“An author’s first duty is to let down his country.”- Brendon Behan, 1960
THIS column last week was about Chinua Achebe, his works and his legacies. I knew that there will be a backlash, and had even attributed some of it to the legacies the late legend left behind.
I had said, on the basis of experience and observation following release of his last book, There was a Country, “it will be interesting to know if Mr. Achebe had been availed of even the tiniest peak into conversations among younger Nigerians on cyberspace which followed the release of his last book.
It will be uncharitable to say he had triggered a major setback in the unity of the country, but it will be fair to say he lit up the dark and frightening chasms which separate many younger Nigerians, and equip them with how they see each other. If he did….. it is doubtful if he would not have felt some pain that his fellow citizens habor such sentiments and feelings towards each other…. Chinua Achebe left this world pretty much as he found it: Troubled and troubling. But history will say of him, here is one who couldn’t live with it.”
The on-line reactions to the column in this newspaper were a sad vindication of my postulation. They make an amusing reading and I thought I should share them with readers today. There were quite a few, virtually all dripping with venom and hate. One or two attempted to allow reason to take control of emotions, but virtually everyone spoke as an injured Igbo fighting a Hausa man (popularly referred to, these days as awusa) who has damaged an untouchable Igbo heritage. Very few of the comments indicated that the respondents read or understood what this “goat herder” wrote, so I missed a rare opportunity to learn from the race born with intelligence.
They were, in most cases, from people who obviously enjoy rights of reply and freedom of expression, but are reluctant to say who they are.
The brief comments such as the one from 2012 was profound in its summation: “About the most nonsensical piece I ever read.” “Imagine 2012” said to me: “A cow minder like you came here to mess Achebe, a literary genius that has brought glory to the entire black race; but deliberately forgot that no Hausa-Fulani of your low types has even exhibited as much as a mere quarter of Achebe’s globally acknowledged intelligence.
And to your Almajiri fans who think, for boldly saying the truth, Prof. Achebe did open old wounds that our past federal governments have refused to deal with, then the present and daily evil activities of your northern sponsored Boko Haram has openly justified the TRUTH Achebe wrote about.”
Garden City Boy took exception to my conclusion that Achebe left this world pretty much as he found it. He thinks it represents “the conclusion of one empty head struggling to be heard… The dumb head even attempted to gloat over the murder of his likes as usual wrought on innocent Igbos, by implying that majority of the victims of the Kano bombing at the bus station were of the stock of the bombers.
A stock he is shamelessly a part of. It will be too much to expect a Nigerian quota writer, of the stock that only knows how to kill and maim human beings, to understand what making positive impact in the world entails. No one should have issues with this sorry member of the stock that has kept Nigeria in perpetual darkness…..”
Okorojnr agrees: “That is another awusa cow. They all argue the same bizarre game. The bums called awusa never engage in tasks that are intellectually challenging… He recognises that Soyinka is Yoruba, and Achebe, Igbo. There is no Awusa worth the mention to complete the ‘TRIPOD’. He brings an obscure Usman Faruk, and perhaps his wife Uswoman Faruk…” Okorojnr knows me: “….
The miserable descendant of a devil incarnate himself has a compulsive, pathological grudge against the Igbo… … As intellectually barren as they are, awusa does not write book. What Usman Faruk wrote was a phamplet which is not worth the cheap stationary in which it is written. How can awusa man write a book when there are human beings to decapitate and public money to embezzle…” Okpala agree: “This guy is a compete douche bag. He does not even have the moral standing to write on Achebe…”
Chekwube thought I was funny. “Kai walahi your view is full of mediocrity and federal character…” He loves Achebe “Naturally as an Igbo”, but he loves him more because “he was not connected to the evil called Nigerian government”. It would have done little good to remind the nation that Achebe was a running mate to Malam Aminu Kano and a card carrying member of the People Redemption Party (PRP). According to Chekwube, there is nothing wrong in being a local champion.
He says Achebe was a local champion (I did not), but I should “check out the profile of (your) greatest Ahmadu Bello, it is so full of iniquities, lacks fair play and very lilliputian. Achebe did not change the world, your Northern brothers made it worse than they met it. Nigeria shall bury Nigerians in slow painful manner. It is the way Northerners understand it.”
Kelvin99 says I am among the biggest fools, and should shut up. “What”, he asks, “have you and you likes achieved up till today in your sick country”? Okorie Kalu C agrees: “Mr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed is a typical example of those who have kept this nation in dark state. He obviously lives in denial, grossly ignorant, deeply jealous, lacks nationalistic mind but went ahead to accuse Achebe of that. I will simply advise this young man to celebrate greatness… it is quite appalling how we judge what we envy… poor minds.”
There were a lot more comments from people who felt that history has not been fair to the Igbo cause. Kenuch asks: Alhaji Ahmad, …. why would any person objectively insinuate that Biafra fought against Nigeria?
Considering that the Western region and lately, some voices from the North are now calling for a return of the country to a system similar to what was agreed in Aburi, is it not foolish for Alhaji Faruk and his gang of vandals that prosecuted the war of aggression against the East to call themselves patriots?” American Abroad thought “Achebe was a voice of conscience, not complicity, and not just for ethnic Igbos; I might have had a few reservations about this characterisations and conclusion, but a man, any man – even our own Achebe – is entitled to his own opinion. C’est pas?”
I have to say I was not disappointed by the venom which followed my column. But I am sad that one of the greatest literary assets mankind has just lost will leave behind this type of champions. There must be millions of Nigerians who value the works of Achebe and who, like me, also recognise that he was human. The few people I quoted above do great disservice to him as a Nigerian and a literary genius.
It is sad that he is leaving these ambassadors to speak for him. He doesn’t deserve them, and they certainly have no business defending a man like Achebe. It is even sadder that these defenders of the tribal watering holes are all over the nation, and they represent those Nigerians who can only communicate by insulting each other.
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