Revolutionizing ANA Nigeria Plc (2): Bemoaning a Pathetic Membership Structure!

By Amusa Tajudeen Lasisi

“The man who gets angry at the right things and with the right people,
and in the right way and at the right time and for the right length of time,
commended”
Aristotle (384 - 322 BC)

In continuation of this series, we in a preceding piece titled - Revolutionizing ANA Nigeria Plc (1): Probing Brazen Fiscal Recklessness painstakingly explored the level of abysmal rot and decay within Nigeria’s foremost Authors’ Association (ANA) by probing with all available parameters possible fiscal irresponsibility of the association.

We shall in this issue bemoan the pathetic membership structure of this seemingly hopeless authors’ gathering; in 2009 when the newly appointed Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria in person of Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi jolted this great nation Nigeria with a whooping sack of some MD/CEO of the country’s leading financial institutions, many quarters and interests notably a consortium of corporate critics known as renaissance professionals bemoaned Sanusi ruthlessly for what they termed an abuse of official privileges and powers but events as we all saw from various docks in different judicial divisions in the country proved these seemingly vested interests otherwise and made Sanusi a demy-god worthy of worship within the nation’s corporate circle.

The foregoing scenario therefore seems a pointer to the fact that when entities are taken public, the resultant convention is for them to nose-dive towards ruin; Association of Nigeria Authors (ANA) when initially founded operated as a responsible and viable literary model standing-tall with virtuous potentials of expanding, developing and amplifying literature in the country yet with a much more higher and nobler responsibility of keeping the society abreast with the activities of the governing machineries and crisscrossing it when the need arises.

But along the line like I in my earlier piece iterated, its founder conscientiously asserts thence – things fell apart and ANA’s centre could no longer hold; notwithstanding therefore, Africa’s leading Literature Giant – Chinua Achebe owes apology to no one since it became evident that he became seriously preoccupied with his region’s calling and a literary series – African Writers’ Series (AWS); a series which today became reputable for best of classics and masterpieces in the continent and made Africa amongst comity of nations distinguished for crude-deposits of unsurpassed publications with no stories or news of dubious acquisitions of 10 million naira from failed politicians, eastern governments and military administrators at that time.

Association of Nigeria Authors’ (ANA) has upon its brazen display of gross fiscal recklessness overtime now pathetically constituted of toxic and nauseating membership structures comprising of three main classes of ineptly incorporated sycophants – vicious-looking & overly-incorporated sycophants, sanity-deficient & majorly-incorporated sycophants and minor newly-incorporated sycophants which we shall analyze below.

Vicious-looking & overly-incorporated sycophants
This class of scribble-gatherers nay sycophants is nothing other crops of gluttonous literary-bigots parading themselves as pathetic authors who think they know the art of writing rather authoring even though at a pathetic level and are desperately seeking political relevance at whatever dubious cost possible without recourse to the fact that writing can and would never be a trade of gain or gain for trade; this crop often after scribbling down badly-written, poorly-edited and ineptly-typed scrolls sprint like squirrels to any available open government-door seeking fund and aid for publishing in pledge that this horribly-scribbled scrolls will be dedicated to the funder(s) and sponsor(s).
This class of sycophants unfortunately have also in record time turned a well-conceptualized authors association into a scribblers’-gathering who are nothing-less-than project managers for who’s-is-who in Nigeria’s socio-political space in addition to the fact that aside being fully incorporated sycophants; they’re also fully functional event planners for virtually any available open government-door; all painstaking efforts made to orient this sets of pathetic sycophants that their hopeless activities shall in the near future wipe-out approved and formally-authorized event planners and project managers out of business had not only fell on deaf ears but also on dumb heads.
The worsened aspect of this horrible class is that; they in their myopic literary-foci perceive themselves to be quasi-philosophers of sorts and can be seen in any accidental opportunity given; philosophizing recklessly! A goon of this class in defence – stated categorically that there can never be quasi-philosophers; he continued by asserting that – you can only be a philosopher or not! Considering the shameless prospects of this awful class of sycophants I think in my little opinion that there had never been even a quasi-philosopher talk-less of a philosopher and there would never be! – even though – ‘there was a country’.
William Blake in his acumen has this to say on this class of vicious-looking and overly-incorporated sycophants;

“Cruelty has a Human Heart and Jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And Secrecy the Human Dress”.
William Blake (1757 - 1827)


Sanity-deficient & majorly-incorporated sycophants
The second class of sycophants making up ANA’s dismal membership structure are a crop of sanity-deficient & majorly-incorporated sycophants; sanity-deficient in the sense that this crop actually knows the truth and are so much in tune with the present realities of happenings within this pathetic scribblers’-gathering but outrageously chose to tread the path of insolence, disgrace and shame; a typical sample in this group was a onetime fierce, fearless and ruthless advocate of commonsense; he alone took the responsibility of informing the nations literati that the gang of ANA’s so-called authors’ in the northern part of Nigeria are nothing but a bunch of scribblers searching desperately for political attention and social relevance; he took on the never-have-been quasi-philosopher and placed him in the category he belonged – Psychiatry Complex!; only later for the whole literati in Nigeria see the duo dine and wine together with the devil in the evil feast. Consequently, tears flowed, mouths wailed and tongues wagged but it became evident that this seemingly advocator of commonsense had feasted so much on compromise beyond redemption and also had eaten-up his own words – A brazen marriage of shame, catastrophe and disaster!

Another wanton feature with this class is that like the vicious-looking crop are so much in love materialistically with vanity and follies of power; to them, power is all that matters in the world and that which only failed politicians can give to you and never a virtue inherent in service and dedication to the general wellbeing of humanity.

Similarly, Dale Carnegie also in his wisdom emphasizes that;

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity”
Dale Carnegie (1888 - 1955)

Minor newly-incorporated sycophants
The third class of this pathetic scribblers’-gatherings are the minor and rather newly-incorporated sycophants; this group actually cannot be held guilty for the doings of its pathetic ancestry; they in their tender innocence are out ambitious to tread the path of an Achebe, a Soyinka and Sefi Atta and might be too young to realize that this wretched scribblers’-gathering are far more political than politics itself and politicking within this tragic gathering is much more apparent than that of standing political party’s headquarter.
Meanwhile, recent observations coming from this class had hitherto indicated that some of this toddler-scribblers’ are now also inept like its ancestry; in 2nd Annual Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu (MBA) National Literary Colloquium which held in Minna in December 2012, some members of this class were seen hanging tags on their necks like Glorified Christmas Goats performing idle tasks that are solely the responsibilities of waiters and waitresses had ANA and its classes of pathetic goons not hijacked the jobs of duly approved and formally authorized project managers and event planners in Nigeria with the most visible taking unsolicited snapshots about and distracting audience during parley sessions and distributing drinks from one table to another; this shows how the ANA leadership had descended pathetically low beyond salvation as to morph highly-spirited youths in search of literary capacities into underpaid and extorted photographers, waiters, waitresses and errand boys and girls all in the name of giving them a part of the Greek gifts that are not more than any pittance that cannot even buy cheaply available mathematical-sets they deserve and dictionaries failed politicians ought to provide as prescribed under the Universal Basic Education Program.

Upon classifying this three pathetic class of structures making up the ANA membership; I shall also cull an experience to crown my stand that the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria (CAC) should after thoughtful considerations strike out the certification of this body as it does not fit any longer to be an association rather a scribblers’-gathering except if the commission shall review its laws through amendments by the national assembly and commence the onward registration of pathetic scribblers’-gatherings of this nature as formally approved corporate entities.

In 2009 in the election that saw Jerry Agada emerge president of this risible scribblers’-gathering (ANA) which held in Shiroro Hotels Minna, I alongside Terfa Danjuma Nenga (ANA’s present assistant PRO) were a few minutes before voting forcefully sent out of the hall where the election took place by sets of tyrannical and heartrending scribble-gatherers, the reason being that we don’t have any publication or book as they strangely called it to our names and as such don’t qualify or fit in the class of those called ‘authors’’. The question that now arises therefore is – who then is a writer and an author? – These and other issues we shall detail in the next publication of this thrilling series as we distinguish prolific writers from pathetic authors.

Amusa Tajudeen Lasisi is of Federal University of Technology, Minna and can be reached via tajudeen4ac@yahoo.com