Yorubest:

Can you kindly skip this thread?

Certainly you do not understand the economics of the 160 million man Nigerian market because you do not take your bath like hundreds of millions of Nigerians and West Africans do, neither do you have any wife or kids that use pads and disposable diapers

The jobs to be created also doesn't mean anything to you because outside escorting cattle, you don't understand any other business venture

GenBuhari: I fail to see how manufacture of soaps of toiletries and shampoos adds value to Nigeria

Proctor & Gamble are rumoured to be the company that ran Nigeria before control of Nigeria was handed over to UK in 1914.

I am do not have a good feeling about this

osazee12: These are not dogs but dolls .. Take a close look

deols: OF course you dont need to exaggerate the death trap part...


As it is a time for celebrations, we'd rather hope that we are reminded of the need to be in the spirit of celebrations.

gidson12: @op...get a life, I mean the one that is a lil better than the useless one ur already having

lovejo:

Don't misunderstand me, some not all, I have seen in the news someone brought his mother here for rituals and my point is still that, those you are referring that makes it in Malaysia, they are just 5% of Nigerian here. Majority are here suffering because they were deceived to come here that they will see work or move to Europe, here is new destination for benin girls now.
If you want fact, i will tell you base on what i know not assumption, guy makes money here illegally which everybody knows, but sincerely when you go out, average Malaysian belive Nigeria is a rich country and so we are all rich.

I'm not denying the scam part, but the kidney issue is incredible.

pro01:

I don't see how your disjointed post is 'baseful'. It is preposterous to suggest that people who come back from Malaysia with riches made their fortunes in Nigeria (through "money ritual") before travelling to Malaysia to launder their money as it were. The fact remains that 99.9% of them made their fortunes IN Malaysia, now the question is HOW? That is what we are interested in knowing.

Prof Corruption: This is the tragedy of our era that a seminal interview of this nature is kept away from front page yet same front page is populated by inanities. This is one interview that ll be referenced for years because it put to shame dishonest individuals who have extracted more dubious political mileage than artistic value from literature.

1. There's no such thing as Father of African literature because there were copious publication far and wide in Africa even before Achebe and Soyinka came to our literary firmament. We even have the likes of Amos Tutuola who had next to nothing education yet wrote a readable fiction not to talk of folks who actually had a degree in English. The piece of Prof Okanlawon ably referenced by Soyinka is perhaps the biggest repudiation of this nonsense of a thing called Father of African literature.

2.I have seen people cited examples of Shakespeare et al to pontificate that a good writer does not necessarily need to win a Nobel. Laughable. If Shakespeare had lived during Nobel era, he would not just been a winner but perhaps a multiple one. There's something wrong with the works of a perennial nominee who failed to clinch the prize.

3.It's completely wrong to domesticate the literary squabble to Nigeria. Soyinka is better known as a playwright not novelist. Like Soyinka said, if you really want to compare, compare oranges with oranges and not just apples with oranges. The right authors to situate Achebe's artistic value with are those of Toni Morrison, Edouard Glissant, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Yambo Ouologuem, Nadine Gordimer, Naguib Mahfouz which are known for fiction. Many of these folks have won the Nobel Prize which again demonstrate in salient way there's something in Achebe's embodiment of works that is making it inferior to competition from other parts of the globe.

4.Achebe's most read novel, Things Fall Apart, is not his best. Arrow of God is better in richness, deployment of literary and artistic tools. This is the red flag that many conveniently ignore in their deification of Achebe and "arrogance of expectation" of Nobel prize on the alter of Things Fall Apart. Things Fall Apart is more successful as a political tool than a literary masterpiece. It's a counter narrative to repudiate the western imperial image of Africa.
Besides, half of the book is more or less a sociological chronicle of precolonial Alaigbo populated by the richness of Igbo proverbs, maxims and idioms which are not original to Achebe. That simple fact of course would not interest a common reader out there, but to literary practitioners? It's perhaps the most important factor.

5.Soyinka's comment on civil war is what some folks have refused to come to terms with on this forum, Nairaland, that the war was "unwinnable" from day one. Bluff is different from bullet. Instead of holding a man who launched a lost war responsible for dragging the entire Igbo into such a monumental mess, they would rather blame their opponents in the same war for no other reason than their refusal to be defeated. Biafra committed atrocities during the war very much same way like Nigeria. Personal animosities should not be elevated to tribal charges.

Above all, Achebe's place as a good story teller or one of the best masters of realism in literature is assured, Nobel or no Nobel. He was a readable writer.

Question: In the joint statement issued by J. P. Clarke and you following Achebe’s death, you stated: “For us, the loss of Chinua Achebe is, above all else, intensely personal. We have lost a brother, a colleague, a trailblazer and a doughty fighter.” There’s the impression in some quarters that Achebe, Clarke and you were virtual personal enemies. In the specific case of Achebe and you, there’s the misperception that your 1986 Nobel Prize in literature poisoned your personal relationship with a supposedly resentful Achebe. How would you describe your relationship with Achebe from the early days when you were both young writers in a world that was becoming aware of the fecund, protean phenomenon called African literature?

Answer: Now – all right - I feel a need to return to that question of yours – I have a feeling that I won’t be at ease with myself for having dodged it earlier – which was deliberate. If I don’t answer it, we shall all continue to be drenched in misdirected spittle. I’m referring to your question on the relationship between myself and other members of the “pioneer quartet” – JP Clark and Chinua specifically. At this stage in our lives, the surviving have a duty to smash the mouths of liars to begin with, then move to explain to those who have genuinely misread, who have failed to place incidents in their true perspective, or who simply forget that life is sometimes strange – rich but strange, and inundated with flux.


My first comment is that outsiders to literary life should be more humble and modest. They should begin by accepting that they were strangers to the ferment of the earlier sixties and seventies. It would be stupid to claim that it was all constantly harmonious, but outsiders should at least learn some humility and learn to deal with facts. Where, in any corner of the globe, do you find perfect models of creative harmony, completely devoid of friction? We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation. But – “rivalry for domination,” to quote you – healthy or unhealthy? Now that is something that has been cooked up, ironically, by camp followers, the most recent of which is that ignoble character I’ve just mentioned, who was so desperate to prove the existence of such a thing that he even tried to rope JP’s wife into it, citing her as source for something I never uttered in my entire existence. I cannot think of a more unprincipled, despicable conduct. These empty, notoriety-hungry hangers-on and upstarts need to find relevance, so they concoct. No, I believe we were all too busy and self-centred – that is, focused on our individual creative grooves – to think ‘dominance’!

Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others. JP remains as irrepressible, contumacious and irascible as he was during that creative ferment of the early sixties. Christopher was ebullient. Chinua mostly hid himself away in Lagos, intervening robustly in MBARI affairs with deceptive disinclination. Perception of Chinua, JP and I as ‘personal enemies’? The word “enemy” is strong and wrong. The Civil War split up a close-knit literary coterie, of which “the quartet” formed a self-conscious core. That war engendered a number of misapprehensions. Choices were made, some regrettable, and even thus admitted by those who made them. Look, I never considered General Gowon who put me in detention my enemy, even though at the time, I was undeniably bitter at the experience, the circumstances, at the man who authorized it, and contributing individuals – including Chief Tony Enahoro who read out a fabricated confession to a gathering of national and international media.

But the war did end. New wars (some undeclared) commenced. Chief Enahoro and I would later collaborate in a political initiative – though I never warmed up to him personally, I must confess. Gowon and I, by contrast, became good friends. He attended my birthday celebrations, presided at my most recent Nigerian award – the Obafemi Awolowo Leadership Prize. JP was present, with his wife, Ebun. What does that tell you? Before that, I had hosted them in my Abeokuta den on a near full-day visit. Would Achebe, if he had been able, and was in Nigeria, have joined us? Perhaps. But he certainly wouldn’t have been present at the Awolowo Award event. That is a different kettle of fish, a matter between him and Awolowo – which, however, Chinua did let degenerate into tribal charges.


Well then, this prospect that “my 1986 Nobel Prize in literature poisoned my personal relationship with a supposedly resentful Achebe” – I think I shouldn’t dodge that either. Even if that was true – which I do not accept – it surely has dissipated over time. For heaven’s sake, over twenty-five people have taken the prize since then! The problem remains with those vicarious laureates who feel personally deprived, and thus refuse to let go. Chinua’s death was an opportunity to prise open that scab all over again. But they’ve now gone too far with certain posturings and should be firmly called to order, and silenced – in the name of decency.


I refer to that incorrigible sect – no other word for it – some leaders of which threatened Buchi Emecheta early in her career – that she had no business engaging in the novel, since this was Chinua’s special preserve! Incredible? Buchi virtually flew to me for protection – read her own account of that traumatizing experience. It is a Nigerian disease. Nigerians need to be purged of a certain kind of arrogance of expectations, of demand, of self-attribution, of a spurious sense and assertion of entitlement. It goes beyond art and literature. It covers all aspects of interaction with others. Wherever you witness a case of ‘It’s MINE, and no other’s’, ‘it’s OURS, not theirs’, at various levels of vicarious ownership, such aggressive voices, ninety percent of the time, are bound to be Nigerians. This is a syndrome I have had cause to confront defensively with hundreds of Africans and non-Africans. It is what plagues Nigeria at the moment – it’s MY/OUR turn to rule, and if I/WE cannot, we shall lay waste the terrain. Truth is, predictably, part of the collateral damage on that terrain.


Yes, these are the ones who, to co-opt your phrasing, “diminished (and still diminish) Chinua’s image”. In the main, they are, ironically, his assiduous – but basically opportunistic – hagiographers – especially of a clannish, cabalistic temperament. Chinua – we have to be frank here – also did not help matters. He did make one rather unfortunate statement that brought down the hornet’s nest on his head, something like: “The fact that Wole Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize does not make him the Asiwaju (Leader) of African literature”. I forget now what provoked that statement. Certainly it could not be traced to any such pretensions on my part. I only recollect that it was in the heat of some controversy – on a national issue, I think.


But let us place this in context. Spats between writers, artists, musicians, scientists, even architects and scientific innovators etc. are notorious. They are usually short-lived – though some have been known to last a life-time. This particular episode was at least twenty years ago. Unfortunately some of Chinua’s cohorts decided that they had a mission to prosecute a matter regarding which they lacked any vestige of understanding or competence or indeed any real interest. It is however a life crutch for them and they cannot let go.

What they are doing now – and I urge them to end it shame-facedly – is to confine Chinua’s achievement space into a bunker over which hangs an unlit lamp labeled “Nobel”. Is this what the literary enterprise is about? Was it the Nobel that spurred a young writer, stung by Eurocentric portrayal of African reality, to put pen to paper and produce Things Fall Apart? This conduct is gross disservice to Chinua Achebe and disrespectful of the life-engrossing occupation known as literature. How did creative valuation descend to such banality? Do these people know what they’re doing – they are inscribing Chinua’s epitaph in the negative mode of thwarted expectations. I find that disgusting.

China, with her vast population, history, culture – arts and literature – celebrated her first Nobel Prize in Literature only last year. Yet I have been teaching Chinese literature on and off – within Comparative literary studies – for over forty years. Am I being instructed now that those writers needed recognition by the Nobel for me to open such literary windows to my students? Do these strident, cacophonous Nigerians know how much literature – and of durable quality – radiates the world?

Let me add this teacher complaint: far too many Nigerians – students of literature most perniciously – are being programmed to have no other comparative literary structure lodged in their mental scope than WS vs. CA. Such crass limitation is being pitted against the knowledgeable who, often wearily, but obedient to sheer intellectual doggedness, feel that they owe a duty to stop the march of confident ignorance. For me personally, it is galling to have everything reduced to the Nigerian enclave where, to make matters even more acute, there are supposedly only those two. It makes me squirm. I teach the damned subject – literature – after all. I do know something about it.

So let me now speak as a teacher. It is high time these illiterates were openly instructed that Achebe and Soyinka inhabit different literary planets, each in its own orbit. If you really seek to encounter – and dialogue with – Chinua Achebe in his rightful orbit, then move out of the Nigerian entrapment and explore those circuits coursed by the likes of Hemingway. Or Maryse Conde. Or Salman Rushdie. Think Edouard Glissant. Think Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Think Earl Lovelace. Think Jose Saramago. Think Bessie Head. Think Syl Cheney-Coker, Yambo Ouologuem, Nadine Gordimer. Think Patrick Chamoiseau. Think Toni Morrison. Think Hamidou Kane. Think Shahrnush Parsipur. Think Tahar Ben Jelloun. Think Naguib Mahfouz – and so on and on along those orbits in the galaxy of fiction writers. In the meantime, let us quit this indecent exercise of fatuous plaints, including raising hopes, even now, with talk of “posthumous” conferment, when you know damned well that the Nobel committee does not indulge in such tradition. It has gone beyond ‘sickening’. It is obscene and irreverent. It desecrates memory. The nation can do without these hyper-active jingoists. Can you believe the kind of letters I receive? Here is one beauty – let me quote:

“I told these people, leave it to Wole Soyinka - he will do what is right. We hear Ben Okri, Nuruddin Farah, even Chimamanda Adichie are being nominated. This is mind-boggling. Who are they? Chinua can still be awarded the prize, even posthumously. We know you will intervene to put those upstarts in their place. I’ve assured people you will do what is right.”

Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius. If he thought that dynamite was eviscerating in its effects, he should try some of the gut-wrenching concoctions of Nigerian pontificators. Please, let these people know that I am not even a member of Alfred’s Academy that decides such matters. As a ‘club member,’ however, I can nominate, and it is no business of literary ignoramuses whom, if any, I do nominate. My literary tastes are eclectic, sustainable, and unapologetic. Fortunately, thousands of such nominations – from simply partisan to impeccably informed – pour in annually from all corners of the globe to that cold corner of the world called Sweden. Humiliating as this must be for many who carry that disfiguring hunch, the national ego, on their backs, Nigeria is not the centre of the Swedish electors’ world, nor of the African continent, nor of the black world, nor of the rest of the world for that matter. In fact, right now, Nigeria is not the centre of anything but global chagrin.

Chinua is entitled to better than being escorted to his grave with that monotonous, hypocritical aria of deprivation’s lament, orchestrated by those who, as we say in my part of the world, “dye their mourning weeds a deeper indigo than those of the bereaved”. He deserves his peace. Me too! And right now, not posthumously.

It is not all bleakness and aggravation however – I have probably given that impression, but the stridency of cluelessness, sometimes willful, has reached the heights of impiety. Vicarious appropriation is undignified, and it runs counter to the national pride it ostensibly promotes. Other voices are being drowned, or placed in a false position, who value and express the sensibilities between, respect the subtle threads that sustain, writers, even in their different orbits. My parting tribute to Chinua will therefore take the form of the long poem I wrote to him when he turned seventy, after my participation in the celebrations at Bard College. I plan for it to be published on the day of his funeral – my way of taunting death, by pursuing that cultural, creative, even political communion that unites all writers with a decided vision of the possible – and even beyond the grave.