In times like these, you wish they were still around with us in this era of errors and terrors, this era of economic turmoil, social upheavals and political shenanigans.
They were the real men of God, even if they didn’t quote the Holy Bible or recited verses from the Holy Koran in public. They were real prophets who rightfully did God’s work on earth. They were the real heroes of Nigeria, the true conscience of Nigeria, people who could not be bought directly or indirectly with money, who could not be tempted with filthy lucre to influence votes of their followers, their constituency or their church members. They were men of integrity who will not steal in the
name of the Lord, men of honour, patriots who didn’t have religious biases or affiliations, who didn’t think ethnically, who simply wanted the best for Nigeria. They were prophets who were not afraid to look at those in power and tell them the truth—bitter as it may sound. Today, the likes of them are endangered species. Who are they? Or who were they? Tai Solarin. Aminu Kano. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Gani Fawehinmi. Chinua Achebe. They were all members of the tribe of honour and candour. Men who refused to be decorated or dishonoured with national honours.
How I wish Tai Solarin were here today. The Tai Solarin who could not stand corruption, who could not stand the downtrodden being trampled upon, who stood for justice and righteousness in the land, who fought corruption with every pint of his blood. The Tai Solarin who blessed or cursed with his famous piece: May your road be rough.
Indeed, our road is rough. Very rough. In spite of our rich endowments, we are still wallowing in the dark, we have made very little progress compared to the rest of the world, our life is a sham, our economy is in shambles and the future has never looked so bleak in our 100 years journey in this wilderness.
Wish Aminu Kano were still around. Wish Fela were still here to sing and shout. Wish Gani Fawehinmi were here to speak out and fight for us. Wish Chinua Achebe were here to tell us that in Nigeria, nothing has changed since he wrote his prophetic novel Man of the People and the famous political essay Trouble With Nigeria in which he traced Nigeria’s problem to poor leadership.
Dear Chinua Achebe, I wish to write and let you know that nothing has changed in your beloved Nigeria. The era you even wrote about was the era of sainthood and innocence compared to what we are going through today. The looters of those era are not bigger or smarter that today’s political pickpockets. That’s how far we have progressed as a country!
I was going through my old newspaper clippings when miraculously I stumbled on this interview I had with you shortly after you published your Trouble with Nigeria. The interview was published in the Sunday Concord of November 6, 1983 when Dele Giwa was my editor and had sent me to Nsukka to look for you, the great writer of Things Fall Apart fame.
Thirty-two years after we last met, I still found the interview I had with you newsworthy, thought-provoking and still fresh. Here is an excerpt. I will soon publish the full literary interview:
Chinua Achebe has always been a political novelist. Such was his insight into the nature of Nigerian politics of the First Republic that his political novel, A Man of the People (1966) ended with a military coup. And incidentally enough, the coup took place in Nigeria the same year the book was published.
Currently, Achebe is making news with the publication of a new book of political essays titled Trouble With Nigeria, which is creating some ripples across the length and breadth of the nation. He talked about the new book with Sunday Concord’s Michael Awoyinfa. He also compared the Nigerian politician of today to the politician of the First Republic around which the novel he based the novel A Man of the People and he concluded that the Nigerian politician, if anything, has deteriorated—he has become far more corrupt than the politician of yesteryears:
Q: What prompted the writing of Trouble With Nigeria at this particular point in time?
A: I have always wanted to write a book dealing with the problems of Nigeria and their causes as I saw them—a book that would not be academic, which anybody who was literate could read. I agreed to do this book as far as four years ago or even more. Whenever I came to do it, I would say let me wait a little more, there would be new material and this went on and on. And then suddenly at the end of the first term of the Second Republic, I thought this was a very good time to look at these problems.
Q: What was the experience like writing what is not a novel?
A: It’s not new. It’s an extended essay under various titles. I have always done essays, some whole literary, but always political and social in dimension. I regard myself and I am regarded by the knowledgeable people as a very political novelist.
Q: What has been some of the reactions you have got so far on the book?
A: From the impressions I have got, there is generally good reception. People are saying you have said what needed to be said. But I don’t expect everybody to agree with me. If I did, it would not be an important book. I expect people to disagree and the perhaps violently. This is the way it should be.
Q: How has the Nigerian politician changed from the way you portrayed him in A Man of the People?
A: I think, if anything, the Nigerian politician has deteriorated. The corruption of Chief Nnanga of A Man of the People was on a minor scale compared with today. Today, we are talking about millions. People are stealing millions. In the days of Chief Nnanga, if they stole ten thousand it was very bad news. Today, ministers are in business and there are all kinds of scandals. I think the situation is really much more worse and this is one of the reasons why one has to come out and really say something that may sound harsh, but, in my estimation, necessary.
Q: How do you see the conduct of the 1983 Presidential elections?
A: I did not expect the 1983 elections to be anything different from what we get in Nigeria. This is our country and nothing works much. We have more or less come to accept the situation of incompetence, indifference and all kinds of other faults. And, therefore, since Nigerians are going to run an election, I expected that there would be corruption in abundance. I expected there would be inefficiency. So, I didn’t expect a miracle. All the same, I hoped that since we say we are so determined to build a democracy here, that we would go out of our way to try and make this experiment, which is crucial to democracy, work. Even if it doesn’t work, people would say at least we’ve tried. What has happened is a wholesale disregard of the rules—the rules of election, the rules of fairness. If you don’t have the attitude of fair play, then you cannot have a democratic system. There is no doubt that from the beginning, even before the actual elections, the people in power—I don’t mean the Federal government, I mean those in power all around—did not want anything that would upset them where they are in power. They wanted something that would upset somebody else. There is absolutely no doubt in mind that there was wide scale rigging of results. This is quite clear to me. It is left to those who can analyze it in the law court and all the other people to produce the evidence. But the evidence of my eyes and my ears appear that there was widespread rigging of the elections. And what this suggest is that we do not really care for democracy.What Chinua Achebe told me
In times like these, you wish they were still around with us in this era of errors and terrors, this era of economic turmoil, social upheavals and political shenanigans.
They were the real men of God, even if they didn’t quote the Holy Bible or recited verses from the Holy Koran in public. They were real prophets who rightfully did God’s work on earth. They were the real heroes of Nigeria, the true conscience of Nigeria, people who could not be bought directly or indirectly with money, who could not be tempted with filthy lucre to influence votes of their followers, their constituency or their church members. They were men of integrity who will not steal in the
name of the Lord, men of honour, patriots who didn’t have religious biases or affiliations, who didn’t think ethnically, who simply wanted the best for Nigeria. They were prophets who were not afraid to look at those in power and tell them the truth—bitter as it may sound. Today, the likes of them are endangered species. Who are they? Or who were they? Tai Solarin. Aminu Kano. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Gani Fawehinmi. Chinua Achebe. They were all members of the tribe of honour and candour. Men who refused to be decorated or dishonoured with national honours.
How I wish Tai Solarin were here today. The Tai Solarin who could not stand corruption, who could not stand the downtrodden being trampled upon, who stood for justice and righteousness in the land, who fought corruption with every pint of his blood. The Tai Solarin who blessed or cursed with his famous piece: May your road be rough.
Indeed, our road is rough. Very rough. In spite of our rich endowments, we are still wallowing in the dark, we have made very little progress compared to the rest of the world, our life is a sham, our economy is in shambles and the future has never looked so bleak in our 100 years journey in this wilderness.
Wish Aminu Kano were still around. Wish Fela were still here to sing and shout. Wish Gani Fawehinmi were here to speak out and fight for us. Wish Chinua Achebe were here to tell us that in Nigeria, nothing has changed since he wrote his prophetic novel Man of the People and the famous political essay Trouble With Nigeria in which he traced Nigeria’s problem to poor leadership.
Dear Chinua Achebe, I wish to write and let you know that nothing has changed in your beloved Nigeria. The era you even wrote about was the era of sainthood and innocence compared to what we are going through today. The looters of those era are not bigger or smarter that today’s political pickpockets. That’s how far we have progressed as a country!
I was going through my old newspaper clippings when miraculously I stumbled on this interview I had with you shortly after you published your Trouble with Nigeria. The interview was published in the Sunday Concord of November 6, 1983 when Dele Giwa was my editor and had sent me to Nsukka to look for you, the great writer of Things Fall Apart fame.
Thirty-two years after we last met, I still found the interview I had with you newsworthy, thought-provoking and still fresh. Here is an excerpt. I will soon publish the full literary interview:
Chinua Achebe has always been a political novelist. Such was his insight into the nature of Nigerian politics of the First Republic that his political novel, A Man of the People (1966) ended with a military coup. And incidentally enough, the coup took place in Nigeria the same year the book was published.
Currently, Achebe is making news with the publication of a new book of political essays titled Trouble With Nigeria, which is creating some ripples across the length and breadth of the nation. He talked about the new book with Sunday Concord’s Michael Awoyinfa. He also compared the Nigerian politician of today to the politician of the First Republic around which the novel he based the novel A Man of the People and he concluded that the Nigerian politician, if anything, has deteriorated—he has become far more corrupt than the politician of yesteryears:
Q: What prompted the writing of Trouble With Nigeria at this particular point in time?
A: I have always wanted to write a book dealing with the problems of Nigeria and their causes as I saw them—a book that would not be academic, which anybody who was literate could read. I agreed to do this book as far as four years ago or even more. Whenever I came to do it, I would say let me wait a little more, there would be new material and this went on and on. And then suddenly at the end of the first term of the Second Republic, I thought this was a very good time to look at these problems.
Q: What was the experience like writing what is not a novel?
A: It’s not new. It’s an extended essay under various titles. I have always done essays, some whole literary, but always political and social in dimension. I regard myself and I am regarded by the knowledgeable people as a very political novelist.
Q: What has been some of the reactions you have got so far on the book?
A: From the impressions I have got, there is generally good reception. People are saying you have said what needed to be said. But I don’t expect everybody to agree with me. If I did, it would not be an important book. I expect people to disagree and the perhaps violently. This is the way it should be.
Q: How has the Nigerian politician changed from the way you portrayed him in A Man of the People?
A: I think, if anything, the Nigerian politician has deteriorated. The corruption of Chief Nnanga of A Man of the People was on a minor scale compared with today. Today, we are talking about millions. People are stealing millions. In the days of Chief Nnanga, if they stole ten thousand it was very bad news. Today, ministers are in business and there are all kinds of scandals. I think the situation is really much more worse and this is one of the reasons why one has to come out and really say something that may sound harsh, but, in my estimation, necessary.
Q: How do you see the conduct of the 1983 Presidential elections?
A: I did not expect the 1983 elections to be anything different from what we get in Nigeria. This is our country and nothing works much. We have more or less come to accept the situation of incompetence, indifference and all kinds of other faults. And, therefore, since Nigerians are going to run an election, I expected that there would be corruption in abundance. I expected there would be inefficiency. So, I didn’t expect a miracle. All the same, I hoped that since we say we are so determined to build a democracy here, that we would go out of our way to try and make this experiment, which is crucial to democracy, work. Even if it doesn’t work, people would say at least we’ve tried. What has happened is a wholesale disregard of the rules—the rules of election, the rules of fairness. If you don’t have the attitude of fair play, then you cannot have a democratic system. There is no doubt that from the beginning, even before the actual elections, the people in power—I don’t mean the Federal government, I mean those in power all around—did not want anything that would upset them where they are in power. They wanted something that would upset somebody else. There is absolutely no doubt in mind that there was wide scale rigging of results. This is quite clear to me. It is left to those who can analyze it in the law court and all the other people to produce the evidence. But the evidence of my eyes and my ears appear that there was widespread rigging of the elections. And what this suggest is that we do not really care for democracy.
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