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My lover and I are
out shopping. She is famished; she would like a hot dog and a drink.
The place does not accept credit cards, we must pay cash. She shoves a
crumpled dollar and a fistful of coins in my hands. As I try to pay, I
realize I am having trouble counting the coins. Ten pennies make a
dime, I think. I rarely use currency. If it is not in plastic I don’t
pay. I am a digital native; I use my debit card and a couple of credit
cards for virtually all my transactions. Between the cards and my
laptop there is no financial transaction I cannot execute, including
ordering groceries and having them delivered. I rarely go to our bank;
there is hardly any need to. I just got a fresh supply of checks; this
batch will probably last me the rest of my life and I intend to live a
long time. The other day, I drove 600 miles with only a dollar in my
wallet. The dollar came back unspent. I don’t remember how the dollar
got into my wallet. On the trip I paid for everything with plastic,
even the tolls were paid from a plastic contraption on my windscreen
that beams the tolls straight into my checking account. It saves me
time; I do not have to wait in line behind Luddites waiting to pay the
toll collector with crumpled bills, cowries and live chickens.

The other day a
homeless person armed with his Blackberry and effete prayers asked me
for money. I had no cash on me. I almost asked him if he accepts credit
cards. Technology has removed currency from the streets and the
homeless are the poorer for it. I should have offered to pay the
homeless man’s cell phone bill by zapping it with our son’s smartphone.
His smartphone is a thing of wonder. It has applications that do
practically everything including shutting off his parents from their
creature comforts whenever he is angry at us. When he goes to the
stores with his mom he scans the barcodes of merchandise into his phone
and he can tell his mom where she can get the same item cheaper. His
phone is also our TV remote control and when he is upset about
something we did to him, his ears refuse to function and we don’t know
how to turn on the TV without His Excellency. Power is no longer
hierarchical. We are learning to negotiate new relationships thanks to
the new digital world we live in.

When my dad came to visit us a few years ago, I was curious to know
his impressions of the world’s technological advances. I asked him what
he would tell folks back home in our village. He said, “I tell you, the
white man is no longer a human being. The white man is next to God! My
son, America reminds me of how Lagos was before our yeye Independence!
The things that my eyes have seen in America, I am afraid to say with
my own mouth in the village. When my people ask me, how was America, I
will simply say America is fine, my son and my daughter in-law are fine
and my grand children eat well. I will not dare tell them of the magic
that my eyes have seen. Do you blame me? If I tell my people that there
are water taps and you put your hand under them, and real water starts
gushing out without you touching them, they will say, ah, Papalolo, you
have come again with your stories! Are you the first person to go to
America? The other day I nearly screamed in the toilet in the shopping
mall when after relieving myself, I got up and the toilet automatically
flushed itself! Just like that! How did the toilet know that I was
finished with my business? Unbelievable! These people know where God
is!” I honestly do not miss the old ways of life. Suffering is
overrated. When I left home for America three decades ago, I simply
dropped out of Africa, physically, cut off from that which nurtured me.
I was a frightened young man, left adrift in an uncertain world. Things
seemed cold sometimes and I could have used Skype, Facebook, Yahoo Chat
and all the various real time connections out there. A cell phone would
have been a miracle. I did not have access to any of these things. I
missed Nigeria badly and I wrote long letters of longing to everyone.
It took weeks for replies to reach me and I remember the joy of opening
my mailbox to see letters written in long hand. Today, letters written
long hand are a thing of the past. In Nigeria, cell phones are used in
more advanced ways than here in America. My brother drives around Lagos
executing business nonstop on his numerous cell phones. He rarely needs
to go to the office. His phones pay his bills. It is a new planet. I
like it.

The poet Ahmed
Maiwada is a talented, hard working writer possessing a vision
seemingly informed by a personal sense of integrity. In his poetry and
prose, Maiwada, boldly experiments with life’s meaning, even as he
stares controversy in the eye. He has just written a debut work of
fiction titled Musdoki, published in Nigeria by an outfit called
Mazariyya Books. Maiwada is the Chairman of Mazariyya Entertainment
Company, which presumably owns the publishing unit.

What is this book about?

I am not quite
sure, even though I read it back-to-back twice. Let’s just say that the
main character Musa Maidoki aka Musdoki, is a good looking
self-conscious lawyer from Northern Nigeria with awkward social graces
who is hounded by a demonic lady bent on setting him on a destructive
path. Also, as the book tells it, Musdoki, living in the South, gets
caught up in the civil unrest following the 1993 annulment of the
Nigerian elections by a Northerner, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.
M.K.O. Abiola, a Southerner was widely believed to be the winner of the
elections. Angry Southerners spill into the streets, eager to exact
revenge on Northerners for the sins of Babangida. So alleges the book.
This distorted interpretation of history ensures that this deeply
flawed book is fascinating reading.

Musdoki reads like
a typical debut novel. It seems autobiographical; like Musdoki the main
character, Maiwada is a lawyer and one detects his life’s experiences
between the book’s covers. It is difficult to tell if one is reading a
work of fiction, or the true autobiography of the author. The book has
its charms. Read it, close your eyes and you can visualise Nigerian
males in heat lusting after ladies with names like Christine, ladies
who wish to be re-christened Jolene after country singer Dolly Parton’s
song of the same name. Weird, but charming. This is one quirky, strange
book; Maiwada loves lime and shades of green. It seems like every
colour in the book is lime, or a shade of green: The story inhabits a
strange space filled with malevolent aliens wearing lime and green
coloured dresses. Sorcery is a recurring theme. Sometimes however,
attempts at magical realism manufacture hallucinatory silliness. The
book is an intriguing, if awkward sequence of malarial hallucinations;
Musdoki sees apes, hawks, flying feathers etc in strange places. The
reader is treated to Ben Okri-like scenes with people morphing into
snakes and appearing in bathrooms.

Like Okri’s ‘The
Famished Road’, Maiwada’s novel adequately captures the drama and
dysfunction that is Nigeria. There is atmosphere, lots of it. Maiwada
negotiates the Nigerian cities with eyes of wonder and magnificent
detail. The book draws on a lot of colourful characters to portray
equally colourful scenes: Nigerian bus drivers collect urine to use as
hydraulic fluid for their buses; there is a dog named Junta and there
is a tortoise named Tortoise; the reader learns a lot; for example,
fadamas are flood plains, low-lying land; and there is a truly
gripping, scary section in the book where a girl tries to drown Musdoki
in the sea.

Shabby production

From a technical
standpoint, however, Musdoki is a shabby production, a disjointed
sequence of events featuring awkward dialogue with an inchoate plot.
Maiwada’s talent for prose-poetry is not enough to save the book. This
is a book featuring loosely and poorly structured narrative, hopping
along on several themes, many allergic to each other. Musdoki, the main
character is described as handsome and he knows it. He is also
self-absorbed and narcissistic, wearing an air of megalomania. He has
these awkward, stilted mannerisms. A deity-complex seems to follow him
everywhere he goes and he loiters around, drenched in a smug air of
self importance. muttering baffling psychobabble that fuels his
self-absorption. The dialogue flows with the speed of molasses, moving
along like a constipated boa constrictor. Most times the dialogue is
merely baffling and one wonders where it is leading.

Musdoki is a sad
commentary on the awful state of the publishing industry in Nigeria. It
is really disheartening how a publishing company can take the product
of a promising writer like Maiwada and simply staple together his raw
manuscript with little attempt at polish and refinement. There is
abundant evidence that not a single sentence was edited by someone with
editing skills. The book showcases the usual issues plaguing books
published in Nigeria and they collectively spell mediocrity, to put it
mildly. ‘Musdoki’ suffers from an abundance of poor attention to
detail, sloppy research, grammatical errors, awful prose,
inappropriately used words and an atrocious grasp of Pidgin English.
Even the spine loudly misspells the book’s title. The publishers have
done all the wrong things that it is possible to do to a book. It is a
shame because one could visualize a totally different outcome for the
book in the hands of a competent publishing company.

Stereotypes and caricatures

One gets the
feeling that the main purpose of Musdoki, once one gets past its
editorial issues, is to goad Nigerians of Southern extraction into a
foaming rage. It features unfortunate stereotypes of Southerners as
caricatures. On the other hand, Northerners are clothed in the dignity
of moral rectitude and are portrayed as victims in that troubled space
called Nigeria. Where Southerners communicate in halting English like
half-humans, Northerners happily engage others using standard English.
The book is reams of bigotry and ethnocentrism casually dropped into
the middle of a baffling tale. It features an analysis of the events
after the unfortunate annulment of the Nigerian elections on June 12,
1993. The analysis is rife with misstatements. According to the
narrative, Southerners, especially the Yoruba, enraged that the
elections have been annulled by a Northern president, go hunting for
Northerners to kill in revenge. There is an orgy of ethnic cleansing
and Musdoki survives a near lynching: “Lagos was shut down by the riots
in the streets following the annulment of the 1993 Presidential
Election in Nigeria… I learnt that offices and banks had been shut
down; that there were bonfires… that the Hausas were being murdered in
the streets by the Yoruba who would stop a moving vehicle and demand
for its occupants’ identities and then hack down any of its Hausa
occupants (p86).” What are we supposed to make of this? I would say
that ‘Musdoki is a work of fiction bearing weighty untruths. This is
magical realism taken to an unnecessarily provocative level. As an
aside, the book makes the case eloquently that Nigeria is a strange
country of mimic-people invested in uncritical imitation of whites and
western values. Who in the world has hot dogs and hot coffee for
breakfast?

Bigotry

As poorly produced
as the book is, it is an important one, because it allows the reader a
peep into the seething soul of a Northerner. At some point in the
book’s journey, Musdoki is in a car filled with Northerners, fleeing
the South and an alleged pogrom. This is Maiwada at his best, or some
would say, at his worst. The reader is taken by Musdoki’s trip home to
the North away from the vengeful Yorubas. It is harrowing and moving
indeed, except that this is fiction. It did not happen. The dialogue in
that car houses some of the worst bigotry against Southern ethnicities
that I have ever heard or read in my lifetime. In any case, someone
with a good grasp of the events of 1993 should educate me: What exactly
did M.K.O. Abiola the presumptive winner of the elections say against
the North after the annulment that was meant to incite Southerners into
war?

This book is an
inelegant expression of lingering resentment by Northerners against
Southerners, a book that is almost dismissive, perhaps a rousing
defense and justification, of the pogrom of the sixties against the
Igbo, one that is curiously silent on the genocide that was the
Nigerian civil war. It also seems devoted to glorifying T.Y. Danjuma’s
counter coup, that bloody response to Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s 1966
one (p100). Hear one of the characters taunt the Yoruba. “They are
indeed white hyenas. Otherwise, why have they deserted their towns and
villages for their dogs and goats? See for yourself! How can white
hyenas ever have the liver to declare a war, like Ojukwu did? (p99).”
‘Musdoki’ is a bipolar organism moving swiftly between narcissistic
self-absorbent musings to a sweepingly false vista of Nigeria’s
history, relentlessly blurring the border between truth and fantasy. It
comes across as a partisan attempt to rewrite a most unfortunate
portion of Nigeria’s history.

Misogyny

Musdoki is also an
important peep into the state of gender relations in today’s Nigeria.
If this book is accurate, the relationships are mostly unwholesome and
steeped in disrespectful engagement. Strong shades of misogyny colour
relationships; and women get the awful end of the stick. It is a
disturbing look at how Nigerian men view women and how women
(submissive and docile for the most part) respond to the abuse. This
attitude is pervasive and it doesn’t seem to matter if the women are
educated and accomplished. Indeed it appears to be the case that those
attributes would appear to aggravate the misogyny.

Musdoki is what
happens when living witnesses remain mute and a nation refuses to
confront its past. Time is dulling the pain of injustice. It is the
nature of injustice that Biafra seems so far away. Dozens of books have
been written about this mad episode in our nation’s growth, most of
them by Southerners, the latest being ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’. Adichie’s
book is a work of stellar industry and near genius considering that the
author was born well after the end of the war. There are perhaps some
facts and conclusions in that book that need to be addressed and
confronted. This should be done with respect for historical accuracy
and compassion for the hundreds of thousands of lives that were lost in
that unjust war.

It is true that in terms of the written word, with respect to the
Nigerian civil war, the commentary has been dominated by Southern
thinkers. There have been few Northern writers weighing in with their
perspective. Despite the myriad flaws of Musdoki, it is an important
book in that it shows that a fiery rage burns still in the hearts and
minds of Northerners. There is no excuse for what happened during the
pogrom and the Nigerian civil war. Today, the major characters of that
era are still with us, sporting fancy titles and stealing the nation
blind. They loom large on the landscape seemingly proud of the mess
that they have created out of our nation space. It is said that
Danjuma’s counter-coup was the North’s deadly response to what they saw
as an Igbo coup led by Nzeogwu. We are living with the consequences of
those dastardly actions today. Let it not be said that the writer Ahmed
Maiwada is following the same dastardly dysfunctional tradition.

Ebi Atawodi studied
Electrical Electronics Engineering at the University of Nottingham, UK
and is now the creative director of Inden, a company which offers
identity, website, environmental and literature design.

The company
launched its ‘Nigerians Behind the Lens’, a limited edition fine art
photography book showcasing nine contemporary Nigerian photographers on
Thursday, December 9 at The Terrace, Four Points, Sheraton,Victoria
Island, Lagos.

Works by Adolphus
Opara, Amaize Ojeikere, Andrew Esiebo, Emeka Okereke, George Osodi,
Jide Alakija, TY Bello, Uche Okpa-Iroha and Yetunde Ayeni-Babaeko are
featured in the beautiful bound book which costs N35.000. Atawodi spoke
about the book at the launch party.

You had this idea in 2006 but it’s just coming into fruition. Why did it take so long?

Really, the project
is supposed to be a book for clients. It was meant to be a much smaller
photography book. We (as a company) have never been in Nigeria and it
grew and morphed into what it is today. We didn’t want to hurry the
process; we wanted to understand the industry. It’s a bit insulting if
you come in and almost decide to make a book when you have no idea
about Nigerian photography. Along the way, we’ve met people and made
very meaningful relationships and that’s what made the book what it is
today.

Do you now consider yourself knowledgeable enough about Nigerian photography?

Quite
knowledgeable. Over the years, I’ve met around 60 to 100 Nigerian
photographers from all walks of life. People who work a day job and are
photographers in passing; people who are fashion photographers but only
work in the studio; people who are interested in Fine Art, all kinds of
photographers and I think based on that, I’ve got a solid understanding
of what the industry is like. The problems, the pains… I had the
opportunity to interview every single photographer in the book, so I
also got insights.

What were the criteria used in selecting the nine photographers?

There has never
really been, none that I’m aware of, a book celebrating just Nigerian
contemporary photography. When you ask about Nigerian photographers,
people are aware of them, but not a lot outside the industry. So we
needed this book to travel. That was the goal. It will get to people
who probably have never heard about Nigerian photography, or people who
have heard about Nigerian photography but have not seen this kind of
photography.

We really wanted to
make sure that we were saying something and the criteria for that was
one: contemporary. We want people in the current. There are old
photographers like Don Barber, Sunmi Smart-Cole but we’ve seen a lot of
their work so we wanted to show the newer, upcoming photographers. We
also wanted to have a cross section of the different styles of
photography; photo journalism, documentary photography, fine art;
fashion photography, still life; landscape, we wanted to have immense
talent. Finally, it was those who resonated with us on the project;
those who felt the energy and passion that we had.

This is the first edition, will there be others?

The plan is to
continue to showcase Nigerian photography. We might have a book on just
amateurs; we might have one on just Architecture photography. With time
and as the project carries on, we‘ll have more and more photographers,
richer collection of images, richer bodies of work, interesting
subjects. We‘ll just go on from there. I can’t tell you what the next
one will be but there will be one very soon, probably two years. It
will not take four years, this time.

Why the limited number of copies, just 1000?

I like things to
have value, I like books. You come to my home I have dozens of books
and there is something quite nice about knowing that there only a
thousand copies of them. It’s crazy, it’s like you knowing that there
are 1000 copies and they are all sold out and that’s it. People who
have this 1000 copies, it’s creating a web and there will be another
edition people can look forward to. I don’t like the idea of having
millions of books floating around the world; I like it when people can
have a truly collectible piece. They will be one among a thousand who
own the book. I feel there is something special about that.

It is around
10.45am at the back of an eatery on Ekaniwoh road, Port Harcourt. A man
in T-shirt, slacks and Rasta cap is inspecting costumes spread on the
floor with an associate. He is Shabaka Thompson, chief executive of
Carnival Village, London, organisers of the famous Notting Hill
Carnival and the man we came to see.

We have to wait,
however, as Lekan Olujinmi, another of his associates engages us about
Thompson and his crew’s involvement in the 2010 Rivers State Carnival
(CARNIRIV) while he finishes his inspection. Thompson is in town with
four others: Moses Charles and Andrew Baptiste, both art practitioners
from London; Earl Thompson, a carnival masquerader from Trinidad and
Tobago and Verna Edwards, his assistant. The duo got some sponsorship
from the Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board to participate in the
carnival.

Carnival costumes

Thompson was
initially approached to be a consultant to the carnival but when a
delegation from Rivers State witnessed this year’s Notting Hill
Carnival, they requested costumes from the Carnival Village. It is the
costumes, about 17, that Thomspon is inspecting when we arrive. The
costumes were used by five newly introduced free style bands for their
street parade on Saturday.

Though Thompson has
never participated in the carnival before, he has brought appropriate
archive costumes. “We know the five bands and their theme so somehow,
we’ve matched specific costumes. Each costume tells a story. Liberation
probably is the best example. The three costumes we have are symbolic
of liberation.

“We brought a
crocodile because one of the band’s symbols is a crocodile. There is a
band, I can’t mention the name now, they are very Afrocentric in their
costuming so we have elements of that. Our costumes are very abstract,
some are definitive but because of the abstraction, it will blend in
because they are not just definitive costumes, apart from the
crocodile,” he offers.

It is the first
time the Carnival Village will be sending out its costumes without an
accompanying masquerader, thus necessitating Thompson’s presence. “I
thought it will help those who will be putting this on for the first
time to have an example direct from Trinidad and Tobago on how to move
it because it’s a different type of kinetics.”

Great home coming

Though it’s the
first time Notting Hill Carnival is interacting professionally with
CARNIRIV, Thompson already foresees the prospects. “Artistically, we
could share. We could exchange but more so I think culturally, it is
about who we are as a people and the importance of what we have created
outside of the continent which is the carnival in the Diaspora. We have
shared carnivals with Europeans and the Americans in a way that it has
brought people together. I think now that the continent is moving from,
correct me if I am wrong, to using the word carnival rather than
festivals or durbars, they are incorporating the word that we are
familiar with.

“I think it’s
circular, it’s a return to the beginning. Masquerades, taken out of
here, developed out in the West, in the Caribbean. Bring it back and
blending it with what is here. It could only be better for us; Pan
Africanism and healing the nation and bringing Africans together. It is
a common kind of thread, and if we work through that thread of
carnival, I think we could make Africa strong again. But it has to be
made strong with what we have created here; what we’ve taken over there
and bringing it back home and appreciating it.

“CARNIRIV has given
us our first opportunity. For me, it’s a spiritual thing. It’s a
homecoming but it’s not only a homecoming, it’s a homecoming with
something creative because we are creative people and sharing what has
evolved out of here. There are similarities; that African retention has
remained in the Caribbean. It has just transformed into a different
feel because it has blended with other cultures.

“Where I come from,
Trinidad and Tobago, Yoruba culture has given rise to what we call
Orisa. I understand that’s not a term you use in Nigeria, but Yoruba
culture has given a precedent in Trinidad and Tobago as Orisa; and if
that has arrived in Trinidad and Tobago, it means there has to be a
connection to this. There is a connection spiritually between Nigeria
and Trinidad and Tobago.” Long term relationship Carnival Village,
which Thompson heads, is made up of four groups. The Association of
British Calypsonians (ABC);Ebony Steel BandTrust [it performed at the
Peace Concert which ended CARNIRIV] ; Mangrove Steel Band and Mas Band
and Yaa Asantewaa Arts. The organisation operates at two venues, The
Tabernacle, an iconic building in Notting Hill and the Yaa Centre at
Maida Vale.

“It’s not what you
have physically; it’s an idea to develop the technique, entertainment
and the art of carnival and we want to do that through venue based
facilities. So, we developed a sector which is carnival art in Britain
and developed an industry around it.” Though the artist is happy with
the Carnival Village’s relationship with the Rivers State Government,
he will be happier relating with artists. “Creative people are the ones
who make things happen; government to government don’t really make
things happen. This is for a long term, not only bringing costumes but
offering opportunities for practitioners as well to come to London to
work with us. We bring people here on a long term basis to develop the
costumes and at different levels as we go by. That will bring other
people wanting to see and feel the carnival.”

More than importation

There have been
criticisms in some quarters that Nigerian carnivals are directly
importing Caribbean culture. What’s Thompson’s view on this?

“Why not? The
blessed thing about the continent is that we don’t only exist on the
continent, we are global people and that’s our strength. We have taken
the masquerade and developed it in the West on another level. We went
to the camp where they are making the costumes; we’ve seen the
materials they’ve used. For us that’s the beginning. It’s fine, it’s
brilliant, it’s good for Africa but can you imagine if you bring those
two cultures, those two forms together?

“This is more than
just importing, this is more about uniting and learning from each other
again so we become stronger. The only continent that is yet to rise
again because we were there before, to start it all, is Africa. You see
Japanese rising, you see Chinese rising economically or otherwise, we
are still seen in the continent as needy people. We, as Africans are
the only ones who can correct those wrongs. Yes, it will take a time of
importation; we strongly believe that things have to start somewhere.
And once we start and reconnect, then we can take it on another level.
We may not have to import costumes from London; we can come here and
develop them. It’s cultural exchange, a process, learning ideas. It can
only be positive. It may be costly in the beginning but that’s a
sacrifice you have to make for culture.

“The other thing we do not appreciate as a people although other
people see it because the first thing they will ask a Black man in the
West is are you a musician? Are you a player of some instrument because
they perceive us as that. Our art form is what we gave the world; there
is no excuse for the cost. Apart from our minerals which they have
stolen and raped already, what we have is ourselves, our culture and
our art.”

Film journalist and critic Shaibu Husseini has launched a book, ‘Moviedom… The Nollywood Narratives, Clips on the Pioneers’, presented on December 17 to commemorate his 40th birthday. Incidentally, his fellow film journalist, Victor Akande, did a similar thing a month ago.
The book launch which took place at the National Theatre in Lagos saw a gathering of Nollywood stars, filmmakers and stakeholders in the industry, as the writer has interviewed and interacted with every known name in the business.
Jahman Anikulapo, editor of the Sunday Guardian, veteran filmmaker Eddie Ugbomah, Peace Anyiam Osigwe, founder of the African movie awards, Victor Akande, film journalist with the Nation newspapers and Martins Adaji, artistic director of the National troupe of Nigeria graced the launch.
Filmmaker Zeb Ejiro, Segun Arinze, president of the Actors’ Guild of Nigeria and Abuja Film Festival head, Fidelis Duker among many others were also at the event.
The book
Husseini said he coined the term ‘Moviedom’ to describe the movie industry in Nigeria. “It is a book of profiling,” he said. “We profiled people we considered the pioneers of the movie industry.”
On the motivation for the book, he stated that, “It was motivated by the fact that we might forget them. There is a need to think about our past so as to know how to forge ahead.” For him, it was important to identify the key players, hear their stories and know what made them tick.
Husseini informed that it was difficult to profile all the names that had been gathered as there were over 185 individuals after the compilation, and they wanted to publish just 60.
“We had to pick the major players, that is, those who played significant roles in the evolution of Nollywood,” he said. To make this a bit easy, they also chose a timeframe, because the list of names was exhaustive.
Husseini disclosed that the book was also intended to correct certain misconceptions about how the Nigerian movie industry started. According to him, people often mention the movie ‘Living in Bondage’ whenever they talk about how the industry started. “But there were people like Bayo Salami, and Alade Aromire did ‘Ekun’ in 1988”, Husseini revealed.
Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, a key personality at the event, gave the welcome address. “Celebrating Nollywood is something we must do. If there is one thing that has put Nigeria on the world map, it is our creativity. Nollywood inclusive,” she declared.
Nollywood Producer and actor Zik Zulu Okafor also offered some remarks, observing that, “The book offers an insight into our history.”
The review
Hyninus Ekwuazi, the book’s reviewer, said, “I have known Shaibu professionally. Both of us sit on the AMA jury.” Ekwuazi a lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ibadan and a film critic, while giving the review, spoke a bit about the history of the Nigerian video film.
He touched on the transition from the cine to video. “There are certain things that led to movies like ‘Living in Bondage’. We are beginning to see that without the cine, the home video would not have come in,” Ekwuazi pointed out.
“The value of this work is that it helps us to look back on the road we have travelled. It’s part of the process of documentation.” Ekwuazi however indicated that he had expected to see more significance given to Ola Balogun, Eddie Ugbomah and the late Hubert Ogunde, in the book.
The Kogi-born Husseini, a pioneer member of the National Troupe of Nigeria and a former chair of the Dance Guild of Nigeria, started writing for The Guardian in 1999 after being moved to do so by Jahman Anikulapo. He currently runs two columns in the newspaper’s Saturday and Sunday editions: ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Moviedom’.

Nigerian writers
have given a cautious welcome to President Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘Bring
Back The Book’ campaign, launched in a high profile series of events at
the Eko Hotel, Lagos, on Monday, December 20.

Joining the
president for the first event of the day, a reading session with 400
pupils from about 20 schools, was Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, who read
from an abridged version of his childhood memoirs, ‘Ake’. Soyinka said
the draw to the event, for him, was the idea of reading to children,
likening the experience to an early Christmas present for himself. The
laureate explained the irreverent nicknames he coined for his father
and mother, Essay and Wild Christian. The elder Soyinka was known to
his friends as S.A, and the way they said the initials, sounded like
‘essay’ to the son. As for his mother, Soyinka told the children that
“her Christianity was on the wild side,” hence her nickname, which he
never dared utter in her presence. “I hope you have more respectful
names for your parents,” he told the pupils, who were all given gift
packs of reading materials at the occasion.

President Jonathan
had earlier tried to impress on his young audience the imaginative
power of books, while introducing his own choice of reading material
for the event. “You don’t have to go to the South East to know about
the place; you can read about it,” he noted, while summarising the
adventures of the protagonist of Chinua Achebe’s ‘Chike and the River’,
who wanted to cross the River Niger in order to get to the big city,
Onitsha. Jonathan then read from Achebe’s book, sustaining the
attention of the children, who opened their own copies to follow the
narrative. The mention of the word “kidnapper” in the 1966 publication,
got the attention of the adults in the gathering. “So, kidnappers have
been in the system for a long time!” said one. Other references like
gramophone, six pence and one shilling, led to some discussion during
the interactive session, when the children put questions to the high
profile readers about the excerpts read. There was an unintended
commentary on the quality of Nigerian publishing, when the president
said of his copy of ‘Chike and the River’ that “There are some errors
in the print.”

Goodluck’s friends cannot spell

Not even the
president’s own book, presented to coincide with the ‘Bring Back The
Book’ campaign, is free from error. In the opening dedication of ‘My
Friends and I’, Jonathan pays homage to “my friends on facebook, for
keeping me engaged and encouraging me to keep this national
conservation (sic) on our country’s future going.” And there the
unintended errors end. The 357-page ‘My Friends and I: Conversations on
Policy and Governance via Facebook’ is riddled with comments like “U
will not make mistakes, only because u listen 2 d voice of the masses.
GOD be wit u. U are good 2 go 4 d next 8 years mr president.” Even
Reuben Abati, the book’s reviewer, could not but respectfully state
that, “Many of Jonathan’s friends cannot spell.”

‘My Friends and I’
is a collection of the interactive exchange over a four-month period
between (supposedly) the president and the 350,000 friends on his
Facebook page. It is not known whether the ‘friends’ gave permission
for the publication of their images and the often badly written
commentary originally posted on the internet. Abati observed that
President Jonathan, “is the first Nigerian leader to adopt this
technological mode of interaction with citizens,” after being
influenced by the Obama campaign. The reviewer said the book
underscores “the inevitability of digital democracy or electronic
democracy… This book demonstrates the passion of Nigerians for their
country.” While suggesting that the president’s Facebook publication
“makes the political process more participatory,” Abati showed little
enthusiasm for the computer language on display on the pages, riddled
with jargon and typos. These, he declared, are “a threat to literacy.”

Who’s who

Prominent on the
high table were poet Odia Ofeimun; President of the Association of
Nigerian Authors Jerry Agada and US Democratic campaign worker, Joe
Trippi. In the audience were Petroleum Minister Diezani
Allison-Madueke; Speaker of the House of Representatives Dimeji
Bankole; Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel; Minister of National
Planning, Samsudeen Usman and Labaran Maku, Minister of Information and
Communication.

The carefully
stage-managed event was not without glitches. Maku committed a major
gaffe on live television at the event, when he claimed that President
Jonathan “has brought Facebook to Nigeria.” He was not alone; a singer
who appeared to have been flown into Nigeria to sing the national
anthem, not only could not get her pitch right, she got the words of
the anthem wrong. The prominent photographer on the day was TY Bello,
the woman responsible for the very flattering images of the president
that adorned the Eko Hotel lobby.

A sizeable
contingent of writers were in attendance, including John Pepper Clark,
Helon Habila, Sefi Atta and Lola Shoneyin. For an event designed to
promote books, it seemed more like a day for musicians. Some of
Nigeria’s biggest pop stars held sway on the stage, just across from
the smiling, ‘casual’ jean-and-T-shirt clad Jonathan, who sat rigidly
in his chair as D’Banj, Tuface and P-Square rocked the house with
singing and dancing. Other performers were rapper Mo’Cheddah and Zakie,
who sang a specially composed Hausa number in praise of Jonathan’s
election campaign.

What they said

“I decided to
publish because I wanted to promote a reading culture and accountable
governance,” said President Jonathan about ‘My Friends and I’. He
further stated that, “At all times, we should have a book in our hand.
This is the way of civilisation.” In his speech on the podium, Odia
Ofeimun praised Jonathan as “a new type of leader… who does not put on
the airs of an overbearing patriarch or Philosopher King but is
prepared to read to children like a next door neighbour.” Reading, he
noted, “is an equaliser of peoples. By giving all of us common access
to knowledge and entertainment, the art of reading mobilises
consciousness, in favour of human empathy and solidarity.”

Ofeimun welcomed
the president into the ranks of those who champion a reading culture,
saying, “This is the first time a national leader at the apex of
decision making would be identifying with the campaign for the
development of a reading culture without minding the cynicism of those
who believe the situation is too far gone to be remedied.” The poet
however decried what he called the “derailment” of public education in
the country, the death of libraries in schools and local governments,
as well as the “defeat” of the bookshop culture. All of these lead to
poor results in the West African Examination Council, he argued. “We
have an educational system which gives poor education to poor people in
order to keep them poor and unmobilisable,” Ofeimun declared, to
audience applause. He called for the provision of the US Library of
Congress-styled libraries, to be spearheaded by the National Assembly.
He also called on every local government to buy at least 1000 books a
year, to revive the reading culture.

Other speakers at
the event included TY Bello, Ken Wiwa Jr and Toyosi Akerele, who, in a
seeming endorsement of a Jonathan candidacy, declared, “I’m tired of
seeing 80 to 85-year-olds determining a future they are not going to be
part of.

Labaran Maku and Oronto Douglas, Special Adviser on Documentation
and Strategy, represented President Jonathan at a special writers’
event in the evening. Mr. Maku redeemed himself somewhat in a short
speech, acknowledging the great strides made by females in current
Nigerian writing. “The next phase is the women’s phase,” he declared.
There were readings as well as frank discussions about the Bring Back
The Book campaign with some like writer Simi Dosekun questioning the
value of the president’s book. Douglas, who mounted a spirited defence
of the publication, promised to take the writers’ suggestions on
publishing and the reading culture, back to the presidency.

The literary event
of the last week has to be not so much the op-ed piece written by
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani for the New York Times, but the reactions to it,
of which there are many, the tones of which have been of the almost
universally aghast kind.

My own reading of
Nwaubani’s ‘In Africa, the Laureate’s Curse’ was predictably
complicated. I am a great admirer of Mario Vargas Llosa (a worthy 2010
laureate) and many other Latin American writers, people in whose works
I’ve found a world closest to that of the Yoruba, from among whom I’ve
sprung.

That said, I wanted
Ngugi to win the Nobel, it meant a lot to me. He has written great,
visionary works. He’s an ideological writer, and without ideological
grounding, a writer is just piffle, in my view. He has also
demonstrated great courage over many decades and suffered terribly for
his art and convictions. Ngugi’s ‘Decolonizing the Mind’ is one of the
great theoretical works of African literature, or any literature for
that matter. After reading it, you cannot be indifferent; you must take
a stand, either you are for or against. I have always had great
sympathy for Ngugi’s insistence that we should write in our mother
tongues, controversial though the larger body of African writers say it
is. And one cannot take from Ngugi the fact that he has put his writing
post-1986 where his mouth is: writing first in Gikuyu then translating
into English (he’s written his latest memoirs in English, but that is a
matter for another day).

Ngugi has produced
indestructible works in many genres: drama, novel, essay. ‘The Trial of
Dedan Kimathi’ was a memorable playtext in my secondary school days.
And what of ‘Weep Not Child’, which apart from introducing Njoroge and
co, made me want to discover Walt Whitman’s ‘On The Beach At Night’ for
myself? These are among the foundational works of my formative years.
We used to chant the titles of Ngugi’s books as though they were
mantras. I once thought that if I ever saw Ngugi, it would be like
seeing man on the face of the moon. Great, almost mythical writer, who
one later had the privilege of seeing in the flesh; and to see the
radical writer so human, so aged, almost frail (from the detentions and
cigarette torture burns). A beautiful mind surpasses the limitations of
the physical body.

And to later
discover ‘A Grain of Wheat’, ‘Petals of Blood’, ‘The River Between’ and
of course, ‘Decolonizing The Mind’. Had Ms Nwaubani read enough Ngugi,
she would never have written the following: ‘There’s actually reason to
celebrate Mr. Ngugi’s loss.” There’s nothing to celebrate about Ngugi
missing out on the Nobel, and it’s difficult to see how the prize going
to someone else becomes a “loss” for Ngugi.

Furthemore, it’s
baffling that, nearly 25 years after Nigeria bagged her own Nobel
through Soyinka, a Nigerian writer saw nothing wrong in suggesting that
a Kenyan should not get the prize. Ngugi, Soyinka and Achebe have since
the 60s formed the great tripod of the humanising literature of Black
Africa. Soyinka has his Nobel, Man International Booker winner Achebe
has been celebrated to the heavens for ‘Things Fall Apart’, and
suddenly it’s a Nobel for Ngugi that will spell the death of African
writing?

Nwaubani’s argument
is deeply flawed; and it is regrettable that someone with a platform
like the New York Times to postulate about Africa, chose to use her
new-found international voice in this manner. The author of ‘I Do Not
Come To You By Chance’ must realise that it will not be by chance that
her argument will play into Western prejudices about Africa and African
writing. ‘Oh, let’s not give another African a Nobel because, knowing
no better, they’ll only copy themselves.’ Might as well go the whole
hog and cite Shakespeare’s Iago: “These Moors are changeable in their
wills.”

Arguing for the
emergence of new styles of writing, Nwaubani lumps Achebe, Soyinka and
Ngugi into a questionable sameness, purveyors of what she calls “an
earnest and sober style”. But what is so “sober” about Soyinka’s plays,
or his prison memoirs, ‘The Man Died’? Or indeed Achebe’s ‘A Man of the
People’? Have the likes of Helon Habila, Chimamanda Adichie, Sefi Atta,
Lola Shoneyin and Uzodimma Iweala come to prominence simply because
they ‘copied’ Achebe and Soyinka? And which of these two has Nwaubani
herself copied? Of the supposed sobriety of the triumvirate, Kinna says
on the blog, “Soyinka is far from sober. And what of Ngugi’s ‘Wizard of
the Crow’, which successfully mixes humour, satire and fantasy and is,
in my opinion, one of the most entertaining books by an African author.
Is sober the new word for old?”

The part of
Nwaubani’s argument that has provoked the most consternation, is the
suggestion that literature in the indigenous languages serve only to
exacerbate “tribal differences”. She declares, “This is not the kind of
variety we need.” Chielozona Eze issued an early rebuttal to Nwaubani’s
“cowardly ideas, the core of which sought to suggest that it is
separatist for a writer to write in his native language or even to
claim that he is a writer from his ethnic group.” As for Carmen McCain,
a Hausa literature enthusiast, writing in indigenous languages “is
exactly the variety we need.”

My own imaginative
universe has been formed to a significant extent by the works of D.O
Fagunwa, which I devoured as a child and still marvel to read today,
novels that form the bedrock of Yoruba literature, books which might
not have had the same power written in English. And what of
Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and others, whose immortal works were not
originally written in a Western European language? What of ‘One Hundred
Years of Solitude’, ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ and other works by
Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Their initial publication in Spanish has done
nothing to prevent them being read the world over through translation.

I suspect Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani could not have intended to be
understood as saying a writer should not identify with an ethnic group.
The bio on the UK edition of ‘I Do Not Come To You By Chance’ informs
that the author “grew up in the eastern part of Nigeria, among the Igbo
speaking people” – a construction that reads more like an ethnography
citation from 70 years ago, but which nonetheless serves the purpose.
But if Ngugi must be denied just so we don’t write Igbo, Hausa or
Yoruba literature, it’s fairly standard that Nwaubani’s New York Times
piece is a hard sell.

(Click to read Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s New York Times article)

Applications are invited from writers interested in the Ebedi International Writers’ Residency, Iseyin, Oyo State.

The programme
administered by a board including writers; Maryam Ali Ali, Uche Peter
Umez and Alkasim Abubakar, was established earlier this year. Tokunbo
Okediran and Akintayo Abodunrin are also members of the governing
board. The residency, located in the idyllic Oyo town of Iseyin, is a
well furnished four-bedroom bungalow with a standby generator and water
bore-hole facilities. A weekly grant is included in the package for
selected writers. Adequate security is also guaranteed at the
landscaped compound.

Two sets of writers
have so far stayed at the residence. Lola Okusami and Abiodun Adebiyi
were the first set while Kenechukwu Obi and Charles Oluyori completed
their six-week stay in November, 2010.

Selected writers
will be required to stay at the residence for a minimum of four weeks
and a maximum of six. They will resume at the residency in Iseyin on
January 17, 2011.

Applicants are
required to include a CV, samples of works and a one-page description
of the work to be undertaken at the residency in their application. Two
letters of recommendation are also requested to be sent along with
applications.

The residency is
open to Nigerian and foreign writers. Writers living outside Nigeria
should, however, note that they will be responsible for their flight,
if selected. Kindly note that the offer is also open to writers writing
in indigenous languages like Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and other African
languages.

Literamed
Publishers will consider works produced during the programme for
publication. Writers will retain the rights to their work.

Selected writers
will be expected to contribute to Iseyin’s educational development by
organising a literary activity; a writing workshop or literary
competition among secondary school students in the town during the
duration of the program.

All applications must reach the Secretary, Alkasim Abdulkadir, by
midnight of January 7, 2011. They should be sent via e-mail to
alkasim.abdulkadir@yahoo.com. They can also be sent to Akintayo
Abodunrin at akinjaa03@yahoo.co.uk The Ebedi International Residency is
an initiative to provide a good environment for writers with ongoing
projects to complete their works.