Elechi Amadi

Please speak about Achebe as an essayist. How effective was he?

His book: Morning Yet on Creation Day is a beautiful collection of essays venting his feelings about African Literature. I think he is a good essayist. “The Trouble With Nigeria” is a long good essay about how he feels about its leadership and followership. He was a great essayist because he wrote well. The command of English was thoroughly in his hands.

In one of his Essays in 1975, Achebe attacked Joseph Conrad who wrote: Heart of Darkness. Do you agree with Achebe’s position?

I do all of agree. All of agree with Achebe. Conrad was a product of his age. At that time Africans were regarded as half animals. But people are much more that what Conrad expressed. Africans are as good as anybody else. You need do is to give him a chance. This is the main reason why the western world is reluctant to transfer technology to African because they know if they do and we set of we’ll surpass them. We have got all it takes to excel in all fields of human endeavour. In Science, Mathematics and in Politics the black has excelled. Obama, a black man, is the leader of the world and the most powerful in the World today. The emergence of Obama in the world politics changed every misconception about the black man. To me Obama was a wonderful watershed the way the world regarded a black man as clumsy incompetent and unintelligent were all put to rest. We shouldn’t bother so much about Conrad.

Achebe was seen by many as over-romanticising his Igbo or African people. What is your position?

The two are a little different. Achebe loved Igbo his people very much and can’t fault him on that. You can’t fault anybody for loving his people. He used the tools he had to his advantage. He stood up for them. He fought for them. They were diplomatic tool, intellectual tool and you can’t fault him. That is why the was so much that when Biafra collapsed, Achebe also collapsed. It was such a trauma for him. That is why,in my view for 20 years, he could not write a novel. In between, he wrote “The Trouble With Nigeria.” But that was not a novel in creative writing. He wrote A Man Of The People in 1966, just before the coup. And it took him 21 years later to come out with Anthill of the Savannah, in 1987. That was the book he gave me and inscribed something which is treasured a possession till date. That lull was too much. Because of great love for his people, when Biafra fell, he was almost inconsolable and it took him quite a while to recover.

How do you assess Achebe’s propaganda during the Biafra era?

Ah! It was very, very effective. It was extremely effectively. If you read my Sunset in Biafra, I expressed my opinion on it. The propaganda of the Biafra accounted for much of the resistance of the Biafrans. When people like Okoko Ndem read those things that Achebe wrote over the radio and so on all Biafrans felt confident and determined to win the war. He was very effective in his propaganda.

Twice Achebe was nominated for national honours and twice he rejected it. What is your opinion on this?

Again it is also his intense love for his people. He felt that why should he receive national honours from a country that was not treating his people well. But from my opinion, he was wrong in rejecting national honours given to you by your country. You have to forget the man on the seat of government whether Babangida, Gowon or Goodluck Jonathan they are not Nigeria. It is not the man, who is the man? It is the country made up of about 160 million people not the man in power. No man is bigger than his country. In that regard, I thought he should have accepted it. It is the country that nurtured you. You attended the schools in your country and Achebe is what he is today because of the country of his birth. He went to Government College,Umuahia, the University College, Ibadan. So, when the country says my son you have done very well take this, you have to accept it.

Talking about honours, Nigeria is used to giving posthumous honours. What do suggest should be used be to immortalize him?

There are many things that can be named after him. Universities can be named after him. Big public place strategically located in Abuja. Notable buildings, libraries or prominent roads in Abuja can be named Chinua Achebe Road. Some Schools can be named after him.

An abridged version of this interview was first published by our sister publication, PM News on 2 April 2013 and TheNEWS same year

Amadi

AMADI’S WRITTEN TRIBUTE FOR CHINUA ACHEBE
TITLED: CHINUE ACHEBE AS I KNOW HIM

I got to know Achebe in 1948 at Government College, Umuahia when we were students. We were not only in the same school but in the same house-Niger House. At one point, we were in fact in the same dormitory and he was the Prefect in charge. He was three years ahead of me.

Chinua was soft-spoken, diligent, and very hardworking and like most boys from that school, reliable and honest. Even in those days one habit of his became noticeable-he always carried a book. Even when he was marking out portions for our grass-cutting chores on Saturdays, he would have a machete in his right hand and a book in his left. This is particularly vivid in my mind.

After schooldays we went our different ways, but whenever we met the passage of time would make no difference. We would recall incidents during our school days and laugh endlessly. He had an honest and rather infectious kind of laughter.

Achebe

When he convened a meeting of Authors at Nsukka University for the formulation of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Chinua was his usual humble and unassuming self. Humorously he said he had convened the meeting not necessarily to form an association but for us to debate whether writers who are known to be half-mad and individualistic could in fact come together to form an association and ANA was born.

When in 1954 Ekwensi published “People of the City” I was thrilled that a Nigerian could write a novel. Then in in 1958 came Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” ,which received instant global acclaim. A novel written by my own schoolmate and friend! Wow!I rushed for a copy and did not put it down until had finished it. I have no doubt at all that I drew my inspiration to write from Ekwensi and Achebe.

Some critics refer to writers who published novels after Things Fall Apart as “Achebe’s Children” .Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I and others drew inspiration and courage to write from him. No, in the sense that while there may be common features like proverbs for instance in his work and mine; my style and orientation are quite different. There are no white men in my books,and gods and the supernatural play a more powerful role than in Achebe’s books. Again, while Achebe deeply explores colonial politics, I am preoccupied with the intricacies of our people’s culture.As the General Editor of African Writers Series, Achebe described The Concubine when it was published as an ‘an unusually successful first novel’,I could not have had a better encouragement than that.

Achebe was a meticulous writer.You cannot find any word in the wrong place.This led Soyinka to complain that he wrote with ‘unrelieved competence to relived incompetence.’

I believe the Civil War affected Achebe very deeply and probably robbed him of Nobel Prize. Between ‘A Man of People’(1966) Antihills of the Savannah (1987),Achebe’s creativity suffered a lull of twenty years which dealt a fatal blow to any Novel Prize ambitions. But that apart, I am convinced that Achebe deserved that prize is based on publication only.

When I met Chinua in January 1989 he gave me a copy of Antihills of the Savannah in which he wrote: ‘To Elechi with admiration, Chinua’. This book is one of my treasured possessions. This great literary icon admired my writing: so critics beware!