ALBERT CHINUALUMOGU ACHEBE - 1930 - 2013

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe; 1930 – 2013

On Monday, March 18, 2013, I had a 10am appointment to keep in Zaria, Kaduna State in Northwest Nigeria. I arrived Zaria minutes before 10am but a bereavement in the palace of the Emir (Traditional Ruler) of the town meant that everyone of prominence in the town had to be at the Emir’s Palace to commiserate with him – including my hostess.

The meeting that was to have held by 10am did not hold until 10pm that same day. I did not know how the time flew. I was engrossed. It turns out I have always had a copy of Chinua Achebe’s ‘There Was a Country’ in my car but I had not quite gotten around to reading it due to a packed schedule save for the introductory chapter. Thus, it happened that for the 12 hours I was idle in Zaria waiting for the person I came to see, I was engrossed in reading the book and it was a captivating read.

Granted that I have read a couple of works by Chinua Achebe, as all post-teen Nigerians doubtless have, ‘Things Fall Apart’ being the natural poster-book for us all, I felt an unusual closeness to Chinua Achebe as I was reading ‘There Was A Country’ for the book was indeed an intimate account of his life and times. The smooth-flowing prose favoured by Chinua Achebe meant that any reader of his work can easily be transposed to the scene of the event to capture a 3D-like appreciation of the events being narrated by the writer.

Thus it was that within the same week I had finished reading ‘There Was a Country’ and the life of Chinua Achebe still very fresh in my consciousness, the news came that he had passed on. I must confess that the news of his death shocked and saddened me far more than I ever thought it would especially for someone I supposedly did not know. But there lies the greatness of Albert Chinualumogu Achebe. Even for those who never met him, the moment you read his work, you instantly share a bond of affinity with him that cannot be translated. He lives in your heart and his works influence you in more ways than you may care to admit.

A couple of points are worthy of note regarding the life and death of Chinua Achebe.

1. Virtually all the people he mentioned as his contemporaries in school went on to become great and renowned people in their diverse fields of endeavour. From politics to medicine, law and the arts, his generation was a treasure trove of excellent achievers who made their families and nations proud. An appreciation of this fact immediately leads to a depressing comparison of the quality of education they received compared to what is obtainable today. The schools he mentioned where their young and fecund minds were nurtured to excellence have since run to seed. They are a shadow of themselves and there is virtually nothing cheer-worthy coming out from them from the least to the highest of them. Imagine if our standard of education had continues like it was in the days of Chinua Achebe and his peers? It would have been that a great percentage of the population in Nigeria and Africa would have been great minds developed to the maximum thus translating into rational thinking and intelligent decisions which would have engendered human, material, political and socio-economic progress for us all.

2. The news of Chinua Achebe’s demise was first broken by Nigerian news organizations before their western counterparts got in on the act. If you are active on twitter, you would have noticed that the first news, albeit cautiously, came from a couple of Nigerian-run news websites before other mainstream international media caught on and confirmed the story. That is a clear departure from the past where Africans rely on the western media for breaking news on events happening to Africans.

3. And most gratifying is the unanimity and seemingly boundless scope of the grief that poured in at the confirmation of the news of his death. It was as if the world was united in mourning Chinua and it was a most fitting tribute and testament to the life and times of Chinua Achebe that world leaders were writing dirges and elegies for him. Virtually every major news organization locally and internationally had something to say about his life and death. From New York to Tokyo, London to Johannesburg, Stockholm to the Caribbeans, everyone had a story about Chinua Achebe to share. Most touchingly, the Nigerian Media celebrated one of the greatest Nigerians to have lived. The day after he died, major dailies devoted their front pages to images of Chinua Achebe with several of them writing front page Editorials and devoting multiple pages to carrying countless reactions to his death locally and internationally. No man could wish for a more honorific tribute upon his moment of passing to the great beyond.

4. Did Chinua Achebe know that he was on his way home? ‘There Was a Country’ was released a couple of months ago and it contained explosive materials, information and opinions that meant that the book was debated – and is still being debated – rather heatedly thus ensuring its popularity and widespread readership. Chinua Achebe the great storyteller ensured that he told his own story shortly before going home. As he admonished in one of his works, if you do not like the story that someone has told, tell your own story.

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, great son of Africa, literary icon, voice of integrity and probity, the great Iroko, a lion of his tribe in every ramification, trailblazer, hope-inspirer, griot, wordsmith, erudite storyteller, nwakaibeya, ezi nwafor Ogidi, Naa n’udo.

PIB, CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW AND OTHER RELATED MATTERS

PIB, CONSTITUTION REVIEW AND OTHER RELATED MATTERS

Nigerians are a peculiar people. It is very easy to get our temperatures to rise. We like getting angry without properly understanding what is getting us angry. Various factors are responsible for our anger. 1. Sometimes, we are angry because we do not have the full picture of a situation and the extent to which we are informed is offensive to our sensibilities. This type of anger can be staved off by making sure that the full picture is presented at all times. Where it is a government agency presenting the information, then massive sensitization must be carried out to ensure that most (it is impossible for all to agree) of the populace understand what the policy is all about. 2. Other times, we get angry because some people we look up to for directions or like they say in twitterland, our overlords, are angry hence, it is only natural that we join in the anger. This type of anger is quite dangerous. It defies reason and commonsense, it is borne out of the need to please another person and maybe curry some favour from them. In street parlance, it is called ‘buying the case’. You get angrier than the supposed offendee and bring down the roof. Larger goals are subverted and an otherwise good cause is truncated because someone needs to be seen to be angry.

3. The third and base reason for our anger is financially induced anger. It is just below the anger for the benefit of the overlord. This time around, you have sold your right to even think and rationalize the situation for yourself. You have been paid to do a bidding and you must do it. At regular intervals, we are entertained by placard carrying people at the gate of the National Assembly voicing their displeasure over one matter or another. Sometimes, when you call one of those young men or women aside to enquire what the cacophony is about, you get a blank stare. They usually scream the loudest and are ever willing to turn violent if need be. They are of a dangerous specie.

4. Now every once in a while, there is actually genuine anger because rights are being subverted and latitude is being taken which if unchallenged, could grievously harm the interests of individuals or sometimes, large sections of the populace hence the need to speak up.

Every follower of events in the National Assembly will notice that on a regular basis, tempers flare up. Within and outside the legislature, issues tabled for discussion on the floors of the two chambers of our National Assembly are scrutinized, analyzed and thoroughly fleshed out to be sure that there are no hidden motives behind them other than what is visible to the naked eye.

At the moment, the two hottest items on the table in the National Assembly are the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and the Constitution Amendment Bill. The PIB has been pulled and dragged from all directions and it has been pummeled, vilified, defended and harangued by different sections of the populace according to interests sought to protect. If you look closely at all those shouting for or against the PIB from their rooftops, you will be able to situate them amongst one of the four groups of angry people enumerated above. My only fear is that most of those who are angry may end up falling among the first three categories of angry people and only a fraction will pass the 4^th test.

From Oil Companies to politicians, lawmakers to youth leaders, Governors to Community Chiefs, everybody has weighed in on the PIB and tempers have risen on numerous occasions complete with vociferous cross-country exchange of broadsides and attendant threats. You have to be inhuman not to feel some pity for Madam Diezani Allison Madueke. The amount of time she has devoted to pitching the merits of the PIB is enough to get a major enterprise going but it just seems as if the more she tries to convince us all of the wonders of the PIB, the more determined opponents of the bill become that it will not see the light of the day or as a compromise, if it does, the chunk of flesh in the Bill would have been stripped living it a skeleton of its original incarnation.

To make matters worse, the PIB contains too much big grammar and rocket science-like terminologies to make it easy for a lay man to understand. The way we are wired, we are naturally suspicious of anything that is not readily understandable to a layman. It can then be argued that most of the opposition to the PIB is coming from those who do not at first reading, understand what it is all about. If it contains all these high-falluting technical phrases, then there is something fishy about it. Why wasn’t it written in plain English? Were the framers trying to pull wool over some people’s eyes? Ah. Lots of questions, few answers.

I sincerely hope that by the time the PIB is eventually passed, it will still have enough substance to meet the aspirations of its originators.

The 2^nd issue that is generating equal if not proportional heat is the attempt to comprehensively review our constitution. Initially, there were calls for a conference to discuss Nigeria. The champions of those calls irked our Lawmakers by prefixing their conference with the term ‘Sovereign’. The argument from our ebullient Lawmakers was that as elected representatives of the people, the mantle has fallen on them to speak on behalf of their constituents so exactly on what premise, authority or representation would the SNC purveyors be congregating?

Finally, the National Assembly took up the gauntlet and after some emergency amendments to serve the purpose of the last general elections, they decided to carry out a comprehensive review of the document some naysayers still insist does not represent the aspirations of ‘We the People’ as it was handed down to us by the military.

In Nigeria, best intentions – whenever they can be found – do not always play out the way we planned them. Already, brickbats are flying and tempers are simmering. A previous attempt to present the report of the Committee that undertook a nationwide tour to ascertain the wishes of the people was aborted. Fresh invitations have been sent out inviting all stakeholders to a rescheduled date for the presentation of the reports. Already, feelers are that some initially muted objectives of the exercise have been truncated. Others were either stillborn or declared dead on arrival. There are threats that if a zone doesn’t get A, then another zone will not get B. State Creation, Local Government Autonomy and Revenue Allocation formulae are some of the hot-button subjects the Lawmakers are trying to address. Angry people are being mobilized on all sides of the divide and they have been put on notice to express their anger once the report does not contain certain expectations.

Anger is good, anger is a motivator, anger is important but at least, get angry for yourself and not because you feel you need to or because you were asked to or worse, because you were paid to.

@hartng

WE ARE ALL VERY SELFISH PEOPLE

On Monday, April 1, 2013, in the spirit of the celebration of Easter, and as an annual tradition, the church I attend, The Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) decided to organize an outreach visitation to a remote community where we would go bearing good tidings in form of items of clothing, foodstuff, a mobile clinic and generally share love with a people who ordinarily would not have had anything to celebrate.

So it was that for this year’s Easter outreach programme, we chose a community by the name Dobi in Gwagwalada Area Council of Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory. Gwagwalada is about 80 kilometers away from the Abuja City Centre while Dobi is a further 50 kilometers from Gwagwalada main town inside the recesses of the council.

We set out from Abuja at about 10am and there were more that 200 cars with an average 3 people inside every car. On our way, we soon ran out of tarred roads and had to do about half the journey from Gwagwalada on dirt roads. It was ironic that such a rustic community existed a mere 130 kilometers from the razzmatazz, affluence and scenic splendour that is Nigeria’s capital city.

Upon arrival at Dobi, we headed to the community centre which is essentially the open play field of the local, government-run primary school in the community. Upon sighting the obvious strangers, the people of the community started coming out – cautiously at first and later, upon ascertaining that we meant no harm, they trouped out enmasse to welcome their august visitors.

We soon organized them and started off with medical attention for kids (immunization, de-worming, essential vitamins and other preventive medications against sundry ailments). We had enough doctors on the team and they soon set up on-site consultations and issued prescriptions which were dispensed by the on-site pharmacy – all free of charge.

From medicals, we moved them to the section where they got clothings, footwares, foodstuff, mosquito nets and other essential necessities. It was a scene of joy, of gratitude and of appreciation.

The church had earlier sunk a borehole for the community as the closest water source hitherto was kilometers away – and the water was of suspect hygienic condition.

At some point, we decided to go into the houses to attend to those who were too ill, too old or too weak to come to the field. We took the goodies to them into their houses. Those whose medical conditions we could not handle onsite, we referred them to the Gwagwalada Specialist Hospital with whom we had made an arrangement for free treatment of those we would be referring to them.

One thing struck me as we were engaged in that outreach at Dobi on April 1, 2013; we are really all very selfish people!

Here we were in a community without electricity. The only water they have being the one we sunk for them. Life in this community consists of joining the community engagement of farming as soon as you can put one step in front of the other.

We saw kids that were content to wear faded and worn out clothes, footwares were a luxury, kids of indeterminate futures, kids that have obviously started out in life with a handicap. A handicap of location, a handicap of backwardness, a handicap of no access to essential necessities of life. Yet we live in jaded oblivion an hour’s drive away from them. We whine about irregular power supply, we raise a mighty ruckus when we can’t get the toys we want (adults have toys too) and we generally carry on in a huff whenever we are subjected to the slightest discomfort.

The children of Dobi did not choose where they were born. The children of other locations where they experience strife and turmoil making it impossible to have what you and I consider a normal upbringing did not choose where they were born either. We were fortunate to be born into the families and communities that we were born into which afforded us a head start of education, civilization and a promise that if you follow a certain path, fair chances are that your life will be guaranteed a progressively positive outcome.

So what do we do with all that privilege, we whine, we eat and throw away the leftovers. We keep clothes in our wardrobes that we do not wear in years, we crumple our nose and contort our faces at the slightest discomfiture. We have grown to believe that so long as we and our immediate family are comfortable, then it’s all good.

We are simply put, very selfish people!

The people of Dobi thought me a lesson. It’s not just enough to perfunctorily stop by at a motherless babies home on your birthday every year, it’s not just enough to selectively give to the needy, it’s not just enough to be nice to your neighbour. It’s a good place to start but it’s not the destination. The decision we must all take is to remember those who were not as fortunate as we were. As God blesses you and you advance in life, do not think of yourself alone. Spare a thought for those who did not choose where they were born. A borehole, a new class room block, books, clothes, a community skills centre, an irrigation project, whatever your income bracket, there is a project that you can execute at a community like Dobi near to you.

If we all make a conscious decision to spare a thought for those who are not as fortunate as we are, then perhaps, we will stop being as selfish as we all apparently and incidentally are.