A LETTER TO ELECHI AMADI
Dear Teacher,
...
Truly I say unto thee, this consultation can not wait!
Nobody said the dead possesses the wisdom. But you were always one with a sense of humour, and I am sure you will appreciate a cheeky device. --After all is not the legendary Ihuoma such a one!?
.....
For a terrible joke goes in Israel. Bibi was always Yonni's inferior, were Yonni alive, Bibi would never have made PM of Israel.
[/font] [/quote] This is a dangerous terrain, Elechi, Kenya is accused of having aided the Israeli raid on Uganda. Covertly of course, because officially Kenya endorsed the Non-aligned and Arab league diplomatic position of boycotting Israel and agitating for the two-state solution, with right of the return of Palestinian refugees.
So, Amadi, there is still no Palestinian state. Daily their land dwindles under an intensified Israeli land grab, aka settler occupations. Especially under Bibi Netanyahu. What now for the current generation of African leaders respective the national aspirations of the Palestinian people? As the leaders of East and Central Africa gather and fawn around Bibi Netanyahu in Kampala for a tutorial of how keep a rebellious people in check ---for I think the Israeli terrorist problem is a colonial problem, and the Palestinian terrorist problem is a liberation problem, what do history and civics teachers reviewing the Press in class say, if minded to be a Solomon or Nestor the Horseman, famed of counsel like the gods?
FOOTNOTE:
ooooh I cry out for the fallen soldier, Elechi Amadi.
reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half a Yellow Sun one is mesmerised by the man the twins shared, although in the novel he married only one of them while the other twin had an affair with him. instead of a tragedy befalling the twins it is the Biafra war that unites the twins. the sad ending is that one twin disappears and the reader is left not knowing if she was killed by combatants and she went to fetch food for the other twin or she gave up her man for the beautiful twin. the horrors of war are not as stuck as 'Sunset in Biafra, a rendition of his personal experience with Eastern Nigeria’s three years’ secession, following the flawed elections of 1966 and the virulent ethnic backlash.'
Read more at:
www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000207722/elechi-amadi-a-tribute-to-a-literary-icon Sunset in Biafra leaves one aghast at what men do to fellow human kind in times of extreme hate. Amadi writes from the perspective of a sensitive and refined civilian caught up in the chaos of conquest and occupation.
Amadi encases his Apollonian reflections in a somber prose:
The earth had become a monster, a ubiquitous monster, licking her fangs yet in no hurry to swallow me up. She sneered at me as I trod on her, she laughed at me as I ate, knowing she was fattening me for the kill ... Life was a bitter, cruel dream, arranged by a sadistic god! The police cell was more crowded. There were over seventy of us in three rooms. Actually there were more than three rooms, but the others were unusable. Detainees defecated and urinated freely in them and the stench which permeated the occupied rooms was difficult to bear. Again, there were the bedbugs. I had not seen such a dense population of them before. There were many cracks in the wall, especially near the floor, and these were crammed with fat bedbugs. At night they descended on the inmates and fed well.
'Amadi's Sunset in Biafra begins in the city of Zaria in Northern Nigeria with Amadi resigning from the Nigerian Army. He leaves Zaria just one week before the coup of January 15th, 1966 and travels to his home village of Aluu, near Port Harcourt. His military training and intellectual stature guarantee him a leadership position when "Biafran" troops occupy the Rivers Region. Amadi's narrative emerges from this experience. His complicated war-time itinerary, interrupted by interrogations and detentions, take him around "Biafra." Amadi's circuit widens when Federal troops re-occupy Port Harcourt. It expands to include the Ahoada District, where he becomes District Officer, and even Lagos. The Federal military government appoints him head of the Rivers Ministry of Local Government in Port Harcourt. He makes sorties from Port Harcourt in search of his missing family and parents. In a rare happy ending for the "Biafran" conflict, he is re-united with all his kin at the narrative's conclusion.' but wait....is it a happy ending when Amadi is re-united with his peasant father? hear him "I picked up my father the next day just four miles from home.
Clad in a tattered ancient black overcoat, and with a white beard, he was pushing his bicycle along with steps made remarkably steady by his proximity to his ancestral home. He did not weep as he hugged me, but I knew he felt more than everybody else."
quod.lib.umich.edu/p/passages/4761530.0006.010/--two-niger-delta-texts-on-the-biafran-war?rgn=main;view=fulltextAmadi is not sitting somewhere in a foreign country as yours truly and spewing hate to the other ethnic group not belonging to his own. urging the two communities to tear each other apart. no he once served the Nigerian army and later lived among his people who happen to reside deep within Biafra territory suffering with them. what lessons are there for us who sit far far away on key boards furiously hurling insults to our perceived enemy almost always the other ethnic group. and only less than three months of post election violence of December 2007 to February 2008 makes us cringe when Biafra lasted 3 'good' years!
For three years, 1967-1970, millions of lives were lost in a bloody civil war that was to see secessionist Biafra subdued and brought back to the republic, with its citizens becoming, till date, second class in the country of their birth.
Forty-one years after the civil war, the political ‘marginalisation’ of the Igbos seems to have become an official Nigerian internal policy, while the high priests of this shameful act appear to be none other than the so-called political leaders of the South-East themselves.
Prostitutes in the halls of any government in power, these pretenders to the political leadership of the Igbos have become rich by selling the destiny of their people to the highest bidder. Therefore, while they go about in the daytime spreading the gospel of Igbo political emancipation, at night they march their people to the ‘master’s chambers’, allowing the big man to have his way with them. It is for this particular reason that Ojukwu will be missed.
Ojukwu was not known to mince words when fighting for the rights of his people. He was also not known to suffer the foolishness of is people, especially when it was apparent that they were deliberately putting themselves in a position where they would not be given equal treatment by other Nigerian citizens. Little wonder then, that he was hardly seen in the petty gatherings of so-called Igbo leaders who were known for hobnobbing with the powers-that-be, to the detriment of their people.
ndukwe.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/sunset-in-biafra/when one looks at our Igbo's of Kenya the great Luo nation, does one not fail to see the sun is yet to rise for them? what difference does one not see of the late Tom Mboya and now Raila Odinga with
Prostitutes in the halls of any government in power, these pretenders to the political leadership of the Igbos have become rich by selling the destiny of their people to the highest bidder. ooooh I mourn the fallen teacher, Elechi Amadi
reading the Concubine.....'Ihuoma is a concubine to a tribal god. Any man who dreams of winning her love must die.
We would say in Africa that “she kills the men who love her.” Yet it is not Ihuoma as such,'
Read more at:
www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000207722/elechi-amadi-a-tribute-to-a-literary-iconwhy did Tom Mboya have to die, nay be killed in Kenya, leaving us stranded with the monster Jomo Kenyatta for almost a decade before he also died like the dictator described in The Autumn of the Patriarch?
www.amazon.com/Autumn-Patriarch-Gabriel-Garcia-Marquez/dp/0060882867we have had our share of tyrants all displaying corruption of power. we daily witness our PORK and deputy PORK oscillating from charity to deceit, benevolence to violence, fear of God to extreme cruelty, just like the dictator of The Autumn of the Patriarch embodies the best and the worst of human nature.we always hear of Kenya having once been at par with South Korea yet it is now we are rated as a middle income economy while our yesterdays' peer boasts that soon Sumsung will topple Apple's iPhone and be the top of the world. while our demented past PORK Kibaki could only emulate the late Mobutu Seseko of Zaire now rightfully called Congo. Mobutu had only one tarmac road from the capital Kinshasa going back to his mothers' birthplace. every time I ride along Thika super high way memories of Mobutu building a road from Kinshasa to where he hoped to be buried flashes in my mind. it would have been more sensible to build a road from Kinshasa to Katanga where the bulk of Congo's wealth in minerals came from or in keeping with Nkrumah's dream of one Africa build a highway to Rwanda so that it eventually connects with Uganda - Kenya and Burundi-Tanzania becoming a vital link between East and West Africa.
but no Kibaki built a super high way to his hoped burial place, Neri, where his mother was born. just like the late Mobutu. every time I look at the portraits of past PORKs memories that 'shines a nuanced portrait of "President" Mobutu. A thief, certainly. A thug, yup. A man who bears some responsibility for turning a potentially wealthy country into a cesspool, sure. '
www.amazon.com/Footsteps-Mr-Kurtz-Disaster-Mobutus/dp/0060934433recently as Wainguru of NYS "fame" , and Odhiambo of Youth Fund "fame" under Jomo's son watch aka UhuRuto one cannot help not seeing Mobutu emerging aa the talented politicians who are bringing a measure of order to Kenya's post-colonial chaos. since on top, however, they are looting the national treasury in order to pay off rapacious underlings who would settle for nothing less than chartered helicopters, buying and building houses in Karen, Runda, Kitsuru and other uptown places in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu etc.
ooooh I weep for our continent. Ihuoma is a concubine to a tribal god. Any man who dreams of winning her love must die.
We would say in Africa that “she kills the men who love her.” Yet it is not Ihuoma as such
or is it that Patrice Lumumba would have been a terrible leader and hence only Mobutu could be the misleader for Congo? 'Mobutu didn't rise to office on his good looks and winning personality--he was essentially put there by the CIA. He also didn't retain power simply because he was good at exercising it; France, Belgium, and the United States, not to mention the World Bank, kept him there with military support and an endless stream of dollars. The tale of how he played the First World like a violin is fascinating. Mobutu's nationalization of foreign-owned assets and his machinations with the White House sparked several plot elements in Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo.'
so when one looks at Kagame of Rwanda, M7 of Uganda and our own UhuRuto pair would we be wrong to assume they are in power courtesy of USA and western powers and not the adulations from the hopeful masses of Eastern Africa who love their dictators?
ooooh I weep for our continent. Ihuoma is a concubine to a tribal god. Any man who dreams of winning her love must die.
We would say in Africa that “she kills the men who love her.” Yet it is not Ihuoma as such
'In The Concubine, the beautiful Ihuoma loses her husband Ekweme when he dies after a fight with his rival for her love, Madume. Madume himself dies shortly afterwards when a serpentine creature spits venom into his eyes after he has spitefully raided her banana plantation. Ihuoma recovers from her season of mourning to accept love from the affable Emenike. But Emenike dies in a freaky domestic accident, only a few days to their proposed wedding day. It transpires that Ihuoma is a concubine to a tribal god. Any man who dreams of winning her love must die.
We would say in Africa that “she kills the men who love her.” Yet it is not Ihuoma as such, it is the gods.'
Read more at:
www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000207722/elechi-amadi-a-tribute-to-a-literary-iconso we are doomed to have UhuRuto the reincarnates of both Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi, as our local despots. M7 for Uganda. Kagame for Rwanda. Kabila for Congo, having ably replaced the monster Mobutu Sese Seko
As the sun sets on Biafra, I pray that someday, in the not-so-distant future, it will rise again, bearing on its wings warriors for whom the task of rebuilding a battered nation-state will be second to none. As the sun sets at dusk today, may it rise with the first cockcrow tomorrow
ndukwe.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/sunset-in-biafra/ooooh I cry for the fallen surveyor.....(to be continued)
