TODAY, I formally announce the publication of my book, titled: Soyinka’s Metamorphosis: Echoes from “The People’s Mandate,” a copy of which I have just received on arrival from the UK where it was published. It is a direct response to the book: Baiting Igbophobia, The Sunny Igboanugo Thesis, authored by Prof. Wole Soyinka and released sometime in January this year.
This 2024 marks my 33 years of practice as a journalist, starting from my debut with The Guardian in 1991 to joining Daily Independent in 2001 as pioneer staff and now Publisher of Whirlwindnews, an online newspaper.
My career, like those of many of my colleagues, has been marked with the ups and downs prevalent with the practice of the profession in Nigeria. For instance, as a cub reporter still learning the ropes, I was nearly mobbed by some angry civil service workers at St. Bridget College, Asaba, where some of them who left Benin after the creation of Delta State from the old Bendel, by the Ibrahim Babangida regime in 1991, were quartered for lack of accommodation.
One evening, few days after arriving the city as the first reporter of The Flagship, posted to the new state, I had undertaken a discreet, but purely noble mission to investigate and ascertain the condition of the workers in their temporary abode. But the mission, purely part of my job as a reporter, soon blew into my face. The affected workers whose emotional state of reasoning appeared to have been held in place by a thin fibre due to the sudden change in their condition, and threatening to snap at any moment, soon became suspicious.
The line of my inquiry and general mannerism, which betrayed my level as a rookie, had triggered off a volley of questions from some of them, palpably, but understandably on the edge. They began to suspect I might be a criminal on a recce mission to survey their territory for later night attack, especially, as I was to discover later, as they received their salaries on the same day. It was only by the intervention of providence that I was saved from the obvious lynching. That fate could probably have included being ringed with tyre, laced with petrol and set on fire, a popular scene that portrays a sendoff party to criminals in Nigeria, known as “jungle justice.”
Again, today, I carry the physical and psychological lacerations of the aftermaths of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential elections as a believer and direct participant in the attempt to revalidate that historic mandate, which has since been achieved today. So involved was I that when the UN Special rapporteurs arrived Enugu, where I was later transferred, to investigate the rights abuses associated with the June 12 struggle, I was one of the candidates they interviewed privately.
Yet again, in 2007, a state governor took four pages each in virtually all newspapers in Nigeria to denigrate me as blackmailer. His effort was to warn Nigerians about this unscrupulous journalist who went to government houses around Nigeria harassing governors for money. Ironically, this was a governor, unlike many in my line of duty, I never ever met in person, either in his private or official capacity even till date. My only crime was insisting on the sanctity of the tenure of the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo during their crisis that year and thereabouts, when it was being manipulated by some powers outside the Igbo space, with the damning effect of corralling, or should I say, plunging the collective will of the people into an unnecessary suicide.
This same governor, even took out a lawsuit against me some years after and was sustaining the move to have me jailed on no account order than my purely professional duties, until providence – that fate that helps tailless-cow to chase away flies – ensured that he never made it back for a second term to continue the onslaught.
Why did I travel this far through the route of memory? It is to underscore the fact that I am not new to the travails embedded in this profession, which I love so much that I beg my creator that should I return to this part of life again, I should be allowed to practice again.
The three examples above are just samples of them. Though the joy of the glorious moments, sometimes far outweighs the pains, trials and tribulations, they are still numerous and, in many cases, life-threatening.
But what did I get in reply? In his riposte via the book, the Prof. only made a scant mention of the content of the article in question. Instead, he devoted the rest to attacking my Igbo identity. Surely, if the sage, had descended on me as a person, if he had reduced me as less than Nebuchadnezzar, as he once labelled, former President Goodluck Jonathan, I would have remained mute and probably continued with my trade the way I know it.
Reading the book itself, he did exactly that. He treated me to a lavish buffet of his legendary tongue-lashing. But he did not stop at describing my persona in the most terrible terms or attacking my professional competence. For this alone there would not have been any form of contest in the form of a riposte.
My pain was the attempt by the Prof. to strip me of my identity as a Nigerian and closet me in purely ethnic straightjacket. There was nothing in the original piece from me that suggested any ethnic link by any stroke imagination. The only link I tried to establish was that the NADECO affinity the Nobel Laureate shares with President Bola Tinubu as veterans of the June 12 struggle. My take was that it was the binding factor.
I tried to explain how, having struggled together through the thick and thin of the NADECO era they had developed the compelling need to watch each other’s back no matter the circumstances. I argued that such relationship would naturally create personal indebtedness too difficult to break.
That was all my piece was all about. Even though the said article had one or two factual errors which the Prof. did not fail to point out in his book, they did not detract from the texture of the reasoning that formed the basis for holding my views. The emphasis was on the affinity that existed between him and Tinubu.
I was therefore completely aghast when the Prof. took the issue completely out of context and veered into ethic labelling. That the Prof. would take that route is my idea of a complete metamorphosis. I would not in my wildest imagination assume that the Soyinka of The Man Died fame would descend into such arena occupied by less-endowed in the society. Ordinarily, I would have depended on him to defend my right and freedom to speak my mind. But that did not happen.
That informed my determination to reply through this effort. I have decided to tell my own story to establish my true identity and insist on it. The content of this book, my own riposte, is to reveal that the Prof. is totally wrong on this.
In fact, some people still latching on similar ethnic sentiments, tried to dissuade me by pulling up what they advertised as the pro-Biafra sentiments of the Prof. They raised the issue of how he tried to help the Igbo during the civil war advising that I should ignore him.
That even strengthened my position, because I believe keeping silent would help in strengthening the ethnic slurs that have now become the burden of the Igbo man, because the likes of the Prof. are keeping silent and, in some cases promoting it. Those who read his book will not miss this trend. I believe that such a figure who stood against the bad hand dealt the Igbo people of Biafra at such a young age, should even do more now that age has added more insight and knowledge to him.
I believe my reply would reactivate his memory and remind him of who he truly is in the history of Nigeria. It was a duty I felt compelled to do. How did the Igbo come into such a plain discourse? So, an Igbo man cannot contribute to any subject in today’s Nigeria without being told from whence he is coming? Even a journalist? This is the essence of this book. This book is therefore a PROTEST! I am not only protesting with this book as an individual, but to draw global attention to the dangerous trend that has become the lot of Ndigbo today, where they are being deliberately targeted as the culprits to anything that goes wrong in the country.
I am insisting that nobody can take away my Nigerianess. I am aware that I am a global dwarf compared to the dominating image of Prof. Wole Soyinka globally. I do not compete with him or attempt to do so in any way. His own book, as usual, is already making waves nationally and internationally like many other of his works.
Mine may make little impact. But whatever impact it makes, even if it is read by one person, I will be glad that someone outside myself would have heard my story. That is why I am happy today. For the first time in months, I have once again regained some level of personal calm. I have told my story, from my little corner of the world space. Let Prof. Wole Soyinka have the world stage, but allow me to have my corner where my voice, no matter how tiny will be allowed to echo. That is my prayer.
Of course, aside my protest, I have also used this book to try and tell the full story based on my views and how I captured the 2023 general election, particularly that of the presidential polls of February 25. It is a full package that tried to puncture some of the assertions out there in the public domain, including those made by the Nobel Laureate made regarding the election.
I tried to capture the full sequence of events, their meaning and how they affected the outcome of the election in the most unbiased manner and in the end declared who I believe won the election between Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
In the end, just as I spoke some 31 years ago on June 12, I spoke as professionally as any individual in the book. I shall continue to do so in the future. I spoke yesterday, I am speaking today and I shall speak tomorrow. I shall not only speak as an Igbo, I shall speak as a Nigerian – Nigerian with my full chest. Just like Prof. Wole Soyinka, a Yoruba or Adamu, an Hausa will speak.
