The Journey | Nengi Josef Ilagha

MARY KUDARU began to say a prayer, and so I stood still, folded my arms across my chest, and bowed my head in all humility of spirit. She called on God to guide us safely from Jos, Plateau State, to Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. I was standing just behind the ambulance, just after the long black bag containing the body of my son had been safely tucked in. 

Around me stood the last few stragglers from the Television College, friends and classmates who had waited till the last moment to see off their buddy. Standing in their corners, Emmanuel and Patience, the two Kudaru siblings who had nursed my son in his last days, were obviously grief stricken. Their mother's prayer was exhaustive, touching upon the power of God to give life and to take life, and thanking the Lord for the precious gift that was the young life of Rembi. 

She recounted how much of a son he was to her, rather than a tenant from afar, and how overjoyed she would have been to take him back home alive and well. But since the worst had happened, she could only wish his family the brave heart to bear this imponderable loss. And then she prayed for God to lead the way, to go ahead of us, clear the path and take us safely through thick and thin to the Bayelsa State capital in the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

I found myself propelled towards her, arms outstretched, my eyes wet with tears. She gave me the matronly hug I needed. I transferred the same gesture of wordless gratitude to each and every one standing there, including Mukhtar Shagari, the muslim classmate of my son who had stayed back to join the prayers in bereaved silence. I gave Emmanuel a brotherly embrace and grabbed Patience to myself in a wholesome heartfelt way.

Patience had broken into Rembi's room, seen him in that helpless state, cleaned him up, dressed him and called for help. She had fed him his last spoon of pap before my very eyes. She was the lady to whom Rembi said his last conscious words. I missed you, he said, when she returned to keep watch over him after taking a short recess. Thank you, Patience, for everything you did for my son. Only God will reward you for your labour of love. I managed to say that in her ear.

Youni, the driver of the ambulance, was already revving the engine. Omale, settled in the front passenger seat, was already waving goodbye to James, and James was telling me it was time to get into the vehicle. So Patience gave me one more comforting pat on the back before letting me climb into the side door of the ambulance and take my place beside the supine form of the body bag, and the clutter of luggage around it. Only in the video did I see the van driving out of the precincts of the mortuary and heading towards the gate of the hospital, the voice of James wishing us safe journey one more time before the footage rolled to a stop.

Youni turned left and raced towards the statue of the polo rider on horseback at the famous roundabout before tearing through the early morning traffic of Jos, sounding the siren at appropriate intervals. I was doing my best not to believe that the solid form lying in a heap beside me was the body of my first son. Only when the van swerved sideways or ran into a depression, only then would I find myself holding tight to the body to prevent it from shifting, or letting anything fall on it.

As it turned out, I had to do that over and over again for as many times as there are potholes on Nigerian roads across a span of five states. But upfront, Omale was chatting up Youni and turning to seek my opinion from time to time. Youni was not the talkative kind, so all the talking was soon left for Omale to do, and Omale had so much to say, jumping from one story to the other, incident after incident, unravelling one plot after another. Every phone call he received seemed to inspire him to tell one more story. It was clear that he was doing his best to distract me.

My phone was busy too. I received calls from unexpected quarters, people I hadn't heard from for so long, calling to confirm what had happened and to express their sympathies. I was in touch with all my brethren who called in to know our progress, especially Alaboyai who was coordinating our movement from Abuja. We should head to Lafia, he said, where an escort team would meet us. Omale was sure that Lafia was not a long way off. With a few turns left and right, we should be there. As he put it, Lafia was just a shouting distance from Jos. Three hundred kilometres down the road, however, and we were still far from Lafia.

Then came a call from Alaboyai that we were headed in the wrong direction. The escort team was actually waiting for us in Keffi, not Lafia. So we had to turn around and trace back much of the ground we had covered until we veered off into the route that would lead us to Keffi. As far as Omale was concerned, that was also a shouting distance from where we were, and he said it confidently, with his nose in the air. Even so, the gridlock of traffic just before we entered Keffi took the edge out of the joke.

It was well past midday when we crawled into Keffi. The escort crew consisted of two police officers and the driver of the Hilux van. Having endured a long wait, they were all too ready to go. Youni was not too familiar with the route to the east and the deep south. He was understandably grateful to follow the lead of another driver who knew the way. He didn't have to bother, said Omale, claiming to know the route from Keffi all the way to Yenagoa. In the course of his work as a television anchor for NDDC in times past, he had enjoyed the privilege of criss-crossing the nation and traversing many states.

In any case, frankly speaking, from Keffi to Abuja was really a shouting distance now that a short-cut had been devised under an elaborate construction plan being undertaken by the Federal Government no less. From Abuja to the east was virtually a home run. Once we hit the lower end of Benue State, we leap towards Enugu, zap into Benin, cut out into Owerri and, bingo, we are as good as in Yenagoa. But, as they say, that was all easier said than done. The convoy of two vehicles cruised at appreciable speed through long drawn inter-state channels There were smooth interminable stretches of tar, but the rough patches and gaping potholes could not be missed.

We missed our way on the outskirts of Benin. Youni had zoomed ahead, not knowing that the police van had stopped for refreshment. After almost forty-five minutes of waiting along the road, the escort team finally caught up with us. It was already late afternoon and my phone was inundated with calls from family and friends anxiously following us every step of the way, just to be sure of our bearings.

All three of us -- Youni, Omale and I -- stepped out of the vehicle to stretch our limbs and ease ourselves and take a drink. But not Rembi. His face was covered, zipped up in that body bag as he was. He hadn't said a word since we left Jos. It was simply hard to believe that I was conveying the remains of my son across the length of Nigeria. I was just not thinking straight. My mind was simply numb. Thankfully, there was so much distraction along the way. Humanity in all its awesome diversity, its everyday heave of muscles, its relentless push for survival, quite dulled the raw edges of the pain.

My hands by now had become very familiar with holding Rembi's angular shoulders, to steady him at every bump, every jerky run of tyres, every skid in the mud, every gallop, every sudden stop. In Benin, we spent the better part of three hours in traffic. The sun had generated enough heat in every enclosed space. Posh cars could keep their air conditioners on and their windows up, but passengers could be seen fanning themselves inside crowded vehicles. We had dropped our windows also to let in fresh air. In spite of the overbearing heat, however, I could not help but notice that my son's body was already growing cold where I touched him.

By the time we entered Owerri, the sun had receded with the last beam of gold in the western sky, and its heat had softened into a more clement breeze made even more intimate by the descending pall of night. The frenzy along the streets had taken on a different character with the close of day. Lights were coming on, but the overwhelming blanket of darkness did not leave anyone in doubt that it was time to close shop. Man, woman and child were in a hurry to get back home, and the rev of engines caused the evening air to throb with an energy all its own.

Again, we missed our turning at the roundabout defining the Cathedral of Ascension and its milling flock of feet, but once we found our bearings out of Owerri, it was one straight roll of tyres over the darkening tar, our headlights bright to distinction, picking up every shape in the distance. The check points along the road were becoming more visible. Not that we didn't meet any on our way from Jos, but their numbers seemed to increase as we drove down south. Our police escort now made more sense. They simply cleared every barrier for the ambulance to pass.

By the time we crossed the boundary into Rivers State, the check points had become far more frequent, a shouting distance apart. We virtually slowed down every ten minutes, and you couldn't quite question the police. They just had to do their job. The night, after all, had fallen fully upon the face of the earth. It was time, as Shakespeare would put it, for "good things of day to droop and drowse while night's black agents to their preys do rouse." At the steering wheel, Youni's expertise as a driver came on show as he dodged sudden craters and picked his way through craggy patches of gravel, headlights tearing through the dark.

It was well past ten when we turned right into the east-west road at Elele. I could read a feeling of relief in the voices of family and friends who called to know just how close we had come. The escort van stopped to refuel at Ahoada, and we had to wait awhile. When the team leader walked up to us, however, he said we could go the rest of the way to Yenagoa. They would return to Abuja at once. 

I couldn't believe it. What's the point? It's past ten already, two hours to midnight. Why risk it? He said they always did that. It was all in the line of duty. But I would not take it. I insisted that we were not yet at our final destination. Their brief was to escort my son's corpse to Yenagoa, not Ahoada. The officer eventually saw reason with me and the convoy resumed its determined drive through the growing silence of the night.

Yenagoa was in utter darkness when we arrived. If the public lights were on perhaps more people might have been seen. By all accounts, our road was full of cars that day. Sympathizers had trooped to the family house in droves, and residents in the neighbourhood were still in shock over the news about Rembi, the tall, lanky, fair-skinned journalist with Silverbird television who always had a smile to share. It was well past eleven o'clock when Youni finally turned from the express way into Emmanuel Otiotio Road, and I directed him to a gradual stop at the end of Pentecost Close.

Only family members were still waiting - uncles, aunts, Rembi's female cousins, my twin sister's children, and his beloved younger sister, Karamote. I stepped out of the ambulance and received a welcome hug from everyone present. I suppose I gave them reason to be brave about it all. No one could really cry. The long, nerve-wracking wait was enough to wear out anybody. At least, we had arrived Yenagoa safely with the body after a rugged journey from the north. The back of the vehicle was still closed and even as the luggage was removed, no one could tell that Rembi was lying there lifeless.

The protocol team at home was already in action. They had taken count of everyone on the trip, cornered the escort crew to the dinner table, and later to their hotel rooms. I felt a great burden lifted off me when my uncles began to give directions about what next to do right now and early the next day. It was well past midnight when I sent a short text message to the good-natured and God-fearing Mrs Mary Kudaru and her family in Jos to the effect that we had arrived Bayelsa safely. What was left was to go to sleep, wake up, slide inevitably into mourning mode, and cope with the grief that came with every lonely moment.

After The Funeral

I FOUND myself reading through the early poems of Gabriel Okara in the quiet hours after I returned from his home town, Bomoundi, across the River Nun. My mind was still fresh with images from the final burial rites of the venerable poet. 

I had attended every single event leading up to the burial. My good friend, Emmanuel Frank-Opigo, special marshal and former chairman of the Association of the Nigerian Authors, ANA Bayelsa chapter, was kind enough to give my wife and I a ride from Yenagoa to the Garden City. 

At the service of songs in the Atlantic Hall of Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt, I was reminded of what Okara told me about being a Christian scientist. It is about getting to know God better, he said. It is about investigating the scriptures with the eye of a scientist, and arriving at a better appreciation of the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. 

It was from Okara I first heard of Christ Jesus rather than Jesus Christ. We were riding in a car bought for him by the Alamieyeseigha government many years ago, heading for his Port Harcourt home. There was an evident sense of awe, a solemn adulation, in the voice of the old man when he said Christ Jesus. 

I could not help but share in the veneration felt by such a respectable poet for Christ Jesus, Son of God. Frankly, I didn’t know anything about how Christian scientists worship until that service of songs in honour of Okara. Two pastors were on the pulpit, male and female, and they complemented each other in taking Bible passages.

The following day, I attended the lecture at the Ebitimi Banigo Hall of the University of Port Harcourt in my blazing red hat. It was the first time my wife and I would walk along the lanes of our alma mater like royalty, many years after we graduated from the Department of English & Literary Studies. 

I was glad to sit amongst a distinguished audience of professors and students to listen to a paper on the poetry of Gabriel Okara presented by Professor Chimalum Nwankwo, a Nigerian don from an American university. I also met Okara’s first son for the first time, and I couldn’t stop shaking hands with the gentleman and his American wife. 

Dr Ebidou Okara was so humble that he left his seat on the high table and was in the process of picking up a chair for a dignitary that had just arrived the hall. The master of ceremonies had to stop him mid-way before the spirit of Okara was offended.

In spite of the heavy rain that evening, we drove to Delta Park for a night of poetry recital at “The Crab.” I felt a keen nostalgia as I gazed at the sculptural piece of Ola Rotimi’s head hanging by the entrance to the theatre. The last time I sat inside “The Crab” at the University of Port Harcourt was in 1984 when Femi Osofisan staged two plays, Once Upon Four Robbers, and Oriki Of A Grasshopper, which I reviewed for the maiden edition of the English departmental journal, Ofirima. For the first time since The Crab was built, I took centre stage and performed a popular Okara poem off the cuff, in what may well have been a dress rehearsal for the real thing.

Back in Yenagoa, in the course of the Requiem of Nine Verses organised by the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Bayelsa chapter, I stood behind a glass lectern to read another stanza from Okara’s famous poem, “The Snowflakes Sail Gently Down.” It turned out to be a rendering that gave me the privilege of posing for a photograph with the acclaimed critic, Professor Ernest Emenyonu. 

The following day, inside the grand bowl of the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre, Yenagoa, I had the singular honour of being called upon to recite “Piano & Drums,” that majestic poem that still echoes Okara’s cross-cultural voice over the timeline of two successive centuries. I am yet to see a recording of that event, but I hear my performance came out stellar. The ovation in my ears told me that much, but I still wonder if any television station captured it at close quarters.

It was a joy to meet with famous scholars and writers of every genre and pedigree who had all come to pay their final respects to the genius of Gabriel Okara. I was a primary witness to the last moment when the earth was tipped in a growing pile upon the casket that held the remains of Africa’s oldest poet. 

Long after the event, after the return from Bomoundi, across the River Nun, I remain intrigued by the last stanza of the title poem in Okara’s Fisherman’s Invocation, those lines that read like a recession hymn to a festival of life. 

The celebration is now ended 
but the echoes are all around
whirling like a harmattan
whirl wind, throwing dust around
and hands cover faces and feet grope.

I am one of those who still live with echoes of Okara’s voice in my head, and I have come to realise that Okara was truly fascinated with the origins of the earth, the origins of life. He was curious about the personality of God. In his early writing career, he expressed this curiosity in what may count as his first play, a rendering of the primeval story of mankind according to Ijaw mythology. He told the story of Ogboinba. 

The play was put on stage for a mournful audience at the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre in the course of the funeral obsequies, the corpse of the venerable poet in attendance.  But, even more importantly, Okara was fascinated by the subject of death, the end of a given lifetime. He pondered some of the hard questions that still confront mankind today. What happens to the soul after death? Should the body be buried, eaten up by worms, or should it be burnt as a sacrifice to the Maker? 

At the age of thirty-one, Okara expressed this profound dilemma in a poem that needs to be given a second look. The poem in question is entitled “Were I To Choose.” The full import of the last stanza, in particular, struck me like an epiphany. 

Then the massive dark
Descends, and flesh and bone
Are razed. And (O were I to choose) 
I’d cheat the worms
And silence seek in stone.

In simple terms, what the poet is saying in this last stanza is that, if he had a choice in the matter, he would rather be cremated than be eaten up by maggots. In other words, if he had his way, he would have his flesh and bones razed to ashes, and so deny the worms the pleasure of nibbling every nerve and every vein of his body. He would rather that his remains were burnt on a sacred altar, and his ashes gathered for burial.

It is a mark of the poet’s ingenuity that, in all his lifetime, this hopeful sentiment was hidden in the body of a poem, and no reader, no analyst, no professor of literature, could fish it out early enough for public scrutiny before the death of Okara, before the days leading to his final interment in a grave. 

The remains of the poet were laid to rest on Saturday June 22, 2019, at Bomoundi. According to forensic research, it takes forty days after burial for a corpse to be completely stripped of all flesh. The last organ to decompose is the tongue. What remains after that is the bare bones, the full skeleton of what used to be a living human being.

No one would think it necessary to exhume the remains of Gabriel Okara at this point, and grant him the secret wish of his heart. It is instructive only, that we study more closely the works of the masters we think we understand, for nuggets hidden in the folds of their imagination that just might throw new insights to guide mankind aright. 

Consider the range of the poem in its full ambit. It takes its origins from the very first man, and evolves ingenuously to arrive at that disturbing contemplation about how best to dispose of the body after death. This thought-provoking poem, no doubt, is vintage Gabriel Okara.

WHEN ADAM broke the stone
And red streams raged down to 
Gather in the womb,
An angel calmed the storm

And, I, the breath mewed
In Cain, unblinking gaze
At the world without
From the brink of an age that

Draws from the groping lips
A breast-muted cry
To thread the years
(O were I to choose)

And now the close of one
And thirty turns, the world
Of bones is Babel, and
The different tongues within
Are flames the head
Continually burning
And, O, of this dark halo
Were the tired head free
And when the harmattan 
Of days has parched the throat
And skin, and sucked the fever 
Of the head away

Then the massive dark
Descends, and flesh and bone
Are razed. And (O were I to choose) 
I’d cheat the worms
And silence seek in stone.

Goodbye To A Laureate

IN JUNE, 2011, two weeks after I returned from England after a two-year stay, I was invited to chat with an unknown friend on Rhythm FM in Abuja. My partner and I were to discuss writing, books and authors on a general note. I kept wondering who my sparring partner would be on the subject and Matilda Duncan, our hostess, would not disclose the name.

At a quarter to airtime when I was ushered into the studio, a young man in a black suit, a tuft of beard prominent upon his chin, was already seated before one of two microphones. Reading glasses over the bridge of his nose, he was flipping through a small book and held a ceedee in hand. 

We shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Matilda introduced us to each other, welcomed us both to her programme, “The Afternoon Drive Show” on Rhythm 94.7 FM, Abuja, and began to pop questions. Until then, I had never heard of the name Ikeogu Oke. But in one instant, I was meeting the man and the content of the man in one living bundle. From his first outpouring over the microphone, he struck me as articulate and eloquent. He expressed himself with the certainty of a man who was well informed and at home with his share of knowledge. 

For one talkative hour, Oke and I had a lively discussion that Matilda described as one of her most exciting sessions on radio. There was still so much to talk about, and the time proved to be too short. Our discussion continued outside the studio, long enough for us to walk to each other’s car, exchange numbers, and sign autographs. 

Oke gave me a children’s book dedicated to his daughter, a book of rhymes set to music, complete with musical notes and scores. An accompanying ceedee was stuck into the cover. I read the book perfunctorily, taking note of the playful nursery rhyme scheme, but did not get to listen to the ceedee.

I was, however, struck by an endorsement of Oke’s work by no less a figure than Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Literature. Oke said he had met her in South Africa, and she had graciously and willingly taken a look at his manuscript of a forthcoming book, and given her word for it to be reproduced on the blurb of the book.

I thought that was fantastic, and I still think so. To get an endorsement from a Nobel Laureate is fantastic for any young writer. It doesn’t happen every day. It’s a credential worth brandishing, and I looked forward to reading Oke’s book in quick time. 

After that, I didn’t get to see or hear from him again until we became friends on Facebook. I followed his posts with studious devotion, even though I was not loud in my followership. But every time he posted a poem, I found reason to like it. And whenever he marked a like on my script, I saw it as an endorsement from higher quarters.

The big surprise came to me when Oke’s book, The Heresiad, emerged winner of the NLNG poetry prize, beating renowned contenders including Ogaga Ifowodo and Tanure Ojaide out of the way. My first reaction came with the initial shortlist. I was rooting for the poet, Amu Nadi, but he didn’t even make it to the first three. I remember carrying a placard in honest protest, but a revelation was just ahead of me. 

I am familiar with the folkloric mastery of language in the poetry of Tanure Ojaide, and I recognise him as a poet worthy of all the laurels he has won so far. He remains a professor of literature at the University of North Carolina, United States of America, and I missed getting to meet with him when I visited the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, in July 2006.

I was also at home with the urban quality of Ogaga Ifowodo’s poetry, its evident cosmopolitan muscle. I remain a first-hand witness to Ogaga’s growth as a poet from his first collection, Homeland, winner of the 1993 Association of Nigerian Authors poetry award, to his second, Madiba. 

His strength as a poet of remarkable discipline and dedication to popular causes were fully demonstrated in his third collection, The Oil Lamp, and I could understand why Ogaga Ifowodo went that far with his new book of poems, A Good Mourning. 

But I knew nothing of the poetry of Ikeogu Oke. Only much later did I get to understand why the respected panel of judges chose Oke’s book ahead of his peers. Today, I am better advised about the poetry of Ikeogu Oke. I can speak with fair authority about the mission of his poetry, and his relevance in the evolving poetic schemata in the Nigerian literary space.

The Heresiad, winner of the 2017 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, occupied my attention on the long journey from Makurdi to Yenagoa with five cantos which confirmed to me that a major poet had arrived on the stage to define new parameters for Nigerian poetry. That’s my take as to what Ikeogu Oke did in that work, and I have every reason to celebrate him for a truly ground-breaking experiment in Nigerian poetry.

For me, Ikeogu Oke proved to Nigerian poets that Homer could jolly well have been reborn within our borders, complete with the sheer metrical discipline of his lines, and the universal gamut of the subject he undertakes to explore. I find it remarkable that Oke conceived of that book twenty-seven years ago, and took that length of time to complete work on it, when in fact the narrative thrust of that epic work is so recent.

The very first sentence of the first canto caught my attention. “A monarch, of a subterranean kingdom, angered by some of the contents of a book, pronounces a death sentence on its author, accusing him of heresy.”

That story line still sounds familiar to me. It reminds me of what happened between Mingi and Mingi-Yai. I hastened to read the book and came away with the distinct impression that Oke was utterly prophetic, even to the point of speaking peace.

Let me be frank about this. I had a hard time trying to cope with news of his demise. I just couldn’t bring myself to understand why it had to happen. I drifted along with thoughts about him for so long that I almost forgot my personal tribute to him, scribbled in the most unguarded moments of grief. 

I didn’t write a poem about him. I didn’t write anything spectacular. I just thought of the few times I met with Ikeogu Oke after that radio encounter, and wondered if he was really without life anymore. 

I had come to know him as a spontaneous craftsman capable of responding to every prompting of the spirit. I was even more intrigued by the ready couplets he composed on the spur of the moment, and how speedily they captured current political events as they unfolded in distinctive rhymed verse. 

Oke would have served delectable verses about the withdrawal of Oby Ezekwesili from the presidential race, and the peremptory suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria by presidential fiat. Alas, his soul has levitated to higher climes, and we are left to miss him.

When he won the prize, Ikeogu Oke came into his element. He had achieved the well-deserved status of a poet laureate and he celebrated it with a conscious appreciation of his newfound place in the hall of Nigerian letters. He appeared at public functions with appropriate afflatus, and conducted himself with an apparent esteem of his ranking as a prime griot to reckon with. 

We met again on the dinner night of the ANA Makurdi convention on October 28, 2017, and that’s when he autographed a personal copy of The Heresiad for me. I heard him read from his book at the occasion, and I could not help but feel slightly let down because he did not strike me as a good reader. 

He could not rise to the lofty tonalities of his poetry. His performance was forced, his interpretation of his cadences far less majestic than his pages suggested. Even so, Ikeogu Oke saw himself as a poet-priest, and this was to be seen in his costume. He saw himself as the manifestation of the seer with the proverbial tiger mask and nude spear that Christopher Okigbo wrote about. 

But I could not quite come to terms with his persistent attempt to get his audience to appreciate rigorous, if not exotic metrical English verse, dressed as he was in the garments of a local dibia. It was a cross between music from a piano and the wild syncopation of jungle drums. 

It was like watching Homer or Virgil or Alexander Pope bestriding the stage in animal skin, sporting the woolly cap of a juju priest. For, indeed, these were the models upon whose delicate art Ikeogu Oke built his career as a poet. 

I saw a dramatic disconnection there, and I meant to point this out to him, if we ever sat down together to chat the world to tatters. I would have gladly persuaded him to put aside the theatrical gear that was becoming an identity mantle on him. But that's how he wanted to be remembered. 

I have since come to the conclusion that Ikeogu Oke was a teacher. He came to teach Nigerian poets how to write poetry in the twenty-first century, in the mould of the classics, in the manner of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth and John Keats. 

He came to teach Nigerian poets the importance of metrical discipline, the intricate vitality of rhyme and rhythm. He came to teach us how to fill up the lines in our free verses, and clip them at the end with the safety pin of a suitable rhyme.

In a literary landscape inundated by an overgrowth of free verse, Ikeogu Oke came to tend the lawn, to demonstrate the rigour that goes with metrical composition, to show how to come to grips with the dictates of the heroic couplet, and keep in tandem with the compelling march of the iambic pentameter.

Ikeogu Oke is no longer in a position to add one more line to his impressive poetic legacy, but any Nigerian poet who seeks to learn the rudiments of instantaneous versification is free to log on. 

His Facebook wall, like his open heart, is still festooned with immortal nuggets of his everyday wisdom couched in structured, lyrical verse. Nigeria is less by one visionary interpreter of human nature. To say the least, his comments will be sorely missed in this season of treacherous politics. 

At the height of the apartheid era, Lewis Nkosi, the erudite South African critic received the loss of the irrepressible Can Themba with a feeling of personal deflation. Of his maverick fellow country man, Nkosi said as follows: “the son of a bitch had no business to die.” 

It was a verdict that captured the anguish of that painful moment. Ikeogu Oke was no son of a bitch by any standard, but he had no business to die.

A Tour Of Friendship

NDUKA OTIONO was excited at the prospect of presiding over the formation of a new chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, in Bayelsa State. He was even more excited when I told him that the venerable poet of the River Nun fame, Gabriel Imomotimi Okara, had agreed to be our grand patron. Otiono and I share a long-standing friendship, dating back to 1991. I had taken my place as a staff writer in Eko, the new magazine from the Newswatch stable. Our editorial brief was to report Lagos to Lagosians. We shared offices with Quality, the better known soft-sell magazine under the pioneering editorship of May Ellen Ezekiel. Otiono was a staff writer on the Quality line-up after May went on to set up Classique.

On my first day at work along our office in Oregun, Lagos, I found myself sitting between two reporters for Quality whose names were already well known in the pages of the magazine. To my left was Paschal Anyaso, and to my right was Tony Otiono, as he was called then. I learnt a lot by merely looking at these two gentlemen. They both had this serious approach to duty, and it was good to see them write the stories that would be read all around the nation the following week.

Before long, I earned my respect from both journalists when they read my humble reports in Eko, to say nothing of my column “Street Smart.” Louisa Ayonote, editor of the magazine and daughter of Nigeria’s former military Head of State, General Thompson Aguiyi-Ironsi, had singled me out for the privilege of posting a weekly column, a seven-day capsule of Lagos in all its chaotic heave of noise and brawn. I do wonder where I kept those scripts.

Nduka and I kept in touch long after our days at Oregun. He became editor of the literary pages of a foremost newspaper of its day, The Post Express, and published some of my poems on his page. Many years later, as a simple gesture to our common love for literature, we collaborated in the publication of an anthology entitled Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writing from Nigeria.  Edited by Otiono and Diego Okenyodo, the book was published on my label, Treasure Books. Seventy Nigerian writers, male and female, cutting across prose and poetry genres, inhabit the pages of the book.

Otiono’s healthy ambition was evident in his long introduction to Camouflage. He aspired to outdo the landmark effort by Harry Garuba of blessed memory in the maiden anthology of one hundred new Nigerian poets entitled Voices From The Fringe, published by Malthouse in 1988. Otiono gave a good assessment of the dynamics of Nigerian literature from its inception to that point in time, spelling out the steadfast ideals behind the formation of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, by its founding fathers, and underscoring the ascendancy of new voices.

When he became General Secretary of the Association, I was invited to serve as Editor of the journal, ANA Review, and I did that throughout the tenure of the Professor Olu Obafemi presidency. At that time, I came to appreciate Otiono’s sheer passion for the growth of literature in Nigeria. He believed that great literature was being written in every corner of the nation, and it was our express duty to harness it with a wholesome spirit, and preserve it for posterity.

A staunch believer in the intrinsic value of literature to society, Otiono was obsessed with discovering new writers, and opening new vistas of progress for them. He always found something good in a manuscript, a take-away line that would tickle him to loud and raucous laughter, and he was never short of encouraging words for an aspiring author. 

Otiono’s popularity was tested and proven amongst the enthusiastic breed of younger and fledgling writers during the ANA convention in Port Harcourt in 2001 when he was elected the national General Secretary of the Association. That convention also saw my wife, Bina Nengi-ilagha, clinching the prose prize for fiction with her first novel, Condolences. I still have photos of me and my victorious wife flanked by Otiono and the famous novelist, Elechi Amadi, at that historic summit. 

Beyond the Presidential Hotel venue of the convention, Otiono, David Diai, and I had shared poetry and our love of journalism in the bustling bukkas not far from The Tide newspaper where I worked as editor of the weekend edition, just overlooking the sprawling motor park along Ikwerre Road, Port Harcourt.

The only time I saw Otiono out of circulation was when he lay in a hospital bed for weeks at Eko Hospital, Lagos, recovering from gunshot wounds to his upper arm inflicted by armed robbers. The experience left a hollow disenchantment in Otiono, a deep-seated distrust for his nation, but it did not dampen his crusading zeal for Nigerian literature.

From the moment he walked out of that hospital, Otiono began to plot his way out of Nigeria. In the end, he secured a place in a Canadian university, and has grown to become a citizen of that country along with his beloved wife, Onyisi, and their brilliant daughter, Kika. He remains an active literary scholar, and I see in him a good example of how to become a professor of literature in Canada.

Under Otiono’s tenure as General Secretary, five new chapters of ANA were inaugurated, the highest to have been so established in the history of the Association. I am still grateful to him for the conscious role he played in setting up the Bayelsa chapter of ANA. His involvement was complete from day one.

He made repeated visits to Glory Land ahead of the formal inauguration. In the intervening few days, we took our places behind the microphones at Radio Bayelsa, as we had done on the network service of the NTA in times past, talking literature. He spoke eloquently in that vibrant baritone of his about the need to cultivate new writers from Bayelsa, especially because Gabriel Okara was from Bayelsa.

That was all the cue Otiono needed. He went into full flight, making cross-cultural connections between the literature of Black America, and the corresponding voices from Africa and the Caribbean. He recalled a wide range of poets and critics in his free-wheeling discourse, and you could hear the names of Langston Hughes and Leopold Sedar Senghor and Derek Walcott. He spoke about J.P. Clark and Wole Soyinka and, in all of that, he was spelling out the distinguished literary company in which Gabriel Okara remains a doyen.

Not too long ago, I saw the cover of a familiar book on the wall of my long-standing friend. He was wondering if anybody still had a copy of an anthology of poems entitled 25 New Nigerian Poets. I indicated that I had a copy, so he called me from Ottawa, Canada, asking if I would let him know the poems he submitted that gained entrance into that landmark collection.

I went in search of the book in my humble library. Imagine my surprise when I found the book and turned the pages. I was listed as the first out of twenty-five poets in Nigeria. To say the least, I was suitably delighted and I remain so. I had completely forgotten about this book published twenty years ago, in 2000, by an American critic called Ishmael Reed who had taken more than a passing interest in contemporary Nigerian poetry.

The anthology was edited by Toyin Adewale-Gabriel. I feel like posting what she had to say twenty years ago in her introduction to the book. It’s quite short, but its perceptive insight cannot be mistaken. Toyin is the author of Naked Testimonies, her first book of poems, which came second only to “Mantids,” my first book of poems, in the keenly contested poetry finals of 1995.

Almost twenty years after the formation of ANA Bayelsa, from 2001 to the present, a number of high points stick out like milestones in the journey of the writers’ body. New writers have emerged, new books from Bayelsa are on the shelves, and Otiono is suitably gratified at how giant oaks have grown from little acorns.

But the single most significant event in recent times may well be the passage of the great bard, Gabriel Okara. It is an eventuality that needs to be recaptured in all its dizzying colours, one year after the event, and Otiono is all for it. If he had his way, in fact, he would have come all the way from Canada to attend the final burial rites of Okara in Yenagoa and Bomoundi.

Even so, Otiono maintains, the brochures are still there to consult. They offer timeless encomiums to the memory of the father of modern Nigerian poetry as we know it today, the first African poet to break the rules about rhyme and rhythm, insisting and demonstrating that a poem does not have to live within the margins of a strict syntactic bracket, that man does not go about speaking in rhymes all the time, that every day conversation is free of metrical encumbrances.

Every day conversation can be elegant, for all it may be worth. It can contain the finest elements of poetry, too, but it does not have to end on a rhyming note. Shakespeare wrote sonnets, but did he always speak that way? It doesn’t have to be heroic pentameters all the time. It doesn’t need to come in octaves and sextets. The sentiments of a poet should gush forth, and speak of freedom in human terms correct to the next phrase. A poem should reach out and raise the heartbeat of man. Poetry should speak to the heart of your neighbour without tailor-made garments of metrical propriety.

Otiono could not but agree that this was virtually Okara’s thinking when he set out to write poetry, breaking away from the pattern set by Dennis Osadebey and the pre-colonial poets of African descent in the Caribbean and the Americas, and their unrelieved indulgence in rhymed verses that sounded like hymnal compositions. Okara, in short, was the first African poet to write free verse and still command the attention of European critics.

Nduka Otiono has come a long way from that newsroom at Oregun where our paths as creative writers crossed. Thankfully, there was space for short stories in the two magazines, and we both set about publishing isolated pieces. But Otiono was quick to put his first book together. He did so before me. The sheaves of paper he was carrying around then turned out to be the early sketches of the stories he later published in his first collection of short fiction entitled, The Night Hides With A Knife.

The book went on to win the ANA-Spectrum Prize for Fiction a year after its publication, and Otiono was duly encouraged. But his prompting took a different course in the direction of poetry when he assembled his first book of poems under the title, Voices In The Rainbow, which also went on to earn honourable mention in the ANA-Cadbury Poetry category.

His second collection of poems, Love In A Time Of Nightmares, won him the James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing. It is remarkable that, many years later, Nduka Otiono has seen it fit to revisit both collections and add a few recent nuggets of gold in a new book of poems with an introduction by Professor Chris Dunton, a notable critic of African literature.

When I look at my friend’s profile today, I marvel at what possibilities the mind can attain when it is fully awake and committed to an idea. Today, Otiono is the graduate programme coordinator at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He is the two-time winner of a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship, and he ranks as the co-editor of six books so far, the most recent being his thoughtful tribute to his personal friend and colleague, the inimitable Professor Pius Adesanmi, entitled Wreaths For A Wayfarer.

Otiono is proud of the experience he gained working as a visiting Assistant Professor alongside the distinguished novelist, Chinua Achebe, at Brown University in times past. Otiono still talks about that experience as a worthwhile apprenticeship at the foot of a master craftsman, and he may jolly well be right.

A few days ago, Professor Nduka Otiono sent me a photograph that took my mind back to a time when we were both active members of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos State chapter. I remembered our meetings at the Surulere residence of a respected member, at the Bode Thomas secretariat of ANA, and at the Goethe Institute on Victoria Island, Lagos.

I remember one particular event where I delivered the famous poem by Olu Oguibe from his first collection, A Gathering Fear. The author himself was there to shake hands with me for taking his long poem, “I Am Bound To This Land By Blood,” with the authority of a primary witness. I remember Otiono himself playing host to writers at his home in a brotherly and convivial setting that enabled me to meet, for the first time, with young writers like Sanya Osha, David Diai, and Chike Ofili, to mention but three.

And this picture before me confirms even more surely what happened that distant day when I drove out of Yenagoa, and flew from Port Harcourt to attend an ANA meeting at the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. My good old friend, Nduka Otiono, was there to welcome me against a backdrop of art works.

In the middle of our felicitations, my phone rang. I flipped it open, and heard the voice of Alamieyeseigha—my principal and governor of Bayelsa State at the time—rebounding over the distance, directing me to write the next speech for a forth-coming event. I didn’t tell him where I was, or who I was with. I simply assured him with a smile that he should consider the script done.

After the call, between pleasantries and so much back-slapping, Otiono and I walked into the hall and joined other writers in the deliberations of an Association that used to speak with one resounding voice.

A Sermon For All Seasons

MC was the neatest inmate in my cell. There was no doubt about that. He was neater than everyone else, and he was certainly neater than me. He never repeated an under garment in twenty-four hours. He had a pair of boxers and a singlet for every single day of the week, seven sets for seven days. The set he wore on Monday was not repeated on Tuesday, and the set he wore on Saturday was not repeated on Sunday.

On the contrary, it was washed, dried, ironed and carefully folded among the other six pairs of under garments for the rest of the week. The bed space was small, a six-spring bed, but MC kept it as tidy as possible. That, come to think of it, was his bedroom. I was in mine in the upper deck of the double-decker bed beside that of MC and Apostle Paul. The bed is dressed in a clean bedsheet, and MC’s clothes are stacked in a neat pile at a corner, like a clip from a detergent ad on television.

MC believed in minding his business. He had little input to make in the conversation of others, but whenever he interjected, he did so with the voice of one who was certain about what he had to say. More than any other inmate in the cell, he exercised himself daily, lifting two Olympic weights stuck in cement on either side of an iron bar. I was often woken up by his early morning panting, as his muscles rippled and the sweat broke out on his body, even as other inmates waited to pick up the weight and prime their muscles.

He had set meal times, MC did. He took breakfast when it was time for breakfast, set lunch before him when it was due, and by early evening he was through with his last meal for the day. When every other inmate was getting set for dinner, MC was taking time to brush his mouth. He never went to bed without this sacred duty.

MC, in short, was a stickler for time. He had set ways of doing things. Apart from keeping his clothes well arranged on the bed, he would never go towards the White House for a visit without dabbing some powder on his face, looking in the mirror, and smoothening the creases on a new shirt before wearing it.

MC earned his full title the day he served as Master of Ceremony at the very rare annual occasion of the state prison superintendent’s visit to the yard. The commotion built up quickly from early morning. Every worker in the yard seemed to have become more conscious of their uniform, and each one of them did well to emphasize their place in the chain of authority.

An early morning raid of our cell announced the change in mood of the yard government. Inmates were summarily found guilty of trespass of every kind. Defaulters were quickly identified and given grass portions to cut. There was all around the yard a frenetic attempt to keep order and quiet, to say nothing of tidy corridors and neat cells with well-behaved inmates in them, all so happy to welcome the overall boss.

MC picked up the microphone, underscored the rarity of the event, and called for the two football teams that had been practicing for the past two weeks, to begin the novelty match in honour of the boss. Following every swing and every swerve, every kick and every dive, he ran commentaries, with the accurate dexterity of Ernest Okonkwo.

It made you wonder why Michael, MC for short, was in prison at all. He was too good to be in this cell, too much of a correctly domesticated man to be in a dungeon. But since he found himself here, the best of the man seemed to have taken the better of him. He had become so much closer to God that he had come to be acknowledged as the spiritual head of the cell by the clerk, if not everyone else.

His prayers broke as soon as the first clap of hands sounded outside the window. He mumbled his solicitation in a steady stream of words, sprinkling his supplications with appropriate Bible passages, and made short work of the pastor’s devotion. It was a wonder why he was not the pastor of the cell, why Apostle Paul wore that distinguished mantle instead.

Michael probably became confirmed as the spiritual head of the cell when I finished a short sermon on New Year’s day. I had taken permission from Apostle Paul, and pleaded with him to let me say a word or two to my fellow inmates, guided by the holy scriptures. Since this was the first day of the year, I thought it fit to begin our meditation from the book of Genesis, with specific regard to the misbehaviour of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Without mincing words, I equated the act of eating the forbidden fruit with the indecency of a man placing his head deep inside the crotch of a woman. It was the most foolish thing any man can do, I said. I called it a clitoral crime, and repeated the image so often that the Provost of the cell began spitting before the sermon was over. The apparent distaste for the subject was evident, and I had not chosen the right words to explore the theme of my sermon.

MC stood up, cleared his throat, and promptly took exception to the message. He described it in grand terms as a satanic distraction unsuitable for the beginning of the year. I couldn’t but commend his confident tone of assertion. You may be right, I said, but the fact remains that that’s what Adam did under the forbidden sight of God. That’s why God was so angry that he drove the fellow out of that idyllic home.

I would have gone ahead to tell MC just how right he was. Yes, it was Satan that tempted Adam into committing that crime. When Adam gets to realise it, he would crush the head of Satan just the way God wants it, said I.

The cell was quiet and attentive. Even the two Indians, Captain Sailish and Chandrashekar, sat up to listen to me. Everyone, in their private corners, was still waiting to hear what I would say next. Not even the Big Bad Wolf could grunt. I sat there in my long white gown, as immobile as a monk upon a mountain top, my grey beards bristling like the whiskers of a stray cat. I was about to utter the very next sentence when the image of Alamieyeseigha rose before me like a clement mist.

Lest I forget, I had no way of seeing MC’s face on the first night I entered the cell. He had already retired into his mosquito net, and had nothing to say. When I saw him in the full view of daylight, my heart went out to him. He was a handsome young man with an obvious dent on his forehead, and I could not help but wonder what might have happened to him. He might have been involved in an accident and, O, what pain he must have endured to have that gaping wound stitched in so many places.

It did not take me long to know how it happened. To start with, MC was in love with a woman, a beautiful piece of Eve as far as he could tell, and he wanted to keep her for himself and himself only. For that reason, he had to work hard. He had to earn money, impress the love of his life, and possibly get to call her his wife. I was witness to how passionately MC expressed his love for his darling in the dead of night, from his pillow in that cell.

Christmas and New Year days were the most painful. He was behind bars and could not see his heart-throb. It was another festive season, and where could she be? He didn’t have anything to send to her. Would she still love him the way she said she did? He could not bear to think that any man would extend their randy hands to touch his beloved.

I was witness to his anguish as he whispered desperately into the mouthpiece of his “mata,” before anyone knew that he was reaching out to the outside world in a midnight call. The mata, by the way, is the disguise name for the miniphones handed over by the many rats in the cell. A rat could hand you your mata late at night, and let you talk to your loved ones till you exhaust your credit. Very early in the morning, the rats were there to take away every piece of mata in the cell, leaving the prison guards baffled.

But let’s not digress. MC’s love for his wife got the better of him when he commandeered a motorcycle one day, laid ambush in front of a bank with a friend holding the cow-horns of the bike, and waited for their prey to emerge from the bank with evidence of having made a sizeable withdrawal. He may have been doing it and getting away with it, but luck was not on his side that day.

A middle-aged woman emerged from the rolling doors of the bank. MC set his eyes on her, and decided that she was good game. He waited for her to board the next bike, and followed at a discreet distance. Sitting behind the rider, he was hoping to catch the woman at some unguarded moment, grab the bag, and zoom off in a hail of smoke from the powerful cylinders of the bike.

And so indeed it nearly happened. Just as the lady looked the other way in the heat of traffic, MC stretched out to snatch the bag, waving a gun in the face of the woman. Instinctively, she raised an alarm that quite distracted her own rider who turned frantically into a side road.

The woman held on bravely to her bag, and pulled it to herself with great self possession. MC missed target. His bike veered off so suddenly that he lost his hold and hit the tar hard with his head. The impact left him sprawling senseless, and he could not get up until the woman’s unceasing alarm attracted a restive crowd and the roving police. MC was caught virtually with a gun in hand, blood all over his head. He was taken, first to the hospital, to the police station, and then to court.

In the end, he was found guilty of armed robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment. According to eye witnesses, MC collapsed in the dock when the pronouncement was made. The judge waited for him to be revived, and asked why he was so agitated. MC said he would be grateful to see the love of his life again, the woman for whom he had embarked upon the mission. He talked about a glorious future with her and their children, if only he would get another chance at being a law-abiding citizen. And so saying, MC began to cry like a distressed baby.

The judge was touched. She took one compassionate look at the man with bandages all over his face from that ghastly fall, and promptly commuted the ruling from life sentence to seven years imprisonment. MC was visibly relieved. Seven years was a long stretch of time, too long to stay away from your love, but it was better than life imprisonment.

It was a lenient sentence that he had to accommodate. He would just have to slug it out. He would be free someday. He had served four years at the time I met him, and he was looking forward to that day, three years to come, when he would be discharged and have the joy of walking into the arms of his love again.

I was glad to hear that MC became the pastor of our cell long after I had left. In fact, he became General Pastor of the yard, and conducted himself with mature decorum until he was transferred to the correction centre in Umuahia where he completed his term. He is free in the world again, and my prayer is that all his suspicions about his wife would be unfounded, and the pain of separation he suffered would prove temporary. More than that, I hope Michael is better advised about the importance of earning a living by lawful means, and doing well to live within his resources.

But even more importantly, if I were to enter into a debate with MC again about what happened in the Garden of Eden, I would say pointedly that the affliction of corona virus on mankind today is God’s way of expressing his anger over the excesses of Adam and Eve, with particular regard to what the Bible calls the Original Sin. A peep into the inner recesses of the internet, the red light districts of the worldwideweb, shows clearly that Adam has been foolish, especially in the civilized west.

I don’t mind repeating this to MC. Mating between Adam and Eve is divine in the eyes of God. Sex is blissful when it is a decent intercourse between man and woman. Orgasm, in fact, is a mark of God’s involvement in the act of creation. What God expressly frowns upon is the act of “eating the forbidding fruit,” the ignominy of Adam lowering his head into the valley of the shadow, and wilfully abusing the sacred antenna by which his prayers are transmitted to the Supreme Being.

This is the ultimate sin in the eyes of God. This is the great affliction confronting mankind today. The unrepentant impunity of many vulgar nights has taken its toll amongst a generation for whom the Original Sin has become common place. The human tongue, in short, is not to be abused between the thighs of Eve. The penalty for this travesty has already been spelt out in the scandalous figures of people around the world, who have succumbed to the scourge of covid nineteen.

The records say Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, were certain that corona virus would so decimate Africa that people will die like flies

Let’s face it. That did not happen. The figures hit panic highs in America, in Britain, in Italy, in China, in Spain, and in Brazil. These are countries known for their libertine indulgences. The death rate in America and Europe, especially at the height of the scourge, may well be traceable to the high incidence of cunninlingus as a sexual practice.

Africans are not so guilty of this unholy habit, and that is why the death rate is comparatively lower than it is in the Far East, in Europe and in America, where oral sex is more ingrained and rampant. The bottom line is straight forward. The face mask is not just a clinical piece of cloth to prevent you from contacting or spreading covid nineteen. It is also a clear instruction from God that Adam and Eve should make venerable use of the tongue, that singular instrument that connects the supreme power of creation with our voices and our prayers.

It is one thing to put on a face mask in public, in deference to corona virus. But if Adam continues to place his holy temple between the thighs of Eve, in spite of God’s express condemnation of that shameful act, for so long will covid nineteen afflict the world in repeated waves, and no vaccine can cure that. 

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NENGI JOSEF ILAGHA, fondly called Pope Pen, has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and public relations foot soldier. Born on December 18, 1963, in Nembe, Bayelsa State, he read English & Literary Studies at the University of Port Harcourt. 

A one-time Editor of The Tide On Sunday in Port Harcourt, he was Speech Writer and Special Adviser on Research & Documentation to the Governor of Bayelsa State. He served the governments of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for seven consecutive years. He was also General Manager of the Bayelsa State Newspaper Corporation, publishers of New Waves.

Mantids, his first collection of poems, won the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Poetry Prize in 1995. He is the pioneer chairman of ANA, Bayelsa State chapter. He has published a number of books, including A Birthday Delight, short stories, and I Want To Be A Senator, a collection of essays on the state of the nation. His book of poems January Gestures, the first of twelve books of poetry under construction, was among the nine contenders for the controversial 2009 NLNG-Nigeria Prize for Literature. 

Pope Pen is also the author of Sand House & Bones, Thirty Pieces Of Sylva, The Militant Writes Back, Epistles To The President, Epistles To The Small Brave City-State, Big Daddy, Free At Last, People, More People and More & More People. His most recent books are The Last Days of Gabriel Okara, Sermons From The Oxbow Lake, Conversations With The Queen, Son Of The Tiger Killer, Eighteen Months At Creek Haven, and By The Banks Of The River Benue. He is the publisher of Coastline News Network, a periodic newsmagazine with a trained focus on the Niger Delta. 

He was inducted as a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, during the forty-second international convention of the Association in the auditorium of the Chinua Achebe Conference Centre at the Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village, Abuja, in November 2023.