Anthills of the Savannah

TWELVE

On the two previous occasions when Ikem had spoken before audiences at the University of Bassa he had attracted large crowds, but nothing quite on the scale of the present event. Every seat in the two-thousand-capacity Main Auditorium was taken and a large overspill sat or stood on gangways or peeped in through doors and windows from the two side-corridors running the length of the hall. It would appear that his suspension from the National Gazette had pushed his popularity rating, already pretty high, right to the top of the charts. Even more remarkable than the size of the crowds was their patience. The lecture took off at least forty minutes behind schedule while sweating Students Union officials dashed in and out of the hall occasionally shouting, 'Testing! Testing! Testing!' into a dead microphone. But such was the good humour of this audience that when the system finally came alive it was given a thunderous ovation.

A few last-minute consultations by the organizers and the lecture seemed finally set to begin. But no. First the introductions. A minor union official took the microphone and introduced the Master of Ceremonies, a tall handsome fellow in a white three-piece suit, who in turn and at some length introduced the President of the Union who delivered a most elaborate introduction of the Chairman for the occasion who — at long last — introduced Mr. Ikem Osodi. It was all so reminiscent of the style of campaign meetings in the good old Byzantine days of politicians who, should they rise now from the bowels of their rat-holes and station themselves cautiously just below the surface, would be watching shiny-eyed, twitching their whiskers in happy remembrance.

Ikem called his lecture 'The Tortoise and the Leopard — a political meditation on the imperative of struggle.' This announcement was greeted with tumultuous approval. No doubt it had the right revolutionary ring to it and Ikem smiled inwardly at the impending coup d'état he would stage against this audience and its stereotype notions of struggle, as indeed of everything else.

'Mr. Chairman, sir…' he said, bowing mock-deferentially to the Professor who had just been eulogized by the Students' Union President as a popular academic admired by all and sundry for his clarity and Marxist orientation who, as the youngest professor in Kangan, had ably redirected Political Science from bourgeois tendencies under Professor Reginald Okong to new heights of scientific materialism…

'May I crave your indulgence and begin this meditation — not lecture by the way, I never can muster enough audacity to lecture — I meditate. May I begin with a little story.'

And he told, to remarkable dramatic and emotional effect, the story of the Tortoise who was about to die.

'That story was told me by an old man. As I stand before you now that old man who told me that incredible story is being held in solitary confinement at the Bassa Maximum Security Prison.'

No! Why! Opposed! Impossible! and other sounds of shock and anger flew like sparks and filled the air of the auditorium.

'Why? I hear you ask. Very well… This is why… Because storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever. That's why.'

It was a brief presentation, twenty to twenty-five minutes long, that was all; but it was so well crafted and so powerfully spoken it took on the nature and scope of an epic prose-poem. It was serious but not solemn; sometimes witty without falling into the familiarity of banter.

The audience sat or stood silently entranced. Its sudden end was like a blow and it jolted them into shouts of protest. Calls of Fire! Fire! More! More! and even Opposed! soon turned into a rhythmic chant when Ikem sat down.

The Chairman turned to him and said, 'They want some more!'

'Yes! More! More! More!'

'I thank you, my friends, for the compliment. But as someone once said: There is nothing left in the pipeline!'

'No! No! Opposed!'

'In any case you have listened to me patiently. Now I want to hear you. Dialogues are infinitely more interesting than monologues. So fire your questions and comments and let's exchange a few blows. You've been at the receiving end. But, as the Bible says, it is better to give than to receive. So let's have a few punches from your end. That's what I've come here for.'

And true enough, it was during question-time that he finally achieved the close hand-to-hand struggle he so relished. By nature he is never on the same side as his audience. Whatever his audience is, he must try not to be. If they fancy themselves radical, he fancies himself conservative; if they propound right-wing tenets he unleashes revolution! It is not that he has ever sat down to reason it out and plan it; it just seems to happen that way. But he is aware of it — after the event, so to say, and can even offer some kind of explanation if asked to do so: namely that whatever you are is never enough; you must find a way to accept something however small from the other to make you whole and save you from the mortal sin of righteousness and extremism.

A couple of months ago he had been persuaded against his normal inclination to speak at the Bassa Rotary Club weekly luncheon. On that particular occasion the club had more cause than usual to be happy with itself for it had just bought and donated a water-tanker to a dispensary in one of the poorest districts of North Bassa, an area that has never had electricity nor pipe-borne water. In the after-dinner haze of good works, cigar smoke and liqueur his hosts sat back to hear what their distinguished guest had to tell them… Well, as usual, he left what he should have told them and launched into something quite unexpected. Charity, he thundered is the opium of the privileged; from the good citizen who habitually drops ten kobo from his loose change and from a safe height above the bowl of the leper outside the supermarket; to the group of good citizens like yourselves who donate water so that some Lazarus in the slums can have a syringe boiled clean as a whistle for his jab and his sores dressed more hygienically than the rest of him; to the Band Aid stars that lit up so dramatically the dark Christmas skies of Ethiopia. While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.

The rotund geniality of his hosts was instantly shattered and distorted into sharp-pointed shapes of aggressiveness.

That world of yours will be in heaven, sneered one gentleman. Even in heaven, said another, there is seniority. Archangels are senior to common angels.

As early as possible Ikem was escorted out of the room by two club officials — a normal practice indeed but which on this occasion was performed with such icy civility that it took on the appearance of showing an ungracious dinner guest to the door straight from the table he has insulted.

But this was no Rotary Club and dealing with it would be easier in some ways, but in others probably more difficult.

The first questioner was apparently a young member of faculty rather than a student. His question was prefaced with a little lecture of his own on the manifest failure of bourgeois reformism to address the fundamental problems of the Third World in general and Kangan in particular. Did Mr. Osodi not consider, in view of the above, the necessity of putting the nation now under the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat?

'No, I don't. I wouldn't put myself under the democratic dictatorship even of angels and archangels. As for the proletariat I don't think I know who they are in the case of Kangan.'

'Workers and peasants,' said the Chairman, helpfully.

'Workers and peasants,' Ikem repeated into the microphone, 'I have just been told.'

'And students,' a voice from the audience called, causing much laughter.

'Fair enough,' said Ikem. 'Charity begins at home.' More laughter. 'Any other suggestions. We have peasants, workers and students… Excellent! Will peasants in this hall please stand.'

There was now hilarious laughter from all corners of the auditorium, especially when another three-piece-suited gentleman got up and offered himself.

'No, you are not a peasant my good friend. Sit down. I want a proper peasant… Well, ladies and gentlemen it does appear we have no peasants here tonight. Perhaps they don't even know we are having this meeting… I am told, by the way, by those who attend shareholders' annual general meetings that there is something called a proxy form which you send nominating somebody else to stand in for you when you cannot yourself be present. Is there anybody here carrying such a document on behalf of peasants? Mr. Chairman, was any proxy form delivered to you?'

The learned professor in spite of the heavy burden of his earnestness felt obliged now to join in some of this rather awkward fun. So he shook his head, not too vigorously but well enough to win the applause of the ticklishly humorous crowd.

'Very well. I think we should leave peasants out of the discussion. They are not here and have sent no one to speak on their behalf… That leaves us with workers and students…'

'And market women,' chipped in a high female voice from the audience, to a renewed burst of merriment.

'Market women, my dear girl, are in the same category as peasants. They are not here either… I will let you into a secret I have told nobody else. My prospective mother-in-law is a market woman.' Laughter!

'A cash madam,' offered someone.

'No, not a cash madam. A simple market woman… This is not a joke now. I am really serious. My prospective mother-in-law sells tie-die cloth in Gelegele market. She is not a cash madam as I have said; she can carry all her worldly wares in one head-load. So she qualifies along with peasants for a seat among the proletariat. But she has not given me, her future son-in-law, any authority to be her proxy at this shareholders' meeting… So let's move on and deal with those we are competent to speak for, namely ourselves. Workers and students. Let's take workers first. Who are they? The same workers who go on strike when outdated and outrageous colonial privileges like motor vehicle advances and allowances are threatened; whose leaders cannot give satisfactory account of millions they collect every month from the compulsory workers' check-off scheme; who never in their congresses attack absenteeism, ghost workers, scandalously low national productivity. Above all, workers whose national president at last year's All-Africa Congress refused to leave his hotel room until an official Peugeot 504 assigned to him was replaced with a Mercedes. His reason you remember: that workers' leaders are not, in his very words, ordinary riff-raffs. You find that funny? Well I don't. I find it tragic and true. Workers' leaders are indeed extraordinary riff-raffs. There has been, for a few years now, a running battle between me and the Civil Service Union. You know that, don't you?' Yes, roared the audience, laughing. 'The reason for our little disagreement is because I have not attempted to hide my opinion of them as plain parasites.' More laughter. 'Those of you who follow our battles may remember that it all came to a head last year when I wrote a stinging editorial on the eve of their Annual Congress.' There was smiling recognition on some faces, some nodding of the head and scattered remnants of laughter. 'In their communiqué at the end of the Congress they referred to certain bourgeois, élitist hack writers who are no more and no less than running dogs of imperialism!' Loud laughter. 'You probably didn't know who they were alluding to but it was their way of replying to my editorial. Their way is indeed peculiar. Our proverb says that the earthworm is not dancing, it is only its manner of walking.' Laughter.

'The charge of élitism never fails to amaze me because the same people who make it will also criticize you for not prescribing their brand of revolution to the masses. A writer wants to ask questions. These damn fellows want him to give answers. Now tell me, can anything be more élitist, more offensively élitist, than someone presuming to answer questions that have not even been raised, for Christ's sake? Give us the answer! Give us the answer! You know it was the same old cry heard by Jesus Christ from his lazy-minded, soft-brained, bread-hungry hangers-on in Galilee or Gadarene or wherever it was.' Tremendous outburst of cheers. 'Give us a miracle! Give us a miracle and we will believe in you. Cut out the parables and get to the point. Time is short! We want results! Now, now!' Renewed laughter and more cheers greeted this unexpected and quixotic exploitation of the Holy Writ. 'No I cannot give you the answer you are clamouring for. Go home and think! I cannot decree your pet, text-book revolution. I want instead to excite general enlightenment by forcing all the people to examine the condition of their lives because, as the saying goes, the unexamined life is not worth living… As a writer I aspire only to widen the scope of that self-examination. I don't want to foreclose it with a catchy, half-baked orthodoxy. My critics say: There is no time for your beautiful educational programme; the masses are ready and will be enlightened in the course of the struggle. And they quote Fanon on the sin of betraying the revolution. They do not realize that revolutions are betrayed just as much by stupidity, incompetence, impatience and precipitate action as by doing nothing at all.' Mixed, cautious applause. He paused as if to consider his next move.

'I think I should take the advantage of this forum to propound the new radicalism which I believe we should embrace.' Applause of expectation. 'First and foremost, this radicalism must be clear-eyed enough to see beyond the present claptrap that will heap all our problems on the doorstep of capitalism and imperialism… Please don't get me wrong. I do not deny that external factors are still at the root of many of our problems. But I maintain that even if external factors were to be at the root of all our problems we still must be ready to distinguish for practical purposes between remote and immediate causes, as our history teachers used to say.' Smiles of recognition. 'May I remind you that our ancestors — by the way you must never underrate those guys; some of you seem too ready to do so, I'm afraid. Well, our ancestors made a fantastic proverb on remote and immediate causes. If you want to get at the root of murder, they said, you have to look for the blacksmith who made the matchet.' Loud laughter. 'Wonderful proverb, isn't it? But it was only intended to enlarge the scope of our thinking not to guide policemen investigating an actual crime.' Laughter.

'When your fat civil servants and urban employees of public corporations march on May Day wearing ridiculously undersize T-shirts and school-boy caps' — Laughter — 'Yes, and spouting cliches from other people's histories and struggles, hardly do they realize that in the real context of Africa today they are not the party of the oppressed but of the oppressor.' Applause. 'For they are the very comrades who preside over the sabotage of the nation by their unproductivity and fraud, and that way ensure that the benefits of modern life will ever remain outside the dreams of the real victims of exploitation in rural villages.' Mixed noises.

'I hear some of you cry Opposed! I like that! Let me substantiate. I never make charges without substantiating.' A few cries of Fire!

'Indeed I will fire! Let's take the Electricity Corporation of Kangan as one example out of many. What do we see? Chaotic billing procedures deliberately done to cover their massive fraud; illegal connections carried out or condoned by their own staff; theft of meters and a host of other petty and serious crimes including, if you please, the readiness at the end of the day to burn down the entire Accounts and Audit Departments if an inquiry should ever be mooted…' Loud laughter. 'This is not funny you know…' Don't mind them! said a loud-voiced young man on the front row, frowning severely at his ticklish neighbours. 'To blame all these things on imperialism and international capitalism as our modish radicals want us to do is, in my view, sheer cant and humbug… It is like going out to arrest the village blacksmith every time a man hacks his fellow to death.' Loud laughter and applause, catching even the severe young man off his guard. 'Shall I go on? No! I will say simply that these people are not workers by any stretch of the imagination. They are parasites, I tell you. And I will not agree to hand over my affairs to a democratic dictatorship of parasites. Never!… Now what about students? I should really be very careful here as I am quite anxious to get home safely tonight.' Explosion of laughter. 'However, truth will out! I regret to say that students are in my humble opinion the cream of parasites.' Redoubled laughter. 'The other day, did not students on National Service raze to the ground a new maternity block built by peasants? Why? They were protesting against their posting to a remote rural station without electricity and running water. Did you not read about it?' The laughter had died all of a sudden. 'Perhaps someone can show me one single issue in this country in which students as a class have risen above the low, very low, national level. Tribalism? Religious extremism? Even electoral merchandising. Do you not buy and sell votes, intimidate and kidnap your opponents just as the politicians used to do?' The applause was beginning to revive now, albeit far less robustly. 'Are you, as you should be, more competent than those of our countrymen and women not nearly as lucky as yourselves on whom we have squandered our meagre educational resources? It took an hour to start this lecture because a microphone could not be found… I walked up to this dais exploding groundnut shells under my feet all the way. So what are we talking about? Do you not form tribal pressure groups to secure lower admission requirements instead of striving to equal or excel any student from anywhere? Yes, you prefer academic tariff walls behind which you can potter around in mediocrity. And you are asking me to agree to hand over my life to a democratic dictatorship of mediocrity? No way!… Now, don't misunderstand me. I have no desire to belittle your role in putting this nation finally on the road to self-redemption. But you cannot do that unless you first set about to purge yourselves, to clean up your act. You must learn for a start to hold your own student leaders to responsible performance; only after you have done that can you have the moral authority to lecture the national leadership. You must develop the habit of scepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch doctors and professors. I see too much parroting, too much regurgitating of half-digested radical rhetoric… When you have rid yourselves of these things your potentiality for assisting and directing this nation will be quadrupled.' Tremendous applause. Surprisingly?

The questions kept coming hard and fast. In the end the chairman simply had to get up and say: Enough! It was then close to midnight. He thanked Mr. Ikem Osodi for a most stimulating lecture and equally stimulating answers to audience questions. He praised the lecturer's contributions to the nation's cultural and political growth in the fields of journalism and literature and hoped that whatever misunderstanding had been responsible for his suspension from duty would soon be resolved. Applause. But there were two issues which he would like to touch upon however briefly. Mild restive protests from the floor. He promised to be brief. He was raising these issues as a sociologist of literature in the context of a writer's ideological development and clarity. First he must confess that he found Mr. Osodi's concept of struggle too individualistic and adventuristic. Some applause. Secondly, on a general note he must state once again his well-known contention that writers in the Third World context must not stop at the stage of documenting social problems but move to the higher responsibility of proffering prescriptions. Applause.

'Writers don't give prescriptions,' shouted Ikem. 'They give headaches!'

Uproarious laughter.

'Well, on that note we say thank you to Mr. Osodi for a most entertaining evening.'