Details of ANA president’s phone call, by Ògúnyemí

Ernest O. Ògúnyemí, 18, is the 2018 winner of the Association of Nigerian Authors’ (ANA) NECO/Teen Prize for Prose for his collection, ‘Tomorrow Brings Beautiful Things’. He just rounded off from Baptist Boys’ High School and is a writer of short stories and poetry. His disclosure on social media about his attempt to get his […]

Ernest O. Ògúnyemí, 18, is the 2018 winner of the Association of Nigerian Authors’ (ANA) NECO/Teen Prize for Prose for his collection, ‘Tomorrow Brings Beautiful Things’. He just rounded off from Baptist Boys’ High School and is a writer of short stories and poetry. His disclosure on social media about his attempt to get his award money from ANA’s president Malam Denja Abdullahi, has created quite a buzz. Here, he talks about how he was treated, his experience in Lagos and more. Excerpts:

 

Bookshelf: You recently wrote on social media about ANA not giving you your award money for winning its NECO/Teen Prize for Prose. What led to that?

Ernest O. Ògúnyemí: The first time I called him to ask for the money, a week after the contest, he told me they were working on it. That was all. The call did not even last five minutes. Just like later calls, there was no explanation, but “We don’t have the money yet.”

Bookshelf: You have said Malam Abdullahi told you to never call him again after one of such calls. The president on the other hand has said you had become rude. How true is this?

Ògúnyemí: I was never rude to him, except if it’s rude to ask for one’s money? The day he said I was rude was about five months after I won, in February. I called to ask when I would get the money, and his response was a quick: “We don’t have the money yet!” I then said, “Sir, even if you don’t have the money, you should call me to tell me, ‘Ernest we are working on it.’” I then added that I will take it to social media if I didn’t get the money. His response was: “Get off my phone. What do you know? You’re just a small boy. You are rude. Do what you like. Never call me again.” And he cut the call. After that, I stopped calling him and my teachers, Mr. Adeeko and Mr. Akinniyi started calling him, and for three to four months, he was still promising.

Bookshelf: Since the president had talked to your teachers whom you asked to plead on your behalf. Why didn’t you let them settle the matter?

Ògúnyemí: My teachers were also going to take the matter to the media, but they wanted to give him enough time. After he promised the last time and failed, they called him and he stopped picking their calls and sent them a message that they should stop calling him, that he would send the money when he has it, it was then that my teachers told me to go ahead and do what I needed to do to get him to pay the money. And, yes, it wasn’t my teachers who wrote my manuscript or won the prize, I did.

Bookshelf: The explanation given by Malam Abdullahi is that NECO hasn’t fulfilled their promise. Now that you know, do you feel that you should have been a bit more patient?

Ògúnyemí: In life it’s not just words that cause wars, it is how they are spoken. First, that NECO is yet to pay is none of my business. Why? I did not submit my manuscript to a contest hosted by NECO, I submitted to ANA. Also, as I said earlier, how words are spoken matter a lot. The President of ANA never told me NECO was yet to pay. He told my teachers. Also, the fact that we had to chase him when it was he who was supposed to be calling to tell us: “Sorry, it’ll soon be ready.”

Bookshelf: Kindly share your experience in Lagos last year when you were awarded the prize and what it took for you to win.

Ògúnyemí: It took nights and days to write and rewrite those stories. I read them out to myself for musicality. I typed them up. I typeset the manuscript. It took my teacher’s laptop, which he gave to me until I recently got a new one. It took my father’s pocket. It took the church’s A4 papers and ink and brother Adam’s time. It took some prayer.

When I got to the venue, Presken Hotel, in Lagos, around 12 noon, ANA was busy with a meeting. They kept having meetings until around seven in the evening. I was hungry: I had used the money I held to buy books and my phone battery was low. They said the award presentation would begin around 8 pm, yet I could not go to my aunt’s place, where I stayed the night, to go and eat and come back, because I only had the fare to return home. I went around the streets, wrote different things on the back of the freshly bought copy of Osundare’s poems.

That night, I was given only a plaque and a bag containing the ANA Review, where my poem was published without my consent. I found this out on my way home. The bag also contained the ANA conference programme and the ANA minute-magazines. It was the president’s driver who gave me the bag, and I left, around past eleven. Walking down Allen, to Ogba, alone. Even my aunts and teacher, Mr. Adeeko, were scared. But before I left, the president said they would send my money and asked for my account number. I sent it. We saw nothing.

Bookshelf: The president said ANA had to confirm from your teachers if you really wrote your winning entry. What do you have to say about that?

Ògúnyemí: The average Nigerian literati has such a narrow view of literary excellence that they believe it ends with Soyinka, Achebe, Osundare, Funso Ayejina, and probably, Soji Cole. They do not believe that a twenty-year-old Logan February can write such a beautiful book as ‘Mannequin in the Nude’. The manuscript which the judges claimed must have been written by an adult because of its ‘finesse of craftsmanship’, I have trashed it. I no longer even look at it as a work worthy of publication but for a few stories, some of which have appeared in magazines. I also will like anyone doubting to Google or read my Caine Prize nominated story in Litro Print Journal in UK. I was recently selected for the Adroit Summer Mentorship Program, the only Nigerian on the list. Earlier this year, I was selected by Zukiswa Wanner for the Goethe Institute AfroYA Workshop, in Lagos, one of the 56 selected from over 350 from Africa. I was the youngest amongst those selected from Nigeria and Cameroon.

Bookshelf: Will you attempt another contest established by ANA or any other Nigerian body again?

Ògúnyemí: ANA, I don’t think I will. But if I find another Nigerian contest worthy, I might.