Chinua, Nigeria & Old Wounds

A lot has been said about Professor Chinua Achebe's new publication titled 'There Was A Country'. I have heard many trite remarks from different people depending on what part of the country they are from. I have not read the book. I have however seen excerpts from it. I am not a professional book reviewer or critic so I'll leave such intricacies to the Chimamanda Adichies.

For those who have no idea what the book is about, it is basically Achebe's account of the July 1967 Civil War. He talks about his early life while growing up and also explores the immediate and remote events around the war. He is also perceived by many to have pointed fingers at certain people as being responsible for a calculated extermination of the Igbo race by starvation. The Civil War, from what I have read, was responsible for the loss of close to three million lives via hunger and disease. It will infinitely remain significant in the annals of Nigerian history.

Following the release of Achebe's book, many people hurled invectives at the sage for what they claim is a misplaced and mis-timed accusation. Some Yoruba people think it was unfair of him to finger Chief Obafemi Awolowo in what Achebe termed a vile genocide of his kinsmen. On the other hand, some Igbo people think Achebe spoke what has been on their minds for some time now. They are obviously still embittered by the role the Westerners played during the Civil War. Most of the people throwing missiles at each other on social media were not even born in 1967 when the war broke out. They are just as passionate, notwithstanding. There is a good reason for this.

Nigeria is a box of dynamites. Dynamites all wired together in a wooden box. All, Nigeria seeks is just a strike of a matchstick or a spark. Ethnicity is one of those sparks. Second only, if at all, to religion. Nigerians do not need an invitation to jump into any brouhaha that seeks to lord a tribe over the other. Not only will Nigerians jump into the fracas, they will do so with their daggers and spears. Ethnic bigotry, in its ugliest and crudest form.

Personally, I do not care about what was written and what wasn't by Achebe. I have never met Professor Achebe, but I have read of how he turned down National Merit Awards twice to express his disgust at how the country was being run and his sheer contempt for the Federal Government. The same awards given to courtesans, sycophants and cronies of the government of the day. At a time when praise-singers who lack integrity are exalted for nothingness, the erudite poet stood by his principles and sent the emissaries of government on their way with a bilious taste in their mouth. It won't be presumptuous to think Professor Achebe is of a very sound mind and an even sounder character by this action. In a society that is completely arid of any character and selflessness, such uprightness should count for something.

I am Yoruba, at least to the best of my knowledge. Chief Obafemi Awolowo died when I was just 4 years old. I can tell her was a remarkable Yoruba leader, judging by the number of edifices and monuments christened in his honour and memory. A University, several roads (both Federal and State), Parks, a Stadium, Libraries, Schools and Marketplaces all named after him. He was Premier of Western Nigeria for six years and at the time of the war was  the Federal Commissioner of Finance. Many say the government as a whole, and not Awolowo singly, was responsible for the food blockade. Others say, it was Ojukwu's pigheadedness that was responsible as the Nigerian government genuinely offered to ensure food entered Biafra.

Obafemi Awolowo was a seasoned politician. I still don't fully understand his politics but apparently he was an advocate of free education and health for the masses. The poor loved him. The Bible says the poor will always be amongst us but did it really mean this many poor people? Awo was loved because there were too many poor people at the time. My question is this; why were there so many poor people? I choose to believe that Nigeria missed it at from ground zero. There was something awfully wrong in our foundation. People loved M.K.O Abiola too. This does not confer sainthood on any of them. Houseflies are naturally drawn to faeces just as rats are to garbage. That's simply Nature. Philanthropy will naturally endear anyone to the poor.

In as much as I wasn't born during the era of Awolowo's political career, I have seen his 'disciples'. The sworn Awoists. They claim they are staunch scions of Awolowo not just in terms of political ideologies but also in dressing and talking. So much so, they wear similar round rimmed glasses and the short cap Awolowo was known for. I must however state now that if this is the same Awoism that Chief Obafemi propagated in the 50s and 60s, then something has gone wrong in history. Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu sings of Awoism like a hummingbird on heat in the mating season. He needs to tell us if Awo too shackled his constituency financially and ruled like a glorified area-boy. I don't know Awolowo but I know Awoists and the word 'free' does not exist in the vocabulary of these Awoists.

One thing I appreciate about the book 'There Was A Country' is that we are again reminded of the reasons why Nigeria is in such dire state. The book shows us we have not even begun our journey to redemption as our bus plummets down the abyss of perdition. We are reminded by Achebe that just as Nigeria was not one in 1967 so she has remained divided in 2012. We have in fact dwindled in developmental milestones. If after all these years, Igbos and Yorubas still haggle over who did what and when during a war that claimed three million NIGERIAN lives then we obviously still have a lot to learn. We need to stop deceiving ourselves. We are simply not one.

In medicine, there's something called a 'test dose'. Here, a drug that is known to be notorious for causing severe adverse reactions in majority of patients is administered in minute quantity over a small area of the body. This is done to see the localized reaction before exposing the entire body to the full adult dose of the drug. If the localized administration is well tolerated, there's a high chance that the systemic exposure would also be tolerable. In my opinion, 'There Was A Country' was a test dose administered by the sage himself in the person of Chinua Achebe. We did not tolerate that test dose. We, as a matter of fact, failed woefully. Maybe if after the book was released, the Yorubas weren't so defensive as to why Achebe went after their supposed founding founder (Awolowo) and if the Igbos didn't sound like they were confrontational in their assertions. Maybe if the Yorubas had simply been the 'bigger people' and offered a white flag instead of going after Achebe and if the Igbos had genuinely buried the ghosts of Biafra and simply said 'Let's move forward!'

Truth is, we are still very bitter about the events of 1969. We have not forgiven each other. You forgive first before it occurs to you to forget. A house divided against it-self will not stand and Nigeria is divided. My assertion has always been that Nigeria suffers from a severe form of autoimmune disease where the body's cells wage war against that same body. It's a simple form of implosion where they continue to damage the containing body forgetting, albeit stupidly, they are cells and they won't survive outside that body they are fighting hard to destroy. Chinua, Gowon, Odumegwu and Obafemi's generation fought a needless war. That generation successfully annihilated three million Nigerians. My generation just showed the world it is not better than this quickly depleting one. My generation just showed the entire world that we'll take more lives in the course of this marriage called Nigeria.

Now, let me remind you simpletons, who see themselves in terms of 'State of Origin'. That simpleton who deleted me from her BlackBerry because I was constantly and intensely critical of her kinsman occupying Aso Rock. Goodluck Jonathan was in government for years in Bayelsa and did Bayelsa improve? If it didn't, Bayelsans are the ones suffering, not the people from Adamawa. Gbenga Daniel stole from Ogun people, his own flesh and blood! He didn't steal Imo's money, just as Orji Uzor Kalu, James Ibori, Peter Odili and Lucky Igbinedion stole from the people of Abia, Delta, Rivers and Edo respectively. Their own people! It is inherent wickedness that we suffer from. Our ethnic bigotry won't get us anywhere. It hasn't in the past and it won't in the future. We'll continue to wallow in folly with our 'Na my brother' mentality. After corruption, it is the next bane of our existence as an entity. A Yoruba adage says ''The insect eating up the vegetable resides inside the vegetable''. Our problems are more domestic than systemic. We must fix ourselves before we can fix Nigeria. Dysfunctional people make dysfunctional societies.

Rather than reprehend Chinua Achebe, we should thank him. For showing us we only applied bandage over a chronic non-healing wound. That bandage has been in place for 42years. Underneath it is a rotting, fungating and terminally septic wound. It is not enough to drown ourselves in the charade of Nigeria's oneness. We are not one. The earlier we get that and fix it, the better for us.

If that wound fails to heal, we may require orthopaedic intervention in the form of an amputation if we do not desire a second Civil War.

That will be extremely shameful.