Five weeks ago, I devoted this column to Ngugi wa Thiong’O, the late gifted Kenyan writer and critic who left our world in the United States and was cremated there. A week after the publication of the aforesaid piece I did a follow-up – which was a collection, a select gathering, of readers’ responses. I inadvertently left out some of them – which are now here. Of course, there are equally responses to the initial responses to the Ngugi original – as I can now termly term it.
The second set of the compiled responses centres on the gleaner’s writing last Friday on our one and only President Tinubu. The selected words and thoughtly and thoughtful thoughts constitute what Professor Emeritus Olu Obafemi, a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and a past President of the Academy would call “organic assemblage” of words from my staple, “a brilliant essayistic collation.” As you shall find out soon, the “dialogues” are perfect in their liveliness and depth.
Let me present them now – beginning with the first named offering.
Professor Emeritus Olu Obafemi
This loss of Ngugi is phenomenal to literature, theatre, humanities and civilisation. Death in its usually criminal termination of the life of a major Patriarch of African Culture and Civilisation, Ngugi wa Thing’O, has diminished the world by an incomprehensible margin. We must look behind the hills and Illmorog to rediscover the petals of thought whose radical pronouncement produced Peaks of Thought.
The freedom and rights of choice which gathered the Grains of Wheat into the language of social transformation of Africa for which Ngugi lived the larger chunk of his active life in incarceration and exile will form the foundation of his immortality. For now, our thoughts rise in honour of our great, irrepressible literary hero, as he marches triumphant into the world beyond…
Thank you our great poet, polemicist of a distinct rhetorical style, for your very impressive Ngugi offering.
Barrister Desmond Dudu (Sapele-based Senior Lawyer)
Your Ngugi piece took me back to my secondary school and university days when we studied Weep Not, Child. He brought European colonialism and its evil to our door steps. You rekindled my memory and literary imagination. And brought James Ngugi to me again. He is a timeless writer and his writing can never be said to be time bound. Until I read your column on him I never knew that he had died. Thank you very much. And your style! You made me love literature all over again. Maybe I should go take a Bachelor’s degree again in Literature. But I am too, too old for that now.
Dr Edem Benjamin
Thank you for telling us what transpired when you met the highly revered and respected Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’O, the literary giant in 1984. Sir TA, your memory bank is not shallow, it’s massive, retentive, and explosive. Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’O used daffodils to put his message across. He was not worried about the prize from Sweden (Alfred Nobel Prize), he knew that when a man’s house is on fire he doesn’t chase rats and cockroaches. Alas! The legend bowed out while he was on the other side of the Atlantic. We’ve lost an incurable optimist! I thank you for lighting the candle which compelled some of us to light ours. Thank you plentifully.
Professor Owojecho Omoha
Masterly, simply masterly, to keep your readers guessing at what comes next, I owe you more than what I can pay – the love of memories and of what you write and will continue to write for your readers and listeners. Wonderful. Wonderful words of your dedicated readers.
Sehaji Jacob Oshodi
My dear erudite one, you are the mirror of academics and the nation. Everyone awaits you every morning for something entertaining and to regard as the thought for the day. You give your best with the weekly write ups. Your readers have said so. I am one of them. Your ideas are uncommon. You never disappoint. God loves you and will never forsake you.
These readers and others, in varying degrees, still gave attention to my Ngugi essay from what they perceived as my system of thought – if I grasped well their “dialogues” with me. I will, however, suspend further remarks until I present further words on “President
Tinubu’s Cabin.” Conjure the gleaner to animate their exchanges to and with him.
Professor Emeritus Olu Obafemi
At the apex of your idiosyncratic rhetoric strategy uncommon and inimitable is the biting satire of a State in the unyielding and terroristic clutch of insecurity, with the chief inhabitant of the slavish cabin as the head of the Manor – the President himself.
Security is the key duty of every security personnel/officer as decreed by our nation’s constitution. But national security is the most violated right of the Nigerian citizenship under the immediate past and present government aegis. Terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and violation of rights to the living have become the most dominant vernacular of our undemocratic democracy – to borrow a slice of your narrative style. The political temper of our nation rages and our keepers seem unperturbed under the proactive custody of power and its gamut of praise-singing. It is the time the eulogists give the president a breathing space to fulfil his promise of renewal and national rebirth before it is too late. Thanks, our literary and media intellectual, our Tony the Poet for this unflattering essay.
Professor Igho Omajuwa Natufe (from the Diaspora)
I hope PBAT has the capacity to understand the message in your brilliantly written essay. As the slave-in-chief of his cabin, he may soon be consumed by lesser slaves. Have a Blessed day and weekend.
Professor Owojecho Omoha
Creating another country, Nigeria’s cabin, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, reminds me of how Ancient Greece exported dictatorship to modern Africa. Our case makes no difference, from Kaduna’s Balarabe Musa, to Joshua Darie’s Jos, and from Fubara’s Rivers to where else? This inbuilt dictatorship mechanism in a democratic system negates Thomas Paine’s idea: that we have nothing of democracy to throw away, but all to admire of the Ancient Greek legacy. In ours they, create the crisis to make agreements for one party dictatorship possible!
Jimbabs (Ibadan)
“President Tinubu’s cabin”. Your use of words is intriguing. “Palace of wealth and power which is now a kind of cabin of insecurity – the security he gives the people is security-less security.” You wrapped their elegance in the cloak of a blind dictator to whom you equally liken them with Simi as a victim – their victim. But, Sir, concluding with that silence of patience that will tear the country apart should not happen now. The SSMM should be more generous, Sir.
Dr Edafe Mukoro
I am fascinated by the literary allusion you engage in the title of this essay. Its aptness is as chilling as the slave idea encapsulated in the original idea.
Bob Majiri (Abuja-based writer/newspaper columnist)
Interesting read. It flies as the crow flies. As a real artist that you are I do not need to proceed with my picture of your dense essay to you.
Professor Sonny Awhefeada
The tragedy of Nigeria has for too long been blamed on leadership. A group that is less than two per cent of the population is taking us for a ride. I think the time has come for the people to seize the initiative and re-order the Nigerian narrative.
Sehaji Jacob Oshodi (a universal mystic)
Your writing is flourishing. The Galactic Federation endorses your flourishing thoughts. There is no long distance to run again. Deceits that are miles off the truth lead to a perilous and perishing end. It shall not be different now – unless…
The gleaner shall round off these representative exchanges, these dialogues, next week with perfect perfection of pure thoughts of being-ness.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
