“How my father physically abused my late mother” - Ngugi
Ololade Bamidele
Michael Afolayan
Ibrahim Abdullah
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Biko Agozino
Michael Afolayan
cornelius...@gmail.com
“You got men who can't hold their peace and women who can't control their tongues
The rich seduce the poor and the old are seduced by the young.”
(Bob Dylan: When you gonna wake up?It’s time for an African version of D.H . Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers where the Oedipus complex is on full display. Those were my first thoughts about the poison-pen gossip headline. Such Oedipal calumny from Ngugi’s firstborn strikes me as merely some more evil, some more spiteful propaganda being promoted and propagated by Brother Ngugi’s detractors who don’t want to ever see him being awarded the Nobel Prize For Literature. If The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, then for a surety, the evil ones ( bastards all) must be behind this latest anti-Ngugi calumny.
Other calumnies -” He’s a communist” “ He’s a renaissance Mau-Mau Man!” “He’s anti-British Imperialism!” “He’s anti-English Language Imperialism” etc etc etc. I’ve heard it all before. The only thing they haven’t accused him of yet is “ Terrorism” and I was not too happy with the title of one of his novels: Devil On the Cross - too radical by half
Ngugi - back then James Ngugi with “Weep Not Child” and “ A Grain of Wheat “under his belt, was my friend briefly during the early months of 1970 whilst he was writer-in-residence at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra. I next met him, in 1985, in Stockholm, where he studied film at the Dramatic Institute. He's a beautiful dude.
Regarding his current “kidney ailments” - in reality, kidney failure and his need for kidney dialysis three times a week, I commiserate with him - and so should you. Time has passed and hopefully, he is no longer as heavy on the bottle as he was back then in early 1970 in Gulder & Star Beer Ghana - because I remember that once when we were travelling by car, in the middle of nowhere he suddenly started insisting,” Stop the car” - it was an emergency - he wanted to get off, he wanted to empty his pipe (urinate). The fact is that Derek Walcott was a much heavier drinker. I almost wrote “Drinkard” - as in The Palm-Wine Drinkard…
Given that shit happens, it’s possible that the inexcusable wife-beating -a common phenomenon in Africa could be the aftermath of heavy drinking and some degree of frustration/s, several kinds of frustration in that special climate of political turmoil in Wa Thiong’o’s Kenya. Violence is always preceded by frustration.
Re - “Some of the richest men and best writers in the world have been divorced and so, Comrade Ngugi is in good company among divorcees.” ( Biko Agozino, the Criminologist)
Maybe man is basically polygamous after all, beginning with Shlomo Hamelech (King Solomon) the wisest man that ever lived, and who was so wise because he had over seven hundred (700) wives and over three hundred (300) concubines! - by all accounts the Champion! From Solomon to our British Philosopher, anti-war activist and Literature Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell also very wise and was riding his bicycle when it dawned on him he no longer loved his wife. From Russell fast forward to that philander and satyr, the one and only Jean-Paul Sartre and his many love affairs.From Satre to Soyinka - who in 1979 in his suite at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm told me that he was “divorced“. I was mortified.
Sibling Rivalry: Brother Obama’s brother Malik Obama also came out to do some bad-mouthing of USA’s first Black President. Fortunately, Brother Obama had already penned Dreams From My Father - a preemptive strike…
I haven’t read what I’m sure must be nauseating dirty laundry from Ngugi's son Mukoma ( incidentally Brother Ngiugi also has a Swedish son Björn - another reason why he deserves Alfred Nobel’s Prize thereby satisfying the criterion of “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”
Take note - if anything Mukoma should be adumbrating this tragedy ;
The man, having paid his dues, can sing the blues…
Nuff said.
Kanye West: Diamonds are from Sierra Leone