| THE NIGERIA HIGH COMMISSION OTTAWA AND NIGERIANS IN CANADA IN COLLABORATION WITH THE INSTITUTE OF AFRICAN STUDIES CARLETON UNIVERSITY CELEBRATE THE FATHER OF AFRICAN LITERATURE: PROF. CHINUA ACHEBE(1930-2013) VIDEO TRIBUTE BY AMB. OJO MADUEKWE THERE WILL BE A COUNTRY
By Amb. Ojo Mduekwe. I had the privilege of hosting the great Chinua Achebe as Culture Minister of Nigeria when he visited Nigeria in 1999 for the first time in a decade after the tragic car accident that nearly cost him his life but decisively left him wheelchair bound. As key dignitaries of government and society, including names like Bola Ige and Adamu Ciroma, gathered just a few meters from the front door of my residence in Abuja to receive the father of African Literature, I was stunned by the stoical smile on his face as he was assisted by Mrs. Achebe out of the van that brought in a specially designed wheel chair, the type of which I had never seen before then. Together with Mrs. Maduekwe and Permanent Secretary and staff of the Culture Ministry and the impressive assemblage of notables that had gathered on the concrete pavement, we had a memorable evening of music, tributes and citations, together with the first and only NATIONAL CREATIVITY AWARD with a He taught us how our communities can begin to re-storytell our narrative, rather than leaving it in the hands of strangers of a life-denying agenda. When Chinua Achebe later invited President Olusegun Obsanjo to his 70th Birthday ceremonies at Bard College New York that brought into the same room, Nobel Laureates like our own Wole Soyinka and Toni Morrison, I was asked by the President to be his Special Representative even though, I had just been moved in a cabinet reshuffle from the pioneering Culture Ministry to the more fancied Transport Ministry, to the sole disappointment of Chinua Achebe. I say sole disappointment, because whereas numerous friends and associates put on hold their interaction with me when I was in Culture, only to return in droves when the announcement to Transport was made, Chinua called from Bard College to express his sadness that I was leaving the Culture Ministry. I consoled him by quipping that the Roman Civilization was unimaginable without the Appian Way. Therefore, I was going to Transport Ministry to provide wheels for Culture! Only then did I have his blessings. I have gone into this background to show that it is only natural that upon hearing of Chinua Achebe's death I would call the scholar devotee of Achebe who was also present at the Bard College Achebe's 70th Birthday Anniversary event, Nduka Otiono, to confer with him how we can get over some leading lights of Nigerian literature to be gathered here at Carleton University, to bear witness to the greatness of Chinua Achebe. Although, I represent the Government of Nigeria in Canada, our preference from the beginning had been that this will be a private initiative by Nigerians in North America, especially Canada. Accordingly, no public funds have gone into this event, and none will be sought for the publication that will follow. While the Government I represent is immensely proud of the unquantifiable contributions of Chinua Achebe to the maturation our national consciousness, Government acknowledges that Chinua is too big to be owned by any Government, whether in life or in death. In fact, he is too large to be owned by Nigeria alone. The African Chief Story teller of the second half of the last century belongs to the Pantheon of History's truly great. This genius moved humanity away from the abyss of Joseph Conrad's condescending description of Africa as the Heart of Darkness, although this is the cradle of civilization, to a new, and more authentic narrative of the dispossessed. It was Chinua's chilling observation that "an erosion of self-esteem is one of the commonest symptoms of dispossession." He spent his entire writing career spanning from when he wrote "Things Fall Apart" at the age of twenty-nine to his last testament titled" There Was a Country" a few months before he joined his ancestors at the age of eighty-three, to exemplify our history's finest expression of his own observation that "Man is a story-making animal. He rarely passes up an opportunity to accompany his works and his experiences with matching stories." It was moving to read him explain with vintage Achebean candour in his 1998 McMillan-Stewart lectures at Harvard University - "I took a false step at the University: I enrolled to study medicine. But after one academic year of great sadness, I switched to the Faculty of Arts. There are half a dozen lessons I can give for that episode but I prefer the most patently superstitious. I was abandoning the realm of stories and they would not let me go". Not a few minds in this room, and elsewhere, would be pondering how sincere those of us in Government could be when we pour encomiums and tributes on a sage like Chinua Achebe who, twice, painfully rejected from two Governments I served (and am still serving) one of Nigeria's highest honours because of his anguished perception of an inexcusable gap between the potential of a country he loved so much and its performance to date! My answer to that, even as a well-known politician from Chinua Achebe's country, is simple: that I agree with another universally celebrated writer Dylan Thomas who advised in 1953:"There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright". It is because Chinua Achebe, whom we call Iroko, name of the phenomenal African Big Tree, had remained upright throughout his highly creative life that we have gathered here tonight, from all walks of life - Government, and those always opposed to Government, writers and those who only read the written word, poets, novelists, critics, analysts, optimists and pessimists, iconoclasts, regime-defenders, libertarians and conservatives a true rainbow coalition, to honour him. He truly belongs to the ages. Thank you for honouring our invitation. Ojo Maduekwe CFR High Commissioner of Nigeria to Canada Remarks At An Evening of Remembrance For Chinua Achebe (DRUMBEATS FOR THE IROKO) at Carleton University, Ottawa 12th April, 2013 | ||
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment