Students Of Grief And Laughing
By Mark Nwagwu
I owe the title of this piece to Professor Tekena Tamuno, in his Chairman's opening remarks on the occasion of the public presentation of a book of poems I wrote, Helen, not-of-Troy. He said in his undergraduate days, principally from 1953-56, that he belonged to a group of students who were said to be "students of grief and laughing," a corruption of the subjects they studied, Greek and Latin. Today, fifty-something years after, those same students are Nigeria's elders of grief and laughing.
Pat Utomi, in his October 14 article in The Guardian, Where are Nigeria's elders?, challenges the elders to come forth and let their voice be heard reminding us, of an age-old proverb, recalled by the renowned novelist, Chinua Achebe, in Arrow of God that "a she-goat does not suffer in its parturition while an elder is in the house". He takes issue with President Yar'Adua for not carrying out any electoral reforms after he, the President, admitted that the election that brought him to power was fraudulent. That is to say, the President is continuing with lies - perhaps even perpetuating them - making 'lies' glamorously acceptable. But what irked Utomi more was that President Yar'Adua did not attend the last session of the United Nations, choosing instead to visit King Abdallah and help him open a university! One might wonder, did King Abdallah make our President an offer he could not refuse; like offering our President a billion dollars for the rehabilitation of Nigeria's ailing universities? And has the King delivered on his promise?
Then why did Nigeria play this lowly, despicable role in King Abdallah's kingdom? Utomi found laudable Prof. Ibrahim Gambari's remark that President Yar'Adua was 'mis-advised' in not attending the UN Assembly. According to Professor Ibrahim Gambari, 'I must say strongly as a very senior Nigerian that there was a greatly missed opportunity in that our Head of State was not advised properly to come to this assembly.' And following on this striking statement, Utomi begs "our elders in Nigeria to speak up! There is no use pretending that all is well...I call on the elders of Nigeria to please come to her aid and add their voice to that of Professor Gambari."
Yes, Pat, you can make this call and many would come out and lend their voice anew as many have done in the past. Take President Ibrahim Babaginda, for example: Edwin Madunagu in his Guardian column on November 5 invites us to consider what President Babaginda had to say on a number of sticky issues - the nature of the Federation; state police and national security; and capitalism. Above all, IBB himself says he is "born-again" and Madunagu enjoins us - no, the Nigerian Left - to give him a chance and not condemn him injudiciously. However, having carefully examined what our "born-again" former military president said, Madunagu does not "see any idea for the amelioration of the miserable human condition in this land." So, Pat, there you have one example, nay two examples in fact; President Babangida on the one hand and Edwin Madunagu on the other, both elders of note, making their voice heard.
Who advises President Yar'Adua? Rather, whose advice does President Yar'Adua seek? Or, does the Presidency have ready access to Nigeria's brains on any given issue? If an official of the stature of Professor Ibrahim Gambari could offer his advice publicly, did the Presidency not seek his input in the course of preparing for the President a brief on which he could base his decision? If not, then we are doomed; for if we do not access the knowledge available to us in this country, we will not grow in knowledge because we will not know what it is, neither will we know anything of its power. It is when we find that we are wanting in a certain capability that we would take pains to acquire it. Professor Anya O. Anya has been shouting himself hoarse on this over the years - the world is driven by knowledge and the new global power is knowledge-power.
Where are Nigeria's elders? We should ask the elder statesman, Dr. T.M. Aluko, of One Man, One Wife fame. My spirit lifted up high when I saw his picture in The Guardian, with the caption, 'The Pen is Mightier than Age.' He seemed assiduously at work in his study, smartly clad in a navy-blue caftan. At ninety one years of age, and after being house-bound from stroke for twenty two years, he was still studiously busy, perhaps writing his remarks for the public presentation of his book, Our Born again President, on November 9, fifty years after One Man, One Wife. May I through this medium wish Elder Aluko continued fulfilment in a life of joy and peace.
Let me take Pat Utomi to his days at the Lagos Business School and Pan-African University where he worked with some of the finest Nigerians God gave this country. These are women and men who selflessly give of themselves and go to untold lengths for the success of a worthy cause close to their hearts. I bow to them and salute them. And there are many others like them. Pat, can you imagine where we would be if Nigeria was run by such a superb group of people? We might be like Singapore for together they would form a Lee Kuan Yew! Where are they now? They are still constructing a virile Nigeria, cultivating a knowledge and ethical culture.
There were men of honour and courage who spoke the truth to power and died in the national cause: the history of Nigeria is replete with their names, and it would be invidious to recall just a few. Others escaped death by the skin of their teeth, through God's miraculous powers. Ask The Guardian Publisher, Alex Ibru who served in the Abacha regime, what he has to say about Nigeria's elders and he might tell you, I believe, among many other things, that they are well and getting on with their lives. Perhaps, Pat, they are not speaking loudly enough. But not so, our Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka: the piece by Jare Ajayi, More Tasks for a Hero essay in The Guardian of November 7 testifies that Wole's voice is as resonating as ever, all over the world; that his robust energy is unflagging, and his courage as scholarly as it is enthusiastic. And he is not yet done: no; there are still more tasks for our hero.
At the presentation of Helen not-of-Troy, we had amongst my friends a unique collection of some of Nigeria's best minds all of whom have left the imprint of scholarship and of their own personal character on generations of students and those they have encountered; thus creating a knowledge culture of an astute Nigerian personality. Where Nigeria falters, where this personality goes astray, one can only work ever more assiduously to drown evil with a lot of good. The question, Pat, then becomes, are there good women and men for this task? Our elders are ever at work but the job is for all of us.
Let us take a look at Nigeria as a pregnant goat in tethers close to birth. One might ask: what sort of senseless he-goat would get her pregnant; does he not know that all he can get from Nigeria will be still-births; or, if lambs came at all, they would all be abiku, ogbanje? Why does the elder do nothing but watch - very simple. He knows from experience that if he got near, the goat would kick him in the chin, or worse, butt him in the eye. Or, perhaps, the goat has been in chains for so long she has forgotten what it feels like to be free.
This immediately reminds me of the massive sorrow that filled the heart of Jesus Christ when he lamented over Jerusalem saying: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate." Could it be that Nigeria, like Jerusalem, suffers from intransigence in not listening to the elders? What of the elders in the PDP, with Dr. Ekwueme and others: how far did they get with their reform efforts? Or the elders in the Niger Delta, did they fare any better?
I often ask myself why I am still in this country, as a good number of my colleagues also do. And just as often I smile and say, The good Lord put me in Nigeria for a purpose, as a student of grief and laughing: to work in the grief of sin and evil; laughing in the joy of His love and mercy, in the comfort of the resurrection.
Professor Nwagwu lives in Obetiti, Nguru. Imo State.
