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OPINION: Ngugi, Where Is The Light?

Published

3 weeks ago

June 3, 2025

By Lasisi Olagunju

My generation met him famous. His first novels he wrote as an undergraduate. One of them was the hugely popular ‘Weep Not, Child’; another was ‘The River Between.’ He was James Ngũgĩ, then he became James Thiong’o Ngũgĩ, then he stepped out fully and became Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.

The African writer from Kenya who died last week worked really hard to repudiate everything that he thought oppressed him. He took out his scalpel and cut open the name he bore. He dropped the foreign and picked a labyrinthine label from his ancestral pouch. The language of his art was next. With the English language, he wrote himself to fame, then he dropped English and started writing in Gikuyu. If you thought Gikuyu wasn’t global enough, you could translate his works to English or whatever European language you wanted. Ngugi was rigid in his conviction. Was his muse playing with irony or contradiction or what figure of speech best describes his experiment with life? He dropped everything the oppressor brought to Africa. Yet, when death came last week, it met him in the very land that epitomises those things he ran away from – the United States.

Some forty-something years ago, ‘Weep Not, Child’ was prescribed for our school certificate exams. Some of us soon found in it much more than what WAEC said it was. It is a book of light; a writ of struggle and liberation. We ate and chewed and swallowed and digested it. From that story and the next and the next, I read in Ngugi an optimistic soldier of justice. He believed in the inevitable victory of light over darkness. ‘Weep Not, Child’ took its title from Walt Whitman’s ‘On The Beach At Night’. It is in that poem that the challenged child is told not to weep because “The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious” and “shall not long possess the sky.” But how long is not long enough? That book was written over 60 years ago. The sky is still possessed by the clouds.

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The writer loved his country and gave it his all. But his ‘free’ country soon showed him the taste of pepper. ‘Independence’ has remained what it parades: an exchange of foreign oppression for domestic repression. Jomo Kenyatta is knighted in ‘Weep Not, Child’ as the hope of the oppressed. He became president and blighted the tall and the short who placed their hope in him. Ngugi was a victim. His recollections say: “writers were not spared. In 1969, a leading poet, Abdulatif Abdalla, was imprisoned for writing a pamphlet entitled Kenya twendapi? (‘Kenya, where are we heading to?’) It was my turn in 1977 for my play, ‘I Will Marry When I Want’, and novel, ‘Petals of Blood’. I was in a maximum security prison in 1978 when Kenyatta died and his vice-president, Daniel Arap Moi, took over. Though I was happy that Moi released me three months after his ascension to power, I soon realized that he had emptied the jails of hundreds of Kenyatta’s political prisoners to make room for thousands of his own. Where Kenyatta had imprisoned me for my writing, Moi sent three truckloads of armed policemen to raze to the ground the community theatre where I worked, eventually forcing me – and many others – into exile.”

That was his Kenya; and it was not just his Kenya. It was and is Africa. Dark Africa has “Two laws. Two justices. One law and one justice protects the man of property, of wealth and the foreign exploiter. Another law and another justice silences the poor, the hungry, our people.” No darkness could be darker than what is described here by Ngugi in ‘The Trial of Dedan Kimathi’. Yet, throughout his life, the man kept talking about light defeating darkness.

Even as dusk approached and he was going, going, Ngugi still wrote optimism in 2020. He said that Wanjikũ, his Gĩkũyũ mother, used to tell him: Gũtirĩ ũtukũ ũtakĩa: No night is so Dark that, / It will not end in Dawn, / Or simply put, / Every night ends with dawn./ Gũtirĩ ũtukũ ũtakĩa…”

Language frees and can also enslave. Ngugi said it contains the seed of life. It is a sword of freedom and can be a tool in the hand of the oppressor. The writer believed so and I agree with him. He says: “If you know all the languages of the world and you do not know your mother tongue, the language of your culture, that is enslavement. On the other hand, if you know your mother tongue, the language of your culture and you add all the languages of the world to it, that is empowerment.” He also spoke about labels. Addressing a group of young Africans, he interrogated ‘tribe’ as a lexical item of racial interest. “Tribalism is a colonial invention”, he said, and asked: “Why would 250,000 Icelanders be called a nation and ten million Yorubas are called a tribe, and not a nation?.”

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Ngũgĩ wrote seven novels, at least five plays, more than four memoirs, over eight collections of essays, and several children’s books. You are very familiar with ‘Weep Not, Child’ (1964), ‘The River Between’ (1965), ‘A Grain of Wheat’ (1967) and ‘Petals of Blood’ (1977). Yet the man almost denied us the benefit of some of his critical stories. His ‘Devil on the Cross’, published in 1980 was originally in Gikuyu as Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini. ‘Matigari’, another novel published in 1986 was also written originally in Gikuyu; the same with ‘Wizard of the Crow’ originally in Gikuyu as ‘Mũrogi wa Kagogo’. Why did he do that? “When you use a language, you are also choosing an audience …. When I used English, I was choosing an English-speaking audience…” He said in a February 1996 interview in India. A global citizen sits in the US and writes in a Kenyan language! What kind of rebellion informed that? What Kikuyu audience was the writer targeting in America? I wished I could ask him to provide answers to those queries.

The challenges he faced were matched by the sheer strength of his character, his resilient spirit. To him, “Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.” His life mirrored the blistered feet on Africa’s sherd roads, stubborn and untired. In ‘The River Between’, we encounter Ngugi’s river, the Honia, which he says, “meant cure, or bring-back-to-life.” That river never dried and “seemed to possess a strong will to live, scorning droughts and weather changes. And it went on in the same way, never hurrying, never hesitating.” I think that says something prophetic of the tardy black man as he soon became marooned between the drought of the past and the pestilence of the present. For most of his 89 years, Ngugi stood at the bank of River Africa watching “as it gracefully, and without any apparent haste, wound its way down the valley, like a snake.”

‘Darkness Falls’ is the title of a critical part of ‘Weep Not, Child’. The storyteller fought darkness on all fronts. He still fights. For Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, writer of light, dusk dawned last week. As he ebbed away, one could imagine the horror in his eyes as he watched Africa’s inheritors do what the rains did in ‘The River Between’: “Carrying away the soil. Corroding, eating away the earth. Stealing the land.”

Africa’s predators are audacious; they do their thing right in the open marketplace. He cried out: “How do you satirise their utterances and claims when their own words beat all fictional exaggerations?” He asked in his ‘Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature.’ But he was still full of hope that light would drive out darkness.

Hope appears to me his greatest asset. Till his canary stopped chirping, he never stopped asking the African child not to weep. He insisted that kisses of spoken and written words would soon birth a dawn of justice. In spite of all the death and destruction we see all over, he still believed that “This darkness too will pass away” and that “We shall meet again and again /And talk about Darkness and Dawn / Sing and laugh, maybe even hug…In the light of the Darkness and the new Dawn.” I do not know the peg on which his optimism was anchored. What we see is every new decade bringing darker misery. But we must listen to him. He was an elder who saw far even while seated. So, I ask him: Ngugi, before you cross the river, tell us: when is the new Dawn? And, where is the light you predicted? May your soul Rest In Peace.

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How Atiku, El-Rufai, Amaechi Can Learn From Tinubu’s School Of Politics

Published

7 hours ago

June 22, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

Power politics in the animal kingdom could be as intense, deceptive and selfish as it is in the human kingdom. An ancient African allegory whose patent cannot be credited to a particular tradition illustrates this. It is the fable of an old forest warhorse, the lion. After years of feasting on animals, his mane soaked in their innocent blood, Old Lion became too senescent to hunt for games. Stricken with old age, diverse infirmities and unable to put food on his own table, the King decided to get food by subterfuge and trickery.

Always by himself and soaked in myriad thoughts and stratagems for many nights and days, one day a thought sidled into his mind. He would pretend to be so infirm that he could not hunt and thus court ‘get well’ visits of other animals. He then got emissaries to broadcast his infirmity round and about the forest. As the message got to them, the animals debated the prospect of visiting him after the debilitating havoc he had wrecked on their peers and forebears. The majority of opinions supported paying the king of the jungle get-well-quick visits.

Thus, one after the other, animals of various kinds paid the King visits in his supposed infirmary. As each sauntered in, the King made barbecue of their fleshes. However, Tortoise, the wily Trickster animal, according to the Yoruba version of that fable, burst the King’s bubble. Some other African climes’ account say it was not Tortoise but the Red Fox. So, the animal came to the conclusion that, though he would satisfy the majority’s decision to pay the King obeisance, he would be a whiff careful and wiser.

So Fox/Tortoise devised a trick. He presented himself at a respectable distance from a cave by the hill that led to the King’s lair. From there, he shouted at the top of his voice to the aged King Lion to announce his presence. On hearing his voice, the King peered out queasily and bade him come into the lair. Like an Apiroro, one who feigns sleep, who must be atop the mastery of the theatrics of their game, the Lion dragged his response with great effort and said, “I am not so well… But, my friend, why do you stand without? Pray, come in and wish me well.” The Fox/Tortoise, in a sarcasm that mocked the Lion’s theatrics said: “No, thank you, Your Majesty. But, I noticed that there are many prints of feet entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning.”

Last Friday, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi and their co-travelers inside the Nigerian National Coalition Group (NNCG) coach arrived at a significant juncture in their bid to send President Bola Tinubu back to Lagos in 2027. On that day, the NNCG formally applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration as the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) party.

As far as formality goes, the dramatis personae on this journey have many reasons to clink champagne glasses. In semiotic representation, which is the study of signs, symbols, their use and representation, ADA would seem to be the greatest weapon in the NNCG’s hands to skewer the heart of the Broom, symbol of the reigning All Progressives Congress (APC).

Like the old wily Lion, virtually all the political characters on the two aisles of the divide – opposition and in government – suffer similar fates in the estimation of Nigerians today. In relationship calculus, Yoruba advise a younger one burying the elder in the presence of the younger sibling to be mindful of the depth of the grave they dig because same fate awaits them. At the joint sitting of the National Assembly on Democracy Day, Tinubu literally gloated about the walnut-pod-seeds schism and discord that characterize Nigeria’s opposition parties. “It is, indeed, a pleasure to witness you in such disarray,” he said.

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A few days later, the demon came out of its seclusion. The deodorant the APC had been spraying over its messy internal power struggles expired and the putrid smell hit the nose with the bang of an Iraqi missile. The party’s Northeast leaders’ meeting for the adoption of Tinubu for a second term exposed vultures gathering round the APC in an ominous exclusion plan against Kashim Shettima. The game is to spike Shettima’s name from the 2027 presidential ballot.

Today, APC’s power apparatchik is running helter-skelter. The task is to paper over a grisly crack, an implosion tornado that may erupt in the Shettima exclusion gambit. It is a throwback into a historic Tinubu total power holding tendency, a total frown at and intolerance for sharing power with anyone. As Lagos governor, Tinubu dispensed with deputies as a junky changes syringes.

All of a sudden, erstwhile good governance poster-boy, Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, a Shettima boy, has become the proverbial Elúùlù, a Yoruba-named brown-feathered Wood Dove bird whose cry is reputed to possess the mystical power of drawing rains from the heavens. The belief is that Elúùlù’s rain could cause everyone to scamper out for alternative shield. As Zulum chirps like Elúùlù, either on the insecure security in his state, against the Tinubu government’s dissonant narrative of peace in Borno, or even over other matters, power watchers see an internal power disruption in the APC.

Zulum’s Elúùlù may be foreshadowing a bitter rain that will pour in the APC over Shettima’s exclusion from a second term. This cry may also be a reminder of a Kowée, another mystic bird which Yoruba mythological belief says whenever it chirps, a lurking danger of death is imminent.

The Shettima travails may point to a saying that the whiplash used to trounce the older wife is kept for the younger one on the rafter. It was this same Shettima who, on a Channels Television interview, mocked the totalitarian system of Nigerian presidency which sidelined Yemi Osinbajo under Muhammadu Buhari. Shettima had said, “Osinbajo is a good man; he’s a nice man. But nice men do not make good leaders, because nice men tend to be nasty. Nice men should be selling popcorn, ice cream.” Today, Shettima sells a medley of ice cream and popcorn under a nasty and grim presidential power play.

Then, there is intense hunger and anger in the land which government is obviously too lame to tame. Statistics have become ballistics which the Tinubu government’s mind-doctor evangelists bombard Nigerians with. The latest ballistic is that inflation figure has decreased. Yet, the spinners of these figures are unable to explain the fit of sulks Nigerians relapse into when they confront skyrocketing foods and goods in the market. Neither is anyone responding to the people’s groan at their ebbing purchasing power which the twin policies of subsidy withdrawal and Naira flotation have birthed. It is obvious that, as Nigerians walk into the electioneering years, government will have no balm to apply on the people’s aches.

Then, there is the gale of insecurity in the country. Unbeknown to Nigerians, the Tandi of the Buhari government which they thought was dance-shy, cannot even stand the TandiTandi of the Tinubu government which does not have a waist to wag to any danceable tune. Northeast terrorists dance to celebratory songs as they hijack Nigerian local governments as their spoils of war. Same terrorists drink palm-wine with dead Nigerians’ skulls as gourds. In the Northwest, bandits kill Nigerians en-masse as you trample on cockroaches. Benue and Plateau States are poster-boys of government’s helplessness in the face of superior herders’ brains, weapons and strategies. Nigerians in those states bury their dead in silence as federal government regurgitates obituaries, condolence messages as press releases which mask its cowardice. The recent Benue massacre is an example.

So many other missteps of the last two years line the dais. They are missteps which an opposition group or party could weaponize to win Nigerians’ hearts. Is it the Gilbert Chagoury-lization of the Nigerian economy? Or the lack of openness and accountability in the Lagos-Calabar 700km N15trillion road project which the president awarded to a man he openly admitted was his ally? Is it the Airbus A330 presidential aircraft which cost Nigeria $100million and which never passed the senate lens? Is it the flying rumour of mind-boggling corruption that has stuck to this government like a leech in two years? You do not have to scrape more than the surface to amass a shovelful.

To rehash what wily Trickster Tortoise told Lion, King of the jungle, those putting together the ADA as Nigeria’s opposition party also have Tinubu-type logs in their eyes. Nigerians see them as people who have “many prints of feet entering your cave, but (see) no trace of any returning”.

Tinubu was right by claiming, as he did in Kaduna last week, that Uba Sani had transformed the State from a “toxic, uncontrollable environment”.

Under El-Rufai, Kaduna was a horror scene. Though ranked comparatively higher than any other state in Nigeria by multilateral agencies on the scorecard of good governance and accountability, in eight years, El-Rufai’s Kaduna was a state of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The peace in Southern Kaduna today is a departure from the toxicity of the El-Rufai era. When you now have the same character seeking to play leading role in bringing a let to the suffering of the people of Nigeria, it speaks volumes of the kind of leadership Nigerians should look forward to.

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Then, Atiku Abubakar. The ex-VP’s politics is undoubtedly woven round self. Since 1993, he has been a presidential candidate and has failed on each occasion. It is obvious that the current ADA is again primed round him. When self is the issue as in this manner, Yoruba ask if the individual’s esophagus is the sole route to Oyo (Onàofu ntienikanniwonn’gbalos’Oyóní?)

Amaechi is not any better. Having lost out in the power equation of the post-Tinubu era, this former Transport Minister has become an emergency critic, even being ludicrous enough to claim he is hungry. The trio and their co-travelers are united by anger and lust for power, rather than any meaningful attempt to rescue Nigeria from the vice grip of Tinubu. ADA is a huge log that has stayed afloat on and fed on the ecosystem of the murky and filthy river of Fourth Republic Nigerian politics for too long. It has stayed so long on the river that it is mistaking itself for an amphibian animal. And Yoruba say, no matter how long a log stays in the river, it will never become a crocodile.

Borrowing from Lasisi Olagunju, ADA and its minders are like mourners at their own funeral. They can never be a soothing counterpoise to the rot of the Tinubu government. Were it to be possible, the Ibrahim Babangida newbreed model would have been a perfect reply to this current order where, head or tail, Nigerians may lose.

The ADA crew, especially Atiku Abubakar, would need to learn some basic lessons that Tinubu taught Nigerian politics. Between 2007 when he left Lagos governorship and 2023 when he became president, Tinubu wore the strategic patience garment of the vulture. He waited patiently within this period, biding his time for Aso Rock. He could have put himself forth to be Nigeria’s president in 2015 but strategically supported Buhari.

Conversely, at every election season, Atiku’s face thoughtlessly adorns presidential campaign posters like a boring epigram. It is obvious that he and his ADA are too mired in the problems and challenges of Nigeria to be a solution to them. Amaechi and El-Rufai are obviously in ADA out of anger and hungry for revenge against those who chucked them out of their birthright of being in government in perpetuity.

The little I know about anger is, when you are consumed by it, you wake up lost, and you will lose sight of everything. Including your sense.

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Diri Approves Automatic Employment For UAT First Class Graduates

Published

21 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, has offered automatic employment to First Class degree graduates of the University of Africa, Toru-Orua (UAT), in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state.

In a statement, the Chief Press Secretary to governor, Daniel Alabrah, said Diri made the announcement on Saturday at the maiden combined convocation ceremony of 2020/2021, 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2024 academic sessions of the university.

Diri said the gesture was part of measures to check the brain drain syndrome.

The governor said the gesture had been replicated in other state-owned tertiary institutions such as the Niger Delta University, Amassoma, in line with his administration’s policy to prioritise education and boost human capital development.

Congratulating the graduands, the governor praised his predecessor, Senator Seriake Dickson representing Bayelsa West, for his vision and political will in establishing the UAT, which he noted was meeting the educational needs of the state and beyond.

“ln line with our government’s policy, all First Class graduates of UAT will be offered automatic employment to ensure that we do not lose our best brains.

“This first combined convocation ceremony of UAT is momentous and historical. When l took over as governor, l had a lot of presentations, which included closing down the UAT. But l came to the inescapable conclusion that rather than shutting it down, l opted to establish more because education remains our number one priority.”

As Visitor to the UAT, Diri announced the appointment and investiture of Dr. Nwachukwu Nnam Obi III, Ogba of Ogbaland in Rivers State, as the institution’s Chancellor.

Responding to the challenges presented by the Vice Chancellor, Diri said government will continue to address them through collaborative efforts and urged the institution to explore funding modules towards generating income.

While assuring that the auditorium and Senate building projects would be completed before the end of his tenure, the state’s chief executive promised that government would also address the problem of staff accommodation and that transport vehicles will be provided to ease the challenges faced by workers and students at UAT, NDU and the Federal University, Otuoke.

On the institution’s power needs, Diri said when the 60mw independent power plant procured by the government becomes functional, it would cover the university’s location.

In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Solomon Ebobrah, announced that 66 were awarded first class degrees out of the 905 graduands of the four academic sessions.

He expressed appreciation to the Diri administration for its increased monthly subvention to the UAT and listed a number of challenges to include uncompleted auditorium and Senate buildings, lack of perimeter fencing, power supply, staff accommodation, lecture theatres, teaching and non-teaching staff office accommodation among others.

In his remarks, the Pro Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, Barr. Kemela Okara, equally expressed gratitude to government for its support towards the successful accreditation of all programmes by the National Universities Commission.

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Aiyedatiwa Proposes Death Penalty For Kidnappers

Published

22 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

In a bid to eradicate kidnapping in the state, the Ondo State Government has proposed a death sentence for whoever is found guilty of kidnapping in the state.

The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, Dr Olukayode Ajulo, SAN, disclosed this while speaking with journalists on Saturday after the weekly state executive council meeting.

It was gathered that the state governor, Mr Lucky Aiyedatiwa presided over the meeting.

Ajulo said the proposal would soon be transmitted to the state House of Assembly for necessary legislative action.

He said, ”Kidnapping and cultism have become major threats to safety and public order and strengthening relevant legal frameworks would help deter such crimes and improve the overall security landscape.

”The proposals would soon be transmitted to the House of Assembly for necessary legislative action, including sentencing convicted kidnappers to death.”

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Infrastructure, Lands and Housing, Engr. Abiola Olawoye, revealed that the Executive Council approved the construction of two major dual-carriageway road projects in the state.

According to him, the first is the construction of a 24.75-kilometre dual carriageway from Ugbeyin Junction – Okitipupa Market – OAUSTECH – Ugbonla Junction – Igbokoda Jetty.

“The road will feature a 9.3-metre wide carriageway on both sides, a 1.2-metre median, concrete line drains, walkways, asphaltic shoulders in undeveloped areas, a 3-metre utility area, and solar-powered streetlights along the median. The entire road corridor is 28 metres wide, with a total right of way of 40 metres. It will also include modern traffic lights at critical intersections and is designed to carry heavy traffic with a reinforced pavement structure.

”The second project is the construction of a 6.7-kilometre dual carriageway from Supare Junction – Akungba – Ikare Road in Akoko area of the state. The specifications are similar, including a 9.3-metre carriageway on either side, 1.2-metre median, reinforced concrete line drains, walkways, a 3-metre utility area, solar-powered streetlights, and traffic management systems. It is also built to withstand heavy vehicular movement.

“In addition to these, the council approved the provision and installation of 6,000 standalone solar streetlights across the three senatorial districts—2,000 each for Ondo North, Ondo Central, and Ondo South. This is part of the state’s agenda to improve safety and public lighting infrastructure.”