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I don’t really feel
qualified to write about Esiaba Irobi. I have not met anyone quite
qualified enough to write about Esiaba Irobi, The Minstrel. He
represented something different to everyone he met. To many, he was the
consummate artist and academic. To others, he was a benchmark for hard
work and diligence. There were some who saw him as a spirit of anarchy.
He was also a rude man who wrote many sexually-explicit poems with
insane titles, my favourite being ‘A Short History of my Penis.’

I will attempt to
write about the Esiaba Irobi I know. A good man. A laughter factory. A
prophetic writer. A man who started out as my teacher, then became my
friend, and ended up as my brother.

When I heard that
Esiaba passed away via several messages, I stopped functioning.
Everyone, all at once asking if I could confirm it, friends like Molara
Wood and Toyin Adepoju, among others, wanted to be sure before calling
the news by its name. I promised to find out from Esiaba’s wife, Uloaku.

The phone call to
Berlin was the most frightening call I have ever made, and in the
spirit of The Minstrel, I was optimistic that Uloaku would chuckle and
tell me there had been a big mistake. It turned out to be wishful
thinking. Esiaba was gone. At first I was very strong. I even tapped
into my strong belief in reincarnation and shrugged, “Well, Esiaba, it
has been a tough journey for you. Go on, sir, reset your life and start
over.” Then I added, as we Igbo say when a person is going to our
ancestors, “Esiaba, son of Irobi, your world, seven worlds, you will
live your earthly life again. In your next life, you will not fall ill
in mid life, you will marry young, and raise your family in joy and
good health. Go in peace, my brother.”

It was really going
well until I told my wife that Esiaba had died. Amaka had also grown
close to Esiaba. When he called our home, they would laugh on the phone
as he performed poetry and songs down the line on international phone
calls. My wife broke down on me and cried. That’s when they gushed; my
first tears for Esiaba. Yes, I am a poet too, and I am not afraid to
have a good cry if it will stop my chest from exploding.

Nsukka

Esiaba Irobi was my
lecturer in the Department of Dramatic Arts, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, from 1987 to 1989, when he left for the United Kingdom. Esiaba
was more than a lecturer to me; he was an inspiration. Every course he
taught me – Theatre History, Improvisation, Basic Acting Skills, and
Introduction to Playwriting – opened my mind to the possibilities of
the theatre.

Esiaba was not just
a theorist, he showed us how to do what he taught. His performances
were mesmerising, his energy was overwhelming. As an actor, he
transformed even the lamest word in a play into a living entity
inhabited by a spirit of dance. I had the privilege of understudying
Esiaba as Elesin in Wole Soyinka’s ‘Death and The King’s Horseman’, a
role he carried with commensurate pomp and passion, under the
out-of-this-world direction of Eni Jones Umuko. Esiaba connected,
raised and sustained the ritual impetus of that play, helped along with
the magnificence of Nwugo Uzoigwe’s Iyaloja. The air in the Arts
Theatre at Nsukka was so taut through the performances that it could
have strangled people.

The plays

As a playwright,
Esiaba wrote some of the angriest, action-packed, issue plays that
packed theatres full every night. ‘Nwokedi,’ ‘The Fronded Circle,’ and
‘Hangmen Also Die’ changed the theatre tradition at Nsukka forever.
Those of us who dared pick up our pens to write plays were under the
heavy influence of Esiaba Irobi. I had small parts in ‘Nwokedi’ as a
politician and member of the Ekumeku, but in ‘Hangmen Also Die’, I
played the role of Chief Isokipiri Erekosima, who embezzled three
million naira compensation meant for ordinary citizens for the
destruction of their livelihoods by oil spillage. Erekosima spent half
a million of that money on his coronation alone, as the Amatemeso of
Izon State, and some on expensive lifestyles and education for his
children abroad – because the standards of education in Nigeria had
fallen. He was to meet his ancestors when the unemployed
graduates-turned-criminals kidnapped, tried, condemned, and hung him
from a tree. ‘Hangmen Also Die’ was produced in 1989, directed by
Esiaba Irobi himself. Even back then, he foresaw the current crisis
that has ravaged Nigeria’s Niger Delta region.

In 2003, I interviewed him; and to the question ‘Who is Esiaba Irobi?’ he replied,

“He is from the
Republic of Biafra and has lived all his life in exile in Nigeria, the
United Kingdom, and the USA. Everything he wrote in ‘Hangmen Also Die’
has come to pass, including the hanging of the boys, the killing of the
chiefs, the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in a prison in Port Harcourt.
The recent revolt by riverine women against foreign oil companies in
Nigeria reminds us strongly of Tamara in the play and also resonates
with the reason for the iconoclastic philosophy of The Suicide Squad.

“‘Hangmen Also
Die’ is the most prophetic of all of Esiaba works. It is a picture of
the future. Our future as a country: Area Boys. Bakassi. Armed Robbery.
Anarchy! The worst is yet to come. Nigeria will break apart like a loaf
of bread in water, it will capsize like a leaking canoe on the River
Niger!”

The poetry

I first encountered
the power of Esiaba’s poetry at the Anthill, Nsukka, run back in the
day by Gbubemi Amas, Big George, and co. He would sing his words and on
occasions, break into powerful choruses and dance. He would break sweat
performing a poem, and would ensure the poem was etched on the minds of
members of the audience.

Following the
publication of his seminal poetry collection, ‘Why I Don’t Like Philip
Larkin,’ it was my honour to host him in London on April 1, 2006. Other
poets that read on the same night were Toni Kan, Obemata, and Molara
Wood, their readings punctuated with mine. It was all very good, but
when Esiaba, the masquerade of the night, stepped up to the stage, he
turned the night on its head, with songs, with calls and responses, and
with his lyrical pieces rendered with penetrating, seering conviction.
Esiaba wrote about some of his characters as people who used words
“like a loaded pistol”, but it was he, The Minstrel, a powerful
wordsmith, who used words like a loaded pistol. When mixed together and
shaken, his words would produce the effect of an atomic bomb, powerful
enough to eradicate Nigeria’s terminal diseases, which populate the
country’s past, ruling, or aspiring leadership.

Celebrating Esiaba

In 2009, Esiaba got
married to the lovely Uloaku, who joined him in America in the summer.
They moved together to Berlin, where he took up position as a
Distinguished Research Fellow, Freie University, Berlin, Germany
2009-2010 in the “Interweaving Performance Cultures” programme at the
University’s International Research Centre.

The painful thing
about Esiaba’s life is that he was a man who had a habit of being happy
always, no matter his situation. He worked very hard at his craft, and
tried as much as he could to enjoy his life. Every time I was on the
phone with Esiaba, or sat across the table for a bite or a drink, he
had no idea how to be in somebody’s company and not have a funny story
to tell, a poem to read, a song to sing, or a political or
philosophical idea to banter over. I was quite aware that he was
well-respected in literary and academic circles, and had won some
awards here and there, but it always surprised me that somehow, Esiaba
had never really been publicly celebrated for all his achievements and
vision.

Therefore, I asked
myself: should we wait for Esiaba to win at least one of the two Nobel
Prizes for Literature he used to tell us he would win, before we
celebrate him? Or should be celebrate him anyway? I chose the latter,
and in the planning of the first Sentinel Literature Festival –
December 1 to 4, 2009 – we set aside the final day as ‘Esiaba Irobi
Day.’ The plan was simple: on that day, admirers and some of his former
students would read their favourite Esiaba poems, then there would be a
musical interval, and then the man himself would incinerate the place
with a 60-minute performance.

I have never seen
anyone as excited about an event as Esiaba was about the ‘Esiaba Irobi
Day’ at our festival. I am sure he won’t mind my sharing some of his
thoughts for the evening: “My sisters who live in London and my
beautiful and lovely wife will cook/provide the food… I suggest very
strongly that you change the picture of mine you have chosen. I will
send another more exciting photograph which you can use to create a
one-page advert in colour. You can then send it as an attachment –
INDIVIDUALLY – to everybody who is interested in poetry in the UK…We
can also target some Ngwa people who are not literary sensibilities,
but who will be coming for the food and the wine and the
photograph-taking and to see their rambunctious brother performing in
London with a band called The Republic of Biafra!… A lot of Igbo people
– if you can find a listserv containing their names-will also want to
come…

“I also suggest
that you push the event through Toyin Adepoju’s facebook. And the Wole
Soyinka Society… Jackie Mackay knows a lot of people in the literary
milieu of London. You should try and befriend her. She can help to
swell the AUDIENCE on December 4, 2009. We should also think of special
invitations to people like Peter Badejo, Osy Okagbue, Yvonne Brewster,
Nigerian actors/ theatre directors, etc. The idea of Special
Invitations and a kind of DISTINGUISHED high table and brief speeches
about the poet will… make them come as well as bring other people… I
am planning to have food – Igbo cuisine on December 4. In addition, we
can also have some wine, bread, cheese and charge a sensible gate fee
for this huge event. I am planning to put on a really powerful show
complete with my band: The Republic of Biafra. My son, Nnamdi, will
play his saxophone in the band.”

Published and forthcoming works

Esiaba also copied
an e-mail he wrote to Jacqueline Mackay to me, and there, I thought we
were about to celebrate Esiaba, only for me to learn he was dedicating
the show to Ms Mackay. In this e-mail, he wrote, “I will not be
“reading” but actually “performing” in the African oral tradition…
excerpts from the following published and forthcoming collections:
Frozen Music (1985), Handgrenades (1986), Infloresence (1987), Tenants
of the Desert (1988), What is Tender about Ted Hughes? (1989), Is This
a God I Smash? (1990), Tell Me I am Lying! (1991), The Kingdom of the
Mad (1997), Why I Don’t Like Philip Larkin (2004), A Calendar of Love
(forthcoming), A Short History of my Penis (forthcoming), ZEZE and
other LOVE poems (forthcoming), The Tree that Weeps (forthcoming)… It
will be a great day and I will make it clear to everybody – before I
begin my performance – that this event is specially staged for a great
woman who has a lot of love for everything African, including our
literature, arts, cuisine, and young men with dysfunctional penises!”

He had it all
planned in his head, but due to some unforeseen problems with his
travel documents, he could not attend the festival and we had to cancel
day 4.

In March 2010, I
was delighted when Esiaba wrote me a heartwarming e-mail in which he
said his health was on the mend, and he and his wife now had 5-year
multiple visas in and out of Britain. Then the masterstroke: he
informed me that his wedding ceremony had been fixed for the middle of
June and that he would very much like me to organise a poetry event to
serve as his bachelor’s eve party. Like the festival show, Esiaba had
big plans for his wedding poetry event, and after our last exchange on
Wednesday, April 28, I started making plans to realise his big show in
London, only this time, he did not just pull out due to problems, he
actually did a Michael Jackson on me.

The Sentinel Poetry
Movement is a part of what has defined my life since 2002, and one
thing I have said at every opportunity, is that Esiaba Irobi was the
one that suggested that I grow the idea from the small exercise on my
website. I am happy that in his lifetime, Sentinel published Esiaba’s
own poetry, and essays; and essays on Irobi’s works by others such as
Pius Adesanmi and Afam Akeh. I am also proud that although the big
event never happened, there was at least that evening in 2006 when he
sang and danced as part of a Sentinel Live Event.

Eulogies

On hearing of his
death, many have said wonderful things about Esiaba. The poet, Remi
Raji, describes him as “one of the finest, but rarely sung writers.”
The truth is that we all wait for the West to adopt and celebrate our
best. Esiaba was never going to be a darling of the western world. Our
people are singing him now that he is dead. I, however, deeply
appreciate some comments on my Facebook page from people I knew were
genuine Esiaba friends. Osita Okagbue writes, “With Esiaba, some
laughter has left; a joy for life and people has gone! I’ll miss your
laughter, our friend, colleague, and my academic nephew.” Gbubemi Amas
says, “This is very sad news for anyone who loves life.” And among
other tributes, Abdul Mahmud, who writes as Obemata, remembers him this
way; “Esiaba was such an engaging poet; memories of his performance at
the maiden Sentinel Poetry Live years ago in London are as abiding as
the fraternal love and respect he showed to some of us who interacted
with him that night”. That was Esiaba, a respecter of kindred spirits.
A lover of life.

I am as devastated
by Esiaba Irobi’s passing as many of my colleagues, and Esiaba’s
students are, but nothing we feel today can compare with what Uloaku,
his wife of less than one year must feel, or what his Saxophone-playing
son, Nnamdi, must feel. I also hope that Uloaku is well in the know
about his unpublished works, and will work tirelessly to make sure they
see the light of day. These include such books as ‘How to make love to
a Negro all Night and Survive it’, ‘A White Man’s Guide to Black
Woman’, ‘Theorizing African Cinema: Ontology, Teleology, Semiology and
Narratology’ (Routledge, London), ‘Before They Danced in Chains:
African Metalanguages in African-American Performance Aesthetics’, and
his novel, too long in the making:‘The Intellectual Terrorist.’

Nnorom Azuonye is the Founder/Editor of ‘Sentinel Literary Quarterly’, and publisher of ‘Sentinel Nigeria’ magazines.