USA Africa Dialogue Series - Traditional religions day in Nigeria

Dear all,

Can someone remind me date instaured as taditional relifions day in Niegeria? President Buhari decided that in 2015.
Thank you in advance.
Patrick

 

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De : Amatoritsero Ede <esulaalu@gmail.com>
À : USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Envoyé le : Samedi 8 juillet 2017 4h21
Objet : USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ode to Abiola Irele

Professor Abiola Irele, doyen of African literary Scholarship and a great promoter of African literature, is dead! It seems like a dream. I met him first at the University of Ibadan's Staff club in 1992 or 1993. I strolled in and he was sitting down with Harry Garuba drinking beer - I think Star beer. Before I could lower myself into a chair, Harry jokingly admonished, "Godwin, what are you doing here; are you not supposed to be in class!" I was a student, Harry's student, in fact. It was early afternoon. I lowered myself into a seat, anyway. And Professor Irele looked at me then chided Harry Garuba in the same light-hearted manner: "Leave the young man alone; don't you know that the best brains are 'preserved in alcohol' ?!" He was making a connection between the cerebral activity that drinking can inspire and the medical art of the preservation (in alcohol) of the brain matter of a departed genius. In that short statement I understood... The drinker as genius; the drink as elixir of incredible cognitive production and intellection. And I belonged to the poets' circle, "Thursday Group", of which Harry Garuba , was unofficial head, and of which there were copious beer drinkers who were incredibly brilliant and cerebral human beings. So I understood Irele at once and recognized a kindred spirit. I sat down and had a drink with the great. He was visiting from his base in the USA. Many years later 2009 or 2010, I met him at an African Literature Association conference in the USA either the U Vermont Conference or the U Arizona one. It was 20 plus years after our first brief meeting at UI Guest House. There was no way he would have recognized me. So I went up to him and reminded him of the one encounter in the 1990s and repeated his double entendre: "The best brains are preserved in alcohol". And he says without batting an eyelid as if there were not many years in-between the first meeting and this one: "You have a good memory!" At other times and this year, 2017, I was in touch by email. He encouraged me to contribute to his new journal effort, Savannah Review. I was not to know it would be the last conversation ever. I am sad but I will try to be happy. I think he would not want me to be sad now but to celebrate him. He lived a full life, he was distinguished, celebrated and a scholar of scholars. I need not be sad. I will go and pour libations to him in his capacity as a new-minted ancestor. I will drink a beer to his eternal presence and argue with him about one or two things as I imbibe, keeping in mind the thought that 'the best brains are preserved in alcohol'. Adieu Abiola Irele. Sun-un re o-o!

Amatoritsero

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