South
Africa-based Nigerian intellectual Prof. Bankoe Omotoso, author of the
provocative fact-fiction Just Before Dawn, will be 70 on April 21.
Various activities have been lined up to celebrate this Nigerian icon of
letters in his home state, Akure, Ondo State. But in this online interview with
ANOTE AJELUOROU, Omotoso engages some of the issues confronting the country of
his birth and why he had to leave when he did
Congratulations
on your 70th birthday, Prof.! What does it mean attaining such great age? How
would say life has treated you?
One of the joys of living long is
watching your children bring up your grand children!
It’s
such a long journey from years back till now. What happy and sad landmarks can
you point at in retrospect?
Too many of both but on balance
same-same
Your
book Just Before Dawn, often seen as a biography of Nigeria,
stirred a lot of controversy at the time, which is also at the heart of
Nigeria’s evolution as a country. What did you make of the controversy? Has
anything changed ever since?
It saddened me that it caused any
controversy! A lot has changed. The army is not in power. There's less
misappropriation at states level. Private business is beginning to get out of the
embrace of politicians.
Nigerians
are often seen as a people that suffer from collective amnesia. How much of
this is at play in the country’s historical evolution?
It is not collective amnesia. Just that
different people remember differently. Our future wars will be fought on the
different remembering. How we remember our past will decide how we build our
future.
The
theme for your birthday lecture echoes your book, ‘Radicals, Literature and
Nigeria: Just before 1914’. How far radical do you think Nigerian literature
has been? Has there been any achievement in social, political orientation, if
any, with that radicalism?
Our literature has been our greatest
export. Followed by our films. Imagine if petroleum had been able to bring us
as much positive as these two how much greater Nigeria would be?
Do
you think literature has made any appreciable impact on the basic psychology of
Nigeria as a nation?
I still feel Nigeria has a future
behind it! Unfortunately!!
You
always castigate younger writer, even including your daughter, Yewande, who
doesn’t reside in Nigeria, for not being politically engaging enough in their
works. Do you think that criticism is fair, seeing how averse the public has
become to reading literary matters, and the kind of political culture at play
in society?
It is good young writers are not
obsessed with the politics of the nation as we are. All the same politics and
literature, the greatest literature, are inseparable!
In
spite of its imperfections, the political culture of South Africa, where you
reside, has a measure of sanity even if power is in the hands of blacks. What
useful lessons can Nigeria learn from her?
In South Africa power is not the
monopoly of one particular group. Blacks have political power. Whites have
economic power and there are trades off between different seats of power. Banks
are well-run and infrastructure is the business of everybody. Governments at
national provincial (state) and local levels have to get annual account
certificate! All the same inequality is still too high and unacceptable.
A
large pool of Nigerian intellectuals resides and works abroad like you. Is such
absence from home still tenable given the onerous rebuilding work needed all
areas of national life in Nigeria? How can intellectuals abroad be lured back
home?
Each time I'm asked this question, I
tend to laugh. When you are unable to effect change in your environment, when
you cannot dislocate the wrong doers, you do not join them. You relocate. You
relocate in the hope that you will empower yourself on your return to dislocate
the enemies of progress. Dislocate or relocate. As at now the balance is still
in favour of those who don't want change. The day enough Nigerians refuse to
use generators and insist that NEPA or PHCN must deliver, then coming back will
be in sight.
Give
insight into some of your recent writings, especially drama and short fiction?
Are we expecting a major fiction work from you soon?
I don't speak of my writings. I expect
those interested to do their homework!
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