Nigeria Is Failing At 64; Sadly, Its Leaders Are In Denial

 By Olu Fasan

Every nation that secured independence from its colonial rulers celebrates the freedom annually, as Nigeria did recently on its 64th Independence anniversary. However, such events transcend the symbolism. The real worth of an independence anniversary lies in whether a nation is better off today than it was at independence.

On that score, several former colonies have advanced in leaps and bounds. For instance, India of today is a world apart from India of 1947.

A Walk Amongst Writers And Odia, A Living Legend

 By Owei Lakemfa

I drove to Mamman Vatsa Writers Village, Mpape, Abuja. It is a huge sprawling estate of multiple storey buildings, many under construction. It is easy to get lost in this maze that is the home of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA. Somebody from the hilly top pointed at a building in what may well be a valley.

*Ofeimum

Outside the huge theatre, I found nobody. I was confident there were people inside. But it was like a void. Finally, I found somebody who confirmed a reading by Odia Ofeimum was scheduled for the theatre. But that was still some three hours away. I knew that, but I was also aware a pre-reading session was going on. The task was to locate it.

Tinubu’s Government: Where Is Nigeria’s Soul, Moral Compass?

 By Olu Fasan

Every great nation is built on a strong moral foundation. No nation succeeds without, as Plato put it, a “healthy soul”, where reason, passion and will drive leaders and citizens to defend their nation’s best interests. Equally, no nation succeeds without a moral compass, without a robust sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.

*Tinubu 
But Nigeria is a nation where might is right, where the powerful can get away with anything. Nothing has exposed the national soullessness and moral-vacuum more than the emergence of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president and the indecorous manner in which he formed a “government”.

Is Nigeria Working?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

If Nigeria is working, we will know! Those were the exact words of late Prof Chinua Achebe, Africa’s foremost novelist and distinguished intellectual. In other words, the citizens do not need any bogus claims by government’s megaphones to realise that there is an improvement in their country’s economy because it will automatically translate to an enhancement in their lives.

*President receiving a get-well card 

And as they enter the markets to procure their basic needs or engage service providers for some of those services they just cannot do without, they would certainly have direct encounters with the “improvements” their country is alleged to have witnessed.

But sadly, what they are still seeing everywhere are benumbing evidences of further deterioration and the attendant pains – a direct result of very poor management of their country.

Celebrating The Literary World Of JP Clark

By Hope Eghagha

It is within the context of a poignant, profound and perhaps arcane ritual imagination that we encounter John Pepper Clark in his literary world as evidenced by the evocative power of his primal poetic and dramatic compositions. Especially so are some of the early works such as Song of a Goat through Ozidi, the ‘middle’ The Boat, The Return Home, Full Circle, Casualties and the later Remains of a Tide.

*JP Clark 

His only known work of prose the semi-autobiographical and bitingly sarcastic America their America, at once immediate in content and prophetic in thematic concern exists outside this ontology of ritual and the mythic imagination. Almost to the letter (or depth) of contemporary effusions from Trumpian America, this work captures the supercilious arrogance of white America and victims of racial disharmony narrated after a personal encounter with the programmed academy of American culture, capitalism and sociology which our young and bristling JP had found condescending and utterly restrictive. 

Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' @60: Inaugural Press Conference

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Professor Chinua Achebe's seminal novel, Things Fall Apart. 

Our Northern ‘Naughty’ Governors

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Since independence on October 1st 1960, one question that has continued to be asked without appropriate response is: why is Nigeria so cursed with poor leadership? Another corollary to this interrogatory is: What is the leadership recruitment process in Nigeria? These key questions are germane and hold the magic wand to the bigger question of why Nigeria is in rapid decline from all indexes of human development.

(pix: thesheet)

To go straight to providing answers to the above interrogatories, the beginning point is to take a cursory look at the work of the renowned writer Professor Chinua Achebe of blessed memory which he titled- “The Trouble with Nigeria”: Professor Achebe summed up the trouble with Nigeria as that of poor leadership. Professor Achebe quickly added that poor followership is also a major issue. I agree.

Nigeria indeed has a warped leadership recruitment process which emphasizes the role of political godfathers and the role of illicit money which are the combined factors that have consistently determined much of the political leadership of Nigeria since the last half a century.
The consequence of this distorted and crime infested leadership recruitment process is the near- state of collapse that Nigeria faces.

Corruption, ineptitude, indiscipline and above all impunity are some of the cocktails of this poor leadership system that Nigeria is contending with.

Because of the urgent need to salvage Nigeria from impending implosion and collapse, a number of patriotic but scholarly minds have often intervened intellectually by proffering pragmatic panaceas to this debilitating virus of poor and naughty political leadership in Nigeria.

Chinua Achebe: 'Peaceful World My Sincerest Wish'

 Professor Chinua Achebe In Conversation With Iranian Journalist, Nasrin Pourhamrang

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          *Chinua Achebe

Recently, the classic African novel Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, was translated into Persian by Ali Hodavand and released in Iran. Nasrin Pourhamrang, Editor-in-Chief of Hatef Weekly Magazine interviewed the author on a wide range of topics from Art, culture and literature; politics, cultural and linguistic preservation; to the legacy of colonialism and his forthcoming book, There Was a Country-A Personal History of Biafra.
Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years, he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.

Chinua Achebe has written over twenty books – novels, short stories, essays, children’s books and collections of poetry. His latest work There Was a Country – A Personal History of Biafra will be available from Penguin publishers in September. Achebe has received numerous honors from around the world, including the Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honorary doctorates from more than forty colleges and universities. He is also the recipient of Nigeria’s highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award; the Peace Prize of the German Book trade (Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels) in 2002; the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction in 2007; and the Gish Prize in 2010.  

Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' Translated Into Persian

Translated into Persian by Ali Hodavand, Things Fall Apart a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has been released in Iran.

 Things Fall Apart is an English-language novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe published in 1958. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim.

Chinua Achebe

It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats's poem "The Second Coming".

The novel depicts the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion in Umuofia—one of a fictional group of nine villages in Nigeria, inhabited by the Igbo people (archaically, and in the novel, "Ibo"). It focuses on his family and personal history, the customs and society of the Igbo, and the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community during the late nineteenth century.The novel is studied widely in Europe and North America, where it has spawned numerous secondary and tertiary analytical works. It has achieved similar status and repute in India, Australia and Oceania. Considered Achebe's magnum opus, it has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The novel has been translated into more than fifty languages, and is often used in literature, world history, and African studies courses across the world.The Persian translation of Things Fall Apart has been released in 1650 copies by Jeyhoon publications.

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years, he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana studies at Brown University.

Chinua Achebe has written over twenty books – novels, short stories, essays and collections of poetry. His latest work There was a country – A personal history of Biafra will be available from Penguin publishers in September. Achebe has received numerous honours from around the world, including the Honourary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honourary doctorates from more than forty colleges and universities. He is also the recipient of Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award; the Peace Prize of the German Book trade (Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels) in 2002; the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction in 2007; and the Gish Prize in 2010.

Chinua Achebe Receives His 41st Honorary Degree From Ebonyi State University

Professor Chinua Achebe, author of the classic, Things Fall Apart, and other best-selling titles, has accepted the AWARD OF DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LITERATURE, HONORIS CAUSA from Ebonyi State University.

Chinua Achebe 

The confernment will take place on Saturday April 14, 2012 at the Abakiliki campus of the university. Professor Achebe was contacted by the institution's President - Engr. Professor F. I. Idike fnse, fniae, pe OON; Vice Chancellor, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki - and the eminent writer accepted the honor with gratitude.

This is Professor Chinua Achebe's 41st honorary degree.

Achebe is the recipient of over 40 honorary degrees from universities in England, Scotland, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria and the United States, including Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, Cape Town University, University of Toronto, Stirling University, and the Open University of Great Britain.

He has been awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, an Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1982), a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2002),^[the Nigerian National Order of Merit (Nigeria's highest honour for academic work), the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels) ; The Man Booker International Prize 2007 and The 2010 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. He has twice refused the Nigerian honour Commander of the Federal Republic - in 2004 and 2011.

In September, 2012 his long awaited new book, a semi autobiography There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra will be available from Penguin publishers.

Achebe who was 81 on November 16 2011 is David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States.

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National Honours Controversy: Chinua Achebe's Reaction...

National Honours Controversy: Chinua Achebe's Reaction...

On November 16, 2011, Professor Chinua Achebe, author of the classic, Things Fall Apart, and Africa's best known writer turned 81.

Chinua Achebe

While his family, readers and admirers across the globe rejoiced with him on that day and thanked God for his life, Dr. Chidi Achebe,  the President/CEO of Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center, Dorchester, MA, and son of the literary icon, was asked what Professor Achebe's reaction was to the hullabaloo from the Nigerian Presidency surrounding his rejection of the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) – Nigeria's Third Highest National Honour—offered to him by the Goodluck Jonathan's Administration.

His Reply:

"Today is Prof's 81st birthday, the family and well wishers around the globe are giving thanksgiving to GOD almighty!

The last I saw, Professor Achebe was digging into a delicious piece of cake.

What reaction? I will honestly tell you that Professor Achebe does not know who Reuben Abati is; has not read his reaction nor does he care to do so.

Professor Achebe loves his native country Nigeria; he did what he has done all his life -  told the truth as he sees it. Many will accept it, some will not, and that is the way it is."

President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice President

 Namadi Sambo

Professor Achebe whose works have been translated into many major languages of the world is the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, Brown University, Providence, Rohde Island, USA. 

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Again, Chinua Achebe Rejects Nigerian National Honour