Sunday, 30 March 2014

Arrow of God at 50: Re-examining concepts of power, responsibility and governance · Achebe’s niece, Ngozi, speaks on Achaba’s death


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.

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