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Ogaga Ifowodo
literally stumbled on poetry writing during his fourth form as a
student of Federal Government College, Warri, when a senior student
requested that he writes a poem for the school’s festival of arts and
culture. For someone who had thought to himself unable to “string two
words together,” it must have been an inspiring surprise that his poem,
‘Ill Wind,’ won a joint first prize in the competition.

Ifowodo has not
relented since that first literary accomplishment. Author of three
poetry collections and an assistant professor at Texas State
University, the writer is back in Nigeria for what he calls a
“Homecoming.” He said, in reference to his poetry readings, which will
be taking place in Federal Government College, Warri, his alma mater;
and Oleh, his hometown: “Charity begins at home. It may not have
started there for me, but I might as well get home now – Oleh has a
right to hear back from me.”

A former customer

In keeping with the
homecoming theme of his current visit to Nigeria, Ifowodo decided to
visit the Ikoyi Prisons, where he was held as a political prisoner in
1998, under the regime of the military dictator, General Sani Abacha. I
was invited to tag along, as was Ayo Obe, lawyer and former president,
Civil Liberties Organisation.

We were admitted
into the yard of Ikoyi Prisons, after brief interviews regarding the
purpose of our visit. Obe did the introduction, gamely introducing
Ifowodo to the prison head, Muhammed Sidi, as “your former customer.”
When queried about his time in prison and his reason for his visit,
Ifowodo said it was for the purpose of “recollecting memories,” which
had become fuzzy in the years since his detention.

Our party was
handed over to Adeosun, a prison officer, who proceeded to take us on a
tour of the yard and its appurtenances. We visited the Education
Centre, donated by the Muharram Sisters. We also got to see the clinic,
where formerly there had been none. It is a well run clinic, with drugs
donated by churches and charities, where before, drugs had been scarce
to come by. Seeing the free movement of inmates – both convicted and
awaiting trial – when before, there had been restrictions to movement
within the yard, was heartening for Ifowodo. “It’s worlds apart from
what it was before. When I was there, donated drugs were being sold
(privately) and wardens were stealing prisoners’ food,” he said.

The poet remembered
being incarcerated in a small cell with other inmates in a block
bearing the name ‘Redemption Kingdom.’ Surprisingly, however, though
the prison attendants were very obliging of our requests, Ifowodo did
not ask to see his old cell. “I was satisfied with seeing the blocks
and yard. I can still picture the cell in my mind; the last room, a
small one, with eight of us in it,” he explained.

When asked about
the prison visit in the context of “homecoming,” his reply was a
slightly outraged, “Let’s not speak about homecoming please, not in
regard to prisons.” Nonetheless, the prison evoked vivid memories for
the poet, who observed that, “Its smell and feel came back to me; even
though I wasn’t able to look around extensively.”

Concluding about
the visit, the poet drew on the example of Nelson Mandela’s visit to
Robben Island, where he had been incarcerated for 18 of his 27 years in
prison. “A way of addressing a trauma is to revisit the place and the
moment in time. It is good to go back and look, with the eyes of
freedom, at the place where you were held on the unjust command of a
dictator,” he said.

Odes to the Delta

Ifowodo’s published
works are: ‘Homeland and Other Poems’, a 1993 ANA first prize winner;
‘Madiba,’ which includes a 27-sonnet poem about Mandela; and ‘The Oil
Lamp’, a 1001 line poem focused on the crises ridden, oil-rich Niger
Delta, where the poet hails from. On the cover photography of the last
book, showing gas explosions in the region, Ifowodo elaborates: “The
flares are dangerous, but in the absence of electricity, they are the
oil lamps of the Niger Delta.”

On the reason for
the precise number of lines in the poem, he responded with feeling, “In
1998, there were massive explosions of pipelines on Jesse. 1000 people
were officially said to have died. So I decided on 1001, to account for
the unrecorded deaths or those who were injured or maimed. I wanted to
revisit the flash-points of Ogoni, the flattening of Odi, and the Jesse
occurrence, and capture the excuses and rationalisations, falsehoods
and arrogance of government.”

Explaining what he
terms the accessibility (rather than simplicity) of the language and
style of ‘The Oil Lamp’, the poet said, “I do not subscribe to poetry
that sets out to be difficult, as if that is a mark of poetic genius.
Many simple poems are profound. We should not mistake accessibility for
simplicity and obscurity for profundity.”

Motivated to poetry
by life generally, Ifowodo gives his inspirations as “things that are
not as they should be, beauty, social injustice, and moments that make
you see something anew.”

Poetry is, however,
not all-sufficient for his need for artistic expression; and he is
currently working on his memoirs – an account of his run-in with the
State Security Service and his time in as a political detainee.
Excerpts have already been published in journals with titles like‘The
Travel Commissar,’ ‘My Own Room,’ and ‘Word Games in Prison.’

The seasoned poet
is also exploring fiction, having written a short story, ‘The
Treasonable Parrot’, which is expected to be published later this year
in a special African edition of AGNI, an US literary journal. Motivated
by this reception of his first fictional prose work, he commented that
“With the enthusiastic acceptance of ‘The Treasonable Parrot’, I am
going to publish the three fiction drafts I have,” he said.

Half the life of a writer

The poet describes
himself as “living half the life of a writer,” having spent the ‘other
half’ as a lawyer, an activist with the Civil Liberties Organisation
(CLO), a Ph.D student of Cornell University, US; and now, a ‘teacher’
of writing with Texas State University. He refers to his university
post as, “my day job, that which pays the rent.”

I asked about his
decision to study law in the University of Benin, following his
revelation that the discipline does not interest him. “I was not the
perfect Law student, but I could have been a good lawyer if that had
been my ambition,” he offers. His uncle, a man of science, had said to
him before he was admitted into the university, “Grammar won’t feed
you, get a profession!”

“Unfortunately, the
trouble was that I had no head for Science or Math. I was totally
seduced by literature,” recalled Ifowodo, who resorted to the
compromise of studying Law.

Intellectual activism

After a short stint
with a Law firm, Ifowodo joined the CLO, where he worked for 8 years;
researching, compiling and reporting human rights abuses in the
country, as well as advocacy and appearing occasionally in court for
pro bono cases. He eventually decided to singularly pursue his dream of
being a writer, though he’d been writing on the side all the while, and
had published a few works. Ifowodo enrolled for a Masters in Fine Arts
(MFA) programme with Cornell University, during which, according to
him, “I got increasingly stimulated and enrolled for a Ph.D.”

Activism resulted
in his status as a political detainee of Nigeria’s last military
regime, but now seems to have been put on the back burner. Ifowodo, who
had been involved in activism since his student days at the University
of Benin as a member of National Association of Nigerian Students
(NANS) and secretary of his school’s Student Union, reflected on the
shift: “I call it intellectual activism now; one can advocate change in
as many ways as possible. Distance is the major reason why I cannot be
involved as directly as I was. But I still do it in my writings and
whenever I have the opportunity to speak in public.”

Exile and homecoming

Author of the
famous poem ‘God Punish You, Lord Lugard,’ Ifowodo expressed an
intention to come back to settle in Nigeria, asserting that, “I never
went to exile. It’s not a matter of if I’ll return; it’s a matter of
when.” At my attempt to draw attention to the difference in the
standard of living in his hometown in the Niger Delta and his
residential town of Texas, both of which are oil-rich geographical
locations, he attributed the disparity in the evidence of oil wealth to
the ownership of the resource: government in Nigeria; private
individuals who would own their land, drill oil, and pay taxes to the
government in Texas. He also blamed the underdevelopment in the Niger
Delta on the “kleptocracy of government.”

During the
interview, which was interspersed with phone calls from Flomat Books
(the organisation hosting Ifowodo’s readings in Oleh and Warri on July
24 and 31 respectively), I gathered that the activist and lawyer would
be receiving a sort of hero’s welcome in his hometown. “My homecoming
in Oleh is looking to be bigger than I expected,” Ifowodo confirmed
expectantly. Hopefully, the experience might encourage him to return
‘home’ sooner, rather than later.

Ogaga Ifowodo reads in Oleh, Delta State, on July 24 and in Warri on July 31.