Chima Anyadike is a Professor of Literature in English at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Osun State. He has in the past three decades churned out generations of professionals and personalities who have risen to the pinnacles of their careers. He is a world-renowned Achebe scholar. In this interview with Edozie Udeze, Anyadike who will be retiring next month bares his mind on a number of burning issues, ranging from the RUGA controversy to the place of literary narratives, science fiction and story-telling in the reordering of the society. Excerpts
LET’S start with the issue of insecurity in the land vis-à-vis the issue of RUGA as was proposed by the federal government as a way to resettle cattle herders. What is your take on this and how to settle this impasse?
Prof Chinua Achebe, as you know was not just a literary person; he was also involved in politics. (He was a member of the Aminu Kano’s political party, Peoples Redemption Party (PRP). In many ways he was a very subtle politician. He was always competent to say or express his political views as he saw it. So, if he was alive now, concerning this herdsmen issue, he would again say his mind, and he would say it in such a way that, to everybody, he has made sense. But then, I cannot read his mind to say that this is exactly what he would have said. But I have a feeling that he would align with those who are saying what is all this noise about herdsmen, insecurity and the like. What is wrong with our modernizing the way we run and organize the business of rearing cows in Nigeria? Why not organize the livestock very well, put them in ranches. It does not mean that if you put the ranches in Owerri, Imo State, for instance, it is only the Fulani who will go there and run the ranches. No, it is not. Every region in Nigeria should be able to create places where livestock are properly taken care of and produced. And when that is done, it engages a lot of people who will be responsible for the livestock. That’s if we are serious so that we will get to the point where we get the end products like milk and others. I think we should go along with the rest of the world and learn how to modernize their business to suit our modern needs and purposes. And if we are serious about industrialization we put this process through and get to that level. We need to modernize our ways of making livestock and with that everybody will be safe and security will be assured and guaranteed.
Even then the National Assembly is always engulfed in crisis of leadership and so on. How can attention be drawn in that direction by writers to make amends?
The writer also has a very crucial role to play, except that if you write and nobody reads, it makes no meaning. A literary book is only appreciated when it is read and all the components applied to help the society. It is not that enough books have not been written in that regard. The people we call our assembly men and women; people who occupy leadership positions do not read what has been written. And that is unfortunate, quite unfortunate, where the economy is facing hard times, people should then try to acquire the love for reading. But here in Nigeria, most people try to shy away from that habit; that habit of reading. What I am saying is that it is one thing to write, it is another for people to read.
The trouble with Nigeria is that of leadership, according to Achebe. Do you agree with him?
I will agree with Achebe again, but not completely. We talk of leaders and yet we tend to ignore the role of followership. Both of them are necessary. We will have to come to a point where the followers can say to the leader you are not doing it right. We are not doing that in Nigeria and we are the ones who put them there. All we do is that once one is a leader we will gather round him saying this is our time. No matter what he does to make money to enrich himself, we do not care so long as we hang around him to take some crumbs. The responsibility of leadership is not squarely on the leaders. Those who are being led are not goats and animals. No! We do not gain unless there’s time for election and he gives out bags of rice and dashes people five thousand naira. He needs to build roads, hospitals, provide security and so on. Those are what he should do and we are the ones to make him sit up. But do we do that as followers? That is why I say it doesn’t matter where you come from as a leader whether from the East, North or South or West. All we need are good leaders who can help to reshape this society and make things better for all of us. Young men and women who will eventually edge out these older people are what we need now in this society. The idea the older ones have are not good for the time we live in. Obasanjo was there for eight years and plus the one he did as a military leader. Jonathan was there for six years. We want to see the changes they have made. Achebe is saying let us not concentrate on where the person is coming from but rather on quality of leadership. If we get that, we will no longer be interested in this South-North dichotomy. They cannot give what they don’t have.
So emphasis should be on those young ones to give them strong political base so that they can lead this country to a better future. We need up and coming young leaders who have the passion to lead. So, Achebe is right in leadership being a very important factor, but what I am saying is that let us not only concentrate on leadership. We need to talk to the people who are led to sit up.
And does that mean we are not ripe for democracy?
It is not a question of being ripe in democracy. It is the issue of whether the right people are there to represent us. Are we putting the right people in positions of leadership? When you say ripe or not ripe, it is the issue on ground that makes democracy work properly, the efforts we put in. It is in the processes of training the followership, are they on ground to help our system work. Do we have the right institutions to do this? Are the right efforts being made? I refer to religion. Not that I am condemning religion, but a religion that draws your attention squarely on the society. We do not think of the religion like Karl Marx would say. We are wasting our time. Marx who very angry about it, when you turn your attention away from what you should be doing in this world and say what matters is whether I make heaven. That’s important; you do not care about who leads or not. Once you have a personal relationship with God, you’ll make heaven. But what should we do to make our society work better? Nobody is ready or to think of what to do to help. People close their eyes to their problems and they are praying all the time. Why don’t they say please let us die and go straight to heaven. They want to live; yes they want to live (laughs). You want to make heaven; but you don’t want to die, which means that this life is crucial. It is important to everybody.
Prof, for over three decades, you have moulded characters and personalities who have turned into professionals in different areas of human endeavours. In retrospect, what do you say, how do you feel?
I thank God for the opportunity I have been given. I tried to develop myself and in the process developed people who are interested in the work of literature. I must tell you that I have been favoured in Ife. And like somebody who married from Ife, I have also been here and developed in Ife. I have been here for this long. I have also built a family here and travelled all over the place and Ife has been good to me; it has been my base. So, generally I am happy.
One of the foremost areas of literature for which you are known is that you are an Achebe scholar. At what point in your academic career did you choose to tow that part and why?
First of all, let me say that being an Igbo man who is interested in literature, Achebe is naturally a good place and point to start. So I started reading Achebe from Government College, Umuahia, Abia State (Chinua Achebe, also went through the same school). It was mostly Things Fall Apart. At that time I didn’t think I would go into literature as a profession. But I loved Achebe’s works at that time. So when I now found myself in literature, I now went back to what I enjoyed, I see what he talks about the culture of the place where I come from. And I discovered also that these things are deep and profound.
So, I began to relate the cultures to literature and in relation to what I teach. That was how it began. So I relate all that to the rest of the world.
But you said in your inaugural lecture titled ‘Living our stories in Africa: fiction, functionality and the wisdom of uncertainly’ that you first met Achebe when he came to deliver a convocation lecture?
That’s exactly what I am trying to say that in Government College Umuahia, I never knew I would encounter him so closely in real life. It was when I came here as a student and in my final year he came to deliver that lecture that I encountered him. At the lecture he was also honoured by the University, in what I think was his first honorary degree by any Nigerian University. So he gave that lecture, a seminal paper on ‘The truth of fiction’. That was the title of the paper.
So what are the challenges of teaching Achebe today given that there are new narratives, new works and commentaries on African writings and works?
Achebe will remain father of African literature at all times. And some would say he was the person who founded African literature. But this is not true. Some people came before him, some in oral literature. In any case, if you think of literature in the wider sense, you’d talk of Chinua Achebe. The point is that he came into the scene and gave literature a wider acceptability and fillip. From there, the scene changed. So, he has blazed the part. From the lecture I delivered here when Things Fall Apart turned fifty, you’d see all that. Therefore as far as African literature is concerned, he blazed the part. That is not in doubt as far as African literature is concerned.
You always insist that many people can tell good stories, yet only a few can write good literary fiction. What exactly do you mean?
Well, there are always different forms of literature, the ones our grandfathers told. The ones our grandmothers also told; all kinds of story-tellers. So, it differentiates between stories told over time and Achebe happens to be in the latter category. He happens to have written these stories very well. He is no doubt a story-teller, an excellent story-teller. He told stories with a lot of wisdom, a lot of idioms and proverbs with which he embellished his stories. He gave sound ideas about life generally, which can be helpful to anybody who has time to read him. You earlier on asked about the challenges. That’s one of the challenges of teaching the Achebe narratives in the current dispensation. And that has been one of the problems for some of us teaching Achebe. People are not reading his works anymore, which we consider accessible. So you can imagine what happens to the works by others who are not as accessible as Achebe’s. So, the big challenge is that people no longer read. Don’t be surprised that even among my own generation, you will see people who have not read or heard about Achebe or his works. Now not to talk of the younger ones; they do that only if the book is recommended in classes. Books generally are lying down there unread and you’d ask the students have you read so, so and so, and they would be starring at you.
The rise of science fiction to advance the society is equally necessary. How much of that has permeated Africa for technological breakthrough?
We haven’t got to that level; oh, we haven’t done that in Africa. And it is necessary to do so. We are far from other societies of the world where science fiction has gone far. We are struggling with bread and butter yet, such that I will be surprised that people will leave the issues of insecurity, unemployment, water, health and so on to begin to talk of science fiction and technological advancement. We are faced with all kinds of serious social problems. People do not have enough but a few who have lived abroad or have influence here and there who will be interested in writing science fiction to situate our problems.
There’s also the issue of writing in local languages. Apart from Ngugi wa Thiong’o who is a champion in this regard, what else have African writers done to push for local languages and cultures?
It has become something that I am passionate about now. Yes. Time has come when I realize that every culture needs to be preserved and promoted. We need to preserve the language of the people. First of all, if you want to get to the people you write so that the majority of the people can read. And then do the people really want to read stories written in local languages? But if you write in those languages people may like to read them. However, if people write in our indigenous languages, yes, a lot of people might show interest in reading. So, I have become passionate about it and I think it is crucial for us to keep what I call our own identity. The problem we have in Nigeria today is that nobody will rise up and say I am proudly a Nigerian. Our minds are being trained from outside. Not fair enough as it is.
Would you now say it is the way government has restructured the school programmes that is the main issue?
Part of the problem is the take-over of schools by government. We read literature, Igbo and so on, more than people read them today. Even the Bible too, but people said that the missionaries did it so that they would spread their own ideas, their own ideologies far afield but they succeeded to a large extent because people indeed became interested in reading more texts, getting more ideas and so on. Then even the bible could be translated into Igbo, for instance. Other things written were also being translated into other local languages too. There was a lot of indigenization but government did not make adequate plan for schools what do we do with these schools when we take them over? And that is why the programmes are like this. Except for one man may God bless his soul- Professor Babs Fafunwa was the only person who came out to institute a programme that helped to prosper local languages. He insisted that the development of a society depends so much on the people of that society to identify and learn in their own way. There are some of us that would say, okay, we use English to learn about other works. Yes, you can use English to learn anything, but it is different when you use your local language, your native tongue, to learn the basic things. It makes you proud, competent, and you are proud to make your own contributions towards the development of your society. You can use the knowledge acquired from anywhere to transform the culture of your people… I honestly think our education has been misdirected. I can say that the missions had the direction they were going before they were interrupted. They did well and we then took over and did not follow the direction they paved. And that is linked up to which language are we using today? How are they making the environment conducive for learning? How are they making these children amenable to learning; making them look important? How do we make children creative; properly raised in their local languages to be properly creative? But if you began like Fafunwa saw it at that level and theories of languages everywhere show that if you know other languages like you’ve learnt your own very well, you are bound to do better; and be more creative in what you do.
The issue of gay rights, lesbianism and transgender seem to have permeated the lives of writers; African writers inclusive. What does this portend for the society in terms of morality and the tendency to use writings to correct certain things?
Yes, it is a world-wide phenomenon. You see, some of them are getting so much power, so much contacts that the United States government, the British society, and some powerful governments of the world are on the side of these groups of people and gay right agitators. There must be something in human nature that makes this kind of behaviour to be right inside man. After all, we also see some men who also have penis and vagina. That seems to be normal to them unless they now want to change the definition. We all understand and also go along with this as normal. The same person has this and that. That is not fiction; it is also true. So a lot of people will consider that to be bad now. It is the same people who will argue by asking is this behaviour inborn or did the people acquire it? The fight for gay rights is that it is a natural thing; people did not import it, why suppress it? That is also part of the argument. And I am saying that there must be something innate in man that is debatable and then the two men have a child. Where does the father figure or mother figure come in? There is no difference between anything anymore. But then how does the world carry on like this? How are they dealing with it? That’s a million question people have been asking. On a more serious note, we have to answer these questions and face them. But I know this is not a Pan African problem, like you asked in your question. It is a human problem and we have to be careful. I have said enough for you to know my stake on it. I am in line with those who say for the sake of society and for certain values to develop, we need to distinguish and then be proud of the differences that exist and allow one to do one or the other.
You made a comparison between Achebe’s narratives as reformative and Ngugi wa Thiongo’s as revolutionary. How do you mean?
I don’t want to put a hold on either this or that. As Achebe would say, I say both are necessary. But know the limitations of each. There are times in society, for goodness sake, when both are necessary. There are times when you need revolutionary action. The whole thing needs very drastic measures when people are being killed unduly. Achebe said it in Anthills of the Savanah that even before you finish sweeping the people away some set of people have also risen to replace them. They would have developed the same tendency or worse than those before them. The cleansing would appear good for some time. But before you know it, the same tendency that led to the killings would have manifested again.
Unfortunately that happens to be human nature. So if you say revolution, be clear as to what you have to do to get it right. It may be okay for a little bit of time. The very people who led the revolution will replicate the same tendency when they take over power. It is there in history that those who led a revolution end up worse than those they killed to be there. Achebe is on the side of reformation because he says reformation tries to change man, the mind of the person. If your mind is reformed; if it is changed, when it is perfected, you then begin to act well. It is something that goes deep to the root of who you would like to be or become and so on. And this changes it in a way that it is permanent. Did that solve the problem of Ghana, for instance? After some time all their problems have come back and the people are back to where they were.
Can you say you have produced enough writers to compete with Nsukka and Ibadan?
We are not complaining. We are only saying that the writers we have produced are just coming up. They haven’t made the landmark for the Nobel like others have made. For instance, Sam Omatseye is in the league of those who will one day get that international landmark in terms of awards. He passed through this university. And I will also say that it doesn’t mean we are not trying. Ayobami Adebayo is out there making waves in Europe and America. It won’t be too long before they will get it to that height. We have Biyi Bandele. It is one step at a time. They may hit the headline soon enough. From the very day I started teaching, I saw literature as very interactive and I try to draw a lesson from each writer. I don’t impose ideas on my students on who is better or who is not. It makes the growth of literature something that will never stop, for the more you read a book, the more you impact, the more you learn and the more you tolerate.
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