PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 2013
By Okey Ndibe
F
rom the outset, Okonkwo, the tragic protagonist of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, comes across as extraordinarily strong, a man who is “well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond” and whose “fame rested on solid personal achievements.” Not only does he stand out in his community, he is also a prototype of the imperial character, a man taken with the singularity of his powers. In an important sense, he foreshadows the British authorities lurking around the corner of late 19th century Umuofia, about to burst upon the lives of a once proud and self-governing people. Like the British colonial authorities, Okonkwo is in no hurry to argue with any force weaker than himself – or with weakness of any sort, period. When he encounters weakness, especially weakness symbolized in another individual, his first impulse is to kill it, squelch it, erase it. He is a veritable serial killer, armed with various stratagems for killing his nemesis – the weak. When a man named Osugo contradicts him at a meeting, a hectoring Okonkwo reminds the man that “this meeting is for men.” As Achebe informs us, Okonkwo knew “how to kill a man’s spirit.” During the Week of Peace, a period when the earth goddess mandates the absolute absence of rancor, belligerence and violence from the community in exchange for her bequest of a bountiful harvest, an imperious Okonkwo
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Strategy for fighting corruption thoughtlessly beats one of his wives. For me, the one thing that’s even more significant than Okonkwo’s untoward exhibition of rude power is his community’s poise, their possession of the ultimate means to chastise the errant hero, their capacity – in other words – to deal with the threat of a man who appears not to know where his moral boundaries lie. When he defames Osugo, Okonkwo is compelled to apologize. When he breaches the Week of Peace, he scandalizes his community and incurs the wrath of the goddess whose priest makes a brusque, chastening visit to Okonkwo to spell out the fines. Achebe damningly portrays Okonkwo as a man incapable of thought, a man who reposes too much faith in his physical prowess but puts no store by wisdom. Yet, there are numerous opportunities when the community forces Okonkwo to reckon with the fact that they – to say nothing of their ancestors and gods – are, in the end, more powerful than he. When the strongman foolishly ignores old Ezeudu’s counsel not to have a hand in killing the “doomed lad” called Ikemefuna, it falls to Obierika, Okonkwo’s best friend and an exemplar of the thinking man, to chide the morally repugnant Okonkwo. In a warning that proves prescient, Obierika describes Okonkwo’s participation in the killing of his
adoptive son as the kind of act for which “the earth goddess wipes off” an entire family. Okonkwo earns himself a seven-year exile in his maternal home, Mbanta, when his gun discharges accidentally, inadvertently causing the death of a clansman, Ezeudu’s son. In all of this, the instruction is that the people of Umuofia are able to rein in Okonkwo, a man who has developed a warped and ethically problematic vision of strength as corresponding to virtue. If he could, Okonkwo would gladly have stipulated that he was the only way and the light. He would have insisted that his community’s will be subordinated to his decrees. But Umuofia does not let him. Instead, the community constantly reclaims the ethical ground that Okonkwo wishes to usurp for sheer power. The culmination of this tussle between the community’s sense of propriety and Okonkwo’s faith in violence arrives towards the end of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The men of Umuofia are holding a meeting to decide an appropriate response to the troubling presence of white men who – to paraphrase Obierika – have put a knife to the things that held the community together, gravely threatening Umuofia’s corporate cohesion. The meeting has hardly taken off when the uniformed messengers of the white intruders appear, with instructions to disband the
gathering. Okonkwo confronts the haughty messengers, draws his machete and beheads one of them. In responding in this decisive, “manly” way to the provocations of the white presence, Okonkwo hopes to propel his fellows into war. In effect, he wishes to make a demand on the warriors of Umuofia. He wants them to prove themselves to him, to demonstrate that they deserve to be called warriors still. He wants them to illustrate that they have not become effeminate, wilted cowards. The men of Umuofia stoutly reject Okonkwo’s precipitate action. They resist the summons to go to war on Okonkwo’s terms. They have a time-tested, settled protocol they must follow before declaring a war. They won’t let a failure at “thinking,” a man whose genius lies exclusively in acting out violently, to determine the nature and timing of their response to the foreign invaders, however egregious and gratuitous the “white” provocation. Rather than join Okonkwo in battle, the men of Umuofia wonder aloud about his awful act. They do not admire his decision to act alone when communal action was meet and mandated. It is, of course, a moment of mutual incomprehension. Okonkwo misreads his community’s refusal to embrace his violent act as final proof of Umuofia’s
decline, its descent into paralysis. Convinced in his misapprehension, he leaves the scene of his final murder to go off and hang himself, no doubt viewing himself as a man utterly betrayed by his fellows, a man who sees no alternative other than a final act of separation: suicide. In death, as in life, Okonkwo is a figure of extreme impulsiveness. Left to his devices, he would sooner force his community to bend to his will. If it were up to him, then, even the ancestors and gods of Umuofia must redefine themselves according to Okonkwo’s strictures. In present-day Nigeria, a man like him could very well be an imperial president or governor – and proceed to mistake himself for the totality of his community, his interests and values superseding those of the rest of his people. Yet, Achebe’s first novel reveals how the members of the Umuofia community – ancestors, the living, and deities – work in concert to check Okonkwo’s masculinist excesses and to hold him accountable to the community’s ethical precepts. The question then arises: What has happened to weaken such faculties of ethical enforcement in contemporary Africa, specifically in the space called Nigeria? Follow Okey Nidbe on twitter @ okeyndibe
New Ekiti deputy gov steps into hallowed shoes By Dele Agekameh
I
t was swift and well calculated to deliver a big, maximum political punch on Ekiti politics. Perhaps, that is the only mild manner the sudden appointment last weekend of Modupe Adelabu as the deputy governor of Ekiti State could best be described. A professor of Education, Adelabu replaces the immediate past deputy governor, late Eunice Oluwafunmilayo Adunni Olayinka, who passed on, on April 6, 2013, following a protracted battle with cancer. The late Olayinka was an amazon gifted with guts, gumption and iron in her backbone while her sojourn on planet earth lasted. Unfortunately, her poise, finesse, elegance and mental acuity had been consumed by a notorious cancer that cut her down. The outpouring of emotions, grief, tributes, and the wellchoreographed rites of passage with which she was ‘escorted’ from her death bed to her final resting place at Ado-Ekiti, the fast growing capital of Ekiti State, attested to the high esteem the Ekitis usually accord their heroes and heroines, living or dead. No wonder many people, especially her kindred in Ekiti, knighted her “Moremi Ekiti”. This is a great honour and perhaps, the first time in the history of Yoruba land, that someone is considered worthy to literarily step into Moremi’s shoes. Moremi, in Yoruba mythology, was a damsel who was abducted (or kidnapped) by
some bandits from a particularly nagging tribe that perennially invaded Ile-Ife, the cradle of Yoruba land many, many years ago. On one of such raids, Moremi was taken along among the supposed captives, easily one of the spoils of wars then. Legend has it that Moremi allowed herself to be captured by her own volition. Before then, the Yoruba were always voting with their feet whenever the masquerade-looking invaders who they ignorantly referred to as ‘ara-orun’ (spirits) invaded IleIfe. Moremi stopped all that. During her period in captivity, she spied on the so-called invaders who had tormented her people for a long time. One day, she escaped and meandered her way back to Ile-Ife. There she revealed to her people that the recalcitrant invaders were actually human beings disguised in regalia made of raffia palm and dressed like masquerades to frighten and terrorise the people. Now loaded with the gift of insider knowledge, the Yoruba started plotting how to confront the terrorists. By the time they came on their next expedition, they were not only confronted by the now emboldened Yoruba, they were massively slaughtered and rooted. The trick was simple. Long bamboo sticks were mounted with ‘oguso’ (dried palm fruits waste), which was highly combustible. It is still used in some African rural settings to make bonfire till date. So many of them, stored in various ‘armouries’ all over the ancient town, were released. Bonfires were then made of them and the ‘masquerades’ were set on fire
one by one. Before they realised what was happening, the invaders had been rooted. Those who managed to escape, if any, never dared the Yoruba again. It is to the everlasting memory of the heroism of Moremi that the Yoruba worship and equate her with a deity, which she really was. It is in commemoration of the titanic battle that the Ife people celebrate her annually with what is known as ‘Edi’ festival, which holds towards the end of the year. It is an event which attracts people from all walks of life, including the Diaspora, to IleIfe. During the festival, which runs for about seven days, the fourth day called ‘ina-osan’, ‘noon fire’ is celebrated by inducing a mock ‘war’. Here, able-bodied men carrying thick and long firebearing sticks, usually emerge from the innermost recess of the palace of the Ooni of Ife. With the ferocious fire burning all through the streets, crisscrossing Itakogun and Arubidi quarters of the town, a distance of about six or more kilometers to the palace. The procession terminates at a sacred grove located deep inside a thick forest (Igbo Oro), in the Iyekere area of the ancient and historical city, close to present-day Ondo Road. This procession is held amidst drumming, singing, dancing and acrobatic displays by various traditional, gender, age and cultural groups in the town. After the fire-bearing men has exited the palace, another group of tall and huge men dressed in the costume of the ‘masquerade’ invaders of old, will
emerge from ‘hiding’ and dance round Enuwa quarters located just by the gate of the palace. They also dance inside the palace with youths and young children trooping behind them. The final day of the Edi festival is marked by the appearance of ‘Tele’. That seven-day revelry that accompanied the annual Edi festival was the equivalent of what the Ekitis did for Olayinka all through her death to her final interment. That was more than what a princess, which she was, deserved because Olayinka proved that it was possible for a lady to combine beauty with brain and sparkling achievements. By doing that, she joined the lengthy list of eminent women who are today occupying sensitive places in the hall of fame not only in Nigeria or Africa but the world at large. This is a big challenge for the new deputy governor who is stepping into such giant-size shoes. Do I call it Queen-size? I am quite sure that she is up to the task. This is because Adelabu’s academic standing speaks volumes about her talents. Kayode Fayemi, the workaholic, incumbent governor of Ekiti State, had initially wanted her as a deputy, but the case of her ailing husband at the time was more compelling for her total attention. Hence she politely turned down the offer. At that time, she was the Head of the Department of Educational Administration and Planning of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, the ancestral home of Moremi. She was later appointed chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board,
SUBEB. As someone who had served as external examiner in some reputable national and stateowned universities, I am sure the education sector in Ekiti State, which is the major industry in the state, is set to witness great transformation, I mean real transformation and certainly not a cosmetic one that has become music in the airwaves all over the place. I think the education portfolio and, in some cases, local government affairs are usually tucked under the purview of deputy governors, especially in educationally advanced states of the South-West of the country. Aside from the education sector, between 2000 and 2003, Adelabu was also a foundation member of Board of Ekiti State World Bank Assisted Poverty Reduction Agency. And fighting poverty is a major plank of the Fayemi administration in Ekiti State and by extension, a major political weapon being wielded by the Action Congress of Nigeria now re-christened All Progressives Congress, APC, a new political identity that is already sending shivers down the spines of other real and fake politicians in the country. I can bet it with any serious politician in Ekiti State today that the choice of Adelabu as deputy governor has given Fayemi another victory, a resounding victory at the yet-tobe-contested and conducted 2014 polls. This is indeed a win-win strategy designed to inflict maximum punishment on the rancorous opposition in the state! Dele Agekameh is on LinkedIn