Achebe Died When Biafra Dream Died

Captain Elechi Amadi, the great author, school mate to the late Chinua Achebe at Government College, Umuahia, spoke to OKAFOR OFIEBOR in Aluu, near Port Harcourt, Rivers State

The late Achebe is often called ‘the father of African literature’. But others will put Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Ayi Kwei Amah and Sembena Ousmane in the same mould. What do you think?

I think that Achebe is slightly in a different mould. At one time, he was the General Editor of the African Writers Series. And he edited the works of the other writers you mentioned. He edited the works of Ngugi, myself and others. He made a special impact in all other African writing which no other African writer did. So, if you regard him as a giant in African literature you are not mistaken. Truly, he is a giant of African literature.

Some critics refer to writers who published novels after Things Fall Apart as ‘Achebe’s Children’. Do you agree with this?

Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I and others drew inspiration and courage to write from him. No, in the sense that while there may be common features, like proverbs for instance, in his work and mine, my style and orientation are quite different. There are no white men in my books, and gods and the supernatural play a more powerful role than in Achebe’s books. Again, while Achebe deeply explores colonial politics, I am preoccupied with the intricacies of our people’s culture. As the General Editor of African Writers Series, Achebe described The Concubine when it was published, as an ‘an unusually successful first novel’. I could not have had a better encouragement than that.

Achebe was a meticulous writer. You cannot find any word in the wrong place. This led Soyinka to complain that he wrote with ‘unrelieved competence to relived incompetence’.

I believe the Civil War affected Achebe very deeply and probably robbed him of the Nobel Prize. Between A Man of The People’(1966) Anthills of the Savannah  (1987), Achebe’s creativity suffered a lull of 20 years which dealt a fatal blow to any Novel Prize ambitions. But that apart, I am convinced that Achebe deserved that prize based on publication only.

When I met Chinua in January 1989, he gave me a copy of Anthills of the  Savannah, in which he wrote: ‘To Elechi with admiration, Chinua’. This book is one of my treasured possessions. This great literary icon admired my writing: so critics beware!

I will always remember Chinua as a giant in African literature, a literary role model, a consummate craftsman and above all, a friend. He was a great essayist because he wrote well. The command of English was thoroughly in his hands.

He was a quiet kind of man, just like me

 Achebe’s book, There Was A Country stirred controversies. What is your opinion on this?

Unfortunately, I bought the book but I have not finished reading it. I have managed to read a few pages where he mentioned my name. He mentioned my name as a friend at Government College, Umuahia. I have to finish reading the book before I can comment on it in any fair manner. All I can say is that Achebe, like most Igbo, felt very strongly about the civil war. He has every right to feel the way he felt. If he felt Awolowo starved the Igbos during the war, well, that is his view. Anybody can disagree with him but that is how he saw it. I don’t think there is anything to quarrel about. He merely expressed his own views. When I wrote my own book, Sunset in Biafra, I expressed my own views.

Is it possible for our current education system to produce the likes of Achebe, Soyinka, Elechi Amadi and other literary greats?

Everybody is unique. You can’t produce another Achebe, Soyinka and other writers in the mould. People are unique, whatever field they find themselves. All they need is to be trained. The current crop of writers may produce works better than ours now. Everybody is irreplaceable, like you are irreplaceable.

What is your advice to budding writers?

My endless advice to budding writers is that they have to read, and read and read. If you have not read a lot novels and books, you have no business writing a book. If you haven’t read plenty of poetry, you have no business writing poetry. Now some of our young men just read a few books, perhaps the ones they used to pass their school certificate exams and as university graduates and they start writing. If I count the number of novels they have read, they are insignificant. We were particularly lucky. Achebe, myself, Gabriel Okara, Vincent Ike and most of us who attended Government College, Umuahia, were exposed to a lot of books in our days in the school. There should be an opportunity for them to read those books. That also shows you what good education can also do to an individual. You may have the books but will not read it. You must design a system whereby children are forced to read them.

Can you suggest ways children of today can be made to read books?

When I was Commissioner for Education in Rivers State, as far back as 1986, I went about building libraries in a few schools because I was keen on this reading culture to be imbibed by our children. But each time I built libraries, they were converted into classrooms! The headmasters or principals of those schools complained that they converted them to classrooms because they were short of classrooms. However, you must design a way of making them read. The policy was not continued. Every school must have a library. So if it is a powerful government policy: you build these libraries and employ librarians to man them, and stock them with books and make sure that the children have library hours to read. If you do all that, the reading culture will change.

In Achebe’s The Problem with Nigeria, he says the Nigerian problem is that of leadership, not followership? Others argue otherwise.

No, leadership is the problem. Not followership. If a leader gives direction, people will follow. I have been in political leadership. I have been a Permanent Secretary in many ministries and later Commissioner for Education. So I know what I am talking about. From my experience, you get people to do what you asked them to do if you lead by example. For instance, when I was appointed Commissioner for Education, there was a huge strike by teachers in my hands over non-payment of salaries and other emoluments. I sat the leadership down and found that most of their complaints were genuine. I told them not to worry but they must fulfil their own obligation by teaching well. I did exactly that. All their outstanding allowances and salaries were paid. And I directed my accountant that, 24th of every month, all the teachers in the state must be paid. I warned him that if he defaulted, I would sack him. And I meant it!

The teachers were first to be paid every month. You needed to see the enthusiasm with which teachers worked because they had their pay and had nothing to worry about. This is the atmosphere we had to generate. We don’t just talk about it. In some states, teachers are owed for months; when they protest, they are asked to go back to the classroom. You are telling a worker you have not paid his wages to go back to work! That is not fair. You expect a worker who has not been paid, whose wife is sick and cannot take her to hospital and cannot feed himself and family to work for you and you are in opposition to paying him and you don’t pay him. That is criminal. This is because the man has worked for 30 days. How do you expect him to survive? These are things that leaders should handle.

When you give good leadership, you would be properly followed. Look at Nelson Mandela who was jailed for 27 years, became President and he has no house. Why can’t that happen in Nigeria? Why will a public servant not be contented with his salary? I finished working as a commissioner for four years, I couldn’t maintain my car, and I couldn’t pay my children’s school fees. I was riding okada from here to Choba. My father’s wives protested why I should ride okada and I asked why not? And I took bus to Port Harcourt to do whatever I wanted to do and come back. Why? This is because I did not steal public money. That is the way we were brought up at Umuahia. Honesty was the best policy. I had no car. The car I ride now was given to me by Governor Rotimi Amaechi when he was giving cars to elder statesmen in the state. But for that I would not have known what to do. I probably would have been using a small car. You can preach all you can, but if the followers see that the house you could not build before, you built a mansion in less than six months, you own 20 houses in Port Harcourt, 30 in Onitsha, one in New York and you still sermonise to the followers not to steal, you are just wasting your time. You will be wasting your time because they will steal more than you.

Achebe was seen by many as over-romanticising his Igbo people. What is your position?

Achebe loved the Igbo, his people, very much and I can’t fault him on that. You can’t fault anybody for loving his people. He used the tools he had to his advantage. He stood up for them. He fought for them. They were diplomatic tool, intellectual tool and you can’t fault him. That was why when Biafra collapsed, Achebe also collapsed. It was such a trauma for him.That is why, in my view, for 20 years he could not write a novel. In-between, he wrote The Trouble With Nigeria. But that was not a novel in creative writing. He wrote A Man Of The People in 1966, just before the coup. And it took him 21 years to come out with Anthills of the Savannah, in 1987. That lull was too much. Because of his great love for his people, when Biafra fell, he was almost inconsolable and it took him quite a while to recover.

How do you assess Achebe’s propaganda during the Biafra era?

Ah! It was very, very effective. It was extremely effective. If you read my Sunset in Biafra, I expressed my opinion on it. The propaganda of Biafra accounted for much of the resistance of the Biafrans. When I had people like Okoko Ndem read those things that Achebe wrote over the radio and so on, all Biafrans felt confident and determined to win the war. He was very effective in his propaganda.

Twice Achebe was nominated for national honour and twice he rejected it. What is your opinion on this?

Again, it is also his intense love for his people. He felt why should he receive national honour from a country that was not treating his people well? But from my opinion, he was wrong in rejecting national honour. You have to forget the man on the seat of government, whether Babangida, Gowon or Goodluck Jonathan. They are not Nigeria. It is not the man; who is the man? It is the country made up of about 160 million people, not the man in power.

No man is bigger than his country. In that regard, I thought he should have accepted it. It is the country that nurtured you.You attended the schools in your country and Achebe is what he is today because of the country of his birth. He went to Government College, Umuahia, the University College, Ibadan. So, when the country says ‘My son, you have done very well, take this’, you have to accept it.