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Chinua Achebe turned thirty in 1960, the year Nigeria became an
independent country. His novel, ‘Things Fall Apart’ had been published only two
years earlier. That same year 26-year-old Wole Soyinka returned home after a
six-year sojourn in England. Soyinka’s ‘A Dance of the Forest’ made its
Nigerian debut during the Independence celebrations.

50 years later, none of the initial promise that accompanied
Nigeria’s birth has been fulfilled, and both men, understandably, are
frustrated.

In September, Soyinka, now 76, launched a political party; “an
experiment… that directly challenges those who grumble that there is no
platform, no springboard from which they can provoke the political arena with
fresh and innovative ideas.”

Like Soyinka, Achebe, now 80, is deeply aware of the urgent need
for change in his homeland. “Nigeria has passed the alarming stage and entered
the fatal, and will die if we continue to pretend she is slightly indisposed,”
he told the audience gathered to hear him speak at the Law faculty of the
University of Cambridge, on a chilly Friday evening in November.

Achebe’s relationship with independent Nigeria is fraught with
unrequited love. His achievements as writer (of ‘Things Fall Apart’ and several
other books) and editor (founding editor of the highly influential African
Writers Series) have played a significant role in placing Nigeria on the world
map.

In return, Nigeria has (admittedly) been generous, but only in a
perverse way: setting up the conditions that compelled Achebe’s ethnic group,
the Igbo, to embark on a secession attempt (Achebe suffered heavy losses – his
home, library, his close friend, Christopher Okigbo – during the war that
followed); destroying the local publishing industry that once sustained the
AWS; proving incapable of providing decent medical attention after the 1990 car
crash that paralysed him from the waist down; mocking him with the offer of a national
honour while his home state lay under siege from government-backed thugs. (He
publicly turned down the honour, an action that both incensed and embarrassed
the government).

Flawed beginnings

Achebe was in Cambridge to deliver the inaugural African Studies
Lecture, in honour of Audrey Richards, founder (in 1965) of the University’s
Centre of African Studies. I was twenty minutes late when I arrived at the
venue of the lecture. I met a full hall, with a crowd gathered outside, some
standing on chairs, straining to listen. Unable to squeeze into the hall, I was
forced to mount a chair and struggle to catch his words from behind a glass
wall, until squatting space opened up for me on the floor of the auditorium.

Achebe’s words bore a vigour that belied their speaker’s frail
appearance. The trademark wit remained undiminished. When I arrived he was
reading, from his forthcoming memoirs, a section, set in the distant past,
about “small Ghana” and “big Nigeria”. The difference between Nigeria and
Ghana, I heard him say, was that between “sixpence” and “one penny”.

The period, of course, was 1957, the year Ghana got her
independence. Small Ghana had achieved what Big Nigeria still struggled for –
freedom from British rule. Achebe recalled staying up all night to celebrate
with Lagos-based Ghanaians “only to wake up the next morning to realise we were
still in Nigeria.”

Nigeria would not make the transition from colonial state to
independent nation until three years later. That transition, Achebe said, was
flawed. The British handed over power to “that conservative element in the
country which had played no real part in the struggle for independence.”

Nigeria was thus born tense – its birth the beginning of its
unravelling. Seven years later, the ‘giant of Africa’ was on her knees, ravaged
by war. External influences (“the big powers”), said Achebe, played a
significant role in perpetuating conflict amongst the “small (expendable)
people of the world.”

Victorious Nigerian Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, proved to be a
clueless leader in peace-time, leading the newly-united nation into “decadence
and decline”. Achebe attributed this to Gowon’s being “ever so cocksure
following a civil war victory.”

Political adventure

Democracy would evade Nigeria until the very end of the 1970s,
when, Olusegun Obasanjo (the man who, almost a decade earlier, received the
instrument of surrender from the Biafrans), handed over the instrument of power
to Shehu Shagari, who became – not without controversy – Nigeria’s first
democratically elected civilian President.

In the early ‘80s Achebe joined the “left of centre” Peoples
Redemption Party (PRP), where, he says, he was “right away” appointed Deputy
National President. He found himself “the most unlikely candidate in politics.”
It didn’t take long for him to quit politics. He realised that the majority of
Nigeria’s politicians were in politics “for their own selfish advancement.”
Persons like PRP leader Aminu Kano (“a saintly man”) were rare.

The great paradox

Underlying Achebe’s deep frustration is pride in Nigeria’s
potential – its “very distinguished people” and their “great energy”. “Don’t be
misled by the fact that some of us are always complaining,” he joked.

Nigeria’s size is one of the reasons for that pride; the fact,
Achebe cheekily declared, that “God arranged that every fourth [person] in
Africa would be a Nigerian.”

This paradox – of a failed country of great people – is at the
heart of the Nigerian dilemma. “Why is it that we don’t seem to be making anything
out of these gifts?” Achebe queried.

He equated leadership with “priesthood” because of the “sacred
trust” required by both. Noting that there was a direct link between crude oil
and corruption in Nigeria, he said functioning anti-corruption and judicial
systems are necessary to make corruption “unattractive”.

“Hold people responsible for misconduct and punish them if
they’re guilty.” He also called for the abolition of the Official Secrets Act,
and the speedy passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill.

But here was a man as hopeful as he was critical. “Nigerians
have begun to ask themselves the hard questions,” he said, adding: “The
Nigerian solution will come in stages.”

‘I want to see Chinua’

A drinks reception followed the lecture. Achebe was swarmed by
adoring fans seeking handshakes and photographs; wielding books in need of
signing.

Guests at the lecture included the Acting Nigerian High
Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dozie Nwanna; Etisalat Nigeria Chairman
Hakeem Bello-Osagie (one of the sponsors of the event); Royal African Society
Director Richard Dowden, and Cambridge’s Vice Chancellor Leszek Borysiewicz.

Thurstan Shaw, long-time Achebe friend, and Emeritus Professor
of Archaeology at the Universities of Ibadan and Cambridge, arrived after the
lecture. It was Shaw who, in the late 1950s, led the excavation of the bronze
pieces in Igbo-Ukwu, South-eastern Nigeria, groundbreaking evidence of the
existence of an ancient Igbo civilisation dating back to the ninth century.

His wife, herself a Cambridge professor, accompanied him.
According to her, the 97-year-old Shaw insisted he wanted to “see Chinua”. And
so she had brought him. Unfortunately Achebe had left the lecture venue by the
time they arrived, and Shaw was too frail to make the trip to the venue of the
dinner holding in honour of the father of the African novel later that evening.

Shaw would leave without seeing Achebe. I left Cambridge pondering on the
poignancy of that missed opportunity.