Femi Osofisan

A: It is a wrong fear. It is absolutely wrong. At that age, they can speak many languages perfectly. Your children will be competent in all the languages you expose them to at the early stage. I think those that have refused their children to speak their languages will regret it in future. Those children will later realize that they lack something and accuse their parents. In the west out there now, some of our people are already sending their children to learn Yoruba to make up for their own parental lapses.

Q: What informed your studying French?

A: I was going to study Engineering. You know, I went to Government College, Ibadan, which is reputed for science subjects. We had the good laboratories, and very good teachers. But it just happened that our Principal at that time, Mr. D. J. Bullock, who is now dead, was highly interested in drama, and I was an all-round student. So when we were choosing our final options, he called me and said that, instead of all of us going to the sciences, could I not consider the arts? He said he was worried about who would replace people like him for instance after they would have left? So, I said okay, I would give it a shot. But I didn’t go for English because to me it was becoming somewhat common. Many students in the arts went to read English and I decided to do something different. That’s how I decided to go for French, since I had a distinction also in it.

Q: Is Professor Ayo Banjo correct that you were influenced by your “pretty” French teacher to read French?

A: That was of course a joke; he was pulling my leg. Yes, our French teacher was very attractive, but how old were we at the time? Well, if you insist. She was really beautiful and her classes were interesting. But as I said, that could not have influenced our career so decisively at that point in life. Certainly we could not have even dreamt of competing with our teachers, especially handsome bachelors like the then dashing Mr Banjo!

Q: With a PhD in French why are you writing in English?

A: Why not? French, English, Yoruba, or Igbo, these are just languages. You can use any of them as you wish. There are people who studied Physics and write in English, not so? It’s just that I started with English and then came to realize that you have to concentrate on one and master it. You see, languages are not the same and the structures are not the same. It doesn’t mean that I don’t write in French of course, just as I also write in Yoruba. But I am most at ease with English, perhaps unfortunately.

Q: You were a student activist in France and you were arrested for one thing or the other. Can you shed light on your experience as a student activist?

A: Those were years of student movements all over the world. And for me, it all started in fact while I was in Dakar in 1968. I wasn’t the student leader. No. I was just part of it. It was a hot and memorable period in Dakar for the Senegalese people and the government. I was arrested with others, jailed in a military camp, and later expelled by President Senghor. Then two years later I got to France, and it was the same thing, perhaps more violent. We students were trying to fight for a better world. It was a period of glorious idealism. Well, eventually, most of the radicals came to power, after lots of agitations, rallies, mass movements, imprisonments, suffering. There was betrayal, disillusionment, yes. But still I was glad to have been involved in all of that.

Osofisan’s award plaques

A: The age of innocence is obviously over. Tragically. That glowing period has died. But it’s not just with the students but with all political movements all over entire world. When you look around, the total picture is depressing. Where are all those stirring dreams, the inspiring, larger-than-life leaders? When you look at the kind of leaders we have now, which one of them can you trust? They have become sinister, dishonest and manipulating sadists. Generally, as I see it, activism all over the place, not only students’ activism, has taken a perverse dimension. With the triumph of the capitalist life that American has imposed on us, in this age of materialism, of everybody for himself alone, all the old ideals of humanism, of communal benevolence, are gone. Don’t get me wrong, Capitalism can be productive and destructive, I admit. But it can be very destructive of what you and I consider humane values. Money is the reigning god for the students as for all of us. It’s no longer the same world that we knew.

Q: Banjo said that the key lecturer at the conference organized for your birthday described you as an idealist and that some of the things you pursue in life: justice, equity, fairness etc are utopia. What do you have to say to this?

A: It seems he is right. I confess to having been one of the artists in search of Utopia.

Q: Your works are full of ills of the society. Are you bitter?

A: No, I am not. If I am bitter, I will be completely paralysed. I will not be able to do anything at all. I am not happy at all with what I see around, but bitter is not the word I will use to describe it. Or otherwise one would lose hope.

Q: You are still hopeful?

A: Yes. I, all of us, have to be hopeful. We have no choice. Hope is the only thing that can sustain us, and make us struggle on. It is difficult of course. Unlike before, I now realize that hope is not something that is always there. No, it is something that you have to fight for, to will into being. But whether we like it or not, we have to keep hope alight.

Q: Some people are fighting for it in different ways. The AVENGERS in Niger Delta, and those who are distributing letters to all the foreign embassies calling for restructuring of Nigeria, is that the kind of fight you mean?

A: Please understand that people will always fight. There is no time that people will ever be silent like the corpses in the morgue. People will always fight for different things. So let’s not let that discourage us. What is obvious however is that the Nigerian state is still highly unstable. So, people will seek all kind of solutions, particularly if they feel marginalised, and cheated. If we want to stay together therefore, we should negotiate our rules of engagement. We need to look at ourselves and ask honestly what does each of us want? What do you want? What do I want? Unfortunately, we didn’t do that because we were just created by the British. And we have not had the kind of leadership to create the right atmosphere for us to live together as brothers and sisters, in such a way that all of us will have a sense of belonging in the nation. All of us just assumed that there was a country already when it is something still to be created. So, unfortunately, ever since the creation, we have never bothered to do genuine assessment, to ask who is satisfied and who is not, and ensure that everybody is fairly and equitably represented.