Ngugi And Okara: Part 1

(MENAFN- The Post) Over the next three weeks I shall be offering what is probably the most peculiar piece I have contributed to this paper.

But I hope my readers will find it both thought-provoking and entertaining. It originates in my coverage a few weeks ago of Ngugi wa Thiong'o's argument that African writers must use African languages as their medium of expression, and I'm extending that to comment on his observations on the work of Nigerian poet and novelist Gabriel Okara.

But, still with reference to Okara, I shall be talking, tourist-guide style, about Nigeria and there will be a reference (yes, dear readers, this is most peculiar) to frozen fish, so that prompts me to start off with an irrelevant anecdote.

My first post as a university lecturer was at the then Sokoto University (now Usumanu dan Fodio University) in north-west Nigeria.

On arrival I realised it was going to take a big effort to habituate myself to the place and so I bought several newspapers every day and also made efforts to learn Hausa as speedily as I could.

Now, Nigeria has some fine newspapers (I can hear my long-suffering editor mutter“surely not as fine as thepost?”) but it also had some not so fine ones. Amongst these was the New Nigerian, the English-language newspaper of the north.

The New Nigerian was highly conservative, so not my cup of tea in that respect. Also it frequently had difficulty finding enough copy (newspaper-speak for material) to fill up its pages.

Once, half of page three was occupied with a photo of a sleeping domestic animal and, underneath, the caption“A rabbit relaxes after a delicious meal.” Yeah, right: breaking news.

On another occasion there was a photo of a very happy-looking young man and woman. As for the caption, one could only assume the last word or two had been inadvertently omitted, for it read:“Soon to be married! Abubakar Ibrahim of Standard Chartered Bank, and Fatima of the Frozen Fish/”

I was left hoping that the last phrase didn't refer to the bride's chances of achieving procreation.

We'll get back to frozen fish at the end of this piece. Before that, we have a long journey, round and round.

Attentive readers will recall that a few weeks ago I was paying tribute to one of Africa's greatest writers, the recently deceased Ngugi wa Thiong'o. At a point I focussed on his much foregrounded argument that African writers should write in their own L1 and not in a language inherited from colonialism, such as English, French or Portuguese. He made a particular instance of the work of the Nigerian author Gabriel Okara and, although I didn't pick up on that then, this is my main focus now (I can see my long-suffering editor scowling, thinking:“I didn't know you had a focus.”)

Academic endnote: readers may be wondering why I keep using the term L1 (First Language) rather than the more familiar“mother tongue.”

This is because in multilingual Africa (and let's remember that Lesotho is exceptional in being largely monolingual) the first language a child learns to speak is not necessarily that of his mother; it may be that of his father.

Chris Dunton

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