By
Sonala Olumhense
 |
|
Chinua
Achebe
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I join the world in bidding Chinua
Achebe, the wordsmith we lost nine days ago, goodbye. Several things
distinguished this famous Nigerian. The best-known and most celebrated was his
ability to tell a compelling story. When Achebe told you a story, you became
his messenger, re-telling that story in one way or another forever.
That magic was Achebe’s passport to
travel through time and space. Using it, as we all came to know, he sold
himself to the world, eliminating any need to repeat his name or to raise his
voice that he may be heard. When he cleared his throat to speak to a crowd,
Achebe did not need a microphone: the crowd fell into silence so deep it was
almost in a trance, raising his roof to the rafters.
But he was not your normal storyteller
in the tradition of a circus performer whose entertainment ended when you left
for home. That was why, if you were not sufficiently careful, you missed the
most important truth about Achebe: he was a man who dispensed fiction so he
could disburse truth.
That, I am certain will become clear
when he is laid to rest and men and women of all kinds try to claim a part of
him for themselves in the words of a decent goodbye.
To say goodbye, especially in a
Nigerian funeral, is not easy. We often celebrate in death what we denied in
life. That is why, to say goodbye to a decent Nigerian of the quality and
symbolism of Achebe by a society as indecent as ours would be a Nollywood tale
that even Achebe could not have penned.
To bury Achebe among his people is the
right thing to do. I believe that is what he would have loved, even if he did
not make that decision himself.
But that will throw up all kinds of
questions about his people if that happened to be defined less tightly than his
immediate family. It would be fascinating to hear some of those who will want
the microphone by which to say “a few words.”
A few words.
In Achebe’s final two decades on earth,
God seemed to have given him two thrones to say whatever he wanted. The first
was the global fame that his fiction had earned him. From Ogidi, his
village, to the farthest corners of the earth, he came to symbolize the power
of great writing. The world sought him wherever he rested; wherever he
went, so did the world as it sought his voice.
The second throne, alas, was a
wheelchair. Following his widely-known road crash in 1990, Achebe
recovered into a wheelchair, from where he cast his considerable wisdom far and
wide. At the foot of that chair, a worldwide horde of admirers came to hear him
say whatever he wished.
But a few words were often all he said.
A skillful, power user of language, he was a man who got a lot of mileage out
of every word and every nuance.
His was a deep well of wisdom, but some
of those words, especially when he turned his attention to Nigeria, were angry
ones, especially when he identified the trouble with Nigeria.
His book of that title was published 30
years before his death. In it, he bluntly declared that “trouble” to be
“simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”
When Achebe brought home the glories
and accolades of foreign lands, he was the hero of every Nigerian, including
its leadership, but when he turned his attention inwards, that leadership was
resentful. It would rather claim him and own him.
That was why, in 2004 under President
Olusegun Obasanjo, and again in 2011 under President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria
offered Achebe the National Honour of the Commander of the Federal Republic.
In his rejection letter in 2004, Achebe
cited his “alarm and dismay” over developments in Nigeria, using as an example
the chaos in his home state of Anambra, “where a small clique of renegades, openly
boasting its connections in high places.” That clique, he said, seemed
determined to turn the state into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.
“I am appalled by the brazenness of
this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the Presidency,” he said.
Despite that, Achebe again found his
name on the National Honours list nearly two years ago. Again, he refused
to accept, as “the reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made have
not been addressed let alone solved.”
It is remarkable to recall the response
of Nigeria’s leadership to Achebe’s rejections. In 2004, the government
bitterly disowned him, declaring that if the award was not good enough for him
he was not good enough for Nigeria. In 2011, he was accused of ignorance,
and invited home on his wheelchair to come and see how things had “improved”
under President Jonathan.
Things have “improved” so much under
Mr. Jonathan that mediocrity and official dubiousness have become pronounced
principles of public life; the so-called National Honours are now increasingly
given to friends and their friends.
Things have “improved” so much that
such top government officials as the President, Vice-President and the
President of the Senate do not in their speeches refer to such values as
integrity, example, character, or honour.
Things have “improved” so much that
President Jonathan told the country he “does not give damn” about declaration
of assets, and routinely appoints to office men of poor character. Only
two weeks ago, he offered State pardon to Dipreye Alamieyeseigha, one of
Nigeria’s most reviled symbols of corruption.
All of this will form the background
when Nigeria honours Achebe by means of a state burial, as has been proposed,
or in “a few words” of tribute.
To say a few words is the most difficult
things in the world when those words are dishonest.
Achebe mastered the art of saying a few
meaningful words because his agenda and the prism through which he viewed his
country never rotted. His views on right and wrong did not shift so that he
might obtain a federal contract.
His views did not change in the new
budget year because he wanted to smuggle one of his children into a job at
State House, as many two-faced Nigerians do.
The same heart that was beating in the
heart of Achebe, the Nigerian, beat in him until the end. He advocated a
country of excellence, one in which leaders led the people with patriotism,
honesty and determination, not with self-interest and greed and corruption.
This is why his words and his advocacy
never will die. He leaves behind a country that makes up what it lacks in
heroes with historic levels of mediocrity and hypocrisy.
He leaves behind the same “alarm and
dismay” about which he spoke in 2004, of a small clique of renegades, openly
boasting its connections in high places…that has run Nigeria into a bankrupt
and lawless fiefdom…” He leaves behind the same shameless, lying,
effeminate, unpatriotic and deceitful leadership that remains the trouble with
Nigeria.
Achebe’s achievements as a writer will
always inspire the world. In his home country, it will accomplish considerably
more than that, forever casting illumination on the army of locusts that has
taken Nigeria hostage and made her an under-developing country. His voice will
be larger in death than it was in life.
Goodbye, Warrior.
sonala.olumhense@gmail.com
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