Chinua Achebe; All quiet on the eastern front

Out in the car park, Emeka was waiting for me in his taxi. Moments later, we were in Ogidi. Everywhere was quiet and there were no people on the streets. A few shops were about opening as the owners swept their frontage and started arranging their wares.Even, the large space beside the petrol station not […]

Out in the car park, Emeka was waiting for me in his taxi. Moments later, we were in Ogidi. Everywhere was quiet and there were no people on the streets. A few shops were about opening as the owners swept their frontage and started arranging their wares.
Even, the large space beside the petrol station not far from St Philips Church where there had been a carnival the previous night after the interment was also empty.  The chairs and canopies had been removed. The funeral was over.
It would be my third trip to Ogidi since the demise of the Literary Icon, Chinualumogu Achebe. On my first trip, I had gone to commiserate with my brother, Ike Achebe who had just returned from the US ahead of the family to prepare for the funeral. He was alone in the family house where a major renovation as well as the construction of the mausoleum was on. When I expressed my shock at what happened, Ike quickly reminded me that his father had lived a good and productive life and we should not mourn but celebrate him. And each time he broke into one of those his easy smiles, I always saw Chinua Achebe in his face. It was painful each time he did this and at a point, I wanted to tell Ike to stop smiling so I could stop remembering. But all that was over now as the funeral had come to an end. All was quiet in Ogidi.
Even Mama Ekene in whose restaurant I had had breakfast the day before had also not opened shop. Suddenly, my mind went to the rice and fish stew breakfast I had the previous morning of Thursday May 23 2013.  That was my second Ogidi trip when I went to bid farewell to the master story teller and literary craftsman and hunger came calling. My group made up largely of Journalists had left our hotel in Awka for Ogidi very early in the morning of May 23 in order to beat the anticipated human and vehicular traffic without breakfast.
In view of President Jonathan’s anticipated attendance at the event, the small town was already choked up with armed security personal, politicians, visitors, journalists and as expected, pick pockets. It therefore took my group some time to find our way round the town.  Having secured vantage positions in the premises of St Philips Anglican Church venue of the Christian Funeral Service from where we hoped to watch the proceedings, our next assignment was to foray for food.  Although it was Anote Ozore of The Guardian who led our team on the culinary mission round the sleepy town, it was Job Okeke of the National Mirror who finally sniffed out Mama Ekene’s restaurant. ‘He has a talent for sniffing out food aroma’ Job’s colleagues said.
The restaurant which was located behind a supermarket had already been invaded by some security personnel and other out of town visitors all in search of food. It was therefore a herculean task to get food and for that matter, seating space in the tiny restaurant. We therefore had to spill out into the compound next to the restaurant where we sat on every conceivable object from chairs to old kerosene tins.
Matters were not helped by the fact that the small restaurant was manned by just two people, Ekene and her mother. Trust Journalists, using their creative ingenuity which included assisting the proprietor to wash plates and serve the food, plates of Akpu and Rice soon appeared. The only problem was that there was a severe shortage of beef and fish and as such, some plates were deficient of these accompaniments. And so when my own plate of rice appeared without any accompaniment, Sunmaila Umaisha, ex New Nigeria and now BluePrint Newspaper decided to share his Fish Head with me. Sunmaila’s Fish Head was a big Salmon ‘iced fish’ whose two large eyes glared at me from the soup in which it had been well manicured. It reminded me of the fish from Ernest Hemingway’s  ‘The Old Man and The Sea’ even though Umaisha’s was not as large as Hemingway’s.
Having been drilled by a childhood folksong which associated poor academic performance with the consumption of fish eyes, I avoided the eyes and rather made the best of the remaining stuff.
It is interesting how hunger and food could create such instant friendship and bonding among strangers. In a corner of the compound where we were all having our meals, I could see previously fierce looking security officials now exchanging banters with the journalists over steaming plates of rice and akpu. 
Breakfast over, we all sauntered back to the church compound to await the arrival of the President and the commencement of the funeral ceremony. In order to get a good view of the ceremony, it was important for one to enter the church. However, this was no mean task as security was tight but we were able to achieve our aim with the help of some of our new friends from Mama Ekene’s restaurant. ‘What Mama Ekene has joined together let no man put asunder’.
Although Ogidi was the last leg of the Funeral rites for the late Literary icon, it was by no means the least of the activities. As a member of the National Transition Organising Committee (NTOC), I had spent the previous weeks with other members in planning, strategising and travelling to put the events together. In the process, we all had to cope with disruption in personal activities, sleepless nights and the occasional calming of frayed nerves among some Committee Members.
From Abuja where we had arranged ‘A day of prayers and religious worship’ ‘Literary Symposium by the Association of Nigerian Authors’ and a ‘Day of Tributes’ we had travelled with the body to Enugu. It was from Enugu that we moved to Awka where a mammoth crowd had participated in a carnival like reception at the Alex Ekwueme Stadium.
The Leader of the Federal Government delegation to the Awka event, Senator Victor Ndoma Egba inadvertently caused a stir when he introduced another member of the delegation Senator Mohammadu Magoro to the crowd. In his introduction, Ndoma Egba referred to Magoro as ‘a retired Army General who commanded the Federal Forces in the Eastern Front during the Civil war. His visit today is therefore, a sort of home coming for him’. The ominous silence in the stadium as well as hard stares from the crowd was a testimony of the deep seated feeling that the Civil War still left in the minds of many Igbos.
It was also in Awka that Remi Raji, the current President of the Association of Nigerian Authors taught me how to correctly pronounce the name’ Chinualumogu’ which means, ‘may God fight for me’.  ‘You prolong the ‘mo’ and swallow the ‘gu’ the Professor of English instructed. As we later filed past Achebe’s casket, I briefly touched the brown mahogany and said a prayer for the repose of the late literary mentor.
A Literary wake keep organised by the Association of Nigerian Authors in the family compound in Ogidi kept all of us up most of the night of Wednesday May 22. ‘Make sure you leave Ogidi before midnight’ one Awka based writer reminded us as she made allusion to the high crime rate in that part of the state.
During the funeral service on May 23 the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Prof Viola Onwuliri committed a diplomatic gaffe when she asked Ike Achebe to come forward to collect condolence messages sent from Nigeria’s foreign missions. As the Minister put it in the presence of the Ghanaian President, Mr John Damani Mahama ; ‘all the condolence messages are in these ‘Ghana Must Go’ bags.’  The nervous laughter from the congregation quickly elucidated an apology from the Minister.
However, the hero of the whole celebration was the Anambra State Governor, Mr Peter Obi who shone like a thousand star throughout the celebration. Apart from his simplicity and humility which has gone a long way to demystify the arrogance of governance in the land, Obi was almost everywhere before and during the ceremonies. He was in Abuja several times during the course of preparations for the event as well as during the Abuja segment of the event. On one occasion, the Governor arrived during the course of a speech and rather than disrupt the event by moving to the high table like some of his less humble colleagues would have done, Obi waited till the end of the speech before moving forwards to his seat. On another occasion, when the Governor noticed that some security officials were pushing back an elderly lady who wanted to take his photograph, Obi not only reprimanded the security official but stood for a while to allow the woman and other people who wanted to take his photograph to do so.
As expected, during the course of the funeral activities, eulogies were poured on the departed icon by all and sundry including members of the political class. This aspect of the funeral did not go down well by many social commentators including journalists. Many of them observed that many political leaders whom Achebe roundly criticised during his life time were now the ones ‘dancing on his grave’. Matters were so bad that if not for the intervention of Governor Obi and some family members, no literary person would have been allowed to participate in the burial arrangement since politicians were bent on hijacking the whole event. This prompted an angry lady member of the Association of Nigerian Authors of whom Achebe was the founding President to remark that ‘now that the cat is dead, rats can play on his head’.
And although President Goodluck Jonathan did the right thing my attending Achebe’s funeral, many people were disappointed that the President did not make any pronouncement regarding a national honour for the late icon. It was much later after his speech that the President quickly mentioned the plan of the Nigerian and Ghanaian governments to renovate the primary school that Achebe attended a gesture which many people saw as too meagre for somebody of Achebe’s status.
As soon as Achebe’s body was lowered into a glass and aluminium mausoleum in his personal compound, at exactly 3.30pm, the carnival exploded. There was no other way to describe it, it was cathartic! After weeks of mourning and preparations, the interment was the signal for the celebrations of the passing of the great man to begin. A large tent had been erected just outside the church where a lot of music, drinking and dancing commenced. Down the streets came dancers. The town’s main street was solid with dancers, both men and women. There were more dancing and drinking going on in several tents round the town. Several groups appeared wearing similar uniforms with red and yellow handkerchiefs around their necks carrying banners with different inscriptions. Even the banners danced up and down with them as they were surrounded by the crowd. At a point, the members of the Ohafia War Dancers in their frightful and scary costumes with flutes and drums emerged as the crowd cheered. Stirred by the incessant rumble of the group’s drums and flutes, some members of my group such as Uduma Kalu and Ikeoga Oke joined in the dancing.
And just as the politicians left the celebrations with their security men, the pickpockets moved in and managed to dispossess many people of their cash and mobile phones. While Ikeogu, Uduma and the representative of Heineman Publishers lost some money, others, especially foreign visitors lost their mobile phones. And rather than sympathise with Uduma for losing money, some of his friends upbraided him for his carelessness. ‘How can a Lagos boy like you allow yourself to be robbed in a small town like this. Rather than being robbed, you should be the one doing the robbing’ they added.
In spite of all these unfortunate distractions, the carnival still continued. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. It was in the midst of all these that my group took its leave for Awka.
Now I was back on the morning after, for the third and final farewell.  It was also quiet in the family house when I got there as the occupants were having a well deserved rest. I moved over to the mausoleum which by then was under lock and key. I therefore stood outside for a few minutes, gave a slight bow to the lone occupant and turned back to the taxi.
From Ogidi, we passed towns and villages that were steamed in history and stories being part of the famous ‘Eastern Front’ of the Civil War days; Umudioka, Ifitedunu, Abagana, Nimo, Enugwukwu, Nawfia before reaching Awka. Of all these, it was Abagana that stirred  the most poignant memories with the famous  story of the ‘Abagana Ambush’ by Biafran soldiers. According to historical records; ‘On March 31, 1968 Gen Murtala Mohammed and his men were heading from Enugu to Onitsha with 96 military vehicles. Down the road from downtown Abagana the Biafran commander Major Uchendu lay in ambush. When the vehicles came into site Uchendu’s men launched a homemade “Bucket Bomb” at the vehicles. The bomb exploded with such great force that it tossed vehicles like tin cans. 3/4 of Murtala’s men were dead and many others wounded. Gen. Muhammad was one of the only men there who wasn’t injured’.
And as the taxi crawled through downtown Abagana, I took a cursory look at the town made famous by war but found everything going on well. From the easy way the people went about their businesses, it was difficult to believe that it was the same quiet town that had witnessed such a turbulent past. I had a sudden urge to go and re read Achebe’s ‘There was a Country’ in order to put all the issues in proper perspective. I also hope to call on Senator Magoro, the former War Commander turned Legislator on my return to Abuja.
As the taxi nosed towards Awka, the eastern horizon soon exploded into an azure sunshine that bathed the country side foliage with an unsurpassed beauty. Standing majestically by the roadside was a giant Bill Board with Chinua Achebe smiling at passersby. ‘Welcome Home Our Hero’ the Bill Board read. As I smiled back I tried calling ‘Chinualumogu’ the way I had been taught by prolonging the ‘mo’ and swallowing the ‘gu’.  Indeed, there was a man.
Dr Okediran, a former Member of the House of Representatives is also the former National President, Association of Nigerian Authors.