The city of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, was metaphorically shut down for several hours, yesterday, when some protesters, under the aegis of Rivers Peoples Assembly (RPA) took over the major streets and highways, chanting anti-Amaechi songs. The protesters, who wore white vests and displayed banners with various inscriptions, were demanding that Governor Chibuike Amaechi should account for the two aircraft he inherited from ex-governor Odili and explain the real owner of the grounded jet.

They also want the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) chairman to tell Rivers people what he did with about N1.6 trillion accruing to the state from the federal allocation. The banner-carrying protesters demanded explanation on N1 billion paid by the state government for construction of one -kilometre road. They threatened to make the state ungovernable if Amaechi failed to resign. The aggrieved youths with scores of elderly women, all wearing white T-shirts, with different inscriptions had called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe the governor.

Some of the inscriptions read: “Amaechi, where are the two jets Odili left behind?” “Amaechi, who owns the jet?” “Amaechi must go” “Amaechi, you have failed the Rivers people;” “EFCC probe Amaechi” and “Amaechi constructed 1km of road with N1.5 billion.” Those who took part in the “10,000-man march” were said to have been drawn from all the 23 local government areas of the state. They started gathering at the Isaac Boro Park, Mile One, the take-off point as early as 6.30am. Those who arrived at the Isaac Boro Park earlier waited patiently for others who were coming from as far as Bori, Eleme, Etche, Ahoada East, Ahoada West, among others. From the take-off point, they marched to the Government House gate but were not received by any government official. But security men prevented them from advancing further.

The protesters barricaded the entrance to the Government House, preventing vehicles from going in and out of the Government House. Some of them, who came along with their traditional musical instruments were seen beating their drums and singing derogatory songs composed with Amaechi’s name. Heavy traffic was recorded on Aba, Ikwerre, Agrrey, Slaughter roads, among others, as the protesters obstructed movement of people and vehicles for several hours. Tagged Rivers version of “Arab Spring”, the protesters said they would occupy the Government House until Governor Amaechi quits office. But they could not sustain it as many of them were seen leaving the venue, after about three hours because of exhaustion caused mainly by the hot weather. Daily Sun observed that some of the ex-militants were gradually being dragged into the anti-Amaechi campign.

Some of them even took part in yesterday’s protest. For instance, the reporter sighted “General” Ateke Tom. He arrived Isaac Boro Park at about 10.16am and was shielded by his hefty and stern-looking boys, who never allowed him to alight from his car or make people come closer to him. He was later seen engaging in discussions, consulting on phone with people. He was at the protest venue for more than 45 minutes, before he drove off. Another ex-militant, sighted at the venue of the protest was Solomon Ndigbara, otherwise known as Osama Bin Laden, who later spoke to Daily Sun.

Though adjudged peaceful but a group of thugs later hijacked the protest, molesting and extorting money , phone and other from helpless citizen, The Sun reporter. Speaking to Daily Sun later, Chief Solomon Ndigbara (aka Osama bin Laden of Ogoni) told journalists that they would continue the protest , until the governor resigned from office. He stated that governor Amaechi had insulted Rivers people much, especially, the Ogonis, saying that it must stop. ‘’Osama bin Laden’’, who was the first Rivers ex-militant in the State to surrender weapons to the Federal Government, said for the governor to declare him wanted, he and the youths were also declaring him wanted. “He declared me wanted. So, like now, we the Rivers youths have declared him wanted. So, that is why I have come. As he pursued me, now, Rivers youths have pursued him.”

The former militant leader called on the Federal Government to do intervene before it was late. “And, if they (government)do not remove him, a lot of things will happen. Today, is the first day. Tomorrow (Thursday)will continue until we see the end. “We cannot allow him to stay in office . If the federal government knows what is good, they better send him away.” Some of the protesters that marched from the popular Aggrey Road in the state capital, carried a caricature coffin of the governor. Meanwhile, there was heavy presence of armed personnel, with Armoured Personnel Carrier and police vans, positioned at strategic places. Meanwhile, the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu said yesterday that he had banned all forms the protest in the state.

He stated this yesterday while briefing journalists at the police Headquarters, Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, during the visit of the Assistant Inspector General of Police in-charge of Zone 6, Calabar, Mr. Jonathan Jonathan Johnson in the state. Mbu warned that any group planning to stage a protest should seek approval from the police. “If there will be protest, the people concerned should take permission by writing, or else, if any person or people take law into their hands, they will be arrested and prosecuted. The police will use force to arrest offenders.”

The Minister of State for Education, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, sounded confounding when in an interview on Tuesday in his office in Abuja he debunked claims that he is at war with Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State. Wike dismissed insinuations that Rivers State is at war over the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and said he had nothing against Amaechi and did not believe the governor had anything against him.

He said, “one thing you people don’t know is that there is no fight in the real sense of it as the media reports. I call what you have described as war in the Rivers State PDP or between the governor and I as media creation. “You people (media) have been busy hyping the whole scenario to create an impression that war is raging in the state. That is not true. I have read so much on the media on how everything has gone to blazes. And I ask, where do these things happen. I have to be frank with you that I am not at any war with Governor Amaechi. He remains the leader of the party in the state, and not I.

“We have a change in the leadership of the party, that is, the executive body of the party and that does not translate to any form of war. Most of the newspapers and TV houses have taken sides and labelled me an antagonist of Amaechi being used by someone somewhere in Abuja to create problems in my state and I laugh. I laugh because I think I am old enough to have a mind of mine. So should I wait until someone uses me before I take a stand on an issue.” On a personal relationship with Amaechi, he said, “he remains the leader of the party in the state and that is the reality of the law of the party and nobody for now can change it.

I dare say here with all sincerity that if Governor Amaechi calls me now and invites me to Port Harcourt for a function, I must be there. If he invites me for any discussion on the good of our party and our state, I won’t hesitate to answer him because he is my leader in the party.” On the possibility of reconciliation in the feud, he dismissed what is going on as just politics. “There is no war anywhere, I say again. We are playing politics and what is happening is part of politics. That is why I advise some media houses to apply some moderation in the way they blow the development out of shape because the day we will resolve it, none of you will be there. “So whenever I read of plans to impeach Amaechi, I laugh and ask who is the one to impeach him.

Where is the number of legislators to do that when he is in charge of the majority? The other people assisting the press to escalate the problem are the House of Assembly members. I have the text message of many of them.” They send text everyday and some mock that they love the war because they are benefiting and would not want it to end. I am ready to confront many of them with their texts and let Nigerians know who is really the one troubling Rivers PDP. They say all manner of things in the press and ask for their compensation for fighting for the governor.

The same people turn around to send me text and call to celebrate their exploits and say it loud and clear that the war is profitable.” He advised the PDP group opposed to the new leadership of the party to think twice and accept the reality of a new leadership. He challenged them that change must always change and since the court had ruled to uphold the new exco, it was left for the opposition group to accept the body and join forces with them to lead the party.

The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-General Azubuike Ihejirika, yesterday revealed that some soldiers have been caught relating with the Boko Haram and divulging vital operational secrets of the Army to the Islamist sect. Ihejirika gave the revelation in Abuja at a seminar on “Personnel Management and Development,” organised by the Army Transformation and Innovation Centre.

The COAS, who was very angry with the development, stressed that this had hampered Army operations leading to the death of some soldiers. Recall that on January 19 this year, two soldiers were killed with five others injured at Okene, Kogi State, when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted on their path exploded while travelling from Akure to Kachia, Kaduna State to train, preparatory to international peace-keeping operations in Mali.

Gen. Ihejirika said that a soldier supplied the information on their movement to the insurgents which led to the successful attack. Although vital information on the soldiers was yet to be released by the Army Headquarters, the COAS disclosed that a “the soldier has been apprehended and will be court-marshalled.” He said while some were busy posting negative comments on the internet, others were promoting communications with insurgents and giving them information on the movements of troops.

He warned soldiers to desist from such disloyal acts, vowing to deal decisively with those found culpable. He said that with the present challenging security situation, it was not good for the Army to be losing operatives to dismissals, stressing on the need for them to be forthright and professional in their activities. The COAS said that he has advised commanders to mellow down in dismissing soldiers, but insisted that if the crime was such that they could not afford to keep them, then they had no choice than dismiss and jail them.

He said although the challenges were enormous, the Army was also prepared to face even more challenges. General Ihejirika said that as part of its readiness for more challenges, the Army was training over 1,000 amphibious soldiers to operate in the waterways, establishing 101 Battalion as Army Headquarters’ reserved battalion, to be led by a Colonel and supported by 25 other officers, as well as building 176 Battalion at Gwagwalada in Abuja.

Earlier, the Chief of Army Transformation and Innovation, Major-General Ibrahim Sani, said that active digitalised roadblocks/ checkpoints have also been put in place to ensure proper checking of movements of criminals, IEDs, arms and ammunition and free flow of traffic to reduce the hardship encountered by people.

Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Dikko Abubakar, said in Enugu yesterday that suspects believed to be involved in the killing of former Kwara State Commissioner of Police (CP) Chinwike Asadu, who was shot dead in Enugu on March 2, this year, have been arrested. The IGP who was on a working visit to the state, also commissioned the police clinic at the command’s headquarters which he said is part of efforts to have healthy looking policemen who will be in a better position to discharge their duties.

He said Enugu has the lowest crime rate in the country. Speaking after the commissioning, Abubakar who described the murder of the CP as a very sad incident, recalled that when he paid a condolence visit on the family, he promised that everything humanly possible would be done to get those who killed CP Asadu; “and I am glad to tell Nigerians that seven of those who took part in the killing have been arrested and arraigned. “There are still others we are looking for, but I will not give you their names; I can give you names of those we have arrested with arms and ammunition that they used in committing that illegal act.

They are Ogechukwu, Ogechukwu, Ugwoke, Okwosa, Chikobi, David and Amobi (surnames withheld by us).” He noted that the suspects had confessed to the murder of Asadu as well as the killing of other innocent souls and other forms of criminality, stressing that the police cannot fold their arms to allow lawless elements of the society to kill people freely and go unarrested. Meanwhile, the IGP yesterday declared that Enugu State has the lowest crime rate in the country, saying that this fact was buttressed by statistics and empirical evidence.

Abubakar, said while taking delivery of 100 new vehicles donated to the police by the government that this was largely due to the tremendous support that the administration of Governor Sullivan Chime had been giving to the police and other security agencies. He said: “Today, I can confirm, as the Inspector-General of Police, that Enugu State has the lowest crime rate in Nigeria. I also confirm that Enugu is one the safest places in Nigeria. This is the result of the wonderful partnership among the Enugu State Government, the Police and other security agencies.” He commended Governor Chime for the gesture, saying it was an example that his colleagues should emulate. “I commend you (Chime) for this gesture.

This is a shining example for your colleagues to emulate. This a practical demonstration that you love and care for your people and that you understand what it takes to provide security of lives and property”. The IGP said the latest donation of vehicles by the government was unprecedented in the sense that it included both patrol vans and sedans (saloon cars), adding that it fell in line with the new policy objective of his administration to move away from vans as is the practice in advanced countries. He also praised Governor Chime for the massive road development programme, noting that the provision of streetlights on major roads of Enugu metropolis was of great assistance to the police in their war against crimes.

Abubakar promised that with the vehicles, “a new brand of policing would commence in Enugu State because police officers would be adequately trained in the use of the vehicles.” Stressing that the gesture was a challenge to the police, he charged officers and men of the police command to use the vehicles only for their stated purposes to rid the state of criminals and warned that any abuse or misuse of the vehicles by the officers will be sanctioned. Earlier while presenting the vehicles consisting of 50 patrol vans and 50 cars, Governor Chime remarked that it had been the policy of his administration since inception to partner the police to maintain security. He disclosed that the vehicles were provided in partnership with local government councils and were fully equipped with modern communication gadgets.

The governor said that the cars would be used for patrols within the metropolis while the vans were to cover inter-government routes and the boundaries. The governor said that his government will ensure that the people feel the presence of the police wherever they are and in the event of any incidence of crime, the police will appear within five minutes of receiving any alarm or emergency notice. Recall that Chime administration had over the past six years donated over 100 patrol vans to the police and other security agencies in the state.

Awka, the Anambra State capital, yesterday stood still as the remains of the late literary icon, Prof. Chinua Achebe arrived in his state to a resounding reception by the government and people of the state. Government business was also virtually grounded as civil servants obeyed the directive of the government to be present and honour the late icon. They were seen at the venue signing attendance register to confirm their presence and avert any possible reprimand.

The body which was carried in a brown casket accompanied by his widow, Prof. Christy Achebe and four children arrived the Amansea border by 12:35pm where it was received by the state Governor, Peter Obi and the senator representing his Senatorial zone, Anambra Central, Dr. Chris Ngige, with other dignitaries and community leaders. As early as 7am, people from all walks of life had started trooping into the Amansea boundary reception venue and Alex Ekwueme Square arena for the Anambra State farewell ceremony.

Although, the body arrived Ekwueme at 1pm, three hours behind schedule, the crowd comprising royal fathers, clergymen, national and state legislators, and foreigners waited calmly. On arrival at Ekwueme Square, Governor Obi, Senator Ngige and the Anglican Bishop of Awka, Rt Rev. Alex Ibezim and his Catholic counterpart, Bishop Ezeokafor received the body for lying in state. In his short prayers to declare the ceremony open, Bishop Ibezim noted that with the demise of Prof. Achebe, things had really fallen apart and the people were no longer at ease.

He prayed, saying: “On a day like this, we are not asking for the arrow of God but we ask for the mercy of God”. The Bishop further prayed that God should have mercy on Achebe’s family, Anambra State and Nigeria and to raise many Achebe’s in Nigeria, so that the country would grow better morally and in godliness. The Senate was represented by three senators, Senators Ngige, Udoma Egba, Uche Chukwumerije who took a temporal discharge from the hospital to be in the delegation and retired General Mohammed Magoro.

In their tribute, read by the leader of the delegation, Senator Udoma Egba, the Senate stated that “only the mortal remains of Chinua Achebe can die, but Chinua Achebe lives and lives forever”. The senators further said: “The late Prof. Achebe brought fame and prestige to Nigeria and to all humanity through his literary talent and works”. He was also a social critic and activist, poet, marketing Nigeria and African culture to several other countries and continents. “Prof. Achebe’s life has been an exemplary and worthy of emulation.

His demise was a monumental loss to his family, the people of Anambra State, Nigeria, Africa and the entire world.” In his short speech, Governor Obi extolled the virtues of Prof. Achebe whom he said, must have secured a place in heaven by the way he lived his life. He said that the crowd and the way they conducted themselves and stayed the length of time was another testimony to the importance they attached to the late icon. Obi announced that presidents of three countries including President Goodluck Jonathan were being expected at the burial today in Ogidi.

Former Governor of Anambra State, Senator Chris Ngige noted that the late Prof. Achebe stood for the truth and fought inhumanity and injustice. He disclosed that Achebe was the only Anambrarian that stood up and condemned the burning of Anambra State property by a cabal in 2004, adding that the late icon rejected Federal Government’s honour because the government was hobnobbing with the perpetrators of the heinous crime in the state. The Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Prof. Boniface Egboka, in his tribute extolled the literary prowess of Achebe, describing him as both an academic and politician.

He called on the Federal Government to immortalize him by naming one of the universities in the country after him. Blending the tributes with folk song, Professor of Music and traditional ruler of Oko Community, Igwe Prof. Laz Ekwueme described Prof. Achebe as an Iroko whose demise has left a vacuum that would be difficult to fill. In an emotion-laden speech, which culminated in shedding of tears, former minister of Education Dr. Oby Ezekwesili described Prof. Achebe as the character of the true Igboman.

She said, “There are those who when they died, words are not enough to describe them. Prof. Achebe was the character of true Igbo person. He was not a man of things, but a man of values. She said that the death of the late icon should bring back in Ndigbo those characters they were known for including honesty, integrity and hatred for corruption.

Justice Peter Umeadi (Chief Judge, Anambra State)

It is a shame that Achebe is no more but we are proud of him as a black man, as an African because he plied his trade, I will say in a foreign language and for him to have been able to express himself the way he did in the white man’s language shows that we have a lot and more to offer.

The lesson of Chinua Achebe goes to clarity of expression, the Bible says from the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. If you are able to be clear in what you say, it means that your thought process is clear and if I read what you say and it make sense to me, then it is the tool for development.

What Chinua Achebe    represents could be replicated in physical areas, like physical development. That is the lesson we must all learn from him, is not about the literary aspect, it is about the conception and rendering of that conception and making it understandable to all and Sundry who could replicate it to our physical environment which is dear to me.

Igwe Prof. Chukwuemeka Ike

Intellectually, Achebe received Nigeria’s highest national prize for intellectual and academic achievement, that is the Nigeria Order of Merit (NOM). As a literary icon, he was celebrated as Eagle on Iroko on his 60th birthday at University of Nigeria Nsukka before my very eyes.

He received honorary doctorate degree from at least 30 universities worldwide along with numerous other academics.  Not through godfatherism, not through using the national, not through any corrupt practice but by diligently maximizing his God-given talent. He stood out as a perfect gentleman of honour and transparent integrity.

A motor vehicle accident in 1990 confined Achebe to the wheel chair for the rest of his life. Lesser mortals could have thrown in the towel but Chinua held from the wheelchair.

Brother S.C. Ojiakor – former PG, Nkpor and Chairman Idemili P.G’s

Achebe’s death has so badly affected everybody. He was a light through which we reach the world. There is plan to erect his monument somewhere in Ogidi.

Prof. Boniface Egboka – Vice Chancellor Nnamdi Azikwe University

Achebe was my mentor, a model and exemplary academic. He was an epitome of Igboism, an icon of intellectualism, a great Biafran and later Nigerian. He was a great play writer who means many things to many people. The Nobel Laureate Committee should look into their record and give him a post-humous award.

I am an Achebelogist. I believe in his ideology. I have used his writeups in my writing and many writers have emulated him. They should create an institution after him.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University has instituted Chinua Achebe annual lecture series to immortalize him and it will attract lecturers from across the globe.

Dr. Innocent Onwubuya – President Anambra State Association of Town Unions.

I feel completely fulfilled about the honour being done to the  late icon in death. It is good that the whole world  has recognized the achievements of Prof Achebe especially in the literary arena.

He was a literary grant, and a father of African literature. He was respected and is now being honoured. I am convinced that our governments know what to do to immortalize him. It is good that both the Senate, House of Representatives and the Anambra House of Assembly have debated and called on the governments to do something to immortalize the icon.

The lesson  Prof. Achebe has taught us is that everybody should do whatever he is doing very well. People should emulate him.

Prof. Fidelis Okafor

Prof  Achebe was a man of values, a man of character who influenced the world with his literary works. He will remain in the minds of people because his books are legacies that will live far beyond many generations. His death is a great loss to Anambra people, Nigeria and the world at large.

Prof. Pita Ejiofor – Former Vice Chancellor, Anambra state University, Awka.

It is noteworthy that Prof Achebe became the 25th person whose literature was translated into many languages of the world. His work was translated into 60 languages of the world. Prof Achebe lectured in many parts of the world. Various Universities gave him awards and when Nigeria offered him an award, he rejected it twice. He was outstanding in hardwork, sincerity, fight against evil and injustice. It will not be easy to find another Achebe because the whites have not replaced Shakespear.

Prof. Isaac Adewole, V.C University of Ibadan

Although this will look like a time to sing the dirge. Our cultural values which Achebe did his best to dignify in his eventful and outstanding literary career, make it imperative that we celebrate him. He lived a fruitful life and joined his forebears with all the requirements conditional to attaining the enviable status of an ancestor. Indeed he is the foremost ancestor of modern African literatures.

Besides, he continues to live forever not only in our minds but in his works.

“When beggars die, there are no comets seen. The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes,” so says Calpurnia in William Shakespeare’s classic play, Julius Caesar.

When Shakespeare penned those words in the 15th century, the iconic dramatist could just have been talking of another great wordsmith that would pass on 414 years later. On Thursday, March 21, when Chinua Achebe, the Ogidi, Anambra State-born, world-acclaimed Africa’s literary Iroko breathed his last in Boston, United States, the entire world media rose up in salute to the man described by the New York Times as a “towering man of letters.”

From New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, from the Associated Press to The Guardian of UK to CNN to Skynews, the foreign media not only reported the passing of a literary icon, it was tribute upon tribute to one of the greatest weaver of words that the world would ever know.

Reporting the death under the headline, Chinua Achebe, African Literary Titan, Dies at 82, the New York Times described Chinua Achebe as “the Nigerian author and towering man of letters whose internationally acclaimed fiction helped to revive African literature and to rewrite the story of a continent that had long been told by Western voices.”

In a report, anchored by Jonathan Kandell, the New York Times further said: “Chinua Achebe caught the world’s attention with his first novel, “Things Fall Apart.” Published in 1958, when he was 28, the book would become a classic of world literature and required reading for students, selling more than 10 million copies in 45 languages.

“The story, a brisk 215 pages, was inspired by the history of his own family, part of the Ibo nation of southeastern Nigeria, a people victimized by the racism of British colonial administrators and then by the brutality of military dictators from other Nigerian ethnic groups.

“Things Fall Apart gave expression to Mr. Achebe’s first stirrings of anti-colonialism and a desire to use literature as a weapon against Western biases. As if to sharpen it with irony, he borrowed from the Western canon itself in using as its title a line from Yeats’s apocalyptic poem, The Second Coming.”

“Though Mr. Achebe spent his latter decades teaching at American universities, most recently at Brown, his writings-novels, stories, poems, essays and memoirs-were almost invariably rooted in the countryside and cities of his native Nigeria. His most memorable fictional characters were buffeted and bewildered by the competing pulls of traditional African culture and invasive Western values.”

The newspaper averred that Achebe gave African literature its own voice, asserting that, “in his writing and teaching, Mr. Achebe sought to reclaim the continent from Western literature, which he felt had reduced it to an alien, barbaric and frightening land devoid of its own art and culture. He took particular exception to “Heart of Darkness,” the novel by Joseph Conrad, whom he thought “a thoroughgoing racist.”

The paper went ahead to review Achebe’s works – from Things Fall Apart to There was a Country, his final offering.

For BBC news, it was the celebration of the uncommon artistic achievements of a fecund literary soul.

Describing Achebe as one of Africa’s best known authors, the BBC, which Achebe worked for in the 1950s, and where he wrote his first and most popular work, said Achebe’s 1958 debut novel, Things Fall Apart, which dealt with the impact of colonialism in Africa, has sold more than 10 million copies.

“The writer and academic wrote more than 20 works-some fiercely critical of politicians and a failure of leadership in Nigeria,” the BBC noted.

It recalled that South African writer and Nobel laureate, Nadine Gordimer, referred to Achebe as “father of modern African literature” in 2007 when she was among the judges to award him the Man Booker International Prize in honour of his literary career.

Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s first literary outing, the BBC recalled, has been translated into more than 50 languages and focuses on the traditions of Igbo society and the clash between Western and traditional values.

The organisation quoted a Nigerian author, Victor Ehikhamenor, as referring to Achebe as a global citizen.

“I met him on two occasions,” Ehikhamenor had told BBC’s Focus on Africa. “When you are with Achebe outside Nigeria, even when you are with him in Nigeria, you cannot claim him as a Nigerian because he’s a world citizen,” The BBC also quoted former South African president and anti-apartheid fighter, Nelson Mandela, as saying that “Prof. Achebe is a writer in whose company the prison walls fell down.”

The American National Public Radio (NPR) was also effusive in its praises on Achebe. NPR, in a report anchored by Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, described Achebe as one of Africa’s greatest contemporary writers.

The medium wrote on its website: “Chinua Achebe who taught at colleges in the United States made literary history with his 1958 best-seller Things Fall Apart, a sobering tale about Nigeria at the beginning of its colonization.

“Achebe, 82, played a critical role in establishing post-colonial African literature and is known to students all over the continent for his seminal novel, Things Fall Apart. Achebe’s masterpiece has graced countless school and college syllabuses and is translated into fifty languages worldwide. It is often cited as the most read book in modern African literature and has sold more than 12 million copies.

“Achebe also was an essayist and an outspoken critic of successive Nigerian governments, poor leadership and institutionalised corruption. He passed up national honours in protest. Achebe taught Africana Studies at Brown University and before that at Bard College in New York. Many of his fans feel that the award-winning writer was passed over for and should have won a Nobel prize.”

The Guardian of UK described Achebe as the “Nigerian author recognised for key role in developing African literature,” and “the Nigerian novelist seen by millions as the father of African literature.”

The respected newspaper quoted Simon Winder, publishing director at Penguin, as saying that “Chinua Achebe is the greatest of African writers and we are all desolate to hear of his death.”

Like most other foreign media, The Guardian did some review of Achebe’s works, especially Things Fall Apart, which it noted had sold more than 10 million copies around the world and has been published in 50 languages.

“The poet, Jackie Kay, hailed Achebe as “the grandfather of African fiction who lit up a path for many others,” wrote the newspaper.

Listing some of the laurels earned by the writer, The Guardian wrote that, “Achebe won the Commonwealth poetry prize for his collection-Christmas in Biafra, was a finalist for the 1987 Booker prize for his novel Anthills of the Savannah, and in 2007 won the Man Booker international prize. Chair of the judges on that occasion, Elaine Showalter, said he had ‘inaugurated the modern African novel’, while her fellow judge, the South African Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, said his fiction was ‘an original synthesis of the psychological novel, the Joycean stream of consciousness, the postmodern breaking of sequence. Achebe is a joy and an illumination to read.’”

The newspaper also informed that Achebe had twice rejected the Nigerian government’s attempt to name him a Commander of the Federal Republic.

CBS News, on its part, said Chinua Achebe gave literary birth to modern Africa with Things Fall Apart.

“For decades, Achebe penned novels, stories and essays to rewrite and reclaim the history of his native country.

“His eminence worldwide was rivalled only by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison and a handful of others. Achebe was a moral and literary model for countless Africans and a profound influence on such American writers as Morrison, Ha Jin and Junot Diaz,” the CBS said on its website. It stated also that the writer helped define revolutionary change in his motherland.

“As a Nigerian, Achebe lived through and helped define revolutionary change in his country, from independence to dictatorship to the disastrous war between Nigeria and the breakaway country of Biafra in the late 1960s. He knew both the prestige of serving on government commissions and the fear of being declared an enemy of the state. He spent much of his adult life in the United States, but never stopped calling for democracy in Nigeria or resisting literary honours from a government he refused to accept.”

The CBS News also did a review of Achebe’s works, from Things Fall Apart to There was a Country.

“Achebe never did win the Nobel Prize, which many believed he deserved,” it wrote, “but in 2007 he did receive the Man Booker International Prize, a $120,000 honour for lifetime achievement.”

Achebe, the CBC news noted, served for years as editor of Heinemann’s “African Writer Series,” and also edited numerous anthologies of African stories, poems and essays. In There Was a Country, he considered the role of the modern African writer.

“What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal,” the CBS News quoted Achebe as saying.

The Wall Street Journal also celebrated the literary and other lifetime accomplishments of the great author, in a report anchored by Drew Hinshaw.

The newspaper reported: “The first book of Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was nearly lost to history when a London typing service dismissed the handwritten manuscript sent from Africa as a joke.

“The joke was on them. Finally published in 1958, Things Fall Apart became an improbable success, announcing the Nigerian author, and Africa, on the world’s literary stage. It went on to sell more than 10 million copies in 50 languages.”

Simon Gikandi, the Kenyan author of Reading Chinua Achebe, told the Wall Street Journal that Things Fall Apart “literally invented African literature.”

“He started writing at a moment of great expectations, but his works contained this important cautionary note, that things could go wrong,” Gikandi told the newspaper.

The newspaper informed that “in 1975, he accomplished a feat rare even for authors: He knocked a classic, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, from the literary canon. The 1903 novel had been Europe’s most commonly read account of Africa, and bristled with depictions of Africans as half-human cannibals. In an influential series of lectures and essays, Mr. Achebe called the author “a thoroughgoing racist.” The charge stuck. Steadily, Mr. Conrad’s share of university reading lists fell as Mr. Achebe’s rose.”

According to the newspaper, “Things Fall Apart” ranked as one of America’s most frequently taught high-school books.

“Yet its author played down praise. Twice, he rejected Nigeria’s second-highest honour, accusing the leaders who award the prize of trying ‘to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.’

“When critics credited him with transforming American and European views of Africa, he abstained-he thought they hadn’t changed all that much.”

The CNN also added its voice to the plethora of praises on Chinua Achebe at his passing. In a report by Laura Smith-Spark and Faith Karimi, described Achebe as a literary icon.

“An author of more than 20 books, he was celebrated worldwide for telling African stories to a captivated world audience.

“He was also accorded his country’s highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award.

“Achebe is a major part of African literature, and is popular all over the continent for his novels, especially “Anthills of the Savannah,” which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987, and “Things Fall Apart.”

The newspaper recalled that Achebe once wrote an essay criticizing Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, as a racist for his depiction of Africans as savages. Conrad’s popularity took a hit after the accusation-a testament to Achebe’s credibility.”

The Los Angeles Times said Things Fall Apart, presented European colonization from an African viewpoint and established Achebe as the patriarch of modern African literature.

The report by Robyn Dixon stated: “When Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe was in college, a European professor assigned “Mister Johnson,” which portrayed Africa as a land of grinning, shrieking savages. TIME magazine called it “the best novel ever written about Africa.”

“Achebe was outraged. He vowed that if someone as ignorant as Joyce Cary, the novel’s Anglo-Irish author, could write such a book, “perhaps I ought to try my hand at it.’

“The result was a masterpiece. Things Fall Apart, his 1958 debut novel, changed the face of world literature by presenting the colonization of Africa from an African point of view. With more than 10 million copies sold in 50 languages, it established Achebe as the patriarch of modern African literature.

According to the LA Times, “Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian playwright, hailed Things Fall Apart as “the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of an African character rather than … as the white man would see him.”

The newspaper reported: “At 14, he was accepted into an elite boarding school in southeastern Nigeria, and as a young man he read so much that he was nicknamed “Dictionary.” He later won a university scholarship to study medicine.

“After a year, he switched to his passion, writing, and studied English, history and theology. That decision was to change his life and the landscape of African literature.

“Growing up, he had absorbed Western prejudices so thoroughly that, he later wrote, “I did not see myself as an African to begin with.” But in college, it dawned on him that he had given up too much of his identity and could not accept white authors’ portrayals of Africans as culturally inferior and subhuman.”

CBS News also heaped copious encomiums on the departed literary giant, calling him a celebrated writer that influenced a generation of writers from Africa to America.

It recalled that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart had a first printing of 2,000 copies, noting that its initial review in The New York Times ran less than 500 words.

“But the novel soon became among the most important books of the 20th century, a universally acknowledged starting point for postcolonial, indigenous African fiction, the prophetic union of British letters and African oral culture.

CBS News quoted the African scholar, Kwame Anthony Appiah as saying of Achebe: “It would be impossible to say how Things Fall Apart influenced African writing. It would be like asking how Shakespeare influenced English writers or Pushkin influenced Russians. Achebe didn’t only play the game, he invented it.”

According to the CBS News, “wheelchair bound in his latter years, Achebe would cite his physical problems and displacement from home as stifling to his imaginative powers.”

Also writing on Achebe’s transition, Skynews noted that apart from criticising misrule in Nigeria, Achebe also strongly backed the secessionist State of Biafra, which declared independence from Nigeria in 1967, sparking a civil war that killed around one million people and only ended in 1970.

“The conflict was the subject of a long-awaited memoir he published last year, titled There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra,” the Skynews stated on its website.

It noted that in 2011, Achebe rejected a Nigerian government offer to honour him with one of the nation’s highest awards, at least the second time he had done so.

“But while he was widely lauded worldwide, Achebe never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, unlike fellow Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, who became the first African Nobel literature laureate in 1986.

“In an interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said that as his reading evolved, he slowly became aware of how books had cast Africans as savages.

“There is that great proverb that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realised that, I had to be a writer.”

Manuscript of Things Fall Apart, which later became the first published novel of the late Professor Chinua Achebe could have been lost forever but for the benevolence of a British broadcaster who eventually rescued it in London. And had he lost the manuscript, Achebe himself said that his writing career, which later launched him into global reckoning, would have equally been ended as far back as 1956.

In his last and most controversial book, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, Achebe had dispelled rumours that he allegedly lost the manuscript to a Camerounian researcher who later moved it to his home country in Africa. According to Achebe, shortly after completing the novel in 1956, he naively sent the raw (hand-written manuscript) to some typists in England to transform it into an acceptable manuscript for publishing. But that after paying for the service, the typists refused to contact him even after writing several letters to them.

He almost lost hope when one of his former colleagues at the then Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) offered to assist him. Said Achebe in the book: ‘What I did next, in retrospect, was quite naïve, even foolish. I put my handwritten documents together, went to the post office, and had them parcel the only copy of the manuscript I had to the London address of the higly recommended typing agency that was in the business of manuscript preparation. A letter came from this agency after a few weeks.

They confirmed that they had received my document and wrote that the next thing I should do was to send them 32 pounds, which was the cost of producing my manuscript. Now, 32 pounds was a lot of money in 1956, and a significant slice of my salary, but I was encouraged by the fact that I had received this information, this feedback, and that the people sounded as if they were going to be of great value to me. So I sent off the payment as instructed.’’ But after sending the money, Achebe was faced with disappointment as he never heard any information from England again. His words ‘What happened next was a near catastrophe.

The typing agency, obviously having received the money I sent, went silent. One week passed, then two, three, four, five, six weeks, and I began to panic. I wrote two letters inquiring about the status of the manuscript preparation and I got no answer.’ Meanwhile, Achebe had no choice but to complain to one of his colleagues, a Briton, who was about to travel to England then. He recollected how Ms Angela Beattie, a former BBC Talks producer, was seconded to NBC as head of Talks, which he (Achebe) produced. Beattie later asked for the name and address of the agency and while on her vacation in London, she visited them and requested for Achebe’s manuscript. Explained Achebe ‘She (Beattie) arrived at the offices of the typing agency and asked to speak with the manager, who showed up swiftly.

Angela Beattie asked the manager sternly what she had done with the manuscript that her colleague in Lagos Nigeria had sent. Here, right before them, armed with a threat, was a well-connected woman who could really make trouble for them. The people there were surprised and shaken. ‘Now, Iam going back to Nigeria in three weeks,’’ Angela Beattie said as she left the agency’s office, ‘And when I get there, let us hope that the manuscript you took money to prepare has been received by its owner, or else you will hear more about it.’ A few weeks later I received the handsome package in the mail. It was my manuscript. I look back now at those events and state categorically that had the manuscript been lost I most certainly would have been irreversibly discouraged from continuing my writing career.’’

However, another version of the possible loss of the manuscript had it that the legendary writer was never in possession of the manuscript of the novel before dying. In a recent interview with Professor Remi Raji-Oyelade, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, it was learnt that Achebe had allegedly lost the manuscript of Things Fall Apart to a Cameroonian researcher many years ago in America, and that the researcher who was Achebe’s student never returned the script to the owner. According to Raji-Oyelade who claimed that he learnt about the loss of the manuscript five years ago in America, the story had it that Achebe, out of his generosity and willingness to assist younger scholars and researchers, innocently released the manuscript of Things Fall Apart to his student who hailed from Cameroon.

The latter promised to return it but he never did and that he (the student) has since moved the manuscript to Cameroon. Said Raji-Oyelade ‘There is need for us Nigerian writers and maybe the Achebe’s family to find out where the original script of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is. This issue made a row at a conference that I attended in the United States a few years back. The story was that a graduate Cameroonian student who was working on archival materials came to Achebe to collect the manuscript and that out of his generosity, Achebe gave him the script but he never returned it.

The story went on that the script has been moved from the United States to Cameroon. I’ve heard that story five years ago, and perhaps the best person to ask now is Achebe’’s son, Ike’’

Close your eyes for a moment. Listen to his velvety voice for some fleeting seconds. Hear the modulation in his voice that rises with the intensity of the subject. And for one moment, you would think you are right there in the awesome presence of the master, the father of modern African Literature, the great Professor Chinualumogu Albert Achebe, who the world stands in awe to bid a final bye today.

Remove the element of age, and you find the perfect replica of the departed wordsmith, Chinua Achebe, who conquered the world at just 28 with his epic, Things Fall Apart, in the subject of this interview. At 49, Professor Ikechukwu Achebe is the chip off the old block. As his legendary father would have described him, were he to return from the land of the spirits and manufacture another masterpiece, Ikechukwu Achebe is his father’s child. The true son of his father.

As preparations to receive the remains of the departed iconic writer back home hit a frenetic height, upper week, I cornered the younger Achebe, a visiting Scholar and Director of the Igbo Archival Dictionary Project at Brown University, Providence, Rhodes Island, United States, at Awka, the Anambra State capital.

The first of the Iroko’s four children (two boys and two girls), Dr. Ikechukwu Achebe, during the two-hour encounter, opened virtually every page of his legendary father’s life and paid a glowing tribute to a man whose works shredded the thick wool woven on the world’s eyes by racist writers who projected blacks as apes that hopped from tree to tree in the thick jungles of Africa for survival.

Though pained by his father’s eventual demise, Ikechukwu, a former Professor at Bard College, New York, who holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Cambridge, was grateful to God that the old man lived for 23 years after an accident that crippled him and which seriousness made his doctors predict that his days were numbered.

As a dyed-in-the-wool reporter, there is the tendency for you to want to poke your nose further and ask for details of the legend’s final days and the infirmity that sent him the way of all flesh.

Dr. Achebe, who, in 2004, was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, would just look at you straight in the face, lower his voice, almost to a whisper, and say: “The complications are not things that I am going to discuss on the pages of a newspaper. I’m not going to discuss his medical records or medical history on the pages of any newspaper.”

Case closed? Not really. He, however, would tell you that the accident that crippled his father at 60 was serious enough to raise concerns. Indeed, going by the seriousness of the injuries, doctors, at the time, never gave the writer much chance of making old age. And that he lived for 23 years after was one miracle that the family was grateful to God for.

Away from the accident, Ikechukwu, who was a Smuts Fellow in Commonwealth Studies in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, between 2006 and 2007, spoke about things you have never read anywhere about his father. He revealed the man’s unaccomplished work, his major regret and why the family’s 70-something-year-old matriarch, herself a professor, has steered away from the klieg lights that perpetually trailed her global celebrity husband.

You won’t want to swap this interview for anything. Not for a million dollars.

Therefore, sit back, relax and enjoy the whole of it.

Is There was a Country, your father’s last work or there is something else he was working on before he died?

There was a Country was his last published work but he always has many things he was working on.

In his comment on There was a Country, former South African President, Dr. Nelson Mandela, described your father as ‘a writer in whose company the prison walls fell down.’ Now, what were the prison walls that your father’s writings brought down in your life?

Although you’ve asked the right question, I think the quote in full is something like ‘there was a writer named Chinua Achebe in whose company the prison wall fell down’. It was actually a tribute that Mandela had given to my father on the occasion of his 70th birthday and it is not a recent quote.

I know; I just want to transpose that to you so you could look at the statement and tell me those walls in your life that your father’s writings metaphorically helped you to dismantle.

Well, I think that, like most people who have read the works and have encountered his writings would understand, what Mandela was saying was that he derived a sense of liberation from reading the work. For me, it was, like the walls that had been put up, in the sense of an absence of the African person in literature, were being brought down by the publication of his novel (Things Fall Apart). And you could begin to see yourself in literature for the first time. That is the symbolism we are using here.

So, you do feel that Mandela was expressing a sense of liberation in that reaction to your father’s work?

I think Mandela was inferring to a specific context of being imprisoned, and that being in Robben Island, in prison and receiving copies of my father’s work, he was able to imaginatively leave the confines of prison, and once again inhabit the open spaces of the Africa that he knew. So, imaginatively, literature does liberate the mind and the spirit.

So, which of your father’s works liberated you?

Liberated me imaginatively?

Yes.

I think they all did because you are imaginatively liberated from your presence to a little known part of the glorious past. That is what his books have done for me; and I think that’s what imaginative literature does generally.

What’s your earliest exposure to his work, and what particular work?

My earliest exposure to his work? I think I will start by saying it was through storytelling as a child. He used to tell us stories.

Like tales by the moonlight?

He told us tales of the tortoise; he told us children’s stories; and there were many of them. And these were stories that had been handed down from his mother to his elder sister, and to himself. That was the first experience of his art of storytelling that I got. And then, I must have read Things Fall Apart at the age of eight or nine. I think it may have been an abridged version that was in the market at the time.  But then, it didn’t take very long before I read all his works because I was interested. Of course, when we got to secondary school, they became the prescribed text and you have to read them. But I had already read them at home.

How did the fact of he being your dad impact on your life, first, as a child, and as you grew up?

One is always able to distinguish clearly between the father who is not an internationally famous writer, and another father who is this internationally famous man; and I think it was because he, too, focused a greet deal on his family. Family life was important to him, and even though you are constantly aware of fame and publicity, it wasn’t something he drew attention to. It was more to do with ‘where have you been today? Have you done your home work?’ And I think that distinction was important in keeping us grounded and focused on the things that were important as a family as opposed to this very public famous man.

What were those core African values that he imparted on you?

Integrity and the way he did things, the way he lived his life. He wasn’t a preacher, but he wouldn’t tell you how to live your life. But he would always present to you his own way by simply living an example. You could tell that truth was important for him. Integrity, telling the truth, was important to him. You knew that you shouldn’t compromise principles in little things. You knew that he would support you if you stuck to your position based on conviction. And working very hard, he believed a great deal in education. He invested everything in education. Education was really that important to him.

He never acquired wealth?

No, he wasn’t interested in wealth.

How many known property did he have?

No, I wouldn’t discuss that (laughs). But it wasn’t something that he wasn’t interested in at all.

He was just interested in his family and friends?

…And anybody who came through him. He was very generous. That’s why he was instrumental in the growth of African literature because he spent a very long time essentially building a continent-wide body of young writers, some of them not so young, into famous international authors. He was the general editor of the African Writers Series and he did that for decades without pay.

He worked without pay?

He wasn’t interested in money because he was on a mission. He discovered his mission at a very young age, and he set about it in a very systematic way. I think that is really very important in understanding the person that my father was. He was so focused on the work that has to be done to really uplift the African, the black person globally. He was focused on the work that has to be done in terms of reaching out to other people around the world; and the work that has to be done in creating a common humanity of people with shared values. So, he had many fans and friends from all over the world.

From Korea to England, from United States to Australia to New Zealand, he had friends who identified with the values he represented and the values that he suggested. That mission was central to who he was. He was particularly concerned about the denigration of the African over a period of 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade and he was very conscious of the problems and some of the benefits of the colonial rule, including education. He believed very much in the school system that was set up by the missionaries. He wasn’t a one-track-mind man. Those are the values we learnt and have helped us in developing.

So, you didn’t grow up consciously trying to ape those values you saw?

No, because he was not prescriptive. He would not come and say be like me; or do this or do that. No. But the force of the argument should be the sort of life he lived and the value he represented. The idea that the writer was not on the side of the government, that the writer had no business with siding with government against citizens, were important ideas to him. His life was a life of mission. He was a missionary in a sense that resonated with his own father’s background as a mission agent and so on.

You described your father as an excellent family man, and espoused the values he inculcated in you. In doing so, did he spare the rod?

No, he was not known for spanking. He would talk to you and he was a very gentle person when it came to his children. I can’t really remember any occasion of spanking. What I remember was more the forcefulness of his presence. You knew when you had done the wrong thing.

His body language will tell you that?

Absolutely. He believed in respect. He believed in giving respect and he would respect you even as a child. He never really wanted to disrupt us. That, in itself, was punishment for us. If you found that that respect he had for you had now diminished, that he thought less of you because of something you had done, that was enough punishment.  And you wouldn’t want that. He believed very much in the equality of the sexes and so his daughters were a premium to him in terms of education and the way in which he interacted with them and the way in which he interacted with us the boys. He was foremost a family man and then the famous writer.

Your father was renowned to be a principled man and he demonstrated that in many ways, including turning down two national awards. How did you feel on those two occasions? Did you feel very proud that he did what he did, even though some people felt he turned his back on his fatherland?

That’s an important question. But it’s equally important to understand that he never turned his back against his country because he had, on previous occasions, been awarded the Officer of the Federal Republic, OFR, and the National Merit Award. I know how proud he was of having received those two honours. Incidentally, the OFR was awarded to him under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Of course, he had received other wards from the nation. For instance, in 1960, on independence, he had been awarded the Nigerian National trophy for Literature.

In rejecting the award of the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) the first time, he did make it clear that, number one, he thought it was a high honour that he had been given and he was agonized by the fact that he was rejecting a high honour. Secondly, he stated clearly in the letter that he wrote (to turn down the award) that he had, in fact, accepted many honours from this country even though he knew things were not perfect, but that he did so in the hope that things will get better; that with all the things committed to work, things would work for the improvement of the Nigerian citizens. He stated all these things so clearly that one didn’t need to explain things for him. He was always clear about what he did.

I don’t think we have forgotten so quickly about what he wrote in that letter (rejecting the last offer). He wrote clearly in that letter that things had gotten out of hand and that he felt that accepting that particular award at that particular time would have done some injustice to Nigerians who were suffering from the heavy political and economic pressure from their government. He went further to say that, for instance, in his home state of Anambra, ‘this is what is happening right now’. So, it was clear. For us, as a family, we felt that we needed to support him and we gave him our support. And we are proud of him. We gave him as much support as we could because it was always a lonely road. With the initial reactions that usually trail such decisions, you will be on your own. You will be alone. That initial period was a period when people were asking those questions without full understanding. But subsequent events would, of course, bear out some of the analyses that he gave. As it was always the case, it was clear that he was ahead in seeing certain things; and that puts him in a very lonely position.

Because he also walked on that lonely road, he wasn’t quite shy of controversy?

No, he never did.

What was his reaction when the controversy generated by There Was a Country roiled on?

It is like this is his life. It’s not new to him. It’s like most controversies. He doesn’t pay attention to controversies. He never paid attention to them.

He never did?

No. Once he had written a book, the next thing he did was to take some form of holiday or a vacation away from the work that had just been introduced. It was a process in which he had liberated himself, to use that term again. As long as he felt the integrity of the work was secure, he was done. That was it. Then, he would focus on his grandchildren. He would spend more time with them. He would go out a lot more. So, he wasn’t really aware. Of course, we would tell him this is what happened, but he never, for instance, read articles on it. No, he never did. The same thing happened when he wrote The Problem with Nigeria and other controversies. The same thing happened in the 1960s when he published The Man of the People. The military started looking for him. They said he was involved in plotting the overthrow (of the government of the day) because his novel had predicted a coup in Nigeria. But he had always known that there would be pushback. That is what he felt he was created on this earth to do: to give headache not prescription. All his life, he had been engaged in speaking truth to power. He loved speaking inconvenient truth to power. Oh, he loved it. In fact, he often said the job of the writer is not to prescribe medicine but to give you the headache.

So, as much as he gave power headache he was fulfilled?

Yes. I think he felt that was part of his mission. Speaking truth to power is the most ancient role of the poet, like the poet against the emperor. The poet is there to speak the truth to power because he is particularly endowed with those gifts, whether oratory or writing, to do so. So, he took that mission seriously. It was both a domestic mission to help uplift the people in Nigeria and the condition in his village, or more globally to help uplift the African, the black person, and to create a fellowship of citizens of all colours around the world based upon shared values.

Your father was always in the eyes of the public. As your father, which of his past do you not know?

Past?

Yes.

He was very open. He would always answer questions that you ask him. He would not volunteer stories, but if you ask him he would tell you.

And if you don’t ask him, he keeps quiet?

Yes. He was a very quiet person. He was a very, very quiet persona and he liked his privacy. But his being quiet is also part of a family trait. I think the area that I would have liked to know more about, and I think he thought about too, was the relationship between himself and his father. I know that one of the novels he wanted to write would have had to do with his father’s life, my grandfather’s life. Perhaps, that is something I would have wanted to know more about.

He never got round it, he never did?

It was meant to be part of an epic story of the first three novels. The first three novels were conceived as one, but he broke them into three. The second novel in the trilogy, the one that he did not write, was in fact the story of Okonkwo’s son.

The same character in Things Fall Apart?

Yes, he was just thinking about it in terms of the novel that he did write. The novel that is missing, or the story that is missing is the story of Okonkwo’s son, the story about him, the first story, which is the story of Okonkwo’s grandson, which is in No Longer at Ease. So, you have the first story of Okonkwo and the story of his grandson. But that little story which represented his father was a story that he didn’t get round to telling.

As his first son, you must be very close to him. I want to assume that you know very much about him. Which part of your father does the world not know?

I think it is the part of him as a family man. It is the very private part of a family. The part of his love for his wife, his real love and loyalty to his wife and his love for his children. That is always a private part and, of course, his love for family, his nieces and nephews. That was important to him. Family was important to him in a very broad way. But the world doesn’t know much about that as they do about everything else. Everything else dominated.  He is a very dedicated husband and a very present father even though he travelled a lot. He was, in many ways, a present father, a very focused father. He was focused on his children’s education and on the development and thinking.

Incidentally, maybe because of who he was, little was known about your mother. Was it a deliberate attempt to shield her from the public?

I don’t think there was a deliberate to shield her. My mother is a highly accomplished person in her field.

What’s her field?

A Professor of Education in Guidance and Counseling, and later on, a Professor of Psychology. She is one of the very first professors in education guidance and counseling anywhere in this part. She is one-time vice president of the Nigerian Guidance and Counseling association.

How old is she now?

She is in her late 70s.

And how is she faring?

Well, she has lost the love of her life. She has lost her partner for over 50 years. It’s a very difficult time for her. But she has her children and grand children to support her but she is very proud of him. She believes completely in his mission, so, she was able to be very supportive. Their relationship was very close. They talked about everything. And for us, we would always find out a sort of solid wall of loyalty between the two of them. It was so solid that even when you wanted to complain about one to the other it couldn’t work. They were very close.

Accomplished as she is, why did he shield her from the public?

I think it was her own choice.

Not much of your father?

No. As I said, my father wasn’t prescriptive in anything. He wasn’t. He was also the most liberal-minded person I know in terms of acknowledging the power of women. His mother meant everything to him. And he was very close to his mother, and in our household, it was clear that my mother was in charge of the household. He would come in but my mother was in charge. There was no question about that. Although my mother spent a lot of her time raising the family, she also had a great career. She balanced the two and wasn’t really interested in publicity for herself. So, if anybody shielded anybody, I think it was my mother who shielded her children from too much publicity. My mother is a very strong person.

Please tell me the truth about Nsukka. Why did your father leave Nsukka?

Remember, he left Nsukka twice. The first time was in 1972, that was after the civil war. A lot of that had to do with the fact that the federal military government of the time was, understandably, very hostile and jittery about those that they thought had left Biafra. And there was a lot of harassment. As a child, I remember a visit by the Head of State at the time, General Yakubu Gowon. He was in the area and soldiers coming into our house and ransacked the entire place looking for weapons and so on. My father had not been well but they went ransacking everywhere. Soldiers jumping everywhere was something we…

You could not stand it?

No. We were fairly used to it having come through the civil war. But there was a climate of intimidation and disruption. And I think it got to a point they (family and friends) were concerned about his safety sufficient enough for him to have taken the decision to take his family out of Nigeria in 1972.

Can you give me one of those sufficient reasons why he had to flee?

Well, these things would have been reports about plans to do more than simply harass and intimidate.

You mean there was a plot to kill him by the Gowon Regime?

I certainly will not go that far but I think there was sufficient harassment of those who were thought to have been leaders of Biafra to have made life very uncomfortable and difficult for them. So, it was in that climate, and the climate of the post-war exhaustion, that he left for the first time. The second time was when he retired from the university. This time, there wasn’t any controversy. He had taken early retirement because he wanted to focus more on his writing. Teaching was something he did but writing is something that he loved. He wanted to do more of that.

What are your recollections of the accident that crippled him?

I think it’s fairly well known. He was travelling out of the country to take up an appointment. I think it was Stanford University. And it was a motor accident he had on the way that left him paralyzed. He was first taken to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, where they did an excellent job in stabilizing him and, then, he was flown abroad. From there, from the hospital in England, he was invited by the president (vice chancellor) of Bard College to come and take up an appointment at Bard. But, initially, he was travelling to take up an appointment at Stanford.

That now helped him to stay permanently abroad?

No, he never liked staying abroad. The reality of his medical need and the concern of adequate medical care, were the primary reasons for his extended stay. But he did some travelling. At a time, he went to South Africa; he went to Europe; and he came back to Nigeria a couple of times. But I think the fact that he wouldn’t have had (in Nigeria) the level of medical care that he needed was what kept him abroad.

The Federal Executive Council (FEC), yesterday approved a new national civil aviation policy that will see all private jet owners in the country paying higher charges in accordance with international best practices. Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah who briefed State House Correspondents alongside her colleagues, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, Transport, Idris Umar, Minister of State Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Jumoke Akinjide, after the weekly FEC meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja said the existing aviation policy which was last revised 11 years ago did not provide for strict enforcement of payment of charges by private jet operators.

She said the private jet operators were not paying what they should pay. According to her, “the question is not of taking advantages, it is a question of doing the right thing. Are they paying what they are supposed to pay? The response is no, they are not. But we want to make sure that they do pay what they are supposed to pay. “These are part of the what the policy is addressing. We want to make sure that private jets are private jets and commercial jets are commercial jets and each will operate within the boxes they are meant to operate. So we don’t want to overcharge anyone, we dont to undercharge we want to do what is global standards”.

The policy she noted also addresses issues pertaining to the rights of passengers and owners of aircrafts, while spelling out clear guidelines on general aviation. The new policy has captures enforcement of rules to enhance standards. With the revised policy, the Accident Investigation Bureau AIB, would now ensure that its responsibilities go beyond investigation of accidents but implementation of outcomes and findings. Oduah said, “You must all agree with me that since then several things have taken place.

The security situation has changed and so the challenge has become more paramount that we must be intune with the global standards. We had to also revise the policy to ensure that safety is given optimum importance in the way we do things, definitely technology is involved in using the airports and so you can see its very important that we enhance the technology that we have within our airports and our airports facilities and so several of these was the essence in which we had to quickly review our aviation policy. “In doing that major highlights were general aviation. When we talk about general aviation we are talking about the private jets.

As of today we have about a hundred of them and having them we have no law, no policy no regulation to make sure that they are operating the way they should operate within ICAO laws and our aviation policy. But most importantly to be in tandem with global best policies, we also had to highlight passengers bill of right. What that means is that all passengers rights are being protected and at the same time the rights of the airlines operators should be protected as well so that you do not have conflict between passengers and operators. The policy has to take into cognisance the fact that you must have healthy operators. It is only when you have healthy operators that safety can be given the regards that it should be given. So in doing that you have to create a new directorate that focuses on economic and commercial regulations. For us it is very important.

Again when an airline is unhealthy they will have difficulty in complaince as far as the safety regulations are concerned, but the policy has to address those issues. “We also highlighted the bilateral relations that we have. What has been happening in the past, we had bilateral relations that are supposed to be reciprocal in nature but in practice it is not. We get paid royalties which does not resolve our problems so we had to change it to where we have full benefits of our bilateral relations which regards to airline operations. “Then that of national carrier, to have a policy that really addresses how we accomplish the national carrier that is in tandem with what Mr. President had promised, a private sector driven national carrier that represents who we are, what we are and our aspirations are taken into cognizance.

General safety and security at the airport, how best we can address them and monitor them because it has become a challenge in view of the new security issues that has emerged. “Generally we talked about Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB). The policy was very elaborate on how AIB should operate. AIB should not just investigate accidents and incidents they should ensure that the outcome of their report is fully implemented. So AIB will police NCAA to ensure that all the outcome of their invesitagion is adequately addressed. Finally it is the cognizance of the need to have a national climate policy, the policy addresses the framework that will drive that issue very well. We have been having climate issues and its not going to stop so we must have policies that will address these issues”.

The Council also approved the sum of N19.4 Billion for the construction of the Karshi Water Supply Scheme under the rural development efforts of the Federal Government, saying that the project would be completed in 30 months. The Minister of State for the FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide said that the water project would address the issue of water scarcity within Karshi and its environs. The project is to provide potable water and irrigation to that growing suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Akinjide, explained that the project, would involve the construction of two dams to adequately cater for the agriculture and domestic/industrial use of residents of the area.

Transport minister, Idris Umar, made a presentation on the performance of his ministry in 2012, detailing the rehabilitation of rail lines and inland waterways. Aside the resuscitation of the Lagos-Kano rail-line, he said there are plans to collaborate with private sector to increase and improve inland waterway transport. While speaking on the performance of his ministry, the Minister of Transport, Idis Umar said that a total sum of N49.6 billion was approved for the ministry but only 56 per cent of the ministry’s budget has been released According to him, the ministry recorded remarkable achievement in the resuscitation of the rail system for the movement of people and goods as alternative to road transportation.

Umar maintained that the rail transportation from Lagos to Kano has been running smoothly, saying that the ministry would partner with the private sector to ensure further development of the transport sector.

As governors of the 36 states of the federation gear up to elect a new chairman of their forum, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, tomorrow, there are strong indications that governors of the North are set to queue behind the candidature of the preferred choice of the presidency-Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State or in the alternative, a compromise candidate, Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State.

Already, according to competent sources within the governors’ fold, 22 governors cutting across party lines have signed up to back the Villa’s choice, thereby making the re-election of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of River State a daunting task. Before now, it was believed that it would be a walkover for the Rivers helmsman who has been locked in battle with the presidency over sundry issues including his perceived antagonistic leadership style of the Forum which has not gone down well with powerful forces in the nation’s seat of power.

Some of the reasons advanced by the pro-Jonathan governors include the reported cooperation the late President Umaru Yar’Adua got from the South-South/South-East during his brief stint as President. According to one of the governors from the North-East, “When Umaru was president, the South-South was never antagonistic to him. Rather, they cooperated fully with the late president. The Governors’ Forum didn’t work against him. So, why should the North not support President Jonathan? What have we to lose if we support his candidate?” Another pro-presidency supporter from the North-West said the Governors’ Forum should not be made to wear the toga of an opposition party since majority of its members are from the same party.

“We are not a trade union or opposition party. Our duty is to provide democracy dividends for our people. We have a duty to conduct ourselves as shining examples to our people and other Nigerians. We can’t afford bickering because that will be unhealthy for our democracy and our nation, especially at this time when we face dire security challenges. We are going to elect a chairman who will unite and not polarise the body. We will not be used to pursue the personal interests or ambition of one man just because he happens to be our chairman. Like when he issued a statement that the NGF did not support the Emergency rule when we had not met nor consulted. That is not acceptable.”

However, a pro-Amaechi governor declared that the embattled chairman would not be easily defeated because he is believed to be fighting for an independent body. “We will go to the polls to slug it out and the better side would carry the day. It won’t be an easy election, but we are also confident of triumphing. It’s just 24 hours away and in politics 24 hours is a long time. The NGF will emerge stronger whichever side wins.”