Another milestone by
Akachi Ezeigbo
By Nweke Onuora Benedict
Sunday,
March 9, 2008
The first inaugural lecture for the 2007/2008 academic session
of the University of Lagos was delivered by Professor Akachi
Ezeigbo of the English Department on the 13th February 2008
in a capacity crowd at the Main Auditorium of the university
in Akoka.
Principal officers of the institution, friends and well-wishers
of the lecturer, as well as students and members of the academic
community attended it. Mrs. Akachi Ezeigbo read by the Deputy
Vice-Chancellor (Management Services) of the university, the
distinguished lecturer was described as an achiever, a rare
gem and an icon. She is an intellectual, a researcher, an
astute administrator and a creative genius.
Akachi Ezeigbo is one of the most visible gender and feminist
writers, theorists and critics in Nigeria today. She has examined
PhD theses and Masters’ Dissertations and assessed Professorial
candidates in these areas in many Nigerian universities. She
has published extensively on war literatures and particularly
on the Nigerian civil war.
Her career as a writer and critic has equally taken her round
the world on sponsored conferences in England, Scotland, Germany,
Macedonia, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Togo,
and Benin republic, where she has participated in intellectual
discourse of literature and in the cross-fertilization of
ideas. She has won the NLNG award – today the most prestigious
prize for literature in Nigeria, with My Cousin Sammy, a children’s
literature.
In the lecture, Professor Mrs. Ezeigbo took the audience through
a literary journey and through her own variegated experiences
both as a researcher and a creative writer. Making reference
to some notable literary artists and their works, Ezeigbo
explores the various ways literature has always been and will
always be relevant to society. For instance, she describes
the process of creativity in writers which enables them to
create the illusion of reality in their works with which they
address various aspects of society. She uses the examples
of John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, Shakespeare’s
Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Othello and Chinua Achebe’s
A Man of the People and Anthills of the Savannah to show how
literature not only entertains but also educates their readers
and at the same time work towards a positive transformation
of society.
She reveals how literary works can be used to address not
only the present but also the future of society. Achebe, for
instance, she said, in his works, mentioned above predicts
and illuminates the corruption and abuse of power in the Nigerian
society with the purpose of ensuring that the situation is
changed. Literature therefore does not only record the past
or present; it also paints pictures of the future of societies
recreated in works of literature. It offers a possible vision
of how the present can be improved. Literature therefore teaches
about life and humanizes our otherwise science-dominated universe.
It therefore humanizes dehumanized societies.
The lecture equally highlighted the place of literature in
the contemporary Nigerian society. The lecturer posited that
literature brings down narratives to the level of human experiences,
even when writers use characters that are not human. Literary
artists create and recreate experiences in their works and
in these works hold up mirrors which members of such societies
expectedly view their actions and understand the need to achieve
a major positive transformation of society. In this respect,
writers use their arts to change and redirect their societies
for a purposeful living. Writers may equally use comic plots
to draw attention to areas of need and others areas that require
change in society, she lectured.
Literature, to her, enriches lives and enlarges experiences
of life by giving aesthetic pleasure and spiritual inspiration.
It also creates love of beauty and a sense of order in the
lives of a people. It creates a sense of history and a desire
to transform society, and it is on that premise that Ezeigbo
is of the opinion that Nigerians are not reading enough. She
admonishes them on their reading habits and advises that more
reading ought to take place.
Related to reading according to her is the appreciation of
nature and beauty. She said the state of the nation reflects
the lack of interest in reading. “When enough reading
does not take place, the liberal education that should teach
the importance of beauty in every area of our lives will be
lacking. Nigerians will also not appreciate the need for those
virtues that are decent, beautiful and uplifting to our souls.
Our dream to become a great nation, therefore, becomes a mirage
and unrealizable because we have not learnt to be decent and
disciplined, and even to cultivate a clean environment. All
these works of literature have the capacity to teach us.”
Even as emphasis is laid on science, engineering and technology,
Professor Ezeigbo recommended that literature must still be
carried along “in order to ensure that Nigerian society
is properly ‘humanized’, ‘socialized’
and integrated into the finest ‘ideals’ of our
cultures.”
She also remarked that creative writing be taught at all levels
of the educational system in Nigeria – primary, secondary,
tertiary. In the same vein, literature ought to be made compulsory
as a school subject in primary to secondary school level.
More importantly, writing residencies and grants, she said,
should be made available to talented and serious Nigerian
writers so that they could produce good literature books for
children and adults. According to her, government, the private
sector and our leaders should institute more literary prizes
of high caliber, and people encouraged to read books. Finally,
University of Lagos should establish a Writer’s Residency
to host a talented Nigerian writer for about three months
every year. |
