I attended Government Secondary School, Fadan Kaje (GSSFK) from 1975 to 1978. Formerly owned by Catholic missionaries, and called St. Joseph, the school had Reverend Father John Haverty as the Principal. Catholic priests largely managed the school.
One of our Nigerian teachers was the current Emir of Birnin Gwari, Kaduna State, Alhaji (Dr) Zubair Jibril Maigwari II. Another was an NYSC teacher, late Dr Sule Bello, who we nicknamed “Weazacap” – from “With the cap.”
But no teacher so influenced me in GSSFK like a British teacher, whom we fondly called “Titomthy.” In Form Two, he passionately read to us the abridged edition of EA Ritter’s Shaka Zulu (SZ); Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (TFA); James Ngugi’s (later Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s) Weep Not, Child (WNC) and Alan Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country (CTBC).
So impactful were these novels that students competed in memorizing the major lines. I discovered myself as a human being, and grew up, in makaranta allo (Hausa word, meaning “School of the slate”, where we were taught from childhood to memorize the Qur’an). So I grew up to know memorization was a way of learning.
Then, I believed TFA was a novel about the greatness, peace and orderliness of precolonial African societies. I was happy with Okonkwo’s bravery, industry, wealth, large family, and status in Umuofia. But I was bitter that Okonkwo partook in the mission to kill Ikemefuna, “whose sad story is still told today in Umuofia”.
I asked myself then: “Why did Okonkwo not heed Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s warning and advice: “That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death”, because “Umuofia has decided to kill him. The Oracle of the Hills and Caves has pronounced it… I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father.” Why Okonkwo? Why?
Tears flooded my eyes when Obierika told the Whiteman, pointing to Okonkwo’s dangling body on top of a tree, that: “That man was one of the greatest men of Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself and now he will be buried like a dog.”
I also memorised the lines: “The Whiteman is very clever. He came quietly and peaceable with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now, he has put a knife on the rope that held us together and we have all fallen apart.”
For me then, TFA was not just literature. It was African history. A book of African culture, values, tradition, philosophy. I learnt from it to be brave, when bravery is demanded; but also to be cowardly, when wisdom demand it. I, indeed, memorised all the proverbs in TFA.
If TFA is about the fall of precolonial Black African societies, WNC is about the wickedness, exploitation and oppression of British-settler colonialism in Africa. I was sad that African lands were seized and given to British settlers. Worst, they grew coffee on the land, using the labour of the sons and daughters of the soil, to enrich themselves.
It pained me that Africans were not united in the struggle to get back their lands and independence, whereas the Whites were United. But, I was happy about reference to Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, imprisoned, for fighting colonialism. I was, most importantly, glad for the reference to the Mau Mau uprising.
The lessons I took from WNC was to take politics seriously. To know that our ancestral land is not just land; but also our wealth, our identity, our ancestors, our history, our culture and, even, us. Therefore, it must be protected and defended, if necessary, by armed struggle.
WNC made me to understand clearly the Onitsha Market literatures, including TO Iguh’s short plays like The Struggles and Trial of Jomo Kenyatta and The Last Days of Mr. Lumumba we read.
To this day, the introductory poem of WNC is still in my head: “Weep not, child. Weep not my darling. With these kisses, let me remove your tears. The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, they shall not long possess the sky.”
However, CTBC was what moved me the most. Parton’s highly lyrical, rhythmical, poetic and Biblical style of writing; his rich imagery, symbolism, constant reference to nature – trees, birds, animal, hills, lightening and rains – touched and captured my heart, mind and soul.
Why did Teacher Titomthy take so much time explaining the novel to us? Why did he keep asking us questions about it? Was he trying to make us understand the evil of racism and apartheid? Was he a radical or Marxist teacher?
Whatever, CTBC introduced me to the evils of Apartheid South Africa right from the first to the last chapter. Everything good belonged to the Whites, everything bad, to the Blacks.
Whereas in TFA and WNC, African parents stayed, saw, brought up, and socialised their children into African culture, the reverse was the case in CTBC. Youths went to Johannesburg, got detained by urban life, became drunkards, prostitutes, violent criminals, murderers, end up in prisons and some killed. They lost touch with their villages and parents. They abandoned their children to their aging parents.
So why should we not cry for Black South Africans? Cry, we must! “Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end. The sun pours down on the earth, on the lovely land that man cannot enjoy. He knows only the fear of his heart.”
Independence in 1994 did not end the rot and evil of Apartheid South Africa. The riches, land, minerals and banks remain with the Whites. Black families are still “broken”!
Children with absentee parents. Wives with run-away rascally husbands! Children with run-away fathers!
Mothers frustrated. Bitter with themselves, their children, society, government, and life itself!
With “the broken tribe”, and “the law and custom (of Ubuntu) that is gone” why are we surprised today, that highly degenerate, viciously bitter, criminally-minded, permanently drunk, blood-thirsty, frustrated and hopeless lumpens are mobilising the unemployed and unemployable Blacks against fellow Africans?
The rest of Africa must understand, sympathise, empathise, and forgive the unemployed and unemployable Black South Africans, who were easily mobilised against their fellow Africans and, by extension, against themselves.
But we must, most importantly, hold the African National Congress (ANC) and Nelson Mandela responsible for the Afrophobia and Xenophobia. They threw the “Freedom Charter” into the dustbin of history and left the popular masses without nothing whatsoever for aluta they waged!
We must equally hold our governments responsible. If they had democratize, develop and humanize our countries, what would take their citizens to South Africa to work, to be chased like dogs, beaten like donkeys, and killed like flies?
Doubtlessly, the World Bank, IMF and the West forced African governments to collect loans! Loans that led to devaluation, deindustrialisation, retrenchment, mass migrations, etc. But did the African working classes, students and intelligentsia, amongst others, not warn and fight against the disastrous loans?
Why should our countries not fall apart? Why should we not weep? Why should we not cry for South Africa? Why should we not cry for ourselves?
