Last week, the literary community in Nigeria got some very exhilarating news of nominees as Fellows of the Association of Nigerian Authors. No one remembers the last time the literary association inducted members as fellows. So, when it got around that nearly two dozen writers and members of ANA had been nominated, there was unlimited joy.
The Fellowship, Camilus Ukah, ANA president told THEWILL, “is conferred upon deserving individuals for dedicated service to the association and proven contribution to the development of Nigerian literature. It is about abundant inventiveness in literature and support for the arts.”
The new fellows include Professors Anaezi Okoro, Abdul Rasheed Na’Alla, Moses Tsenongo, Razinat Mohammed, Udenta O. Udenta, Nduka Otiono, Vicky Sylvester, Tess Onwueme, Yusuf Adamu, Mark Nwagu, Dul Johnson and Amanze Akpuda. Drs. Emmanuel CS Ojukwu, John Asien and Tony Marinho were also inducted along with Engineer Emmanuel Frank Opigo and Lindsay Barret. Three honorary nominees – Professor Chidi Osuagwu, Dr. Zainab T. Ahmed and Engineer Abubakar Maigandi – also made the list.
“We hope that the nominees will accept their nominations in good faith and continue to render the selfless service that is the basis of the Fellowship nomination,” ANA General Secretary, Maik Ortserga urged the new members.
Previous fellows include the grand uncles of Nigerian literature and doyens of Nigerian letters: Chinua Achebe, JP Clark, Femi Osofisan, Olu Obafemi, Mabel Segun, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, Zainab Alkali, Idris Amali, Wale Okediran and, wait for it, Olusegun Obasanjo and Dora Akunyili! Yes, OBJ himself and Akunyili.
It is to this hallowed and elite group the new members have now been added. “The council of ANA Fellowship,” Ukah insists, “is the elders/ elite group within the association, so to say, and they are expected to function as such.”
One elder of the elite group who has performed beyond ANA’s expectation is Nduka Otiono. Now a professor of African Studies and director of Institute of African Studies at Carleton University in Canada, Otiono was one of the best literary journalists of his generation. From his days at The Guardian to when he became the first Editor of Post Express Literary Supplement (PELS) Otiono distinguished himself in Nigeria’s literary space.
For starters, his first collection of poems, The Night Hides with a Knife, won ANA Poetry prize in 1995. Given his cerebral nature and commitment to writing, the late intellectual superstar and pioneer of modern journalism in Nigeria, Stanley Macebuh, found Otiono a suitable head of PELS, a four-page pullout in The Post Express devoted to everything literature.
Published every Saturday in the newspaper, Otiono fashioned PELS into a much-awaited literary pullout that writers, dons and undergraduates in English and Literature departments across Nigerian universities looked forward to every week. Most of the best contemporary Nigerian writers had their space in PELS – from Helon Habila to Toni Kan, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Maik Nwosu, Chiedu Ezeanah, Akin Adesokan, Sanya Osha, Ogaga Ifowodo, the late Pius Adesanmi and Harry Garuba.
Female writers such as Lola Shoneyin-Soyinka, Toyin Adewale Gabriel, Peju Akande, Angela Nwosu and many more contributed to the lively debates and intellectual jousts PELS promoted and all of it presided by ebullient Otiono. No one was quite surprised when he took up a teaching appointment in a Canadian institution of higher learning years later, a position he holds even now. Nor has he stopped writing. DisPLace, his most recent collection of poems, was published mid-year. So, with his new nomination as a Fellow of ANA, THEWILL thought it quite apt to speak with the Nigerian scholar in North America.
How do you feel about being a nominee and what implication(s) does it have for you?
I feel honoured and appreciated for the modest efforts I put into the development of ANA as the General Secretary at a critical turn in the Association’s history. I also feel valued for my life-long commitment to the development of Nigerian literature as an institution builder, literary journalist, writer and scholar. The implication for me is that in acknowledging and officially celebrating my contributions to the literary arts in Nigeria, I am encouraged to do more to the best of my abilities.
I know personally your commitment to the association all the years you were Gen-Sec. Tell us what it was like then, the challenges, successes and much else.
I would rather people like you who reported my work those years as a journalist revisit my commitment to the association while I was the Gen-Sec and beyond. Besides my immediate work in ANA, I played significant roles in related literary developments in Nigeria such as in the establishment of the Nigerian Prize for Literature sponsored by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company.
On what it was like then, the simple answer is: Tough and fulfilling! Tough, in the sense that managing a literary association with some “I-know-all” members who would first challenge one’s hard work before understanding what the matter was all about, can be hellish. Fulfilling, in that when one looks back to what one was able to achieve despite the challenges one had and, hopefuuly, posterity will kindly recognize those contributions through acts such as the bestowal of this Fellowship of ANA.
What do you think was your major achievement as GS of ANA?
I wish you and other stakeholders who were part of the story—you worked in the press at the time–answer the question. However, if any memory joggers are needed, I’ll add to the one major achievement I cited in my response to your previous question—the NLNG Prize.
To add to that, one may recall my role in the recertification and the reclamation of ANA land in Abuja, and the role I played in sowing the seeds for the much-delayed development of the land before my tenure as General Secretary. I remember that during the AGMs at separate ANA annual national conventions there were talks about the land. But when I took over as General Secretary, I discovered that, to my chagrin, the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) of the land had been revoked and poachers had actively carved out chunks of the land. Working with a supportive executive committee led by the amiable Professor Olu Obafemi, we worked hard to audit what was left of the land through professional survey of the land. The effort to recover the land led us to work with friends at The Presidency then—chiefly Dr. Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo of blessed memory and Dr. Tunde Olusunle—to meet with then president of Nigeria, Chief Olu Obasanjo, at Aso Villa. Afterwards, we managed to succeed with the recertification of the land and to secure a new C of O.
I also worked to restore the prestige of the Association and to attract high profile corporate sponsorships of literary production through new awards such as the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)-sponsored prizes in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Gabriel Okara, Flora Nwapa and J.P. Clark. There were other new prizes then too: ANA/Funtime Prize for Children’s Literature sponsored by the Anyiam-Osigwe family; the ANA/Atiku Abubakar Prize for Children’s Literature, and the ANA/Lantern Books Prize for Children’s Fiction sponsored by my friend, Lantern Books publisher and chairman of Nigerian Book Fair Trust, Otunba Olayinka Lawal-Solarin, who passed on in November 2020.
During my tenure, ANA prizes were increased from a paltry N10, 000 to N100, 000. Incidentally, over the years, the cash value of ANA prizes has remained the same. It’s time to increase them, actually!
You may want to add, too, my working to launch ANA’s first website—one of the earliest literary websites in Nigeria at the turn of the new millennium. The list of the achievements is long and, as I said, I would rather folks like you who witnessed them help with reaffirming them towards deepening our literary/cultural history and institutional memory which hasn’t quite been preserved at ANA. Lots of new and younger members of the association do not have deep knowledge of the association’s history.
There are other nominees like you most of them professors in academia or retired. Isn’t that some kind of bias on the association’s part?
I’d rather leave the executive committee of the association to respond to this question. However, I see quite an impressive cohort of distinguished nominees and I am honored to be in their company. Whether the association should honour more individuals who have contributed to the advancement of the association in addition to their overall contribution to the development of Nigerian letters, is up to ANA to determine.
About the Author
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
