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Tag: Okoro

  • Justice Okoro’s name, tribe and a retired justice

    Justice Okoro’s name, tribe and a retired justice

    In my novel, My Name is Okoro, that has been studied in universities, including at graduate level, I play on the name Okoro. The lead judge on the Supreme Court verdict on the presidential election brought it to mind.

    is from Akwa Ibom State. In my novel, the name is borne by an Urhobo man who wanders in search of his wife in Biafra, and his name throws up an anxiety of identity.

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    The name reflects our interwoven identity. In Yorubaland, there was a man called Okoro, which means bitter. The name means something else in Urhobo and Igbo, and it amused me as some trolls made light of the Justice’s authenticity as a person. The other issue from the verdict came from retiring Musa Datijo Muhammad, who implied the CJN compromised the composition of the bench because no one from the southeast was on the panel. It was an irresponsible point because he, as a justice, cannot be reading what is in the mind of a jurist. He has a point that the bench needs diversity, especially in the southeast and south-south. Okoro was the lead judge. Mohammad should have explained what role he played as deputy to the CJN on changing the scenario. He may be acting as rabble rouser. His statement detracted from the substance of the case. Justice is supposed to be blind. A tribesman on the bench suddenly loses his physical eyes but acquires a juridical one. That is what he should have said. Anyway, since he became CJN, Olukayode Arowoola has said plans are afoot to get more justices. Some have died from the southeast. He did not kill them. But he has sworn in 23 federal court judges and nine to the court of appeal. But we need them ASAP. The retired judge should not rattle the sabre. He should have focused on the substance of the matter, if he cannot say what role he himself played to improve the scenario.

  • Okoro: tale of Biafra anti-heroes

    Okoro: tale of Biafra anti-heroes

    Book Title: My Name is Okoro
    Author: Sam Omatseye
    Reviewer: Steve Osuji
    Year of Publication: 2016

    The very book is an antithesis: a protagonist hobbled by a stultifying identity crisis. He is a dual persona, a troubadour who had no songs; a dissent and dissenter; a psychological luggage not unlike a man eternally moving house. Samson Okoro, the hero of My Name is Okoro, a novel by Sam Omatseye is an impaired protagonists.

    But My Name is Okoro a splendid, if enigmatic addition to numerous war tales of the Biafran epoch. An exciting and racy book of faction, Omatseye managed deftly to make a collage of his childhood recollections of the Nigerian civil war, his voracious reading of books and apparent extensive debriefing of participants and observers. One cannot remember another faction on Biafra.

    He sought to present the minority prism, their trials and travails in the 30-month savagery called Biafra. And the very title of the book and the name of the protagonist: Okoro, which is the surname, byword and identity of the Igbo is also the name of the protagonist who is of Urhobo stock, a minority tribe in Nigeria. So it is that Okoro is dogged all through the book. And even this book of an antithetical principal bears its ambivalence in bold, flaming red type on its cover.

    Unless you have fore-knowledge, you are bound to stumble on the title the first time you pick up the book. My Name is Okoro, you are bound to announce gleefully in sure-footed Igbo high-pitched elocution: (Okoro: Re/Me/Me). As against the author’s intended Urhobo descending tonality of Okoro: (Me/Re/Do). His in-laws even described the name as “a miserable imitation of an Igbo name.” (Page 36).

    The aesthetics and duality of My Name is Okoro bound to catch instant attention at first sight. May be “A Biafra Story” as rider to the book title would have given it more fillip instead of “A Novel.” And there is no reason the cover illustration of a war scene is subdued to a near blank fade when a little more legibility would have given it more visual strength and told the story at a glance.

    Beyond the cover art, the book is a piece of literary high-art. Apart from the fact that it is teeming with anti-heroes, it is a story well managed and properly told. Omatseye meshed doses of fiction with dollops of facts to create one of the best books of the Biafra crisis yet.

    But for puny characters: Samson Okoro who would project the war from the pains of the minorities of the south but got stuck between the lush laps of another Igbo belle while in search of his Igbo wife in the Biafra territory. Such exotic preoccupation while the shooting lasted. So much for a protagonist!

    Udeze, Okoro’s brother-in-law and Biafran zealot is merely an effete mama’s boy who lived in the shadows of his braver younger brother, Okey who died in Kano fighting; who died that his family, including Udeze might live. Every attempt by Udeze thereafter to be a man or at least at soldier ends in a debacle. Capt. Abdullahi, the cold-blooded murderer of Igbos would eventually give anything, including his penile appurtenance to win the heart of a Biafran belle.

    But Nkechi, the love of Capt. Abdullahi’s life turned out the true star of the story; a true tragic heroine who bites the bullet to save the face of her people than repair with Abdullahi to a post-war fairy world. She would not bear the eternal stigma of an agaracha, a lover of and copulator with the enemy. Agaracha of the immediate post-war Igboland was one who having loved and eloped with the ‘enemy’ would surely return someday to the unforginving scorn of the land. Nkechi knows the deal.

    In the ebb and flow of story-telling, the author manifested much strength in the early parts of the book, capturing in blood-chilling details, the pogrom in the north, and the exodus to the south. Such pathos and passion could however not be re-enacted on the other side of the divide, the very theatre of a most gruesome war.

    Every story has its glitches and My Name is Okoro has its share. Sometimes the author trails off into the forest of beautiful words which albeit detracts and clogs the tale. Chapter 23 is one example. It’s a reverie and would take some doing to link it to the plot as the author seems to experiment with a bit of stream of consciousness here. A not too careful reader is bound to lose patience.

    Here is an excerpt: “He averted his face from the barks of the mahogany trees, the slim ardour of cassava plants and the network of leaves and flowers under the faint shimmer of an evening sky. He imagined a soft breeze that wafted the aroma away to the envy of their neighbours.” (Page 264).

    Regardless, My Name is  Okoro a rich, exciting novel that tells the story of Biafra in a way it has never been told.

  • Okoro is Urhobo

    The descriptive first paragraph was what soaked me in. It had done the same some months back when I had scanned through a copy in the newsroom, which I could not take away. The paragraph had blood, dust, sweat and all the violent imageries they often conjure in the mind. And there was the promise of a saucy story, whose end could be complicated. There were also hints of pain and death.

    For me, a student of the Dele Giwa school of thought which always craves a catchy introductory paragraph, it did not take time before I was lured into the world of Okoro, who is different from the Okoro many of us know.

    This Okoro and that Okoro are only the same in spelling. Their pronunciations are walls apart and their origins miles away. One is Igbo—that is the one most of us know and meet almost every other day.  We even use it as a generic term for all people of Igbo descent. The other, which is my concern here, is Urhobo, a proper Niger Delta ‘pikin’.

    I met this Okoro in My Name is Okoro, Sam Omatseye’s second published novel. It is the story of the civil war. There are many civil war fictions, including Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, which has been made into a movie of the same title. But, there is something different about Omatseye’s civil war novel. Yes, like the others, it is violence-filled. What is different is what I see as a protest in the book. It is from a minority’s point of view. Instances abound in it of efforts to properly situate the feelings of the minorities of the South. And the clincher, for me, is the use of a name which cuts across the divides to tell this amazing story of love in a time of war.

    Okoro asked: “Why do the newspapers keep writing about Igbo pogrom when they killed everyone who was southerner except the Yoruba?”

    I also came across this line of thought in chapter five, where I encountered a woman from the South who had come to the North in search of her son. She gave us some lessons in sociology. The woman, who was married to an Ukwani man, narrowly escaped being wasted because she had Yoruba tribal marks

    “Ukwanis are not Igbo,” she said. “The animals are killing everyone.”

    She offered explanations: “Ukwanis can understand Igbo language but they can distinguish who is speaking Ukwani and who is speaking Igbo. The Igbo know who is speaking Ukwani as distinct from  who is speaking Igbo.”

    Then wait for this from Okoro: “But is it not worse when the language is not even close but seems to sound the same but is not Yoruba or Hausa? For instance, the Anang and Ibibio.”

    Chief Subomi, who hid Okoro in his Kaduna house after he escaped Lieutenant Abdullahi’s bullets, added: “They were not spared. They were lumped together with the Igbo in the slaughter.”

    Then the ironic situation of these minorities was worsened as I found out at the point where Okoro returned home and Okungbowa was briefing him about the imminence of war.

    “His father, you know, lived in Aba and there is this thing going on there called ‘leave town’. It began with criminals and never-do-wells out of the city. Now, they are asking those who are not Igbo enough to leave. It included those across the Niger. So, he heard that his father and his other relations from Asaba had been forced to leave town.”

    To Okungbowa’s statement, Okoro raised a poser: “What did they mean by not Igbo enough? In the north, everyone, including people like me, were haunted and killed for being Igbo.”

    There is also the Barclays Bank lady who lost her Isoko uncle in the ‘Igbo pogrom’ in Kaduna who wondered why no one was talking about that.

    Like Reza did for the heart of Hajiya Binta Zubairu in Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s award-winning Season of Crimson Blossoms, My Name is Okoro succeeded in scaling the fence and landed in my puddle, so much so that I did not stop reading on account of painful neck. It shocked and excited all at once. The elegance of the language added to my determination to read it to the end. I smiled at expressions such as: “The warrior about his loins would have found rest in Nneka”; “He shot when she was not looking”; “It took about seven months into their sojourn in Umunze before Okoro unlocked his dam”; “He let himself loose in the curves and dips of Clara’s body”.

    Beneath the protest in the book lies the story of passion, love and lust in a time of war. This fascinated me. I was thrilled by what it means to be human in war-time Igbo land rived by man’s inhumanity to man. Okoro found Clara and with time, the warriors in his loins exhibited his prowess. Again and again, even when they tried to stop, failure starred them in the face. The brute called Lieutenant Abdullahi also fell in love with Nneka and for love, he surrendered almost all.

    I love movies and books that allow me use my head. Don’t resolve everything for me. Leave me with things to ponder after returning the book to the shelf. Omatseye leaves room for this. As I write this, I still wonder how Clara, Okoro’s war-time lover, handled the truth of how her sister’s potential of leading the Nigerian soldiers to their hideout. Did she tell the truth that she watched while one of the men with whom she was hiding from the Nigerian troops strangled life out of the poor girl? Or, did she just lie about it and they all live happily ever after? What did she tell them about Victory, the boy she adopted during the war and saw as consolation for the girl killed for her and others to live?

    There is also the question of why Clara was vomiting and feeling nausea after leaving the war zone and returning to her hometown. Did the pregnancy she was afraid of getting for Okoro find her? After all, they did it without guarantees!

    Another question still looking for an answer in my mind is what happened to Lieutenant Abdullahi. Did he kill himself after Nkechi, the girl who made him experience circumcision, committed suicide because she did not want to lose her chastity to a brute?

    I also love how a reader is allowed to figure out who Captain was despite that the question was not answered when Udeze, the Biafran spy, asked his sister Nneka, who was pregnant when the war started and was separated from her husband all through but returned with two biological children who are not twins. Captain must have been the strong man’s shield Nneka hid under. Who is Okoro not to understand? Not with his experience with Clara whose letter he said he would be awaiting. I wonder about the content.

    My final take will be borrowed from Okoro’s wife. It is about the futility of war. Here it is: “That (time wasting) is the meaning of this war. People died, families destroyed and cities on their knees. We have returned to where we started without all the things we started with.”

    If you are thinking of going into a war, if you are encouraging hostilities, if you are an apostle of strife, if you are violence promoter, the time to stop is now because at the end of the day, chances are that because of your insensitivity people will die, families will be destroyed and cities will be on their knees. And sadly, it will only dawn on you that all has been nothing but time wasting when you find yourself returning to where you were, if you are lucky to be alive.

  • ‘Okoro, my literary metaphor for Nigeria’

    My name is Okoro, the newest prose fiction by Mr. Sam Omatseye, chairman of the editorial board of The Nation newspapers, has continued to generate debate on national question and the issues that prompted the Nigerian civil war of 1967–1970.  The reading by Omatseye took place in Lagos last week.  Edozie Udeze was there.

    Sam Omatseye’s latest prose fiction, published early this year, has continued to cause ripples and generate literary arguments across the nation and beyond.  Entitled My Name is Okoro, the novel is on the Nigerian civil war of 1967–1970.  Told from the viewpoint of the minorities in Nigeria, Omatseye, a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and Chairman of the editorial board of the Nation newspapers, in the narrative, drew the attention of the public to the place of the Niger Delta ethnic groups who were mostly affected by the senseless killings and the pogroms of the 1960s.  Now, using Okoro, a name answered by the Urhobo, the Igbo and the Binis of Edo State, Omatseye deliberately created a mind-bending book which takes the reader in and out of sanity.

    At the reading of the book by Omatseye at the English Department of the University of Lagos, (Unilag) last week, he read portions of the book where the roles of Okey, Udeze, Okoro, Nneka, Clara and other minor characters helped to situate the story to create clearer pictures in the minds of readers.

    “Yes, the story of the Nigerian civil war has been told, but none has ever been told from the point of the minorities,” Omatseye reflected.  While berating writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, Chinua Achebe’s There was a Country and others for their one-sided stories, Omatseye said, “the fact that I created an ambiguous character is also to note the attitude of some writers to the narratives of the civil war.  These works have discriminated against the experiences of the minorities during the war and these experiences have to be told.”

    He reiterated that a lot of the battles took place in places like Sapele, Warri, Ikot-Ekpene, Calabar, Port Harcourt and so on.  And their stories have to be told to reflect in totality what these people suffered in order to have a balanced account.  “The war was even fought and lost in the minority areas and yet if you read the civil war stories by Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Chukwuemeka Ike, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and others, it looks as if the minorities did not exist.  There’s still that gap in the narratives of the civil war and that is what I have come to fill; to tell it from the point of view of these people who also experienced the pogrom and lost so much as well.”

    The scenes at Sapele described vividly in the novel, according to the author, “Were part of what happened to Professor Hope Eghagha during the war.  This was in Sapele and he told me the story himself.  One of such stories was how Ojukwu (the Biafran leader) used to sneak into Sapele to see one of his girl-friends while the war raged on.  That is indeed part of the narrative and one of the reasons I wrote the book.”

    On why Okoro’s escapades happened more inside the Biafran enclave, Omatseye posited, “Okoro had to find himself inside Igboland in search of his wife, Nkechi during the war.  There, he was caught in the middle of nowhere.  Even then, his name Okoro could not help him.  He still did not belong.  He was still considered a minority, an outsider.  Indeed, in the Biafran setting he did not belong and that was why I set the story that way.”

    Bringing the lessons of the book to the contemporary Nigerian era, he said “about restructuring, “I don’t think there is any idea about it that is more relevant than this book.  Today, we talk about restructuring because the whole idea of the war was based on restructuring.  Today, we have MASSOB.  Today, we have IPOB.  Today, we have Niger Delta Avengers.  It shows you that the issues of the civil war have not been resolved.  The question by the young man who says we should forget the story of the civil war…  How can that be?  The people who join IPOB and MASSOB and Avengers, are they not young people?  So, they are your age-mates…   Therefore, the matter is as important to them as when Isaac Adaka Boro declared the independence of the Niger Delta in the 1960s.”

    With absurd metaphors and solid characters that gave deep vent to the story, Omatseye extended the scenes from the North to the East and back to the West and then the Niger Delta areas.  To him, “all I know is that writers have different kinds of voices.  There’s nothing like subjective writing, for each writer takes his work from his own point of view and pursues it to its logical conclusion.  We have not even written enough on the Nigerian civil war.  In the US, for instance, a book comes out every year.  An industry has been created around the US civil war period that every year books come out on the US civil war.  This was a war that was fought about 150 years ago.  And ours just ended 46 years ago…   It is too early to forget.

    “In the US the issue of South and North dichotomy still rears its head in their politics.  Those issues bordering on black versus white and on the pathologies of race still predominate.  The question therefore, is what has Nigeria learnt?  What have we learnt from the experiences of the past?  I don’t want to prejudge, but at the end of the war, nothing was resolved.  It seemed that the questions confronting Okoro at the beginning of the war became more complicated even when the war ended.  So, when Clara became pregnant, it became part of the ambiguities of the war and the story itself…  At the end of the war, Gowon declared ‘no victor, no vanquished’, but we all know how it has worked out so far.”

    Of course, as a writer, Omatseye is insightful, philosophical, witty and idealistic.  “At the moment,” he said, “we need to sit down and resolve these differences.  It is not good when Buhari says that Nigeria is not negotiable.  Your relationship with your wife, with your father, with your son and so on will always be renewed and reviewed.  So where are we as a nation?  Are we a nation or what?  What kind of Okoro am I?  And so on.”

    In his opening remarks, Professor Hope Eghagha, the head of the department of English, reminded the audience that the event was to keep and encourage the much-talked about town and gown relationship.  “This is one of the strongest arms of the English Studies here at Unilag.  And the department tries to reinforce it to help the students understand more what they are here to do.  I am therefore very delighted that Sam Omatseye is here today to read from his novel, My Name is Okoro.”

    He described the book as an embodiment of work with lessons on different cultural backgrounds.  “In it, you have Okoro, a name widely answered by the Igbo, Urhobo, Benin.  So, we have to indulge Omatseye to tell us why he has the name of Okoro and the title of the book, My Name is Okoro.”

    True to type, Dr. Chris Anokwu, in his review, equally did justice to the name.  “If there’s any new dimension, My Name is Okoro adds to the Nigeria/Biafran war novel tradition, it shows it is not only the Igbo that answer Okoro or suffered the pogrom.  The minorities also did.”

    The highpoint of the programme came when Mr Olawale Edun, chairman of Vintage Press, publishers of The Nation newspapers, bought copies of the book for every student present at the occasion.  After describing the students as the great hopes of today and tomorrow Nigeria, Edun chose to pay for the books in order to encourage more students to read and understand more the history of the nation.

    Present at the occasion were Professor Duro Oni, deputy Vice-chancellor of Unilag, Professor Muyiwa Falaiye, Dean of Arts, Dr. Kareem King-Aribisala, students of the department and others.

  • Draw in top of table clash pleases Okoro

    Draw in top of table clash pleases Okoro

    Enugu Rangers were held 1-1 by MFM FC in a week NPFL match at the Agege Stadium, but midfielder, Osas Okoro says the result was good despite getting knocked off the top spot.

    The Flying Antelopes were top of the top going into the game but dropped on place to second but the 24-year-old has also complained about the windy conditions at the Stadium as factor that worked against the visitors.

    Imama Amapakabo and his men continue on the road in successive games as they next face Giwa FC at the Rwang Pam Stadium.

    Speaking to footballlive.ng ahead of the game, Okoro stressed it was important for the team to keep its head and approach games one at a time.

  • Man of the Match: Stanley Okoro hails brother Osas

    Man of the Match: Stanley Okoro hails brother Osas

    Former Almeria winger, Stanley Okoro  has said he is not surprised that his elder brother, Osas Okoro has been one of the stand-out players in the Super Eagles squad at the ongoing African Nations Championship.

    The Enugu Rangers star posted an impressive performance as the Super Eagles were forced to a 1-1 draw by Tunisia in their second Group C fixture yesterday.

    And even the officials from Confederation of African Football (CAF) have taken note of his performance, handing him the Orange Man of the Match award after the game against the North Africans.

    “Before Osas left for the tournament, I told him that this year is for him, so I’m not surprised that he has been doing well in Rwanda,”Okoro, who starred for the Golden Eaglets in 2009, told allnigeriasoccer.com.

    “We have been talking everyday since he arrived in Rwanda and his best is yet to come.

    “Both of us are wingers, I use my left while he uses his right. He has everything to succeed as a winger.”

    The 25-year-old Osas Okoro has gone the distance in every single game contested by Nigeria so far at the African Nations Championship.

  • Ubido, Okoro, others for fitness test

    Ubido, Okoro, others for fitness test

    •Achor Philip out of the league season

    Heartland’s Julius Ubido, Ebele Obi, Osas Okoro and Emmanuel Iwu will today face late fitness tests for the Naze Millionaires’ Glo Premier League Week 36 tie against FC Taraba at the Dan Anyiam Stadium, Owerri on Sunday.

    The trio of Ubido, Okoro and Iwu didn’t make the short trip to Umuahia for their Oriental Derby against Abia Warriors which ended 1-1 because they suffered knocks in their last home game against Warri Wolves and the tie before that.

    Ebele Obi – the elder brother of Chelsea of England midfielder, John Mikel Obi – was billed to man the post against Abia Warriors but he sustained an injury in the warm up to the tie and was replaced by another goalkeeper, Chinedu Udeh who had the best game of his Heartland career against the Umuahia side, according to reports.

    Heartland’s Media Officer, Cajetan Nkwopara told SportingLife that the players’ fitness would be tested today before they would be passed fit or otherwise ahead of the league game against FC Taraba on Sunday.

    Heartland are on 51 points from 35 games and they are up against the Jalingo Boys who are on 46 points from 35 games.

    Nkwopara also disclosed that Heartland players and officials are wishing their injured goalkeeper, Emmanuel Philip Achor who underwent a hip surgery speedy recovery.

    The goaltender suffered the injury in the club’s final training session against Enyimba at Aba in Week 29 and has been ruled out of the season.