Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye is not only a quintessential Nigerian writer and journalist, he is,
undoubtedly, one of the most formidable literary and social critics in the
country today. Ejinkeonye, whose birthday is today (May 27), is not only a
wordsmith of note whose diction, and images capture the experiences and
nebulous fancies of the Nigerian condition, he is also one of Africa's most
celebrated newspaper columnists and public affairs analysts.
Ugo, as he is fondly called by friends and admirers, is not only
trained in the intricate use and application of English words and grammar, he
is gifted with the ability and capacity to comment with admirable lucidity and
illuminating temper, on the insularity and philistinism of our turbulent
existence. Indeed, most of the theoretical and critical essays of Ugochukwu
Ejinkeonye have been widely published in local and international newspapers and
academic journals with tremendous acclaim.
His
recent offering, NIGERIA:Why Looting May Not Stop, is a collection of some of his columns
published in newspapers and journals over time. It is an engrossing tapestry of
the Nigerian condition. Drawing afflatus from language, literature, journalism,
religion, politics, culture and everyday experience, Ugo's book of just about
120 pages, segmented into two parts of unequal chapters (Part One has 17
chapters and Part Two, 5 chapters), is a forum in which the highly informed
commentator effects an in-gathering of his critical sallies. Like the
proverbial dry meat which cannot be easily masticated, this slim book can be
expanded to a 500-page volume when gleaned against the backdrop of everyday use
of language or ontological evaluation.
In fact, the single-piece chapters evince a uniqueness which
beggars unilinear trend or continuity from one chapter to another. Although a
clear radical concern links the chapters, his aesthetic and political messages
do not readily subsume themselves within a regular orthodoxy. What I'm trying
to impugn here is that Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye's new book, NIGERIA:Why Looting May Not Stop, first published in Nigeria in 2019 by
Oasis of Greatness Publishers Limited, Benin City, Nigeria, reads like an
abstract for a post-doctoral seminar, to the uninitiated reader. While it is
not particularly laced with technical architectonics like a Soyinka book, for
instance, NIGERIA:Why Looting May Not Stop, is not for the ordinary reader, I must
confess.
Dedicated
to "the ever-suffering Nigerian masses, hapless victims of the perennial,
brutal looting of our commonwealth", the book, which is liberally
ornamented with Marxian dialectics and socialist praxis, commences with a
forethought written by the author himself. Titled, "A Monster Unduly
Pampered", the six-paged introduction takes a swipe at Nigeria's
gullible culture of corruption, its official harbingers, the society that
harbours it, the political and economic managers that pamper it and the social
pretenders who humour Nigerians and the world at large with it.
Throwing jibes at those who massage the menace while claiming
that they are fighting corruption, the critic roars: "No, you can neither fight corruption with soiled hands nor retain
monopoly on it! And so the whole thing has been horribly compounded, leading to
the emergence and successful empowerment of a very formidable, parasitic class
whose sustenance and longevity solely depend on its ability to continue
sustaining the culture of corruption and bleeding the country pale."
 |
| *Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye |
The
Forethought which is indubitably the summary of the book, announces Ugochukwu's
composite brilliance and refracts the alienating reality and sheer murderous
fantasy of our current existence. To paraphrase a modified form of Hegelian
dialectics: if it is true that certain writers seek to express the most basic
truths of an age in their art, it is equally true that the period itself
"chooses" certain writers as the vehicles for the expression of these
truths. Ejinkeonye in his columns circulates the basic truths of the Nigerian
condition in their abject garishness.
One of the truths he espouses is that the idle pleasure speakers
and the looting class use the massive loot of our national patrimony to
manipulate the country's electoral system, whereas the helpless and hapless
majority are forced to eulogize the plunderers to high heavens while the nation
bleeds to no end. Never has so much been stolen by a few in the world as in the
first sixty years of the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity in
Nigeria, a period when multimillionaires sprang out of raw new riches in an oil
boom unmatched in the history of mankind. With an encompassing wit and
urbanity, Ejinkeonye tells of their incredibly lavish life-styles and shameless
moral imbecility.
At this
critical juncture, I would crave the indulgence of my esteemed readers to see
this piece as being more of a tribute to my bosom friend and colleague than a
review of his highly critical, masterfully written and riveting book, due to
constraint of space. Maybe, as time goes on, I would offer a more profound,
tree-by-branch review of the book. I met Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye for the first
time in 2003 when we were both members of the Editorial Board of Daily
Independent Newspapers.
Before then I had known him by reputation having edited and
published some of his opinion polemical pieces on the Op-Ed page of the defunct
The
Diet where I was the Editorial Page Editor as well as read them in
other national dailies to which he contributed. As the marketplace of ideas
where Nigerians of various intellectual backgrounds and ideological persuasions
gathered on a weekly basis to pontificate on any issues under the sun, the
Editorial Board of Daily Independent then was like the testing ground or the
faculty seminar of a reputable university.
On the Board, there were usually ideological divisions as we did
run the broad-based American model that admits newspaper and ivory tower
intellectuals to lock horns and set agenda or advocate for society on both
local and international issues. We had the leftists and the conservatives; then
we had the centrists who tilted the balance.
As at the
time we were there, the Editorial Board had robust and effervescent debaters,
men of enormous intellectual distinction, such as the leftist grammarian Dianam
Dakolo, the conservative and brilliant lawyer Sam Kargbo and the
Harvard-trained and fast-spoken legal scholar, Dr. Sam Amadi. While the
presiding deity of the Board, Prof. Mike Ikhariale, the distinguished law
teacher and orator - a man of nimble intelligence and great sensitivity who had
just returned to the country from Harvard University Law School where he had
been on sabbatical, would usually cut deftly through the miasma of contentions
to identify the core issues, the aggressive and fearless but very brilliant
Dakolo would always be there taking notes whether or not he was to write the
endorsement. Another guru, Adekanmi Ademiluyi, an Ile-Ife Prince and brilliant
London-trained economist, and Tiko Emmanuel Okoye, the witty and urbane
interventionist, also an economist and international finance expert, were also
there with their vast knowledge of economics. Do not be swayed by the sharp
intellectual inquisitions of Ejinkeonye, the literary scholar who writes with
great ease but with painstaking rigour and felicity of language; the
dialectical accuracy of Dr. Tunde Babawale, a distinguished professor of
political economy or the critical elucidation of Dr. Dotun Dosunmu, the
engineering professor or the pungent economic analysis of Henry Boyo, the
radical nonconformist and iconoclastic economist.
The
Editorial Board in session also benefitted from the incisive epistemological
articulations of Dr. James Tsaaior, the award-winning literary scholar and
Professor of Media and Cultural Communications, or the sardonic wit and graphic
humour of John Osaze-Langley, our Editorial Page Editor (of blessed memory). At
that cosmopolitan and tendering period in the life of the Board, we also had as
members such brilliant and highly articulate intellectuals of note as Greg
Obong-Oshotse, the urbane and swashbuckling First Class political scientist and
journalist who was Editor of the daily title.
When Greg was moved to the London office by management, his
successor, Akpandem James the brilliant humour merchant and mass communication
expert joined the Board. Lest I forget, the Board also had Danladi Bako, the
suave mass communication guru, seasoned broadcaster and verbal mechanic with
platonic baritone voice, who was always flying into Lagos from the Sokoto
Caliphate to add a Northern voice to our debates. There was also on the Board,
Dr. Boniface Chizea, the soft-spoken First Class mathematician-turned
conservative economist. Barr. Ted Iwere, the honed mass communication expert
and racy writer, our Chief Executive Officer and an ardent newspaper man, was
always putting up some casual appearances to spice up our debates with his
graceful humour and thunderous laughs. As the years grew in space and time,
Dakolo and Ademiluyi, in turn, became Editorial Page Editors and Chairmen,
respectively. The international journalism scholar, erudite writer and brilliant
reporter, Ikechukwu Amaechi also had to join the Board upon his appointment as
Editor of the daily title when Akpandem was elevated to the position of
Managing Editor.
It was
this rich background that helped to recharge Ugochukwu's intellectual battery
and put his inquisitive mind on edge. As an informed commentator on varied
national issues, Ejinkeonye is fearless, and his column sparkling, yet pesky
and sometimes brutal, who often bruises the egos of many a politician. I
remember one column he wrote on Mrs. Stella Obasanjo, Nigeria's First Lady at
the time, on her excessive passion for make-ups titled, 'Who Does Stella Obasanjo Want To
Impress?' It was fearlessly brutal. His writing does not fall within
any pre-cast or proverbial strain. It is as distant from existing critical
norms as a guerrilla foco is from a standing army.
Ugochukwu's journalism especially the most
intricate and intellectually tasking aspect, editorial writing and informed
commentary, is consequently strung together by a concern for, and almost an
obsession with certain recurrent motifs. His corpus therefore requires a large
canvas.
Yes, Ugo has had cause to tell me pointedly
that he admired my vintage prose style even though he disagreed with some of my
critical positions. As professional colleagues and intellectual contemporaries,
we respect and cultivate our common mutuality. He is a gentleman with no
aspirations to self-glory or anti-productive martyrdom but a man with an
irrepressible conscience and a shrewd and sorrowful insight into the lives of
the suffering masses of Nigeria to whom his book is dedicated. Ugo, as you
celebrate your birthday today, here is yours sincerely saying, many happy
returns, my great friend and brother.
*Dan Amor, eminent writer and notable editor, writes from Abuja
(danamor641@gmail.com
This article was first published in Daily Independent newspaper of Monday, May 27, 2019
is now available on AMAZON
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