Being true to himself

It was after our Teachers College. My friend, Akote, drew me into writing. I started with poetry. I didn’t know what poetry was. You couldn’t have started with what you didn’t know but my friend said that was how it is done, so I continued. Earlier, Akote had started scribbling things down. It was a […]

It was after our Teachers College. My friend, Akote, drew me into writing. I started with poetry. I didn’t know what poetry was. You couldn’t have started with what you didn’t know but my friend said that was how it is done, so I continued. Earlier, Akote had started scribbling things down. It was a friend’s story who was not finding it easy at home. Still at the point of his prompting, I could not do much but he insisted I do put something down. I did and said that was it. I wasn’t sure. However, I found myself continuing with those poetic scribbles. I remember they were four, then eight and on and on. I can’t locate them now. At another point, Akote asked me to join him on the other story he was writing about our friend. I did. He would write a part and I will write another. Truly, the way he took the whole issue was disturbing to me. I was a football fanatic then, playing it everywhere and enjoying my thing but here is Akote troubling me about writing. When I got married in 1987, football started giving way to family and writing sneaked in proper. When I got to Hilltop Model School in 1989 as a teacher, the whole thing just burst. Most of my books were written there. Some are still unpublished.

Would you say you have found fulfillment in writing?

Limitless fulfillment, brother. What else would I have done without it? Until you are one you will not know what I mean. I enjoy many things about writing; the mystic part of poetry, the purifying nature of it, the elevation of my soul from the common to the uncommon, the transition from the ordinary, extra-ordinary to the unknown. You are hardly in control at that moment. Writing emboldens me, it emboldens the soul whence it becomes freely unstoppable to a point where you can poke at the mountain and pull its ears to your knees. I love the outcome once possessed by its witchery and overtaken by the sole effort to establish the truth. Writing tamed me, I know it.

One of the titles of your works is Sex is Beautiful, for a writer from the North that would seem like a controversial title. Are you a controversial writer?

Yeah! The title is controversial but the publisher Steve Shaba told me when I was contemplating changing it: “Dzukogi forget them, they will come to learn to live with it”. That’s exactly what happened! My wife was the chief opposition in command. She said how could she be preaching about and people will be saying see the title her husband used for his book. But today, she mentions it publicly without knowing. She’s even the one selling it for me. She has sold over three thousand copies.

I am not controversial. But it appears some people see me that way. Many people see me differently. I don’t reject any. The controversy seemingly ensued when you stand in for the people; when you insist on establishing truth, when you become adventurous sometimes, when you leave fools behind and surge forward then they say he is controversial, arrogant, rude and stubborn. Is he the only one, they ask cynically. Your art becomes concrete when you have the capacity to do the uncommon; when you stand swiftly while others were reluctant; when you move while others are static. So the contrasting nature of the writer makes him appear controversial. To talk about sex, beauty and woman in a book by a Muslim northerner living in the north could raise eyebrows. But I was hardly looking at all of those when I was writing it. Truly, I was looking at those boys and girls of Hill-Top Model School, ASCAFS and my daughters. I have three and I see them as vulnerable to sexual damage. At HillTop, the girls were more with me than the boys. They seemed to find a friend, a father, a companion and a teacher in me. I thought I should warn them.

Talking about controversies, there is a lot of it going on within the writing community in Nigeria. Why do you think this is so?

Even with the claim to some sanity by Nigerian writers, especially those living in Nigeria, they are still Nigerians. I mean a lot of us are like any other Nigerian. They are hardly immune to the awkwardness resulting from narrow understanding of religion, they are likely to be regional, sectional, political, ethnic, gay, lesbian and all that because these are what constitute the society today. Remember, majority of us are poor, meaning we are as needy as other Nigerians. So, all the distortions of Nigeria are with many of us thus the controversies. And those who are abroad think they are better than those at home. Environment is a powerful modifier of our behaviour; a strong constructor of the individual’s personality. Other controversies are as a result of world politics, concept of freedom, war, peace and some other mundane issues. It is unfortunate that most Nigerians don’t see these controversies because most of it is on the net.

Recently, you were delisted from an online writing community. Can you tell us what exactly happened?

They said we must accept homosexuals, lesbians and gays in Nigeria. We said no. They are unfit for the African society. Many of us rejected those alien values: man having sex with man or woman claiming to have sex with another woman. What is that? If men could go erecting and inserting in the house of shit of a fellow man (this is a terrible sin in Islam and Christianity) what about women? How do they do their own? Is flabby pairing sex? This is the nonsense they want us to accept and we said this is not African. We know people do these things here but we say, they need psychological help. It is wrong. They argued that homos and lesbians have genetic errors that’s why they behave like that and we said yes, the error can be corrected before we lose the family unit that constitutes the society. Many used foul language but the dictator-moderator sitting in America sacked us without the approval of the house. We didn’t lose anything. He was asked by eminent writers like Wumi Raji to re-enlist us but he has not. Once re-enlisted I will still be me.

All these altercations, are they contributing anything to the development of literature in the country?

They do a lot. Literature is history, entertainment, language and identity. Literature is people, culture and beliefs. At each phase of the generation of society, all manners of deviances can come in either to remain with us or sneak out shortly. Literature records both the resident and the visiting behaviours of men within each space being penned. This tells of a people’s tomorrow.

Does this have anything to do with your decision to contest the forthcoming ANA elections?

Ah! Not at all. The ANA aspiration didn’t start today. I was a National Treasurer. You put up yourself because you have something to offer – service. We believe we can cause a change in ANA that is why we are coming out to contest. It is a collective decision. This train is unstoppable. We can initiate programmes and we have the energy to prosecute them. You see, every EXCO member will be assigned a responsibility such that programmes will be accomplished with ease. State chapters will be active participants in our administration because they are the ones to reach Nigerians on behalf of ANA. If you are a leader, you don’t waste your time on controversies otherwise work will not be done. We are old enough to know the difference between partisanship and statesmanship.

What do you think you can contribute to the association if elected?

I published my manifesto online and writers are making observations which are well taken: Ibrahim Malumfashi said I ignored indigenous writings, Spencer Okoroafor is afraid we will not have time, Mudiaga wants accountability and  60% delivery – all taken. All manifestoes will be harmonised after election if we win. The first activity will be the Council of Chairmen and Secretaries of ANA, where the final programme of action will be published and circulated to branches. Once elected, I will seek the accommodation of my programmes like the Teen Authorship Scheme, which I am sure my state will be keen to sponsore, seeing that ANA Niger is ahead of others in the country. So taking it to the national level should be of interest to the governor who is a friend of ANA. The Nigerian Writers Series is another, we have Neighbourhood Library Scheme. President Goodluck’s Bring Back the Book should incorporate this scheme. But we will not wait; it is a simple scheme that is based on volunteering by neighbourhood youths and supervised by ANA. If you are bringing back the book, to where? The neighbourhood library should be their destination. It is a bogus library but mini type.  We have other programmes, which are intended to last four years.

How will you assess the present state of writing in the country?

It is flourishing. ANA has largely been responsible for that through the activities of the state branches. People complain about quality but where you have many products only the qualitative will excel. So, quality will naturally set in with time. Government must set the ground for writing and writers to excel. We are Nigerians who have a stake in the resources. We must be given a part of the Nigerian resources for ANA to provide many opportunities for numerous young writers who are already excelling at local, national and international levels. We need writer’s outfits, academies, residencies, competitions for young and old, we need publishing outlets in all states of the federation to reach all potential and existing writers. For long, nobody cared about how we grow; now we are saying the nation must now deliberately facilitate writing.