Monday, November 28, 2011

RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

I may have come late to this discussion, but how on earth does one "prove"
another person's "false" claim? The man said he was tortured in prison; some people don't
believe him. Someone appears to be arguing here that the onus is on those
who don't believe him to prove that he was NOT tortured. Indeed, the logic is tortured.

 
Kwasi
 
Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng,
Journalist & Communications Consultant
Accra

President,
Ghana Association of Writers
PAWA House, Accra




 
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:02:00 -0800
From: ugochukwubc@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Compliments Prof. Alemika,
You are right to a large extent. But Mr. Abani's incarcerations(?) stopped in 1991 by which time I had not even become an activist yet. The likes of Clement Nwankwo, Abdul Oroh and Richard Akinnola should be in better positions to tell if they ever heard of a Chris Abani, the jail-bird! I just listened to one of his talks on TED where he claimed his cell mate, a certain John James then only 14 was killed by his jailers nailing his penis to a chair! This is unprecedented even by the brutal traditions of the military.  And speaking frankly, until Ikhide's recent blog-post, I never heard of Mr. Abani. Not that it matters since the CLO and the entire Nigerian media also quite conveniently missed out on his travails. This is pathetic in the extreme.
 
Regards
Basil

From: "alemikae@yahoo.com" <alemikae@yahoo.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 12:33:54 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

Hi Basil.
Long time!
You too did not know Chris
Given your antecedent, especially in respect of the struggle for political freedom and human rights in Nigeria in the late 1980s and 1990s, you should know about the case if it happened and in Lagos. It is really sad, there are so many ways of "chopping" from Nigeria's woes. Lord!, oh come and deliver Nigeria from misgovernance so that the idea that anything (evil) can happen in Nigeria will cease to be real or invented
Etannibi Alemika
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
From: basil ugochukwu <ugochukwubc@yahoo.com>
Sender: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2011 07:40:22 -0800 (PST)
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com<usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

Chidi,
Your latest intervention has forced my hand in this debate. It's also looking like this won't be the last time a Nigerian would be called upon to defend claims about his/her bona fides. I will, however, restrict my contribution to the area of burden of proof and on whom it lies in this case. Ikhide said in an earlier post that Mr. Abani made claims against Nigeria - that he was tortured in jail, placed on death row and forced to flee the country - and that the onus is on him to prove those claims. Chidi, based on your repeated submission that he who asserts must prove (a well-known legal doctrine), the point about Abani bearing the burden of proving his incarceration and torture is very persuasive.

That said, the burden of proof in law is not a static doctrine. It shifts from context to context depending on what requires proof and who is staking a claim or taking a position. That is why during criminal trials if an accused says "I was tortured by the police to enter a confession," that accused bears the burden of proving that torture. The burden is never on the police though overall the prosecution of which the police is a part has to prove the particular charge beyond reasonable doubt. Mr. Abani says "I was tortured". Ikhide and others are saying "You lie". The burden is not on those who say "You lie" but on the person who said "I was tortured". He will have to provide evidence to rebut the claims of those who are saying "You lie". In fairness to Mr. Abani, I read his defense on Krazitivity. He added no new facts to those already in the open. And one of those he named in that defense, Prof. Tess Onwueme provided information damaging to many portions of Mr. Abani's defense. I also believe this could have been a simple matter made very complex by Mr. Abani himself. The ball is in his court fair and square. If he has no friend or relation who knew about his troubles and who could come out to confirm his claims, he has a mountain to climb convincing neutrals like me. Just one individual who knows Mr. Abani well enough to corroborate his claims breaks this whole saga. It is not looking to me like he will be able to find such a person. And that will be sad indeed!

Basil

 

From: Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 9:46:42 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

Pius,
Why are you pretending not to grasp the simply demand of my short intervention? In the system I am used to, the burden of proof is on the accuser(Ikhide), the argument that Abani is the accuser does not click with me, we are talking about "false" claims by Abani. If my demand is not necessary, why did you go to this length? which in my opinion is in line with my demand, we are at least getting some where.

Di matter na una matter. Na una call us come village square, na una go bring palmwine, chikenna.
 

From: Pius Adesanmi <piusadesanmi@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2011 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

Ken, Chidi:

What the heck do you think you are both doing here? Pretending not to be aware of the most open secret in Nigerian letters as far as my generation goes? The two of you should stop disturbing Ikhide and go and pick up Abani's own preface to his collection of poems, Kalakuta Republic, in which he makes all the claims Ikhide catalogues here. When Chris Dunton first stumbled on that collection sometime in 2003 or 2004, he was so disturbed that a Nigerian writer of my generation could ever have had those experiences and he, Chris Dunton, wouldn't be aware of it. He phoned me at my Penn State base and I told him I never ever heard of a 15-year-old Nigerian writer arrested, jailed, and sentenced to death because his manuscript was held responsible for the Vatsa coup. And this precocious writer subsequently shared a cell room in Kirikiri with Fela who taught him to play the sax! Chris Dunton and I were then in the process of guest-editing a special issue of English in Africa on third generation Nigerian writing. I told Dunton that he shouldn't even have phoned me. He should know better. 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, as was the case recently with Chinua Achebe. Anyway sha, a year after Chris Dunton and I caught wind of Chris Abani's story, Remi Raji, who was attending Poetry Africa in Durban, calls me with tales of a Nigerian writer he had previously never heard of who shared the stage with him in Durban and told the sort of stories that white people love to hear, the sort of stories that would make a white audience take out their handkerchiefs and sob quietly in a filled amphitheater- stories of a fifteen-year old arrested and put on death row in Nigeria because he wrote a novel, etc etc etc. The audience at the Elizabeth Sneddon theatre were so sorrowful that they forgot about Remi Raji, the co-performer. Raji was of course hearing of this writer and his stories for the first time in his life and he, like Dunton, felt it was absolutely unlikely that he wouldn't  have heard about it if we had any such thing in Nigerian letters - in our generation to boot! At the time, I spent every weekend in Ithaca with the writers Akin Adesokan and Ogaga Ifowodo. I took that story to them and we were amazed. The first weekend I ever spent in Maryland with Victor Ehikhamenor, I finally saw a copy of Kalakuta Republic in Victor's study, read Chris Abani's preface and my eyes nearly popped out. Victor told me he'd also been shell-shocked. We went to Deopka Ikhide's house for beer and peppersoup and probably forgot to raise the issue there. But it had gained traction in my generation and eventually spilled over to krazitivity. Of course, the racist Americans bought that story hook, Graceland, and Elvis. If it is Africa it is believable. It has to be believable. It must be believable. And so, like the empathetic, sobbing white audience in Durban, they too have been dabbing for a decade now at Abani's readings and performances. The Americans and their complicit universities have amply rewarded those yarns with grants, fame, and the rest. Sefi Atta also once told me of her frustration with the whole situation. She had gone to read somewhere but had the misfortune of reading before an audience that had been treated to Chris Abani's tales of his woes in Nigeria a week before her own reading. Instead of reacting to Sefi's reading, the audience kept asking her about the imprisonment of teenage writers in Nigeria. How many under-aged writers are still on death row in your country of Africa and such other nonsensical Americanese.

And now Ken is writing like he doesn't know any of this. How is that possible? How is that conceivable?

Pius
 


From: Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, 26 November 2011, 9:57
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

Ikhide,
In the concluding part of your Exposé(?), you promised to apologies to Abani if he shows proofs of his claims(you even listed what you think are proofs), not holding brief for him(No need for that), I think the reverse should be the case. It is not for Abani in this circumstance to prove the validity of his claims, rather, you are to show sufficient proofs of the man's "false" claims. That in my opinion have not yet been done.
....Chidi
 

From: Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com>
To: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>; "Ederi@yahoogroups.com" <Ederi@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 8:46 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

So the other day, I was doing some research on the acclaimed Nigerian writer Chris Abani and I came across these comic howlers on his Wikipedia page:
 
"Christopher Abani (or Chris Abani) (born December 27, 1966) is a Nigerian author. Abani's first novel, Masters of the Board, was about a Neo-Nazi takeover of Nigeria. The book earned one reviewer to praise Abani as "Africa's answer to Frederick Forsyth." The Nigerian government, however, believed the book to be a blueprint for an actual coup, and sent the 18-year-old Abani to prison in 1985. After serving six months in jail, he was released, but he went on to perform in a guerilla theatre group. This action led to his arrest and imprisonment at Kiri Kiri, a notorious prison. He was released again, but after writing his play Song of a Broken Flute he was arrested for a third time, sentenced to death, and sent to the Kalakuta Prison, where he was jailed with other political prisoners and inmates on death row. His father is Igbo, while his mother was English born."
"He spent some of his prison time in solitary confinement, but was freed in 1991. He lived in exile in London until a friend was murdered there in 1999; he then fled to the United States."
 
Kalakuta prison! Who knows of such a prison?
 
 
- Ikhide
 
ps: I am on Twitter as myself @ikhide, stalk me, follow me ;-) And feel free to subscribe to my blog www.xokigbo.com.
 
 
 
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com --
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com



--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)