Muhammad K. Muhammad
13 July 2008
Timothy Mofolorunso Aluko, popularly called T.M. Aluko, belongs to that generation of African writers who witnessed and tried to capture for posterity the 'clash of civilisations' that followed the colonisation of the continent. Though not celebrated as much as his contemporaries such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, Aluko is seen by many as equally important in the early literary tradition of Nigeria.
Born in Ilesha, in present day Osun state, Aluko studied civil engineering and town planning at the University of Lagos and Imperial College, London. His training in engineering, as a practical profession, had a profound impact on his novels as he sought to portray the reality of pre- and post-independent Nigerian society as against a generally theoretical exposition.
He received several awards and honours including Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1963 and Officer Order of the Niger (OON) in 1964.
Although his short stories started appearing in late 1949, Aluko made his first impact on the literary scene with the publication of his first novel, One Man One Wife, about ten years later. The success of the book inspired Aluko to write his second novel, considered by critics as his most spectacular work, One Man One Matchet.
His other books are Chief the Honourable Minister (1970), His Worshipful Majesty (1973), Wrong Ones in The Dock (1982), A State of our Own (1986), and Conduct Unbecoming (1993). In 1994 Aluko published his autobiography, My Years of Service, and his most current autobiography, The Story of My Life, expounds on the story of his childhood and his work as a civil servant. Published last year, this expanded autobiography provides a more in depth look at his life. In this wise, Aluko is luckier than other writers who wished to, but were not able to document the stories of their lives before they died.
Describing One Man One Matchet as an "interesting document of the times and well written", The Complete Review says: "Aluko writes well, and he presents a complex story with many threads with little confusion. One hopes that his message reached its intended, often still largely illiterate, audience".
The Complete Review saw an element of optimism in Aluko's book; it says: "There is a sense of optimism, of hope, and the book closes with a world set quite firmly right again. One wonders whether Aluko himself believed it, given the abuses he describes here".
Arthur Smith, a senior lecturer in English and Literature at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, described Aluko as "one of the most productive, though most undervalued, of modern Nigerian novelists", lamenting that although "his seven novels offer a distinctive insight into Nigerian society during the middle decades of the twentieth century", and although he has received recognition for his short stories, "for much of his writing career critics have been almost uniformly hostile toward [Aluko's] satiric portraits of villagers, administrators, politicians, and clergymen".
Smith quoted a reviewer in the western press who wrote favourably about Aluko, saying: "One of Nigeria's earliest writer's of English prose fiction, Aluko maintains a consistent enthusiasm for humour and caricature. His fiction focuses on the commonplace evils of Nigerian society such as bribery, ignorance, poverty and vandalism, expressing scepticism about expatriate colonial officers as well as the educated Africans who replaced them after independence.... His models are conservative English storytellers, particularly the humorists, from Dickens to C.P. Snow".
As T.M. Aluko turned 90 last month, one hopes that he would receive a closer look from the literary community with a view to giving his works a deeper perspective.
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