In You I've found a new Me

In you all roads kiss; all thoughts tangle

All puzzles solved; all dreams met

In you all longing dies!

In you I find the resolve to dissolve –

Soap-like, and produce the bubble for our cleansing

In you all songs find resonance and all notes chime

In you my fire finds its flame; the trigger to my gun

In you the winds find the voice to whisper to the trees;

The thunder finds its liquid anger

In you the waves find the feet to race to the shores for a watery embrace

In you I am the hunter and the game;

The disillusioned dog baying at the overcast of my shadow from the moon

Let me be the song on your lips today;

Melting with every verse to resound in the refrain

The echo in the wind; haunting and pleasant

The love poem; dragging tears down your cheeks

The voice of a child; angelic and pure

The fragile wings of scented butterflies;

Flitting across the firmament of your heart

Let me be your melody and your song;

For in you, I’ve found my river’s complex course

No Better Time to be Young and Nigerian



Lagbaja, the masked one in performance in Lagos

If you are young and gifted, this is your best time to be a Nigerian. And this is not some patriotic prattle. Of course it is hard to admit it. What with electricity supply still as it was twenty years ago and airplanes dropping off our skies every now and then and sudden death stalking our streets and highways in fatal crashes and bomb explosions. That is our reality.  But never before has the Nigerian youth found himself suddenly capable of so many things. Yes. The young Nigerian has finally cut himself loose from the exasperating hand-wringing that drove his uncles and older brothers to Europe and America as economic exiles. This is his finest hour. After years of begging to be given a little space in the Nigerian milieu, the Nigerian youth has finally come to self-possession.  He has weaned himself of the comfort zone of habitually blaming his misery on crass political leaders who are cosmopolitan enough to know what is best for their people but lack the grace to bestow it on them. The young Nigerian has therefore stopped gazing into the horizon in search of redemption. He has gazed inwards and discovered his unbridled power and infinite possibilities. He has discovered that in blessing him with lousy leaders God had made things up by blessing him with amazing gifts that would make a way for him. He has quickly taken back his life with a burst of creativity that has astonished the world.

It is not certain that most Nigerian youth know it but the future is finally here. Of course this might not look like the future we all prayed for but, if we cast our minds back a bit, we might be able to see our future in its truest of colours. Nigeria has always been the home of diverse artistic creativity. Truth be told, imaginative thinking and artistic production did not come to Nigerian youths by chance. Many first generation Nigerian writers have won global acclaim with the offerings of their minds. In fact, much of what is known today as African literature began with them. Ben Enweonwu, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Yusuf Grillo gave contemporary Nigeria the visual direction to her arts. Before them, the carvers of Ife and Benin bronzes, the terracotta arts and the ethereal Nok Culture as well as the Igbo Ukwu Bronze had bequeathed us a heritage of unmatched artistic excellence. Before them too, the Ejegham people of present day Cross River State and the surrounding Efik and Igbo areas of the South East had demonstrated astounding craftsmanship with the evolution of Nsibidi writing which dates back to over one thousand years. Glorious as these proud beginnings seem, they counted for nothing in the intervening years of military dictatorship.

It is not clear whether there’s any correlation between the stifling atmosphere of military iron rule and shriveling artistic production but there was something the matter with the Nigerian imaginative field under the military rule. In the mid-80s to early 90s, Shina Peters, Majek Fashek, Ras Kimono and Daddy Showkey all made dramatic entries into our national entertainment space but the glory days were long in coming . Their hold on the music scene was tenuous if anything at all. America’s stranglehold on the entertainment scene remained strong with the flowering gangster rap and its gun-culture, fuelling gang-wars between rival cults on Nigerian campuses. Out of this ferment sprung icons like Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls (the Notorious BIG) and Snoop Doggy Dogg. The latter’s numerous misogynic tracks fanned the murderous embers of many campus killings in Nigeria.  So did African-American movies like Menace II Society by the Hughes brothers and Juice by Ernest Dickerson among others. These films brought home vivid images of gang-related crimes in inner city America which caught on with the Nigerian youth. The scenario was further deepened by the East Coast – West Coast rap wars in the United States with lyrics that glorified gun violence and deep contempt for women.  Interestingly, as families mourned the loss of their sons cut down in the poisonous atmosphere induced by this American pop culture, the yearning for a Nigerian version of street reality began silently in some circles. People wished for rhythms and lyrics that had resonance with the Nigerian experience. It was helpful that a silent fire had already been lit in a corner by Kenneth Nnebue whose classic movie, Living in Bondage had captured popular imagination and was gradually wrenching attention away from bootlegged Hollywood films that flooded the Nigerian market. It was also helpful that the rap duo; Junior & Pretty had softened the ground for the emerging hip-hop scene with lyrics that captured popular idioms and codes of the street. It was in this social and cultural ferment that the musical rupture, Innocent Idibia, Tuface, emerged on the Nigerian entertainment scene.

Energetic Nigerian youths

We must of necessity, acknowledge the power and influence of music on popular culture. It is almost self-evident that of all cultural vehicles, music has the most advantage of spontaneity and resonance. Movies, dance and fashion don’t quite match the pace and sweeping enchantment of music. Little wonder therefore that the fledgling mosaic of Nigerian comedy and movies of the early 90s sired by Ali Baba and Kenneth Nnebue had to wait for the vocal grace of Tuface to gain wider acceptance in Nigeria and across the world.

It goes without question, that looking back to the last fifteen years, no Nigerian act has defined our popular culture like Tuface Idibia. His entry into the entertainment scene represents a ground-shift in much the same way as Chimamanda Adichie’s grand entry into Nigerian literature. Tuface’s sweet innocent looks, unassuming personality and extra-ordinary vocal gift have animated public conversations across Nigeria for over a decade. His vulnerabilities each time he fell to the wiles of young women, echoed our collective humanity. All these swelled his legend and hoisted him firmly on the saddle of almost universal accolade and stunning financial success. Tuface made young Nigerians realize that they could take charge of their lives through music, that what lay inside them was far stronger than the limitations of their environment. With African Queen, his awesome classic, he forced many international windows open to Nigerian music and waltzed his way into Hollywood when the song was chosen as the soundtrack to Phat Girls, a 2006 comedy movie directed by Nnegest Likke, starring Mo’Nique and Jimmy Jean-Loius.  A lot of hugely successful artistes in Nigeria today owe their courage to ride the rough waves of musical career to Tuface. The monstrous success of African Queen flung wide the floodgate of creativity, spanning music production, music video production, make up artistry, artiste management, endorsements, brand ambassadorships etc.

Interestingly, the comedian, Ali Baba exerted almost the same influence on Nigerian humour. It is doubtful however, that Ali Baba would have had any real impact at all without the entrepreneurial vision of Opa Williams whose Night of a Thousand Laughs offered a pioneering platform for the entrenchment of the comedy culture in Nigeria and the birth of the Nigerian humour. The sprouting of home grown stand-up comedians and the resilient evolution of Nigerian humour with a heavy slant to the Warri outlook on life helped force Nigerians to recognize the hidden beauties of the Nigerian pidgin English which all along had dangled between acceptance and outright scorn. Nigerian humour has now taken a firm position in our cultural tapestry, along with our music and movies. Nigerian comedians have continued to pack audiences at shows in London’s 02 Arena, Johannesburg, Accra, Kenya and across many states in the US. And from Kenneth Nnebue’s ground-breaking 1992 film; Living in Bondage that laid the foundation, Nollywood has cast a spell on Africa and the entire black Diaspora. The phenomenal success of Nollywood is such that Nigeria is known to the outside world solely through the magic lenses of Nollywood. Today, Nollywood actors and actresses are outstanding sex-symbols across the world. Quite naturally, the blossoming of the local entertainment scene also necessitated the emergence of a high street fashion industry to match the eclectic tastes of the music and movie stars. Through the publication of Arise magazine, Thisday newspapers played a formidable role in forcing attention on the amazing talents of Nigerian fashion designers. The mushrooming of gifted designers and fashion houses across the length and breadth of Nigeria, the growing number of fashion shows and the thriving of modeling agencies all fit snugly into the emerging landscape of a cultural powerhouse. 

Amarachi Uyanne, winner of the maiden edition of Nigeria's Got Talent.

Although the world might not know it or accept it, but this is Nigeria’s defining moment. This is finally the moment when the motherland begins the fight back for a gradual repeal of America’s cultural dominance through music, movies and fashion with the sudden explosion of popular youth culture which shatters provincial slurs and stereotypes to mainstream acceptance. Growing up in the 90s, urban Nigeria looked up to America to define social trends and street ethos through music, dance, fashion and movies. Today, the shoe is on the other foot – American cultural icons look forward to playing shows in Nigeria and collaborating with Nigerian stars. Nigerians with a gift of singing or entertainment creation across the world are migrating back to the country every day. Actors and screen writers are returning from   Nigerian jeweler, Chris Aire is a Hollywood celebrity designer. Frontline Nigerian acts are in serious creative and business partnerships with their American colleagues. Wizkid and Dbanj are signed on to Akon’s Konvict and Kanye’s G.O.O.D Music while PSquare and Tuface have done duets with Akon, Rick Ross and R. Kelly respectively. The exchange might not have attained the desired level but it is gratifying to know that it exists at all. Besides, the real fascination of Nigeria’s emerging cultural super-power status is the fact that its creative energy is forceful enough to compel acceptance in distant places. Critical alliances with American and the cultural icons of other countries are important but not necessary. Nigerian acts do not need American influence to capture African, European and Asian audiences. What we have is authentic and infectious enough to capture the imagination of diverse audiences.

In recent times, nothing perhaps, is as gratifying as the growing acceptance of Nigeria as a cultural force across Africa and beyond. It is now common to hear Psquare’s Alingo boom out of the woofer speakers of a pimped up BMW saloon car in down town Johannesburg and bounce to the rhythm of Tuface’s Implication in a club in Dubai just as it is common to walk into a Mudi shop in a Nairobi high street or listen to Zimbabwean children innocently mime the lines of Flavour’s Ashawo Remix without knowing its explicit meaning. It almost gives a heady feeling to recall that there was once time when the only thing the world had only one narrative on Nigeria - 419. With our entertainment industry, Nigerian youths have saved Nigeria from the dangers of a single story.  No longer will a cynical foreigner shake a rueful head at us and remind us about 419. We can always retort that, yes, there’s 419 but there’s also Tuface, Psquare and Dbanj and that Genevieve Nnaji was on Oprah Winfrey’s Meet the Famous People in the World show the other day; that in our own time, Nigeria has become a tale of two narratives – the good and the bad; just as is the case with most countries of the world.

Another most gratifying thing is that with the plethora of reality shows and musical festivals in the country, the production line that will supply raw materials to this industry will continue to rev.  

Naturally, what may be hard to accept to most cynics is the fact that in our own time and with our peculiar limitations, young Nigerians have in one huge splash of creativity, reversed the cultural imbalance between Nigeria and America, the world’s cultural behemoth and imposed the Nigerian way on the world. In all honesty, it is difficult to find a better time to be young and Nigerian.       

To be a Nigerian

I became fully aware of what it meant to be a Nigerian during my NYSC experience in Lagos in the late 90s. I was young and foolish. My head swarm with fuzzy ideals. Nothing in particular seemed to take any real shape. My vision lacked clarity. But I was not alone. I was one with Nigeria. Fate had played mind games with Naija; MKO Abiola and the dictator, Sani Abacha had just died in quick succession and Nigeria was in transition. So were the hopes of hordes of youngsters who had finally graduated from the universities after losing interminable years to spates of purposeless strikes by university teachers. Everything seemed suspended, deferred; our aspirations, our dreams, our laughter.

 True; Head of State, General Abdulsami Abubakar who took charge of government business after Abacha’s death had promised to hand over. But there was nothing in our collective memory to nudge us into grasping at that promise with any seriousness. In the prevailing anxiety and growing confusion, I watched my childhood friends and school mates flee the country. It seemed the sensible thing to do then. Anyone who had a reliable friend or relative outside of Nigeria thought seriously about their chances. A friend of mine, I imagined, aptly captured the mood of the country then when he referred to Nigeria as the “world’s leading cemetery of dreams.” It was not so much a question of the fewness of options for the youth as it was a summation of the bleakness of the national climate of the time.

All along, I had pined for the freedom of the open air, to test the waters, to see life in its hideous nudity away from the boisterous laughter of the classrooms. Life at the NYSC Orientation Camp in Iyana Ipaja, Lagos had been like a tang of fine champagne on the tongue of a connoisseur. There in the company of dreamers, I had imagined the world was too narrow a canvass for the immense size of the gifts we carried. But when I began to pound the forlorn streets of Victoria Island in the blazing sun, peeping into office windows and dropping application letters, I also wondered if I my talent wouldn’t find a quicker expression outside Nigeria. Jobs were a rarity then. But so were other things that made for a contented citizenry. The wave of migrant Nigerians fleeing the country for economic and political reasons was at its very peak. Most of them were university teachers, medical and health workers, human rights activists, writers and other workers in symbol; society’s very conscience. They all fled in droves.

All across the land, people sang different dirges for the country. Nigeria seemed split dramatically across the usual fault lines. There were talks of separation as diverse ethnic militia carved up the country into separate fiefdoms for themselves with ease. In the North Arewa People’s Congress spoke their usual language of entitlement and dominance but in the South, a loud cacophony of war held sway. Egbesu Boys of Africa brandished potent charms and amulets in the creeks of the Niger Delta. Myth-makers went to town with stories of how the Egbesu goddess had granted the boys invisibility before their enemies. In the South East, the rhetoric was as expected. The marginalization of the last thirty years had got to stop or else, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) would reenact the return of the “land of the rising sun. MASSOB leader, Chief Ralph Uwazurike’s pampered beard had begun to grow wild in a manner reminiscent of the revolutionaries of yore.

 In the South West, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) spat fire! The death of Abiola and the cheeky shoving aside of Ernest Shonekan, the Interim Government leader who had assumed power after the annulment of June 12 elections had rubbed the Yorubas the wrong way and the young militiamen that peopled OPC felt a need to assert their manhood. Before long, their long suppressed angst began to keel over into malevolent tendencies. Soon enough, Dr. Fredrick Fasehun’s strenuous effort to rein in exuberances that were out of kilter with his vision for the group led to a split and out sprung the dreaded Gani Adams’ faction of the OPC that pushed Lagos dangerously close to the edge.

 It wasn’t long before their muted gong of war began to take on the guttural timber of violence. Soon enough, the vegetable and fruits market in Mile 12 and Ketu axis where merchants from the North sell their wares became the touch-point for a rage long deferred. The ensuing clashes between OPC and some Hausa traders began in that axis and suddenly snow-balled to Idi Araba, Agege and other parts of Lagos. The climate of fear that reigned then was such that most Lagos residents soon cultivated the habit of tuning in to radio stations to get a reading of the “temperature” of the city before leaving their homes each morning.  Violent clashes roused most mornings and it was so easy to get caught up in the storm. The prevailing sense of justice or lack thereof was intense. And all around Nigeria, there was a strong feeling that the ship of state was adrift in a fast current. Not many people reasoned in terms of nationhood or collective survival or unity. Happily, it was only for a while. A typical Nigerian while.

Almost as everything Nigerian, the pull-back from the razor-edge was dramatic. In a rare display of foresight, Olusegun Obsanjo was dug up from the dungeon where he lay rotting away. For a while it seemed almost preposterous for Nigerian leaders to seek to create our own version of Mandela’s prison-to-presidency narrative but that was what we got. And in a manner almost reminiscent of the biblical rebuke of the storm by Jesus, Obasanjo’s assumption of power served as a calming balm on the searing turbulence.

Looking back now, it also seems like they never happened; as though my mind is playing tricks on me and I am dredging up memories from across the river bank of my childhood. But this is Nigeria. Children born in 2005 may never have heard of OPC or APC or Egbesu Boys of Africa. They may only have heard of MASSOB after Emeka Ojukwu’s death last year when Uwazurike and his men had to make some noise to re-assert their relevance. It all seems so distant, so vague and so inconsequential now that one would be tempted to wonder why we ever worried about them, but those were dreadful moments in our contemporary times.

Indeed, recent Nigerian history is replete with imageries that echo the above scenario. We have had too many close shaves, countless dances on razor-edge and too many bewildering moments that tug on the consciousness and make one re-evaluate one’s belief in Nigeria. It happens all the time; from Jos to Mumbi and from Aluu to Madalla.

Increasingly though, a crucial lesson is emerging from our social mosaic - to be a Nigerian is to master the art of living on the edge. To weed one-self of all emotions that have to do with all kinds of losses since we are the planet’s true inheritors of loss. It is to develop a strange short memory and a neurotic craving to move on, to rush through unpleasant experiences as though they have nothing to teach us and to pick quarrels with anyone who calls our attention to the past.

You may call it living in denial if you wish.           

Nigeria is a Lie

From the thick foliage of my mind

Sprouts a tremulous song of a militant kind

Bombs detonate everyday on heaps of injured history

Kano blazes up in tongues of mutant misery

I squeeze orange juice on a blank page…

To bury metaphors and douse my rage

Every ping on my BB is a prick

On my conscience that makes me sick

The ears of my mind are forever wide open

To the dolorous sobs of the downtrodden

Its disquieting quiver nudges me to arms

To crush the bed bug called Boko Haram

Images of barbequed bodies on facebook

Make me retch in revulsion when I take a look

Nigeria is a lie and every day we cry

But redemption is far way no matter how we try

I can’t take it anymore I want to retaliate

But between my people and the Whiteman I wonder who to hate  

In my sleep all I see is the remains of murdered dreams

Dear mama, come and wake me when you hear my screams

I stifle my sneeze; wipe my tears every time I pray

Too many questions on my mind I wonder what to say

The story seems the same from Jos to Jesse

And still no one has an answer for James Eze

I’m meditating in my mind, God hear me please

This weight is crushing me when I try to sneeze

My country is a lie and every day we cry

And redemption is far away no matter how we try

People like me never win the Nobel Prize – Naiwu Osahon

Maverick author, scholar and self-acclaimed pagan, Naiwu Osahon stirs up controversy in this interview with James Eze

His grey hair glowed like a clump of fireflies in the dim light of Agip Hall, Muson Centre, Lagos, where an eclectic audience waited patiently to hear his dear friend, Chinweizu rail at the West and sound yet another warning to Africans. The fiery bard, Odia Ofuemun had pointed him out earlier in the lobby; “That is Naiwu Osahon”, Your curiosity had the better of you. You tip-toed after him when the lecture ended. But he had declined your request for an interview with a big grin that halved his face in two. But he had taken your phone number. About one week after, your mobile phone suddenly twitched with bionic impulse. The message on the screen said: “I am willing to do an explosive interview…..” Naiwu.

Now, it´s difficult to come across Naiwu Osahon and miss his whiff of enigma. His lean frame, loud sepulchral voice and sallow, introspective mien mark him out. But Osahon´s enigma does not end with his looks. It lies deep in the pages of his incredible oeuvre of 152 books, his incendiary pan-Africanism and his puritan paganism.

Osahon has cultivated his mystique like a Mullah´s beard over the years, and it´s still growing. Although it´s not clear whether his taking up residence in a desolate farm in Agbara, Ogun State is part of the mystique, it has deepened his legend by a jot as the ensuring dialogue had to be conducted online on account of distance. After emptying his venom on the ´imperialist West´ and their African collaborators for the black man´s pitiable lot on the planet, the exchange tapered off to literature; an area where the wiry intellectual would seem to have made the most mark. Still, Osahon had to be pushed against the wall. When will all these finger pointing to the West for all of Africa´s woes end? You queried. “The problem now is about the Blackman´s mindset. We have made significant progress in re-orienting the Blacks in Diaspora. We still have some work to do in the area of alien religions. They are waiting for us to provide home grown alternatives.

Africans in Africa are our greatest problem at the moment and that is largely because most of our people are still illiterate. Even the literate ones have no books to read that can transform their lives. Where such books are available, they are too expensive to procure because of the marginalization of the local currency by the IMF and the World Bank. They dump their Bible and Koran on us free of charge to keep us perpetually illiterate,” he said. Osahon never lacks opinions on the issue of ´alien´ religions, which he blames for the general inertia among Africans. He thinks religion is the strongest neo-colonial weapon against black Africans.

But there´s one area where neither religion, nor slavery nor colonialism can erode. The African has an edge in that area. That seems to be what Osahon was suggesting in his popular book, Sex is a Nigger. So, what did he actually set out to do in that book: dispel ancient stereotypes or re-enforce them? “Sex is a Nigger was my second published book and remains Africa´s best seller, along with Lagos Na Waa, I swear, and three other similar books, he replied. “They were written principally to pay my bills. I am better known as a rabid critic. My books are among the most hard-hitting books in the world. I have written 26 adult books with titles like God is Black, The Black Agenda, The Climate of Darkness, The Colour of Anger, The Cradle and The End of Knowledge, which is my magnum opus. I am considered the leading author of books for children in the black world. I have over 126 titles for children. On the issue of unconcealed attempt to proclaim black sexual prowess in Sex is a Nigger, the story is about my true holiday experience in the Scandinavia in the 60s. I had a wonderful time and my white girl friends indirectly provided the title with their relentless demand for my services. It is not a secret that blacks dominate in that department. White men are not circumcised and so are invariably weak. Before their instruments find their way out of their sacks, they are pissing prematurely already,” he explained, sounding more like a racial ambassador than a ´rabid critic.´ But Osahon is like that, brash, vocal and almost visceral, he has no room for prisoners. It does not matter to him that there may not be a scientific proof of his submission above.

Again you sought to have his back up against the wall once more and have him come down smoking. The titles of his books sound a little voyeuristic, you observed. Like something one would rather associate with the popular Onitsha market literature than some more distinctive literature. What was his explanation for the overt banality of his themes? Sadly, this move did not elicit the desired response as the maverick clammed up. “If five books out of 26 for adult and 126 books for children sound like Onitsha market literature, that is not a disaster for literature? I wrote those books as I have already said, to pay my bills because our people do not buy serious literature as you call it, and people like me would not accept financial assistance from the CIA”, he posited. He didn´t have to say it though. It has always been clear that Osahon could not be tempted with certain kinds of patronage. But wasn´t it remarkable how his literary enterprise had gone? A look at his graph of literary productions indicates a steady growth that began with The Climate of Darkness in 1971 and reached an orgasm in 1981 when he pushed out 25 books for children. Since then, his inkpot seemed short of the precious fluid. What was behind this temporary aridity? Is he a shout away from menopause or already in it?

“No, I now have 126 books for children and I have pushed out 12 additional adult books since then. I hardly do book launching and it is book launching that register book titles in our critics minds. Our book critics do not read. They copy what others say. I sell most of my books abroad and the internet has now enhanced that culture. With a website, you can have a shop on the electronic highway of the world. It took ten years to complete, The End of Knowledge, because it reveals secrets never before revealed to mankind. I don´t think I was human most of the time I was writing it. An incomplete edition came out six years ago but distribution was spiritually blocked because I had not said everything I was supposed to say. The End of Knowledge was virtually spiritually dictated. It required a learning process to write. That is why it took so long. I went through severe suffering to receive what I wrote about. I have now added 120 pages to the book. I am still adding bits here and there even now. Those waiting for the book should be patient. It is the greatest book ever written and there is not likely to be anything like it ever again,” he submitted, leaving you to wonder what he meant by The End of Knowledge. It sounds visionary though, and of course, writers are regarded as visionaries whose creative effusions define the ebb and flow of the national polity.

Would he say that the Nigerian writer has acquitted himself in his sacred duty to speak truth to power within the Nigerian context? “I am not sure that we have quite done that,” he opined. “We do not have committed writers like some of the old breed. People like Chinweizu, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Chinua Achebe and myself. I think my writing influence attitudes. Yes, we can influence attitudes. Chinweizu and I ran a regular workshop for young writers in my Apapa office in the eighties. People like Ogaga Ifowodo were graduates of our workshops and see what he has turned out to be now. I am not saying we are his only influence, but we helped. We have many others like Ogaga and we are working at the moment on reviving the workshop. Young writers need mentoring by the established ones and there has not been much of that in recent years in Nigeria. University education is not enough; there is something you learn from Naiwu that is not available in any book”. Osahon is almost always assertive in his declarations. So, how would he assess the present Nigerian literary scene in view of the fact that the period of his high literary yield coincided with the creative ferment of the era when Nigeria maintained a literary invincibility on the continent? “I am impressed by what I am seeing. The young ones are not letting up. They are winning international laurels and I have seen some great poetry and essays. I think there is hope. We need institutional support to sustain the ferment. That is all.”

While preparing for the dialogue, you had come across the fact that his career with the UAC, where he began his working life had ended rather sadly on account of his volatile brand of unionism.

You wondered what exactly happened. “Ok, that is well in the past now. I have even forgotten that I once worked in the UAC. They recruited me from England immediately after my MSc. degree in marketing from the University of Sanford. I enjoyed myself in the UAC because I was highly respected and largely undisturbed. I was writing critical books against our oppressors and running institutions to strengthen our resolve. At the push point, they decided to disorient or frustrate me from continuing my activism for my race. I rejected this and insisted that I must not be treated differently from how white managers were being treated in the company. We fought a battle over the illegal termination of my appointment in court but they used the money they were to compensate me with to buy over the judge and that is history now.”

Again that finger to the West. Again this we-against-them posture. Again, the undisguised victimhood. But it all sounded a bit phoney. His has been a strong voice against racism, imperialism and all, but he gladly accepted the key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA….a strong racial enclave. How would he reconcile this jarring contradiction? “Memphis is not a racial enclave now in the sense that you have portrayed. Memphis is politically a black dominated enclave. The mayor is black. The counselors are mostly black. It is culturally a black dominated city and I was given, apart from the key to the city, several other awards from neighbouring counties, including councilmanship, citizenship, commissionership and also a silver shield (trophy) by Morehouse College, for my services to the entire black race. I was honoured for what I am doing for my race. People like me do not win the Nobel because we are aware and critical of what the West is doing to suppress us as a race. It is great, therefore, to be honoured in one´s life time by the people you are fighting for. Usually such honours come after we are dead. I am glad I received some while still alive. They serve as incentive to do more for my race.”

You recalled that you had heard it noised in some quarters that Osahon was an agnostic. Was his resentment of religion an offshoot of his famous hypersensitivity to racism? “An agnostic is a person who believes that nothing can be known about God or life after death. That is not me. I told you that I am the first in the history of the world to know certain things. I have put them in ´The End of Knowledge.´ Some of the knowledge were known to a few and were referred to historically as the secrets of the ages. Others had never been revealed before to man. For instance, I know that the Jesus story is a lie. The knowledge is not a secret to the spiritual elite of the world. Yahweh himself confirmed the Jesus lie to me before I dug up the proof that was hidden from most of mankind for ages. It is annoying to see our people living a lie. I know about life after death and I also know that what you think is ´God´ is not ´God.´ The problem you have understanding what I just said is that you have a wrong definition of ´God.´ What you think is ´God´ is a deity. Yahweh, the Christian and Muslim ´God´ is only a deity. Yahweh, the Christian and Muslim ´God´ is only one of the ten Jewish deities.

All Gods are tribal deities, i.e. intermediaries between man and the spirit world. All deities are gods and are all to be spelt with the capital letter ´G.´ The Jews called the Ultimate Source of Spirituality En-Sof, which we in modern time call Tu-SoS, meaning, The Ultimate or Unlimited or Universal Source of Spirituality. No religion or spiritual movement in the world worships the ultimate Source. Even the largest spiritual groups in the world, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism do not worship the ultimate Source of Spirituality.

I am a Pagan. I am the leader of the modern Pagan world and the Spiritual Prince of the Black race. I know that the spirit world exists and it is the real world. Our physical world is a mere illusion. The spirit world is not in some remote or obscure place called heaven or hell but right here in parallel orbit with our world. The living and the dead cohabit. They can see us but we cannot see them unless with specially trained eyes. Everything that happens to us happens first in the real world. So, our physical world is only a shadow or reflection of the spirit world. Every living thing consists of the physical and the spiritual and it is possible to transmute from human to spirit life and back to human through the process called alchemy."

What Chinua Achebe told me about the Biafran war…Ulli Beier,

Ulli Beier

 

Once in every while, you come across people that force you to interrogate yourself, to question long held notions and re-arm you with a better compass to observe the world. Such people compel us to re-examine our received wisdoms, our interpretation of reality, our overarching sensitivity about the world and its many imbalances. Ulli Beier, the late German born Yoruba man was one such person whose very life altered racial stereotypes and the preconceived apprehensions of our race-torn world. I was lucky to meet him in Oshogbo, Osun State, Nigeria in 2006 and the memories of that amazing evening are mine to relish forever. Ulli was eighty three then but very much in self-possession, his memeory was fairly intact and he talked about things that happened about fifty years before as though it were yesterday. The ensuing narrative was my impression of that evening -

Beier

Watching President Olusegun Obasanjo dole out national honours on prime time television to Nigerians and non-Nigerians of all ilk the
other night, it struck you just how odd it seemed that Nigeria had
yet to say 'thank you' to him. Yet, he was here when it all began.

Not as a distant spectator, but as a prime mover, an enthusiastic
facilitator and a devoted promoter of the Nigerian letters. He is a
black man in white skin. He is a German born Yoruba man. He is
indubitably Nigerian. He is 83. He is Ulli Beier. And it is a pity that
his name was not on the honours list of this year's National Merit
Award recipients.

Professor Beier is a foremost Africanist scholar, whose arrival in
the University College Ibadan in 1950 at 28 sparked off a chain of
events that eventually led to the lighting up of the African literary
tree. As a university teacher, editor of the influential Black
Orpheus and proprietor of the catalytic Mbari Artists and Writers'
Club as well as Mbari publications, Ulli Beier found himself
strategically nestled in the fork of time. But he made the most of
it. Flapping all around him were budding writers whose creative gifts
needed stronger wings to soar.

Chinua

There were Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, J.P Clark, Mabel Segun, Demas Nwoko, Duro Ladipo, Ezekiel Mphalele of South Africa and of course the Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka. It was a great moment in time all right. The flowering of ideas that ensued marked the preparatory stage of modern literary offering from Africa.

As you raise the micro tape recorder to his lips in this plush little
room inside the cavernous sprawl of Osun State government house,
Osogbo, you marvel at this man whose deep set eyes still sparkle
behind a pair of rectangular eye glasses at 83. In your opening
remark, you had generally alluded to his contributions to African
literature and how one of his former students, Mabel Segun had spoken
fondly of him in a recent meeting.

At the mention of that name, his powerful eyes lighted up "Oh! Where
is she? What is she doing?" he asks in quick succession and without
waiting for your reply he wades into an old familiar tunnel. "She was
one of my students in the University College, Ibadan. I only spent one
year on campus and she was one of the students I saw a lot privately
to. A lot of the students came to my house; Chinua Achebe, Mabel, all
kinds of students.

“It was more than just a class, you know what I mean? She was one of
the first people to write poems. She was bright and wrote some quite
good poems and I think I would have published a few. Another student
who came quite a lot was Chinua Achebe. He had quite impressive
manners. I kept a lot of contact with him in later life and when he
was working with the NBC, I did quite a few programmes with him and
he was also a member of the Mbari Club when we founded it", he
recalls in a voice that belies his age. Beier is urbane.

Oracular Achebe

He returns compliments with compliments. Mabel Segun, he said, was
brilliant. A statement of fact, but he also talked about Achebe and
the Mbari Club which offers a veritable opening for a follow up
question. When did you found the club? You ask. "I think in I96o and
it was Chinua who gave it a name. Mbari is an Igbo word. Soyinka and
I were tossing around in search of a name to give the club and then
Chinua rang and said 'what about Mbari?' And I jumped at the name
because I knew Mbari Houses," he recalls with a nostalgic glint in
his eyes. Ulli Beier's recollections are incomplete without names
like Soyinka, Chinua, Okigbo, Duro Ladipo etal.

In a manner of speaking, his story is their story. "My whole activity
in Nigeria in the I96os was basically to help people get a better
identity by pointing out what wonderful culture they have", he had
said in an earlier comment. In a way, Ulli has walked the road of his
destiny well. Along with Gerald Moore, an Englishman, who taught
extra-mural classes in Eastern Nigeria, Beier made his presence felt
on the continent, translating and publishing modern African writings
from David Mendessa Diop to Leopold Sedar Senghor, and even some
Yoruba poems. He also played a fundamental role in the conception and
nurturing of the world famous Oshogbo school of artists along with
influential playwright and gifted composer Duro Ladipo.

Story telling comes natural to Beier. He is dressed in his trademark
Aso Oke and his luxuriant grey hair has turned completely white like
a soft tassel drooping down a corn cob. You let his sweet old voice
swaddle you up with nostalgic recollections, let it carry you to a
time beyond your reach when our people still retained those things
that made then distinct. "I really loved the idea that people do
creative work that involves young people of a certain age grade and
that under the guidance of craftsmen they created mud buildings
populated by arts figures," he says of the Mbari Houses from which
the name of his literary club was chosen.

"They had a figure of the earth goddess with a child on her laps, a
leopard pouncing on a goat, a school teacher with a book and a tailor
with his sewing machine. Then within a few years, this building
crumbles back into mud because it's not fired and all the figures
virtually collapse. But there's a beauty in that. The building and
artworks must give way for the next age grade to practice their own
craft, you see. And there I learnt something for the first time in my
life. Growing up in Berlin as a child visiting museums, I thought
that the older a work of art was the better and more valuable and all
the so called art treasures and worth not.

“It's all because of the false values attached to art. Now from the
Mbari Houses, I have developed a whole concept of Ephemeral Art;
which means art that is not meant to last, art that is allowed to
disintegrate, art that is destroyed, burnt, drowned and art that is
shot. It is a very fascinating concept and on December, 18 at the
Obafemi Awolowo University I am going to give a lecture on Ephemeral
Art. And I will start with Mbari."

The incurable photographer, curator, author, translator and publisher
may be in love with the concept of ephemeral art, but he builds
eternal friendships. That is why when he talks about Christopher
Okigbo, or Wole Soyinka or Chinua Achebe and J.P Clark, he comes
across like a teenage Casanova regaling his crowd of youthful
admirers with tales of his new conquest.

Great Okigbo

"When I moved out from the University Campus, I was giving
extra-mural classes in Oyo. On the way, I used to stop in a little
town called Fiditi," he recalls in the same pitch of voice. Wasn't
that where Christopher Okigbo taught? You interject. "Exactly! Then I
met Christopher. Well, he wasn't one of my students. So, I met him
and we developed a very close relationship. Then, when he became the
representative of Cambridge University Press, he had a big house in
Ibadan and I was living in Osogbo.

“So, when I had business in Ibadan, I would just go in there, whether
he was home or not, I was sure of a bed and a good meal. His house was
just like home to me and we talked about art, literature and politics
and a whole lot more. Then, when the Mbari Club started, I started
something called Mbari publications which subsequently published his
first two volumes of poetry Heavensgate and Limits.

“So, we were very close and I remember that he was very upset about
the way the political situation in the country was going at the time.
I was not surprised when I heard later that he was first to go to
Biafra and enlist in the army and first to die. It's very tragic," he
surmises looking suddenly crestfallen.

You sense that it may be tactless to allow this mood prevail long
enough to affect his recollections and then wonder if there are
particular things he could remember about the late poet. "Well, he
studied classics and then Greek and later when we published Black
Orpheus; he would take a view and say 'I am not an African poet. I am
a poet'.

“This was where he was different from others. He was contemporary. He
was extremely influenced by contemporary English poets. But the other
aspect of him was that his poems became more political in Path of
Thunder. It was actually inspired by some of my translations of
Yoruba poetry, some images, you know. He became more interested and
more African and finally more relaxed with his craft. One thing about
Mbari Club was that we had people who had very different ideas.

“Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo never agreed on anything with J.P
Clark. But they respected each others because there was some merit in
their separate positions. And we always had a very lively
interaction. They never agreed on anything but they worked
successfully together. That was fascinating”. We had artists like Demas Nwoko, Uche Okeke.

Very much like Okigbo's Watermaid

But no. Beier is wrong.
The disagreement between Soyinka and Okigbo with J.P Clark did not end on the floor of the Mbari Club. At least what Okigbo told South African Lewis Nkosi about his resentment of Clark and what Clark wrote in some of his civil war poems where he basically spat on Okigbo's grave lend credence to this position. However, this does not in any way in particular, whittle down the legacy of Mbari Club.

Listening to Beier’s flawless English, it strikes you just how
wonderful it is that he is actually German and has a remarkable grasp
of French and Yoruba languages as well. This led to his translation
of literary works from Yoruba and French to English. But Beier went
beyond mere translation of Yoruba works. He became deeply immersed in
the Yoruba culture and worldview earning himself names like Obotunde
Ijimere, Sangodare Akanji and Omidiji Aragbabalu. His close friends
boldly refer to him as the German-born Yoruba man which he relishes
with pride.

"In a sense, it was necessary for me to do the translations because
when I started teaching African literature and extra-mural classes,
there wasn't that much African literature coming out of Nigeria," he
says of what pushed him into trying his hands on translations. "There
was no Soyinka and Achebe in 1950-51, so I had to translate Sango and
Diop and Aime Cesare the Carebean writer. So, I have always enjoyed
translation for one reason or the other and I was totally bilingual
in German and English.

“At a time I didn't know which was my language anymore and I had a
pretty good French. So, from that, I was able to do what I did. But
one thing about translation is that you must know the language from
which you translate but turning it into a poem requires a deeper
knowledge. When you are translating from Yoruba to English, you have
to realize that there is a lot of things that you can't do. You have
to make it as simple as possible but what survives adds to a unique
philosophy.

"Of course Beier should know. He translated the works of Bakare
Gbadamosi and Timi Lawuyi among others to wide reception. Still, it
is interesting to note that Beier, in spite of his complete immersion
in the Yoruba culture has some critics. Oyekan Owomoyela for instance
thinks that Beier's "representation of the Yoruba ethos is too often
distorted and even slanderous." But Beier is not deterred.

Even at 83, Obotunde Ijimere still recalls with enticing vividness,
his earliest impressions of Chinua Achebe at the University College
Ibadan. "He was a very calm person. And when I returned to Nigeria
after the Biafran War in 1971, I went to the University of Nigeria at
Nsukka and it was all pretty raw then. Students were trying to clean
up the mess left by the soldiers. I saw Achebe then and you could see
that the terrifying experience of the war had given him some kind of
strength.

“And Achebe told us a very touching story that when the frontline
moved during the war, as it did all the time, they had to pack from
house to house. And his children said "daddy you must be very rich,
because we have so many houses.' That's a great anecdote. Great
anecdote! I learnt a lot from Chinua. Later on, he came to Bayreuth
University when I was there and gave a lecture and I later did an
interview with him which was called - "The world as a Dancing Masquerade." The world is a dancing masquerade; if you want to see it properly you cannot stay in one place. This explains the Igbo ability to move and try new things.
They are a very dynamic people. Achebe's Things Fall Apart was
published in 1958 and up till today it's popular all over the world
and a recommended text for HEC exams in Australia.

“It's one of the most successful books in history and it means a lot
because that's somebody looking into his culture without sentiment,
without chauvinism and at the same time showing the dignity of his
people, you see. And from him I learnt what I know about Igbo
culture. He did an interview with Georgina which was called 'Wealth
is not what you have but what you give away'. That's a wonderful
point. So, we learned a lot about the Igbo culture from him and also
Obiora Udechuckwu and we learnt to respect the Igbo culture.

“I realized that the culture has extra-ordinary tolerance. Chinua told
us a story of when he was in primary school. The teacher one day
moved the class out of the classroom to the shade of a tree and put
the black board on the tree and proceeded to give them a lecture on
the geography of Great Britain. Then the local lunatic walked by and
stopped to watch the class for a while and walked up to the teacher,
took the chalk out of his hand, wiped the black board and proceeded
to give the class a lecture on Ogidi (Chinua's home town) which was
more important to the children. What amazed me is that the teacher
let it happen. In Europe he would call the police. That's fantastic!
This is one of the things I admire about Nigeria, these experiences."

Ulli Beier is not only full of years at 83 but full of stories as
well; wonderful stories, exciting stories and he tells everyone with
fresh candour. He is also an adventurer who left his beloved Nigeria
for Papua New Guinea where along with his wife Georgina, he repeated
the Mbari experience setting up a Center for Art and Literature in
Moresby which threw the door ajar for creative people in the region.
Almost as many books have been written on Beier as he wrote on
African literature.

But Beier deserves even more books for all that he did in Nigeria and
on the continent. Beier and Gerald Moore played a memorable role in
erecting the pillars of Nigerian literature upon which African
literature stands. Beier's cultural activism in Yorubaland with all
his translations and books on various aspects of the Yoruba culture
offer deep perspectives on the Yoruba race. Now, if these do not
qualify a man for a national honour I wonder what else does. You see
why Obasanjo's national honours list for 2005 was in complete?

 

Editor’s note: Ulli Beier, the influential German Jewish scholar, writer, editor and aggressive promoter of African culture died in April 2011. This interview took place in January, 2006.