Category: Olukorede Yishau

On the day he was sworn-in as a Senator, a reporter asked Barack Obama: “What do you consider your place in history?” He laughed, and told him four things: he had just arrived in Washington, was ranked ninety-ninth in seniority, didn’t even know where the restrooms were in the Capitol and was yet to cast a vote. 

The question was seemingly misplaced for a man who felt running for Senate and winning was a major reach. Those who didn’t understand the time told him to wait and perhaps run for the Mayor of Chicago first. Now as the only African American in the Senate, he was asked to talk about his place in history. It overwhelmed him because he truly didn’t know. He couldn’t have known because the time had not started showing the signs of the next step. He was yet to see how the time could turn a David to a Goliath and force ethnic and racial lines to align. 

It was not clear to him at the time that men and women don’t choose their moment of grace. Yes, they put in the work and all that but, something more than them dictate. It is called time. Several put in the work but time chooses only a few, a message well-passed by Barack Obama in his third book ‘A Promised Land’. The book taught me that Obama didn’t choose to become state senator, federal senator and America’s president. Time chose him and he simply seized the moment. His life demonstrates that when time is on your side, no weapon fashioned against you can prosper. 

“You don’t choose the time. The time chooses you. Either you choose what may turn out to be the only time you have, or you decide you’re willing to live with the knowledge that the chance has passed you by,” Senator Ted Kennedy told him the day they spoke about the possibility of a presidential run. 

Left to his wife Michelle, he would be far from politics; all she wanted was her man and their children, a simple life in Chicago, sight-seeing from time to time and camping once in a while. She didn’t want all the disruptions politics was going to bring to their family, and fought it every step. But each time she also gave up. Albeit reluctantly. 

“One last time. But don’t expect me to do any campaigning. In fact, you shouldn’t even count on my vote,” Michelle told him when he was convincing her on his quest for the federal Senate seat. 

Her man was not in control of his life because time took over and, when time dictates, he must obey. That was what happened when he ran for the state Senate in Illinois. The opportunity simply arose. That repeated itself when he ran for the federal Senate and found himself in Washington. It happened the same way when he agreed to be president. Things just fell into line because Obama lokan! 

In the Senate, he mixed with the right people, learned fast, made impact and built reliable fan base. It didn’t take time before critical stakeholders started talking about a possible presidential run. He categorically said he would not run in 2008. But when time chose him, he spoke about changing circumstances and the need to obey. Many, including Ted Kennedy, played a role in making him seize the momentum. 

As usual, Michelle was disappointed he was dragging her and the kids into the murkiest part of American politics. She told him to perish the idea but it didn’t take too long for her to realise it was beyond Obama, and it was about being chosen by time, that phenomenon that chooses and also beats us all the time. She knew it was time to support him again like she did during his Senate race when he assured her it would get him a book deal and a huge advance to help with their debts. She had laughed him off then, wondering if he had got magic beans to pluck, but was the first to admit when the time made it a reality.

Hillary Clinton’s image, a national brand, loomed large in the fight for the Democratic Party’s ticket. Obama’s team admitted that something “close to a perfect game” was needed to defeat her, but when it is the time, not even an Hillary was enough to deny him the ticket. Almost every step of the way was not normal and a veteran Iowa political operative told a reporter so backstage at an event in Cedar Rapids. 

When it was the time, the media had no choice but to buy into the idea, old allies fought because of him, camps divided so that his journey would be smoother, cheers drown him everywhere he went, faces lit when they saw him, powers and principalities bowed but there were still some who said: “Fuuuuuck that”. 

As it turned out, he didn’t just get the ticket, he won the presidential election and went on to get a second term in 2012 and left office four years later. 

Funding campaigns in American politics is expensive but the wind of change dictated by the time brought cash left, right and centre for this son of a Kenyan polygamist and white American mother, whose two marriages were short-lived. In America’s presidential race, no matter how good you are, you dream is dead on arrival if you can’t raise enough money to prosecute your campaigns. 

‘A Promised Land’ shows to me that time is not a democrat, it is a dictator and when in its element, it causes chaos, misunderstanding, errors and anything necessary in the other camps just for its anointed to sail through. There was an instance where a couple recruited by his wife to get him out of the madness of running for political office became his promoters after hearing his plans. 

Interestingly, as Obama shows in his book, even when time has chosen you, he still leaves enough room for you to doubt. You see signs of things falling in place even without you pushing them, but somehow you still wonder if the signs are real.

My final take: God is the one who controls the time and decides who to choose for success, for greatness, for leadership and more. Forcing it when the time hasn’t chosen you is sheer waste of resources. Instructively, since no one really knows when it is the time, there is no harm in trying but refusing to surrender when the time has declared its choice is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Hadiza Bala Usman, who recently assumed office as Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Coordination, was Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), one of the country’s cash cow, for close to 1,800 days. Her days in the agency were filled with unforgettable experiences, the sort many will be afraid to document because of possible backlash.

But the daughter of the renowned Katsina State-born don and activist, Dr Bala Usman, has shown courage and grit, irrespective of whose ox is gored. She has documented the intrigues that prematurely saw her out of office. The outcome of the documentation is a small but mighty book called ‘Stepping On Toes’. It is a book that should be of interest to the country because of what it reveals and their implications for our country. The fact that the book is her side of the story doesn’t take away from how serious we should take it, if only to get the other side and learn lessons from it.

At the time the then Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, got the then President, Muhammadu Buhari, to appoint the author as NPA MD, the agency’s image was in the mud. It was considered the home of sleaze, where people in government got free money, where contract splitting was common, where the ruling party raised money to bankroll elections, and where almost nothing excitingly good was to be expected. 

She met a workforce that didn’t take dedication the way it should be, the central air-conditioning system had packed up, late coming was a norm, meetings were not started as at when due, and the general ambience didn’t depict a corporate establishment. There were junior employees earning more than their superiors because of an opaque structure, and these junior employees resisted promotion that could make them lose their advantages, including being on lucrative beats where they received regular inducement. 

And, to worsen things, she found out there was no official accommodation for the MD and executive directors, and the paltry allowance for this purpose couldn’t rent a decent accommodation in Lagos. To her surprise, she found out that this shortcoming was covered by patronage from the big firms doing business with the agency. She vowed that would not happen under her watch.

The book also gives insights into how Amaechi and the author’s paths crossed, how she met ex-Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, how she met the who-was-who in the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and how and why she turned down Amaechi’s initial offer to become the Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Safety and Administration Agency (NIMASA), and instead recommended Dr Dakuku Peterside.

The meat of the book is what she did at the NPA, especially how the man who gave her the job also got her suspended, and how even, when a panel exonerated her, it was kept a secret. The book also details the various disputes in the sector under her watch, and how due process determined the actions she took even when powerful forces tried to get her to circumvent things. The book also contains vital information about the NPA, its formation, operations and how its mandates have evolved over the years. It also corrects misconceptions about its roles in the clearing of imported stuff. 

We also read about the opposition to her appointment. Some were against it because she is a woman, some because she was, in their estimation, too young at 40 to head such an agency. Some felt her appointment blocked chances of a politician from Katsina and some in the maritime sector felt she was an outsider. She also gives us insights into her learning curve and how her experience at the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), and the Ministry of FCT, came in handy. We also get to read about the role her elder brother, who worked and voluntarily retired from the NPA, played in her understanding of how things work at the agency. 

For many, this book may be the first time they will know the man she married and his role in her life’s odyssey. In this book, the author name names, gave details, pointed fingers of guilt and much more. Her narration of the story of a company that was making millions of dollars for allegedly providing security for vessels, a role that is meant for Navy and NIMASA, shows how efforts at reformation tend to be coloured with politics in order to garner public sympathy.

In this book, the author has no room for poetry, sophistry and complex syntax; only manageable industry jargons find space. The book can be read and understood by almost anyone who can read. But despite its simplicity, the prose flows, very well. 

My final take: The book shows clearly that corruption will always fight back. It also shows that the country is losing so much money to operators at the ports. For a country that needs all the money it can get to lift millions of its people out of extreme poverty, tackle infrastructural challenges, and fix electricity supply among myriad things, the operators at the ports need to be closely policed and agreements not in favour of the country need to be terminated. We shouldn’t be feeding people’s greed when we are unable to meet people’s needs. 

The early pages of Chika Unigwe’s ‘The Middle Daughter’ flew by quickly. Not even the gist from my son, Toluwanimi, not his attempt at plaiting my hair as he perched beside me on the living room’s L-shaped couch, not his suggestion that I allow his sister, Opemipo, add me to her list of home hair-plaiting clientele, just nothing that Sunday afternoon succeeded in denying me the joy of savouring the early parts of the delicious soup that ‘The Middle Daughter’ is. At a point, Toluwanimi expressed his shock that I had read that much.

“Are the pages short?”

“No, the story is interesting,” I told him to explain that an engrossing tale can aid fast reading.

Forced to take a break for a work-related appointment, I thereafter craved every free time to return to the world of Nani, Ugo, Ephraim, the ancestor, Udodi, and others in this modern retelling of the Greek mythology of Hades and Persephone.

Houston’s traffic was free that Sunday so I got to where I was going earlier. The weather was 95 degrees. So, with the engine and air-conditioning system running, I read on. It was while I was in the car that Nani met Ephraim, the one who loves speaking big grammar, the one who came as a preacher, the one who finally ‘sealed’ Nani’s path to America and the one who tripled her sorrow.

The effects of the family tragedies were diverse. Aside the evil of leading Nani to Ephraim, it also affected Mother’s faith and “even mother who used to carry church on her head no longer went”.

I didn’t return home until 1am of the following day, and sleep ought to be my next calling, but ‘The Middle Daughter’ called like River Nun and I heard and I obeyed it.

And Ephraim picked up the narration; ‘detonating’ one big word after the other.

Fresh off two tragedies, Ephraim becomes the shoulder Nani leans on. She tells him things she can’t tell Mother or Ugo. She looks forward to seeing him, talking to him and receiving the small, small gifts he has cultivated the habit of bringing. Ugo notices their closeness and starts calling him her boyfriend.

I couldn’t cheat nature for too long so sleep demanded attention and I gave in.

Hours later when I woke up, it was to Ephraim’s revelation of the secret behind Mother’s business. At that stage, I was inwardly screaming: “Help me, help me, Chika Unigwe dey carry me go where I no know.”

Ugo and Mother eventually leave for America and Ephraim becomes Nani’s husband and father of her children, and she is estranged from Ugo and Mother. Ephraim becomes a disappointment but Nani is stuck with him and her centre is unable to hold.

As I read on, the fact of Doda being a fantastic father kept tugging at my heart and I also kept seeing Mother as a replica of many a mother who make it difficult for their children to discuss certain issues with them.

I saw how death can destroy the fabrics of a home, how the end is not the end, how some ends or deaths can precipitate actions with reverberating effects.

Ephraim comes across to me as the ultimate mad man pretending to be a man of God. Initially, I had seen him as a fanatical Christian but as I got to meet him more, I came to the conclusion that he was sick, mentally sick.

Read Also: Chidi Amuta, Peter Obi and the ‘obidient’s’ thriving tyranny

As the author tossed me here and there in an unlinear manner, from Nani to Ephraim, to Ugo, and the ancestral voice of Udodi, I was haunted by what was to come. I wondered if everything good would come the way of Nani or she would remain in hell and never see heaven.

It was painful to see Ephraim being loved by the kids, and somehow preferred to their mother, but I consoled myself by saying shit happens.

The author shows that humans are complex and dwell in moral ambiguity, and principle is the first casualty when our interests are at risk.

This novel, which is Unigwe’s fifth, is written in English Language but there are parts of it that are Nigerian English and the beauty can truly be appreciated by a Nigerian. She sought, like Achebe, to do with English what the oyinbos didn’t think it was capable of.

The family at the heart of the novel is Igbo and the author transcribed their world without altering their Igboness. She stretched and forced English to do her will to achieve this.

Relief washed over me when I got to the end, relief that the author righted the wrong in the Hades-Persephone myth – relief for Nani and relief for myself because we went through the storm together, and we deserved the calmness.

This is a fantastic read!

May Ephraim never happen to us!

My final take: Not everyone who calls the name of God is of God. Some just want to use God’s name to have the access they need to manipulate and dominate and ultimately destroy their captives.

Tyranny of the popular

In journalism, it is no news when a dog bites a man, except the man is some super star or celebrity. When there is an accident, the victims are not identified by names in the headline except they are popular. And when one of them is the only popular one, the tyranny of popularity comes into play as only the famous is identified in the headline and the rest of them become known as ‘others’.

This golden journalism rule played out in the reporting of the Titanic submarine accident. The search for the rich men aboard was a major headline because of who they were. Poor folks trying to cross to Europe perished in the sea about the same time. The reporting of both tragedies shows that even in death, classism triumphs.

Those who perished trying to escape poverty and lack were people’s husbands, wives, fathers, fiancés, brothers, uncles and sons.

When a poor man dies, he is nothing but a footnote. It is like his death means nothing. When the rich and influential die, almost everybody will talk about them while the poor or unpopular man or woman’s family will mourn in silence.

In July, One More Chapter, an imprint of HarperCollins UK will release an historical fiction, ‘A Nurse’s Tale’. It is inspired by the story of the daughter of an Alake of Abeokuta (as it was then known), OmoOba Adenrele Ademola, who served the UK during the second world war at Guy’s Hospital. It explores love, duty, sacrifice, and more. The Princess moved in royal circles in London and she accompanied her father to state occasions as well. She also did a broadcast for the BBC about her life as a nurse. 

The author is Ola Awonubi, who holds an MA in Creative Writing and Imaginative Practice at the University of East London. In 2008 her short story ‘The Pink House’, won first prize in the National Words of Colour competition and another short story of hers The Go- slow Journey, won the first prize in the fiction category for Wasafiri’s New writing prize in 2009. Her first novel, ‘Love’s Persuasion’, was published by Ankara Press, an imprint of Cassava Republic, which also published her second book, ‘Love Me Unconditionally’. 

“It is important to tell the story of this Nigerian nurse because it reveals the contributions Africans made to the war effort during the second World War, especially in a society where this is not public knowledge,” she told me. 

Being a work based on a true-life story, she used characterisation, plot, voice, sense of place and point of view to make it creative and colourful. 

“I researched what I could find about Adenrele’s life in London as not much information is available on her life when she returned to Nigeria. I then built on the information I found and created a dual narrative in the story,” Awonubi said.

The novel is a product of three years of research, writing, working on edits and more writing. It is another African perspective on the war, which the West has lionised its role in. 

It is worth looking forward to! 

When Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu pulled the Eastern region out of the Yakubu Jack Gowon-led Nigeria in 1967, he could not have had a clear idea of its reverberating effects, the eternal blows, the pains. His people were being killed in the North, and as a leader, he wanted to justifiably defend them, and breaking away from the enemy was the only way after talks failed. He was optimistic that the new republic would thrive. It failed. Spectacularly. And Ojukwu refused to write his account of the war, including his years in exile. Gowon, who is still alive, looks unlikely to write his war memoir.

General Olusegun Obasanjo, who played an important role in the war, and many others, wrote books about it, but they can’t fill the void left by the heads of the two nations.

The war claimed a man from Ebonyi named Emmanuel. In his memory, his brother, Iduma, named his son after him. That son is Emmanuel Iduma, novelist and creative non-fiction writer. Iduma is also the husband of celebrated novelist and author of two brilliant novels, ‘Stay With Me’, which won the Etisalat Prize for Fiction, and ‘A Spell of Good Things’, which is bound to win laurels home and abroad.

For a long time, Emmanuel Iduma was curious about the man whose name he inherited. His curiosity is the subject of his latest book of non-fiction, ‘I Am Still with You’, a title derived from Psalm 139, Verse 18.

The book is a personal account of the writer’s attempts to find out what happened to his uncle who family members said joined the Biafran army and fought against Nigeria. He never returned from the war and was deemed dead. This Emmanuel’s fate brings to mind the fictional Kainene in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Half of A Yellow Sun’, who disappeared after the Biafran war and was never seen again.

There are many like that who simply vanished and have no graves their loved ones can point at. The only things they are left with are memories, memories that get blurred with time as Iduma found out while on the trail of his namesake.

The search took the author from Lagos, where he calls home after returning from New York, where he had his graduate studies, to Afikpo, his home town in Ebonyi State, to Onitsha, the commercial capital of Anambra, and Nsukka, the university town where brilliant minds at the University of Nigeria provided the intellectual engine for the war. It also took him to key spots, such as Ahiara, Uli, Enugu, Umuahia and Aba, where the battle raged.

He wrote: “To return is to be recognised and this is what I sought during my visit now to Afikpo — to be recognised, in some way, as the heir to my uncle’s life.”

But Iduma’s search was constrained by the fact that the truth he was after was documented mostly in memories, recollections, and disjointed narratives. To help with understanding the past, Iduma examines the history of Igbo people from the Nri hegemony to the Aro era.

In his search for what happened to his uncle, we learnt about his late father, the poet Christopher Okigbo, Ojukwu, and Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, a close friend of General Olusegun Obasanjo and one of the leaders of Nigeria’s first military coup. The coup was one of the series of events that led to the war.

Iduma also went in search of the river that inspired Okigbo’s famous poem “The Passage”. But his enquiries in Okigbo didn’t yield any answer about Idoto River.

The library at the University of Nigeria featured prominently in the book, where he, after efforts, had access to rare collections on the war. Onitsha, the home of his foster parents for the duration his father was in America for further studies, also gave him some answers, but not what he really wanted.

In a lot of places, he found out that silence was a way people fought the pains related to the war.

“They inherited, most acutely, an ability to transmute trauma into unvoiced questions,” Iduma wrote.

The grief in this book is palpable, not just for the war, but also for recent losses in his family. “Everyone alive has been touched by death. But what of those who have passed from this life, what are they touched by? Love? How does love reach from one state of existence to another?” Iduma queried.

Iduma also gives us snippets of his life with Ayobami Adebayo.

With ‘I Am Still with You’, the author clearly shows that the healing from the war is not complete and it looks like it will remain so for a long time.  The existence of separatist organisations is one of the signs that all is not well. The feeling that the Igbo are being excluded from the country’s most coveted seat is another, the author’s personal view that there is no deliberate policy along this line notwithstanding. Many families remain broken. Monuments related to the war are poorly preserved.

The book portrays Iduma as keen-eyed. There is a rhythmic stance to his prose that makes reading easy. The book also does us the favour of letting us know that the past is not really gone. It remains with us so long as it still dictates some of our actions and even inactions.

My final take: Nigerians deserve the best, Nigerians deserve true sense of belonging and everything good should come to us irrespective of tongues and tribes. Our leaders owe us this simple task. We have not asked for the impossible. Have we?