Between Nigerian Writers and Ethnic Sentiments | By Morufu Smith

Between Nigerian Writers and Ethnic Sentiments | By Morufu Smith.

I have been literary inclined since my teenage years. I read with relish literary works of famous authors like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, John Clark, Ola Rotimi, Mabel Segun, Cyprian Ekwensi and a host of other brilliant writers. I made no distinction among all the three genres of literature – prose, drama, poetry. At a stage in those years, novels and novella were my companions. I went about reading Pacesetter and Mills and Boons series and the back pockets of my trousers held these dramatic novels as I catwalked majestically to areas where our starry-eyed girlfriends resided.  It’s a good point to note here that we actually impressed girls of our youthful days with how many of these works we had read. We would attend disco parties in parlours, clutching any of James Hadley Chase when we’re invited for birthday parties where we would eat countable quantity of rice concocted with condiments of Maggi and Ajinomoto with one or two piece of meat cut like a tip of your forefinger.

In the years after my secondary school in the late 80s, works of WS and CA began a fight of superiority in my restlessly artistic mind. While WS’s drama and poetry works got me a bit fascinated, CA’s prosaic style always held me spellbound. For my developing poetic mind, the former was literarily complicated and the latter, an easy read. I actually developed an addiction to flowery prose through works of CA. The book which saw a reading hell in my hand was CA’s No Longer at Ease. I became obsessed with Obi Okonkwo, his job at the then Nigerian Civil Service made strong by the colonial masters, his marriage to Clara, a lady from Osu caste, Obi’s struggle with marital and extended family financial commitments and his eventual indiscretion at receiving a bribe to cushion the effects of his financial struggles. I learnt a lot about Igbo culture, traditions, proverbs and sentiments to Biafra cause by reading works of Chinua Achebe and Chukwuemeka Ike, and recently, Chimamanda Adichie.

While I have always found Wole Soyinka to be a total writer with a global worldview, I have come to realise that equally but not total giant writers like Chinua Achebe and Chukwuemeka Ike were not able to break the fence of their Igbo ethnic cocoon to inculcate global mindset in their literary interventions, and unfortunately, Chimamanda Adichie appears to have been toeing their path. In national discourse, these writers of Igbo extraction were unable to see beyond the goodness they monopolised for Igbo sentiments in politics. It’s ironical that while they enjoy global patronage of their literary works, as seen in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart already translated to many global languages, these fine writers could not separate themselves from the myopia associated with ethnicities. Could this explain why Chinua Achebe’s works could not earn him the status of a Nobel Laureate? Apart from his seeming limitations in projecting his works in genres of drama and poetry, his one-way projections of Igbo culture and traditions in his literary works must have contributed to his non recognition for the world acclaimed status of Nobel Laureate. And, away from Achebe’s literary works to his other literatures on national discourse, the pain and bitterness of non realisation of Biafra are permanent features in a work like There Was a Country.

Unlike Soyinka, who is truly total in projecting his literary works in genres of prose, drama and poetry, and who is dispassionate about his interventions on national discourse, most times not in tune with Yoruba sentiments, Chimamanda Adichie is also buried in Igbo sentiments as reflected in her works and interventions on national discourse. In the recent presidential election in Nigeria, Wole Soyinka was in tune with Obi movement and might actually have voted for Peter Obi. Expectedly so, Chimamanda has been a strong voice for Peter Obi in the Diaspora. It is why she is unable to heal from the wound of defeat Obi suffered in the election, still daydreaming that Obi won the presidential election according to reports she got from some American observers.

For fear of sounding like an ethnic bigot, it is becoming dangerous to allow Yoruba children to be exposed to the works of these fine Igbo writers simply because of their blind attachment to their ethnicity in portraying Igbo as the only good thing and other ethnics as the devil incarnate plunging Nigeria into political chaos. One expects that, as Governor Soludo has rightly admonished his Igbo brethren to learn to play inclusive politics that seeks to build regional bridges rather than dismantling the existing bridges, Chimamanda Adichie will deploy her artistic acumen to weave plots of story to admonish her people on how to play politics in a diverse environment like Nigeria. She should not be busy making inflammatory statements as to how Igbo nation is being marginalised in the scheme of things in Nigeria.