Chinua Achebe, the author "Things Fall Apart," one of the world’s most popular novels, says the time has come for Nigerians to challenge their bad leadership, or be doomed.
The famous teacher and writer was speaking last Thursday at a meeting with the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu in his quiet home Bard College at Redhook/Annadale-on-Hudson, a two-hour drive from New York. As what was originally planned as an informal meeting blossomed into a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the Nigerian nation, Professor Achebe said those looting Nigeria needed to be stopped, and urged Ribadu to reach out to young Nigerians to rise up to the challenge of halting the corruption and ineptitude of the nation's rulers.
“We should feel we have come around and that we missed the bus the first time and that the correction of the situation in our country is in our hands. We can’t call the British back even though some people have suggested that. But we can’t allow this to go on any longer. Already our people are getting used to living in that ugly style,” the professor of literature said.
He declared: “This is the time to bring an end to it. If we do nothing, we are doomed.”
The meeting with Ribadu, at the exclusive liberal arts college founded in Annandale–on-Hudson, started at about 2 p.m. and lasted for several hours. After 15 years as the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Achebe will be leaving the school at the end of the year to join the faculty of the Brown University as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies.
Mr. Ribadu had driven from Washington DC to meet Professor Achebe on what he described as a "private visit" in appreciation of Achebe’s contribution to humanity. He said that Achebe remains one of the most genuine personalities of Nigerian origin in the entire world. He lamented that a nation that could produce a world-class writer of his calibre could not produce a national leader capable of managing a local government.
He therefore called on Achebe to use his clout and powerful voice to ensure that Nigeria finds its feet and place in the world, particularly, in ensuring that the nation finds the courage to run free and fair elections and elects good leaders.
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