The Nigerian Left and the constitution by Edwin Madunagu
Chido Onumah
Chido Onumah
Coordinator, African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL:
www.africmil.org)
Biko Agozino
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Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola
"Conversation at Night with a Cockroach"
Karen Van Ness '92 (English 32, Spring 1990)
Soyinka discusses the problem of stopping violence in his poem "Conversation at Night with a Cockroach." The situation in Nigeria probably influenced this theme. The Nigerian Civil War, the election of 1965, and following riots, and the general corruption and violence that had plagued Nigerian politics all fit into the theme discussed in the poem. Soyinka structures the poem by means of a dialogue between a man and a cockroach. He gives the human speaker a voice representing his own; the speaker's statements can be assumed to be Soyinka's. The cockroach speaks for the encouragers of violence, it tells humanity to kill for profit and to continue the violence by using lies and treachery. The cockroach replies to the man's protest that too many have died by saying:
I murmured to their riven hearts:
Yet blood must flow, a living flood
Bravely guarded, boldly split
Much of the violence in Nigeria during the time Soyinka was writing was done in the name of lofty causes such as the preservation of Yoruba identity. The cockroach's argument represents these rationalizations for continuing violence. Soyinka finds these words "stale deception, Blasphemer's consolation." Soyinka suggests a force worse than anything humans could produce plagues his nation, thus he uses cockroaches to symbolize this evil. The human speaker claims "Not human attributes were these/that fell upon us". Both the man and the cockroach are aware that the violence is unstoppable due to the cockroach's actions and man's weaknesses. The poem opens with the man addressing the cockroach and lamenting the fact that all of his people's plans for peace have been ruined by the cockroach. The cockroach acknowledges its fault and laughs at the useless attempts by the humans to cleanse their land.
Half-way up your grove of union
We watched you stumble-mere men
Lose footing on the peaks of deities.
Man has given into and joined with evil, according to Soyinka. Although the human speaker condemns the cockroach's falseness, apparently many others have believed in it. A third voice which seems to be an impartial narrator enters the poem and describes
A round table, board
Of the new abiding-man, ghoul, Cockroach,
Jackal and broods of vile crossbreedings
Broke bread to a loud veneration
Of awe-filled creatures of the wild.
Sat to a feast of love-our pulsing hearts!
Soyinka's picturing of man at a love feast with cockroaches and ghouls shows his belief that man has compromised with evil, forming an unnatural, frightening alliance. After witnessing the corruption of the rulers and the nightmares of the violence in Nigeria, it might well have seemed as if man had aligned with some unnatural force.
Throughout the poem, Soyinka uses imagery and symbolism to express his ideas and emotions. In addition to the symbols of the image, Soyinka uses images of the land to help establish the ideas in the poem. The human speaker describes the land as
No air, no earth, no loves or death
Only the brittle sky in harmattan
And in due season, rain to waken the shurb
A hailstone herald to the rouse
Of hills, echoes in canyons, pastures
In the palm of ranges, moss horizons
On distant ridges, anthill spires for milestones.
This image brings out the desolation of the land as well as the mindset of its inhabitants. For example, the phrase "anthill spires for milestones" shows both the flat emptiness of the land and suggests that anthills may be made mentally into milestones. The poems ends when the cockroach
Spread its wings in a feeble sun
And rasped his saw-teeth. A song
Of triumph rose on the deadened air
A feeler probed the awful silence,
Withdrew in foreknowing contentment
All was well. All was even
As it was in the beginning
The most prevalent symbol in "Conversation at Night With a Cockroach", is of course, the cockroach. At once it brings up feelings of subversion, obstinate survival, and disgust, all of which are appropriate associations for the evil that it represents. Fire, another important symbol in the poem, stands for the attempt by mankind to purge the land of evil. The human speaker claims
In that year's crucible we sought
To force impurities in nation weal
Belly-up, heat-drawn by fires
Of truth.
The crucible may stand for the elections of 1965, the first free elections held in Nigeria in several years, or it may stand for the combined attempts to purify Nigeria. The cockroach picks up on this symbolism and states
You lit the fires, you and saw
Your dawn of dawning yield
To our noon of darkness
The election failed to halt the corrupt practices of the ruling party and ended in riots that were to develope into the Biafran War. One of the most striking symbols in the poem is "a mine/ Of gold-filling the teeth of death". This image refers to the perpetuating of violence for personal gain by Nigerian leaders.
Thus Soyinka's poem "Conversation at Night With a Cockroach" paints a bleak picture for mankind. Soyinka finds the actions of mankind to be worthy of cockroaches, not men. The fact that the conversation is at night as suggested by the title furthers the idea that humanity is lost in darkness. Soyinka shows no solution to the problems he presents, probally because he had seen the same cycles of violence repeated over and over again. He sums up his resignation to disaster in the prayer of the men in the poem: "May Heaven comfort you;/ On earth, our fears must teach us silence."
Biko Agozino
On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 11:27 AM, 'Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola' via USA Africa Dialogue Series<usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Harrow, Kenneth
my friend bode ibironke that soyinka's choice of ogun was his vehicle for affirming african/nigerian/yorand imuba. when we read the analysis of the poem, below, it is striking how much the cockroach shared essential traits of ogun
hmmm
changes the reading a lot, doesn't it.n
and reading the poem strickly in close political terms narrows the possibilities, it seems to me
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2018 1:35:55 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Nigerian Left and the c
Cornelius Hamelberg
In this court of public opinion, about this too one can only ruminate, ask questions, not submit an answer for professorial judgements
“I lit a thin green candle to make you jealous of me,
But the room just filled up with mosquitoes, they heard that my body was free” (One of us cannot be wrong)
I am familiar with Soyinka as the chronicler of various points of view and this his dialogue at night, with a cockroach is just one of many points of view, this time disguised / conveyed in not such straightforward poetry.
Unfortunately, Kofi Swegbe Ignoramus read the explications and discussion that have surfaced in this thread so far, before reading the actual poem Conversation at Night with a Cockroach by Wole Soyinka.
It is a difficult poem
Do you identify the “I” - the “ I murmured to their riven hearts:” with the murmurer, Wole Soyinka ?
Is it a soliloquy?
There's always a point of intersection , the confluence where poetry / point of view /propaganda /the personal appreciation of any given poetry meets, I am not happy with this sentence: “Much of the violence in Nigeria during the time Soyinka was writing was done in the name of lofty causes such as the preservation of Yoruba identity.” Does history bear this out as the truth? I don't know, and tentatively, I don't think so. It is a mischievous sentence of insidious intent which must not be swallowed unawares , much as the subliminal messages in adverts are swallowed, mostly unawares. Somebody could please explain to those of us who do not understand the import of that sentence that the Yoruba - at whatever specific period of history or historical events/ incidents the poem is said to be alluding to, spilt blood for “the preservation of Yoruba identity.”
And not unexpectedly, trust Brer Biko Agozino ( like Samson Agonistes ) not to fail to seize the momentary opportunity standing not on shifting sands but on higher moral grounds, to engage in some more of the inter-tribal ( Igbo-Yoruba ) recriminations about that ancient genocidal claim and the longing for apology , maybe what the Saudis would call “blood money”/ reparations for the victims of Biafra secession .
A recent survey in Sweden showed that on the whole old people are even worse than the younger folks when it comes to distinguishing between news and advertisements. It's another instance of innocent people falling victim to the authority of the printed word - sometime the misleading word, believed in as another Gospel truth inspired by the inerrant Almighty
A little incongruous to have a hapless cockroach sharing some of the attributes of Ogun , unless it could be said, so are we all, cockroaches who
“peep about,
To find ourselves dishonourable graves” -
even given that all are mortal and that some of mankind's deities have been fleshed out with human qualities, so that we may better understand them
But what does Kofi Ignoramus know about cockroaches , anyway, apart from this Krio proverb that , “ When kakroach wan die ee kin go fen palmain bottle “ ( When the cockroach wants to commit suicide it goes looking for a bottle of palm oil in which to drown itself) and that fateful evening Gaddafi's son Saif Gaddafi using the same inauspicious term “cockroaches” and “rats“ to describe the alleged troublemakers that they were going to wipe out in Benghazi ( according to the al-Jazeera translation of his venomous Arabic ) causing some reaction from concerned NATO quarters : they swung into action overnight, established some no fly zones, with the effects of that initial move to be seen up to this very day.
Biko Agozino
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Biko,
Please bear with me as I ramble on disjointed, not anointed: Just this one point :
Who cannot be wrong about the banality of evil ?
Place I'm coming from right now , given to me by an Algerian brother ten days ago: Seeing God Everywhere: Essays on Nature and the Sacred. If only we did and not just talked about Wahdat al wujud
Back in the days when Baba Muktananda was my Siddha Guru (1976 -1981) , if I remember correctly, the essence of his teaching ( Kashmir Shaivism) was written on the mantra card : “See God in each other : God lives inside of you as you” If only we could. See Jesus in Pastor Adeboye.
For over a week now I have been mulling over your reply in which you lay so much emphasis on “Cockroach” which appears exactly once in the poem and which you say is capitalised throughout . My main worry is not merely about the guilt of those of the left and of the right for shirking their responsibility, those who kept and still keep quiet in order that evil may prevail, not only that but also what sticks out in that commentary which seems to have cynically, exclusively selected Soyinka's Yoruba people in this sentence which still grates on many a conscience:
“Much of the violence in Nigeria during the time Soyinka was writing was done in the name of lofty causes such as the preservation of Yoruba identity.”
OK, so the context of that poem is the Nigerian Civil War/ Biafra War and we all know where he stood then, but sometimes some people read too much (history, politics , even mental abberations) into a poem and that includes poems allegedly written or inspired by God the omniscient Himself , whose ideas, diction and grammar in the holy tongue could be beyond reproach and by definition, thereby the greatest poet when He chooses to do poetry and have you sing it if you want to...
I can also understand that even today, there are Nigerians who want Nigeria to continue as one country and for that reason do not entertain the idea of a separate country to be carved out of Nigeria and known as Biafra or the New Sokoto Caliphate or in the name of replacement theology an Islamic State of the type envisioned by Boko Haram to be imposed over the carcass of what was once Nigeria.
So, I asked before and ask again, with so many tongs in the fire - the various actors involved, the many forces at play , in what way could the subject matter - violence, the Biafra War , man's inhumanity to man, hunger, starvation death and destruction , all or any of this be attributable to “ lofty causes such as the preservation of Yoruba identity.”? Sarcasm, ethnic animosity and nihilistic irony aside how could the idea of Biafra in any way challenge “the preservation of Yoruba identity.” ?
Interesting BBC Hard talk today - about identity - with the marvellous Kwame Anthony Appiah
Cornelius Hamelberg
Since there is a time difference of six hours between Stockholm and New York ( eleven hours between Stockholm and San Francisco , it's always midnight in Stockholm just around the time the sun is setting over Trump's Tower and CNN is waking up, so, whilst waiting for your latest response I had better add another two cents worth to mine ( and I would write more confidently and more boldly if I had talked to Baba Kadiri one of the walking encyclopedias about the Biafra War in all of its complexities, with regard to the time frame, chronological order/ disorder, not to mention the post-mortem of its aftermath, and talking about the culpability of guilty intellectuals so called, standing to the left or right and those of no position, as Baba Kadiri has often pointed out in those heady disputes with Obi Nwakanma, the stubborn and dedicated Biafran leader Chief Ojukwu who if he had more compassion for the people in his heart could have ended the war much sooner and saved his people from much of the unnecessary suffering even while he and his upper classes fed fat whilst the Osu plebeians had to forage for food , General Ojukwu who ultimately fled to the Ivory Coast , leaving his people in the lurch and peace negotiations and the terms of surrender in charge of / in the hands of his second in command, Major-General Philip Effiong - the also disputed Biafra surrender
We may consider it immaterial whether “Conversation at Night with a Cockroach” was thought/ written/ composed before, during or after the Chief Awolowo's strategy of bring the war to an end as rapidly as possible by a policy of food sanctions on the Biafran army who I suppose he believed should at least be able to feed themselves if they wanted to fight on interminably, saying like Churchill, “ We Shall never surrender “
We may also concede that anti-war poems – like Wilfred Owen 's are universal and timeless, even though situated in any particular time
Re- your words and your central theme and you do grind your axe relentlessly,, even mercilessly, the word “genocide” surfaces eleven times in those your four short paragraphs “ I believe that Baba Sho was referring to the shiny boots of the goons of genocide that the poet witnessed and heard...”, “ the Yoruba, had no record of genocide prior to the imposition of a genocidal identity culture by slavery and colonialism/neocolonialism “ / “ genocide is always deserving of condemnation “/ ” Genocide denialism is always beneath contempt ...” /“...poem written in solitary confinement by an activist who opposed genocide. “ / “ the hegemonic interpretation remains the condemnation of a genocide that actually took place ...” / “ the genocide against the Igbo ...” / “ I do not believe that the reason why Yoruba and Middle Belt Christian intellectuals and army officers led the genocide against the Christian Igbo was because they had a history of genocidal identities. “ / “ you do not have to be Igbo to condemn the genocide against them “
Adumbrating that word “genocide” – itself a loaded gun and in the instances in which you use this contentious word, pointing at this unresolved issue, it's more of a loaded question or the complex question fallacy nevertheless aimed at
succeeding in giving a false if not mistaken impression that genocide is at the forefront of Soyinka's anti-violence contention in that particular poem even if arguably / unarguably hunger and starvation brought the Biafra War effort to its knees and to ultimate surrender not because of or in spite of any supporting or contrary evidence from the contention/s in that poem or indeed the thrust in any of the other poems , lectures, gospels, epistles, other scripts including from A Shuttle in the Crypt - from which everyone is at liberty to quote most profusely
Sierra Leone intellectuals, non -intellectuals most of whom do not speak Igbo ( but many of whom speak Yoruba) were among the first to sign a petition spearheaded by Professor Eldred Jones the release of of his dear friend ( our dear friend) Wole Soyinka when he was arrested and detained in 1967 ( You may ask Kenneth Ofodile about this )
Biko Agozino
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Biko,
This subject has been thoroughly flogged in this forum as has “ Death of Monarchism “ , your monomaniac, free, multidimensional take on Soyinka's “ Death and the King's Horseman “
Your quite ridiculous words : If I “ have any evidence where Wole supported genocide or mass violence under any guise “ I should “ please share with us”.
If you have any evidence where I support of have supported genocide, murder or massmurder, you could also please , at least share it with me ( privately, please) and we could make a deal not to make it public?
A few days ago I ran into Farid, an old friend from Morocco , a successful entrepreneur had a big leather shop just behind Åhlens, Stockholm's biggest department store, dear Farid, Talibanic beard and all, was very happy to see him, greeted him “ Asalamalaikum wa rahmatullah “. He did not wish me well. His genocidal reply was, “You and the Jews, the Shia, the Sufis, the Christians, the Hindus, the other Kuffar and Mushrikin are all going to hell!”
I didn't want to quarel with, otherwise I would have started by asking him,“ And where do you think you are you going?”
Uninvited, he then told me that before going to hell I was going to be tormented by the questions I will be asked in the grave..
Accusing anyone of genocide is a very serious charge indeed. I feel extremely uncomfortable when you accuse the Yoruba Nation of complicity in any kind of genocide - or the whole of the Arab nation because of the actions of any of its leaders, for example Saddam Hussein against the Kurds and against Shia Muslims.
How could you possibly expect me to sympathise with perpetrators of any kind of genocide?
You keep on harping on left wing/ right wing intellectuals, I keep on wondering about where the religious leaders e.g. the Nigerian divisions of brothers and sisters- in-Christ stood during the fratricidal war...
He who feels it knows. I feel it too. For many years in Nigeria (1981-84) I kept the intimate company of some first hand witness testimonies of people in Umuahia, Owerri , Aba , Ahoada, Omoku, Port Harcourt, all the creeks, nooks and crannies of Kalabari, Ijaw, Ogoni , Bonny territories. And of course , outside of Nigeria too.
There are criteria by which some judge good and evil ( including some of the genocides reported in the Bible
Recently when a program from Hezekiah University popped up in the forum, I was prompted to refresh with some history of a righteous king, Hezekiah
If music be the food of love: Vicente Amigo, play on...
Biko Agozino
|
On Thursday, 6 December 2018 23:05:01 UTC+1, Biko Agozino wrote:
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Biko:
Thank God for electricity! It's getting dark so early these days. I lit my Sabbath candles at 2.30 pm – 20 minutes before the invisible sun set over Stockholm this evening.
Just as the British House of Commons is still in session, late at night way past Theresa's bedtime trying to find an honourable face-saving way out of the poor Brexit deal, so too it's way past some people's bed time over here but the Yemen peace conference in Sweden is still going on after hours (without key players Saudi Arabia and Iran at the table). Isn't it amazing that with the horrendous US supported Saudi bombings and blockade currently resulting in the worlds greatest humanitarian famine and starvation crisis, a crisis that's far worse than what obtained in your Biafra, there is still no talk of genocide in Yemen.
I notice that your tone has become more more aggressive and is becoming increasingly more condescending.
If I have “any evidence where Wole supported genocide or mass violence under any guise,?” I'm sure that neither you nor Professor Soyinka would really want me to do that. Yes, I do have such evidence and more. Plenty! And I do read carefully. I don't read with my eyes closed : Don't be afraid of anyone who is not afraid of you. But if he is afraid of you, fear him!
I am not one for sophistry. Since I cannot talk above your head let not the incoherence of the coherence bother you. We are talking about concrete issues - there was a bloody coup in 1966 for which certain Igbo army officers were responsible. There was that bloody coup and its after-effects and repercussions.Yes, there were pogroms in the North and yes, fast-forward everybody knows that Ojukwu refused food supplies to his people because he was paranoid that the much needed succour/ nourishment could be poisoned by his Federal enemies. So who do you want to blame, me or Ojukwu?
Beyond cryptic poems on pages 15 – 19, 48 – 52, 189 – 192 and page 200 of Conversations with Wole Soyinka Edited by Biodun Jeyifo Soyinka represents himself adequately about Biafra related issues in succinct, clear, simple conversational prose.
Unfortunately I have spent less than 1% of the time I have spent so far on the Holocaust , on the Biafra war and that must account for my relative ignorance.
However, let me also assure you that I don't need any witnesses to verify or certify me when I say that I have not killed anybody, nor am I guilty of ever keeping silent so that evil may win the day. Just for the record and this can be verified, I was one of the first people to sign Professor Jones' petition to free Wole Soyinka. I think that my signature appears immediately after that of one Hans Zell. During the Biafra War, and at very close range I also once listened to Professor Kenneth Dike with my own years, although at the time I did not have enough background information or understanding to grasp the importance of what he was saying
You are also free to interpret Adorno's statement “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”. Common-sense is plentiful but no degree of common-sense grants anybody a monopoly on understanding or interpretation – as my Algerian friend implied last night, by which light do people read and understand the Quran ?
I don't deify Jesus, and “the top Nigerian and foreign literary theorists” in Jeyifo's compilation of critical essays on Soyinka and his Nobel and other awards etc. notwithstanding, there's no way I'm going to make a local Ogun out of Rev. & Mrs Soyinka's son Wole. Full-throated and single handed he may shout , write, cry, sing, poeticize genocide , Idi Amin, the Abacha regime, Iran and the bomb, Israel and the Palestinians all that he wants, being a top figure in the literary pantheon does not make him a Yoruba God, the way that Chinua Achebe refused AWO a state funeral because – Achene's words , “he ( AWO) was not an Igbo god”
You are the criminologist. I am not. If it's your will you could drag those responsible even posthumously to the relevant criminal Court and if they have already been hanged like Eichmann , you could dig them up from their graves and hang them one again. I presume that you are no coward and I should hope that it is not “the preservation of Yoruba identity” that is preventing you from doing taking your case for genocide further and in the name of Justice, asking for reparations etc. (As part of the Sunni propaganda against the Shia from very start of the Islamic Revolution in Islam , we read this false statement attributed to Ayatollah Khomeini : “ When as a conqueror I will enter Mecca and Medina, the first thing that I'll do is to dig out the two idols (Abu Bakr and Umar) lying by the side of the Prophet's grave and to hang them”
Salimonu Kadiri
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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Dr. Bitrus Gwamna
Yakubu Gowon is Angas from Plateau not Tiv from Benue.
BItrus
Dr. Bitrus Paul Gwamna
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: Saturday, December 8, 2018 2:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Nigerian Left and the const
Baby Ago is a self-appointed interpreter of poems and plays written by the person he is fund of referring to as Baba Sho. Like an intellectual arsonist whose intention is to burn down the forum with his pen, Baby Ago is always presenting his Baba Sho on this forum as castigating the Yoruba for taking part in the Nigerian civil war which, according to Baby Ago self, was a genocide against the Igbo. A while ago, there was a thread on this forum about the 'Death of Monarchism' in which Baby Ago chipped in with Wole Soyinka's play, Death and the Kings Horseman, in which he said Baba Sho asserted that the Yoruba participated in genocidal war against the Igbo during the Nigerian civil war. When Baby Ago was confronted to show where exactly in the play his Baba Sho said the Yoruba committed genocide against the Igbo, he reversed himself to say it was his personal interpretation of 'Death and the King's Horseman.' The thread on which Baby Ago is supposed to be commenting on now is : The Nigerian Left and the Constitution, authored by Edwin Madunagu but posted on this forum by Chido Onumah. It was an appraisal of the Nigerian leftists during the second Republic, 1979-1983.
Baby Ago reacted the same day, 29 November 2018, and submitted as follows, "Yet no leftists threatened to beat up the military dictators for suspending the constitution and ruling by decree. Some even rallied behind the military during the genocide against the Igbo under the petty bourgeois ideology of national defencism." Baby Ago concluded, "Soyinka said it best in his dialogue with the Cockroach poem." Baby Ago's submission is unrelated to the topic discussed by Edwin Madunagu in the Nigerian Left and the Constitution. The first Nigerian military dictator that suspended the constitution and ruled by decree from 15 January 1966 was Major-General Johnson Thompson Umunakwe Agui-Ironsi who was an ethnic Igbo. A TIV ethnic man, Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon took over on August 1, 1966, after a bloody coup against Ironsi, and continued to rule by decree. After the overthrown of Ironsi, the Governor of the then Eastern Region (comprising of Igbo, Ijaw, Ibibio, Annang, Oron and other ethnic groups) Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared not an Igbo Republic but Republic of Biafra and thereby forced non-Igbo ethnic groups into his Biafra. The war was not specifically against the Igbo but against Biafra, even though led by an Igbo. Despite the atrocities of the war, the political period covered by Madunagu's essay saw Alex Ekwueme became the Vice President of Nigeria while Ume Ezeoke was the Speaker of the House of Assembly. Both were of Igbo ethnicity. That period had nothing to do with the Nigerian civil war and it is not in anyway related to Soyinka's Conversation at night with a Cockroach.
A review of Conversation at night with a Cockroach was posted either by or in the name of Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola to back up Baby Ago's interpretation of the poem. However, the review made nonsense of the history of the events that led to the civil war. In his post of 29 November 2018 he wrote, "The crucible may stand for the elections of 1965, the first free elections held in Nigeria in several years, …. The election failed to halt the corrupt practices of the ruling party and ended in riots that were to develop into the Biafran war." The first general elections in Nigeria after independence in 1960 was in December 1964 and the controversies that followed the elections resulted in a national federal government comprising of the NPC from the North, NNDP from the West and NCNC from the East and Midwest. The election that took place in October 1965 was that of Western Region House of Assembly which was believed to have been rigged by the NNDP against the AG. As a result riot ensued throughout Western Region but stopped after the two coups of 15 January 1966 that brought the military into power under the leadership of Ironsi. Riots in the Western Region had stopped eighteen months before Biafra war broke out in July 1967. Therefore, it is easy to detect that the mind of Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola is not clear and his pen is not clean on what he wrote about what led to the Biafra war in 1967.
On 2 December 2018, Baby Ago wrote, "I believe that Baba Sho was referring to the skinny boots of the goons of genocide that the poet witnessed and heard marching condemned political prisoners to the gallows without a word of protest from opportunistic left wing and right wing intellectuals despite the clanging noise of the chains that trailed them." On 6 December 2018, Baby Ago continued, ".... thanks to Professor Jones and all the international intellectuals who opposed the genocide against the Igbo and rallied in support of Soyinka. Where were the Nigerian left and right wings of the Cockroach during the genocide?" Lastly Baby Ago admitted, "Anyone can read the poem and arrive at their own conclusions regarding the motives or message of the poet but I am confident that the dominant interpretation is that Wole Soyinka was against what was being done to the Igbo." The fact is that Wole Soyinka was against the war in which he canvassed for weapon embargo on both sides but, he was not alone as there were anti-secessionists in Biafra who were incarcerated by Ojukwu throughout the war namely Mokwugo Okoye, Dr Chike Obi, and Jaja Nwachukwu. One of the Five Majors of January 15 , 1966 coup who was detained in the East by Ironsi, Major Ademoyega Ademola, refused to join the Biafran Army as Ifeajuna, Nzeogwu, Onwuatuegwu and others and remained detained in prison throughout the war. Wole Soyinka has never in any of his publications directly or indirectly alluded to the Nigerian civil war as a genocidal war against the Igbo. Quoting out of context the statement credited to Awolowo in 1969 that starvation is a weapon of war, some elements like Baby Ago had argued that the partially quoted Awolowo's statement constituted genocide. These elements forgot that in June 1968, Gowon decided to open up land routes for international supervised transport of relief supplies to civilians in Biafra but Ojukwu rejected it (p.211, There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe). Of course Ojukwu did not care because those who were dying of starvation were the Osu. In his Ahiara Declaration and under the subtitle - SHAKING OFF NIGERIANISM - Ojukwu said among other things, "We accuse Nigerians of inordinate love of money, ostentatious living and irresponsibility, but here, even while we are engaged in a war of national survival, even while the life of our nation hangs in the balance, we see some public servants who throw huge parties to entertain their friends; WHO KILL COWS TO CHRISTEN THEIR BABIES." While Osu Igbo were dying of starvation the Diala Igbo were throwing parties to entertain one another and killing cows to Christen their new-born babies. After deflecting from Biafra, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe visited Nigeria on 17 August 1969 and on returning to London, he held a press conference on 28 August 1969 where he said, "Knowing that the accusation of GENOCIDE IS PALPABLY FALSE, but bearing in mind the widespread killing of 1966, which must always hunt our memories, why should some people continue to fool our people to believe that they are slated for slaughter, when we know that they suffer mental anguish and physical agony as a result of their being homeless and their places of abode having been desolated by war and their lives rendered helpless." Of course the fear of being killed by the federal forces was a propaganda deployed by Ojukwu to get Igbo civilians evacuated from all Igbo towns captured by the federal army during the war and hoarded in a small enclave without food. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was confronted by Barnaby Philips in a BBC interview of 13 January 2000 if he felt any responsibility for the Biafra war and waste of lives of many Igbo. Ojukwu retorted, Responsibility for what went on - how could I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and SAVED THE PEOPLE FROM GENOCIDE? No I don't feel responsible at all. I did the best I could." When Ojukwu the leader of Biafra himself said emphatically that he saved the Igbo from genocide, I don't know from where Baby Ago derived his information that genocide was committed against the Igbo in which the Yoruba participated. Baby Ago must grow and mature to differentiate between fictions and facts.
S. Kadiri
Från: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Skickat: den 7 december 2018 04:30
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Nigerian Left and the const
Dear Cornel,
It must be past your bed time in Sweden. This one is not as coherent as your usual epistles. Sleep well and read the thread again with fresh eyes in the morning. You will notice the following:
1. I was not the one who accused the Yoruba nation of being complicit in the genocide against the Igbo. A Yoruba man shared an online review of the poem in which it was suggested that the genocide against the Igbo that Soyinka condemned in the poem may have been done in defense of Yoruba identity. I was the first to call that out and reject it before you did as well. On that, I am happy to say that we agree.
2. Furthermore, when Ken suggested that the genocide may be in keeping with the myth of Ogun, I also rejected that with the hypothesis that the killing of the followers of Ogun may have been due to cholera among the palm wine drinking warriors, a tragedy that was rather common due to contaminated water supplies in days when life expectancy was low.
3. I also pointed out that such plagues were common in ancient times and that the attribution of such tragedies to some angry gods was also common before the knowledge of the germ theory emerged. I also agreed with Walter Rodney that there is no evidence in history that the neighbors of the Igbo subjected them to genocide before the arrival of Europeans.
4. Rabbi, you cannot flog genocide to death when it is still ongoing across Africa. Your reference to stories in the bible is diversionary. You may find my interpretation of the work of Soyinka to be overemphasizing the centrality of his Biafra experience in his biography and work. That may be true but I am not making it up, it is actually a core part of his intellectual biography that cannot be overemphasized. On this note, check the big book of critical essays on Soyinka that was edited by Jeyifo. You will find that of all the top Nigerian and foreign literary theorists in the book, only the final chapter by a Ghanaian, Ato Qayson, dared to see the influences on the work of Soyinka beyond the mythology of his Yoruba origin and his colonial education to highlight the central significance of his harrowing experience during the Biafra war on page 222. Jeyifo, in the introduction, flagged this chapter up as the most original perspective on Soyinka in the book. Why do Nigerian intellectuals maintain 'this awful silence' about the genocide that Soyinka bemoaned in the final stanzas of Cockroach?
You have raised more issues than I can address here. I may have to share a book-length manuscript on my interpretation of Soyinka's Igbophilism against a background of national Igbophobia. But I am still working on the project and you are welcome to share your own original interpretations of Soyinka. Your question of the role of Christian churches during the genocide is dishonest. You must know about Jesus Christ Airlines, the nick-name of Joint Christian Action with a major archive in Stockholm. You must know that Obasanjo bragged about ordering the shooting down of one of their clearly marked relief flights. You must have known that the British orchestrators of the genocide were Christians just as Jeremiah Awolowo, Anthiony Enahoro, Jacob Gowon, Theophilus Danjuma, Benjamin Adekunle, to name but a few who led the genocide against the largely Christian Igbo and other South Easterners with the type of glee that the Muslim army officers did not display publicly before the international press and with no atonement or regret up till now.
You sound irritated that the issue of genocide keeps coming up for discussion but you must know that it is not my fault that the country is yet to lay this issue to rest. This thread arose because of a report that some left-wingers wanted to beat up an old man who merely encouraged them to go beyond arm-chair criticism and intervene democratically to help to restructure Nigeria in the interest of the oppressed masses. That made me to wonder where those leftists were when the military dictators were raping the country and committing genocide against the Igbo. It reminded me of the metaphorical reference to the wings of the Cockroach that worked together to keep it in business, according to Soyinka (an original interpretation that you will not find anywhere else). You sound a little like a denialist when you fail to condemn the genocide against the Igbo and instead feign annoyance that the issue you believe that you flogged to death keeps rising up again for attention. If you have ever condemned the genocide against the Igbo and if you have ever called for reparative justice to be offered to the survivors, kindly cite the references for us to follow. If so, keep harping on it because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Otherwise, you come across as a genocide denialist and therefore like an enabler. Never again should African intellectuals enable genocide with their selective mutism and even with their active cheer-leading against fellow Africans or against any other group for that matter. Soyinka will be as vociferous against genocide if it happens anywhere else. Will you not join him?
Biko
|
Regards,
Chido OnumahCoordinator, African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL: www.africmil.org)
(www.chidoonumah.com) @conumah
Ogedi Ohajekwe
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Biko,
Are you not in this forum? It's your clone , not the real dear Biko?
I don't like dumb ass talking to me like this : “You sound a little like a denialist when you fail to condemn the genocide against the Igbo and instead feign annoyance that the issue you believe that you flogged to death keeps rising up again for attention. If you have ever condemned the genocide against the Igbo and if you have ever called for reparative justice to be offered to the survivors, kindly cite the references for us to follow. “
This is akin to the hostile & hysterical media demanding that Brother Buhari prove that he is not an idiot or demanding that he proves beyond any reasonable doubt that he is Muhammadu Buhari himself and not “a clone”
A clone of what? Who? Whom? Whose? Nor am I like the hypocritical Macbeth:
“ Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessèd time, for from this instant
There’s nothing serious in mortality...” etc. etc.
I am only a human being, so let me tell you again: “You are the criminologist. I am not. If it's your will you could drag those responsible even posthumously to the relevant criminal Court and if they have already been hanged like Eichmann , you could dig them up from their graves and hang them once again. I presume that you are no coward and I should hope that it is not “the preservation of Yoruba identity” that is preventing you from taking your case for genocide further and in the name of Justice, asking for reparations etc. “
I have discussed Biafra and not only in this forum.
This is for your edification so please read carefully so that you don't mis-understand what I wrote here on July 14th ( my birthday) this year .
On July 25th 2018, I wrote the following in this forum :
“We are not Holocaust deniers nor can anyone accuse me of Biafra Genocide or Mambilla Genocide “denialism”! On what grounds or evidence at his disposal would Don Bewaji or anyone else pass such an erroneous/ scurrilous and ridiculous judgment? Comb this forum and show us where I take the suffering of others ”lightly”
As Baba Kadiri pointed out so painstakingly, “continuing violence between Communities and armed groups in Nigeria “ means that Nigerian lives are unnecessarily wasted and when this happens, everybody loses.”
To Chidi on 29th June, 2018 ( in this forum) :
“ So you don't want to blame the devil for the Biafra Genocide? ?What About the Nigerian Military's Operation Python Dance II ? “
(About the theological/ philosophical/ political/ economic question of “Why is there so much suffering in the world?”/ “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, Obododimma. will probably opine that it's a matter of the stylistics of the individual : When some people don't want to take responsibility they blame every evil on the d-evil)
But it's a little more complex: Are you sure?
I searched the archives , there's a lot more that has been said and left unsaid : Hamelberg : Biafra genocide
When Chigozie Obioma was here on April 11th 2016, I had an extra ticket which I gave to Igbo Brother George Amadi ( we greeted Chigozie after the show – he had talked about the Biafra War with Nina Solomin, author of OK. Amen) and after we left the venue George Amadi and I discussed the Igbo – Biafra issue . You may ask him ( I have his phone number) my bottom line was (and still is) that I don't want anybody to die. That is, if a Nigerian or Biafran referendum gives the go ahead, that should be OK with me....
Today is Brother Titus Akanabu's birthday. We were great friends in Nigeria !
Sorry , I can't go on ( sciatica nerve pain ) , please, I need your sympathy...
On Friday, 7 December 2018 08:06:08 UTC+1, Biko Agozino wrote:
Salimonu Kadiri
Skickat: den 9 december 2018 13:25
Biko Agozino
Cornelius Hamelberg
It's just past midnight , and now that the sciatica nerve pain has subsided a little, I'm feeling like a little child...
Re- “Sentiments apart, genocide when committed is not a question of interpretation as Baby Ago has tried to do with Wole Soyinka's works.” ( S. Kadiri)
Wole Soyinka was against the secession and war from the very start. Three weeks after Biafra was declared a sovereign state and the war was afoot Soyinka was already calling for a ceasefire ( He should have been nominated for the Nobel Prize For Peace for his efforts for which he too suffered – just that the Vietnam War was then going on in full force and the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971 was just round the corner. When Pakistan invaded they raped all the women.)
Once the Nigerian military got organised the odds were on the Federal side and as Biafra was eventually landlocked and blockaded by sea and air and being slowly strangled and starved, those within were indeed in a crucible - that is what poet and playwright Soyinka must had in mind and not Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible or any other crucible.
The occurrence/ non-occurrence of any genocide is certainly not contingent on combatant/ non-combatant Wole Soyinka's prison diary or on anything else that he has written or will write or declare. In solitary confinement, how did he become an authority on what happened? Whatever conciliatory or infallible statements made by Azikiwe and Ojukwu, even under oath , also have their contexts, the pressure or ingratiating circumstances in which they were made and the purposes for which they were made or were being made are also open to judgement and interpretation. They might speak differently on the Biblical Day of Judgment. Maybe on that day, when they hear the voice of the Almighty sounding like thunder and lightning saying ,
“ Azikiwe and Ojukwu ! I want to hear the truth from you guys and nothing but the truth ! Answer me truthfully or enter the everlasting fire : Was there or was there not a genocide in Biafra ?“
They might answer differently .
The Almighty may well ask Baba Kadiri the same question on that day and he too might tremble and submit his assertions with less certainty bearing in mind that he was standing before the Omniscient Almighty Himself and surely being in doubt whether the Omniscient Almighty considered that there had been a genocide or not, committed against His Igbo people?
I'm sure that the Holocaust deniers would surely opt to avoid entering the everlasting fire for Holocaust denial, on the Day of Judgement ?
Meanwhile , in this forum, it's a lot easier blissfully prevaricating , pussyfooting, and dilly-allying with all kinds of excuses , “ sound logic “ and the little tittle-tattle by which some want to ignore man's inhumanity to man, no matter the causes...
Of course, the victims of genocide won't have any difficulty testifying that they died of hunger and starvation...
Consider: The Quran says the Jesus did not die on the cross. Therefore any talk about his resurrection - the centrepiece of Christianity is superfluous. So, who to believe , the Angel Gabriel or unbelieving Thomas?
Consider : There are others ( pastors) who say that the Biafra War is the fulfilment of some prophecies in their Bible. Others look in the Bible and say this and that did not happen, or has not happened yet.
Nor should the occurrence or non -occurrence of the Holocaust depend on any refutation or interpretations or misinterpretations of events or conclusions arrived at by any of the Holocaust deniers, no matter how prominent or how exalted their political or military leadership roles.
Sentiments aside, even fifty years after the mega-deaths by starvation suffered by the Igbos / the Osu – men, women and children, perhaps an international tribunal could eventually settle the dispute ?
In the case of the Holocaust, the last of the Holocaust survivors are slowly passing away while the Holocaust deniers , although they cannot manufacture old or new evidence still persist and unfortunately will continue to persist even when Holocaust denial is criminalised.
1963 : Blowin' in the Wind
...
Okechukwu Ukaga
Baby Ago is a self-appointed interpreter of poems and plays written by the person he is fund of referring to as Baba Sho. Like an intellectual arsonist whose intention is to burn down the forum with his pen, Baby Ago is always presenting his Baba Sho on this forum as castigating the Yoruba for taking part in the Nigerian civil war which, according to Baby Ago self, was a genocide against the Igbo. A while ago, there was a thread on this forum about the 'Death of Monarchism' in which Baby Ago chipped in with Wole Soyinka's play, Death and the Kings Horseman, in which he said Baba Sho asserted that the Yoruba participated in genocidal war against the Igbo during the Nigerian civil war. When Baby Ago was confronted to show where exactly in the play his Baba Sho said the Yoruba committed genocide against the Igbo, he reversed himself to say it was his personal interpretation of 'Death and the King's Horseman.' The thread on which Baby Ago is supposed to be commenting on now is : The Nigerian Left and the Constitution, authored by Edwin Madunagu but posted on this forum by Chido Onumah. It was an appraisal of the Nigerian leftists during the second Republic, 1979-1983.
Baby Ago reacted the same day, 29 November 2018, and submitted as follows, "Yet no leftists threatened to beat up the military dictators for suspending the constitution and ruling by decree. Some even rallied behind the military during the genocide against the Igbo under the petty bourgeois ideology of national defencism." Baby Ago concluded, "Soyinka said it best in his dialogue with the Cockroach poem." Baby Ago's submission is unrelated to the topic discussed by Edwin Madunagu in the Nigerian Left and the Constitution. The first Nigerian military dictator that suspended the constitution and ruled by decree from 15 January 1966 was Major-General Johnson Thompson Umunakwe Agui-Ironsi who was an ethnic Igbo. A TIV ethnic man, Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon took over on August 1, 1966, after a bloody coup against Ironsi, and continued to rule by decree. After the overthrown of Ironsi, the Governor of the then Eastern Region (comprising of Igbo, Ijaw, Ibibio, Annang, Oron and other ethnic groups) Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, declared not an Igbo Republic but Republic of Biafra and thereby forced non-Igbo ethnic groups into his Biafra. The war was not specifically against the Igbo but against Biafra, even though led by an Igbo. Despite the atrocities of the war, the political period covered by Madunagu's essay saw Alex Ekwueme became the Vice President of Nigeria while Ume Ezeoke was the Speaker of the House of Assembly. Both were of Igbo ethnicity. That period had nothing to do with the Nigerian civil war and it is not in anyway related to Soyinka's Conversation at night with a Cockroach.
A review of Conversation at night with a Cockroach was posted either by or in the name of Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola to back up Baby Ago's interpretation of the poem. However, the review made nonsense of the history of the events that led to the civil war. In his post of 29 November 2018 he wrote, "The crucible may stand for the elections of 1965, the first free elections held in Nigeria in several years, …. The election failed to halt the corrupt practices of the ruling party and ended in riots that were to develop into the Biafran war." The first general elections in Nigeria after independence in 1960 was in December 1964 and the controversies that followed the elections resulted in a national federal government comprising of the NPC from the North, NNDP from the West and NCNC from the East and Midwest. The election that took place in October 1965 was that of Western Region House of Assembly which was believed to have been rigged by the NNDP against the AG. As a result riot ensued throughout Western Region but stopped after the two coups of 15 January 1966 that brought the military into power under the leadership of Ironsi. Riots in the Western Region had stopped eighteen months before Biafra war broke out in July 1967. Therefore, it is easy to detect that the mind of Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola is not clear and his pen is not clean on what he wrote about what led to the Biafra war in 1967.
On 2 December 2018, Baby Ago wrote, "I believe that Baba Sho was referring to the skinny boots of the goons of genocide that the poet witnessed and heard marching condemned political prisoners to the gallows without a word of protest from opportunistic left wing and right wing intellectuals despite the clanging noise of the chains that trailed them." On 6 December 2018, Baby Ago continued, ".... thanks to Professor Jones and all the international intellectuals who opposed the genocide against the Igbo and rallied in support of Soyinka. Where were the Nigerian left and right wings of the Cockroach during the genocide?" Lastly Baby Ago admitted, "Anyone can read the poem and arrive at their own conclusions regarding the motives or message of the poet but I am confident that the dominant interpretation is that Wole Soyinka was against what was being done to the Igbo." The fact is that Wole Soyinka was against the war in which he canvassed for weapon embargo on both sides but, he was not alone as there were anti-secessionists in Biafra who were incarcerated by Ojukwu throughout the war namely Mokwugo Okoye, Dr Chike Obi, and Jaja Nwachukwu. One of the Five Majors of January 15 , 1966 coup who was detained in the East by Ironsi, Major Ademoyega Ademola, refused to join the Biafran Army as Ifeajuna, Nzeogwu, Onwuatuegwu and others and remained detained in prison throughout the war. Wole Soyinka has never in any of his publications directly or indirectly alluded to the Nigerian civil war as a genocidal war against the Igbo. Quoting out of context the statement credited to Awolowo in 1969 that starvation is a weapon of war, some elements like Baby Ago had argued that the partially quoted Awolowo's statement constituted genocide. These elements forgot that in June 1968, Gowon decided to open up land routes for international supervised transport of relief supplies to civilians in Biafra but Ojukwu rejected it (p.211, There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe). Of course Ojukwu did not care because those who were dying of starvation were the Osu. In his Ahiara Declaration and under the subtitle - SHAKING OFF NIGERIANISM - Ojukwu said among other things, "We accuse Nigerians of inordinate love of money, ostentatious living and irresponsibility, but here, even while we are engaged in a war of national survival, even while the life of our nation hangs in the balance, we see some public servants who throw huge parties to entertain their friends; WHO KILL COWS TO CHRISTEN THEIR BABIES." While Osu Igbo were dying of starvation the Diala Igbo were throwing parties to entertain one another and killing cows to Christen their new-born babies. After deflecting from Biafra, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe visited Nigeria on 17 August 1969 and on returning to London, he held a press conference on 28 August 1969 where he said, "Knowing that the accusation of GENOCIDE IS PALPABLY FALSE, but bearing in mind the widespread killing of 1966, which must always hunt our memories, why should some people continue to fool our people to believe that they are slated for slaughter, when we know that they suffer mental anguish and physical agony as a result of their being homeless and their places of abode having been desolated by war and their lives rendered helpless." Of course the fear of being killed by the federal forces was a propaganda deployed by Ojukwu to get Igbo civilians evacuated from all Igbo towns captured by the federal army during the war and hoarded in a small enclave without food. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was confronted by Barnaby Philips in a BBC interview of 13 January 2000 if he felt any responsibility for the Biafra war and waste of lives of many Igbo. Ojukwu retorted, Responsibility for what went on - how could I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and SAVED THE PEOPLE FROM GENOCIDE? No I don't feel responsible at all. I did the best I could." When Ojukwu the leader of Biafra himself said emphatically that he saved the Igbo from genocide, I don't know from where Baby Ago derived his information that genocide was committed against the Igbo in which the Yoruba participated. Baby Ago must grow and mature to differentiate between fictions and facts.S. Kadiri
Från: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Skickat: den 7 december 2018 04:30
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Salimonu Kadiri
Skickat: den 9 december 2018 23:33
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Nigerian Left and the const
Ogedi Ohajekwe
Thank you Mr. Salimonu Kadiri,
You may also wish to know that at the time of the 1966 coups, there was nothing like someone being from Benue-Plateau. We had Northern region, you should also acknowledge and correct that.
The misinformation is huge in the sense that you were using the information/misinformation to buttress and support your ‘core’ issue.
The question is, if the preamble to your ‘core’ information/misinformation is glaringly NOT TRUE( and extremely careless), how true can your core be?.
Further, on your preamble, the main complaint of many people in Nigeria at that time was the unification decree in particular and not the suspension of the constitution in general.
The unification decree was specifically abrogated(IT WAS NOT CONTINUED) by Gowon as soon as he took over- on paper, but actually practiced till this day(deceit?). And, is it your argument that if Ironsi did not suspend the constitution, that Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Buhari 1, Abacha, and Abubakar would not have done it?
Look, the structure of Nigeria was intact during the-about ‘A Whole’-six months of Ironsi’s regime. He had four governors for the four regions.
He did not mess with the resource control structure that was in place.
Once Gowon took over and was advised and he created the 12 states, he and his advisers effectively put Nigeria on a downward spiral, which it is on till today-as the states were not economically solvent. From then on, why do the states have to do anything other than to wait for their monthly ‘share’ of the goodie-as their tomorrow does not depend on their hard work but on their share of ‘God’ given raw natural resources?
This also resulted in ‘immediate effect’ gratifications for some Nigerians, and was hailed as a master-stroke at that time.
If there was a Solomon in the room where the decision was made, he would have reminded them that the decision would be akin to splitting a baby for immediate gratification of a party in the room and that the long term effect may not be good for anyone.
Anyway, I have not discussed your ‘core’ which is all fabrication.
When we get the preamble(which is the easy part) right, we can then take the next step.
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