How was growing up like for you? Like most people in the country, I grew up in the village. I was born in Nasarawa State, Lapai Local Government Area. Like all normal kids, we learnt our culture and from the environment. One learnt from the singing of birds, the footsteps and prints of everybody – since, then, we were not wearing shoes – even dog has a lot to teach, and know when things are wrong somewhere. That was the interesting part before one went to school. Before we went to Western schools as a Muslim we were introduced to the Islamic schools and began to learn the Quran. We started writing ourselves before going to Western schools. This is the kind of education I had as a child: following my fathers and uncles to the farm. It was interesting. There used to be that communal spirit and learning process even with people of one’s age group and why one belonged there. If a person is older than one by a day, one respects him. There was a kind of hierarchy order…No be by force… It is not dictatorial but based on norms and respect for each other. That was how growing up was for me and I really loved it.
As an economist, at what point did you become a writer?
You really can’t say this is the exact threshold but my upbringing has a role to play. Growing up in a typical traditional society where you have storytellers in the evenings under the moonlight telling stories…such things get infused into you. And as you grow up, you’d find that other cultures do this by putting these stories down – they write. And as I progressed in school, particularly in secondary school, I realised that some of the stories I hear in Arabic are what we were also taught in the village where animals speak and tell stories. I thought that I could even write my stories like that and make them interesting. But at that point, I never thought of becoming a writer – not even after secondary school and university. Even though I studied Economics, I had this love for writing and reading story books, particularly that of African writers. I started writing was during National Youth Service days or perhaps the idea occurred when I was there around 74/75. It began on my journey from Ibadan through Benin by road: I saw the relics of the Civil War, such as bullets trees…trees carted by fire from bombs. So, even as a young mind at that time I asked myself “Why do we have to do this just to stay together…why did we have to shoot at ourselves”. From then, I began to take note of some of these things. I can say I finished NYSC in August 1975 and started writing that same August because it was not hard then for one to get a job. I thought I could keep my diary to just “diary-keeping” but after NYSC, when I started working at the close of the day by 8pm I’d often go out with a late friend to a hotel just to go and relax – I was never a drunk or smoked anyway. And we would not leave that place until 11.30pm and I’d get home after 12. When I went there thrice and saw that I was wasting my time. I wondered what I was doing there: others were smoking or drinking and would even go with some women. I decided I would use my time to start scribbling things. And that was how I started. I started writing the manuscript of my first work in 1975. I would write a few paragraphs and just leave it, and later continue.
37 years after you started writing, do you think you have achieved you purpose of being a writer?
I think I have. I went into writing because I just enjoyed it. I never thought I would be a writer: I just wanted to put down the way I felt about certain things and at the end of the day, share it with a few friends. The late Maman Vasta saw and collected it, and said he would give it to Ford Fourth Dimension. But I also sent to Heinemann and the editorial adviser read and sent me feedback that I should reduce it by one-third. I said Ah…Ah! The thing wey I don spend time write… I won’t reduce it oh! He edited it, cut out a few things, and of course, I didn’t send it back to them. Then, The Drumbeats was also ready to take it at that time, but, then during Shagari Regime, Austerity period came and they were afraid they might not be able to repatriate their funds, so, they were not taking new titles, saying I should give them time. I was in London at the time, so, when I came back I got another publisher who understands the situation to publish it.
You have seen various phases of the Nigerian Literature and development of its literati. What would you say about the state of the Nigerian Literature today?
I am proud that Nigerian writing has a lot of potentials. Already the richness is out, still, I believe it holds greater potentials given the interest a lot of young people have shown in it. And really most of the contemporary issues going on, they are the ones to write on them and they have really proven themselves that they are up to the task.
The only problem is that we don’t have access to the facilities writers in other parts of the world have, such as publishing, electric power, and Internet. Now, people publish on their own; even at that these facilities are not readily available to many. Most times, access on the Internet some of these Internet service providers is not readily available – and where it is, it is at snail speed. There is constant power outage. All these are very discouraging. You can never make much progress. This is perhaps the reason why most people who write have other things they are doing; they just take writing as their pastime. I think we can do more in this part of the country. I see no reason those who lived here in the North and moved South why don’t write their experiences just like Cyprian Ekwensi in The Passport of Mallam Idah. You would think he is a northerner.
A lot of Islamic clerics speak against the Soyaya novelists, and they have been censored many, what do you think of it?
I think there is a certain level of morality that we should observe. There are certain cultural values we stand for in various communities in the country, be it in language, dressing etc., we must try to abide by them. I think that was what the Censors Board was trying to do. Even in the Quran you have illustrations of certain things, hypothetically for understanding. International community is going through certain economic crisis because they allowed and encouraged free market; and they are having a rethink about uncontrolled capitalism: when not controlled, capitalism has led to crisis. The state must protect certain things. Free trade doesn’t exist. Globalisation is for them and not for us. They are saying you can globalise, and that they can sell in your market, but you know, the fingers are not equal. There is no way we can compete with them. We would be on the losing side. We have to protect certain industry which is called infant industries. The Chinese and Russians did that. Initially, we said it is “Taiwan” and “China”, meaning inferior goods, but they are all rushing to China for rescue now. Europe are going there to borrow and Americans are telling the Chinese to devalue their currency…Why should they, if it is free market! We are the only people who want to grab everything from them. Coming back to Soyaya literature, I think it should not be allowed to show things that are not in conformity with our religion. The recent issue of homosexuality, in which the British wants to happen here, should we allow that? I don’t believe so. Some people may say it is freedom, but freedom cannot go on like that.
Why weren’t you interested in telling about the colonial encounters, like Chinua Achebe and others were doing when they started out?
Every writer and writing gets informed by his/her experiences or at least the environment within which his/her operated. Chinua Achebe had some taste of Colonial Rule directly. We had just the aftereffect and, therefore, virtually came into modern Nigeria: the nation-building started at that time. Even the war and the conflicts were part was part of nation-building. And as a young man, some of us felt “Why should it happen?” Even though initially we opposed the NYSC, as we went in for it, we just loved it because it afforded us the opportunity to see other people and to realise that essentially we are all the same. I served in the then Southeastern state: it was the farthest point from where I was going to work; but I enjoyed it so much that at the end of the day when I was finishing I didn’t want to go back. I found you can make friend anywhere, depending on one’s open-mindedness and people tend to receive one based on that. It is always good to open up. Honestly, I enjoy my NYSC.
As a writer and elder statesman, what would be your reaction about Boko Haram and the state of security in Nigeria?
The state of security is a common knowledge that it is very bad; and the Boko Haram factor has complicated it. For an enemy that has declared to you that he doesn’t care about dying – what else is left? It is not an easy thing that people are passing through, because of the situation. Sometimes, during road traffics and queues can create a greater insecurity because they can detonate anything, anywhere and more people will die.
There is need for those charged with security spread security network, finding out what is happening behind the scene. It is a big problem but it needs courage of talking – dialogue. Confronting the problem by trying force would not work. At the end of the day, you still have to talk to people. My position is, we should not just address the symptoms; we should try to get to the root of the problem. Even in warfare, you don’t just attack; you have to have a strategy of dealing with a problem. You don’t win a battle just by direct confrontation. Even where you think that you are stronger than your enemy, you have to have a strategy. If you don’t have, even when you think you have beaten him…and that was the problem, George Bush made in Iraq. He said they have finished the war. That was a long time ago and 10 years on that the war is not yet over. There is need for a strategy that would get to the root of the problem. And it should not only be by force because you are virtually playing the same game they are playing. You have to get to the people, talk to them indirectly – not the culprits – because people seem to sympathise with those they perceive as underdogs. And with force at a time, you’d create underdogs just like America did in Iraq. If people didn’t like Sadam Hussein they wouldn’t have been bombarding the civilians. People felt American were messing up. They weren’t sympathetic with Sadam but the action against the people. Sadam is long gone but the people are now targeting the forces that are occupying their country. You have to dialogue first, not force… dialogue and whosoever doesn’t want to respond to a more civilise method of conflict resolution, you can tackle that. Gana Adams once said that he believes that they should talk to Boko Haram.
Has there ever been a story idea that has not materialised for one reason or the other; what are you writing currently?
I am basically writing commentary on certain issues. Every writer has a lot of dreams and titles they’d want to write on. For instance, I was there during the short period of General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s stay in power is a story one would want to tell. Or during the Liberia crisis: the peace talks in which ECOWAS appointed Gen Abdusallam, I was one of his advisers. We saw a lot of things. And we saw again the effect of war. People who talk about war have perhaps not gone through it. One has a story and, perhaps, want to tell a story about a war situation: the terrible thing about fighting and tell from the point of view that canvasses that we should try as much as possible to avoid it.
