Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Haba Professor Pius(PP)

 

 

 

 

 

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Chidi,

 

I was going to ignore your "correction" of Pius, even as I knew they weren't accurate, but I ignored it purposely because I thought they do not deal with the substance of the issue. However, now that Pius is acknowledging it and graciously accepting it as true, I feel I have to do a proper correction. Correct me if you feel like, but here are the facts:

 

 

"Professor Chinua Achebe was arrested and interrogated immediately after the 1966 coup for what he wrote in the novel "A Man Of The People". – Chidi

 

No, Professor Achebe was never arrested by the Nigerian authorities nor interrogated immediately after the 1966 coup. The summary of the events following the January 1966 as they concern Achebe was that the day before the January 15 1966 coup, he had chaired the meeting of the Society of Nigerian Authors where he had an advance copy of his Man of the People scheduled for general publication on January 17. He had also been appointed as a member of the Governing Council of the University of Lagos that January and the writers were discussing their activities in the light of his new responsibilities. J.P Clark who had read the advance copy (because of his closeness to Achebe enthused about the book and declared: "I know you are a prophet. Everything in this book has happened except a military coup!" Of course, no one knew a coup was in the offing the next day.

 

At the time, Achebe was Director of External Broadcasting at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. When he got to his office the next day (the day of the Nzeogwu coup), he was surprised to find the whole place surrounded by soldiers. He was not aware there's been a coup. The soldiers only checked his pass to ascertain he worked there and informed him of the coup and the fact that Tafawa Balewa was missing. He was not arrested nor harassed. The scary incident that happened there concerned J.P. Clark who had come to his office to inform him of the coup and who in his excitement was almost shot by the soldiers who thought he had no business there. Achebe saved him by indicating he was a friend, a University of Lagos lecturer, who had come to see him.

 

Throughout the uncertainty of that period up to the time Ironsi took over and up to the time of the second coup, no one touched Achebe or questioned him about anything. He was still working at the NBC. In March 1966, he moved to his official quarters on Turnbull Road and was still doing his work as a writer and administrator and publishing his short stories. That was where he was when the coup of July 1966 happened. Knowing the antecedents of this coup in the pogroms and political instability in Nigeria at the time, like every Igbo man in Lagos, Achebe was worried. What followed was Achebe's attempt to get his family to safety in Port Harcourt as he also got wind that army personnel (the July coup-plotters) were looking for him, because they felt he had notice of the Nzeogwu coup six months before and their evidence was his Man of the People. What followed was Achebe taking advice from his friends and finding his way back to his hometown, Ogidi from where events later put him in the service of Biafra.

 

 

"Late Hubert Ogunde was severely persecuted in the early 1960s by the Tafawa Balewa and Akintola federal and regional governments for what he said in the play "Yoruba Ronu" - Chidi 

 

Yes, Ogunde's Yoruba Ronu was banned in Western Nigeria only for sometime, but it had great success elsewhere around the country. Ogunde was never arrested or interrogated. Whatever you call persecution was no more than that ban and it had nothing to do with the Tafawa Balewa government, even though we all know that the Akintola government in the West was in alliance with Balewa's party. If you have other facts to support your claim of him being persecuted in anyway apart from his play being banned in the West, let's have these.

 

 

"Eedris Abdulkarim, a Nigerian contemporary musician complained of severe persecutions during the Obasanjo civil regime for what he sang in the music "Nigeria Jaga Jaga"".- Chidi

 

I have met Eedris and had time to talk about what you are referring to above which was no more than Obasanjo taking umbrage at hiss description of Nigeria as "Jaga Jaja". In typical Obasanjo fashion, he abused Idris and said "Your papa and mama na him be jaga-jaga". Obasanjo banned the song on radio, but it was still being played in nightclubs. But it all ended comically. Obasanjo himself invited Eedris to play in the Tsunami Concert in Aso Rock and there was the rib-cracking story of Eedris asking one of his dancers, a midget called "One Kilo" to slap Obasanjo. The latter ended up only dragging Obasanjo's agbada and Eedris, having confirmed his 'courage' gave him full employment with his La Creme Records.

  

 

"In activism, there is no clear boundary between Politics and Literature. If Okey Ndibe, an activist who uses Literature as his primary platform can be taken hostage in a Gestapo-style operation at the Lagos International Airport by the Goodluck Jonathan regime goons, the credibility of your comment above then seems doubtful to me". - Chidi

 

We all know what happened with Okey Ndibe. I know because as a member of Respect Nigerians Coalition (RNC) that took the SSS to task over this and as someone close to Prof Ndibe, the reason he was arrested was his increasing political activity with the Nigerian Parliament in the US and his altercation with Andy Uba.

 

 

So, Chidi, Pius was right in what he said, except you have other examples that you want us to look at. Don't get me wrong, I'm pleased that Pius accepted your claims on face value and rather wants to continue with the core of the debate, which is that someone who's acted like Chris Abani has no credibility whatsoever. It is not about Abani's literary work; it's about him as a person. Abani was never arrested or detained for his work of art. He is a liar and you of all people should be in the forefront of condemning him, not using all sorts of intellectual subterfuge to defend him.

 

For me and I suspect for all decent people, the core of Abani's action is the total lack of respect for the genuine sufferings of others in the war and post-war Nigeria and his determined effort to interject himself into the sorrows of others by using his otherwise precocious talent at story-telling to soil their memory and history. He is not only irresponsible, he is wicked! Only wicked people will claim others tortured or did harm to them when they didn't, even if those others are presented as a nebulous state. In fact, in his case, it is not just that the state did this or that to him; his lies are actually anti-citizens, because it says a lot about the kind of society he claims to have come from if no one there could raise a voice against the state putting a fifteen-year old boy on death row! It indicts his teachers in university who supposedly didn't bat an eyelid while soldiers or police supposedly hauled him off from school to a secret jail! It's an indictment on his family and his kinsmen for supposedly not saying anything to Nigerians about the plight of their son! Imagine the silly story about being in prison with Fela who supposedly taught him how to play sax. Can anyone imagine Fela coming out of jail and not making such a guy an international superstar by just mentioning it or singing about it or even calling him to perform at Kalakuta, if only for one symbolic night? He claims he was out in front of Government House Owerri performing his skits with ordinary people and no press mention or clips of anything of the nature or anyone involved with him, except a friend who's long dead?

 

Oh yes, he's made a lot of money now from it all, but let me make this clear – to me, it's blood money! Money made from tales of suffering and torture in the hands of others, money made from tales of suffering and tortures that never happened, money made from draining the emotions and tears of others with lies, money made from lying against the country of your birth and her people is nothing, but blood money! That money will bloat the truth out of him, because he has sucked the blood of innocent people!

 

I respect you, Chidi; but I respect truth more!

 

 

 

….

 

 

 

 

 

From: Pius Adesanmi <piusadesanmi@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, 28 November 2011, 19:49
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Haba Professor Pius(PP)

Chidi:

 

Thanks for that detail on Achebe. Correction taken in good faith. But you must admit that starting a new thread with my name and very nearly killing a mosquito with a laser-guided intercontinental balistic missile in the process could make your enemies accuse you of diversion. Although I will defend you if they do but your enemies could come out saying that you are using corner-corner sense to divert attention from the real issues, having been unable to satisfactorily explain to, say, Kennedy and Moses, why you took the unbelievable position you took in the thread that you are now trying to hide under a bushel. Anyway sha, I intend to now start claiming that Buka Sukar Dimka got his coup inspiration from the first poem that I ever wrote and I was put on death row until I escaped to Canada via France. Chances are I will get some dumb institutional do-gooders in America to invest in the story and reward me plenty plenty. If my lies eventually catch up with me, shebi I can always count on my brother, Chidi, whose love for me passeth all understanding? Abi no be so?

 

Pius

 

From: Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com>
To: USA Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, 28 November 2011, 5:46
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Haba Professor Pius(PP)

"..........No Nigerian writer has ever been persecuted because of a novel or a poem or any such thing. Not even Ken Saro Wiwa or Wole Soyinka have that history. Writers have been persecuted by the Nigerian state because of their political praxis. Never because of literature. The Nigerian state is an illiterate state. She does not read novels. She would be happier if Soyinka concentrated on writing plays and poems. He would be free to write those to his heart's content. She reacts to writers only when they make political noise, not when they write novels........."

.....Professor Pius(PP)

Haba PP,

Professor Chinua Achebe was arrested and interrogated immediately after the 1966 coup for what he wrote in the novel "A Man Of The People".

Late Hubert Ogunde was severely persecuted in the early 1960s by the Tafawa Balewa and Akintola federal and regional governments for what he said in the play "Yoruba Ronu"

Eedris Abdulkarim, a Nigerian contemporary musician complained of severe persecutions during the Obasanjo civil regime for what he sang in the music "Nigeria Jaga Jaga".

In activism, there is no clear boundary between Politics and Literature. If Okey Ndibe, an activist who uses Literature as his primary platform can be taken hostage in a Gestapo-style operation at the Lagos International Airport by the Goodluck Jonathan regime goons, the credibility of your comment above then seems doubtful to me.

There are of course many uncelebrated cases in contemporary Nigeria, like your spouse and children being denied certain benefits they should ordinarily been entitled to by a state government in a state you have lived in for more than two decades and a government official pretending to be a friend, calling and advising you "to cooperate for the sake of your family", and you know very well that you write poems and that you have no other "political praxis".

PP, your views carry some weight, so, make you no dey yan dis kin yan.
.......Chidi

 

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