Poet Laureate, Professor Niyi Osundare, turned 75 on Saturday, March 12. The celebrated poet and artist-scholar’s birthday coincided with the rolling of the press of his two latest poetry collections, Green: Sighs of Our Ailing Planet; and Snapsongs. The Distinguished Emeritus Professor of University of New Orleans, USA, who held a reading and book signing session of one of the anthologies, Green, in Lagos, recently, spoke on his art, leadership and decades of compulsive engagement with Nigeria. Excerpts:
AS you called them in Snapsongs, the lions, the rhinos, the tigers, the warthogs, the hyenas, the giraffes, the zebra along with …and lambs are once again out staking their claims to power and the leadership of Nigeria. Who among the faces you see is fit for Aso Rock or put in another way, what change would you want to see in our political system after the 2023 elections?
You’re not going to get anything specific from me at this level, because I’m still watching. The battle is just warming up. I think it’s too early now. There’s nothing I can say now that won’t be interpreted as amounting to endorsement or the opposite of it. No! The field is still extremely narrow and indeterminate. I’ll say let’s have some patience. Let’s see how things really work out.
But you can advise based on the beauty or ugliness of the animal characters you identified in the poem, can’t you?
That is a work of art and it is now left for the reader to read that poem and arrive at the association between the different animals and the different political animals that we have on the scene now. At this level, I think it will be impolitic to begin to discuss individuals because the game is just shaping up. We need a free hand now for this to happen. Somebody like me has got to be extremely careful about this.
What is your prescription for us to enjoy good leadership?
Not “prescriptions” but extrapolations from what I have said so far. We want a leader not a ruler. A leader who thinks, a leader who feels, a leader who reads, who is intelligent and current. A leader who can handle the computer. This is the digital age. A leader that could wake up in the middle of the night and take certain important decisions on his or her own without relying on somebody to fish out something for him or her on the Internet. Nigeria needs a 21st century leader. People are now talking about age factor. I’m not one to talk about age. Samuel Doe was a young man when he got to power and we saw what he did with power; Thomas Sankara too was a young man, but he left a lasting legacy in Burkina Faso his country as well as the rest of Africa. . General Gowon was barely 32 when he got to power. Trying times in the nation’s history; he did his best and made his own mistakes too. On the other line of the age spectrum, Malaysia’s Mahathir Muhamad, Malaysia’s legendary Prime Minister, was called back to office at age 93 at a time his country needed a tested and trusted leader to steady its ship of state. Nelson Mandela was surely not a young man when he walked out of Apartheid incarceration and gave a young South Africa the steady, inclusive leadership it had never had. Character, not age. Character, and character again.
How do we get out of that trap?
If the colour of the leaves is going to change it will have to start from the roots. The 1999 constitution is not working. The presidential system is not working because we copied it sheepishly from America and are busy discolouring it with our perverse “Nigerian Factor”. It worked for America because America is a different country entirely. But from the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2020, we see that even the most powerful democracy in the world could be reduced into Third world chaos in just a couple of hours! No system is perfect and every system could be abused. Self-regulation and abuse-control have to be built into it. What happened in the US was an attempted coup! An election had taken place and the incumbent President wanted it bypassed so that he could continue in power.. It’s very Nigerian what I saw. But the American military showed they could not be bought. America nearly tipped. Nearly! All systems leak. No polity is perfect. This should put our world, including the US itself, on steady, unfailing alert.
You have had a continuous dialogue with this country on how to fix its afflictions for some four decades through your poetry, essays and other public engagements. But it’s been, as you once lamented, like hawking your verse in the streets of deaf ears or trying to chip off a mighty boulder like Olosunta with a fingernail, because the same old faults, same old sleaze keep recurring, making the themes of your poems sound so familiar and almost monotonous, save for the genius of expression of your art. Are you considering packing up the stall and heading home to enjoy some peace?
Well, (laughs) I wonder who the poet really is now, whether it is me or you, because the question couldn’t have been put more poetically. And let me hold on to the last bit of your question – ‘to head home’ I can never do all the things you’re saying until I head home. That is to say, until I die. My dialogue with Nigeria is a lifelong affair.
Why despite the efforts of poets like Odia Ofeimun, Tanu Ojaide and yourself, in democratising access, appeal and relevance of poetry to the needs of the people is this art form still the least appreciated as to inform and galvanise the desired social change? Could the fault be with the message or with the medium, which, in the field of communication is sometimes equated with the message.
Some people believe that the word is impotent, but it is not really so. The poet doesn’t have the power of the Pope who can affect over a billion people in just one second by a phrase or two. He doesn’t have the power of an emperor whose word is law. The poet doesn’t have the power of the king either. Literature works through a slow process of persuasion. You can never compel people to read you. Reading is something you do on your own volition, unless you’re studying for an exam. Epochal words have a way of preparing the way for epochal events. The French Revolution began in 1789. That’s what people say. But the ideas that led to that Revolution began about 200 years earlier from the works of Voltaire, Montesquieu, the Encyclopedists and the rest of them including Jean Jacque Roseau who said: “Man is born free but everywhere in chains”. I’ve been asked time and time again: “All you’ve been writing, what have we gained from it?” I have always laughed. I don’t want to say this country has changed because we’ve been writing but one thing I know is that this country could have been different if we had not been writing. Cynics often say: ‘’Don’t mind him, he’s a mere poet. Who is reading him?” When one of the poems in my new book was published some years ago, and words of concern and consternation were reported to have come from the seat of power, I suspected that reaction couldn’t have happened if some people had not read the poems and its import with special interest. Silence is the greatest enemy of democracy. Every word that comes out of me, I make sure that it makes sense and has serves as some kind of antidote. Yes, we deal in ideas. Ideas don’t mature in just one day, it takes time and silence is a killer. When we consider the progress that Nigeria has made today, we cannot discount the contributions of those poets whose names you mentioned in your question, and so many other writers across the genres
How do you react to the view that perhaps we should allow the excesses and excrescences a free rein until disgusted or despairing from the ill consequences of their actions, the people will be forced to clamour for change or reform themselves?
People say that but I often counter with the Yoruba proverb: “Ayangbe aja dun, amo kí ni a je kí aja to jina? (Well smoked and dry meat is quite delicious, but what do we eat before the meat is done?).” Here also is another Yoruba proverb: “Kí ilé to pa osika, nkan gannan gannan ti báje (The avenging spirit of the earth kills an evil person, but only after so many innocent things would have been destroyed)”. The danger in that kind of waiting is that if we allow things to boil over that way the result is usually the production of an opportunistic leader, and this is the problems with military coups all over the world. That’s why when they come up, you run round saying, our liberator has come, as he declares: “I’m the human rights crusading president, the spirit of liberty. I will do this. I will do that..”. Then, a week after, decrees begin to roll out and the week after more draconian decrees. Then the people start saying: “But this not what we want” and by that time, change has become impossible.
So I understand that society has its own dynamics. Education is so important. The right kind of education, that is. Not the haphazard ‘boo-wowo’ (mediocre) kind of education that we have now with the proliferation of “universities” (please note the quotation marks!) all over the place. What we have is, in fact, , mis-education. The right education is the one that really educates the minds of the people. With the right kind of education, we should be able to influence the way we are governed. Not just the way we are ruled. But at the moment it is impossible because people use money. They buy the votes, they buy your conscience, they buy justice and we all know it. And the nation goes on with its floundering.
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Adesina had told him that the Russia-Ukraine war would create global problems, and particularly for Africa, which imports a huge percentage of its food from the two countries.
“Already, the price of wheat has gone up about 60 per cent. Maize and other grains will also be affected. There may be fertiliser crisis, as there would be about 2 million metric tons deficit. And that will affect food production by about 20%. Africa will lose $11 billion worth of food, and coming shortly after COVID-19, that would be rather serious,” the AfDB President disclosed.
To prepare against the evil day, Dr Adesina said the AfDB has developed a $1.5 billion Africa Emergency Food Plan, which is now before the bank’s Board for approval.
He added: “We were not ready for COVID-19, but we are now planning to avert food crisis on the continent. There is plan to help farmers cultivate wheat, maize, rice, sorghum, and soybeans. It will mitigate the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war.”
Talking specifically of Nigeria, the Nigerian-born Adesina, and a former Minister of Agriculture, said in the wet season of 2022, at least 5 million smallholder farmers would be helped to cultivate 1 million hectares of maize, 1 million hectares of rice, and 250,000 hectares of sorghum and soybeans, respectively.
“In total, our support will help Nigeria to produce 9.5 million metric tons of food.”
States that will benefit from the assistance include Kano, Ogun, Oyo, Kaduna, Imo, Cross River, and the Federal Capital Territory.
Dr Adesina submitted: “Mr President, you have a passion for agriculture. We are behind you strongly, and we want to ensure Nigeria won’t feel the impact of the food crisis.”
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