CHINUA ACHEBE- A Year After

By  Obu Udeozo

On a rather sad note, Chinua Achebe's story illustrates why inaccurate statistics; shoddy records, and unjust scales become equivalent to illiteracy or even metaphoric blindness. If Chinua Achebe had enjoyed the proper rewards of his labour and honest investment; Africa's greatest novelist had no business inside the type of vehicle that crushed his bones along Enugu- Onitsha road in 1990. At 60 years of age, Chinua Achebe would have earned enough financial leverage to have been travelling in a different class of automobile.
The Eagle on Iroko would never have had his career -winding crash inside a chartered Peugeot 504 salon car in which he got maimed. Part of the blame lies perhaps in the character of the transactions between Chinua Achebe and his publishers over plain accounting, transparency and honest book keeping.
My next contact with Achebe took place in America. Our first meeting was in 1985 after the three of us: Chinua Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike and myself retreated to Professor Ike's private apartment at the University of Jos, staff quarters. Professor Achebe had given the inaugural lecture that afternoon. Our meeting in Ike's house was the extra solidarity Old Boys of Government College Umuahia, could offer themselves in the circumstance. And it was in that venue that Achebe first acquainted me, that his wife Christy Achebe's roots hails from the Onubuiyi family in my home town - Enugwu- Agidi. I was still too young to savour the mythic implications of that discourse. On my way for the Second Supper and Fellowship; like amateur astrologers; we drove gingerly towards Chinua Achebe's residence at Annandale -on - the Hudson, New York on that 27 November, evening of 1992. Emma Afam Anigbogu was driving. Having lived for decades, he could conquer any terrain within the New Jersey axis; but the metropolis that evaporates his poise, is the mighty New York. Emma plays the humble kid whenever we head towards New York; that octopus of a city; which Fela Anikulapko Kuti says makes men feel like cockroaches. After a prolonged spell and intermittent phone directives; we finally arrived at Chinua Achebe's customized residence at Bard College!
But the welcome has remained eerie till date. It took almost a season before realizing that Achebe had ushered us into his presence; floating on wheels - and not standing. I had to get used to that twist of fate. After pleasantries and updates of home news; our famous host volunteered his own storyline: That the 60th birth day anniversary festival at University of Nigeria, Nsukka was a surreal magnificence. And while it lasted, he had kept wondering whether it was quite proper to lavish such a scale of accolades and encomiums on a mere mortal. The deluge of praise and commendations during the carnival was dizzying. Wouldn't the gods be unhappy? He nevertheless has managed to navigate his space and balance, by an abiding gratitude to God over the general tone of events. And that he has deliberately remained in America owing to the logistics of his medication and continued sustenance.
There was no brooding, melancholy or reservations in the atmosphere or his bearing. Chinua Achebe was a study in grace or simply sangfroid. Greek drama had always premised tragedy as a misfortune upon some nobles and kings; but Achebe asserted much earlier in life, that Igbos consider tragedy as what befalls any individual in one corner of his life that he could do nothing about: an overwhelming suffering.
At that instance I remembered Heinemann African Writers Series. And several reflections cruised on my mind. Just as I had grieved over Christopher Okigbo's Labyrinths whose copy rights were lost to foreign gods; it became obvious that if Achebe had received judicious compensation for his stature and global acclaim; that he had no business inside a Peugeot 504 chartered vehicle to Lagos. He would have had a superior and safer mode of transportation.
He was concerned that we should complete our meals before the ongoing conversations. Mrs. Achebe had surprised us; with her dinner of pounded yam and onugbu soup! Ironically, few days earlier, I had teased my cousins that if I couldn't get to eat foofoo; that I will report myself to the American Consulate and request to be deported to Nigeria. How could an African man survive without eating eba in a week?
As part of his exceeding hospitality; he again extended our welcoming with the recollections of his wife's ancestral roots as it concerned me, Enugwu-Agidi town and the Onubuiyi family. But at this occasion I was better prepared. My Dad had earlier intimated me, that in the traditional Igbo culture; a bona fide son of the family, must know his family histories; that is the line of his ancestors up to the 7th generation. And that it was the only proof of his authenticity and also a buffer against being sold into slavery - without being able to facilitate his return to liberty. Therefore I informed our hosts that the Patriarch Onubuiyi [Otigbu Anyinya] of Enugwu-Agidi, actually hails from Udeozo Ekwughe's bloodline and genealogy on the maternal side. Till date, the Onubuiyis pay customary allegiance to the Udeozo Ekwughe fraternity in ceremonial terms.
It was also a familiar script of our world class host; who often reminded the world at large, especially those that denigrate our humanity and knowledge base; that: Africa is People. It is amazing that inside that sublime sitting room in New York, we could easily relate Mrs. Christy Achebe's family tree to the homepage of their dinner guest.
Our camera failed us. But Prof. was gracious in his consolations and wished us better luck next time. What succeeded and remains indelible is the gift I brought from Nigeria. All the custom points along our flight paths marvelled at and commented on it. But Chinua Achebe gave the utmost praise. He told me that of all the several awards he has received from institutions, governments and cultures across the world; what I had given him that evening was especially dear to him.
By God's grace, all the way from Lagos, I had offered Chinua Achebe a sculpture of An Eagle on Iroko with a plaque about his significance in world history and civilization. He was deeply moved by this presentation. And offered me many blessings before our departure. As an aside; Odia Ofeimun, is not the only one who can keep a secret. I shall reserve the details of Chinua Achebe's declarations over my career - for a time future to us.
The price we pay for lacking statistics and proper book-keeping; had a tragic payload in the career of Chinualumogu Achebe the author of Things Fall Apart. A concrete example exists in the foiled attempt of The Nigeria Television Authority [NTA] to plant a modest figure over her services. The moment NTA dared to announce that their broadcasts were watched by over 30 million viewers; the caricature, cajoling and contempt they fetched from dissenting quarters was unprecedented. The rival print media in a special Boo boo slot ensured that her mockers and scoffers in that season; compelled NTA to an eventual retraction. Today, owing to unavailing statistics; NTA does not even have the courage or moral authority to put any figure to her performance. Yet we know that Nigeria comprises of several millions of citizens. The exact or even approximate figure remains shrouded by ethnic politics, chicanery and hegemonic fraud. These days, NTA has taken solace and refuge in: YOU CAN'T BEAT THE REACH as a more sane and safer slogan. But speaking about The REACH without facts and figures, lacks actuarial life and commercial profit. You need figures to obtain compensation, to pay royalty and to balance the records. Without figures that are true and verifiable; every other index of decent accounting is tenuous and volatile.
Heinemann as publishers of Achebe's works employed this stratagem for over 50 years against Things Fall Apart. Recall that the same publishers were involved in an altercation with Ghana's Ayi Kwei Armah who tore his 19 Thousand Pounds Sterling Cheque in two - and returned one half to Heinemann African Writers Series - over proper accounting and just compensation issues. And further banned that publisher from ever re-issuing his works - ever after. So we are not merely speculating.
It is shocking and shameful, that over 50 years; the official sales record available to the public on the sales of Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a malnourished and strange number. We have been fed this advert for more than 30 years, that Things Fall Apart has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The immediate implication is that this specific tree of Heinemann is a biological fraud, an abnormality and commercial mystery. The logic is simply that Heinemann's tree does not grow, and like a stunted child; is an inorganic event without living breath or commercial prosperity.
And because this has happened in Achebe's case, Ayi Kwei Armah and several African writers, we shall attempt an extrapolation of the likely sales figures of Things Fall Apart from the facts of living experience. Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, was said to have sold 27 million copies; James Joyce's Ulysses sold 22 million copies; Eric Segal's Love Story sold 23 million copies and the stratospheric J.K. Rowling's Harry Porter series is raking in tens of millions of sold copies across the world. Then how could it be that only Achebe's work has the least attribution in terms of sales figures?
Yet, it is an establishment fact that Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is the most translated novel out of Africa, and among the 100 most valuable Books of all times! As at 2006 Golden Jubilee Celebrations for Things Fall Apart, Professor Emmanuel Obiechina officially informed the congregation that Things Fall Apart has been translated into 61 languages worldwide. Facts and figures are critical, sacred and profitable. Yet several commentators insist on talking of Achebe's work being translated into more than 50 languages. 61 and 50 are not the same. The difference has historical, vocational and financial implications. Africans need to wake up to both book keeping and proper accounting. We need to understand the salvation in honest figures; and the damage any form of duplicity does to social justice and peaceful co-existence.
The magnitude of book translations somehow reflect the scope and possible scatter of its readership pool across the world.
For instance, Things Fall Apart became not just a successful novel; in the popular sense of commercial success; it also became an instant classic in classrooms around the globe. Two American Presidents have publicly admitted to reading Things Fall Apart within their academic sojourn; George Walker Bush Jnr. and Bill Clinton. That Things Fall Apart has been a prescribed text book in American colleges and universities is several decades deep. Nelson Mandela's praise for Things Fall Apart is even on the novel's blurb. The truth is that we do not know of anybody from any corner of the world who has not heard of or read Things Fall Apart! Statistically speaking, this is the special task Philip Emeagwali's massive parallelism algorithm in supercomputing can best devolve - since Heinemann's trees never grows nor receives moisture. The limited figure attributed to the African sage as the official sales return skimmed off everything in between - as trusted buccaneers and predators always do.
It is an open shame, like frank bleeding in medicine; that the old man had to change his publishers in his last act. And those more conscientious people declared sales return of over 41 million copies of sales from Chinua Achebe's There Was A Country! Which also means a willingness to share the proceeds and profits on a footing of good conscience and integrity. Numbers count, numbers matter. Our oversight or blackmail to disparage statistics like in the legendary census figures are actually supremacist tricks and expired myths to foist fables in order to dominate over ethnic or multinational transactions.
For it is exactly in terms of accurate and honest figures, that every arithmetic of the publishing enterprise can ever offer balanced rewards and just compensation to her customers. Therefore, Chinua Achebe, becomes by these deductions the most swindled author of our current dispensation. A pained Professor Francis Ngwaba, informed me that Heinemann need never toil again; because the cash cow from Achebe's titles have made them eternal milkmaids! It is a sad awakening. What is true of Things Fall Apart in America and her Presidents and country men, also applies to Germany, Britain, France, Japan, Korea, Singapore, China and the whole of Asia. When I broached the issue of correspondence during our visit; co-opting his wife for the response, Achebe said:"The young man has no idea of the quantity of mails and memorabilia that pour into this residence everyday from all over the world". Chinua Achebe was truly, a global phenomenon. How could he have easily become Heinemann's financial dwarf? What happened between the seasons?
No other human being in the Post-Modern era has enjoyed Chinua Achebe's iconic range across the globe. Britain's J.K. Rowling is certainly a different species in terms of global acclaim and financial clout. She is easily history's first Billionaire author; yet when it comes to true popularity, the Mohammed Ali type of fame; she wouldn't light up streets and villages, and university auditoriums across the globe in the African continent and the rest of the world. Achebe's reputation in our current terms; is therefore, truly global in the Shakespearean sense.
On the concrete vocational plane, Chinua Achebe had the blessing of genius rare in the trade. He is one of the few authors, like James Joyce, whose every single work became an instant canon. Several writers have valleys and summits over the quality of their outputs. But Achebe struck the academic gold mine; not necessarily of the magnitude or terrain of the narrative enounced. Achebe's works are never overwrought; with striking plenitude, he achieves condensation in the storyline without an overdrawn word in the assay. Like Scott FitzGerald's The Great Gatsby, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, Ernest Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms, E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, or that rambunctious caper of current prose; Gabriel Garcia Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude; there is a surreal aura about Achebe's themes which make them first, specific portraits of difference; [as quintessential Black narratives] plus the double-entendre of a cross-cultural universal performance. Chinua Achebe offered mankind a balance of stories - in the concrete, allegorical and ultimate sense.
And Achebe's achievement in the novel, is not limited to a historical, anthropological, or political skeins and sleights. In his works Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease, A Man of The People, The Arrow of God, up to The Anthills of the Savannah; you have clear evidence of an artist in control of a voyage and its destinations. Repeatedly, Achebe told us that his agenda from the on-set was to Tell Our Own Story. But there was a huge cleverness and integrity
Within the narrative space of Achebe's various works, while maintaining the perspective of racial memory of the African hemisphere, a piquant sensitivity for his own side of the coin; inscribed in the eventual execution, bothering on the sublime. Achebe never compromised the teleological end-point of his narrative. Like the French master Gustave Flaubert, Achebe permitted the fictional world of the creative imagination full play at reaching its frank and logical conclusions.
Okonkwo had to fail in Things Fall Apart in spite of his credentials as a spear head of the Igbo value-system; and the same for Ezeulu in The Arrow of God; because Chinua Achebe understood that the times ahead could not accommodate an unrelieved ethnocentricism. He refused to play politics in the novel. He rejected being a beacon or flag bearer of cultural activism for its own sake. Achebe's popularity therefore lies on his optimistic and universalist mind-set. He was truly a global figure before the phrase became familiar or politically correct.
You witness Achebe's humanism and the seeming paradox of his out-stated goals. Though at mind and soul an Igbo; promoting and projecting the Igbo worldview; he did not fail to see the inevitable doom of that socio-cultural environment against the march of an overweening science and technology culture of the infotainment superhighway of our current pass. He was never caught out nor stranded in sympathy with the sheer idyll of a romantic African paradise in Time. Like the Soviet Union which became overwhelmed by the relentless thrust of postmodernism's material artifacts; like a palm tree immobile against murderous chain saws, Chinua Achebe never allowed his avowed cultural nationalism to betray or becloud his understanding of a unique multicultural universe of men.
Future writers may have to dwell on these raveling axioms of his total art. That Chinua Achebe appeals to Chinese, Japanese, Canadians, Koreans, to Congolese, Burkinabes in West Africa, the Kikuyu in East Africa, the Zulus in South Africa; and to all peoples of the world is essentially because they see a direct meaning and value to their own lives. Not just because some of these citizens were also colonized; but because the Okonkwos, Ikemefunas, Unokas, Chief Honourable M.A. Nangas, Chief Kokos; Ezeulus, Oduches, Winterbottoms; Obi Okonkwos or Mr. Greens - emerge as next door neighbours not merely by narratorial sleights, insights or verisimilitude; but because their pains, tribulations, obstacles, bogeys and laughter; embody a thorough -going humanism. These are timeless characters brewed from the self same forge of ancient bards from Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Chaucer, Cervantes or Dante to Shakespeare. Chinua Achebe's stature and renown is neither a gift nor a concession that Things Fall Apart is ranked among the 100 greatest Books of All Time.
It lies in the apodeitics that everything beautiful has been modulated in its begetting. All the sinews, and bolts and buds and chromo of the creative process have been hewn in their accurate order. We know that Michelangelo in a fit of amazing gladness struck the knee of his sculpture of Moses and said: "…why don't you talk?" Fortunately, Achebe's works do not need exterior prodding for their on-going conversations among themselves and us. And that is because Achebe's genius inspired him to recognize by granting his characters the universalism which fits the global narrative of all time and human civilization.
 
Obu Udeozo is of the University of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria.