Gbenro Adesina
A Nigerian foremost writer and scholar, Professor Femi Osofisan has bemoaned the absurdity of the Nigerian state, saying, “Our Nigeria nowadays is nothing but a theatre of grotesque horror and suffering, with the difference that nothing is being simulated here”.
Osofisan stated this today while delivering the 2020 annual lecture of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), titled, “History and the Mythopoeic Vocation: The Nation as Capricious Grand Guignol? The lecture could not hold last year due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said, “The torture is real, and the pain is palpable. Everywhere, in the streets as well in our homes, the fear of insecurity is a constant shadow dogging our footsteps. Horror has become such a frequent phenomenon that, if we are not fully domiciled yet in the wards of dystopia, we know we live close in the neighbourhood. Do I exaggerate perhaps? The evidence is copious all around us, of anomy”.
The Emeritus Professor of University of Ibadan (UI) could not comprehend how Nigeria has slid into its present gory and scary state, where the presence of government is not felt in virtually all facets of life, pointing out that governments of foreign nations are intensifying efforts in encouraging their citizens to avoid Nigeria, because of the complete breakdown of security.
According to him, the crime rate in the country is alarming adding, “Take this for instance, from the US embassy, which as you know is never tardy or restrained on such issues. Advising its citizens wanting to come to Nigeria to reconsider their plans, it mentions the following factors as being common in the country: ‘Violent crime – such as armed robbery, assault, carjacking, kidnapping, and rape – is common throughout the country.’ It goes on: Terrorists continue plotting and carrying out attacks in Nigeria, [….] with little or no warning, targeting shopping centres, malls, markets, hotels, places of worship, restaurants, bars, schools, government installations, transportation hubs, and other places where crowds gather. Sporadic violence occurs between communities of farmers and herders in rural areas”.
He also quoted the nation’s foremost journalist, Segun Oyebolu, painting the unimaginable picture of crime in the country saying, “… the horizon of violence has expanded. The entire country has become one vast theatre of banditry, kidnapping, rape, communal conflagration, religious terrorism, militancy, cattle rustling, armed robbery, herdsmen barbarity, cultism and sundry other violent atrocities…The gross devaluation of human lives has also spurred a concomitant inflation in mutual mistrust between diverse groups as well as a near total loss of confidence in the capacity of the government…to guarantee the safety of lives and property…”
Osofisan expressed shock at the repeated scandal of filial betrayal and astonishing callousness, and is unable to fathom the extent the youth is getting involved in money ritual.
He cited the December 2019 case of a Lagos State University (LASU) student, Favour Daley-Oladele, 22, who was killed in Osun state in a ritual murder organised by her boyfriend, Owolabi Adeeko.
He pointed out that the harsh economic condition of the country pushed the culprit into committing the dastard act, quoting the culprit’s narration of the reason for using his girlfriend for money ritual: “When asked what pushed him to such devilish act, Owolabi explained that he decided to go into money ritual because things are not going well with his parents economically, most especially his mother who used to be the breadwinner of the family; and when he sought for assistance from the pastor, he was asked to bring a human being for that purpose and the available person at that time was his girlfriend”.
Osofisan lamented, “Our society has gone berserk! Clearly, this is no longer the world we knew, we of my generation, from our childhood. Certainly not the world of our parents”.
“Our parents swore by the name of Ogun, of Amadioha, and other such dreaded animist avatars. But for our children today, the reigning deities go by the name of Dangote, Otedola, Adenuga, and other contemporary barons of today’s financial and business circles. The gap between us is not just substantial, but also alarming, because it is a change from a humanist, even if hybrid, perspective to what I can only describe as a ‘post-humanist’ mythos”, he added.
According him, “Many reasons have been adduced for this radical change, but in my view, it is principally due to the consequences of war—of two wars in particular. The first of course was the Magbon war in 1892, when the Ijebu army was routed by the invading British forces. After that shocking defeat, you remember, the rest of Yorubaland made a rapid, strategic surrender to the British, and Christian missionaries began their incursion into our world”.
“As a consequence, the old dispensation, with its mythoi and rituals, began to collapse, albeit not without resistance, so that what we, the later generation, inherited was a hybrid mix of the prior, long-observed humanism of the ancient animist world and that of the imported theology of the triumphant colonial church, on the one hand and, on the other hand, the more insidious proselytization of the Muslim mullahs. But at least, within all this mish-mash of faiths, one thing predominated, which was the common belief in an Omniscient, Omnipotent God and His ethical constraints. That is, the laws of indigenous, Christian and Muslim faiths were in accord on certain basic principles of moral behaviour, such as decency, integrity, compassion, and so on, all held to be sacrosanct and vital to any successful social life. Most important of all, sins such as homicide and cannibalism were collectively condemned as fundamental aberrations”, he explained.
He expatiated, “By and large, most people will agree that this mythos prevailed up till the advent of the Biafra war. But after it, those principles of ethical conduct suffered a rapid breakdown. A new and brutal mythos came to envelope us almost overnight, ushering us into a new world entirely—a cosmos in which money and material possession became the reigning deity. Thus, the cult of Ogun was supplanted by that of the Almighty Dollar; heaven relocated to Dubai; the theologies of Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed dissolved into a mercantile ‘gospel of prosperity’, a ready mask for the exploitation of the gullible poor. And in the chambers of prophets and priests, the accumulation of wealth at the fastest speed, became the overriding spur for an easy and profligate life”.
Osofisan further explained that in striving for success, the youth do not emulate the good virtues of the likes of Aliko Dangote and Femi Otedola, who do not extol diabolical shortcuts in their march to wealth.
He noted that the likes of Dangote and Otedola, who made their wealth through a dint of hard work do not flaunts material possessions in ostentatious display, adding, “Whereas our Yahoo boys seem to have this in common, that as soon as they make their illicit money, they are driven by a passion to flaunt it before the whole world, through the social media, by the acquisition of luxurious houses in exotic places, one expensive car after the other, the accumulation of designer wears, and other fripperies of Western and Arab indulgence. What is remarkable about this choice of living, this frivolous ostentation, is that, again and again, it is the easiest way to expose themselves to law enforcement officers, especially the Interpol. Thus, they are quickly rounded up, and taken to gaol. And it remains baffling why they keep running into this same trap every time”.
He urged the Nigerian writers to deploy their energy into the documentation of the nation’s history and reality.
Osofisan exclaimed, “This is the bitter reality of our world today and, of course, as intellectuals, our duty is to record the experience as we see it. And particularly if we are artists—poets, dramatists, musicians, sculptors, story-tellers and so on we are inevitably, doubly implicated. For the writer’s role is not just to record experience, but also to signify on it and, through that, provide, not just a mirror on yesterday’s errors, but more importantly, and as much as possible, advance a prospective vision of the future life”.
He continues, “The question that worries my mind therefore—you may even say, the question that provoked this lecture—is precisely this: how much have we as writers responded to our current burden of history? What exactly have our writers taught us about the prevailing state of bestiality and horror? Do our poems and plays and stories deepen the communal anguish by offering countervailing narratives? In which of our books is there some redemptive mythopoeia, a vision thrown like a lamp into the frightening darkness?”
“I insist that these questions are apposite and that we do have the right to demand this of them because, after all, voices as magisterial as Achebe’s voice have told us that ‘(it) is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have – otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.’ He goes on: ‘It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; …. The storyteller appeals to the mind, and appeals ultimately to generations and generations and generations. … It is the storyteller, in fact, who makes us what we are, who creates history.’
“So it is vital for us to know—what is the response of the story-teller to the ongoing drama in our landscape of the Grand Guignol?”, he added.
