Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and the Rest of Us

The Audacity of Tropes:

Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and the Rest of Us.

Congregation Lecture at Igbinedion University, Okada, Nov 27 2014

By

FEMI OSOFISAN

Sometime in 1963—that is, three years after Nigeria gained her independence from Britain—a large delegation of villagers from the then western state hired a mammy wagon bus and headed for the country’s capital, which was then in Lagos.. They took along with them many bags of garri, baskets of yams and mangoes, some goats and rams, and even some gourds of palm wine. Their mission? To see the Prime Minister of the Federation. I don’t have to tell you the hassles they went through to get through to the Prime Minister’s office. But finally there they were before the great Tafawa Balewa himself. Whereupon they all went down on their faces.

“Prime Minister, it is now three years that you and your politicians brought Independence to us and we have come to thank you. Please accept these few tokens of our gratitude. But sir, we have been sent by our people to ask you—when will it end? Yes, sir, this independence, when will it go away?”

Today, it is more than five decades now after that episode. The nation’s capital is no longer in Lagos, but in a more expansive city called Abuja. Our leader lives now in a fortress built by the military, called Aso Rock and which is no longer as easily accessible as the Marina beach. But just suppose that a similar delegation of our people were to succeed in getting inside Aso Rock today, what question do you imagine they would put to Goodluck Jonathan? All of us can guess the question, I am sure. Like those villagers, they would almost certainly ask—This Democracy, Mr President, when will it end? When will it go away?

For some 30 years the soldiers ruled over us. They treated us like a conquered people with no rights of our own, and all our resources were like booty, which they felt free to loot with the power of their guns.

To liberate ourselves, we fought a long and bitter war. Many fell by the wayside; many were brutally suppressed. Some were made to pay a gruesome price; many were forced into cruel exile; and some sold their souls and turned traitors to survive. But in the end, the soldiers were chased away from the saddle of power.

In their place, we brought civilians to rule over us. People like us, without gun or bayonet. Our scholars looked across our borders and found in America the best example of government of the people by the people for the people. Eagerly we imported the system, installed a president whose powers would no longer be arbitrary or without control because there would be two other houses of our representatives to monitor and control his powers. Besides, there would be an independent judiciary to superintend over both. Thus planted on these three tridents, we believed our freedom was safely balanced, our progress assured.

I need not tell you now how those hopes have been broken, betrayed.

In a strange and startling manner that none of us ever foresaw, Democracy has come to become our nemesis nowadays in the post-military era. It is the new Enemy that we have to learn now to confront in our various ways and with our different weapons.Our new war is against our very own people, our erstwhile friends and comrades, those we elected as legislators, but have suddenly turned into predators.

And so it has dawned on us like a cruel joke, that what we thought was the end of our struggle may in fact just be beginning of the real war for our freedom; that the new frontline of combat is the one we thought we had left behind.

The question I want to tackle then in this lecture is, in what manner can literature help in this new desperation?What can we do, beyond merely hissing or uttering effete curses and shaking our heads in self-pitying regret, to rescue our country and our nation from our self-appointed date with Apocalypse? What lessons can one learn from the examples of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, and the rest of us?

But before this, ladies and gentlemen,please permit me to fulfil the prerequisite, customary courtesies.In our profession, the unwritten law is that no masquerade must dare dance in public without a preliminary gesture of acknowledgement to his hosts, his elders and his audience, or else he dances into disgrace. And besides, in this hall today, they are many who tower above me in precedence, and whom I revere. As a trueomoluwabi, I know what I must do on such anoccasion.

Let me start properly therefore by paying my homage, first and foremost, to all of youdistinguishedpersonalities who invited me here, especially you, Mr Vice Chancellor.Our friendship as you recall dates back several years, tothose days in the old UIwhere we have both been undergraduates,and where our dreams were born.

It is mostly because of your insistence and concern that I am here today, this shortly after my many trips. And my hope is that the lecture does not disappoint you or your audience, that it proves in fact that the old ardour has not faded, that those aspirationsthat we nursed for our dear country have not been quenched...

Please permit me also to presentmy gratitude to the Governing Council, the Senate and the Principal Officers of the university, as well as the entire Management Staff, the workers, and our wonderful students whose ebullience always reminds me of the “fine-fine” days of youth. A lutta continua!

And then of course, my deepest respects to your proprietor, visionary and entrepreneur extraordinaire, the Esama of Benin, whose foresight and pioneering zeal so many years ago gave conception to the singular idea that has brought us here today. But of him and his achievements, much more later on.

I confess that it is indeed an honour to be invited to deliver this year‘s Convocation Lecture at your institution. Even more awed am I by the list of speakers who have preceded me on this platform, men of great stature all, and of undoubted sagacity, the kind that the late Mbadiwe would have referred to as „Men of Calibre and Timber.“

After such rich contributions, one cannot but wonder candidly about what, at such a late hour, one can possibly add to their accumulated wisdoms?

It was indeed a question that bothered me, till I recalled that story about Tortoise and the Calabash of Wisdom.Perhaps you remember the story?

You see, Tortoise whom we Yoruba call Ijapa, decided one day, for some reason I no longer recollect, to gather all the wisdom in the world and go and hide them in heaven.

So, carrying his biggest calabash,he went walking for months around the world, gathering all the pieces of wisdom he could find, till finally he had them all.

Now the only place to hide the gourd, the safest place where no human hand could reach it, was obviously up the tallest palm tree.

Ijapa chose his moment carefully therefore.Very early one morning, when no one was yet awake, no birds yet stirring, nor insects buzzing, Ijapa tiptoed to the tree. Then, tying the calabash securely to his chest, he began to climb. The first leg...the next foothold...

Ah, picture the scene my friends! Our dear tortoise, a large calabash up his chest, trying to pull himself up the trunk of a tree!

Gbagam! He tumbled down! Sh! He kept still, not daring to breathe, his ears stretched out. But he heard nothing; no one had heard or seen him. Relieved, he breathed out again. Picking himself up gingerly, he resumed the attempt to climb the tree. And it was gbagam, again! And again and again! It was becoming more tricky each time stopping the calabash from hitting the ground and smashing to pieces...

Then as he stood up again for the umpteenth time, panting and sweating, he suddenly heard a voice from a hole nearby, where a small rat had been watching:

"Mr Tortoise," called out the rat, "if I may offer a suggestion, sir, why don’t you bring down the calabash from your chest, and strap it to your back instead?"

Ijapa opened his mouth and could not close it. Such a simple idea and yet he had not thought of it himself! So, in spite of all his efforts, there was still some wisdom left in the world!?

He threw down the calabash in despair, abandoned the mission, and went away.

So the lesson is clear—the moment will never come in the world when wisdom will be totally exhausted. The more lectures we hear, the more in fact the lectures we will still have to hear!

The solution we need to solve some vital problem in our life may come from some quarter we have hitherto considered inconsequential.

That was mainly why I accepted to talk here in the end. For who knows, perhaps even after all that has been said here in previous years—perhaps my little voice may still have something to add to aid our collective quest for success and happiness in our lives.

The earlier lecturers spoke each from his area of competence. Thus the eminent social scientist, and Nigeria’s former Foreign Affairs minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, talked about governance, and specifically on ‘the social contract between the governed and the government’.Retired Lt.-General Dambazzau spoke appropriately about how to overcome Nigeria’s security challenges.And last year, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, then the Governor of the Central Bank before he became the Emir of Kano, spoke about thegrowth prospects for the Nigerian economy.

And so on. Well, as you have been told, I am a writer; and my province is in the creation and narration of stories.

Using different formats and in various genres, my business is to plunge into the realm of the imagination to craft out stories that I hope will be scintillating enough to capture your hearts and your minds, to give pleasure and information, joy and at times, disturbance.

Today therefore I have come with quite a handful for you, and I have told you two already. Well, here is another one, taken this time from a writer called Amos Tutuola.It is from his book, titled The Palmwine Drinkard, published in 1952, and the very first Nigerian novel to gain international acclaim...

Tutuola, who died in 1997, had very little education and his English, as you will notice, tends to be rather bizarre, to put it mildly.

So his great success did not amuse the educated Nigerians at that time, especially as they were trying to prove to our English masters that we were sophisticated and ripe enough to earnbe given our independence from colonial rule. They thought Tutuola’s book was being deliberately and mischievously praised by the duplicitous British, in collusion with their agents in the British press, in order to mock our ignorance, and hence further delay the independence struggle.

Therefore it was many years afterwards before Nigerians came to read and appraise Tutuola objectively without that taint of inferiority complex, and to see finally the magic he had wrought in modernizing our traditional folklore.

The story I am going to read from the book is entitled “The Beautifully Dressed Gentleman, or The Complete Gentleman.” Some of you probably know it already. But listen now to how Tutuola recounts the appearance of the man at the market:

He was a beautiful 'complete' gentleman, he dressed with the finest and most costly clothes, all the parts of his body were completed, he was a tall man but stout. As this gentleman came to the market on that day, if he'd been an article or animal for sale, he would be sold at least for £2,000.

As this complete gentleman came to the market on that day, and at the same time that this lady saw him in the market, she did nothing more than to ask him where he was living, but this fine gentleman did not answer her or approach her at all. But when she noticed that the fine or complete gentleman did not listen to her, she left her articles and began to watch the movements of the complete gentleman about in the market and left her articles unsold.

By and by the market closed for that day then the whole people in the market were returning to their destinations, etc., and the complete gentleman was returning to his own too, but as this lady was following him about in the market all the while, she saw him when he was returning to his destination as others did, then she was following him (complete gentleman) to an unknown place. But as she was following the complete gentleman along the road, he was telling her to go back and not to follow him, but the lady did not listen to what he was telling her, and when the complete gentleman had tired of telling her not to follow him or to go back to her town, he left her to follow him.

But when they had travelled about twelve miles away from that market, they left the road on which they were travelling and started to travel inside an endless forest in which only all the terrible creatures were living.

As they were travelling along in this endless forest then the complete gentleman in the market that the lady was following began to return the hired parts of his body to the owners and he was paying them the rentage money. When he reached where he hired the left foot, he pulled it out, he gave it to the owner and paid him, and they kept going; when they reached the place where he hired the right foot, he pulled it out and gave it to the owner and paid for the rentage. Now both feet had returned to the owners, so he began to crawl along on the ground, by that time, that lady wanted to go back to her town or her father, but the terrible and curious creature or the complete gentleman did not allow her to return or go back to her town or her father again…

When they went furthermore, then they reached where he hired the belly, ribs, chest, etc., then he pulled them out and gave them to the owner and paid for the rentage. Now to this gentleman or terrible creature remained only the head and both arms with neck, by that time he could not crawl as before but only went jumping on as a bullfrog and now this lady was soon faint for this fearful creature whom she was following. But when the lady saw every part of this complete gentleman in the market was spared or hired and he was returning them to the owners, then she began to try all her efforts to return to her father's town, but she was not allowed by this fearful creature at all. When they reached where he hired both arms, he pulled them out and gave them to the owner, he paid for them; and they were still going on in this endless forest, they reached the place where he hired the neck, he pulled it out and gave it to the owner and paid for it as well…

When the lady saw that the gentleman became a Skull, she began to faint, but eh Skull told her if she would die she would die and she would follow him to his house. But by the time that he was saying so, he was humming with a terrible voice and also grew very wild and even if there was a person two miles away he would not have to listen before hearing him, so this lady began to run away in that forest for her life, but the Skull chased her and within a few yards, he caught her, because he was very clever and smart as he was only Skull and he could jump a mile to the second before coming down. He caught the lady in this way: so when the lady was running away for her life, he hastily ran to her front and stopped her as a log of wood.

By and by, this lady followed the Skull to his house, and the house was a hole which was under the ground…

Let us stop here. You can imagine the rest. A fantastic story, you will agree. Just another gifted author exercising his imagination; and the story has nothing at all to do with reality. But you will be wrong. Look at it again, and you will see that far from being a mere fantasy it is in fact an accurate and uncanny trope predicting the future that the novelist himself had not seen, but which we Nigerians live right now, sixty years after he wrote it. Indeed, that picture of the Complete Gentleman is an exact mirror of the present-day Nigerian.

You and me, all of us in this assembly, what else are we individually, but the assembled bricolage of spare parts borrowed or hired from different parts of the world?

If you don’t believe me, I have another story to prove it.

This is from a young Nigerian writer called Elnathan John, who is just at the beginning of his career, but who I believe will soon become famous as a contemporary Jonathan Swift.