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In Lieu of A Book Review

AIM:  Celebrating the Umuahia literary trio

Oseloka Obaze*

selonnes@aol.com

Wednesday,  3 March,  2004

To aim is to aspire, seek, want, or endeavor.  To aim high is to seek accomplishment or excellence.  But AIM, in the context of this write-up, is an appropriate acronym for a literary trio, who despite being imbued with special God given talents in story telling, were as youths, given the opportunity to refine those abilities for progressive and enchanting creative writing in the hallowed and serene campus of Government College Umuahia.  Coincidentally, they were thereafter, all transplanted to the University College Ibadan, where their writing skills, I suspect, were further honed and burnished.

The trio, were first and foremost schoolmates, then friends, and eventually became published and accomplished novelists.  Coincidentally, all three, who remain, I believe, bosom friends are Igbo and come from Anambra State, Nigeria; Achebe from Ogidi, Ike from Ndikelieonwu and Momah from Nnewi.  Luckily, the trio -- all septuagenarians now-- are well and alive and continue to contribute literally to the bodywork of Nigerian, African and international literature.  The AIM trio, as some readers might have already guessed, is no other, than Albert Achebe, Vincent Ike and Christian Momah or better still, as they are now renowned, Chinua Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike and Chike Momah.  The three friends are all authors in their own right, albeit with varying degrees of domestic and international renown.   

Those familiar with Nigerian literature, are likely to have read books by Achebe and Ike.  Momah, on the other hand, started writing well after he retired in 1990, at the age of sixty from the service the United Nations.  But this latter-day emergence of the “third feet” of this literary trio, it seems, is merely in affirmation of the Igbo saying “one pair of feet alone cannot keep a homestead clean.”  Chike Momah, however, sees it differently.  He unabashedly blames his late blooming as an author on his close friendship with Chinua Achebe and Chukwuemeka Ike.  "Having read their books, I was intimidated and thought that I would never be able to compete with them.  They set a standard I thought I could never attain."

The sporadic reader that I am, I have been privileged to read several of the books by Achebe and Ike.  Indeed, some of them involuntarily as they were compulsory readings for literature classes either in secondary school or in college.  And there are quite a number of books between the two.  But I have been even more privileged to have read all of Chike Momah’s books – three in all, plus most recently, the manuscript of his fourth and forthcoming book, The Stream Never Dries.

I was moved to paying tribute to these three, all noble men and great writers of our time, who belong to a league extraordinary men, because not doing so will mean willfully denying how I feel about them and their work.  I also feel that I must honor what they represent, not just in the literary field, but as people of noble disposition and enlightenment and as Igbo men.  Traditionally, those in the same business and craft see their counterparts as adversaries and competitors; not these three, who have always had kind and very endearing and complimentary words to say of each other.  I recall vividly, Chinua Achebe’s emotional and griping words of tribute at Chike Momah’s seventieth birthday celebration in Somerset, New Jersey in the fall of 2000.  And those words -- terms of endearment uttered with great compassion and sincerity as only a true friend can -- mirror also, Achebe’s deep affinity, love and respect for Chukwuemeka Ike.

In May 2001, when Ike like Momah turned seventy, Achebe in his peer tribute to him said the event “should be an occasion for national celebration” an “opportunity for a grateful nation to record its appreciation for the work of a great public servant who is also a profoundly important literary artist.”  On a more personal note, he added:

I have known Chukwuemeka Ike since our teenage years first as a contemporary at Government College, Umuahia and then at University College, Ibadan; and I regard this long acquaintance which matured into close friendship as one of the rich blessings of my life.  But more to the point, it gives me the authority to reflect on this man who is in reality a most uncommon phenomenon.

The adjectival qualification of being a “phenomenon”, to my mind, is equally applicable to Achebe and Momah, each in his own right and prorated share.  As to the contribution Ike has made with his writings, Achebe had observed:

In his fine satire of Nigerian academia, Naked Gods, Ike achieves brilliant observation, light hearted humour and sombre seriousness.  And that combination of light touch and serious purpose is the hallmark of his entire oeuvre. He explores our human condition in terms we can all understand and in images that will endure.

Ike and Momah have variously reciprocated with similar endearing and literary tributes to their dear friend and literary icon, Chinua Achebe.  But I find in my study of the trio, that such reciprocal tributes are not your usual good-old-boy backslapping.  Achebe, who many, including this writer, believe has been long overdue for a Nobel Prize in Literature, has elicited more rave reviews for his works from people personally unknown to him, than what his dear friends say of him publicly with cold modesty.  Of his works and literary contribution, Ike once offered a synoptic but very revealing view: “God has blessed Nigeria with Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, brilliant writers any country can justifiably be proud of.”  He also characterized his friend as “one of the most decorated novelists of the 20th century”.  But then, someone else had once aptly described Achebe as a “legend”. The gist of Achebe’s contribution to Nigeria and our humanity cannot be evaluated just in literary terms, for there are also invaluable political, cultural and historical angles to his writings.  Views expressed in the commentary below, perhaps encapsulates these multifaceted contributions the best:

Prof. Achebe has been a significant and binding source for an engaging understanding of African pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial history and realities. Such insight has made him a favorite of African-Americans, too, who continue to seek a better, realistic understanding of Africa, at least, from Achebe's utilization of his proud Igbo ancestry, in south eastern Nigeria.

Of the Umuahia trio - all of whom I have had the rare privilege of making their acquaintance - I know Chukwuemeka Ike the least, having only met him once, and Chike Momah the best, having been privileged to be closely associated with him since 1997, in the context of our interest and support for a Nigerian community-based charity.  I once described Momah in a public gathering, as a “man of few words, big heart and great compassion”, whose “passion for doing good, helping the needy and serving his community is as perceptible as a humming neon light”.  He is indeed a rare gem.  And it is a tribute to his self-effacing nature and modesty that he chose to defer his personal avocation for writing well into his sixties.  But such talent, like a shining star, was not always successfully hidden.  At the launching of his first and second books in 1999, Ike had this to say of his childhood friend:

Chike Momah's two published novels, Friends and Dreams (1997) and Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva (1999) have brought to light what some of us who have known the author from his days at Government College, Umuahia, have always known: that he is a literary gem of purest ray serene. Over the years, over the decades, we used various strategies to prevail on him to stretch out his wings and fly, to allow the world to enjoy his literary sweetness. I thank God that he did not die to be mourned as a "mute inglorious Milton”.

Achebe has been called the “The most translated writer of African heritage” and Ike’s books have been described as novels that “transcend historical, sociological, and political documentation and achieve comedy, tragedy, irony, and metaphor”.  In time, when Momah’s books like Achebe’s and Ike’s have become well publicized and read, I predict that similar accolades will flow to him without any hesitation or predilection.  After reading Momah’s most recent book, The Shining Ones, I was moved in reviewing it, to characterize his writing style and cadence thus: “Momah through his lively writing and great dexterity in the use of straightforward prose thrills the reader with his story telling.   The all too familiar old school tales are interwoven in a mesmerizing and succulent fugue worthy of Bach.”  Only those who have read a book by Momah will fully begin to appreciate the vivid imageries and picturesque portraits of people and places, he presents with the color, power, and flourish of his use of words, and I dare say, by his masterful command of the English language.

I have counted well over thirty books between these three schoolmates and friends.  Notable amongst them are Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958); No Longer At Ease (1960); Arrow of God (1964); A Man Of The People (1966); Girls At War (1972); Anthills Of The Savannah (1987); Beware Soul Brother (1971); Another Africa (1998); The Trouble With Nigeria (1983); Hopes And Impediments (1988); and Home And Exile (2000).  Ike’s books, which are also many, include: Toads for Supper  (1965); The Naked Gods (1970); Expo '77 (1980); Our Children Are Coming (1990); The Search (1991), How to Become a Published Writer (1991); Potter's Wheel (1993),  Sunset at Dawn: A Novel of the Biafran War (1993), The Bottled Leopard (1994), To My Husband From Iowa, (1998) and The Chicken Chasers (2001).  For Momah, there has been, Friends and Dreams (1997); Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva (1999), The Shining Ones (2003) and the forthcoming The River Never Dries (2004)

Chukwuemeka Ike in a very Socratic fashion once asked a poignant question as a means of providing an answer. “What Future for Nigerian Literature?” he had asked.  I make bold to say that the future looks great and rosy, despite Achebe’s lament about the deteriorating reading culture in Nigeria.  I doubt also, that the more obvious impediments, including the dearth and the difficulties associated with published Nigerian works, would pose a prolonged problem. I have recently read books by new and younger Nigerian authors, like M. O. Ene (Jaundiced Justice), Okey Ndibe (Arrows of Rain), Bayo Ojikutu, (47^th Street Black), Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (Purple Hibiscus), Kema Chikwe, (Village Boys), William Oyebeke (The Wood Chopper) and Caroline Ilogienboh (The Return of Tyreek) and her forthcoming one (No Where to Hide).  I came away from them all, doubtful that any inhibitions and impediments exist that could be forceful enough to deter young Nigerians with writing aspirations and skills. Certainly, not those who have cast Achebe, Ike and Momah as their literary role models. My optimism, therefore, could hardly be misplaced.

I do not suspect that Achebe, Ike and Momah need praise singers, nor that whatever I write or say, about their books, positive as it might be, will ever lift or zero out their royalties and bank accounts.  Like many people, I am among the first to readily acknowledge that the foundation of one’s accomplishments and what they became later in life, was laid not in the university they attended, but early in life at the secondary schools which they attended.  This seems to have been the case with Achebe, Ike and Momah.  As someone who takes immense pride in his alma mater, (Christ the King College, Onitsha, which produced Nigerian playwright, Ene Henshaw), I suspect that the writing proficiency of those who went to Government College Umuahia, might have more to do with the organic fruits they ate from the school’s orchard – “The Uppers.”  After all, Umuahia was not the only school where reading and creative writing was an institutional prerogative.  Absent that possibility, then, their writing acumen might have very well been an unintentional consequence of the remoteness of their school campus from “civilization”.  Such being the case, the bored students would have had no distraction, and therefore, no choice but to read and write in order to pass time.  My facetiousness aside, Government College Umuahia, their alma mater, has every reason to stake claim to being a citadel renowned for producing eminent writers.  Besides the Umuahia trio, the school also produced other notable Nigerian writers, like Chris Okigbo, Elechi Amadi, late Ken Saro Wiwa, and I.N.C. Aniebo, amongst others.

Generations to come will, just like my generation, be inspired to write in order to emulate, imitate, match, and top the likes of Achebe, Ike and Momah.  Those, who have set the trio as their writing and literary role models, see in themselves and their aspirations, an obligation, tradition and a role in ensuring continuity by upholding the great legacy bequeathed to them by the trio.  If this piece is deemed too reverential, so be it.  And I offer no apology nor see the need for one.  What I see and have keenly felt, in knowing these gentlemen from a distance, but more intimately through their books, is that they have respectively lifted our humanity with their stories.  As novelists, they have offered those alien to our ways, mores and culture, an unvarnished glimpse into our souls, and an understanding of our collective mindset and the nobility of our culture, which, when perceived in contrast from a foreigner’s assessment, are deemed alien, uncivilized and even barbaric. They have also, without any claim to being moral relativists, highlighted the pitfalls in our self-governance, our tendency to imbibe the Western culture and the dichotomies between our traditional religions and the imported ones.  Overall, the trio continue to inspire us to AIM high.

Personally, Achebe, Ike and Momah represent writers who not only defined excellence, but were the breed that trashed long-held norms, and more than historians, had the audacity to tell African stories the African way – with idioms and untranslated Igbo. May they all live long, for only death can silence the creative writer. Their written words will embrace generations yet uncontemplated. For having done all these through their writings, the Umuahia trio ought to be celebrated. Truly, they are The Shining Ones!

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