Benjamin Njoku
16 December 2007
opinion
Penultimate week at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, scholars from across the nation converged to honour the spirit of late versatile poet, Ezenwa Ohaeto, in an international conference tagged 'African Literature in the 21st Century.' This exclusive report chronicles the thrills and memories of that moment.
EVERY member of the audience had cause to rise in honour of the late poet, Ezenwa Ohaeto. Silence initially had enveloped the Nnamdi Azikiwe University's auditorium venue of the occasion as Greg Mbajiogu of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) and Davidson Mbagwu, both comperes of the historic event, let the audience into the thrust of the gathering. For many, it was a gathering of great minds, and for others, it was simply a gesture that would have passed unnoticed. But, for his literary achievements and immense contribution towards the advancement of human knowledge, the Faculty of Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, had deemed it necessary as a way of immortalizing the name of one of their departed colleague, Ezenwa Ohaeto, a professor of literature, and award winning poet, who died in Cambridge, England, few weeks after emerging joint winners of the 2nd edition of the LNG literary prize in 2005, by organizing a three-day interna-tional conference in his memory.
The conference, celebrated under the theme "African Literature in the 21st Century" held between November 28 and 30, at the Unizik main auditorium and later the faculty of arts of the institution. Although, not too many writers of note were in attendance, the three-day conference momentously turned Unizik a centre of literary discourse in Nigeria. It equally afforded the eminent literary scholars and men of letters drawn from across the nation's ivory towers the needful opportunity to critically revisit the place of late Ezenwa Ohaeto in the contemporary African literature.
Various papers delivered at the conference centred around the late Ohaeto and the place of African writings in the 21st century. Speaker after speaker had shared the view that the late wordsmith remained one of the formidable forces in the discourse of African literature of the 21st century. Ohaeto, born in 1958, was a poet par excellence, who had left a footprint on African literature. Despite the brevity of time allotted to him on earth, in the words of Okey Ndibe, Ohaeto touched many lives deeply, and also made himself available to be touched in return. His life was imbued with an earnestness, "with a concern for humane enlargement, with an abiding investment in teaching as well as that form of poetry that asked serious questions and abhorred scant, superfluity and meretriciousness.
At the conference, J.O.J Nwachukwu-Agbada, Professor of English, Abia State University, Uturu, who was the key note speaker, described Ohaeto as "a great man of letter" whose life, he said, was wrapped around this burgeoning literature." In his presentation titled, "Ezenwa Ohaeto, The Poet and National Development: Implications for African Literature of the 21st Century", Nwachukwu-Agbada expressed the view that Ohaeto did not just love African literature, but that he believed in its writers and believed too that Nigeria and, indeed, Africa could be uplifted by this rising literature in the firmament of world literatures. According to him, "Ohaeto's life was completely devoted to the cause of advancing African literature in various ways, which accounted for why he pursued several writers to their homes and interviewed them and kept in touch with oral creators in the local language, while, at the same time, doing unimaginable volumes of book reviews having to do with literature.
As a critic of special note, Ezenwa, he revealed, used the newspapers as his critical and creative outlets, and was never absent from literature conferences in far flung places. Noting that Ohaeto's poems, which he dedicated to the dead, revealed him not only as a poet who was not afraid of death, but also as a poet who never saw death as actually the end of life, nor of life's essence, he said, "although, he regretted the death of these writers, he saw their death as a movement to a higher spiritual plane at which their activity as writers and social watchdogs could still count. Those who still lament that he is gone, particularly members of his immediate family, must know that their hero and ours did not give a damn about death. For him, each death gives us only some hours to remember our fate."
As a poet of Ohaeto's stature, Nwachukwu-Agbada argued that poets rarely die but live on, as according to him, "their words, like paper or pure water cellophane, do not decay; their words and the impact reside in the memories of those they may have touched. In the case of Ezenwa Ohaeto, he not only lives in the memories of individuals, he also lives in the memory of the nation, he sought to be a poet of the nation." The erudite professor of English, exploring Ohaeto's contributions towards true national development, said the departed poet's contribution to national development was particularly noticeable in his constant harping on the poor leadership evident in the running of our polity. "In his I Wan Bi President, collection of poems, he leaves no one in doubt as to what he thinks of the leadership of his country." he emphasized. Nigeria, according to him, was Ezenwa-Ohaeto's polity and his love for it was not a hidden one.
The spirit of his poetry moved about freely in Nigeria more than anywhere else. Although he was an international scholar in more sense than one, his consciousness was Nigeria and Africa." The opening day of the conference, which had Professor Chukwuemeka Ike and his wife in attendance, Igwe (Dr) E.U Nnedi Chinyerenze, the royal father of the day, Chief of Staff, Anambra State government, Mr. Chuks Ilogbulam, members of the council of Unizik, representatives from Ohaeto's family, and eminent scholars also was used to pay tribute to the late Ohaeto. Unizik's vice-chancellor, Professor Ilochi A. Okafor, represented at the occasion by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics, Professor Sam Omuehi, said the conference epitomized Ohaeto's commitment to the arts community not only in Nigeria, but also of Africa and indeed of the entire world for he was truly a world class citizen who belonged effectively to the university of the human race of artists. While paying tribute to the departed poet, the Unizik VC said Ohaeto arrived in our midst like a meteor and, before we could say welcome, the genius had departed in a blaze of light and glory."
Okafor argued that the blazing genesis of such literary icons as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Wole Soyinka, Okigbo and others has been sustained and articulated at the speculative thematic levels by scholars as Professor Ezenwa Ohaeto. "Our university is named after one of the foremost African nationalists, the Rt Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, who left impressive marks on the canvass of African arts. And, in his footsteps, Nnamdi Azikiwe University strives after the motto of excellence in all spheres and disciplines. The arts, as the quintessential humanizing discipline, represent for the university, the human dimension of our academic and research enterprise" the Unizik VC said.
Significant impact
He added that "one may rightly say, therefore, that it was not accidental that Ezenwa Ohaeto was here, even as one may further be assured that more Ezenwa Ohaetos will grow out of the soil of Unizik." For the Dean, faculty of arts of the institution, Professor Okey Umeh, Ohaeto "stormed and struck the literary ethos like a thunderbolt, who vanished like a match-flare in wind's breath ever before one could say Hei." He stressed that, in spite of his pre-mature exit from the stage, Ohaeto made a significant impact on the literary world. Ohaeto's pidgin poetry, according to Prof. Umeh, presented and announced pidgin as a viable instrument for conveying meaning in poetry, even though the general effectiveness of pidgin as a language of poetry has only been grudgingly accepted.
Over 70 academic papers presented by various literary scholars and critics at the conference centred around the works of Ezenwa Ohaeto and the prospect of African literature. Throughout the conference, it was Nigerian literature in its peak. The Dean, Faculty of Arts of the institution hinted that the institution plans to make the memorial conference an annual ritual. Engr. Iyke Ohaeto, who represented the deceased family thanked the authorities at UNIZIK for taking the initiative to immortalize the name of his elder brother.
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