Is Northern Nigeria a literary desert?

Silver Lining: An Anthology of Nigerian Literature: Poems, Drama, Short Stories and Critical Essay
Edited: By Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo and Folu Agoi
Reviewer: Olatunbosun Taofeek
Published: 2019

This book is a four-star master piece divided into four parts according to the genre of each contributor. In all, we have thirty-three contributors from various Nigerian authors at home and in diaspora fitted into 160-page text. It fails to be a five-star record breaking piece for certain reason— it did not represent Nigeria as the title connotes “Anthology of Nigerian Literature”. This would lead us to the premise of this review—can northern writers stand-up to be counted among the grade A writers? Or is northern Nigeria a harried zone to literary composite in Nigeria? Is it an oversight of the editors or the selection is just the objective pulse of Nigerian Literature? We should have responses to these questions in the light of the anthology.

Wole Soyinka’s (excerpt) “A Humanist’s Ode to Chibok, Dapchi—for Leah Sharibu” opens the anthology in no fear or favour on the excruciating situations in the northeast. Niyi Osundare in “Dare to be Different” and Tanure Ojaide in his “Head Count” down to Femi Osofisan’s “Friendship Like Embers” to “Kofi’s Maimouna”. Akachi Ezeigbo sprouts “Me Too Movement” down to Folu Agoi’s “Shithole”. Then Perpetual Eziefule, Olu Oyawale and Niran Okewole, Akeem Lasisi, Kunle Adebajo, Rosemary Uche, Toki Mabogunje, Steve Adaramoye down to Dagga Tolar and other poets contributed to the first phase of the anthology.

The selected poems can be regarded as satisfactory as well as the poets. But there was no northern poet in the selection. It all ranges among the southerners. Why? There is an answer to that—majority of the poets turned critic to acclimatize their voices beyond mere letters. Their poems are more of the spirits of the society than the letters having more of northern subjects. Unfortunately, no northern poet is there because there seemed to be a shortage of critics in northern intellectual business. The south seems to be a household of critics ready to pounce on their subject—the nation. The north seemed to be a space of critical sacred indolence. In the Art of Poetry, Horace advised the poet on the role criticism plays in sturdy poems. Same with Alexander Pope in Essay on Criticism where the symbiotic relationship of the critic and the creative is established in his line: “A little learning is a dang’rous thing”. Thus, I don’t think the fault is that of the editors for it takes a strong poet to be heard in the cloud of multitude as poets are accepted by the quality of their language and the reputation of their symbols. Thus, symbolisation is a scientific premise for further investigation into meaning as a way of revealing ideas from the standpoint of the abstract—poetry.

The second part of the anthology marks the birth of R. C. Ofodile in “A Magical Meeting” of three characters—Finbar, Sarah and Dr Obiromi. It’s a lampoon of Bamifu’s rot and Dr Obiromi intellectual cacophonies. Ofodile’s drama lacks essential theatrical elements of a short play. This is a typical one-act play where theatrics were sacrificed for adhesive dialogue.

The third part of the anthology is on short stories. It begins with Toyin Adenubi’s “Outcast”, Tony Marinho William Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a curtain-open film style that re-narrated the voices in Macbeth’s characters. Bunmi Oyinsan disclosed “A Private Kind of Death”. Olatunbosun Taofeek’s “The Last of the Missionaries” followed Tunji Sotimirin’s “Dear Death”, a flashed fiction on Death. Christopher N. Wachukwu’s “Amaka”, Ayodeji Erubu’s “Discordance, Disharmony or Abuse”, Yetunde Sotimirin’s “Change” and Gbenga Olajuwon’s “Chike and Friends” emited the caveat of ineluctability of humans in the agenda of fulfillment which marked the end of the short stories. On the short stories there was a failure in separating short stories from flash fiction as a strict adherent to categorization.

Part four is a critical essay that ends the anthology: “Of Nursery Rhyme and the Truth of Poetry” by Ralph Tathagata—a caution against the invaders and capitalist profiteering marauders into the sacred enclave of poetry. He warned, seriously, the emerging poets and the populist approach to poetry which might kill the “provincial knowledge of poetry” by creating “a little awareness of the exhaustible intellectual and artistic burden associated with being a poet”. This essay, I must confess should be forwarded as a major statement in literary appreciation.

Returning to my premise, as a caveat to the northern writers, there is a need for a state of emergency in the northern collective intellectual business of literariness as a way of promoting northern Nigerian Literature as well as northern writers in World Literature. The climatic and topographical advantage of immediate political gains should not be mistaken for intellectual fulfillment. This same climate of dryness and menopause is also felt in the area of music (Nigerian music, African music and global music). Thus, there is an urgent call to prevent the north from being a literary desert. Mind you, the hostility of the desert prevents plants, animals and makes grains not to go more than a leveled-seed. To produce a five-star writer may take a region or country fifty to hundred years of intellectual commitment/investment.