’s mercy that has prevented the whole of Lagos from going up in flames before now.

Take a trip today to the various areas in Lagos, especially, where people are crammed into small apartments like the face-me-I-face-you type of accommodation, where whole families and dependants are piled into stuffy rooms, and observe the room occupants showing off their generators and the fuel they had stored. At night when all these machines begin to roar, emitting killer fumes into the already airless, stuffy enclosures, what emerges is a most horrible situation where a failed and heartless government has cruelly driven its hapless citizens into organizing their own bitter deaths with generators purchased with monies they had probably starved themselves to save.

 In order to escape the unbearable heat and choking darkness their government and its licensed Agent of Darkness, NEPA/PHCN, have heartlessly plunged them into, they end up creating deadly gas chambers where they enact mass suicides daily. We have regularly heard of whole families being found dead in the morning after an all-night inhalation of generator fumes. For those resilient ones still on their feet, what is left of their sensitive organs by the lethal fumes they abundantly inhale every night are being progressively ruined by the ear-splitting din produced by the countless generators. No wonder cases of hypertension and nervous breakdowns are also on the increase in Nigeria .

My view is that as these people whose only offence is that they were born Nigerians develop lung cancer and deadly heart and respiratory diseases and die painful in their obscure corners due to lack of medicare (while their president hops across to Germany from time to time to treat catarrh (common cold) and allergic reactions, their blood would certainly be required at the hands of those who claim to be ruling this richly endowed nation.

Night time in this nation has simply turned into several harrowing hours of unbearable torments. In the fairly moderate accommodation I occupy with my family, we usually abandon our rooms every night to cram ourselves into the parlour and my already jam-packed study, because the ear-splitting noise from my neighbour’s generator in the next compound is simply destructive. As the monster starts roaring (and this continues till morning), not even the wall demarcating the two compounds can mitigate its damage. I have this feeling that if I try any day to protest, the man might pour on me all the pent up anger he had reserved for Yar’Adua and, of course, Obasanjo who for his own selfish reasons foisted on us a man who neither wanted to be president nor have any clear idea how to get this nation on its feet.

For two months now, NEPA/PHCN has left my neighbourhood in total darkness. We used to complain about irregular power supply. Now, total darkness has enveloped the whole place. Apart from the two or so brief moments I was informed power was supplied, it has been darkness all the way for more than two months now. In the previous months they had managed to flash some flicker of light. Yet despite all these, the huge bills keeps coming. This is nothing but heartless extortion and daylight robbery, actively  supported by the Federal Government under Mr. Umar Yar’Adua

A friend who recently secured his prepaid metre was so excited to discover that it was only two hundred naira that he had consumed in a whole month. Before now, his monthly bill never came below five thousand naira despite the uninterrupted darkness that engulfed him! What an unarmed robbery! The other day, officials of NEPA/PHCN invaded a widow’s house threatening to disconnect her from their Darkness Supply because she was “not paying her bills.” The woman’s protestations that she was using the prepaid metre only annoyed them further. They hate to hear that anyone is using a prepaid metre because it effectively checks their extortion!


So, how long will Yar’Adua allow this robbery to continue? How long will Nigerians continue to pay for services not rendered to them? Why are the irremediably corrupt sadists at NEPA/PHCN frustrating attempts by Nigerians to get prepaid metres?

Now, if NEPA/PHCN chooses to supply only darkness, they should let every Nigerian have a prepaid metre so that no one would be compelled again to pay for energy not supplied. It is cruel to force people to pay these bills after they had generated power for themselves at very huge costs and great risks to their health.

 If President Yar’Adua wishes to distance himself from this heartless, official robbery, he should tomorrow (May 29, 2008) announce a date when everybody in Nigeria must, without fail, be issued a prepaid metre. If this measure would dry up the revenue base of NEPA/PHCN and cause it to fold up, so be it. Nigerians are better off without such an agency that produces only pain, torments, sorrow, heart-ache and death.

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(Published on Wednesday, May 28, 2008, a day before Nigeria ’s ‘Democracy Day’ and President Yar’Adua’s one year anniversary)
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Tuesday, 24 June 2008

Will Farida Waziri Beatify Ribadu?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

It would, indeed, be a most devastating tragedy if Mrs. Farida Waziri would decide to lend validity to the well-noised fears and doubts about her intentions, mission and moral capabilities, which began to flood and, in fact, overwhelm the public space the very instance the media began to speculate that President Umar Musa Yar’Adua was planning to nominate her as the new Chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). At some point, it was almost being concluded that given the sensitive nature of the assignment, it would be almost impossible for a candidate that had provoked such generous dose of passion and controversy to clinch the job, since no one could deny any more that sufficient impression had been achieved in the minds of the populace by the uproarious reservations expressed about her suitability. 

 But despite the uproar and stiff opposition from several vocal quarters, the National Assembly still backed the president in his determination to name Mrs. Waziri the new boss of the anti-graft agency.  Although the matter is still the subject of an equally enlightening litigation in one of the nation’s courts, the new EFCC boss has since resumed duty with a firm promise that she would step on many big but tainted toes, and a prayer to God to help her skip all innocent toes.
 

But this is by no means the end of the matter. In fact, it is actually the beginning of a real and potent challenge to the credibility of the EFCC under her watch. The very strong reservations expressed about the intentions and moral properties she was bringing with her to the EFCC top job are yet to dissipate and fade into distant memory. In fact, they are very much alive and well, and have even assumed larger lives of their own. Corruption has since distinguished itself as the most resilient and unrepentant enemy of the nation’s survival and progress, and a growing number of Nigerians, mostly outside government circles are eager to observe its public execution and inglorious burial in a million feet deep grave. And so they would hate to confirm that rather than a strong determination to gratify their most passionate wish to watch this monster fiercely fought and annihilated, their new anti-corruption warrior was only minded to pamper and nourish it. That would be most devastating.

 

 Farida Waziri, new EFCC Chair


Mrs. Waziri cannot pretend to be unaware that her accusers think that she was carefully chosen and sponsored by the Governors and former Governors, especially those with unresolved corruption issues with the EFCC, with a specific, unambiguous mandate to halt their prosecution and save them “further embarrassment.”  In other words, she is here to protect treasury looters, not to ensure they are shown the dark path to prison.
 

Well, it is possible that among those vocal Nigerians unwilling to give Mrs. Waziri any chance to prove herself are friends and admirers of Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, the young, zealous former EFCC Chair, who had won himself the admiration of most Nigerians (including this writer) by the uncommon courage, enthusiasm and dedication  with which he had initially discharged his duties. He probably meant well, and may have even had some dose of patriotism when he assumed his duties at the anti-graft agency. But, unfortunately, the man who appointed him to the office, also, clearly, had his own motives and agenda which were less than noble. If Ribadu was a good student of Power, he would have seen the folly and futility of trying to act and sound saintly in a regime that was headed by an acclaimed Founder and Father of Modern Corruption (FFMC). But if Ribadu had merely stopped at closing his eyes to the massive greed and misdeeds of his master and those of his incestuous group, maybe, his sin would have been less pronounced.

 

Former EFCC Boss, Nuhu Ribadu          

 

But by choosing to endlessly announce with revolting audacity and recklessness that his principal was overly clean and above board, even in the face of intimidating evidence of the boundless looting he was closely supervising, Mr. Ribadu had practically overdrawn from the public goodwill and admiration which he had hitherto enjoyed and dealt his credibility a fatal blow. And when further the hand of the EFCC became so visible in the vile prosecution of the most odious and overwhelmingly resented Third Term Agenda, and collaborated with an equally willing and eager Maurice Iwu’s INEC to give the PDP its “fraudslide” victory, the once popular anti-graft agency simply became irredeemable. And hence, no matter what anyone says again about Ribadu and he all had accomplished, what most people see are the monstrous uses to which the EFCC was put in the service of the Owu Emperor. Agreed, some corrupt politicians were uncomfortable with Ribadu’s guts and desperately wanted him roasted by all means. But Ribadu must be willing to realize that with his own hands, he set up the fire that did him in.  

 

But Farida Waziri can rehabilitate and even beatify him. She would achieve this by simply confirming the fears about her ethical competences, just like Obasanjo by his disastrous performance almost significantly rehabilitated Babangida and Abacha, and gave their unrepentant admirers the ‘bold face’ to wax nostalgic about their horrific tenures. She would unavoidably continue to elicit comparisons with Prof Dora Akunyili, whose appointment as NAFDAC Director-General was met with a lot of skepticism, but who over the years proved clearly that a woman can admirably succeed where many men had failed woefully.

 

But, while doubts about Akunyili were gender-based, what is being called to question are Waziri’s moral capabilities and integrity. She therefore has an even more daunting task of proving that she is not a mere undertaker for the anti-graft war. And she has ample opportunities to prove this. The power sector probe had opened so much dirt and filth inviting diligent prosecution. There also are the NPA, PTDF, etc. probe reports which no one hears about again. And then we have the NNPC, the States and local council accounts and, of course, the books of the Federal ministries (which the former EFCC had closed its eyes to).
 

Farida Waziri would have no excuse for failing to prove she did not come to shield crooks, but to put them away, beyond the confines of decent existence. Else, she would end on the wrong side of history as one of those that aided the ruination of Nigeria. 

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Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Lingering Issues On Achebe’s Female Characterisation

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

 Recently, (Saturday April 12, 2008), I was at the National Theatre, Lagos, because of Prof Chinua Achebe, Africa’s best known and most widely read author, who many regard as the indisputable father and rallying point of African Literature.  The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) had organized a forum to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the publication of Achebe’s classic novel, Things Fall Apart, published in London by William Heinemann in June 1958. 
 I was held back at the office by some engagements, and by the time I arrived at the venue, I had missed a substantial part of the ‘Interactive Session’. I came in while Segun Olusola, former ambassador and arts enthusiast, was concluding his speech. As I sat down, I heard him paying glowing tributes to Achebe and his novel and saying how happy he was to be at the event. He then announced that he would also grace the Awka event in honour of Achebe and Things Fall Apart, coming up more than a week later.
Achebe evokes a very special kind of pleasant, soothing feelings in most people that have   read either his novels or essays. And this was evident in the emotion-laden speeches made by various speakers at the National Theatre that weekend.

Achebe

The literary patriarch and icon was absent at the ceremony, but his image loomed large everywhere, and this, mind you, was not because of those large posters and billboards bearing his photograph (and, of course, the emblem of the main sponsors, Fidelity Bank Plc) displayed at strategic points by the organizers.
There is something profoundly unique about Achebe and his work that confers dignity and awe on any event organized around him. The spirit of the man breathes through the pages of his works, giving you the very palpable feeling that the gifted story teller and meticulous teacher himself is by your very side, as you read, physically telling you his most enchanting tales in the very unique way that only him can tell them. His wit, deep insights, the overpowering wisdom he conveys with such sagely precision, simple and subtle diction and disarming style, the impressive imageries he effortlessly conjures, and the pleasant local colour he so generously splashes on his narratives, never cease to overwhelm. Achebe is one writer whose reputation and looming image was neither built nor enhanced by any prize. What further glamour can occasional decorations add to an already very colourful and big masquerade? The man rather dignifies any prize he decides to accept, and not the other way round. For instance, as Achebe and Things Fall Apart are celebrated across the world this season, only an insignificant few consider it necessary to recall that a few months ago, he was awarded the Man Booker Prize – a very important no doubt.  Such information, though great in its own right, makes little or no difference to the man’s already solidly established stature.    


It is impossible to read Things Fall Apart without visualizing the village of Umuofia in its alluring freshness in the warm embrace of rich nature in its most exciting vivacity and purity.  This is the only novel I know written by an African that has acquired such a stature and influence, as to be so celebrated in such a grand fashion.
 No, doubt, Chinua Achebe is Africa’s rare gift to the world, and Nigeria should never cease to be glad and grateful that this giant emerged from its loins. A focused and consistent writer, the views expressed by Achebe in the sixties and seventies, as the nature and boundaries of what is today known as African literature were being meticulously defined, have remained valid and timeless. They now constitute an invaluable reference material for anyone seeking a better and reliable understanding of Africa, its literature and culture. 


With his novels, superb lectures and rich essays, Achebe has been able to compel the world out there to significantly alter their entrenched warped views about Africa. After a particularly brilliant speaking engagement in Canberra, Australia, in the summer of 1973, Professor Manning Clark, a distinguished Australian historian wrote to Achebe and pleaded: "I hope you come back and speak again here, because we need to lose the blinkers of our past. So come and help the young to grow up without the prejudices of their forefathers..." I find this display of sincerity very touching.
It is interesting that Things Fall Apart enjoys significant readership across cultures and races, and its message continues to register lasting impacts that are simply rare and peculiar. Not a few Nigerians can recall the instant celebrity status they had suddenly assumed or even some favours that had come their way, in one remote part of the world or the other, just because they had let it be known that they were from Chinua Achebe’s country. Achebe has also remarkably excelled as a critic and essayist. His 1975 Chancellor’s Lecture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, entitled, “An Image Of Africa: Racism In Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness,” which I am never of tired of re-reading, has not only significantly altered the nature and direction of Conrad criticism, but is now widely regarded as one of the most influential essays in the criticism of literature in English.
As I listened to several speeches at the National Theatre on that Saturday, I could feel the depth of admiration displayed by the various speakers towards Achebe and his work.  The whole thing was moving on well until one lady came up with elaborate praise for Achebe for the significant “improvement” his female characters achieved in Anthills Of the Savannah, unlike what obtained in Things Fall Apart, which we had all gathered to celebrate that afternoon.


 Now, I would easily have ignored and quickly forgotten this comment as “one of those things” one was bound to hear in a “mixed crowd” if I had not also heard such thoughts brazenly expressed by some female scholars whom I thought should be better informed. For instance, I was at a literary event in Port Harcourt some years ago when a female Professor of Literature announced with the excitement of someone who had just discovered another earth: When Achebe created his earlier female characters, we complained; then he responded by giving us Clara (in No Longer At Ease), and we still complained; then he gave us Eunice (in A Man Of The People) and we still asked for more; and then he gave us Beatrice (in Anthills Of The Savannah). Unfortunately, I have encountered thoughts even more pedestrian than this boldly flaunted in several literary essays by women and some men.
Honestly, I had thought that this matter had long been resolved and forgotten. It should be clear (and I should think  that this has been sufficiently stressed) that whatever perceived differences in the various female characters created by Achebe are a function of the prevailing realities in the different settings and periods that produced them, and Achebe’s ability to record those realties so accurately should not be construed to mean that he also “celebrates” them (as some fellows have wrongly imputed) or advocates their sustenance.
In his lecture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, specially slated to precede the very memorable Eagle On Iroko Symposium, organized to mark Achebe’s sixtieth birthday in 1990, Prof Dan Izevbaye described Achebe as “history’s eyewitness.”  Today Achebe is being widely hailed for using his first novel, Things Fall Apart, to change the distorted images of Africa celebrated in the heaps of mostly concocted historical and literary accounts about the continent and its people by Western writers. But Achebe did not see any wisdom in countering these distortions with greater distortions. He merely presented reality with both its glowing and unedifying sides with exceptional insight, penetration and grasp of the real picture which the foreigner, whose impressions were mostly coloured by many years of deep-seated prejudices, was incapable of capturing.
It is a credit to Achebe’s mastery of his art that even though his readers may be shocked, for instance, at the bloodcurdling murder of Ikemefuna, they would still find it nearly impossible to categorize the incident as one more evidence  of savage pleasure in wanton bloodletting. The reader is able to see an Okonkwo with genuine human feelings that are even more appealing than those of the whitman who was attempting to “civilize” him, but who would have no qualms wiping out an entire community, as happened in Abame community! Indeed, no sane person would endorse any religious observances that prescribe human sacrifices, but the reader would most likely catch himself empathizing with a highly traumatized and sorrowful Okonkwo who had killed the boy as a national duty prescribed by the deity he and his people worshipped at that time. Our dilemma is compounded when we see that the same community that sacrificed Ikemefuna would later banish Okonkwo for accidentally killing a man with his gun during a ceremony in honour of dead great man. That is the reality of that era. And so, when Achebe also records reality as it pertained to gender placement in Okonkwo’s time, he is only playing effectively his role as “history’s eye-witness.” Maybe, the feminists would have been happier if he had recreated Okonkwo’s community to suit their notions and expectations, and in effect fall guilty of the same charges of distortions that have trailed colonialist portrayals of Africa in many works. We seem to forget, at times, that Achebe was writing like someone who was part of that society and not some foreign observer desperate to ‘confirm’ some preconceived notion. Umuofia was a society in transition, and the author was able to capture the prevailing mood of the time, instead of imposing on it  his own idea of how the society should be.  


Achebe And Nelson Mandela

I agree with Prof. Ian Watts in his book, The Rise Of The Novel, that there must be “a correspondence between the literary work and the reality which it imitates.” I wonder what kind of novel Achebe would have produced if he had made a couple of women sit with the elders of Umuofia to deliberate on the banishment of Okonkwo, or even the killing of Ikemefuna. Granted, that would have earned him the boundless admiration of certain feminists, but the novel would have been unrecognizable to anyone familiar with the subsisting features in the Igbo traditional environment in the period Things Fall Apart or Arrow Of God was set.


But despite the “emancipation and empowerment” Chinua Achebe’s later female characters were said to have achieved, some faint murmur of dissatisfaction could still be heard in some feminized critical circles. In a review of Anthills Of The Savannah in the journal, OKIKE (No 30: 1990), for instance , Prof Ifi Amadiume blames Achebe and his novel for failing or refusing to give “women power” insisting that the female characters in the book are still existing to “service” the  men. But she appears to overstate her case when she alleges that Ikem, one of the principal characters in the novel, despite being a “great poet, great journalist and nationalist” could “at a personal level” still stoop so low to “sexually exploit a grassroots girl.”
Now, what my reading of the novel showed, however (that is, if we read the same book – Achebe’s Anthills Of The Savannah), is that Ikem was very proud of Elewa, taking her to social meetings with his highly placed and educated friends, including an expatriate administrator of the nation’s General Hospital and a visiting British Editor of a poetry journal. In fact, during a lecture he gave at the University of Bassa, Ikem proudly announced Elewa’s mother as his future mother-in-law. He also did not forget to inform his audience that his fiancée’s mother was a market woman, a petty trader at Gelegele Market.
Now, while not endorsing Ikem’s lifestyle (since I detest pre-marital sex), I fail to see a case of sexual exploitation here – Ikem was genuinely in a flourishing relationship with a lady he wanted to settle down with. How they eventually choose to spend the night -- in the same room or in different rooms -- should not be the concern of any nosey feminist. From all indications, Elewa and Ikem were happy in that relationship, and that was all that mattered. There is never ever a perfect union, but people have been able, by sacrifices, forbearance and accommodations of each other’s faults and weaknesses, where love is alive and well, to make the best of many relationships, and live happily ever after. So, the little matter of Ikem insisting that they would not spend the night together (which was the only point of conflict) is something that can be resolved in the life of the relationship, and I wonder why that should be the headache of any third party?
And, by the way, what is all this noise about “servicing the men” in actions that were purely consensual and mutually pleasurable to both parties who are also adults? Even if His Excellency was removed from office and replaced with a Beatrice (BB) as President of the Republic of Kangan, would that have automatically elevated her above whatever obligations she had discharged towards Chris (and vice-versa) before her status changed? Can it be said in all honesty that BB was subjugated in the novel? Is her character not real?  Assuming the nation was not under military rule, which was an aberration, were there any impediments before BB, barring her from aspiring to very high political offices?
Again, wasn’t a strong point also made by the fact that Elewa, despite her poor background and almost no education had no complexes whatsoever socializing with the society’s elite, whether she was able to follow in the discussions or not? No doubt,  Achebe could have just changed his story and made Elewa possess a doctorate degree, but can anyone say that the status the author gave her in the novel made her less than real? Certainly, the creative enterprise would yield only boring works if all novels and plays are stampeded into adopting one predictable, feminized pattern.
Now, it is all this insistence by feminists on prescribing strict codes of conducts to govern couples in the privacy of their homes that most people find very revolting. Many women who had uncritically swallowed those ‘great rules and regulations’, and had attempted to implement them in their homes, mainly to underline the fact that they have now been “liberated and empowered,” even when there were no situations in their homes that called for such brazen show of ‘girl-power,’ are today without even any stable homes from where to flaunt their wonderful empowerment.  Their marriages have since crashed, leaving them out in the cold, sad and lonely. Only the truthful among them (like the ‘liberated’ Nigerian actress who has been screaming all over the place since her husband left her) would confess that their daily menu ever since have remained regrets and more regrets. This is the point late Professor Zulu Sofola most brilliantly underlined in her play, Sweet Trap.  If Ikem was battering Elewa or sneaking her into his house only when his friends would not observe, then Ms. Amadiume would have had a point. But instead of praising Ikem, a nationally celebrated journalist and upper drawer writer and poet, for proposing to marry a barely literate girl like Elewa, Prof Amadiume, would rather ‘batter’ him, having found him guilty of an offence he did not even dream of committing. Men then do not hold the monopoly on battering, after all! 
Now, we return to the issue of “giving women power”. I doubt if any novel, or indeed, any book, can boast of the capacity to just take hold of power -- political, social or economic -- and hand it over to women? That seems to be what female critics are asking for, but as would be seen later, their attempts to compel their own books to do this with indecent haste have unleashed on all of us disastrous and grotesque creative works, with characters, settings and incidents that are so gratuitously padded with several outlandish details and extreme exaggerations, that their stories simply lost their abilities to be true. As a result, many of them have served us with excellent demonstrations of how fiction should not be written.
But a writer can choose to make some projections, depending on his thrust, and point the way forward. In Anthills Of The Savannah, Beatrice was the only character who was able to look the dreaded His Excellency, the very maximum ruler to whom all the men cringed, in the face and tell him some home truth. We may not endorse what she did to get His Excellency to listen to her, but she has set an example by daring the tiger. Others can now improve on her effort and tactics.
So, whatever power women would acquire (assuming they lack any now) would largely be the outcome of their own conscious effort. And this would clearly be reflected in the literary works that would appear in that period. But care must be taken to ensure that art is not sacrificed on the altar of advocacy. Propaganda is important, but so also is art.  And like Chinua Achebe has warned, virtually all art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.
 In this vein, therefore, Ms. Katherine Frank has raised very important questions in her article, “Women Without Men: Feminist Novel in Africa,” published in the journal, African Literature Today No 15: “How are we to judge a work which we find politically admirable and true but aesthetically simplistic, empty or boring? What do we make of characters whose credos and pronouncements we endorse but whose human reality we find negligible? … If the writing is inferior, the book becomes a tract and there are far more efficient and effective ways of spreading an ideology than by novels…”
As the first published female novelist from Nigeria, late Flora Nwapa’s objective was to hurriedly “empower” her female characters and place them above the male ones. But in doing this, as evident in her novel, Efuru and the others, she featured ‘liberated’, empowered and highly assertive female characters in a society peopled by mostly weak, grossly irresponsible, non-innovative, non-enterprising, in fact, emasculated men. Art and realism suffered so that ideology and advocacy may thrive. Is Nwapa saying in effect that women are incapable of competing with men that are equally endowed and so can only excel and attain some prominence in an environment inhabited by mostly emasculated men or, in fact, outright imbeciles? How then can success be celebrated when the supposed winner was spared any form of competition? Or like, she demonstrated in One Is Enough, must women become morally irresponsible and hawk their bodies (to the same men they intend to demonstrate the are superior to) to make it in society?  There is a huge irony here which neither Nwapa nor the majority of female writers that she inspired saw the need to resolve. Certainly, no decent person would embrace a “liberated” character like Amaka in Nwapa’s One Is Enough, who after a misunderstanding with her husband, abandoned her home, and relocated to Lagos to “fully realize herself” by  excelling as a public piss pot in the city of Lagos.
 Mybe, Nwapa wanted to use the character of Amaka to give full expression to the overly pernicious doctrine so eloquently promoted by the Egyptian feminist writer, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, in her book, Woman At Point Zero. Said Saadawi: “A woman’s life is always miserable.  A prostitute, however, is a little better off….  All women are prostitutes of one kind or another… the lowest paid body is that of a wife….  A successful prostitute (is) better than a misled saint…. Marriage (is) the system built on the most cruel suffering for women.” (Woman At Point Zero, London &New York: Zed Books, 1983, pp.114, 117,111)
 
Although some female scholars have made the case that feminism is not monolithic, I keep thinking that they have a responsibility to help us draw a clear boundary between female assertiveness and female extremism, because from what I can see out there,  definitions of feminism are mostly situational, and most of the time is solely dependent on the mood and peculiar cravings or experiences of the particular woman defining it at any given time. Indeed, today, whether as a struggle, ideology or movement, feminism is an amorphous and an unnecessarily ambiguous phenomenon. The lesbian, for instance, announces herself as a feminist. The prostitute claims she is “making some kind of protest.”  The never-married, unmarriageable single mother is “driving home some point.”  The ever-wild nympho-maniac (who ought to have sought help) is “advancing the struggle.”  The lady out there with revolting obsession for luring small boys to her nest and cruelly deflowering them is “getting back at the oppressor—man.” The habitually unfaithful wife is “sending out some message.” Now, in the midst of this cacophony of voices, how can we know who is sane? Must otherwise sane women continue to endorse all these ruinous absurdities just to get back at men?


Many critics are agreed that the   societies she created in Nwapa’s novels are unrecognizable. But because of her popularity with women empowerment diehards, most other female writers that came after her were easily seduced into adopting her art-murdering style. In my article in The Guardian (Lagos), Sunday, June 1, 1997, p.B4, entitled, “Zainab Akali And Feminist Writers,” which provoked a year-long debate  and even name-calling by some female contributors, I was frank about my observation that the works of those female writers “are united by their possession of the same maladies:  they are blessed with all the features  of fairy tales and myth; they unabashedly distort with indecency and uncanny bravado, sociology and gender images just to make some shallow feminist point; their heroines  are spared healthy competitions as they only thrive in outlandish communities peopled by only weak, emasculated, lazy, foolish and insane men.”


Indeed, the “unliberated” Beatrice in Anthills Of The Savannah, achieved all she had by dint of hard work in the midst of equally intelligent and hardworking men, not by “conquering” the men by sleeping around. Her only offence, may be, would be that she was not anti-men, but favoured an environment that promoted equal opportunities for both the male and female to excel. Maybe, she also sinned because she did her best to ensure her proposed marriage to Chris worked.
All I am saying really is that when viewed within the particular environment and period in which they were set, Achebe’s female characters are very real. They are easily recognizable, and I would prefer them any day than the outlandish caricatures offered us as alternatives in many feminist novels.
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Saturday, 19 April 2008

The West Is The Giver And Taker Of Literary Life – Chinedu Ogoke, Nigerian Writer


[In 2002, Chinedu Ogoke, a Nigerian writer and translator resident in Germany published his first novel, Under Fire. His second novel is being awaited. In this interview with UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE, Mr. Ogoke speaks on his work and the state of African Literature in relation to the still thorny issue of audience definition]
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When we talked in September 2003, after the publication of your first novel, Under Fire (2002), you said you already had the outline of another novel, how soon should we expect to read the novel?
2003! That is already an age. You mean I have allowed so much time to pass without coming up with another work? Phew, in that time, two novels ought to have been breathing on the table.
 I had thought that what I had had been brought to a stage and so laid out that one should just do a smooth drive and that would be it. How wrong I was. Some pages of the outline, which is elaborate, have gone missing. Snatched away by the wind of time. I built a pattern, though simple, that requires a reorientation to keep it going. I have found myself in an undesirable situation whereby I have to walk through the worlds I meant to depict, or replay events in those contexts. I have to rediscover our people’s speech habits and choice of words to construct such scenes. Something like that. They are not inconclusive outlines, but whole portions gone missing. You cannot insert peanuts for perm kernels and expect a flow. The right attitudes have to be found in the appropriate places.
Besides, my current research work came in and has to get priority attention. That naturally, caused some delays. Unless this current project gets out of the way, the manuscript will be lying where it is at the moment. The research work is boring. I detest conventions, and this is what I am forced to do. Rules here and there. Flowery language may be unwelcome here, which takes away the fun and the urge to move ahead with it. Assuming it were a novel, I wouldn’t need a driving license in every corner or adhering to a thousand traffic rules.
In fact, I work on the novel once in a while as a kind of push for the project at hand. Else even the project will be there, with nothing going. One third of the novel has been written, which includes the last page. Let’s see; by the end of this year, 2008, we can be talking about a conclusion of a second novel. Publishing is something else, for obvious reasons.

 Thank you. How much of African and Nigerian Literature is being studied in Germany ?

 German society is served by as much African Studies as the country requires. A German student who finds himself or herself in a classroom for African Studies understands his or her business there is a foundation for eventual social work in Africa . When one turns to a lecturer of African Studies, the reasons might be different. From the score sheet of African studies, the University of Bayreuth takes the lead here. The spirit for which it has been recognized manifests even now. Presently, it has a series of events that runs like a continuous programme in any university anywhere.
 In Mainz , there is the Ethnology Department, which houses the famous Jahn Library. The library is presently headed by a young lady, Dr. Anja Oud. It is awash with African books. The largest collection of African books in the whole world, I am told. This is mere aspiration than the fact, I guess. For all I know, a visitor will see as many books as possible. How they have been able to lift even the most unlikely books to the place is interesting. The response to the need for those books, while neglecting the use of the very books, is a great puzzle. There are insufficient courses, lecturers and purposes for so many books. So, the books lie there idle. The Ethnology Department is certainly home to the largest collection of African music worldwide. The man responsible for this is a Prof. Wolfgang Bender. He had had assistance from one Bayo. Ow-, the other name is elusive. Once, I benefited from a well-attended promo on Nollywood given by one Professor Frings.
Yet, compared with the situation in the USA, UK or Canada , African Studies here is at the kindergarten stage. In the Ethnology Department, they are under-funded. Students are brought face to face with scholars from Africa through a commendable exchange programme. Why Africans only have to come and go remains a puzzle. Like Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo was in Bayreuth some time in 2006.
 Elsewhere, African literature has really not qualified to ride in the same vehicle as say American literary studies or English literary studies. This is not far removed from the prestige that accompanies these literatures and cultures. In the English and Linguistics departments the closest students may come to anything African is the encounter with the name Nnamdi Azikiwe in Langston Hughes’ poems, or Onwuchekwa Jemie’s work on Langston Hughes, all in African American Studies. In which case, Jemie’s and Azikiwe’s roots are lost. In the library, Chinua Achebe’s and Wole Soyinka’s books may lie below an often visited book, the latter hardly noticed. Their literary status here is hardly diminished, for they are well represented in people’s leisure time, especially in the hands of people desirous of good literature. Ken Saro-Wiwa is the most prominent personality.

 What do you think accounts for Ken Saro-Wiwa’s prominence, the quality of his work, his struggles or manner of death?

 It has to do with the type of prominence bestowed upon oil politics. Worldwide, oil has a special place in news coverage. The quality of Saro-Wiwa‘s work has little to do with it. A girl with an African parent and I once honoured him (Saro-Wiwa) with a presentation. We were marketing what we thought was a good product. People were there yearning for their own Saro-Wiwa encounter and we had to satisfy that. In doing it, I was fully aware of what projecting him meant to my roots.
If you took away the struggle and the manner of death, and without the signature of an African dictator, the fan base wouldn‘t have grown out of probably Africa or the UK . You know, Sani Abacha was unpopular in the West, because he was stingy. He forgot the rules of the game, wouldn‘t let the naira depreciate and so made enemies with the wrong people. You don‘t get away with such acts. In spite of the disguises, Saro-Wiwa and Moshood Abiola were rallying points for them. We will never fail to point out what is injustice, which was what Saro-Wiwa‘s was. If you can get that type of picture from Africa, of the innocence associated with literature on one hand and the brutish force on the other, you will have people coil around lit candles, and dance to the drumbeats of those media people. It was all a pre-arranged fight and one of the best plots in our time. Like, I guess, it was you who once pointed that out in a write-up; they must have whispered to Abacha that Saro-Wiwa wasn‘t untouchable. If a Saro-Wiwa were to be pushed into Robert Mugabe‘s hands and no love is shown to the writer, the story would be heard far and near.
Chinedu Ogoke

Okay, let’s return to the issue of readership of African literary works. I doubt if this matter of under-readership also applies to writers whose works are available in German. Achebe’s works, for instance, were translated into German many years ago.

 The need has to be there for the works to be translated. They haven‘t taken much notice of African works. Achebe‘s is like something that is there but out of sight. Things Fall Apart is like an African Beowulf. You wonder if somebody wrote it and disappeared. That is his dilemma. The West is the giver and taker of literary life, and one in charge of the African creative estate. On the other hand, the African writer is an orphan, an adopted child. He has to operate within some accepted standards, and listen to the voice of his guardian, who reports to a higher authority, the Western reader. On the idea of transforming our society into a large reading audience, one Segun Fajemisin, a publisher in Britain , once in a private discussion, suggested that flyers of novels should be slipped into home video CD sleeves, perhaps to invoke the home video magic. That is, making literature part of the menu. This means that Nollywood could pass the message around. There is the easy-to-listen audio arrangement that has gained currency in Europe . That way, consumption of the product may not interfere with every day things like driving. So also, with incentives, we can get crowds to listen to writers read from their works.
 We can begin from the home, by making entertainment literature visible in the house. By extension creating a fantasy world within the home that connects with the outside world. Parents will then routinely make their children tell them about the stories they read recently and vice versa. As a child I was myself partly led into the exciting worlds of mathematics and fiction by an elder brother. I found myself aged maybe six listening to the Medusa mythology from a sister of mine. The story was very complex, but the sensation the broken pieces therein left in my head perhaps was helpful. Besides, the powers of the images of Hercules and the two snakes held in his hands, and of orangutans from a book I won as a member of a youth volunteer society entitled Wonders of Nature really did sink in. Every household needs these siblings of mine. My parents were far removed from the scene. Sadly, it was short-lived. I also wouldn’t forget us children partly encircling a village lad and listening to akuko ifo or folk tales. Victoria Ezeokoli did try to re-enact this on TV. But you get these results if you have the African family intact. The family we have come to know today is one left to the care of the Nigerian reality. Now, we don’t know how to get our children back to schools. We need divine help to pull them out of internet cafes, from hawking on the streets, etc. The family has to be put back. Unfortunately, we let the extended family branch fall away, and every other thing is going with it.
 If we talk about something being fulfilling, Nigerian society rewards people who can boast of patronage, which is what a relationship with the West brings. The question is: what are publishers looking for in a book? Readers in turn would want to spend their money and time for brilliantly written stories. The scenery as painted in a novel may fail to excite a certain reader. In Nigeria , if you draw a line around most writers, you discover they are hardly on the side of justice. They haven’t made us see that they are sincere. A danger can go on as long as the edge of the murderous sword is directed elsewhere.

Each time I hear an African writer demonstrate so eloquently this obsession with Western readers, I am always very uncomfortable; does it really mean that the success of the African writer, every African writer, must necessarily be dependent on his ability to successfully win the heart of the Western reader?

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