#Reflections

Chimamanda Adichie as ‘Odeluwa’

By Busuyi Mekusi

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If not for the imperative of joining in the advancement of the course of Nigerian women, I would have loved to reflect on the pipes in the mouths of the presidential candidate of the ruling party, the APC, Bola Tinubu, and that of the main opposition party, the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, who have chosen not only to tangle with their combustive verbal attacks at campaigns but who are now wallowing in the murky waters of the negatively-conceived dirty water of Nigerian politics.

One hopes the electorate would be wise enough to know that the strategy by the political gladiators to concentrate on brickbats, as against clear enunciation of their plans to rescue a seeking nation, is a further attempt to get the masses guessing, goaded to another deception. Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, still gets buffeted for the long pipe in his mouth that led to his endorsement of Peter Obi as his preferred presidential candidate in the forthcoming election. The elder-statesman remains a personification of the letter-writing generation that contrasts hugely with a gossiping era.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has, in the past, received my acknowledgment for her transnational engagements, that are couched in what Chinua Achebe once referred to as a concentric identity. With Achebe’s attested huge influence, Adichie’s cosmopolitan major characters in her narratives are substantially eponymous, reflective of her own migrational experiences, as well as those of others she is familiar with. Either in part or whole, agencies in Americana and The Thing Around Your Neck would enliven the exile experiences of most Nigerian migrants, particularly those that currently got caught in the Japa syndrome. Although citizens could always express their rights to freedom of movement, within and outside their nationally constitutionally prescribed spaces, the new wave of Nigerian youths selling off their fixed assets and personal belongings to escape the heat in the country to Europe and America is an indictment on the dysfunctional political system and inept leaders that could not guarantee the citizens decent living.

Beyond the extraordinary artistic exploits the award-winning Adichie is making globally, she remains connected to her roots in a manner that sustains her richness of the cultural local content which she uses to interrogate global behaviours. She is, no doubt, an exemplary glocal personage. As a cultural ambassador, Adichie may be African in outlook, Nigerian in tenacity, but rudimental in Igbo, with very desperate moves to remain a citizen of the world.

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Her people from whom she derives more of her material realities would not trade her for anything, with a sense of ownership that is both patriotic and personal. The foregoing explains the recent conferment of a chieftaincy title of ‘Odeluwa’ on her, by the traditional ruler of Abba, Anambra State, Igwe L. N. Ezeh. Adichie had stated that her blazing the trail as the first woman to be conferred with a traditional title would inspire others to be so honoured.

With the appeal by Adichie that culture custodians should ensure that men and women are celebrated equally, the title of ‘Odeluwa’, which simply translates to ‘The one who writes for the world’, is suggestive that the world is being invited to see to the improvement of the locus of women in Igbo globalised civilisation. Unlike the patriarchal society that dominates most of Achebe’s novels, Adichie’s artistic reflections have roundly promoted and situated the female agency advantageously, comparatively to the male folk that is subjugated by the clouts of a bold, thriving or revolting female. The cultural cum political Igbo nay Nigerian landscape remains toxic to women in the 21st century, as they continue to be fed with the crumbs of gains and periled by the brute of gangs that pervasively rule the horizon. It is evident that Adichie is a chronicler of the experiences of her people, a worthy representative that is cosmopolitanism in discoloniality, and broker of the conservatism that sometimes ago made certain things unsaid.

The term ‘Odeluwa’, which in Igbo cultural-linguistic corpus is indicative of writing for the word, could assume a new meaning when inflected and used in Yoruba discourse. For instance, when notated as òdelúwà, it would mean that public engagements require circumspection. In perception and reception ideation, there are constructed differences between public and private spaces and dealings, and it is prescribed that different rules guide human conducts privately, as against publicly. This is more so that the socio-political status of a person is expected to inform how s/he conducts his or herself within and outside bordering walls. It is given such a pretentious dual or multiple personality that Orlando Owoh, the African Kennery maestro, sang about many people playing big-men in pubic whose acts are abominable. One notable Nigerian that has recently exemplified the idea of ‘writing’ and the need for circumspection is the former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo.

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Obasanjo is a privileged Nigerian like Buhari that had the unique privilege of ruling Nigeria as both a military Head of State and civilian president. He is very controversial, and has volunteered his thoughts to the world through the writing of some memoirs. Between his My Command and My Watch, Obasanjo diminished the notion that an engineering graduate from a military academy would bother less about the language of storytelling and detailed narratives, as he did in his books. Apart from his engagements with the global public through his books, Obasanjo has the penchant for writing letters, as he did in the past to Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, as well as his recent one to Nigerians, particularly youths. While he has been variously scathingly lampooned by people who got ruffled by what he wrote about the presidential candidates of the ruling APC, Bola Tinubu, and that of the leading opposition, the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, as well as the endorsement of the third force candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, Obasanjo has remained unshaken like either Olumo or an igneous rock that is close to the quaking sounds of a quarry.

Among many other things, letters are believed to be useful enough to send information, news and greetings. They are also used to enhance reading, self-expressive writing, polemical writing, and cross fertilise ideas with people having common ideals and orientation, and as well deployed as a written performance. It may be difficult to gauge the positive effects on the readers of Obasanjo’s letter, who may be nudged to accept the endorsement of Peter Obi, but the reverberation of the innocuous or atrocious letter locally and globally would not be forgotten in a hurry. Some backers argued that Obasanjo has the constitutional right in a democracy to air his opinion, while people not pleased with his intervention could easily ignore his tantrums. However, his critics are of the opinion that his obtrusive thoughts are poisonous to the polity, self-serving and unexpected of an elder statesman. Specifically, some people accused him of egocentric priggishness that would not allow him to see anything good in others, claiming that his intention was to pull down Tinubu, like he did of Awolowo and Abiola, at different times in the past.

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It may be true that òdelúwà is a good advice for Obasanjo to moderate his public political actions, as he adjusts the pipe in his mouth and rev up his letter-writing skills, the Igbo, and particularly Adichie that has been willed this prestigious title, should not nurse any fear of interloping by the shrewd nature and personality of Obasanjo, that has been scandalously and redundantly configured by political detractors as having an Igbo descent, contrary to his Òwu ascendancy. It is often said that whoever wants to know how the history of his parents could be debasingly maligned should get involved in Nigerian politics. Such treacherous attacks on the late father of the Vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, got him to shed tears on a national television recently. As the race to Aso Rock becomes intense, Tinubu is accusing Atiku of profligacy and Obi of stinginess, while Atiku brands Tinubu as a drug baron, while Obi is only committing to retiring them from politics, and paying their entitlements.

Nigerians should learn from the values of both Adichie’s Odeluwa and Obasanjo’s òdelúwà, as they break through known barriers, and communicate positively with the world, to reverse the negative image of corruption, scam, prostitution and ineptitude with which they are characterised by players across borders, even as they are reminded that caution is required in public conducts, to save the public space of the foul smells precipitated by misapplied western civilisation.

Is Bishop Kukah right, after all, that politics in Nigeria is a ‘criminal enterprise’? May we not recede into errors, as 2023 elections beckon!  

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