Chinua Achebe as literary icon has achieved a lot in his life time. He is a celebrated literary giant. But as a giant who has spent much time on the mother planet, he seems to be getting tired. This is a normal process of nature from which none of us would be absolved. We all begin to die at birth.
Chinua Achebe as literary icon has achieved a lot in his life time. He is a celebrated literary giant. But as a giant who has spent much time on the mother planet, he seems to be getting tired. This is a normal process of nature from which none of us would be absolved. We all begin to die at birth.
When old age sets in, a lot of other things also serve as its concomitants. These would include physical deterioration as well as mental exhaustion that would be referred to as senility in other parlances. For a man like Chinua Achebe who has been repeatedly adored and praised for his literary efforts, this is a serious challenge especially when the need to remain relevant is still strong.
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Chinua Achebe in his younger days, was a thorough intellectual through and through. This has been evident in many of his works which have brought him accolades from far and wide. But it seems he is unable to live up to the content and character of an intellectual in recent days, a sign, in one’s view, of the impact of old age on his once virile mind.
Not to glorify this challenge on the part of the revered Achebe, one would not reproduce verbatim, his assertion in his latest book titled ''There Was A Country'' that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Avatar, was responsible for the genocide that the Igbo suffered during the civil war. But the issue here is that Achebe has decided to use half facts to achieve a malicious end against Chief Awolowo.
Before going forward on this, it is pertinent to remember that when Chief Awolowo died in 1987, Achebe ripped him virulently in manner that caught his (Achebe’s) fancy and boosted his own ego. The view he expressed about Awo then would also not be dignified here. But this writer is willing to overlook that because it was an opinion expressed. Everyone is entitled to his own view or opinion on anything or anyone for that matter.
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The reason his recent ranting would not be allowed to go unchallenged is because he has a reputation as a literary giant. He has received accolades as an intellectual. As an intellectual, you allow facts to lead you. In this case, Achebe has not lived up to expectation. He has allowed his alleged bitterness in other genres of his life turned him into a blind bully visiting devastating anger at anything on sight.
In old age, Achebe has become a jaundiced intellectual. His old age intellect has failed to endow him with perspicacity. His soul seems ridden with bitterness engendered by self importance that he has psyched himself to appropriate in the absence of recognition that he has sought all his life and has never got – the Nobel Prize in Literature. But one does not think all hope is lost for him and he does not need to gutterize himself before the glorious day comes.
It is however evident that his ability to apply his intellect to the historical affairs of Nigeria is seriously compromised. His clueless and moronic attack on Chief Obafemi Awolowo is a manifestation of compounded frustration. And this is a serious dent on his intellectual reputation.
A serious dent to his claim as an intellectual because as someone argued, he has 45 years to look at the whole picture, get the whole story and assemble all the facts to be able to make appropriate conclusions. He could still then express his views about the situation and the personalities involved. Achebe would have done himself a great favour and protected his hard earned reputation if he had included in his book that Chief Obafemi Awolowo offered the then Head of State of Biafra, Colonel Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu willingness to get food to the people of Biafra if he (Ojukwu) would create a corridor through which this one would be done. But because Ojukwu wanted the food for the soldiers first and foremost, he did not agree. Ojukwu sacrificed his people as a means to achieving upper hand in the propaganda war. But this was a strategy that failed him on the war.
But Achebe, the “intellectual,” would not be able to paint the Great Awo the way he really wanted if he had included that information in his book. Doing so would undermine the accusation of Awo as the man responsible for the starvation of his Igbo people. This is because this would have shifted the debate as to why Emeka Ojukwu would rather allow his people to die of hunger when food was readily made available to them by the Federal side. What was required of him was just the creation of a corridor. Serving half truths is antithetical to intellectualism.
Apart from Achebe putting out half truths as far as this action is concerned, it is amazing and tantamount to intellectual dishonesty for him to incorrigibly wanting to hold Obafemi Awolowo alone responsible for the Federal Government decisions under Colonel Yakubu Gowon during those years and obviously unwilling to hold Chief Alex Ekweme equally responsible for the crimes committed against Nigerians during the Shehu Shagari era! This is not just intellectual dishonesty on the part of the “intellectual” Achebe, it is hypocrisy of the highest order.
One of the reasons why this writer has been unable to accept General Mohammed Buhari as a fair-minded person is because he (Buhari) locked up Alex Ekweme in Kirikiri Maximum Prisons and put Shagari in a Guest House when Shagari was the one in charge. Shagari was the President and Chief Ekweme was just his Vice. It means Achebe, the “intellectual” would have done the same thing to Ekweme and hold him responsible for all the crimes of the Second Republic while allowing Shagari to walk free? It is like holding Vice President Abubakar Atiku solely responsible for all the malaise of Baba Iyabo’s years as the President.
Achebe, as an “intellectual,” has an obligation to the society to further the course and cause of truth as well as enlightenment. In this endeavour, he has obviously failed. Rather, he has lent undue credibility to falsehood. He has promoted unwarranted malice against another human being by using half information and uncompleted facts.
Achebe has some undisclosed grudges against Awolowo. But that is allowed because he is human just as Awolowo is human too. He is free to grudge anyone that catches his fancy. But he is not allowed to maul facts and engage in deliberate obfuscation of truth. This is more especially so because he lays claim, and justifiably too, to being an intellectual.
This bitterness against Awo is getting him to the point where he is now hurting himself and his reputation as an intellectual. It seems he would need some therapy to achieve some emotional balance and become more level-headed and even-handed in the discharge of his duties to himself, the academic community, his Igbo people and the entire world which he so badly craves as his stage.
Anything done to hurt the course and cause of truth is an ignoble act. If carpenters and bricklayers are misguided because of their lack of access to information, this ought not to be the forte of someone described as intellectual. He has a duty to lay all the facts out there and then express his view or opinions just as any other subjective individual will do.
Achebe, because of his malice against Awo, lost the chance of helping others to seeing his view by failing to put out all the facts of the situation. He allowed his case to be undermined by being intellectually dishonest and hypocritical. He undermined his reputation and his legacy, because on his death bed, others will come to pass judgment on him regarding this folly among others.
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