Achebe’s legacy for posterity

updated: Tuesday 01-07-2008

Prof. Chinua AchebeIkeogu Oke, Deputy Director of Communications, American University of Nigeria, Yola, highlights the legacies Professor Chinua Achebe has bequeathed to Nigerian youths with Things Fall Apart.

AS Dr. Pat Utomi said while delivering the inaugural Ethics and Leadership Lecture of the American University of Nigeria recently, “Nigerian youth are in dire need of genuine leadership role models who make the connection between good leadership and respect for values which shape human progress.”

And though Dr. Utomi did not say so, I strongly believe that his notion of “Nigerian youth” encompasses young Nigerians of future generations to whom the bright torch from such “genuine leadership role models” must be passed on in perpetuity or there might be no point that it was lit in the first place.

I have no hesitation in identifying Chinua Achebe, in recognition of whose work we have gathered here, as one of such “genuine leadership role models” who has lit such bright torch of which the Association of Nigerian Authors remains a luminous example. Nor do I have any hesitation in classifying him as an embodiment of such values “which shape human progress,” among which I categorize creativity, diligence, efficiency, courage, forthrightness, humility, inspiration, benevolence, humanity, moderation, discipline, the will to transcend the sometimes irreversibly tragic vicissitudes of life, and that rare species of respect for the dignity and culture of all peoples which, like charity, begins at home.

Indeed, despite its many problems, home (Nigeria) and its people remain the main focus of Chinua Achebe’s affection and respect even as the world celebrates the golden jubilee of the publication of Things Fall Apart, his globally acclaimed first novel. To prove this, he has indicated his wish, in a recent interview granted to a crew led by Dr. Okey Ndibe, a US-based Nigerian scholar, to have the only existing (but missing) manuscript of Things Fall Apart returned to the country for preservation, if it were recovered.

Also, in his recent article on Things Fall Apart titled “African Novel of the Century,” Carlin Romano, the Inquirer Books columnist, confirmed Chinua Achebe’s desire to return home for the first time since 1990, “even though his medical condition makes it ‘very, very risky.’” Apparently invoking his words from another interview, the article proceeds to reveal why he would take such a great risk: “I would not ever be fully satisfied over this thing going on with Things Fall Apart if I don’t go home and say to my people, ‘Thank you.’”

So the Association of Nigerian Authors has, in another sense, called us together to honour one of our own who holds us in such high regard as to consider us deserving of the ultimate gratitude for his global success. Isn’t it worthwhile to preserve such legacy of respect for our people? Isn’t it worthwhile to preserve the legacy of such high values that he embodies, in a way that will provide our posterity with something whose recognition may ever inspire them to great and noble deeds? I have it on good authority that the Chinua Achebe Foundation intends to take concrete steps towards creating an opportunity for transmitting to our posterity such positive values that I have enumerated above (as components of the legacy of Chinua Achebe), and that the steps are expected to culminate in the building of The Chinua Achebe Library.

The vision is of an institution that will hold an unlimited range of materials for humanistic studies in and about Africa and so will attract to our nation and continent people from other parts of the globe who may be interested in such studies and materials. By identifying with this vision (as Africans), we will be helping to build a worthy institution not so much in the name of Chinua Achebe as for our respectability and the propagation of our culture, the tangible facts of our distinctive being, which still suffer such neglect that we remain the objects of contempt by those who would rather continue to believe that we do not have a culture worthy of propagation and so should welcome their effort to impose theirs on us.

A library is simply an organized reservoir of knowledge. And as knowledge continues to rule the world, so long will the fortunes and reputation of nations rise or fall in direct proportion to the quality and grandeur of their libraries and other institutions that signify recognition for knowledge. And it is hardly suprising to me that those nations that have established the best, most efficient and magnificent models of such institutions are also the most prosperous and respected around the world. The secret of their lasting success consists in their having realized that knowledge is the bedrock of enduring national prosperity and in their ever seeking to expand that bedrock for their posterity, inheritors of the responsibility of perpetuating such prosperity as it appertains to them, even at the expense of other less prepared or farsighted peoples.

Perhaps, many years from now, some youth, looking at The Chinua Achebe Library, would ask, “Why was he so honoured?” and would receive such answers: “Because he wrote excellent novels that won global acclaim for our literature, that celebrated our history and culture and projected them to the whole world with the kind of courage that was hitherto considered nonexistent. Because he repulsed the assault on our dignity, our humanity, by uncharitable and contemptuous alien writers. Because, in our interest, he spoke truth to power when it mattered most and usually at great personal risk. Because he proved to us that the quest for excellence need not be aborted by a physically disabling tragedy, that a victim of such tragedy can still stack up positive achievements in its aftermath. Because he was ‘a man of the people’ in the best positive sense of the expression.” Perhaps such answers would provide the inspiration needed by such youth to begin his or her own quest for greatness. And the youth so inspired could be your descendant, or mine!

Redefining Airport Hotel’s hospitality

IF the intention of the latest edition of the Lagos Airport Hotel Newsletter is to inform of the re-branding of the 66-year-old hotel, then it succeeds in the quest. Aware, in the words of the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the hotel, Mr. J.K. Adenigba that “change is key matrix to business growth”, the hotel owned by the Odu’a Investment Company Limited is being re-invented for future challenges and improved fortunes through a partnership with Golden Tulip Hospitality group of Switzerland.

When Adebayo Jimoh, Group Managing Director of Odu’a disclosed not too long ago that a strategic partner was being sought for the hotel and other hotels of the company, some people thought the hotels were being sold off but with the content of the newsletter, the motive has been clearly explained.

The intention of the owner states of Oyo, Ekiti, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti is to return the past glory of the hotel and reposition it in order to be able to compete with newer hotels with wider range of products. The objective, therefore, is to re-brand the hotel through a management and technical service agreement with the Tulip Group and this is what a substantial amount of space in the 38- page publication is devoted to.

Apart from this however, the journal also has a special interview on hotel re-branding with the essayist and academic, Professor Adebayo Wiliams. The new helmsman at the hotel, Mr. J.K. Adenigba, similarly shares his vision for the hotel while the usual contents of newsletters; people and events, health tips, sports, promotions, retirements etc. are also included.