TRIBES AND PREJUDICES

One of Nigeria’s most celebrated writers and accomplished scholar that played a pivotal role in the growth of African literature, Professor Chinua Achebe, last year published his sad memoir of the Biafran war of 1967-1970, which led to the death of more than two million Nigerians. Upon publication, the book generated criticisms among Nigerians from the west.

Interestingly, Achebe and the Yoruba juggernaut, Wole Soyinka over the years with their mighty pens have tried to fight corruption, which has remained unaddressed in the country;this was why Achebe publicly declined several awards from the Nigerian government, one of which was an attempt to name him a Commander of the Federal Republic in 2004.

In Achebe’s last published book, series of reviews written on the book by writers like Okey Ndibe, Chimamanda Adichie, Michael Holman, Emmanuel Onwubiko, Dr. Wumi Akintide, including his pen colleague Wole Soyinka, revealed that  Awolowo and the entire Yorubas should be blamed for the massive loss of the lives during the war and this generated ripples across the country.

The publishing of this book, generated passionate reactions from the Yorubas who felt the literary icon made unfair remarks about their hero Obafemi Awolowo; who was the Minister of Finance at that period.  The Igbos on the other hand, commended Achebe for communicating his personal experience of the war as the Information Minister for the Biafra government.

late Ojukwu

Late Obafemi

The question that lies on people’s lips is; what exactly did Achebe write that has triggered so much abuse and acrimony across the country through the print and social media? An excerpt from one of the reviews reads: “it is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba brothers”, I don’t think the issue here lies with the fact that Achebe ‘accused’ Awolowo but the fact that Nigerians have a great challenge with ethnicity, any statement made by a public figure is, most times, treated within the boundary of the ethnic group of the person in question.

    Ethnocentricity has become a cancer that has eaten deep into Nigeria; everybody wants to see his or her tribe as the best, forgetting the ‘One Nigeria’ chorus. 
    People seize every opportunity to make mockery of others, irrespective of their stand in the society.

It is obvious that most Nigerians who were howling at themselves over the social media were not born during the war, while some as referred to by a critic, were in the ‘noon at dawn ‘of the war front. 
  I strongly believe they had a glimpse of the incident through history books and stories passed on to them, they are merely criticizing the book based on ethnic sentiment.

  Imagine, a book that has dug up a forgotten bone is stirring so much controversies across the country; is that not enough to explain that Nigerians have a lot of hidden scores they need to settle among themselves?

  In examining the state of our beloved country, insecurity has become the order of the day. With the Boko Haram insurgency, one needs not to be told that Nigeria is at the verge of experiencing another civil war as postulated by late Achebe, Soyinka and JP Clark in their write-ups, where they unveiled their secretly-nursed impending doom of a civil war in Nigeria.

  The Igbo-Yoruba superiority claim cannot in any way be the cure to the Nigeria’s ailment, I believe young Nigerian writers are looking up to the old boys in the hood, rather than aggravate and stimulate anger among the people at this period of difficulties, Achebe would have avoided resurrecting the dead and used his book to encourage the country on how to forge ahead for peace and unity.

  Achebe made it evident that he detested Awolowo and all that he represents. Awolowo, while alive, had no regard for the Igbo literary icon. For Achebe, hiding the hatred was far-fetched as he had to unleash it in his book.

  The questions I keep asking myself are; why are Nigerians easily infuriated when issues bordering on ethnicity crop up? Why do we hate to hear the truth being told? Why do we wait for the slightest opportunity to raise our voices at each other when issues that really do not matter come up? No matter how one tries to hide the truth, it would surely surface; depending on the timing.

  Everybody has their own side to any story, 'There was a country' is a memoir and not a full account, if Awolowo, Ojukwu , Christopher Okigbo and many more were to rise from the dead, they obviously would tell their own experience different from Achebe's.

  Let us not forget that Awolowo did not deny his role in that sad event, during his interview with the news media on the war, he said he cut food supplies to Igbo areas because Biafran soldiers were taking away the food, what other message do we need to preach?

 For Achebe to have waited for so long to publish this epoch making book, I believe something must have triggered it. Awolowo made a mistake which he regretted while alive, why then are we fighting a war between the dead and an octogenarian? Why not bury the hatchet and move on?

Okey Ndibe- a columnist

How can we continue to nurse the hatred amongst us and wash our dirty linens before the media? Why can’t we appreciate a good deed even if we don’t belong to the same mother -tongue? What will be our gain if we instigate chaos amidst ourselves with our words?

Understanding ourselves will do us a great wealth of good. We complain of one another’s wrong choice of words only if they don’t speak our language. Was it a crime for God to create languages from the people of Babel who tried to build a tower high up to heavens? Obviously I can read your mind saying “No”

There was a country had other prominent Nigerians mentioned including late Ojukwu, Okigbo, Yakubu Gowon among others, but what baffles my imagination is; why has Awolowo’s inclusion raised so many eyebrows, pointed fingers, hurled stories? Is that not surprising?

Achebe is one writer who inspite of how the Nigerian situation hurts him, still believes in the possiblities of a solution to Nigeria’s problem.

If we decide to close our eyes and ears to the problem of Nigeria, we should be sure to receive another There was a country, maybe not from a living icon but a long forgotten dead icon, of which we might not be able to lash our angry voices at.

Sometimes, I begin to wonder if we Nigerians are psychologically affected by the present state of the country, that we seem in desperate need of who to unleash our bleeding heart on, it’s unfortunate that our great Achebe became the scapegoat.

Well, it’s evident that the Yoruba and Igbo have always dealt with one another with suspicion and the arrival of this book seems to have increased the dichotomy.

Awolowo is human and he is bound to make mistakes, I doubt if he would tolerate the poisonous words coming out of the people he fought for if he were still alive. Nigeria germinated from the seed of sentiment, tribalism, injustice, hatred which our dead heroes planted.

 Nigeria was torn apart based on the birth of a truth which an old man has long being pregnant with; of what need is truth when it cannot be told? Even Awo’s daughter, Ambassador Tokunbo Awolowo Dosunmu was mature enough to say that if what she heard about her father was true, she wouldn’t react until she has read the memoir herself. Soyinka and Achebe till date remain the great writers of our time who try to re-write history with the pen of justice and fairness, which we Nigerians are not comfortable with.

  The issue of tribalism lives in our blood stream, a Yoruba will only fight for his fellow Yoruba, an Igbo for a fellow Igbo, an Hausa for an Hausa. No wonder Chief Babatope, a Politian during an interview with Guardian on Achebe’s There was a country said that he cannot talk on behalf of the Igbo, but can for the Yoruba and as far as he knows, Igbo is not a part of Nigeria; I will leave you to do the thinking yourself.

Soyinka in one of his interviews with Peter Godwin said: “I used my weapon, which was writing, to express my disapproval of the [Biafra] civil war into which we were about to engage in. These were people who’d been abused, who’d undergone genocide and who felt completely rejected by the rest of the country, therefore decided to break away and form a nation of its own”. What other explanations do one need from the Biafran story?

Its necessary we tell ourselves the truth, Awolowo cannot be raised from the dead and punished for the ‘alleged genocide’ and Achebe cannot be flogged for his memoir. All these boils down to the fact that what will be will be.

Just like the way things fall apart made its way through history, so will there was a country be discussed among generations to come after the writer must have left the surface of the earth. Fighting over the memoir cannot change history; it will rather lead to war and more wars.

Let’s understand that when things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; a stick of broom cannot stand except other sticks are brought together. Tongue-lashing our fellow country-men will do us no good but will create hatred and enmity, which might end up in another ‘Biafran war’.

Categorically speaking, Nigeria will only be at peace if we try to overlook one another’s shortcomings, why should a book of history cause commotion among us? Peace is attainable and if ‘we’ give it a chance, not even the Boko Haram killings will stop us. GOD BLESS NIGERIA.

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY MADU OBIANUJU ROSEMARY BEFORE THE DEATH OF THE LITERARY ICON, PROF. ACHEBE. MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE.