‘Why I created character who’s both Christian and Muslim’

Shamsudeen Adeiza, 60, is author of several novels, the most recent being ‘Masquerades of Boko Haram’. A veteran writer, he talks about his creative journey, why he decided to create a Christian/Muslim character, the state of Nigerian literature and more. Excerpts: Bookshelf: One of your earliest works, ‘The Wailing Masses’ was published in 1999. What […]

Shamsudeen Adeiza, 60, is author of several novels, the most recent being ‘Masquerades of Boko Haram’. A veteran writer, he talks about his creative journey, why he decided to create a Christian/Muslim character, the state of Nigerian literature and more. Excerpts:

Bookshelf: One of your earliest works, ‘The Wailing Masses’ was published in 1999. What influenced your desire to write the story? 

Shamsudeen Adeiza: I actually submitted the manuscript in 1984. But Heinemann was a very big publishing house, so while I waited, I wrote other stories like ‘The Campus Freaks’ and ‘Extremists.’ Anyway, I wrote ‘The Wailing Masses’ when the masses were really enjoying compared to what I am seeing now. I think some of us who are gifted with the skill of writing are also gifted with foresight. Even then, the gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor was wide. It was when former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon said our problem was not money but how to spend it. So, why did I write such a story? Someone reviewed the work and said it was a work of prophesy, but I don’t pretend to be a prophet. Writers like me simply play around with how to arrange the impressions you’re getting from the world into a form that can be transferred from one generation to the other. 

Now, when I wrote the book, I was working with NTA Ilorin. I had never worked in the real sense and just started. As a producer then, who left law to study drama, I wrote the story because I was wailing myself. The landlord had just chased me out of my house. He was also my neighbour and it wasn’t my doing. His wife and mine had a conflict and it rubbed off on me. For the first time in my life I understood how it felt not to have a roof over your head. I had a child and had just married. So what I was feeling fed the story. That lasted for almost two months. I finished the major part of the story in less than three months. So, I am that kind of person, that was why I left production for journalism, because  I like to be where it’s happening, relate with it and wordsmith my thoughts. That’s the best way to deliver when it comes to the arts.      

When I wrote this, Nigeria was not in recession like it is today. There was the problem of recession in the manner of distribution of enormous wealth that Nigeria had then. While our head of state said there was the problem of what to do with money, I saw the masses living in poverty and I questioned it. Today we have recession. And the people really feeling this are the masses who were in the recession before it came. Interestingly, in the end of the story, the present head of state was the one who salvaged the masses then. It captured his coming in and being seen as a salvation agent. Now, he has come back again, was seen as a salvation agent, only to come and meet with recession and many of those who voted for him are now not happy with him.

Bookshelf: How were you able to develop your characters around this storyline, this suffering of the masses?

Adeiza: For instance, my major character called Danga, had a father who was a messenger in a ministry and Danga was working in a millionaire’s house as a house help. It becomes the setting from where we compare what’s happening in the masses’ house (Danga’s home) and that of the millionaire. Here you see the complete contrast between the poor and the rich, who don’t know what to do with money. Being my first story, it means the problem I saw in 1984, when I crafted this story, is still the problem Nigeria is facing. Nigeria has been blessed by the almighty in every ramification. But it doesn’t go down to the masses because of greed from the top. When you hear the horrendous amount somebody steals, you wonder how much it could have helped the masses.

Bookshelf: Immediately after you wrote ‘The Wailing Masses’, you wrote ‘The Campus Freaks’…

Adeiza: In fact, it was a work that should have come before ‘The Wailing Masses’, but I dropped it somewhere along the line while I was in ABU, Zaria, when we had the famous ‘Ali must go’ riot. When soldiers invaded the campus and I happened to be a leader of that riot. I even learnt to make improvised bombs. So, it was the basis of ‘The Campus Freaks’, that is, the extreme situations that happened on campus. I captured the campus life as I saw it then. 

Bookshelf: After ‘The Campus Freaks’ you wrote ‘The Extremists’…

Adeiza: ‘The Extremists’ captured former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime. He used the expression a lot. 

Bookshelf: So what were you trying to say in the book?

Adeiza: It captured the fact that, indeed, the average Nigerian is an extremist. I don’t think I got it wrong because when an average Nigerian is opportune to be in an important situation, he will want to steal and not just what he needs, but what he can’t spend for decades. It’s an extreme sense of greed. When you get a few that are good again, you find they are extremely so. That’s why there’s a general perception that Nigerians are very hospitable people.

Bookshelf: Your most recent work, published in 2015, is ‘Masquerades of Boko Haram’. In the novel, you seemed to talk about a different kind of terrorism, acts of terrorism not actually carried out with lethal weapons. What picture were you trying to paint?

Adeiza: For me, from the title, there are other forms of Boko Haram, which we need to address. The physical Boko Haram, which we are defeating, thanks to the efforts of the president and God, is just a symbol of what I have been speaking about. The gap between the rich and the poor is too much. The people who became Boko Haram are usually human beings that have become dehumanised. That’s why they can do what they do because they have no feelings, because they have been pushed to the wall by the system and have been exploited by the few intellectuals among them to become extremists.

Bookshelf: In the story, your central character decided to become what you called a ‘Chrislam’. Can you elaborate?

Adeiza: He decided to become a Chrislam, thereby belonging to both major religions, because he was confused. He was scared of the way Boko Haram is associated with Islam, to whom his mother belongs, and then the father, who is Igbo and Christian. I decided, deliberately, to create a character from a mixture of the North and East. There was the Biafran war, with scars that are still bare to me. Up till now, that problem has taken different forms I consider to be like Boko Haram. That’s why we have the Niger Delta militancy and other such crises.

Bookshelf: There was a scene where some evangelists were trying to preach or give out tracts in a public place, and the central character describes them as terrorists…

Adeiza: That scene was deliberate. I wanted to reveal that many things that take big forms start small. The average person knows a Muslim, even from the way he dresses, the marks, or the person’s speech. I believe every religion has a right to propagate itself, but each bringer of all religions always cautions followers. There are extremists always among such people, the type who will want to stand or go near a mosque with a loud speaker to preach against Islam in the pretext that they are spreading the message of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this institutionalising of religion that’s causing the real Boko Haram. Hunger is also an element. It is not a coincidence that the North-East is the poorest part of Nigeria, even before Boko Haram. If a hungry man or woman is called and told, if you go in the name of Allah and blow up these enemies of your religion, the poverty you are suffering will varnish and you will find yourself in paradise, they will believe it. So, there’s a relationship between all my works and poverty. If Boko Haram is defeated and other masquerades aren’t, it will resurface. The Maitatsine uprising in Kano was a form of Boko Haram. We need to concentrate on bringing up Nigerian youths, particularly Northern youths. My main character concentrated on building an institution for almajiris alone. That’s why he is my hero. Every child should have access to education and mind development. Education is different from mind development. So, the mind needs to be developed. They have not been told that the real purpose for tribe and religion is for the progress of man.

Bookshelf: What are you working on at the moment?

Adeiza: It’s a book entitled ‘The Missing Link’. It’s still on the same thread. Why is it that Nigeria is so wealthy and yet contains a large number of poor people? That’s a question I’ll ask till I die. That’s what the missing link is all about.

Bookshelf: How do you view the development of Nigerian literature today?

Adeiza: I think it’s super. However, there’s a new phenomenon challenging art in general and that’s the social media. It forces art to become simple. I have a magazine that has been silent for about two years because we ran out of funds. Many magazines come and go because Nigerians don’t have a reading culture. We have a small class of literary society and literature is not celebrated the way it should. People will rather pick their phones and browse. So it’s not only in Nigeria.  But I believe the future is still bright. We need people who can condense moments of life, to inspire others to live better. If you write what will endanger others, you will bear the brunt. I want to encourage writers to be as honest and truthful as they can be.