PeeCeeJay By Jideofor Adibe

The Achebe Book: A Preface

 pcjadibe@yahoo.com 

I have not read Chinua Achebe’s latest book, There Was a Country.  The furore and shouting matches generated by the book are still evolving. For these, I do not feel ready yet to write about it but I have found a title for a future opinion on the book: ‘Achebe’s book: Now that the dust has settled’.

However following the conversations and hot exchanges generated by the book, it is possible to make the following observations:

One,  the conversations and hostile exchanges about the book  are incapable of undermining the mythical  statures of   of Chief Awolowo among the Yorubas, Ojukwu among the Igbos and the general perception of Gowon as a good- natured  gentleman or of Achebe as one of the greatest writers to come from Africa.

Two, I disagree with those who feel that Achebe’s book came at a wrong time. The institutionalised memory of hurt and pain by virtually every group in this country is one reason why our nation-building project remains in crisis. It is therefore important for aggrieved groups to speak up of their perceived grievances, even if for their cathartic effects. This is especially so in the case of the Biafran war where propaganda on both sides, repeated too often, became seen by many people as gospel truths. The war, especially the issues of ‘kwashiorkor’ and ‘genocide’ are embedded in the psyche of most Igbos. Therefore Achebe’s book, when the dust settles, can help us as a country to soberly interrogate that part of our history, know where mistakes were made and revisit some of what we thought we knew about the war but which in hindsight could be mere propaganda or the natural triumphalism of victors in any war.  

Three, we all engage in what we call in constructivist and interpretive thinking. In other words, we all have binoculars through which we filter realities. Therefore people who fought on opposite sides of the war are unlikely to agree on several fronts – from the causes of the war to the way it was prosecuted. It will be left to analysts, who are sufficiently detached, to listen to the sort of conversations and shouting matches stirred by Achebe to be able to piece together what really happened,  including atrocities committed, especially in a war in which the key actors were in their  20s and early 30s.

Four, the way a writer, especially a protest writer interprets reality is different from the way a politician, an academic or a banker does. Protest writers,  in their ‘artistic temperament’ often see ‘cultural sensitivity’ or ‘political correctness’ as cowardly attempts to mask the truth and may therefore  sometimes  ‘offend’ in exercising  their ‘poetic licence’. To ‘offend’ in fact is sometimes part of a protest writer’s oeuvre. It is probably because of this that the 1989 Spanish Nobel Laureate in Literature Camilo José Cela declared that a writer is necessarily a denunciation of the time in which the author lives. It is also probably because of this that Wole Soyinka quickly jumped to Achebe’s defence.

Five, I feel that the policy of blocking relief materials to those on the other side of the war was an error of judgment, even if it was meant to prevent Biafran soldiers from being fed as some have argued (as this clearly violates the 1949 Geneva Convention on war and I am not aware of any modern warfare where that policy has been applied even though soldiers would always benefit from relief materials).

Six, I am conscious of the fact that every individual is a composite of several identities. An Igbo man who is angry that he lost his brother during the Civil War could today have raised his children in Lagos, have a Northerner as  his benefactor, his fellow Igbo as a betrayer or cherish his membership of several societies in which one’s ethnicity or religion is not a criterion for joining. Let me expatiate with a personal example:

 I am an Igbo born in Oturkpo, Benue State. Some of my mentors are from the North. I got the confidence to relocate to Nigeria after 22 years of living in Europe and elsewhere largely because I was invited to be   a Director in Atiku’s Presidential Campaign (September 2010 to January 2011). Since Atiku’s media war with Obasanjo (where I pitched my tenth with Atiku), I have been consistent in my belief that Atiku is the best prepared person to be President of this country (despite rumours of his corruption that stuck from that media warfare with Obasanjo). My belief in him is not just because I worked in his campaign but because I admire his guts, his ability to identify and  hunt for talents and his love for excellence in the things he does  - from his American University in Yola to his other businesses.  Obviously this belief deepened after working in his campaign and seeing how mountains of memos sent daily to him by 4pm would all have been read and commented upon by 10 am the following day.

I deeply admire Gowon’s humility and remain grateful that he agreed to write the foreword to a book I edited in 2009 entitled, ‘Who is an African: Identity, Citizenship and the Making of the Africa-Nation’. I have never hidden my admiration for Obasanjo’s guts and belief that he is the best president the country has ever had ‘despite his lack of grace’ and other shortcomings. (In guts, strategy, vision, ability to network across the fault lines and capacity for working long hours, I rate Atiku a close second to Obasanjo). I feel honoured that my publishing firm, Adonis & Abbey Publishers (www.adonis-abbey.com) was chosen to publish what is arguably the most authoritative work on Babangida and his years in office by Dan Agbese, one of the founders of the now rested Newswatch.  The book, ‘Ibrahim Babangida: The Military, Politics and Power’ is expected to be formally launched on December 6 2012.  And by the way, did I need to become a Northerner or a Muslim to be given a back page column in Daily Trust and be made a member of the paper’s Editorial Board?

 I grew up wanting to be like the late Gani Fawehinmi. As a teenager I memorised Wole Soyinka’s prison notes, The Mad Died, and his poem ‘Telephone Conversation’ and still hold him in awe and deep reverence.  Chinua Achebe is for me, the eagle on the tallest iroko tree. All these are elements of my identity, not just my Igboness or Christianity. A person who abstracts only one or two elements from the mosaic of his identities and uses such to define his person or remains fixated on a moment in his history is often said to be bigoted. In essence identities are cross-cutting because a hurt suffered yesterday by someone or group could have been mitigated in one way or the other by people linked to that perceived hurt. This, for me is the key lesson to be learnt from the Achebe book after the dust has settled, even if we object to some of the great writer’s choice of words or generalisations.

Re: Abuja indigenes: the fire next time?

I got a torrent of text messages, emails and phone calls  from my last week’s column. Virtually all the messages were to praise my position, some, mostly Abuja indigenes, in very emotional terms. Below is one of the two or three responses that had a different take on the issue:

‘I read your above titled article on your column of Thursday 18, 2012 edition of the Daily Trust and cannot agree with you more that the indigenous people of the FCT deserve a better treatment from the Authorities that took over their land resources. However your effort to weep up sentiments by advocating for a Permanent Commission to attend to their needs on the grounds that such exists in the Niger Delta is quite appalling because there is no basis for comparison between the plight of the FCT indigenous people and their Niger Delta counterparts. At least the government is resettling the FCT indigenes with money from the Niger Delta while nobody has ever mooted the idea of resettling the Niger Deltans from Olobiri and Tebitaba in Bayelsa to Ogoni in Rivers, Otu Jeremi in Delta where Shell has been flaring gas since early sixties and whose lands, environment, ecosystem are under the very devastating effects of aggressive oil exploration and exploitation by the Nigerian government and its multinational allies. The lands in the FCT would not have been worth than a few naira if not for cheap money from the Niger Delta with which the FG and FCDA are pushing their expansion projects.  It might also interest you to know that the Commission you are agitating for if eventually established will be solely funded with oil money from the Niger Delta. ..Thank you for drawing the attention of the world to the plight of Abuja original owners.

Biagboron Apoi (email)’