Omale Allen Abdul-Jabbar
11 October 2008
opinion
What is it that makes a great writer remembered, quoted and sung for all times like that classical piece "The nutcracker suite" by Peter Illich Tchaikovsky? Undying. Unfading. Ever sweet and titillating to all senses like the stars that appear again and again each night, rousing little babies to spasms of ecstasy and adults to merriment and aged wonder, peddling questions that only throw up more questions.
No easy straight -jacket answer. Like life itself, everyone has opinions, but who truly knows? All we know is that life is precious and it hurts when we lose precious things. This is also true of a truly fantastic writer. His writings and the words deployed in their dexterity, charm, allure, finesse and magic, even the described fragrances remain with you long after you're done reading the book. And you never read such a book just once! I have read Mario Puzo's The Godfather five times, once a year for five consecutive years! And I can tell you dialogues, characters and descriptions vividly in the book!
I believe in America, America has made my fortune ...
Ok. I dash off but that is the undertaker Amerigo Bonasera beginning the book.
Back to the question, what is it that makes a truly fabulous writer? I think answer to this may be found in the following among other salient ones: creation of very believable characters, archiving so much verisimilitude that they could actually seem to have jumped out of the tales of their confinement, conversing and juggling the variables of life alongside us. See Ashikodi of Maik Nwosu, Lomba of Helon Habila, Joseph K of Franz Kafka, Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe, Brother Jero and Lakunle and several others of Wole Soyinka, Don Quixote of Cervantes, even Mairogo of Denja Abdullahi to list a few. This is also very true of all the titles of James Hardley Chase's fictional narratives. Remember Al Barney, the guy with his eyes to the ground?
Next is the ability of forever wedding a city to tales. Forever, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, like Trinidad and Tobago, like the Nile and Egypt... James Joyce also did it with Dubliners, Obi Nwakamma with that simply indelible essay "Lagos and the Life of Poets", Pius Adesanmi with "Ibadan", Lola Soneyin: A poet's Penkelemess Days. Achebe's TFA is the quintessential African novel, Ben Okri's Famished Road is the Nigerian novel story, Anna Karenina is the all time Russian classic, the list multiplies .These, in my humble opinion are among the fine points that makes a truly great writer!
And this is where Denja Abdullahi's current poetry publication Abuja Nunyi (This is Abuja) comes in.
The late poet and Art enthusiast cum philanthropist Mamman Jiya Vatsa will forever be remembered not only for evergreen contribution to literature in Nigeria with the grant of the writers village in Mpape in the FCT as then minister, but also for being the truly first poet laureate of Abuja with his collection The Poetry of Abuja.
Denja Abdullahi's Abuja Nunyi will also go down in history for the same reason. And he could very well be the second poet laureate of the city after Vatsa. Just like Simbo Olorunfemi for his EKO RE (This is Lagos), Denja as he is fondly referred to by his peers will forever be hence forth synonymous with the FCT!
The collection harbouring a total of forty-one poems, spread across what for convenience's sake I'd prefer to call six seasons is a must-read for Nigerians as well as the global community. Let us find out why.
The first season is titled WELCOME SONG. The succeeding ones are SONGS ON THE LIPS OF MODERN ABUJA, SONGS THE CITY TAUGHT ME, and SONGS OF THE FUTURE AND FAREWELL SONG. One quick question comes to mind, why songs? For a song gives trappings of music, lyricism and musicality. It connotes a tale that is actually sung as opposed to a mere telling. Although the panorama and cruise effect of the poems and stylistic deportment may portray this, ABUJA NUNYI is actually told while the first impression is something like the troubadour or minstrel of Ezenwa Ohaeto or the author's own very Mairogo chanting away.
Each season addresses the particular thematic concern of their capturing, allowing the poet the ambience to wade and narrate his hilarious, emotive, serious, highly introspective, and historical cum educative tale of his enamoured city. Denja's style or approach herein is really commendable and that issue of ambience as mentioned earlier, he wades into the tale from all angles, from the omniscient narrator, the first, second as well the third person respectively. The poems become really thrilling when the poet steps aside and the characters begin to converse among themselves!
By mere looking at the book and upon going through the interred pieces, it is evident that the poet meant for the collection to be simply assessable. It is poetry for every facet of the Nigerian masses and even children alike. The last point is so true when gleamed from the point of view of the absence of dense jets of metaphorical postulations we are often quick to jump into when writing to impress.
His mentor Meg Peacocke who midwifed the birth of this collection via the British Council\Lancaster University Crossing borders on-line mentoring project 2005\2006 opines: "These poems deserve to be read." I add that ABUJA NUNYI (Gbagyi: This is Abuja ) deserves a place in the National Assembly, The Presidency, airports, prominent bookshops and tourist centres across the globe as the poet's task was to present the Nigerian capital city to Nigerian and the international audience alike.
Ok. Three questions. And very important ones at that. 1. Will ABUJA NUNYI get the desired place and attention in Government quarters? 2. Will the poet ever get a chance to read in the hallowed chamber of the National Assembly? 3. And how successful exactly is this particular outing by Denja Abdullahi in terms of thematic concern and craft?
The poet engages the vehicle of illustrations, in other words, he calls on the aid of images to assist in conveying his messages. The publisher Kraft Books deserves commendation once more for a job well done. The city gate, bright rising sun in full glory, rocky patches that welcome the visitor to the city is well captured in the front cover of the book. The font size lettering readily betrays the accessibility of the poems within.
The entries begin with the singular poem "City gate" in the first season WELCOME SONG, ending with "How has Abuja treated you?" in the last FAREWELL SONG
You are welcome
If only you would shun the ethnic
And soak in the waters of patriotism
On and on he goes with his welcome and call to patriotism. The second season NATIVE SONGS harbours nine poems "City of rocks", "Suleja's song", "We the people", "Song of the native son", "Gbagyi woman", "To the Honoured Potter", "Ushafa", "Gbagyi dancers" and "Giri Potters". All the mentioned poems chronicle the hydra- headed concerns of the aborigines of the city now owned and treasured by all Nigerians. Their joys, sorrows, pains and mixed expectations of the new dawn, especially their interaction/contract/negotiation with the Nigerian government when the federal capital was moved from Lagos to Abuja. Has the deal been fair to the original owners of Abuja? Are they worse off or better off with this capital now posted here? What I find very distinctive herein about the poetic style is the personification of this place as characters who talks and the poet himself becomes an observer and spectator! Hear "Suleja's song" on page 19:
I saw them as they came
They begged for my land...
Already you get the feel of the poem. And it isn't a sweet or happy song. She concludes thus:
I saw as they built to touch the sky
I rose to be embraced
And I was told to wait
"City of rocks" cries of erstwhile lure, rustic melody and the seductive algebra of rocks, here we witness a dialogue between Zuma Rock, Wupape hills, Aso Rock, Katampe Hill, summed up again on this sad note:
listen to the cries of Wupape hills
Mournfully echoing the sounds of forgotten lore
long ago it used to be festive on this height
until robbed of its voices and gods
In "We the people", the following lines stand out:
We bear the sudden burden of growth
We sing shrill ancient songs
Amidst catcalls of a laughing world
In "Song of native son" the persona "Shekwoaga" asks:
Who is there to plead my case
When they quietly fill their quotas?
"Gbagyi woman" is a simple reminder of primitive virgin times before we modernised our lives and ushered in untold sorrow and misery. Now we laugh at the woman carrying her stuff on her shoulders, she tills and toils, yes, but her life is less complex compared to ours: I think Wordsworth puts it better: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers... she's the rainbow, says Denja.
All the poems here harbour the theme of unfair deal, ruptured hymen of deceitful and callous phallic thrust!
What have we done for the Aborigines of Abuja whose lands we joy in today? This is food for thought from the poet.
The second season SONGS ON THE LIPS OF MODERN ABUJA takes the visitor and inhabitants through a panoramic cruise of the nooks and crannies of the elite city, enabling him/her to feel her tempo and character. This is a ready map for the Tourist as well as the inhabitants seeking adventure and a rounded knowledge of Abuja .The poems here are: "To the first poet laureate", "Song of a masterplan" To the new laureate' and "Hanging out in Abuja Garden" Mamman Jiya Vatsa, the first poet laureate of Abuja is the concern of the first poem in this season.
Drums of betrayal sounded
And a soldier-poet died a warrior's death
It would be recalled that the news of his execution reached his family of the Association of Nigerian Authors while gathered for their annual international convention.
A really thrilling poem that in this season is "Aso villa" betraying the vivid imagination of the poet and the writer's captors' eye for details that the ordinary folk would have missed, suffused with beautiful images. A very successful poem in the last part below is the crux of the message where the persona escapes the quick ordeal of wrongful detention:
From this giddy height
I smell again the multi-odorous farts
Of the mighty and I ask
Aso villa, are you a resort or a sit of power?
But the lonely sentries looked up
And my poetic reverie was aborted!
"Abuja babes", versed in pidgin English narrates the ordeal adventure\misadventure often encountered by young ladies following dreams of greener pastures to the city:
This bakassi wey papa God give me
I go swing am here and there so tay
Ministas and senators go forget wetin
Bring dem come Abuja...
But she repents:
I would tread carefully on these broadways
I am a child of God, spiritually protected against
Their one-eyed snakes
Then a truly hilarious piece, also wrought in pidgin "Carry go", recording a dialogue between an "Okadaman", a cab and a bus driver migrated to Abuja for the Golden Fleece and a robust dream of return to marry their enchanted maidens:
Okadaman: (of Hausa origin)
I could go back with enough money to marry Safiya...
Taxi driver (of Yoruba origin):
Ah Silifa, my latest garage beauty
Is in for a treat today!
Bus driver (of Igbo origin):
That passenger stopping us?
Look if you are this dull
I will look for another conductor!
And a truly emotive one" Gidan mangoro" for the ordeal of the Loyola Jesuit children in the Sosoliso plane crash:
Beneath the many mango trees
They sang a joyous song
They sang of oasis in patched lands
The sang of plenty in the midst of want
... the angels came down too soon
they winged away sixty more children
to a place where songs never cease
even as forlorn parents bid a tearful farewell
But in the next season SONGS THE CITY TAUGHT ME, lies the true tourist map of Abuja, qualifying the poet as the true chronicler of tides. The notorious but very vivid poem "Zone 4" tells you where you could patronise the women of easy virtue if that's what you desire!
Flushed faces, tempting cleavages
Too sweet smiles....
From the four wheeler, the voyeur peeps
Undecided on the juiciest of them all
Welcome to zone 4!
Other poems in this season are "Area 10", IBB Golf club", "A.Y.A", "International Conference Centre", "Eagle Square", "Maitama", "National Mosque", "National Christian Centre", "National Military cemetery", "Mpape, Writers Village", "Area One", "Berger Junction", "Millennium Park" and "Face Me I Face You".
All the poems interred in this season most especially "deserve to be read", to echo the opinion of his mentor. Here in my humble opinion lies the crux and true glory of this outing by Denja Abdullahi as they chronicle the past, present and future which he separated into the next season SONGS OF THE FUTURE, containing the two poems "song of the shanties" and "songs of the area councils" which is rather unnecessary. Let us look at the poem "face me I face you'd dialogue between a tenant and his landlord:
Tenant: Kai, Abuja no be for poor man
How one konkolo house go dey go for many thousands?
Landlord: My friend, pay me my rent
If Abuja don tire you, go back to your village
All in all, the poems in this collection in their assorted fragrances and panorama is a very successful outing that would remain relevant in literary discusses for a mighty long time to come. This book will definitely be taught in poetry classes in the country and beyond!
Abdul-jabbar (popularly referred to as Mmaasa Masai) is an Abuja-based creative writer.
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