By ADA DIKE
A
year after Nigeria’s literary icon and scholar, Professor Chinua Achebe, died,
his family, friends and colleagues are celebrating 50th anniversary of one his
novels, Arrow of God.
 |
| Prof Achebe |
 |
| Ngozi Achebe |
Commenting on the celebration of 50th
anniversary of Arrow of God and reminiscing her uncle’s demise, a writer and
Chinua Achebe’s niece, Ngozi Achebe, said: “It has been a year March 21, 2013,
since the world woke up to the news of Chinua Achebe’s passing. For me
personally it was a day of great sorrow for one is never really prepared for
the death of a beloved one. In that year a lot has happened as time has rolled
on relentlessly. There’s an adage that declares that death is final, but is it?
“In the movie, Gravity,
George Clooney playing the astronaut Kowalski, declares back to earth with some
desperation after some heart stopping moments in space, “Here’s hoping you have
insurance Houston – damages to Explorer catastrophic.”
“I said something similar,
or at least thought it, a year ago. Nigeria had lost one of its most salient
and insistent voices – quiet but with the reverberations of thunderclaps
and potencies of prophecies. But I think my pessimism may have been premature
because his heirs both political and literary have continued the fight in the
different arenas that mattered to him. Yes, Achebe lives on indeed!” Ngozi
said.
The author of a novel, Onaedo-
The Blacksmith’s Daughter also stresses: “Importantly too, his book,
Arrow of God, came of age this year celebrating a half century. While Things
Fall Apart is regarded as his magnum opus, there is no doubt that Chinua Achebe
himself had a special love for Arrow of God. “In the preface of the second
edition he declared, tongue in cheek no doubt, that no pater familias worth his
salt would be so unwise as to choose favourites amongst his offspring,” she
added.
“However, he did say that
it was the one book more than any other that he was likely to be caught
reading. I know what he meant. It was also my own favourite too until I met and
fell in love with his 1987 Anthills of the Savannah and never looked back. Many
events have been slated all over the world this year to celebrate this true
literary masterpiece. On a more personal note, of course, his loss is still
hard to bear but must be accepted. Chinua Achebe was here for a purpose which
he clearly fulfilled and has moved on. It is left for his millions
of heirs to take up his battle cry,” the medical doctor in the United
States of America said.
Arrow
of God was published in 1964. It shares similar settings and themes with its
predecessors - Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, the novel centres on
Ezeulu, the chief priest of several villages in South Eastern Nigeria, who
confronts adversaries to his office, colonial powers and Christian missionaries
in 1920s.
Shocked
by the power of British intervention in the area, Ezeulu orders his son to
learn the foreigners' secret. As with Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart and
Obi in No Longer at Ease, he is consumed by the consequential tragedy.
Prolific
writer and Chairman of the National Organising Committee for the Arrow of God @
50 Celebrations, Dr. Wale Okediran, who explained the essence of the
celebrations, along with his team such as professor and former head of the
English Department, University of Lagos, Nigeria, Akachi Ezeigbo, poet and
literary icon, Denja Abdullahi and the Chairman, Association of Nigerian
Authors (ANA), Lagos Sate Chapter, Mr. Femi Onileagbon, among others, have organised an international colloquium
comprising symposia spread across five cities in Nigeria as part of the
activities marking the celebrations.
With
the theme: Arrow of God @ 50: Literature, Leadership and National Unity,
scholarly and insightful papers would be entertained at the symposia in five of
the seven centres of the celebration namely: Lagos, Ibadan in Oyo State, Awka
in Anambra State, Sokoto and Otuoke in Bayelsa.
The
following sub-themes were presented as guides to would-be paper presenters: “(A)
Conflict Generation and Resolution in Achebe’s Arrow of God. (B) Ezeulu in
Achebe’s Arrow of God and the Post-Independence African Leadership Style. (C)
Literature and the Quest for National Unity: Achebe’s Arrow of God as a
Paradigm. (D) Managing Changing and Transitions in a Pluralised Society:
Achebe’s Arrow of God in Reference. (F) Africa at Crossroads of Development and
Good Governance: What has Literature got to do with it? (G) Achebe’s Arrow of
God: The Igbo Socio-Political Leadership Worldviews and the Lessons for Africa.
(H) Traditionalism versus Modernism in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, and so
on,” Okediran said.
“Also,
there would be nationwide literary competition among selected secondary school
students. 10 students will be picked from 10 private secondary schools and 10
students from public secondary. Copies of Arrow of God will be given to these
students to read for one month before the day of the literary competition which
will involve quiz, reading comprehension and one act dramatic enactment by participating
schools of any part of the book that exemplifies the main conflicts of the
narrative world of the book. Proposed date for the colloquium is April 23 to
May 3, 2014.”
Concerning
the global celebration of Arrow of God, he said that the book’s publication
would be celebrated in more than 70 countries around the world, beginning from
India with a conference at The Maharaja Sayajirao University in January 2014.
From there to Bangladesh, Russia, Spain, Italy, Israeli, Turkish Universities,
and universities in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Russia and Romania, Central America – Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Australia and
New Zealand, and so on.
Its
organisers explained further that However, the main thrust of the book, which
many readers and critics have adjudged the most intricate and most accomplished
of Achebe’s novels, is its exploration of the question of power and leadership
as exercised by the elites of a community, reflected in the character of Ezeulu
and his equally powerful antagonists in the book. The choice of the community
is left with at the end of the book which arose out of the power play between
Ezeulu and his adversaries is very instructive to Nigeria of today and Africa
with regards to presence or lack of development as a result of inappropriate
exercise of power and leadership. This book is also relevant in the
contemporary Nigerian discourse on leadership, democracy and national unity.
“It
will therefore be very auspicious to use the opportunity of the 50th
anniversary of the publication of the book to re-examine the concepts of power,
leadership, responsibility and good governance in Nigeria and Africa as
derivable from the vagaries of Ezeulu and his confederating communities in the
Arrow of God.
“Amidst the seemingly obdurate challenges of
globalisation, this conference presents an appropriate foray to use the story
in Arrow of God for inward search and necessary projections on the past,
present and future of our shared community experiences especially in the areas
of leadership, democracy and nation building.
“The
colloquium, in the spirit of the proposed National Conference in the country
will also negotiate the ever-deepening social divides and increased alienation
among sub-sections of the Nigerian society by unravelling the democratic fabric
on which the future stability and legitimacy depends. It will pursue the
argument that citizens in shared communities must forge the path, and exemplify
strong, vibrant partnership to meet up with the demands of national unity and
globalisation.”
Achebe
was born on November 16, 1930 and died on March 23, 2013 at age 82, in Boston,
Massachusetts, United States of America.
The
author and social critic was buried on May 23, 2013 in his hometown, Ogidi,
Anambra State, Nigeria. His burial which could be likened to an international
festival attracted large number of dignitaries from all walks of lifesuch as:
President Goodluck Jonathan, Ghanaian President, John Mahama, former Vice
President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Secretary General of Commonwealth, Chief
Emeka Anyaoku, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Emeka
Ihedioha, the host, Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, Governors Roachas
Okorocha of Imo, Liyel Imoke of Cross River, Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta and
Martin Elechi of Ebonyi,
Others
were members of the literary community, clergy and the diplomatic corps from
Canada, Germany, America and Ghana. Also, former governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, the
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu
Nebo, Senator Chris Ngige representing Anambra Central, Senator Andy Uba
representing Anambra South and Prof Laz Ekwueme, among others.
Though
he is gone, people all over the world are celebrating his novel, Arrow of God. Set
in Eastern Nigeria in the early twentieth century, Arrow of God is a political
and cultural novel that captured the clash of two cultures and their inability
to contend peaceably with their differences. Achebe, according scholars,
portrayed the disrupting effect that externally imposed power system (The
British) has on an internally imposed power system (African tradition and
customs). He portrayed the true colour of colonialism as it walked over
existing traditions, destroyed age long customs and shattered norms and lores
to institute its authority.
