The gleaner-glimpser-glitterer is determined, if he can, to end his discourse on his magnificent subject and his magnificent art today. He is doing so by continuing his invaluable conversations with select readers of this page of his apportioned column. He considers his readers among the greatest literary (and non-literary) readers of our generation or age or both. He considers their conversations as vivid works of well-wrought, well crafted literature.

What they offer him elicit their revelatory thoughts of uncommon candour, depth and respective mango imaginations – which enhance and illustrate, as in the present instance, the varied crop of voices, literary and non-literary, that gives expression rightly or wrongly to the subject of investigation.

As Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the great Russian novelist of immortal fame, said, “Art like speech is a means of communication and therefore of progress, that is, of the movement of humanity forward toward perfection.” All our select readers’ conversations render this means of communication from the perspective of the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer whose focus on Olu Obafemi’s mango world makes a strong claim on his mango vision.

Now let’s have our readers’ fruitful conversations. We are continuing our mango conversations with Dr Albert Onobhayedo, a poet who is a poet, and an Associate Professor of History: “Poetic discourse: penned artfully by a wordsmith, a mango wordsmith, to draw inspiration from you – all of us your high-brow readers. Not for small minds. Baboons are having a mango party in a land stricken by hunger.”

Professor Owojecho Omoha: “The late Professor David Ker brought me face to face with Professor Olu Obafemi (now Professor Emeritus). As a poet and the Chairman, Association of Nigerian Authors, Benue State, Obafemi accepted my invitation in 1997 to deliver a lecture on “The Art of Poetry” at the first ANA Week in Benue.

The art recurs in your column, decades after. I mean that you are right, very right, re-designing now the thought I had, turning “The Art of Poetry” to “Mango Words”, Oh mentor, miner and minter of words! If Obafemi’s words are sucked, as we do, the ripe mango, your reader is mesmerised with laughter, Tony Afejuku. Your reader emotionally draws beyond words thinking of lavishly lavished love elsewhere!

“Once, Olu Obafemi’s artistry flooded African Poetry, at the Department of English, University of Abuja. Again, I had a link as the Postgraduate Coordinator at the time of his artistry, poetics and sabbatical. That’s to say, I further attest to your eloquent testimonies, TA.

“University of Ilorin has done our last wish for Olu Obafemi, appointing him Professor Emeritus. Indeed, Professor Emeritus kingly crowns him. As (a) reader of a life well lived, churning out artistry in this Friday column, I have a wish. My wish is for University of Benin to emulate University of Ilorin someday, in not a distant time to appoint Tony Afejuku, who is ever active in scholarship, Professor Emeritus. That’s my wish for all that Tony Afejuku has done and is still doing for University of Benin.

“Those saying, yes to this proposal, say “I”. Those saying, nay, say “no”. The “I” have it.”

Prof. Ade Abanida, public health physician, theologian and essayist: “Tony Afejuku’s reading of Olu Obafemi’s mango world offers a richly layered interpretive frame through which Obafemi’s aesthetics, ethics and social commitment may be re-encountered. The sustained mango metaphor is not merely ornamental, it functions as a critical device that captures the inter-penetration of pleasure, deprivation, creativity and moral responsibility that have long characterised Obafemi’s artistic vision.

“What is particularly compelling is the positioning of Obafemi’s art within what might be described as a positive moral aesthetics – one that insists on the inseparability of artistic form and human consequence. Tony Afejuku’s discussion of “mango joy and torment” usefully foregrounds the tension between aesthetic fulfillment and political frustration, a tension that runs through much of Obafemi’s dramatic and poetic corpus.

The reference to Pestle on the Mortar, especially through Evwierhoma’s feminist and symbolic reading, is timely and instructive. It underscores the historical foresight embedded in Obafemi’s dramaturgy and affirms, as Tony Afejuku rightly intimated us, Andre Breton’s claim about art’s capacity to vibrate into the future. Written in 1974, the play’s political and social reflexes resonate uncannily with contemporary realities, suggesting that Obafemi’s work remains less a product of its time than a continuing diagnostic of Nigerian society.

“Overall, Tony Afejuku’s essay succeeds in situating Obafemi not only as a major literary figure but as a thinker whose art persistently negotiates the ethical demands of community, power, and human dignity. It is a valuable scholarly intervention with Obafemi’s oeuvre in our present moment”.

Let the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer insert here a follow-up delicious quote from Professor Ade Abanida thus: “Prof. Tony Afejuku, I am deeply honoured by your generous words and the warmth with which you received my engagement with your work. Coming from a mind and pen of your stature, this encouragement is both humbling and energising. The idea of a living, evolving “mango literature” your well framed original theoretical-cum-critical coinage elucidates, speaks to the power of shared imagination and rigorous dialogue and I am grateful to be counted, even modestly, within that unfolding conversation.

“Your confidence affirms the value of critical fellowship – the kind that sharpens thought without diminishing respect. As for envy and jealousy, they are often the un-intended tribute paid to sincere labour; we take them in stride and keep faith with the work itself.

“I look forward, with keen anticipation, to the continued flowering of this literary moment and to the conversations yet to come.

“Thank you, Prof, for your generosity of spirit and for always enlarging the space for thoughtful writing.”

The gleaner-glimpser-glitterer allows these fascinating conversations begun last Friday to embrace the finish line of mango words through the candidness of Professor Owojecho Omoha’s absorbing mango mouth: “Imagine the closure, the suspense with which you have put us for another good, great Friday, Prof. TA! I mean that we will keep watching, waiting, and imaginatively sucking the mangoed words with which you have tricked us till next Friday. And as we are delightfully off-loading Prof. IBK’s basket of fruits: fura de nono, yoghurt, water melon, and all that stuff that makes our desert brothers tick, I discern no artist leaves his forest to search for far-fetched fruits in the desert. Better to pick from within, the mango world, most handy in Warri and Benin Kingdoms. There’s pleasure in sucking sweet mango sweeter than water melon, dripping far away from TA. Sweet mango world does the magic for Olu Obafemi’s artistry.”

The epilogue will bring the last words.

To be continued next week.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.