“It is possible to argue about who is the finest painter. It is possible to argue in this way about renaissance sculptors, more or less any sort of artist. However, if the question is who writes the best dialogues or who is the best poet and writer, cum story teller then there is no room for controversy. Professor Chinualumogu Albert Achebe has no peers”
“And let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season, we shall reap if we faint not. As we therefore have opportunity, let us do good unto all men especially them who are of the household of faith”. Gal. 6:9-10.
In commencing this tribute and as a strict Christian like Mr. Okafor in Practical English Book 3 by P.A. Ogundipe (Nigerian) and T. S. Tregido (Ghanaian), I have to quote one of my favourite books in the Holy Bible and that is the book of Ecclesiastes. It should be for any one who actually believes that life is meaningless. In this direction, William Shakespeare was so apt in that famous quotation, “Out out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow. A poor player that structs and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Furthermore, when beggars die, there are no comets seen, but the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princess. Again, according to Shakespeare “the entire world is a stage and all men and women merely actors and actresses, they all have their entrances and exits, and one man in his time, plays many parts”. Hence, Professor
Chinualumogu Albert Achebe died recently. It is generally believed that he was an embodiment of simplicity and gentility. In this connection, people see him as one who has no air of arrogance and pride but believed in fairness and openness.
At this stage, it is perhaps apt to share the passion of Apostle Paul who in his epistle to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:7) rhapsodized in ecstasy: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my cause, I have kept the faith. It is therefore appropriate to say that Professor Achebe has indeed fought a good fight and finished his earthly course and kept abiding faith in the goodness of the Lord. In addition, death is indeed the ultimate appointment everybody would be ready for because it is appointed for man to die once, after that, the judgment, Heb. 9:27. One day we will keep this appointment with death. Every living being is a potential corpse!
In fact, poets and philosophers tell us that death can be life, a higher life, a regeneration of the self, in the same way, in fact that the flower is pruned to groom a greater foliage in the same way the egg is cracked to make omelette. We must all have strong conviction in life after death and the possibility of Professor Achebe continuing to serve after his death.
The late Professor of political science Claude Ake made Achebe’s A man of The People require reading for his students. This showed at a glance the great influence of Achebe’s works on his fellow intellectuals. It is appropriate to say here that Things Fall Apart never transformed Achebe into a wealthy author or millionaire, it only gave him international fame and aplomb and acclaim. No doubt, Achebe’s celebration as a literary Legend has spread like a wild fire during the harmattan season and has received over forty-five honorary degrees and awards.
At the last count in 1999, Professor Achebe’s magnum opus, Things Fall Apart
had been translated into about sixty languages with a phenomenal sale of over 10,million copies. As a result, this made Things Fall Apart the most popular and widely read novel that is educating, informing and entertaining of the twentieth century from the African continent.
Surprisingly, Things Fall Apart, was almost a lost manuscript,’ some like to say that this good fortune was due to Achebe’s ‘Chi’, his personal god. The Igbo generally believe if your Chi says yes, no one can say no. It is gratifying to state that Achebe’s good fortune is also Africa’s , as his celebrated work has been variously described as a literary, anthropological and historical masterpiece that eloquently recaptures the dark days of colonial rule.
During the military rule, Achebe also emerged as a critical voice that campaigned against the Babangida government in 1993. He openly said without mincing words “The only path open to us now is for all Nigerians, all ethnic groups, all religious persuasions, all classes, to stand up as one and say solemnly to Babangida in the name of God and of Nigeria, please leave us alone and go”. Eventually, IBB stepped aside.
As a true, an accomplished and dedicated Igbo man, he spoke without reservation from overseas during the era of General Sani Abacha tyrannical administration. Whatever the case may be, he was a celebrated novelist and his greatness constantly reverberates, in particular as the author of Things Fall Apart.
In the first chapter of his 1983 caustic pamphlet, “ The Trouble with Nigeria”,
prodigious storyteller and Literary critic, Professor Achebe Identified the Nigeria monster in few words. For him, the problem with Nigeria is simply and squarely that of corruption”. Subsequent chapters only served as explanations to the shattering revelation. The professor was 53 then. It is evident that some past leaders in Nigeria have ruined the nation and made it what great Chinua Achebe referred to as: “This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen”. The country has suffered and sunk into pervasive corruption, social catastrophe and economic dilapidation for a long time. Our much respected values of patriotism and uncompromising emphasis on integrity and honesty have been thrown to the wind. Most of our leaders have lost their integrity and dignity because of money and they sometimes lost their sense of reasoning because of Naira if not “Nairases”. All these made him to withdraw
from politics.
A look into his early days reveals at a glance that Achebe had won a scholarship to study medicine at the University College, Ibadan in 1948. However, his instincts for story telling told him that he was on the wrong path, eventually he declined the scholarship, those were the days when medicine was seen as the ‘King’ of intellectual prowess. Later in life, he criticized the country’s early academic policy for placing a greater emphasis on the humanities. At Ibadan, Achebe’s ‘Chi’ did not disappoint him , as his instinct directed him to the English department of the University as one of the pioneer undergraduates. It was here that he met such students and writers as Wole Soyinka, Chukwuemeka Ike, John Pepper Clark and the Late Christopher Okigbo.
As he was busy studying British and European Literature, he began to query his past and asked fundamental questions regarding Nigeria’s history, tradition and literature. In the literature class, the British lecturer Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as examples of colonial African Literature.
As a result, Achebe’s world view of Africa naturally revolted against the stereotypes of Africans in European Literature as ignorant and barbaric savages, of at best simple natives. He puts it thus, “Here there is an adequate resolution from me to espouse. To keep my society regains belief in itself and put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement for no thinking, African can escape the pain, the second in our soul”. Achebe and his classmates revolted and took up the challenge of the Whiteman who said “if these novels were not right, then Achebe and his colleagues should write their own”.
This was the initial reason for the writing of the epic novel, Things Fall Apart. From his confessions, Achebe had wanted as documented by Professor Robert Wren to deal fairly with the ancestors, to perform an act of atonement with his past, the ritual return and homage of a prodigal son.
The idea of the novel as a story germinated in the young writer’s mind when he formed the good habit of listening to his elders, his father in particular. He lived and grew up in an environment where story-telling was the method to pass on native intelligence, wisdom and morality.
Achebe was born on the 16th of November 1930 at Ogidi in the present Anambra State. At the age of six he started his primary education at St Philip’s Central School. At the age of 12, he moved to Nekede near Owerri in Imo State where he enrolled at the Central School. Eventually, he proceeded to the prestigious Government College, Umuahia. Later, he earned a classified degree in English, History and Theology at the University College, Ibadan. He taught briefly before he joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Service (NBS) in 1954.
In 1961, he married Christiana Okoli, whom he met at the NBS and they are blessed with four Children.
Professor Chinualumogu Albert Achebe passed on at 82 in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America (USA) on Thursday, 21st March 2013 through a brief illness according to his agent, Andrew Wylie.
Adieu, Literary giant.
Charles Ikedikwa Soeze, fhnr, fcida, fcai, fscam, cpae, chnr, son, emba, ksq, is a public affairs analyst and Mass Communication scholar from first degree to doctoral level. He is currently Assistant Director (Administration)/ Head, Academic and Physical Planning of the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun, Delta State, Nigeria. (08036724193)
charlessoeze@yahoo.com
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