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Fuji legend Sikiru Ayinde Barrister was buried in the sitting room of his Lagos home on Thursday, December 30, in line with the late musician’s wishes. The body, which arrived at his Fuji Chambers residence at 9.44pm, was buried shortly after 10pm, in accordance with Muslim rites.

The remains of Barrister, who passed away at a London hospital on December 16, had been delayed in the United Kingdom due to flight disruptions caused by bad weather. Scheduled to return to Nigeria on Wednesday, the arrival was the subject of much confusion, with spokespersons giving conflicting information about the exact whereabouts of Barrister’s remains and the Air France flight conveying it.

Thousands of fans kept a two-day vigil at the Fuji maestro’s home as family members and well-wishers waited. The arrival of Barrister’s remains was finally confirmed around 6pm Thursday, but so many fans had besieged the airport route that a decoy convoy had to be convened, to enable the corpse travel separately in privacy.

All day Thursday, a carnival-like atmosphere prevailed around the deceased’s home, popularly known as Fuji Chambers. Tessy Yembra who danced in Barrister’s famous ‘Fuji Garbage’ video in 1988, entertained waiting crowds with the dance again, 22 years on.

A stream of music stars arrived at Fuji Chambers throughout Thursday to condole with the family and await their fallen colleague. Among these were Salawa Abeni, Ayinla Kollington, Wasiu Ayinde, Segun Adewale and Dele Abiodun.

Many of Barrister’s fellow musicians joined his widows and children to witness the burial, including Ebenezer Obey, Wasiu Alabi Pasuma, Obesere and Saheed Osupa.

Nigerian Idol has
entered its third stage – the Top 50 stage where each week for five
weeks, ten contestants would perform on stage in front of a live
audience. Also at this stage, the power to choose who gets to go and
who stays has been taken away from the three judges and placed in the
hands of the viewing public.

After watching the
main one-hour staged show on TV on Sunday, viewers would then vote for
their favourite contestants to stay in the competition. The contestants
with the lowest votes then get evicted on the half-hour show on
Thursday.The sad thing here is that out of ten contestants, eight will
go, leaving two to move on to the final stage of the competition. This
puts a lot of pressure on the contestants to do their best to remain in
the show. The one performance they give each Sunday is the only chance
they get and whether they impress the judges or not, the onus now
remains on the voting public.

On Sunday, December
19, the first ten of the Top 50 got to perform. Although they were all
extremely talented with great vocal prowess, almost all of them seemed
totally unaware of what that particular stage held for them. Most of
them were more concerned with displaying their powerful voices than
connecting with the song and more importantly, the audience. One or two
of them were still playing to the familiarity that they held with the
Nigerian Idol judges that had picked them out, forgetting that their
judges were no longer in the studio but “out there”. Only one of them,
Ruth the youngest, managed to really connect with the audience and the
song, earning herself a standing ovation from the studio audience.

Picking two contestants out of eight is a really tough choice
especially when all are talented. The contestants need to make this
choice tougher for the voting public by stepping up their game and
really performing, not just singing. This advice may seem too late for
the first ten as already eight of them were asked to leave at the
Thursday eviction show on December 23. There are still three more
groups to go. Here is hoping that they learn from the first eviction
show and really ‘bring it’.

The much awaited
West African edition of Lola Shoneyin’s novel ‘The Secret Lives of Baba
Segi’s Wives’, was unveiled in grand style at the French Cultural
Centre in Abuja on December 17, 2010.

The venue of the
book party, which featured other side attractions, was a beehive of
activities. At first glance, the gathering would have passed for one of
the many diplomatic functions that the FCT is known for, as it
attracted a large turnout of expatriates and the crème-de-la-crème of
Abuja’s literary community.

In her
characteristic liveliness and engaging demeanour, Shoneyin read from
different portions of her book (the UK and US editions of which have
been well received), to the admiration of the audience. Enthralled by
her reading, a member of the audience, an evangelist who introduced
himself as Uche, said “She reads really well. I feel like sitting here
to hear her read from beginning to the end. Listening to her read is
like watching the story in motion.” ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s
Wives’ is Shoneyin’s first novel, after successfully churning out three
collections of poetry so far – ‘So All The Time I was Sitting on an
Egg,’ ‘Song of a Riverbird’ and ‘For the Love of Flight’. She also
recently released a children book titled ‘Mayowa and the Masquarades’.
‘Baba Segi’, as the novel is now popularly known, tells the story of
everyday polygamous situation in Nigeria but in a very unique,
humourous and engaging language.

With three wives
and seven children, all is well in Baba Segi’s household until he takes
the university graduate Bolanle as a fourth wife, and things go awry.

In an interactive
session, the author revealed that she sees herself more as a poet than
a novelist. “I still feel more at home as a poet than a novelist. What
is here today is a product of a very long work. A lot went into making
this what it today between me and my publishers in terms of editing.”
She added that the story that gave birth to the novel is a true life
experience which she encountered when she was fourteen years old.

The book party did
not end with the reading, as visual arts were also on the menu. The
beautiful ceramic arts of Lami Abubakar, the paintings of Millicent
Osumuo and Tyna Adebowale, creative cards of Pat Adidu and photographs
by Rita St. John – all combined to make the evening a memorable one.
The raw talent exhibited by Swat, an Abuja based musician, was another
major attraction.

Talking to the press, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf of Cassava Republic
expressed happiness for eventually succeeding in releasing the much
awaited book after a series of obstacles and disappointments that had
forced the company to postpone the date of release about twice. “This
is one writer Nigeria has anxiously awaited and I am sure they will not
be disappointed. ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ will sure
excite readers. And in line with our vision to serve you the best of
African literature, we are glad to have brought to you Lola Shoneyin’s
book as our gift of love and appreciation to our customers and all
lovers of literature, in the spirit of the season,” the publisher added.

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.

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)

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.