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OPINION: Ngugi, Where Is The Light?

Published

4 months ago

June 3, 2025

Editor

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.

News

Edo Assembly Commission Questions Clerk Over Alleged Age Falsification

Published

46 minutes ago

October 14, 2025

Editor

Edo State House of Service Commission has invited the Clerk of the Assembly, Audu Omogbai, for questioning over alleged age falsification.

The invitation of the Clerk followed a petition by some Concerned Staff of the Assembly.

The petitioners alleged that Omogbai, falsified his age to remain in service.

They alleged that the Clerk’s initial appointment dated back to 1993 and that he has exceeded the mandatory 30 years of service.

The petitioners also alleged that the Clerk has surpassed the mandatory retirement age of 60 as well as obstructing investigation.

The petition reads partly, “The Clerk has allegedly withheld official file records, hindering investigations into these matters.

“We humbly request your intervention to investigate these allegations and take appropriate actions to maintain integrity and adherence to regulations within the Edo State House of Assembly.”

It was gathered that Omogbai has been invited for questioning.

He was invited in a letter signed by Chairman of the Assembly Commission, Sir Ezehi Igbas.

Omogbai was asked to appear before a three-Man Ad-hoc Committee for an interview session.

The Assembly Clerk could not be reached for comments.

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Abductors Demand ₦5m As Teenager Is Kidnapped In Edo

Published

2 hours ago

October 14, 2025

Editor

A 12-year-old girl has been kidnapped in Ayogwiri community, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State.

The abductors, suspected to be Fulani herdsmen attacked some women on their way from the farm and in the process kidnapped the teenager, and injured some of the women.

This incident was said to have created fear and panic in the community.

It was gathered that the kidnappers of the teenager are asking for N5 million ransom.

‎The community in a statement issued by Engr Vincent Ozemoya, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the community, condemned the incident.

“The BoT calls on all relevant security agencies in the area to rise up and rid our Farms and forest of evil elements, be they herdsmen or kidnappers,” the statement reads

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Moses Yamu could not be reached as at the time of this report.

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OPINION: Sprit Pardons Kindred Spirits

Published

3 hours ago

October 14, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

The elders of my place caution that the sacrificial àkàrà should not be given to an emèrè to share. When you ask why, they respond that she will merely make her kindred spirits the sole beneficiaries. And when that happens, the elders further caution, the tragedy (ultimate death), which the sacrifice is designed to avert will eventually happen.

Having shared this traditional caution, I would like to turn to my own childhood experiences. Growing up in the hinterland can be fun. In my part of Yorubaland, we have special children called Emèrè. They are mostly females. Emèrè are not Àbíkú which the Igbo call Ogbanje. The difference here is that while a typical abiku dies and returns to the same parents as many times as he or she can muster before he or she is ‘overpowered’, an emèrè remains a pain in the neck of her parents through frequent and indeterminable illnesses. The illnesses don’t kill her but merely drain the resources of her parents. Powerful children, Yoruba metaphysics says that emèrè are husbands of witches (emèrè ni oko àjé) because they are stronger and more ‘wicked’!

Emèrè children are treated specially, most times, with utmost attention. They are fragile in looks and conduct. Thay are also particularly spoilt in the real sense of the Yoruba concept of àkébàjé. Parents offer sacrifices to appease them to stay here on earth. Our belief is that emèrè children have their kindred spirits waiting for them by the gates of heaven. If an emèrè eventually dies, it is believed that a replacement might not come easily. Everything is therefore done to prevent such a tragic end.

So, to keep them alive with their suffering parents, sacrifices, known in the local dialect as òsè, are offered. The sacrificial items, mostly small edibles ranging from groundnuts to sugarcane; èkuru (white moi moi) to àkàrà, are prepared and offered to children who are in the same age bracket as the emèrè. After the preliminary prayers, the emèrè is asked to share the items to the ever-joyous children who sing traditional praise chants for her.

But there is a strange practice in the sharing of the sacrificial edibles. While all the other items are given to the ‘celebrant’ to share, the akara is never given to her. The explanation for this exception is illustrated in the saying that nobody gives the sacrificial àkàrà for the emèrè to share; otherwise, she will simply give it to her kindred spirits to pave the way for her journey to the great beyond (A kìí fún emèrè ní àkàrà òsè pín kí ò má baà pin fun egbé è láti pa ònà òrun mô).

In our elementary Government classes from Form Three to Form Five of those days, the then Miss Folake Afolabi, and Messrs Abayomi Oduntan and Vice Principal Ojo, repeatedly, listed what they called “The Presidential Powers of an Executive President.” We were taught that an Executive President is both the Head of State and Head of Government, a fountain of honour; he declares state of emergency; assents to and vetoes bills; declares wars and signs treaties and has the prerogative of mercy, among almost twenty of such powers.

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On the Prerogative of Mercy, we were told that an Executive President has the right to pardon a convict on the death row. And once pardoned, such a beneficiary can no longer be held in relation to the offence(s) that led to his or her conviction.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu exercised his Prerogative of Mercy power last week and set free 147 ex-convicts. The controversy that greeted that act is one that will not abate in a hurry. In all the comments for and against the action by the President, everyone, including the President’s ‘political enemies’, agreed that Tinubu’s action was, and is, within the ambit of the law. The constitution allows him to extend pardon to any manner of convicts, and his action cannot be subjected to any judicial review. Good enough.

However, the grey area in the review of the President’s exercise of his prerogative of mercy has to do with the morality that informed the choices of some of the ex-convicts President Tinubu set free. Majority of the people who frowned at the list of the beneficiaries of the President’s ‘kindness’ argued, and very correctly too, that the huge percentage the president allocated to convicts of drug-related offences, speaks volumes of the President’s disposition to the fight against narcotics in the nation.

The argument here is that of the 147 convicts President Tinubu pardoned, 60 of them are those who were convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for dealing in hard drugs. A simple arithmetic puts that figure at 40.8 percent of the total number of 147 beneficiaries! Many, justifiably, concluded that if not for anything, Mr. President should have exercised discretion in freeing those drug lords.

Reviewing the arguments for and against this latest action of President Tinubu, I drew inspiration from the words of wisdom by our elders as quoted above that one should not give the sacrificial àkàrà òsè to an emèrè to share. Of the “Executive Powers of an Executive President” those good teachers of yore taught us, the one that looks more like an àkàrà òsè (sacrificial àkàrà) is the prerogative of mercy. In the hands of an emèrè president, who causes the people pain and agony, draining their meagre resources by the minute, that power can be easily abused. The morality of 60 drug offenders benefiting from the list of 147 pardoned ex-convicts flies in the face of decency!

Colleen Shogan, a former Senior Executive at the Library of Congress, US Senate, on December 2, 2022, wrote: “The History of the Pardon Power: Executive Unilateralism in the Constitution.” In the article, which was published by The White House Historical Association under the Rubenstein Center Scholarship, said that when the exercise of the clemency power is not used discretionally, the one who wields the power suffers public opprobrium. Hear her:

“Gerald Ford’s 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon was arguably the most famous exercise of executive clemency in American history. After Ford’s pardon of Nixon, his approval rating fell over twenty points in the ensuing days. Many political analysts conclude that Ford never recovered from the pardon, thus severely damaging his chances to win election to the White House in 1976.” She added that Ford’s explanation “that he granted the pardon as an act of mercy to Nixon and for the broader purpose of restoring domestic tranquillity in the nation after Watergate”, could not salvage the situation.

Imo Udofa, Professor of Law, University of Uyo, reinforces Shogan’s arguments. In his “The Abuse of Presidential Power of Pardon and the Need for Restraints”, published in the Beijing Law Review, Vol 19, No 2, June 2018, Udofa argues that “The power of pardon is virtually unfettered and unchecked by formal constraints in most jurisdictions, thereby rendering it susceptible to abuse.”

Udofa further states that “The recent exercise of presidential power of pardon by the current American President, Donald Trump, by granting pardon to Joe Arpaio (a former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who was found guilty in July 2017 of criminal contempt for defying a judge’s order against prolonging traffic patrols targeting immigrants) has rekindled the discussion on the uses and abuses of the pardon power…. It has been argued that Arpaio should have been allowed to serve his punishment, and the presidential pardon amounted to a presidential endorsement of the criminal contempt for which Arpaio was punished.”

In Nigeria, the teacher of law says the case of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s “pardon of Chief D.S.P. Alamieyesigha, former Governor of Bayelsa State, convicted of several corruption charges, remains the most controversial exercise of presidential pardon power in the country.”

He posits further that while “The power to grant pardon is of ancient origin and recognised today in almost every nation…. However, in recent times, the pardon power has been abused as political and other extraneous factors tend to determine its application. It has also been seen as capricious and inaccessible by ordinary people. The usefulness of the power has seriously been dented by lack of control and checks in most jurisdictions, including Nigeria.”

“Sacred” as prerogative of mercy is, Udofa says its application should be alongside “checks and guiding principles.” I add here: with utmost discretion!

The US for instance, punishes tax evasion and drug-related offences severely. On drugs, the US would go to any length to get the culprit to book. That was why, against international conventions, the administration of President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in an operation codenamed “Operation Just Cause” and had President Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (February 11, 1934 – May 29, 2017), simply Noreiga, ‘kidnapped’ on January 3, 1990, on the accusation of dealing in hard drugs. In that operation, the US used over 200,000 US troops to effect Noriega’s arrest. His eventual trial in 1991, tagged “trial of the century” by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, earned the Panamanian president 40 years in jail!

Noreiga’s travails, suspect as they were, are lessons in how a nation that wants to grow treats felons. After his jail term was reduced to 17 for “good behavior” in the US, Noriega was extradited to France in 2010, where he was convicted and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for money laundering. By 2011, France extradited him to Panama, where he was imprisoned having been tried in absentia in the 1990s for the crimes he committed while his dictatorship in Panama lasted. He carried that ignominy to his grave!

Political theorists and analysts believe that Noriega was punished not necessarily for being a drug baron, but for his audacity to stop spying for Big Brother, the US! This side of the Noriega’s coin notwithstanding, the former dictator of Panama was punished home and abroad for every crime he committed against the State. That is how society moves from bad to good. A system that places politics above the wellbeing of the people and asks felons to walk freely irrespective of the irreparable damage they have caused, cannot move forward.

This is what President Tinubu did, when he set free drug offenders in his latest half-thought presidential clemency. In case the president does not realise it, by making drug barons 40.8 percent of his clemency list, Mr. President has sent the wrong signal that here, in Nigeria, crime pays. Why nobody in Tinubu’s Presidency considered the collateral damages those ex-drug convicts have done to the public shows how reflective this government could be. That nobody considered the number of children in various rehab centres because of the activities of the freed drug peddlers interrogates the depth of advice the President gets!

But more importantly, and most troubling is the lead President Tinubu has given to those who believe till the second coming of the Messiah, that the President’s past was tainted. They can now go to town with the did-we-not-say-so cliche. Our elders say when a man is accused of having a long intestine, he has the responsibility to curtail his gastronomic tendencies (tí a bá pe ènìyàn ní abífun ràdàràdà, ó ye kí ó pa ìfun rè mó).

Again, they submit that a man accused of being a petty thief should not be seen playing with a goat’s kid in a dark corner of the village (a kìí pe ènìyàn l’ólè kó máa fi omo ewúré seré l’ókùnkùn). How the wisdom in these sayings of our ages got lost on President Tinubu when the committee he was said to have constituted for the purpose presented the list of those to benefit from his presidential pardon such that almost half of the list are drug convicts, beats one’s imagination. One is heavily tempted to believe that this is a case of paddy paddy, ala someone helping someone!

Nothing brings home the caution that we should not allow an emèrè to share the àkàrà òsè so that she will not give it to her kindred spirits more than the pardon of the 60 drug offenders by President Tinubu. How his ‘political opponents’ will not draw a correlation between the perceived reputation of the President in the social world, and the pardon of 60 drug lords would be the eighth wonder of this age.

By that indiscretion, 60 notorious drug dealers are out on the streets without any encumbrance! What are the implications? Your guess is as good as mine! How the President would explain that he did not free those drug felons to pave way for their return journeys to the underworld of drug trafficking is a herculean task. And I take a bet: Presido go explain tire, but we no go understand!