Chinua Achebe dead at 82: What the 'Things Fall Apart' author meant to Nigeria
OPINION - The Nigerian political establishment’s eagerness to identify with Achebe is ironic, given that he despised the guys who run the show so profoundly that he firmly rejected, on two occasions (in 2004 and 2011), the awards they offered him...
Achebe was not the only Afro-centrist who had reservations about the fact that we wound up with their Bibles while they wound up with our wealth. But he expressed his concerns about foreign invasion more eloquently than most and left us with no illusions about the price we had paid for Western education.
But he also encouraged us to soul-search about our shortcomings and often berated home-grown rulers for inflicting terrible damage on their kith and kin.
His influence on his country and continent cannot be overstated. Bilkisu Labaran of the British Broadcasting Corporation is not exaggerating when she says that “EVERY African schoolchild grew up with Chinua Achebe…”
Onyekachi Wambu, a distinguished British-Nigerian writer/broadcaster and Chief Executive of a charity for Diasporan Africans, is even more forthright about the role Achebe has played within the context of our collective psyche.
“Achebe was an emotionally significant prophet who loved Africa and was loved in return. He gave us insights into our souls and enabled us to intimately process our pre-colonial pasts…and to construct an alternative, humane world to the humiliating, inhumane world that was constructed by colonialists…
“…He brilliantly explores one key challenge faced in the last l50 years – the encounter with the better-armed, encroaching colonial power…Though the heroes of his novels understood the dangers, they could not provide successful leadership for their communities…We were outgunned economically and militarily, but at least we still had our culture…Even the great Mandela remarked that when he read Achebe in prison, ‘the chains fell away.’”
Some of Achebe’s admirers are urging the Nigerian government to declare a national public holiday in his honor. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Achebe’s compatriots to be given a special day off during which they can contemplate his high hopes for a country that has yet to fulfill its potential.
Donu Kogbara is a writer, broadcaster and communications consultant who was born in Nigeria and raised in the United Kingdom. She regularly shuttles between Europe, Africa and America.
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