Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite [UK ed.] 9781847011091, 1847011098

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Terri Ochiagha holds one of the prestigious British Academy Newton International Fellowships (2014–16) hosted by the School of English, University of Sussex. She was previously a Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

Simon Gikandi, Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University

Series Editors Stephanie Newell & Ranka Primorac

An imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620–2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com www.jamescurrey.com

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Terri Ochiagha

‘Focusing on the emergence of an African elite at Government College Umuahia and their turn to literature as a mode of self-expression, Terri Ochiagha’s Achebe and Friends answers one of the outstanding questions in African literary history: Why did the most important group of pioneer writers emerge from one institution in Eastern Nigeria in the last decades of colonial rule? Ochiagha combines the archival skills of a cultural historian with the sensibilities of a literary critic to produce perhaps one of the most important commentaries on African literature in recent years. This is a remarkable book on the origins of African literature and an unmatched model of how to do the literary history of the postcolonial world.’

ACHEBE AND FRIENDS AT UMUAHIA

Photograph by Carlos del Cerro

This is the first in-depth scholarly study of the literary awakening of the young intellectuals who became known as Nigeria’s ‘first-generation’ writers in the post-colonial period. Terri Ochiagha’s research focuses on Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike, and also discusses the experiences of Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa and I.C. Aniebo, in the context of their education in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at Government College, Umuahia. The author provides fresh perspectives on Postcolonial and World literary processes, colonial education in British Africa, literary representations of colonialism and Chinua Achebe’s seminal position in African literature. She demonstrates how the writers used this very particular education to shape their own visions of the world in which they operated and examines the implications that this had for African literature as a whole. Supplementary material, including original photographs and documents, is available online at http://boybrew. co/9781847011091_2.

ACHEBE AND FRIENDS AT UMUAHIA

The Making of a Literary Elite Terri Ochiagha

Jacket front Detail from School House 1945, Government College, Umuahia (Courtesy of Chike Momah). Full photograph reproduced inside the book Jacket back Novelist Chinua Achebe, Enugu, Nigeria. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1959. Eliot Elisofon Field photographs, 1942–1972, EEPA EECL 7037, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

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ACHEBE AND FRIENDS AT UMUAHIA The Making of a Literary Elite

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ISSN 2054–5673 s e r i e s e d i to r s

Stephanie Newell and Ranka Primorac e d i to r i a l a d v i s o r y b o a r d

David Attwell (University of York) Jane Bryce (University of the West Indies) James Ferguson (Stanford University) Simon Gikandi (Princeton University) Stefan Helgesson (Stockholm University) Isabel Hofmeyr (University of the Witwatersrand) Thomas Kirsch (University of Konstanz) Lydie Moudileno (University of Pennsylvania) Mbugua wa Mungai (Kenyatta University) David Murphy (University of Stirling) Derek Peterson (University of Michigan) Caroline Rooney (University of Kent) Meg Samuelson (University of Cape Town) Jennifer Wenzel (Columbia University) The series is open to submissions from the disciplines related to literature, cultural history, cultural studies, music and the arts. African Articulations showcases cutting-edge research into Africa’s cultural texts and practices, broadly understood to include written and oral literatures, visual arts, music, and public discourse and media of all kinds. Building on the idea of ‘articulation’ as a series of cultural connections, as a clearly voiced argument and as a dynamic social encounter, it opens up innovative perspectives on the richness of African locations and networks. Refusing to privilege the internationally visible above the supposedly ephemeral local cultural spaces and networks, African Articulations provides indispensable resources for students and teachers of contemporary culture. Please contact the series editors with an outline, or download the proposal form at www.jamescurrey.com. Only send a full manuscript if requested to do so. Stephanie Newell, Professor of English, University of Sussex  [email protected] Ranka Primorac, Lecturer in English, University of Southampton  [email protected]

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ACHEBE AND FRIENDS AT UMUAHIA The Making of a Literary Elite

Terri Ochiagha

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James Currey is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) www.jamescurrey.com and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue Rochester, NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com © Terri Ochiagha 2015 First published 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. The right of Terri Ochiagha to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 978–1–84701–109–1 (James Currey cloth) The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate This publication is printed on acid-free paper

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This book is dedicated to all the students, past and present, of Government College, Umuahia To Principals Robert Fisher and William Simpson And to all the teachers and principals who have given their very best for the students and honour of this remarkable institution

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William Simpson, teacher of mathematics, would have been greatly surprised if anyone had said to him in the 1940s that he was preparing the ground for the beginnings of modern African literature. (Chinua Achebe, ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’)

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Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements

viii ix

Introduction: The Umuahian Connection 1 1 Laying the Foundation: The Fisher Days, 1929–1939 19 2 ‘The Eton of The East’: William Simpson and the Umuahian Renaissance 45 3 Studying the Humanities at Government College, Umuahia 69 4 Young Political Renegades: Nationalist Undercurrents at Government College, Umuahia, 1944–1945 91 5 ‘Something New in Ourselves’: First Literary Aspirations 109 6 The Dangerous Potency of the Crossroads: Colonial Mimicry in Ike, Momah and Okigbo’s Reimaginings of the Primus Inter Pares Years 123 7 An Uncertain Legacy: I.N.C. Aniebo and Ken Saro-Wiwa in the Umuahia of the 1950s 145 8 The Will to Shine as One: Affiliation and Friendship beyond the College Walls 155 Works Cited Appendix 1: The Shining Ones: A Bibliography Appendix 2: List of Supplementary Material and Sources Available Online Index

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181 191 195 197

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Illustrations

Map

Nigeria, showing location of Umuahia

18

Tables

Table 1  ‘The Shining Ones’: Umuahian Writers (1944–1952) Table 2  Umuahian writers in editorial roles in school magazines

7 112

Figures

Frontispiece  Government College, Umuahia, 1948 xiii Figure 0.1  Form VI, Government College, Umuahia, 1948 17 Figure 1.1  Reverend Robert Fisher and A.J. Carpenter with attendants to teacher’s workshop, the Administrative Block of Government College, c. 1931. 27 Figure 1.2  The School Crest 31 Figure 1.3  The cover of The Eastern Star 38 Figure 2.1  Government College, Umuahia, 1947 48 Figure 2.2  Second XI Hockey Team, Government College, Umuahia, 1949 58 Figure 2.3  Cricket XI team, Government College, Umuahia, 1948–49 61 Figure 2.4  Cricket XI team, Government College, Umuahia, 1948 63 Figure 3.1  Elechi Amadi’s class after final exams, 1952 84 Figure 3.2  The Mikado, Principals, 1951 88 Figure 3.3  The Mikado, Chorus, 1951 89 Figure 4.1  Chinua Achebe’s dedication in Adrian P.P.L. Slater’s copy of Arrow of God. 98 Figure 6.1  School House in 1945 143 The author and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions

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Acknowledgements

This is an unusual first academic monograph in that it does not derive from a doctoral thesis. It was conceived and tentatively worked on as a parallel and solitary project to counter the tedium – as I saw it at the time – of thesis writing, and an intent to unravel one of the literary mysteries of my youth. Because of its atypical nature, the project has accrued a number of singular debts. I wish to begin by thanking the five authors who inspired this book: Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chukwuemeka Ike, Christopher Okigbo and Chike Momah. The work of the first four writers provided nurturance and solace at pivotal moments in my own travails at the crossroads of cultures. Momah’s work in later years illuminated my understanding of the complexities of colonial education, literary awakening and double-consciousness in more ways than I can tell. I had the privilege of speaking to Chinua Achebe at the ‘Things Fall Apart at 50’ conference in London in 2008 and relayed further questions to him through Chike Momah. I was in contact with Amadi, Ike and Momah through the course of this project. I thank them for the priceless memories and mementoes they shared with me, and for their patience, generosity, and encouragement. I.N.C. Aniebo’s comprehensive answers to my questions in the project’s final phase were most valuable and I am very grateful for his willingness to revisit a painful period of his past. I must also thank Obiageli Okigbo and the Achebe family for their interest and assistance. Other Umuahians have been very supportive. These include Obi Nwakanma, whose insightful disquisitions on Okigbo and ‘the importance of being Umuahian’ were so illuminating, Eugene C. Ibe, veritable reservoir of Umuahian history, Ebiegberi Alagoa, the renowned first-generation historian, whose testimony added depth and nuance, Onyema A. Nkele for images, and last but not the least, Kelsey Harrison. Professor Harrison’s acquaintance was made possible through the mediation of Adonis & Abbey publishers in response to a query on the Umuahia chapter in his biography. Without his continued contribution – archival and memoiristic – this book been much poorer. I thank him for his attentive kindness and cheerful disposition. My tentative and solitary steps became strides after spending Trinity Term 2012 in the University of Oxford as a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony’s College and an Academic Visitor of the African Studies Centre. What began as a short research visit to conduct archival research became one of the most educational and transformative experiences of my life. My heartfelt gratitude goes to

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Professor David Pratten, then Director of the African Studies Centre (to whom I will dedicate a few more words of thanks later), the Warden and Governing Body Fellows of St. Antony’s College, the Senior Members Administrator, Julie Irving, the College Registrar, Emma Sabzalieva, and all the members of College staff with whom I interacted during my stay and who made me feel very welcome. I also wish to extend my thanks to the staff of my second ‘home’ in Oxford, the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, from the head archivist, Lucy McCann and the librarians to the cheerful porters, who always made stepping into its impressive rotunda a welcoming experience. At Oxford, I was also privileged to test part of the research that went into this book. I presented early versions of my research at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing Seminar (convened that term by Elleke Boehmer) and the African History and Politics Seminar (convened by Jan Georg-Deutsch) and more finished sections of chapters 3 and 4 at the Postcolonial Theory and Writing Seminar (convened Elleke Boehmer and Ankhi Mukherjee). I thank the convenors for inviting me to discuss my research in these exacting venues and to their audience for their comments and incisive questions. In Oxford I found friends, a close knit academic community and world class facilities, but also the counsel and guidance of inspiring mentors. My thanks go to Professor Elleke Boehmer for her advice and support. David Pratten encouraged me to apply for senior membership of St. Antony’s College and sponsored my application. From my arrival at Oxford he was a most gracious host and a source of encouragement in a crucial time of professional transition. Thank you, David for your assistance and abiding guidance. David Pratten also introduced me to my current supervisor Professor Stephanie Newell, one of the two editors of the African Articulations Series. A million thanks, Steph, for your generosity and friendship and for being a stellar example of humility, leadership and pristine scholarship. You are always there in moments of doubt and always encourage me, with tact and affability, to push my talents to the limit and reach out for the stars. I also wish to thank Ranka Primorac, co-editor of the African Articulations Series for her forthright and thoughtful observations and her lively disposition. It has been lovely working with you. Special thanks go to James Currey for his enthusiasm and to my editor at James Currey publishers, Lynn Taylor for her counsel and support. My deep thanks to the three anonymous readers of the manuscript for their perceptive and transformative comments. I would also like to thank my copyeditor, Maggy Hendry. Part of chapter 6 first appeared in The Lion and the Unicorn 38:1 (copyright © The John Hopkins University Press 2014) as ‘The Dangerous Potency of the Crossroads: Colonial Mimicry in Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Bottled Leopard and Chike Momah’s The Shining Ones: The Umuahia School Days of Obinna Okoye”

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Acknowledgements

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and a version of chapter 4 appeared in History in Africa: A Journal of Method 41 (copyright © The John Hopkins University Press 2014) as “ ‘A Little Book of Logic’ – Reconstructing Colonial Arts of Suasion at Government College, Umuahia”. I wish to thank the editors, publishers, and anonymous reviewers of these journals, as well as Adrian P.L. Slater’s daughter, Elizabeth Smith, for sending on his notebook and allowing me to reproduce a photograph of Achebe’s dedication of Arrow of God to her father in the History in Africa article and in this book. I was able to get in touch with Mrs. Smith with the help of Professor Lyn Innes. Professor Bernth Lindfors also gave illuminating advice on the location and use of sources at the inception of this project. I revised and edited this book as a British Academy Newton International Fellow at the School of English, University of Sussex. While the fellowship was awarded for a different, albeit related biographical project, it allowed for further archival research opportunities and for working in stimulating scholarly conditions. I thank the British Academy and the School of English, University of Sussex, for hosting my fellowship and providing the scholarly amenities for my work. While conceived of and began in an institutional vacuum I have to ­credit Asunción Lopez-Varela, my thesis supervisor, for convincing me that my personal curiosity about Umuahia could eventually morph into a scholarly monograph. The Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies awarded me the Patricia Shaw Research Prize, which provided funds for preliminary bibliographic research. I am grateful to the interlibrary loan unit at the Faculty of Philology Library, Complutense University, Madrid, to the staff of the School of Oriental and African Studies Archives in London and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. I presented some of my initial impressions in ‘the English Novel in Africa and the African Novel in English Conference’ at the University of Cordoba and the Graduate Seminar of the Department of English Studies of the University of Jaén. I wish to thank CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture for publishing some of my early – and alas, now dated – findings, and University of Alicante’s Vicerrectory of Research for funding my period in Oxford against all the odds. I also wish to thank my sister Lilian for assisting with research at the Umuahia Government College. In the course of my research on this book, I have been privileged to correspond and exchange work with the following scholars, whose work, comments and/or insightful conversations have proved inspirational and elucidatory: Don Burness, Susan Ballyn, Sebabatso Manoeli, María Frías Rudolphi, Meghan Healy-Clancy, Pamela Stoll-Dougall, and Paula García Ramírez. But the genesis of this book stretches further back. Mr. E.N. Igbokwe’s literature classes at Urban Secondary School, Umuna, the first formal setting for my study of the Umuahian writers, sparked my critical spirit and taught me to discern literary value. I want to thank this amazing teacher, who we nicknamed

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‘big boss’ at the time, for his contagious passion. But I would never had developed the quasi-lifetime curiosity on ‘The Umuahian Connection’ that led to this book had I not grown up in a family that fomented the love of literature and the pursuit of knowledge, and for that I will always be grateful. In particular, my mother, Maria del Carmen, has always listened attentively to my literary disquisitions. I wish to thank my aunt, Sagra, for always being there for me and for loving and supporting me unconditionally and wish to extend my gratitude to her partner, César. To my fortress, my beloved maternal grandparents, ‘los Yayos’, Isidro and Carmen, I owe much of who I am today. Thank you for your unconditional love. Thank you for spoiling me with your fierce protection and generosity. ¡Os debo tanto...! My greatest thanks go to Carlos. Thank you for believing in me and for your love and dedication. You lived with this project consistently from the first day, experiencing its many thrills and few frustrations as if they were your own. And in many ways they were, for no one has cared so much about the success of this book nor showered its author with so much unquestioning love.

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Government College, Umuahia, 1948. First Row (freshers), seated third from the right: Elechi Amadi ; seated on the second row (prefects and teachers), second row from the left are .Chinua Achebe, Mr. Ohiwerei, Mr. Ifon, Mr. Alagoa, Mr. Bisiriyu, Mr. Low, Mr. White (Acting Principal), Mr. Wareham, Mr. Longe, Mr. Erekosima and Mr. Opukiri. Fourth Row, standing: third from the right, Chukwuemeka Ike; eight from the right, Chike Momah. Standing fourth from right on the sixth row is Christopher Okigbo. Behind the boy standing besides Okigbo to the right, Kelsey Harrison. Last row, standing fourth from the right, Edward Chukwukere, creator of the school song. (Courtesy of Ed Emeka Keazor. I am indebted for the identifications – with the exception of that of Momah, Ike, and Okigbo – to Kelsey Harrison and The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition)

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Introduction: The Umuahian Connection

London, 17 July 1958. Chinua Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, bursts into the international literary scene. For many, this is the inaugural moment of modern African fiction. Indeed, a rich oral tradition had existed for eons, and African writers had published their work in the continent and beyond before that date. In Achebe’s own Nigeria, Amos Tutuola and Cyprian Ekwensi had recently received some degree of international attention. Their contemporaries, T.M. Aluko and Gabriel Okara had also published short stories and poems in the early to mid-fifties. Pita Nwana, D.O. Fagunwa, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, among others, had penned well-received novels in the country’s major indigenous languages. The Onitsha market writers, so named after the bustling infrastructure that abetted their publishing efforts, were selling pamphlets on the seductions of modern life by the thousands, shaping popular literary tastes. As we will see, the arrival of Things Fall Apart revolutionized Nigerian writing, and this was in part due to its unprecedented global impact. Today, Things Fall Apart is easily the most widely read African novel; it has been translated into more than 60 languages and has sold over 10 million copies. Throughout the world, it features as a set text in secondary schools and university courses in the humanities and social sciences. Most significantly, Things Fall Apart set its author off on the road of literary by wrenching open the doors of the literary establishment for African writers ‘without compromising that legitimacy with racial and cultural condescension which, for a long time in literary history, had been a constant, almost inevitable precondition for granting legitimacy for any intellectual or cultural production,’ as the Marxist critic Biodun Jeyifo put it in a recent tribute.1 The global impact of Achebe’s novel had less to do with his superior intellectual origins and choice of subject matter – the disintegrating effects of colonialism in a self-contained Igbo community and the epistemic violence of colonial discourse – than with his deft transposition of orature, indigenous language, and worldview into the Western medium of the novel to ‘explore in the once-colonial language of English the subtle, often fatal seductions of 1 Biodun

Jeyifo, ‘Chinua Achebe: His Wondrous Passages’, Chinua Achebe: Tributes and Reflections, Nana Ayebia Clarke and James Currey, eds (Banbury: Ayebia, 2014) p. 172.

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the colonial project; and to assert a specifically African voice and historical presence’,2 to use Elleke Boehmer’s words. Things Fall Apart contested the image of the ungodly, savage-ridden Africa purveyed in colonial discourse and the generalized perception of Africa as an intellectual wasteland, relaying the integrity of the Igbo culture and worldview without underplaying its less positive aspects. Achebe’s two succeeding novels, No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964) and some of the short stories he wrote in the sixties continued to deconstruct colonial discourse even as they sought to alleviate the psychic wounds of the ex-colonized. The novels A Man of the People (1966), Anthills of the Savannah (1987), and the extended essay The Trouble with Nigeria (1984), with their insightful exploration of political ineptitude and the malaises of postcolonial Africa, further manifested Achebe’s self-proclaimed didactic mission. Achebe also published a collection of short stories, Girls at War (1972), and a volume of poetry, Beware, Soul Brother (1984), as well as a highly polemical final work, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra (2012), but apart from his ground-breaking early oeuvre, Achebe’s canonical status rests on his essays, many of which are foundational texts of postcolonial theory and criticism. The most infamous of these, ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Heart of Darkness’, originally delivered as a public lecture at the University of Massachusetts in 1975, has redefined not just the teaching and criticism of Joseph Conrad’s work but of other novels of Empire. In the first years following the publication of Things Fall Apart, its paradigm shift fascinated young Nigerian graduates of Achebe’s generation, who decided to channel their creativity – hitherto confined to short pieces in campus periodicals and personal notebooks – into complex literary works. J.P. Clark, Flora Nwapa, Elechi Amadi, Mabel Segun, Nkem Nwankwo, John Munonye, and Chukwuemeka Ike are some of the names that came to the forefront during those magical years.3 Chike Momah, however, chose to bide his time, embarking on a writing career years after the apogee of first-generation writing. Like Achebe and future Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka – whose The Swamp Dwellers, written during his student years at Leeds, was staged in London in the year of the publication of Things Fall Apart – these new writers were alumni of the University College, Ibadan and had participated in its vibrant literary culture. Unlike Achebe, Soyinka, Okigbo, and Clark, they were labeled Achebe’s ‘sons,’ followers’, and ‘imitators’. The official narrative of Nigeria’s literary renaissance thus begins at the University College, Ibadan, then affiliated with the University of London, 2 Elleke

Boehmer, ‘Achebe and His Influence in Some Contemporary African Writing’, Interventions 11:2 (2009), p. 148. 3 I take this phrase from Robert Wren’s Those Magical Years: The Making of Nigerian Literature at Ibadan 1948–1966 (Washington: Three Continents,1990), which is the only full-length work on the impact of the University College on Nigeria’s first-generation writers.

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and the literary networks forged therein. But five of the aforementioned writers shared something else besides – the old school tie. Whether this fact is one of the curious coincidences of history has remained unresolved – until now. * On 22 January 1993, Chinua Achebe delivered the Annual Ashby Lecture at Clare Hall, Cambridge. In the address, evocatively entitled ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’, he described his alma mater, the elite colonial secondary school, Government College, Umuahia, as an archetypal middle-ground, run by British educators who ‘reached across the severe divide which colonialism would have and touched many of us on the other side’.4 Achebe’s memories of Government College focused on the school’s technologies of literary instruction. He also observed: Perhaps it was a mere coincidence but Government College Umuahia alumni played a conspicuous role in the development of modern African literature. That so many of my colleagues – Christopher Okigbo, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi, Chukwuemeka Ike, I.C. Aniebo etc. – should all have gone to one school would strike anyone who is at all familiar with this literature.5 (Emphasis added)

Compare the mark of diffidence – ’perhaps’ – in the above statement with the confident assertion of this book’s epigraph – that the Principal of Government College, Umuahia in Achebe’s time, William Simpson, ‘would have been greatly surprised if anyone had said to him in the 1940s that he was preparing the ground for the beginnings of African literature’.6 The decisiveness of this second claim is not accidental – apart from Achebe himself, three of the six authors in the list (Amadi, Ike, and Okigbo) studied at the Umuahia Government College during the years of Simpson’s principalship. To this number we may add Chike Momah, whose literary career had not yet taken off at the time of the Ashby Lecture. The 1940s – some have extended the timeline to include the 1950s – marked the apogee of Government College, Umuahia. The school’s institutional zenith is reflected in the phrase ‘Primus Inter Pares’ (first among equals), and is often used to refer to this period in Umuahian history. The writers nurtured by Government College in this era achieved different degrees of recognition and success, but their contributions to the growing field of African literature cannot be underestimated. Of the four literati who studied with Achebe at Government College, 4 Chinua

Achebe, ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’, Cambridge Review 114 (June 1993), p. 57. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

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Christopher Okigbo has easily been the most internationally prominent writer. He has been hailed as Africa’s most accomplished and influential modernist poet. He is also the most anthologized poet of the continent. Okigbo’s first works shunned Achebe’s contestatory-cum-didactic impulse and stylistic simplicity in favour of a complex, allusive, introspective and highly aestheticized poetry. Okigbo’s wide range of literary and cultural influences, hitherto nonpareil in African literature included, among many others, traditional incantory modes, classical literature, modernist Anglo-American poetry, and French impressionistic music. His poetic corpus includes the volumes Heavensgate (1962), Silences (1962), Limits (1964), Distances (1964) and Labyrinths with Path of Thunder, published posthumously in 1971. This last work’s committed, plaintive engagement with the boiling crisis that erupted into the Nigerian Civil War marked a turning point in Okigbo’s poetics. His death, aged 36 at the war front further buttressed his legend. While a number of critics took exception to his early euromodernism, Okigbo has drawn the admiration and respect of both African and Western critics, even if he has never found much favour with lay readers. His work has been fundamental in shaping African poetry; he has been a guiding influence on many Nigerian poets, impacting also the work of such Caribbean and African-American poets as Derek Walcott and Jay Wright. Elechi Amadi and Chukwuemeka Ike’s reception in the West has been far less stellar. Elechi Amadi came to a certain degree of prominence with his 1966 debut novel, The Concubine. The novel was published in the highly influential Heinemann African Writers Series (of which Achebe was the editor) and was part of a trilogy that also included The Great Ponds (1969), and The Slave (1978), set in a precolonial Ikwerre village. The major themes were not culture conflict, but love and the vulnerability of humankind in the hands of unforeseen spiritual and cosmic forces. However, critics seemed to focus on the similarities between Amadi’s transliterative recreation of Ikwerre village life and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, instead of analysing the formal, generic, and ideological differences between both authors. Amadi’s civil war memoir, Sunset in Biafra (1973) and fourth novel Estrangement (1986) have received some attention from Western critics. However, the vast corpus of plays (Peppersoup (1977), The Road to Ibadan (1977), Dancer of Johannesburg (1977), The Woman of Calabar(2002)), essays (Ethics in Nigerian Culture(1982), Speaking and Singing (2003) – also featuring Amadi’s poetry)) and science fiction (When God Came and Song of the Vanquished (2013)) receive no mention, except in Nigerian critical circles. Even if there are occasional protests against his tepid reception, for the rest, Elechi Amadi remains one of the many novelists spawned by the success of Things Fall Apart. In sheer contrast to this negligence, he is one of the most popular novelists in Nigeria: his novels appear consistently in secondary school and university curricula and are loved by general readers. He also runs a

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creative writing school in Port Harcourt and is thus expected to leave his direct imprint on a new generation of southern Nigerian writers. Apart from a few short stories, Chukwuemeka Ike’s literary reputation rests on 11 novels and a fictional travelogue written over the course of a protracted career as one of Nigeria’s leading higher education administrators. Through his considerable body of work – Toads for Supper (1965), The Naked Gods (1970), The Potter’s Wheel (1973), Sunset at Dawn (1976), The Chicken Chasers (1980), Exp. 77 (1980), The Bottled Leopard (1985), Our Children are Coming (1990), The Search (1991), To My Husband from Iowa (1996), Conspiracy of Silence (2000), Toads for Ever (2007) and The Accra Riviera (2014) – Ike has illuminated almost every area of conflict in late colonial and postcolonial Nigeria with his trademark satire. While his first four novels, published in the Collins Fontana series, were well reviewed in British papers, his work has not been object of sustained critical inquiry outside Nigeria. Ike’s name is often mentioned in surveys of firstgeneration Nigerian writing in connection with his first novel – and the everpresent comparisons with the work of Achebe – but most other works, especially those published indigenously from the 1980s onwards, have gone unmarked. As in Elechi Amadi’s case, some Nigerian critics and early career scholars have responded to this critical silence. Ike’s novels also occupy a prominent space in West African curricula and are popular with the masses. In 2008, he received the Nigerian National Order of Merit, Nigeria’s highest prize for academic and intellectual attainment and finally, after years critical indifference, he received the African Literature Association’s Fonlon-Nichols Award for Excellence in Creative Writing and Contributions to Human Rights and Freedom of Expression. Chike Momah’s first publication was the essay ‘Government College, Umuahia in the Forties,’ one of the most informative and beautifully written contributions to The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition (1979). Chinua Achebe was the editor of this commemorative volume and one of its contributors, along with Chukwuemeka Ike and Ken Saro-Wiwa. Despite this first incursion in print in the company of his friends, it took Momah another decade to publish further work. Two or three years before his retirement from the library of the United Nations in 1990, he contributed two articles to The African Commentary (1989–91), a magazine published by Chinua Achebe. It was about that time that Momah started to write a full-length novel, Friends and Dreams (1997). He has published five more novels since then: Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva (1999), The Shining Ones: the Umuahia School Days of Obinna Okoye (2003), The Stream Never Dries Up (2008), A Snake Under a Thatch (2008), and The Jericho Wall (2011). With the exception of The Shining Ones, set in the colonial period, the rest focus on a cultural clash of a different kind – that of diasporic Igbo communities and their intents to conciliate traditional expectations with the dynamics of the host country, a theme that no first-generation Nigerian writer had engaged with before Momah.

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* No other colonial secondary school in Africa can boast such a number of renowned writers in one generation, not even Umuahia’s sister school at Ibadan, which produced Cyprian Ekwensi and T.M. Aluko in the 1930s, Wole Soyinka in the 1940s, and Femi Osofisan in the 1960s. But as Achebe mentioned in the Eric Ashby Lecture, apart from the members of the 1940s group detailed above, other renowned Nigerian writers also studied at the Umuahia Government College. Such is the case of the poet Gabriel Okara, a Government College boy in the mid- to late 1930s. He began writing poetry in the early 1950s and gained international renown for the experimental novel The Voice (1964) and its refreshing take on linguistic transculturation, and for The Fisherman’s Invocation, a heavily anthologized collection published in the African Writers Series in 1978, joint winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. His children’s books, published locally in the 1980s and 1990s, have failed to generate critical commentary. Ken Saro-Wiwa and I.N.C. Aniebo were Umuahia students in the 1950s and began writing a few years before the civil war. The work of Nigeria’s secondgeneration writers, like that of their predecessors, reflected the growing sense of disillusionment. Postcolonial contestation no longer loomed large in the agenda; exploring contemporary life with an African readership in mind felt a more pressing need. Despite the relatively lukewarm reception in Western circles, the formal and generic experiments of this new generation reinvigorated Nigeria’s literature. Aniebo made his mark in Nigerian literature through his civil war writing, masterful deployment of the short story form, introspective engagement with what Arthur Ravenscroft has so appositely described as the ‘acrid taste of defeat … usually as the indirect outcome of large social processes’,7 and acerbic criticism – especially directed at the imitation of western literary opinion. While Saro-Wiwa’s environmental militancy and death enshrined him in the collective consciousness, his prolificacy, linguistic experimentation, and weekly engagement with millions of Nigerians as scriptwriter and producer of Basi and Company are among his lasting contributions to African literary history. Taking off from the chronological classification of the Umuahian writers, and considering Achebe’s explicit reference to William Simpson’s role in paving the way for the birth of African literature in the 1940s, the question follows: what factors govern the remarkable concentration of future writers in Principal Simpson’s Government College (1944–51)? In other words, how did the college nurture the literary talents of Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo, and Chukwuemeka Ike during this period, and 7 Arthur Ravenscroft, ‘Aniebo, I(feanyichukwu) N(dubuisi) C(hikezie)’, Contemporary Novel-

ists Accessed 15 June 2014.

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consequently influence the emergence of modern Nigerian literature? What are the exact constituent ingredients and in what proportion did they coalesce into the magical formula that saw the flowering of these authors’ talent in the late fifties and early sixties? Could it be said that Gabriel Okara, I.N.C. Aniebo, and Ken Saro-Wiwa’s careers also sprang from the same institutional source? Class of

House

Chinua Achebe

1944

Niger

Chike Momah

1944

School

Chukwuemeka Ike

1945

School

Christopher Okigbo

1945

School

Elechi Amadi

1948

Niger

Table 1  ‘The Shining Ones’: Umuahian Writers (1944–1952)

Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite is my attempt to answer these questions. It reconstructs the institutional genesis of Government College, Umuahia, its changing ideological and intellectual nature, the humanistic and literary ambience in the years 1944–52,8 its legacy in the mid to late 1950s, and the Primus Inter Pares generation’s shared intellectual life apres Government College. At the core of the project are the subtle and sometimes difficult-to-define ways in which specific texts, events and relationships have inscribed themselves into the lives and posterior work of the aforementioned writers. The Umuahia Government College emerges not as a biographical coincidence or accidental backdrop to these authors’ literary calling, but as ‘the enabling environment that sparked off ’ their careers as creative writers.9 This book is not a comprehensive historical account of the college and does not examine the education and literary beginnings of all the school’s literati to the same extent. It is mainly concerned with a particular generation, studying in particular circumstances, at a particular time. This generation of writers made history by contesting the hegemony of colonial discourse in the literary arena, a discourse they had imbibed and began to abjure in the institutional milieu of the Umuahia Government College. Thus, a study of their friendship and shared education can have profound consequences for the understanding of the patent 8 I



am taking this period as my timeline because the five writers under study were at Umuahia during that interval, even if they all coincided there in 1948. Principal Simpson left Umuahia at the end of 1951, and Elechi Amadi left the college in January, 1953. A close study of Umuahia’s history has led me to confirm that Simpson’s principalship indeed marked the apogee of Umuahia as an educational institution. 9 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2012.

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links between elite colonial education, postcolonial contestation and the politics of literary canonization. * The book’s title alludes to R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends, which explores the tensions attendant upon the protagonist’s colonial education. But most importantly, it enshrines the following argument: that the story of Achebe, Ike, Amadi, Okigbo, and Momah’s schooldays at Umuahia contests and problematizes some of the widely-held notions of canonicity and value that have pushed some of these writers’ reputations into international oblivion. In varying degrees, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike were Chinua Achebe’s friends at the Umuahia Government College and carried over that friendship into their adult life. Rather than privilege the education of Government College’s most famous alumnus, Achebe and Friends seeks to paint a rounded picture of the ways in which each of the five authors under consideration received, appropriated, manipulated and subverted the school’s British literary and cultural models as they developed hybrid subjectivities and the sense of cultural nationalism that was the fulcrum of their posterior literary careers. As mentioned, Christopher Okigbo’s standing as the greatest postcolonial modernist African poet of the twentieth century has never been in doubt, despite charges of obscurantism and ‘euromodernism’. He takes a rightful seat, alongside Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka as a member of the triumphant triumvirate of Nigerian letters. However, Elechi Amadi and Chukwuemeka Ike (on account of his belated career, Momah has been spared such back-handed compliments) have been hastily dispatched as two of ‘Achebe’s sons,’ in a way that leaves no doubt as to its meaning. And yet, the notion of affective power is ‘too vague to throw much light on the concept of literary influences’, as Ihab H. Hassan has schooled us so well to see.10 The Umuahian connection has certainly been ignored in the thorny issue of Achebe’s influence on his contemporaries. As we will see, Ike and Amadi’s literary tastes and inclinations at the Umuahia Government College were also prescient of their future work. The extent to which Ike and Amadi’s work is derivative – and thus implicitly inferior – to Achebe’s cannot be evaluated by a cursory glance at their early novels, eschewing the many and varied works that these writers have published locally in the past three decades. But such is the fate of the writers working in Achebe’s shadow – a shadow shaped more by issues of canonicity and Western reception than on questions of strict literary merit – and which Achebe himself saw as partial and flawed. My concerns mirror what Partha Mitter calls ‘The Picasso Manqué Syndrome’, 10 Ihab

H. Hassan, ‘The Problem of Influence in Literary History: Notes towards a Definition’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 14:1 (September, 1955), p. 67.

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manifest in the quasi-obsessive search for Western putative influence on nonWestern modernist artists, impressing on their purportedly derivative practices ‘a badge of inferiority’. 11 Here the problematic relationship is not between the West and the rest, but rather between the producers of internationally available and local texts, and the imagined opposition between a canonical father and his non-canonical sons. Mitter stresses the political underpinnings ruling the choice of the word ‘emulation’ to describe the artistic efforts of peripheral artists in contrast to the more flattering ‘affinity’ for European artists’ borrowings from non-Europeans. Such hackneyed distinctions do have a pernicious effect – that of negating the agency and individual gifts of these ‘sons’ and seemingly ‘peripheral’ writers, occluding their shared formative experiences, collegiality, and group achievement. Friendship seems to me a more adequate epistemic tool to classify the interactions of the Umuahian writers than the elusive and problematic term ‘imitation’. The Umuahians that this study highlights write alongside each other. A book on the secondary school beginnings of a group of first-generation writers is hardly the place in which to engage in the muchneeded reappraisal of these writers’ independent achievements and their rightful place in African literary history, but it seems like a good place to start. * The secondary education of some of Nigeria’s most celebrated writers in the colonial equivalent of the British public school system – despite its implications for the formation of colonial/postcolonial subjectivities – has remained the stuff of biographical chapters and literary trivia.12 The lack of attention to these institutions cannot be simply ascribed to the disinterest of literary critics. As Adam Howard and Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández highlight, elite education ‘has remained virtually unmapped terrain and remains largely outside the public and scholarly gaze’.13 This is particularly true of elite colonial education in British Africa and its proposed transformation of talented African youth into intellectually empowered, yet politically quiescent colonial replicas of English gentlemen. Achimota College (former Gold Coast Colony), Alliance High School 11

Partha Mitter, The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1922–1947 (London: Reaktion, 2007), p. 7. 12 The following books and essays discuss the dimensions of the colonial schooling of some well-known African writers: Carol Sicherman, ‘Ngugi’s Colonial Education: The Subversion … of the African Mind’, African Studies Review 38:3, (December 1995), pp. 11–41; Bernth Lindfors, Early Nigerian Literature (New York: Africana, 1982); Bernth Lindfors, ‘Ayi Kwei Armah’s Achimota Writings’, The Post-Colonial Condition of African Literature 6, eds, Daniel Gover, John Conteh-Morgan and Jane Bryce (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2000), pp. 125–143. 13 Adam Howard and Rubén A. Gaztambide Fernández, ‘Introduction: Why Study Up?’, Educating Elites: Class Privilege and Educational Advantage, eds. Adam Howard and Rubén A. Gaztambide Fernández (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010), p. 2.

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(Kenya), and King’s College, Budo (Uganda), have received some degree of scholarly attention.14 The similarly renowned Nigerian schools, King’s College, Lagos, Queen’s College, Lagos, and the Government Colleges at Ibadan and Umuahia, however, have remained the preserve of life-writing, school stories, and commemorative volumes.15 The only full-length study of a Nigerian government school – and that admittedly, not in the league of the aforementioned southern colleges – remains James P. Hubbard’s Education under Colonial Rule: A History of Katsina College. The scant scholarship on these bastions of privilege tends to concentrate on curricular structure, staff and student composition, foundational policies and philosophies, and in a few cases, on the immediate professional futures of its students. Such crucial dimensions of elite schooling as the implementation of political pedagogies as part of a ‘hidden curriculum’ and the psycho-cultural convolutions resulting from the simultaneous pull of the students’ indigenous cultural awareness and the anglicizing mission of the colonial school tend to be glossed over or ignored.16 The timeframe of Umuahia’s most literary period coincides with a marked period of upheaval and flux in colonial Nigeria. As I will discuss at length later in this book, rapid post-war concessions and developments heralded a new era of self rule even as anti-colonial nationalism was reaching soaring heights.After years of a pre-eminently vocational model of secondary school education, the impending birth of the University College, Ibadan ensconced the British public school ideal in Nigeria’s leading secondary institutions. No longer tasked with the formation of functionaries to occupy positions in the intermediate echelons 14

See Shoko Yamada ‘Traditions’ and Cultural Production: Character Training at Achimota School in Colonial Ghana’, History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society 38:1 (2009) pp. 29–59. ; Hélène Charton-Bigot, ‘Colonial Youth at the Crossraods. Fifteen Alliance Boys’, Generations Past: Youth in East African History, eds. Andrew Burton and Hélène Charton-Bigot (Athens: Ohio UP, 2010) pp. 84–108.; Carol Summers, ‘Subterranean Evil and ‘Tumultous Riot’ in Buganda: Authority and Alienation at King’s College, Budo’, The Journal of African History 47:1 (March 2006), pp. 93–113. Gordon McGregor, King’s College Budo: A Centenary History 1906–2006 (Kampala: Fountain, 2006).For ‘official’ non-scholarly histories, see Charles Kingsley Williams, Achimota: The Early Years (1924–1948) (Accra: Longmans, 1962) and J. Stephen Smith, The History of Alliance High School (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1973). 15 Apart from my own work on Government College, Umuahia and F.O. Ogunlade’s ‘Education and Politics in Colonial Nigeria: The Case of King’s College, Lagos (1906–1921)’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 7:2 (June 1974), pp. 325–345. In the colonial period, Nigeria also had many good grammar schools. But even the most celebrated among these could not compete with the financial, academic, and pedagogical prowess of the government colleges. Grammar schools appropriated the British public school ethos to some point, but were not as closely twined with the metropolitan ‘original’ as the privileged government colleges. 16 Although not discussing an elite school in the British tradition, Meghan Healy-Clancy’s A World of their own: A History of South African Women’s Education (Charlottesville: Virginia UP, 2014) perceptively examines the active negotiation and appropriation of missionary education in politically-fraught circumstances.

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of the colonial administration, Nigeria’s elite schools became training grounds for intellectual leaders. Despite overarching policies and concerns, education in the British colonies had always been a heterogeneous affair. The sheer diversity of British educationists’ pedagogies and understandings of colonial educational service, in addition to ‘the tension created by imperial attitudes of domination and domestic pedagogical practices being applied in the colonial realm’17 created more spaces of ideological indeterminacy than of willful imperial brainwashing. If, as Philip S. Zachernuk observes in regards to history teaching in Nigeria, ‘more complex possibilities were available in schools in the 1930s, where imperial culture was concentrated and when imperial power was entrenched’18then the liberatory possibilities of humanistic education at the Umuahia Government College of the 1940s, led by an assemblage of maverick teachers, can only be imagined. While my basic hypothesis is that the unique humanistic ambience of the Umuahia Government College – a magical combination of a superior library, a blooming magazine culture, a rule prompted by the principal’s distaste for rote learning, and the aforementioned cadre of exceptional teachers – catalyzed the Umuahian writers’ literary aspirations, nurtured their talent, and helped lay the foundations of their work, I am equally interested in the political dimension of the Umuahia experience. Apart from being Nigeria’s own particular cradle of the muses, Government College – a colonial permutation of the English public school – was a political device, instilling English cultural and political allegiance and the self-assurance of the chosen elite. Elite British schools trained future leaders by subliminally manipulating affect even as they impressed a critical spirit. The Umuahia experience, further complicated by the colonial factor, mounting anti-colonial nationalism outside the school walls, and the ensuing conflict between the school’s ideology of Englishness and the students’ cultural and affective ties with their indigenous communities, had further psychopolitical consequences. Thus, the configuration of the Umuahian writers’ subjectivities at the school, their relationships with each other in its complex space, and the influence of these extra-literary factors on their work have wide-reaching social implications. After all, the understanding of the psychic wounds of empire by this remarkable group of authors helped shape Nigeria’s sense of self as an independent nation. Hence, apart from Umuahia’s literary pedagogies and the ways in which the school’s future writers responded to the colonial library, this study also zooms in on the blurred lines that characterized Government College life: the fluidity of colonial identities, the interface between the symbolic and the literal, the curricular and the ‘passing comments and fleeting images, often 17 P.S.

Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 68:4 (1998), p. 490. 18 P.S. Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, p. 486.

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outside the formal classroom’ that awoke Umuahians to political consciousness.19 I attend to conflicted and often occluded sentiments; to the students’ discernment of their paradoxical position as the high-achieving recipients of a privileged education premised on notions of English cultural and political superiority, and to their self-fashioning in and beyond this intricate space. * One of the reasons for the paucity of research on Government College, Umuahia, is the fragmented nature of its archive. As I discovered shortly after the beginning of my project, Government College, Umuahia lost its colonial mementoes as a result of the uncertain shifts of material in the aftermath of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1971).20Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite is thus tasked with historical and archival reconstitution.This book recuperates a valuable corpus of rare historical sources and re-engages the Umuahian writers in the telling of their particular Umuahia stories, merging the colonial archive with postcolonial perspectives of the college. It exhumes, critiques, and in some cases reproduces ephemeral local texts, such as locallypublished memoirs, school stories and juvenilia, generating new perspectives on these writers’ literary impetus. With the exception of Christopher Okigbo and Ken Saro-Wiwa, all the other Umuahian writers were still alive at the inception of my project. Aware that many of the memories of the college have been irretrievably lost to history, these authors and contemporaries such as Kelsey Harrison, Eugene C. Ibe, and Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa, contributed enthusiastically by generating fresh insights in their oral and written responses to my questions and by delving into the remains of their own personal archives – part of which had also been lost during the civil war – and sending me, with the necessary clarifications, all the memorabilia that they could find. These included photographs, juvenilia, librettos, literary event programs, school periodicals, and other gems. They also pointed me to further sources for my research. From that point onwards, it was easier to follow the trail of these documents and unearth even more treasures. 19 P.S.

Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, p. 490. is unclear when and how these valuable documents disappeared, and if the loss of documents was gradual. It is well-known that several former colonial institutions in Eastern Nigeria lost their archives in the conflict, but Obi Nwakanma recalls seeing sports and student performance records pertaining to the Primus Inter Pares years in the late 1970s. My sister visited Government College, Umuahia in 2008, and despite the kind support of the principal and the school librarian, did not find any material from the college’s colonial period, except a photograph of the founding Principal. The library happened to be flooded on the day of her visit. Kelsey Harrison, a contemporary of the Umuahian authors confirmed that these sources were already missing in the late 1980s, when he visited the college in hopes of retrieving sources for his autobiography, An Arduous Climb: From the Creeks of the Niger Delta to Leading Obstetrician and University Vice Chancellor (London: Adonis and Abbey, 2010).

20 It

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The study of such a complex educational milieu as Government College requires a multifocal approach. Colonial educational policy and the surviving fragments of Umuahia’s colonial archive, set in their historical context, provide valuable insights into the ideological, pedagogical, and organizational aspects of the school. But to illuminate the Umuahian writers’ reception, appropriation, and life-long negotiation of the Umuahian experience, I turn to interviews, life-writing, juvenilia, and literary representations of the college. These sources further enhance our knowledge of the writers’ dreams, aspirations and conflicts as schoolboys, as well as the links between their early writings and their adult work. Moreover, these postcolonial perspectives of the college allow me to ‘read colonial categories such as cricket (and literature) as the markers of the incomplete project of colonialism, as the institutions that allow formerly colonized peoples to hallow new spaces of identity and selfexpression’, as Simon Gikandi does in Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism.21 While more explicitly discussed and signposted in chapters 2 and 6, Homi Bhabha’s theoretical constructs of colonial mimicry – the colonized’s simultaneous appropriation, adaptation, and abjuration of colonial templates – and the liberatory configuration of hybrid selfhood in a third space of cultural translation speak powerfully to the processes I deciphered among Umuahians. Bhabha’s work looms large over this project, but I have also drawn on René Girard’s mimetic theory and Stephanie Newell’s approach to retrieving long-lost colonial readerships in her Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to Play the Game of Life (2002) to illuminate specific, less definable student-teacher interactions at Government College. Due to the scope of my interests, the limited documentary evidence of the college’s humanistic scene in the 1940s, and the lack of immediacy in the alumni’s recollections, I have had to fill in gaps by engaging sporadically in inferential criticism. In doing this, I try ‘always to remain faithful to the historical record, and sensible in using it as a basis for extrapolation: I mean to historicize and interpret with a mutually constraining prudence,’ to echo Paul Elledge’s sentiment on his perceptive work on Lord Byron’s formative years at Harrow School.22 As earlier emphasized, this book is not intended as a comprehensive history of the Umuahia Government College. As the story of the literary-cum-political awakening of a select group of five students, it leans strongly on the memories and perspectives of those most closely connected with its literary culture. Because all but one of the decisive teachers involved in this aspect of the school were European, it may well appear that African masters, non-academic staff, or 21

Simon Gikandi, Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism, (New York: Columbia UP), 1996. 22 Paul Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

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even people from surrounding villages are not given their due in this historical reconstruction. If I were to focus on Umuahia’s early years or on its equally remarkable reputation in science teaching this would have been a questionable omission. But if what we want is facts, and if what occupies us is our protagonists’ humanistic education, then we will have to accommodate less critically fashionable approaches while recognizing the patent links between Umuahia’s dismal postcolonial present and its alumni’s nostalgic recreations of its past. Underestimating the decisive role of the school’s European staff in the Primus Inter Pares generation’s literary destinies can only amount to inverse manicheanism, and the purported fixity of colonial identities is precisely one of the notions that this book argues against. * Rather than follow a strictly chronological course, Achebe and Friends at Umuahia has a circular structure, beginning with the present introduction to the Umuahian writers, moving on to an overview of the Umuahia Government College’s inaugural period and, in the course of four chapters, zooming in on the Primus Inter Pares years. After detouring briefly in 1950s Umuahia, the book fast-forwards to Chinua Achebe’s funeral in a final chapter on the shared literary lives of Achebe, Ike, Momah, Okigbo and Amadi as they leave Government College. Chapter 1 discusses the genesis of Umuahia as a teacher-training institution, its promotion to a secondary school in 1930, and the ideological tensions underlying the school’s simultaneous adaptation to the English public school model and the vocational principles of Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire. The founding principal, Reverend Robert Fisher, and his Achimota-inflected ideas on cultural alloyage come under scrutiny, as do the school’s academic and extracurricular life. Gabriel Okara was a student at Umuahia in the mid- to late 1930s, but we will see the reasons why the school was far less conducive to literary creativity than in the decade that followed. The second chapter examines the transformation of the Umuahia Government College into a bona-fide English public school under the principalship of William Simpson, and the educational and ideological consequences of this change. By discussing the ethos of the college and the regulated regime in which its students operated, I set the ground for the discussion of more specific dimensions of the Umuahian brand of education in subsequent chapters. Here, I signal cricket as one of the college’s cardinal points and an important element in identity formation. I tease out possible conflations between cricket and literary praxis by refracting Okigbo’s imitation of the cricket-obsessed teacher, Charles Low, through the critical lens of René Girard’s mimetic theory, and by discussing Chike Momah’s counter-hegemonic re-articulation of cricket in The Shining Ones: the Umuahia Schooldays of Obinna Okoye (2003).

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Chapter 3 introduces the reader to the teachers who shaped the humanistic ambience of the Umuahia Government College in the period 1944–52. The focus here is on literary resources, curricular imperatives, and pedagogical peculiarities, but the next two chapters zoom in on specific dimensions of humanities training at the college. Chapter 4 examines the conduits of nationalist undercurrents in the college and the ways in which the school authorities tried to rein in and redirect the impact of anti-colonial ideas. With Chinua Achebe and Chike Momah’s experiences in the period 1944–45 as my focus, I reconstruct the inroads of specific pedagogies and moments of political awareness into the authors’ consciousness. Crucially, I exhume an unexpected piece of Umuahia’s fragmented archive – a mysterious textbook of logic – to further illuminate and complicate this occluded part of Umuahian history. In Chapter 5, I turn my attention to creative writing and the school’s magazine culture. I discuss the epiphanic moment in which Umuahians realized that they too, could be active producers of literature rather than passive consumers of the English classics and examine the features and editorial procedures of the school publications, to which most of Umuahia’s writers contributed in some capacity. Time and historical circumstances have worked to erase the record of the first creative stirrings of some of Nigeria’s best known authors. The chapter reveals that two pieces of student writing have been immortalized in an unlikely repository – the critically-acclaimed novels of two of the Umuahian writers. Perhaps more importantly, the chapter exhumes, reproduces and explicates two significant pieces of Umuahian juvenilia in their original form: Chukwuemeka Ike’s short story ‘In Dreamland’ and Elechi Amadi’s poem ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C.’. Chapter 6 examines the ways in which the boarding school stories of two of the Umuahian writers discussed in this monograph – Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Bottled Leopard and Chike Momah’s The Shining Ones: the Umuahia School Days of Obinna Okoye – critique their education at Government College, and interrogate the complexities of self-definition in the liminal space between the British school and the indigenous homestead. To probe into their travails at the crossroads of cultures, I draw upon Homi Bhabha’s ideas of colonial mimicry and the third space. Moreover, I trace links between Amobi’s self-conflict in The Bottled Leopard with the spiritual quest and fulfilment that Christopher Okigbo outlines in Heavensgate. This poetic sequence is not specifically about Okigbo’s years of colonial indoctrination at Umuahia. However, it reflects Ike’s thematic preoccupations and does reference, if succinctly, the Umuahian connection. The seventh chapter serves as an interlude in the story of the 1940s generation and attempts to situate I.N.C. Aniebo and Ken Saro-Wiwa in the overall scheme proposed by this monograph, asking whether there were there significant changes in Government College, Umuahia in the lead-up to independence and whether the school’s remarkable literary ambience endured in this period. Chapter 8 moves beyond the Umuahia Government College to the adult

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world beyond, shadowing the literary pathways of the five authors as they leave their beloved alma mater. It discusses the creative steps these writers took at the University College, Ibadan, what they did in the years leading to the publication of Achebe’s first novel and the nature of their intereactions with each other throughout the 1960s and beyond. The chapter reveals the convergences and divergences in the five writers’ poetics and literary practice and singles out a distinctive Umuahian ethos in their work, explaining why literary affinity and companionship are more apposite terms to describe the writers as a group than imitation and derivativeness. * For close to five decades, Government College, Umuahia remained a sad shadow of its former self. Its dilapidated buildings and neglected grounds were symptomatic of an even greater loss – that of the academic resources that inspired a select number of extremely brilliant boys to become world-class leaders in their chosen fields. In late December, 2014, the Government of Abia State handed over the Umuahia Government College to the Old Boys’ Association. And while the school is set to improve significantly in the coming years, ‘the “old” Umuahia may be a thing permanently of the past’, as Momah once lamented.23 My hope is that through Achebe and Friends at Umuahia: The Making of a Literary Elite, my readers will gain access to that long-lost world: a site of cultural confluence and literary awakening, the seedbed of some of Africa’s most famous writers.

23 Chike

Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Umuahia in the Forties’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Umuahia: Government College Old Boys’ Association, 1979), p. 22.

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Figure 0.1  Form VI, Government College, Umuahia , 1948. Seated at the centre is Mr White, Acting Principal. Third from the right in the first row is Chinua Achebe. First from the right in the second row is Chike Momah’s brother, Godwin. Photograph reproduced courtesy of Ed Emeka Keazor

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Map 1  Nigeria, showing location of Umuahia

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Laying the Foundation: The Fisher Days, 1929–1939

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I don’t know what prompted the British colonial administration in Nigeria in the decade following the end of the First World War to set up two first-class boarding schools for boys in Nigeria, one at Ibadan and the other at Umuahia. The arguments, whatever they were, must be fascinating but I have not been privileged to read them. (Chinua Achebe, ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’)

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the rulers of Mbanta give the missionaries ‘a real battlefield in which to show their victory’: the ‘evil forest’ in which the ‘potent fetishes of great medicine-men’1 are dumped upon their death, and the final resting place of the victims of abominable diseases. The villagers expect the deities of the land to retaliate against the Christians’ disruptive presence. But the missionaries and their congregation flourish, bringing about a profound change in the historical and cultural order. This is a fictional story, but it bears a remarkable similitude to a key event in the history of colonial education in Nigeria. In 1928, Robert Fisher, an English cleric, arrived in the Owerri Province of Southeastern Nigeria to acquire land for creating a teacher training institution. The amused chiefs of the Lodu, Olikoro, and Umudike communities offered him more than 10 square miles of a ‘desecrated’ land used as a burial-ground for outcasts in the relative backwoods of Umudike-Ibeku, four miles from the eastern Nigerian town of Umuahia and 80 miles inland half-way between Port Harcourt and Enugu. For the vast terrains, they exacted the negligible price of two heads of tobacco and twenty pennies per annum for nine years.2 A year later, the Umuahia Teacher Training College opened its doors to twenty-three male students from all over Nigeria, the Gold Coast, and the British Cameroons.3 In 1930, it was promoted to the more enviable status of a boarding secondary school 1 Chinua

Achebe, Things Fall Apart (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 107. C. Ibe, ‘Government College Umuahia: A Tradition of Excellence in Decline’, Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, Accessed 31 July, 2012. 3 These were “selected ex-standard VI boys who had already had some experience in teaching.” Randal F. Hogarth, ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia, 1929–1943’, Umuahia Government College, Nigeria. Information Required by the Member of the Elliot Commission of Higher Education. February 1944. RHL: Mss. Brit. Emp. S 351, p. 2. 2 Eugene

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with the name of Government College, Umuahia. The institution reached its apogee in the early postwar years as ‘the Eton of the East’. Government College, Umuahia was destined to make literary history and to feature prominently in the biography of many influential Nigerians. Its beginnings and various incarnations, as can be intuited in the transaction that secured the foundations on which it stood, were no less remarkable. While the focus of this book is on a later generation, the story necessarily begins with the gestation and birth of the Umuahia Government College. Admittedly, the poet and novelist Gabriel Okara was the sole creative writer to emerge from Umuahia in its first decade. By placing the school’s ideological and educational composition in its proper perspective, it will be possible to explain the reasons for this paucity, trace the origins of some of the most enduring markers of Umuahia’s institutional identity, and anticipate the questions of aesthetic hybridity and cultural alloyage that feature so prominently in succeeding chapters. The Umuahia Teacher Training College materialized amid important changes in British educational policy. Before the 1920s, government involvement in Southern Nigerian education had been minimal. Missionaries had laid the foundation for European education in the nineteenth century and funded most of their educational ventures through missionary societies. From the outset, education was based on utilitarian aims. For the missionaries, it was ‘a way of winning converts, training catechists and workers, creating an African middle class’.4 For the colonized, Western education allowed for access to ‘the white man’s power’, social mobility, and its material benefits. In the early twentieth century, the missions began to demand financial aid from the government to further their educational pretensions, but their requests went unheeded. Towards the end of the First World War, the augmented value of African exports and increased geo-political importance of the colonies triggered the recognition of education as an important facet of colonial policy. Apart from taking more interest in missionary institutions, the colonial authorities began to amplify the number of government-owned schools and colleges. In 1922, as government involvement in education gained momentum, the Phelps-Stokes Commission, sponsored by the Phelps-Stokes Fund and the Foreign Mission Societies of North America and Europe, issued its Report on Education in Africa, which advocated a paternalistic model of education with an emphasis on moral instruction and vocational training. This model, inspired by decimononic ideas for the education of Native Americans and African Americans, was unpopular with

4 Magnus

O. Bassey, ‘Missionary Rivalry and Educational Expansion in Southern Nigeria, 1885–1932’, The Journal of Negro Education, 60:1 (Winter, 1991), p. 36.

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educated Nigerians because they felt that it would perpetuate an employment system in which the African would be exploited as subservient labour force.5 A year later, the Colonial Office, under the insistence of the Conference of Missionary Societies of Great Britain and Ireland, formed its Advisory Committee on Native Education in the British Tropical African Dependencies (renamed Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies in 1929). The purpose of the committee was to advise the Secretary of State for the Colonies on matters of native education and to outline sound educational aims and practices.6 This body published the renowned Parliamentary White Paper, Memorandum on Educational Policy in British Tropical Africa (1925), strongly influenced by the Phelps-Stokes report.7 The White Paper stressed the need for vocational training, collaboration with the missions, and the adaptation of colonial education to indigenous culture, mentality, and aptitudes – an education of the African ‘along his own lines’. The memorandum also emphasized the need for higher education, but Nigerian colonial authorities disregarded this particular counsel. According to James Smoot Coleman, the reason for their cold response was simply that ‘education was to be an integral part of an overall policy of indirect rule, ruling Africans through indigenous institutions, which would regulate the pace of change and prevent over-rapid developments’8, including self-rule. In 1926, at the Imperial Conference, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Rt. Hon. Leopold Amery, echoed the overall attitude of the Colonial Office – that a literary education was unsuited to the mental aptitudes and needs of ‘the natives’.9 Lurking behind these affirmations was the concern of British Colonial officials that, like in nineteenth-century India, academic schooling might result in the emergence of an anti-colonial Babu class.10 Furthermore, in the inter-war years it was generally believed, both in London and in the colonies, that British rule in Africa and elsewhere would last almost indefinitely. There was an implicit assumption that some of the colonies would eventually become self-

5 James

S. Coleman Nigeria: Background to Nationalism. (Berkeley: California UP, 1971) p. 120. Ibeawuchi Omenka, The School in the Service of Evangelization: the Catholic Educational Impact in Eastern Nigeria 1886–1950 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), p. 219. 7 The author of the Phelps-Stokes Report, Jesse Jones, was one of the board’s members. 8 Robert Pearce ‘Missionary Education in Colonial Africa: the Critique of Mary Kingsley’, History of Education 17:4 (1988), p. 282. 9 Clive Whitehead, ‘British Colonial Policy: A Synonym for Cultural Imperialism?’, Benefits Bestowed? Education and British Imperialism, ed. J.A.Mangan (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 212. 10 Clive Whitehead, ‘The Impact of the Second World War on British Colonial Education Policy’, History of Education 18:3 (1989), p. 270. 6 Nicholas

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governing, but that day seemed remote and most practical-minded officials were too preoccupied with day-to-day problems to give it much thought.11

Thus, Nigerian education seemed doomed to serve the interests of Empire while churning out a class of moderately-educated colonial subjects. An intellectual and literary education was certainly nowhere in sight for most young Nigerians in the year of Umuahia’s birth. Two of the key points of the Phelps-Stokes Report on Education in Africa were the stress on teacher training and the recommendation that each Nigerian province have a central training college with boarding facilities. In the mid-twenties, Selwyn Macgregor Grier, Director of Education for the Southern Provinces, and his right-hand man, E.R. Swanston, His Majesty’s Inspector of Education, began to work on this scheme. Both agreed that the government was better qualified than the missions to run training colleges and they decided to establish two such institutions, one at Umuahia (then in Owerri province) and the other at Ibadan (Oyo province). The Umuahia Training College opened its gates on 29 January 1929 under the aegis of Robert Fisher. Its sister institution at Ibadan was founded on 29 May of the same year with C.E. Squire as principal. The choice of clerics to head both colleges demonstrated ‘the importance that the authorities placed on character formation through moral instruction in the institutions which were aimed at producing teachers that would subsequently be responsible for teaching primary school children’,12 following the recommendations of the Phelps-Stokes Report and the White Paper of 1925. The colleges at Umuahia and Ibadan did not remain teacher training institutes for long. After Grier and Swanston left Nigeria, E.R.J. Hussey took over as the first overall Director of Education on 17 July 1929. Hussey had an impressive experience as educational inspector and policymaker. He began his career in the Sudan Educational Service in 1908 and moved on to Uganda shortly afterwards. Here, after extensive fieldwork, he wrote a report which called for major reforms, including the upgrade of Makerere from a trade training centre to a college.13 While on leave in London in July 1924 he impressed the Advisory Committee with his proposed restructuring of Ugandan education. Soon after, he implemented the 1925 White Paper in Uganda and advised on education in Kenya. On his arrival in Nigeria in 1929, Hussey was dismayed to find numerous unemployed Standard VI graduates roaming the streets of Lagos. In the early 1920s, a primary school certificate had sufficed for a junior clerkship, but 11

Ibid. T.M. Aluko, Built on the Rock: The First Twenty-Five Years of Government College, Ibadan (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1979), p. 71. 13 Clive Whitehead, Colonial Educators: The British Indian and Colonial Education Service 1858– 1983 (London: I.B.Tauris, 2003), p. 174. 12

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the increasing demands of government and professional employers had raised the standards for job occupation, resulting in widespread unemployment. To redress this failure, Hussey decided to overhaul the system, as he had done in Uganda. His Memorandum on Educational Policy in Nigeria was published in 1930 and proposed changes based on The Hadow Report (1926), The Education of the Adolescent.14 The main adjustment was a renewed three-tier structure comprising primary schools, middle schools and a higher college. He proposed the promotion of Umuahia and Ibadan, torch-bearers of his academic reform, to middle schools, and Yaba (a suburb of Lagos) as the site of Nigeria’s first tertiary institution. Yaba Higher College was fashioned to train secondary school teachers and to prepare able men to occupy the intermediate echelons of the government service. Hussey considered that government colleges would guarantee the supply of suitable candidates for Yaba, as ‘it would be unreasonable to propose a scheme of higher education dependent entirely on mission institutions or candidates’.15 He had other reasons for converting the Umuahia Teacher Training College into a secondary school. As he pointed out in his memorandum, Umuahia was hardly a good location for teacher training, as there were scarcely any sites around for practical work. Hussey hoped that the Higher College at Yaba (which was eventually founded in 1934) would achieve the status of a university college in due course.16 Yet, despite grueling academic exigencies, Yaba Higher College awarded diplomas and not degrees. It offered courses in forestry, medical studies, engineering, and advanced secondary school teacher training. With the exception of engineering majors, students spent half of their time at Yaba, and the rest as interns in government departments elsewhere. Because the products of Yaba Higher College would work closely with their European colleagues, they were ‘likely to assimilate, to some extent, European standards of living’.17 Thus, to favour the integration of Yaba alumni into the colonial work atmosphere, Hussey proposed the English public school model for the newly upgraded colleges at Ibadan and Umuahia. In England, public schools were sites for the cultivation of the intellect and character, and the preparation of boys for universities and the public services.18 While they were not exactly centers of academic excellence at their inception, the Civil Service’s adoption of written exams increased the quality of the 14

Ibid. p. 175. For the full text of the Hadow Report, visit Accessed 1 July, 2012. 15 14 E.R.J. Hussey quoted in T.M. Aluko, Built on the Rock, p. 7. 16 Y.G.M. Lulat, A History of African Higher Education from Antiquity to the Present (Westport: Greenwood, 2005) p. 217. 17 16 Quoted in T.M. Aluko, Built on the Rock, p. 6. 18 Isabel Quigly, The Heirs of Tom Brown: The English School Story (London: Chatto and Windus, 1982), p. 18.

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education proffered in England’s public schools.19 They were elite institutions not just because of the aristocratic and upper middle class backgrounds of their students, but because they were a required step for admission to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The primacy of the classics in the public school curricula further reinforced their elite and non-vocational nature.20 But how could the public school ideal be adapted to the Nigerian colonial educational system of the early 1930s, considering that Nigerian civil servants were neither on the same footing with their British counterparts nor generally expected to attend full-fledged universities? How could the system work within Hussey’s ‘adaptationist’ and vocational outlook? Both educational models were clearly incompatible. Rather than help young Nigerians ‘adapt to their work atmosphere’, such public school features as the prefectorial system would possibly impress ‘desirable’ attitudes of deference to authority. A.W. Pickard-Cambridge gave a different reason for upholding the public school model at Achimota College: The qualities which fit the young Englishman for the posts which the African covets are not primarily intellectual. They are some of the qualities which are generated unconsciously by his upbringing in homes and schools in which high standards in matters not intellectual are assumed and almost unconsciously acquired.21

Pickard-Cambridge went on to recognize that the ‘high standards’ considered desirable from colonial officers could probably not be fully impressed on African youth because of the degenerative influence of their indigenous homes. And while it is true that character was a cardinal feature of the British imperial ethos, Pickard-Cambridge did not argue convincingly against intellectual training in West African secondary schools. Surely, as he himself implicitly states in the above quotation, intellectual instruction was part of the total package that future colonial administrators attained in public schools. So, why not transplant this particular dimension fully to African soil? In fairness to the Nigerian Education Department, not all government colleges were sites of the ‘education of the African along his own lines’. The premier government college, King’s College, Lagos (founded in 1909) was a clear exception. And despite popular beliefs to the contrary, Hussey did not intend to turn the Ibadan and Umuahia Government Colleges into Nigerian versions of the Clarendon schools. As he underlined in his Annual Report of 1930: At King’s College the pupils are prepared for the School Certificate, but there is also a course parallel to that at Ibadan and Umuahia, in which far greater stress is laid 19

James P. Hubbard, Education under Colonial rule: A History of Katsina College 1921–1942 (Lanham: University Press of America, 2000), p. 31. 20 Ibid. 21 A.W. Pickard-Cambridge, ‘The Place of Achimota in West African Education’, Journal of the Royal African Society 39 (1940), p. 152.

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on general science and handwork, and students who wish to prepare themselves for matriculation in Yaba will follow this course … These courses are forerunners of vocational courses at the projected Higher College at Yaba. At Umuahia and Ibadan a good start has been made in science, and though no definite syllabus has been drawn up, the embryo of a modern school curriculum is in being.22 (emphasis added)

In his memoirs, published posthumously in 1959, Hussey was even more explicit on what he thought was ‘an excellent model’ for the Government Colleges at Ibadan and Umuahia: Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire, a boarding agricultural school for ‘rural boys’ with science and agriculture as its curricular mainstay.23 Government College, Umuahia, became a middle school in January 1930. Despite the fact that he disagreed with some of Hussey’s policies,24 Reverend Robert Fisher was well suited, by training, experience and temperament, to take up the challenge of transforming Umuahia into a notable institution within the vocational framework proposed by the Education Department. He studied at Marlborough College, Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Wells Theological College. In 1909 he took Holy Orders and began his tenure as Curator of St. Mary the Virgin Church, Tottenham. Shortly afterwards, Fisher answered the call to travel to Africa as a missionary, where he alternated priestly functions with educational duties. His first appointment was as principal of the Grammar School and the Government Training College at Accra. In 1920, he took up a place in the Education Department of the Gold Coast and taught at the famous Achimota College. Upon arrival in Nigeria, the Education Department commissioned him to establish and direct the Umuahia Teacher Training College. Fisher’s dual position as a missionary and a government education officer conditioned the new school’s projected identity. As a senior education officer, Fisher was concerned with implementing official policy at the college. As a missionary with strong moral and humanitarian convictions, he sought to be a father figure to the boys, whom he wanted to shield from racial prejudice and the more stringent dimensions of colonial rule. These dual impulses, strengthened 22

E.R.J. Hussey, Annual Report on the Education Department, Nigeria for the Year 1930 (Lagos: Government Printing Office), p. 18. 23 E.R.J. Hussey, Tropical Africa 1908–1944: Memoirs of a Period (London: St. Catherine’s, 1959), pp. 90–91. 24 Charles W. Weber cites “an especially critical letter from R. Fisher of the Umuahia Teacher Training College to Oldham, 4 April 1930” in Intellectual Influences and Baptist Mission in West Cameroon: German, American Missionary Endeavour under International Mandate and British Colonialism (Leiden: Brill, 1983), p. 94. Hussey was generally held in high esteem in educational circles, but had a difficult relationship with the missions. He wanted government not just to fund and manage the educational work in mission schools, but also to determine curriculum and school facilities, much to the dismay of missionary bodies. See Whitehead, Colonial Educators , p. 176.

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by his Achimota experience, molded the educational philosophy he outlined in 1935 as leading officer of a coalition of five southeastern Nigerian colleges: 1. We stand for the unity of our Colleges. Not that we shall lose our individual characters … Our aims and purposes are the same; in the Colleges the development of true manhood; out of the Colleges the development of the people, through us working together in one united group. 2. We stand for the closer union of our various Christian organizations, for the recognition that the Body of Christ is One; and by our unity, working in one group together, we mean to develop friendship and co-operation with the Missions in every way we can. 3. We stand for close friendship and co-operation between the races. Nowhere is this friendship and this work shared in common more intensely than in Our Colleges; nowhere is it easier to understand one another or to wipe out misunderstandings; and this readiness for friendship and co-operation we carry beyond the College walls into the working world outside. 4. We stand for Action; Action; Action. We will not merely think an idea is good, and leave it there …25 Fisher’s design for the school crest – also inspired by Achimota’s emblem of black and white piano keys to signify the co-operation between the two races26 – stressed a similar impetus. It was emblazoned with ‘black and white torches intertwined, to show that here black and white work together to raise the light of learning high for the illumination of the people.’27 25

Robert Fisher, ‘Editorial Notes’, The Eastern Star 1:4 (1935) p. 6. It is remarkable that Fisher’s ideals were copied almost verbatim from the ideals of Achimota College (see the school’s website at< http://www.achimota.edu.gh/ > Accessed on 28 August 2012):   “ACHIMOTA STANDS FOR:   The best use of the minds and bodies which God has given us   An equal opportunity for girls and boys in education   Respect for all that is true and of lasting value in the old African culture, beliefs and ways   of life   Willing, humble service of the educated for the uneducated   Mutual understanding and cooperation between Christians of all denominations and the    growth of that spirit in which the churches shall one day be united again   Friendship, respect and cooperation between all races on equal terms   The belief , on which all else rest, in Jesus Christ as the revelation for all time and all    peoples of the love of God, and as the guide and pattern of our lives. 26 James Kwegyir Aggrey, the vice-principal of Achimota, used the image of the black and white keys of the piano to signify the desired co-operation between the races. Upon his death, Fraser commissioned a shield that embodied this idea. See Cati Coe, Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth Nationalism and the Transformations of Knowledge (Chicago UP, 2005), p. 34 and E.M. Bourrett, Ghana: The Road to Independence 1919–1957 (Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1960), p. 135. 27 Quoted in Edward Harland Duckworth, ‘The Editor Visits Government College, Umuahia’, Nigerian Teacher 1:5 (1935) p. 24.

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Figure 1.1 Reverend Robert Fisher (centre) and A.J. Carpenter with attendants to teacher’s workshop, sitting at the steps of the Administrative Block of Government College, circa 1931 (Reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford; MSS. Afr. S. 141, Album 2, p. 1 (lower left))

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Fisher worked hard to achieve these aims while fulfilling Hussey’s expectations. As aforementioned, the adaptation of Government College, Umuahia to the public school model was necessarily partial. It was, however, a potent publicity tool for the Government. As Chinua Achebe recalled, in the early 40s, Government College ‘was rapidly developing a reputation as the Eton of the East, and I fancied receiving an education akin to the royals of England!’28 The lack of references to Umuahia’s less glamorous educational model – Dauntsey’s – in the 1930s alumni recollections reflects the success of the inaccurate public school reputation. The archival evidence shows that Umuahia’s public school features during this period were limited to the adoption of house and prefectorial systems,29 Saturday inspection parades, and a highly regulated timetable. Apart from set periods for prep, games, prayers, class work and technical activities, every morning, students partook of Fisher’s mental arithmetic scheme, which involved solving twenty-five problems in a slot of ten minutes. The senior students devoted periods to ‘practicing the art of reading aloud’, and a selected few were further instructed in ‘social ease of manner and the art of intelligent conversation, other than the yes or no type, by being asked out to lunch or tea by members of the European Staff.’30 After evening prep, the teachers took turns overseeing a free period from 8.35 to 9, during which students partook of diverse hobbies, such as sewing, entomology, photography and violin playing.31 Weekends were mostly free except for the inspection parade on Saturdays and religious services on Sundays.32 Saturday night entertainments featured music, plays, and Old English Folk Dances – popular among the boys but probably introduced for the enjoyment of the expatriate visitors and members of staff. The boys’ dramatic performances included Greek myths, fairy tales, Bible stories, scenes from history, and elaborate Shakespeare productions. Fisher was particularly keen on indigenous dances, plays and songs, following the Achimota example.33 Students like Achebe were to feel the lack of local stimuli keenly 28

Chinua Achebe, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 20. 29 The school was not divided into houses until 1934. The principal created three houses and placed them under the direction of Randal Hogarth, A.J. Carpenter and R.F. Jumbo. From 1937 onward the houses were entirely in charge of African Housemasters. Prefects were appointed for the first time in 1936. 30 Edward Harland Duckworth, Notes on Umuahia Government College: June 1931 p. 2. RHL: Mss. Afr. S. 1451 (box 4) 9. 31 Edward Harland Duckworth, Notes on Umuahia Government College: June 1931 p. 29; Randal F. Hogarth, ´A Short History of Government College, Umuahia’, p. 2. 32 Hogarth, ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia”, p. 2. 33 Achimota was famous for its incorporation of African arts and dress, music, customs and traditions into the school syllabus. As C. Kingsley recounts in Achimota: The Early Years 1924–1948 (London: Longmans, 1962), p. 72 Robert Fisher was responsible for introducing indigenous drumming at Achimota.

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in the 1940s. But ironically, the effective transplantation of the public school model that they yearned for then preempted recognitions of cultural parity. All theatrical endeavours were overseen by Randal F. Hogarth, who also directed the construction of theatre props for these plays.34 The cult of games – pivotal to the British public school system – was strikingly stifled in the school’s early years, as Edward Harland Duckworth enigmatically reported in 1931.35 Voluntary games included cricket, tennis, hockey, athletics, football, netball, basketball, volleyball, ping-pong, and padder tennis. Sports periods were regularly substituted by farm work and scientific fieldwork. Notwithstanding the progressive incorporation of sports from 1933 onwards to buttress religious fellowship between the college and protestant institutions East of the Niger, agricultural activities remained of vital importance at Government College. According to Hogarth, this ‘was with view to these future teachers being able to develop this subject practically in the schools in the country.’36As in Dauntsey’s School, Biology and Chemistry were constantly linked with practical Agriculture. A.J. Carpenter, the author of the influential text-book West African Nature Study (1936), supervised most farm work. Yam farming was of particular importance; it enabled students to earn money for books and equipment, and at the same time responded to governmental injunctions for vocational training. Apparently, students did not find fault with the school’s agricultural bias; in a 1935 interview with Duckworth,37 Fisher affirmed that maybe ‘one in a fifty’ boys could find the amount of farm work cumbersome. Duckworth’s questions on students’ reactions to farm work, however, betrayed the potential of this curricular peculiarity for political dissent. Apart from practical and theoretical agriculture, special attention was given to occupational activities such as handcraft, metalwork, needlework, carpentry and mechanical drawing. The staff changed constantly in the period 1929–1937. As Hogarth recounts in ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia,’ the small cadre of 34

See R.F. Hogarth, ‘School Plays – We make our own properties at Umuahia’, Nigeria Magazine 17 (1939), pp. 58–60 and ‘African Schoolboy Acting’, Nigeria Field 9:1 (January 1940), pp. 43–46. 35 Edward Harland Duckworth, Notes on Umuahia Government College: June 1931 p. 22. RHL: Mss. Afr. S. 1451 (box 4) The suppression of cricket was much more significant than Duckworth let on, as we will see in Chapter 2. 36 Randal F. Hogarth, ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia’, p. 2. 37 Edward Harland Duckworth was instrumental to the development of the science curriculum in the early years of Umuahia’s transition into a secondary school. He spent months at a time at the college, observing, teaching science, and introducing useful innovations in the school’s science curriculum. Duckworth established scientific fieldwork as a substitute for games, encouraged students to fill up exercise books during their holidays on “the local use of medicinal plants, the preparation of drugs or dyes” and set up a biological museum with the specimens that students brought from their forays in the bush. (See Notes on Umuahia Government College: June 1931)

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permanent faculty consisted of Principal Fisher, W.R. Roberts, R.F. Jumbo (Senior African Master), and Hogarth himself. Academic subjects – English, History, Biology, Chemistry, Geography and Mathematics – were studied on a modified Dalton system in which students devoted five class periods per week to study these subjects and four officially stipulated periods for extensive assignments. These tasks evaluated the work covered in four weeks. Detailed plans of work for a month ahead were issued to each student. A further week was allowed for writing, and then students would hand in an exercise book with their assignments. The faculty corrected this work by highlighting errors in red ink and letting students discover and correct their mistakes opposite the teacher’s mark.38 The use of this idiosyncratic system responded to the fact that at no time were external examinations (set in England) either encouraged or taken because of Mr. Fisher’s strong conviction that they were entirely unsuited to the real education of the African student: one or two boys left for other colleges because Latin was never taught at Umuahia. It was found vitally necessary to concentrate on English to prepare soundly for more advanced education by way of the entrance examination to the Higher College Yaba. There was however no narrow cramming for this examination: rather it was just part of a wider curriculum.39

Fisher was adamant that Umuahia should serve as a model school to serve less privileged colleges and the community beyond. Apart from hosting refresher courses for government school teachers and inviting students from protestant missionary colleges for science lessons, the main cooperative venture with other institutions was The Eastern Star, a league of secondary schools including C.M.S. Training College, Awka, Methodist College, Uzuakoli, Dennis Memorial Grammar School Onitsha, Government College, Umuahia and Hope Waddell Presbyterian College, Calabar. The coalition was born on of 18 March 1934, following Reverend Fisher’s farewell address to student visitors from other colleges: ‘Tonight in this chapel we feel united: tomorrow we all go our own ways, never to be re-united here till two full years are passed: is there nothing we can do to save this spirit of unity?’40As early as in 1929, Umuahia had been playing football against C.M.S. College Awka and the Methodist College Uzuakoli, but the first inter-college school meeting took place in 1932. From 1934 onwards, 38

See Helen Parkhurst, Education on the Dalton Plan (London: G. Bell & Sons 1927). The Dalton plan, named after the school in which Parkhurst first implemented this pedagogical system, was a progressive, student-centred approach without a traditional curriculum and timetabletimetables in which students progressed through their studies at their own pace. It emphasized flexibility, responsibility and creative interaction. The plan was constituted of three parts: house, which provided a community for the student, laboratory, in which students received personalized attention individually or in pairs, and assignment. 39 Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 5. 40 Quoted in Hogarth ‘Short History’, p. 19.

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Figure 1.2  The School Crest (Courtesy of the Government College, Umuahia Old Boys Association)

the Eastern Star colleges regularly engaged in inter-school football and athletics competitions. The students of Government College also arranged games for village boys, gave performances in the surrounding communities, and held open days in which the villagers could enjoy the school’s magnificent grounds and recreational features. One of the highlights included the apple of Fisher’s eye: a model of the White Horse Valley, built by students and staff. The replica ‘illustrated an industrial valley which included water-falls, a timber chute, rivers, locks, mountain railway, a moving stair case and in later years an active volcano, the LagosKano plane, tanks and a great highway.’41 It boasted an intricate mechanism that Form III operated on ceremonial days to the delight of the villagers. The college 41

Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 4.

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also took pride in an English-style park with a bandstand, bed of dahlias, and a crocodile pond, in the middle of which was a fountain. Sometimes, the school band would also march out to the villages. Apart from these diversions, the college led more serious outreach projects. In 1935, for instance, the boys helped build a waiting-hall for the outpatients of the Native Administration Hospital, and in 1938, at the request of Mr. Thomas, the school’s Medical Officer of Health, they erected a model village (scale 1:12) in the college grounds to ‘show chiefs and Elders and other visitors the best way in which a village should be laid out with regard to hygiene and sanitation’.42 Christianity was of crucial importance in the school. Apart from daily morning and evening prayers, Protestants attended a short united service on Sundays and received scripture lessons, consisting of ‘Bible stories with the junior [and] Bible History and Church History for the seniors’43 throughout the week. Occasionally, Reverend Fisher prepared students for confirmation. Roman Catholics worshipped in a separate room on Sundays44 and received the visit of a priest once or twice a week for religious instruction. The forms used in the Protestant Sunday service were specially adapted, and combined the ‘set’ form of the Church of England and the ‘free’ form of other Christian denominations. Fisher tried to incorporate African influences in the chapel by having a Benin artist, working under the supervision of Mr. Hogarth, carve the chapel altar on iroko. The carving consisted of all animal creation praising God, and comprised thirty-nine animal figures. Around the edge of the altar was carved the beginning of the Umuahia song, a slightly adapted form of the hymn of Francis of Assisi: All Creatures of Our God and King, Lift up your voice and with us sing, Alleluia! Umuahia! Alleluia!45

This singular piece did not incorporate ‘the conventionalities or designs of Benin work’46, but rather fulfilled Fisher’s ideas of artistic syncretism: African craftsmanship refined by exposure to European expertise. Reverend Fisher and his wife, Ruth, were enthusiastic about the altar and successfully persuaded the authorities of C.M.S. College Awka to use local craft of wood carving in their own chapel.47 Fisher repeatedly campaigned for cultural tolerance and promoted what he found of value in indigenous culture including dances, artistic 42

Reverend Robert Fisher, ‘The Village of Moh (Umuahia)’, Nigeria Magazine 13 (March 1938) p. 44 43 Hogarth, Short History of Government College, Umuahia. 44 Edward Harland Duckworth, Notes on Umuahia Government College: June 1931, p. 29. 45 Robert Fisher, ‘Report’, The Eastern Star, 1:4 (October 1935), p. 14. 46 E.H. Duckworth, ‘The Editor Visits Government, College Umuahia’, p. 48. 47 B.J.S. Watkins, ‘College Report’, The Eastern Star, 1:4 (October 1935), p. 9.

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techniques, traditional songs, and vernacular names. This tendency also derived from his Achimota experience.48 And despite the fact that ‘the speaking of English was compulsory up until supper time: a tradition which grew gradually and was well observed’, indigenous languages were somewhat given their due at Government College. Students were encouraged to enact English plays in their own language during Saturday entertainments. The Ibo Translation Bureau was located within the school premises, and the students took part in its activities. Scholars like Ida C. Ward of the School of Oriental Studies visited the college and – Hogarth dixit – ‘opened the eyes of staff and students to the structure of their own language’.49 The school served as a base for the independent system of artist education that Kenneth Murray, former itinerant evaluator of Nigerian art for the colonial government, founded under the auspices of the Education Department. The scheme fitted the Umuahian ideal of cultural alloyage and was based on the conviction ‘that indigenous arts and crafts should form the basis of Nigerian art’.50 It involved a two to three-year programme under the private tutelage of a European art teacher, after which students would go over to middle schools and training colleges to combine the study of art with other general courses. After a year at Government College, Ibadan, Murray transferred to Umuahia in 1934 with five ‘special students’: C.C. Ibeto, D.L. Nnacy, A.P. Umana, B.C. Enwonwu and Uthman M. Ibrahim, and they remained at Umuahia until their graduation in 1937. According to Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbuechie, Murray’s art programme, devoted to ‘African art and its modes of production relative to European traditions’ included painting (with special emphasis on the use of watercolour), drawing, modelling, African crafts, art criticism and appreciation of European art. 51 The ‘Murray Group’ also partook of some of Umuahia’s vocational courses and a general course. Murray also taught the regular students of the college to paint in watercolour, and ran voluntary classes in other techniques. Murray’s students thrived in the tranquil atmosphere of Umuahia. Their notable works of art, many of which graced the college’s corners, came to garner considerable attention at Lagos and in London. Enwonwu, considered the most talented of the group, named two of his works after the school: Umuahia Revisited (1935), a watercolour painting that formed part of the celebrated exhibition at the

48

See Cati Coe, Dilemmas of Culture in African Schools: Youth, Nationalism and the Transformation of Knowledge (Chicago: UP, 2005), p. 59, A.W. Pickard-Cambridge ‘The Place of Achimota in West African Education’, p. 145–49, and E.M. Bourret Ghana: The Road to Independence 1919–1957, p. 135. 49 Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 3. 50 Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist. (Rochester: UP, 2008), p. 37. 51 Ibid.:39.

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Zwemmer Gallery in London,52 and Umuahia College Dining Hall (1938), the prize-winning work acquired by the International Business Machines (IBM) for its art collection in San Francisco, California. Despite the success of his art students in international exhibitions, the Education Department held back on the possible outcomes of Murray’s scheme. All that the special group earned for their exertions were a diploma to enable them teach at both mission and government colleges. Thus, after Murray left in 1937, Enwonwu stayed on at Umuahia as arts teacher. While the emergence of notable artists under Murray’s intricate programme is prescient of the blooming of the literary talent of Achebe and his friends and their fusion of English and indigenous literary modes, literary studies in the 1930s were decidedly stifled. The school library, originally conceived as one of the mainstays of the school’s modified Dalton system, was principally filled with textbooks. Duckworth’s 1931 report lists the few literary works available in the library at the time: the Red Letter Shakespeare series, Everyman Library editions of Thomas Carlyle and Henry David Thoreau, and poetry volumes by Browning, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Longfellow. Apart from the ever-present Shakespearian plays, the list features an eclectic mix of Romantic, Victorian and American authors of differing religious, aesthetic and ideological inclinations. Carlyle and Thoreau, for instance, enshrine radically dissimilar perceptions of slavery and colonialism. Nevertheless, their work foments independent thinking and leadership qualities that were not tenable in the colonial regime of Nigeria in the 1930s. The political consequences of a careful study of these authors’ work could only generate ‘frustration and possibly rebellion’, to quote Gauri Viswanathan.53 Were Umuahia’s literary acquisitions arbitrary, or was there an underlying principle guiding the inclusion of certain texts in its meagre library? An answer may be found by considering the expansion of the library holdings in the mid- to late thirties. In 1935, the librarian, Ben Okafor divulged that the school had acquired ‘works of fiction that have stood the test of time and become English Classics’ as well as numerous history, theology, astronomy and psychology books.54 Hogarth also reported that around this time the college acquired ‘a large graded selection of books in the library for private reading,’55 as well as set texts for English classes. These included William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, P.C. Wren’s Beau Geste, John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln, H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, Logan Marshall’s 52

For photographs of some of these art-works, see Edward Harland Duckworth, ‘The Editor Visits Government College, Umuahia’ and Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist. 53 Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 56. 54 Ben Okafor, ‘The Eastern Star Lending Library’, The Eastern Star, 1:4 (October 1935), p. 41. 55 Randal F. Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 11.

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The Wonder Book of Bible Stories, Caroline Dale Snedeker’s Theras: The Story of an Athenian Boy and Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Quentin Durward, in addition to the anthologies Real Adventure and Adventures of Travel. What these texts had in common was their colonial bias, historical bent and configuration of nineteenth-century masculine ideals. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of student reader-response. Taking into consideration the adaptationist outlook of the college and the expected place of Umuahia’s students in the colonial scheme of things, it is plausible to consider that these texts were selected not to train ‘ a ruling elite but setting [students’] attention on reform of their own society,’56 one of the precepts openly espoused by the college. This theory gains force if we consider the inclusion of Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery, charting his personal uplift and establishment of vocational schools with the help of benevolent white educators and philanthropists, and Tuskegee and its People: Their Ideals and Achievements in the library catalogue. Both books validated colonial subservience in general and the school’s vocational thrust in particular. The teaching of history followed a similar pattern: This subject has been treated experimentally with changes from time to time: the most successful approach being made in Form I from the ‘personal’ side through Rhoda Power’s Great People of the Past dealing with the outstanding and constructive human characters in world history: in form two this was followed up with King-Hall’s Letters to Hilary introducing fundamental historical ideas as well as persons: an inspiring bird’s eye view: this was developed in form III with the use of such books as Well’s ‘Junior Outline’ (sic) [Junior Outline of History] and parts of Van Loon The Story of Mankind.57

As the historian P.S. Zachernuk explains, pedagogical experimentation and ideological ambivalence marked history teaching in 1930s Nigeria. Hogarth admits as much in the above appreciation – the study of history at Government College had not been monolithic in its first decade. Still, ‘the most successful approach’ (although Hogarth does not specify exactly for whom) accents the use of life-histories, which W.E.F. Ward and Frederick Lugard had found optimal to impress moral standards and attitudes of servility to Western civilization and power.58 The textbooks assigned at Government College were written with a Western readership in mind, even though ‘a wide and well-established community, reaching from Nigerian schoolrooms to the committee rooms of the

56

Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest, p. 57. Randal F. Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 11. 58 See W.E.F. Ward ‘The Writing of History Textbooks for Africa’, Africa 7 (1934), pp. 17–8; P.S. Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, Africa 68:4 (1998), p. 490. 57

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Colonial Office [were] actively interested in developing the study of African history in colonial schools’ at the time.59 While not the literary oasis that the college became in the 1940s, the Umuahia of Fisher’s days enabled a literary culture of a different kind. In 1934, the principal founded The Eastern Star, the official journal of the eponymous college alliance. Its principle mission was to serve ‘as a means of unity among the colleges’.60 The students of its constitutive schools and government institutions like King’s College, Lagos and Government Secondary School, Owerri, were encouraged to participate in general knowledge quizzes and send in 600-word entries to the essay competitions, but most contributions were written by the editor – Fisher himself – colonial educators, and legendary missionaries like Bishop Lasbrey and Archdeacon D.C. Crowther. The Eastern Star was not a typical school periodical. Rather, it was ‘written exclusively for the Old Boys of the college with the avowed purpose of binding them together in one unity and fraternity in close alliance with their old schools; so that through them we can influence the whole of the Ibo and Efik country.’61 In other words, Fisher sought to use the magazine to exert something akin to the colonial educational influence on its alumni and a wider ‘semi-educated’ public. He edited the magazine, wrote most entries and announced his ‘right to effect such changes in articles published as appear to be advisable from the point of view either of language or clarity; also to cut articles or take extracts from them.’ The Eastern Star was published three times a year. A typical number was forty pages long and featured an editorial, editorial notes, college news, amusement pages, articles on world current affairs, colonial educational policy, information on bills under consideration by the government, interviews with administrators in charge of public welfare institutions, campaigns against bribery and other vices, dialogues and short stories, extracts from award-winning essays62 and information on social and outreach projects. Most subscribers constituted themselves into Eastern Star groups. These clusters met regularly to discuss the magazine’s articles and proposals, participate in the many ethical and political debates that arose within its pages and converse about the books that they borrowed from the Government College library. Occasionally, they also attended lectures at Umuahia. Among the issues discussed at these meetings were ‘native’ beliefs and institutions, the problem of bribery, plans to help ex-Standard VI boys and village teachers, and outlines for social work in backward villages. Fisher’s aim was to make subscribers feel 59

P.S. Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, p. 493. Randal F. Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 19. 61 E.H. Duckworth, ‘The Editor Visits Government College, Umuahia’, Nigerian Teacher 1:5 (1935), p. 55–27. 62 Interestingly I.T. Erekosima, who rose to become the college’s first African principal, and the eminent historian Kenneth Dike were among the lucky victors of these compositions. 60

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that they belonged to a fraternity with a purpose. Together, Eastern Star groups coalesced into what Stephanie Newell has described as a paracolonial network. Newell uses the term ‘paracolonial’ to describe new social relationships and cultural flows, especially literary and social clubs which ‘in membership, organization, subject matter, dress codes and language choice were facilitated by British colonial presence, and yet in all of these areas created meanings which were not generated in the metropolis.’ 63 Eastern Star groups, while individually run by Nigerians for Nigerians, were facilitated by Fisher, a representative of colonial authority. Through trusted delegates in each group, Fisher kept a watchful eye on activities and mediated the political information available in the magazine’s articles and the moderately polemical pieces presented for publication. This intervention, as he himself admitted, made ‘[colonial educational] power and influence so much the greater.’64 He did try, however, to present opposing views (especially on debates on ‘the retention of Native Institutions’, one of his favourite topics) and tried to assuage severe cases of mental colonization. But his palliative intentions were fraught with contradictions, as the cover art of the Eastern Star clearly expressed. It featured an ‘eastern star’ shining on a group of quasi-naked Africans while banishing three shadowy ‘native’ figures representing disease, superstition, and ignorance. In a feature in the Nigerian Teacher magazine Fisher describes the image thus: ‘The illustration on the cover represents a man, a woman and a child extending a very hearty welcome to the wraiths of ignorance, superstition and disease, who are apparently coming to visit them. But, perhaps, the family trio are really waving them away!’65 This description was obviously a promotional move to arouse interest in the publication, but the cover embodied a recurrent problem that teachers at Umuahia, Achimota and similarly-premised colleges never entirely solved: What exactly is the best in African life and customs? What constitutes a valuable tradition as opposed to an ‘ignorant belief ’ and a ‘superstition’? These questions permeate the articles and sketches submitted by some of the magazine’s readers. Towering above these questions was the most important dilemma of all: who sets the standards by which such issues are to be judged?66 As Shoko Yamada explains, despite the attempts of Achimota staff to avoid 63

Stephanie Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to Play the Game of Life (Manchester: UP, 2002), p. 44. 64 Robert Fisher, ‘Editorial’ The Eastern Star, 1:4 (October 1935) p. 14. In the absence of pertinent archival material, it is difficult to surmise the real extent of Fisher’s editorial control on the pieces submitted to the magazine. In some cases, Fisher tried to present opposing views to questions by quoting – not commenting on – extracts from essay competitions. In N.O. Ejiogu’s ‘Christianity and Native Customs’, The Eastern Star, 1:4 (October 1935), 25–30, which I discuss later, his editorial input is clearly marked out from the original dialogue. 65 ‘The Eastern Star’ Nigerian Teacher 1:4 (1935), p. 74. 66 For a perplexed formulation of this predicament, see A.W. Pickard-Cambridge, ‘The Place of Achimota in West African Education’.

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Figure 1.3  The cover of The Eastern Star

bias in favour of either the Western or the indigenous traditions ‘while exposing students to the best of both,’ ‘African sympathy’ ‘turned out to be extremely difficult in a school filled with facilities, artifacts and activities of the best quality by European standards.’67 At Umuahia and in The Eastern Star, despite intentions to foster dialogue and debate, Fisher and other European masters were the ultimate arbiters of cultural value. This is evident in Fisher’s Christian-inflected appropriations of African art in the chapel woodwork and the exaltation of the visiting European linguists and their ‘eye-opening’ lectures to African students and staff on the intricacies of their own languages. But despite the ambiguities 67

Shoko Yamada, ‘‘Traditions’ and Cultural Production: Character Training at the Achimota School in Colonial Ghana’, History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society 38:1 (2009), pp. 30 and 55.

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and unresolved ambivalences of the The Eastern Star, it is undeniable that in its pages, Government College Umuahia facilitated a singular mode of popular literary expression, an interesting precedent to the Umuahian writings of the 1940s. And yet, it does seem that The Eastern Star did make a mark in the foundational text of Nigerian first-generation writing, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. I am referring concretely to N.O. Ejiogu’s ‘Christianity and Native Customs.’68 This piece, originally submitted to the magazine as a dialogue between an elderly ‘pagan’ and his brainwashed son was subsequently edited by Fisher to include a third character, a Christian father, whose role is to moderate the son’s brash disavowals of traditional religion. In its edited form, the discussion between ‘the pagan’ and the Christian father bears striking similarities to the conversations between Akunna and Mr. Brown in Things Fall Apart. In both texts, an elderly villager – in conversation with an amiable, seemingly tolerant priest – tries to filter Christian tenets through their convergences with indigenous pieties. Both pieces differ in form, style, and narrative function. ‘Christianity and Native Customs’ is edited and published through colonial agency and appears in The Eastern Star as just another intervention in the larger debate on the merits and demerits of conserving ‘the best’ in African customs. In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart – in which, ironically, the conflations between the Christian Father/ Reverend Fisher and Mr. Brown become apparent – the dialogue serves to underscore the disruptive potential of well-intended agents of colonial power as well as the epistemic violence inherent in the acquisition of colonial knowledge. Thus Achebe’s rewriting of this piece ‘writes back’ to Fisher’s editorial interventions. Even though the priestly characters of both texts try to convert through persuasion rather than by deploying aggressive evangelizing tactics (such as those used by Mr. Smith in Things Fall Apart), we may read Achebe’s Mr. Brown as a combination of the stances represented by both the Christian Father and the Son in ‘Christianity and Native Customs.’ To make my point on the connections between Ejiogu and Achebe’s texts, I will quote from four representative fragments. The following is from Things Fall Apart: ‘You say that there is one supreme God who made heaven and earth’, said Akunna on one of Mr. Brown’s visits. ‘We also believe in him and call Him Chukwu. He made the world and all other gods.’ ‘There are no other gods,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘Chukwu is the only God and all others are false. You carve a piece of wood – like that one’ (he pointed at the rafters from which Akunna’s carved Ikenga hung),’ and you call it a god. But it is still a piece of wood.’ ‘Yes,’ said Akunna ‘It is indeed a piece of wood. The tree from which it came was made by Chukwu, as indeed all minor

68

The Eastern Star 1:4 (1935), p. 22.

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gods were. But He made them for his messengers so that we could approach him through them.69

And here is a similar fragment from Ejiogu and Fisher’s trialogue: The Son: There is only one God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. He is the God we want you to worship and no other. The Pagan: Yes, I know God the Creator. He is the Big God. But he has his vassals of minor gods and spirits. These dwell in the sacred forests, in the rivulets and the farmlands, in the market-places and within the earth. The Father: The Spirit of the Great God dwells truly in forest and in field; so we teach. And whether in forest or in fields you can speak with Him face to face. The Son: Thou shall not worship these gods, nor any graven image, nor the likeness of anything in the waters or in the earth. That is the second commandment of God. 70

The evocation of colonial figures of authority in both texts to explain and argue against the plurality of gods in the Igbo pantheon is even more remarkable. In ‘Christianity and Native Customs’, Fisher and Ejiogu write: The Pagan: But big kings are approached through their sub-chiefs. So ought we to approach the Big God through the minor gods. The Father: But what is God, that Great Spirit? Is he just a large-size man, who must have his governors and district officers in every place because he cannot be in every place himself? Is he not rather like the Light that shineth everywhere at once? Will you use a candle when the Sun is shining?

Achebe illustrates a comparable line of reasoning: The head of your church is in your country. He has sent you here as his messenger. And you have also appointed your own messengers and servants. Or let me take another example. The District Commissioner. He is sent by your king … Your queen sends her messenger, the District Commissioner. He finds that he cannot do the work alone and so he appoints kotma to help him. It is the same with God, or Chukwu. He appoints the smaller gods to help Him because His work is too great for one person.’ ‘You should not think of him as a person,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘It is because you do so that you imagine He must need helpers. And the worst thing about it is that you give all the worship to the false gods you have created.’71

In Achebe’s World: The Historical and Cultural Context of the Novels of Chinua Achebe, Robert Wren conjures a series of biographical convergences to prove 69

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, pp. 128–129. N.O. Ejiogu, ‘Christianity and Native Customs’, p. 27. 71 Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 129. 70

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that the figure of Mr. Brown is beholden to the legendary missionary G.T. Basden, Achebe’s father’s mentor. Achebe himself denies using the missionary as a conscious model, but concedes that ‘it seems likely that the legend of Basden must have informed my conception of Brown in Things Fall Apart.’72 Now, it is important to note that past issues of The Eastern Star were still kept in the college library during Achebe’s Umuahia school days, and that as one of the student editors of the school magazine, he must have perused these volumes.73 If, as I strongly suspect, Achebe appropriated, adapted, and subverted ‘Christianity and Native Customs’ in the locale of Things Fall Apart, then the Government College, Umuahia of Fisher’s days did leave its mark on Nigerian first-generation writing, albeit in a peripheral way. One of Fisher’s students eventually became a renowned creative writer. ­Gabriel Okara attended the school from 1935 to 1940. At the time, the masters asked students to read a book from the library once a week, write a report on it and discuss it in English class. Okara found his continued exposure to literature stirring, for it prompted him to reflect on his life experience in a riverine village and express his feelings in poetry.74 But at the time, Okara was far more taken with Murray’s experiments in art teaching. Under the tutorship of Ben Enwonwu, he came to excel as a watercolour artist: ‘my art tutors thought I was going to be a fine artist, and I managed to have an exhibition in Lagos, at the Exhibition Center there. Then suddenly I started writing, and I gave up painting water colours.’75 The decision to write came upon the realization that his talents as a writer surpassed his artistic gifts.76 Government College can hardly be said to have been directly causative of Okara’s literary vocation. The school’s literary demands at the time were no different from those of other secondary schools, and as we will see in coming chapters, graded, recreational reading does not constitute the kind of literary ambience that facilitated the vocations of the 1940s generation. Despite the curricular shortcomings for students aspiring to university education in England, Fisher believed that Umuahia had little to envy King’s 72

Robert Wren, Achebe’s World: The Historical and Cultural Context of the novels of Chinua Achebe (Essex: Longman, 1980), p. 6. 73 Indeed, this was the case of Kelsey Harrison, one of Achebe’s successors in his Umuahian editorial post. Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 April 2010. 74 Nwagbo Nnenyelike, ‘Writer Saw me pushing my Old Car and Gov Gave me a New One – Gabriel Okara’, Daily Sun, 16 March 2004; ; Gabriel Okara quoted in Sumaila Umuaisha, ‘The Poet of the Nun River: Interview’ African Writing Online. 6 (2008) Both accessed 19 June, 2013. 75 Quoted in Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 81. 76 Nwagbo Nnenyelike, ‘Writer Saw me pushing my Old Car and Gov Gave me a New One – Gabriel Okara’, Daily Sun, 16 March 2004.

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College, Lagos: ‘just because we are far away in the Bush, we have been allowed to grow up in our way, without being tended and mothered by too many careful authorities’.77 Not that the Umuahia of Fisher’s days was ever subversive to the powers that be. Prominent members of the Education Department, such as Edward Harland Duckworth – a personal friend to E.R.J. Hussey and his advisor in matters of science education in Nigerian schools – and P.F. Herbert, the Chief Inspector of Education, were certain that Fisher’s unique imprint on the institution was Umuahia’s most valuable asset.78 What is more, Umuahian alumni distinguished themselves when they moved up to the Higher College, cementing the college’s reputation among other government institutions. Retrospective student accounts of Fisher’s Government College are uniformly nostalgic and consistent with the impressions of both Duckworth and the Assistant Director of Education that it was a ‘happy’ place for students and staff.79 Either deliberately or ignorantly, the minutiae of the school’s vocational emphasis and consequent limitations, as well as Fisher’s paternalistic approach to adaptationism and cultural metissage, have neither been discussed nor publicized in personal reflections and alumni outlets.80 Fisher’s lifelong commitment to the college – he rejected a bishopric and a higher appointment in the colonial government and continued to pour funds into the school until his death in 197981 – adds to his standing as a ‘hallowed figure’ in the annals of Government College, to use Chike Momah’s phrase.82 It 77

Edward Harland Duckworth ‘The Editor Visits Government College, Umuahia’, p. 22. Quoted in Hogarth, “Short History”, p. 3; Edward Harland Duckworth, Notes on Umuahia Government College: June 1931 p. 29. 79 McGowan quoted in Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 2; E.H. Duckworth ‘Notes on Umuahia Government College, 1931’, p. 32 and ‘Diary Entry for May 25, 1932’. A photograph of excited Umuahia students crowding around Fisher to welcome him ‘home’ from leave in England, taken by Duckworth and kept in one of his personal photo albums (RHL: Mss. Afr. S. 1451 Box 12) seems to substantiate these claims. 80 See Chinua Achebe, ‘Editorial’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Enugu: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), pp. 1–3; C. Nwokoma, ‘The Challenge of Reverend Robert Fisher (1887–1979): Founder and Father’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Enugu: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys Association 1979) pp.  5–8; B.O.N. Eluwa, ‘My Recollections of Mr. R.F. Jumbo’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Enugu: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys Association 1979) pp. 10–14; Chinua Achebe, ‘The Education of a British Protected Child’, The Cambridge Review 114 p. 57; Anon., ‘The Umuahia Story’ Government College Old Boys Association Website http://gcuobanational.com/the-umuahia-story/ Accessed 18 March 2014; Eugene C. Ibe, ‘Government College, Umuahia:80 Years and Counting’ Government College Old Boys Association Website http://gcuobanational.com/about/ articles/80-years-and-counting/; Accessed 18 March 2014. 81 E.C. Nwokoma, ‘The Challenge of Reverend Robert Fisher (1887–1979): Founder and Father’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Enugu: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys Association 1979) p. 6. 82 Chike Momah’s email to author February 23, 2008 78

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may be that that this hagiographic treatment implicitly recognizes the fact that progressive missionaries and colonial educators could not help falling into the trappings of their complicated position. The uncritical remembrance also stems from the dismay of Umuahia’s Old Boys at the physical and educational degradation of the school in postcolonial times, as I explain at length elsewhere.83 Whatever the case, it is impossible to minimize Fisher’s contribution to the making of the Umuahia Government College and his impact on the school’s subsequent, more memorable days. In 1937, the principal announced that the time for his retirement had come. In two ceremonies the students ‘entertained and bade farewell to their Principal, the Revd. R. Fisher, giving him a book of remembrance consisting of their signatures, drawings, paintings and ‘articles’ as well as written contributions from old students and staff ’.84 In the closing months of 1937, Mr W.N. Tolfree of the Education Department arrived to take over the school’s principalship and ensure a smooth transition. During the Christmas holidays, Fisher handed over to Tolfree, retired on pension, and became Vicar of West Dean. W.N. Tolfree did not seek continuity with Fisher’s Umuahia, but reform. He disposed of most of the college’s vocational features, de-emphasized Agricultural training and tried to replace the Yaba entrance with the Cambridge Certificate Examination. He also incited aversion to the study of Igbo, which he saw as ‘an unjustifiable waste of valuable time which could be devoted more profitably to the subjects on the (English) School Certificate Syllabus’.85 Tolfree considered The Eastern Star to have ‘fulfilled its purpose’ and ceased its publication.86 In its place, he created a new school magazine, Umudike. But the periodical, like the Cambridge Certificate Examination of 1940, was nipped in the bud. On 4 July 1940, Government College, Umuahia closed down and became an internment camp for German and Italian nationals captured in the Cameroons during the Second World War. 87 Some of its students were sent to King’s College, Lagos, and the rest were redistributed among eastern Nigerian mission schools. On 83

See Terri Ochiagha, ‘There was a College: Introducing The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, Edited by Chinua Achebe’, Forthcoming in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 85:2, May 2015. 84 Quoted in Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 5. 85 Ibid. 86 Quoted in Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 6 87 In November 1942, it was further occupied by 50 members of the military setting up a prisoner of war camp. Tolfree remained in the premises until September, when he handed over to Mr Heany. Mr Martins and Mr, Fawehimi, two of the school’s teachers, remained to look after college property and run the electric light. Valuable college material was taken to the adjoining Agricultural Education Centre where it was preserved by Mr. G.N. Herrington. The rest of the teachers moved with the students to their new allocated colleges. Mr Jumbo went to King’s College, Alagoa to Uzuakoli, G.T. Ifon to Oron High School, and Enwonwu to the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, Ifuhe Okot Ekpene. (See Hogarth, ‘Short History’, p. 8.)

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that day, as R.F. Hogarth reported, ‘the valuable work of 10 years’ experimental and happy collaboration was carelessly thrown away, utterly destroyed and irretrievably lost to make a German and Italian holiday despite the repeated protests of the vast numbers of vital African peoples East of the Niger.’88 At the time of composing the above lines, Hogarth was certain that Government College, Umuahia would never rise from its ashes. But the best was yet to come.

88

Randal F. Hogarth, ‘Annual Report for 1943–44’, Umuahia Government College, Nigeria. Information Required by the Member of the Elliot Commission of Higher Education. February 1944. RHL: Mss. Brit. Emp. S 351, p. 5.

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Our masters, our curriculum, our code of morals, everything began from the basis that Britain was the source of all light and leading, and our business was to admire, wonder, imitate, learn; our criterion of success was to have succeeded in approaching that distant ideal – to attain it was, of course, impossible. Both masters and boys accepted it as in the very nature of things. (C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary)

The Second World War catalyzed the Colonial Office’s decision to uphold socioeconomic development in Britain’s colonies and to eventually guide them towards ‘responsible self-government’.1 Education was a key factor in these new plans.2 The adaptationist outlook of previous decades, notorious for its ‘excessive paternalism and lethargic conservatism’,3 gave way to ‘an increasing emphasis on getting more students ”through to the top” of the educational ladder’.4 The Asquith Commission’s report, which gave the green light to the eventual establishment of university colleges in 1943, further strengthened these imperatives. In 1941, the Education Department decided to reopen the Umuahia Government College. More than 300 boys sat for the entrance examination in December, which included papers on English, mathematics, mental arithmetic, and general knowledge. The nineteen successful candidates were admitted to King’s College, Lagos, as ‘Umuahia Form I.’ The following year, another group of twenty students was admitted into the school’s sub-section at King’s College. There was a firm reason for resuscitating Government College, Umuahia in the locus of Nigeria’s premier government institution. This time around, Umuahia was to be robed in the shining mantle of the elite English public school. Reginald F. Jumbo coordinated the relocation to the Umudike campus in April 1943. The school’s thirty-nine students immediately dispersed on holiday. 1 Clive

Whitehead, ‘The Impact of the Second World War on British Colonial Education Policy’, History of Education 18:3 (1989), p. 269. 2 Ibid., p. 151. 3 Ibid., p. 271. 4 Clive Whitehead, ‘The Impact of the Second World War on Education in Britain’s Colonial Empire’, in Education and the Second World War: Studies in Schooling and Social Change, ed. Roy Lowe (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 157.

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In May, the new academic staff, comprising Martin Ogle (English and History), W.E. Alagoa (Biology) and the Acting Principal, W.H. Thorp (Physics and Mathematics) joined Jumbo at the college premises. Special tests were held in June; ten new students were admitted into Form 1 and four into Form II. Classes began officially on 2 July 1943, exactly three years after the dispersal of the original Government College, Umuahia.5 The first year after the relocation was testing. Most of the college buildings had been damaged during their occupation and the once-luscious grounds suffered from neglect. Furthermore, the scant number of teachers was inadequate to the school’s renewed elite status. For this reason, it was decided that the prewar Government College students who had been dispersed to other mission colleges would conclude their secondary education at their respective centres. The decision was unpopular. As Randal F. Hogarth, who was onsite as lecturer of the Higher College, Yaba6 vigorously reported in December 1943: no former Umuahia students returned to Umuahia Government College, and only one experienced member of staff, Mr. Jumbo; SO THAT THE BREAKING UP OF UMUAHIA GOVERNMENT COLLEGE IN 1940 HAS MEANT THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS INSTITUTION’S EXPERIMENT, EXPERIENCE, AND TRADITIONS CAREFULLY BUILT UP FOR NEARLY ELEVEN YEARS, January 1929 - July 1940.7

Had Hogarth known the destiny that awaited the newly reborn college, his tone would surely have been different. But at the time of writing his report, he felt overwhelmed by the college’s bleak prospects.8 Hogarth had been a permanent member of the staff during Umuahia’s first incarnation and had been profoundly inspired by Fisher’s vision and pedagogical innovations. His disillusionment began when Tolfree succeeded Fisher as Principal of Government College. The dispersal and its aftermath was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and even though he found solace in the fact that ‘Mr. Jumbo as a connecting link with the old regime and holding the responsible position of housemaster has been especially indefatigable in rendering valuable service of all kinds’9, Hogarth looked towards the future of the ‘orphaned’ Government College with trepidation. 5 Randal

F. Hogarth, ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia, 1929–1943’ Umuahia Government College, Nigeria. Information Required by the Member of the Elliot Commission of Higher Education. February 1944, p. 8. RHL: Mss. Brit. Emp. S 351. 6 In October, the students of the Higher College, Yaba arrived at Umuahia from Achimota College, and shared the school premises from October to December 1943, when they finally packed up for Lagos. 7 Randal F. Hogarth ‘Annual Report for 1943–44’, Umuahia Government College, Nigeria. Information Required by the Member of the Elliot Commission of Higher Education. February 1944, p. 8. RHL: Mss. Brit. Emp. S 351 8 Randal F. Hogarth ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia, 1929–1943’, p. 25 9 Ibid.

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Slowly but surely, the college began to rise from its ashes. In October 1943, after the main renovation of its buildings had concluded, Umuahia prepared for its annual intake of new students. That month, thirty young boys – out of the 572 that had sat for the entrance examination – arrived in the college for the admission interview. Despite its chequered history and the many reforms of the previous months, these boys were not confronted with an image of dilapidated squalor. Government College, Umuahia looked more impressive than ever, as if to announce that its present incarnation would be even more extraordinary than the first. The iconic black and white administrative block rose in splendour, defying past horrors. The sun gleamed against the school buildings, their red roofs and white walls creating a beautiful contrast with the surrounding greenery. Albert Chinua Achebe and Christian Chike Momah were among the successful candidates that Mr. Thorp interviewed that month. Both boys had also taken the entrance examination to Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha for different reasons: Achebe’s elder brothers were alumni of the college, and Momah aspired to a clerical career in the Church Missionary Society. Despite obtaining a scholarship to Dennis Memorial and not to Government College, Achebe’s elder brother, John, rooted for Umuahia and ‘turned out to be, as usual, absolutely right’.10 Achebe had also taken the entrance examination to Aggrey Memorial Grammar School, Arochukwu, and had been admitted to Form II, but this did not veer his brother’s decision. Chike Momah had precedents at Umuahia. His brother, Godwin, was already a Government College student and Mr. Okongwu, Momah’s headmaster, placed a high premium on the Umuahian model of education. He had warned, rather prophetically, that successful entrants to the college would encounter a brilliant former student from Ogidi – Achebe – and that this boy was going to ‘make the rain that would drench them’,11 Despite his early clerical ambitions, Momah’s favourable impressions of Government College on the day of the interview decided his future. Both boys were successful, and in January 1944, returned to the college as students. They became friends on their very first day. Later that month, Thorp transferred to the Higher College and was replaced by E.C. Hicks. There is hardly any information on Hicks’ short tenure at Umuahia. He had been a senior inspector of schools in Malaya and was said to have fought in Burma and India.12 Momah recalls that ‘he was a very gentle and kindly soul and had a halting speech peculiarity which at first amused, but later 10

Chinua Achebe, ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’, The Cambridge Review, 114 (June 1993), p. 55. 11 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 14. 12 Chike Momah, Ibid., p. 15.

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Figure 2.1  Government College, Umuahia, 1947 Second row, sitting fifth from the left are G.J. Ifon, A.K. Wareham, W.E. Alagoa, Miss Braithwaite, Bisiriyu, Principal Simpson, G.E. Longe, Mrs. Simpson and I.D. Erekosima. Third row (standing), first from the right is Christopher Okigbo. Fifth row, eight from the left, Chike Momah. Seventh row, fourth from the right is Chukwuemeka Ike. Last but one row from the top, fifth from the left, Chinua Achebe. (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison. I am indebted for all identifications - with the exception of Ike and Momah - to Kelsey Harrison)

rather endeared him to [the students]’.13 On 14 December, 1944, less than a year after his arrival, Hicks handed over the Umuahian reins to William Simpson of the Education Department The new principal’s secondary education took place at Gresham’s School, Holt. He studied mathematics at King’s College, Cambridge. In 1927, he joined the Education Department and was posted to the southern provinces as superintendent of education. He spent the next seven years teaching at King’s College, Lagos (including a short period at Government College, Ibadan in 1933). In 1934, Simpson served as acting principal of the Yaba Higher College, and from 1935 to 1940, took up provincial work in Eastern Nigeria. Between the years 1941 and 1944, he served as senior rducation officer in Calabar and the 13

Ibid.

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Cameroons. Simpson’s arrival at Umuahia was momentous. He had an imposing physique, and his fame as a disciplinarian had preceded him. Judging from extant photographs of the period, Kelsey Harrison’s description of the Principal is strikingly accurate: ‘He was a large teddy bear of a man, genial, bald at the top, with fringes of grey hair along the sides, no moustache, no beard, but with piercing eyes, and with a gaze that struck all of us of that of a man who was in control at all times’.14 Despite the students’ potential and the combined efforts of Thorpe, Hicks, and the rest of the academic staff to build up the college into an elite institution, Simpson realized upon arrival that Government College, that Umuahia was in dire need of renovation if it was to live up to the expectations of the Education Department. Unlike Fisher, whose adherence to education ‘along the African’s own lines’ is already known, Simpson’s mission was to reform the school with Englishness as the ideological core. As Chukwuemeka Ike recalls, he ‘took no time to establish an enviable reputation for all-round excellence.’15 The educational paradigm this time around was neither Dauntsey’s nor Achimota, but the very best in the English public school tradition, as Achebe had eagerly anticipated. In the Victorian and Edwardian ages, English public schools were intricately linked with the building and preservation of the British Empire. Not only did these institutions socialize their students into the mores and values of the gentlemanly classes, but they upheld a distinctive model of imperial masculinity. This ideal commenced as muscular Christianity – a term associated with the mid-nineteenth century novelists Thomas Hughes and Charles Kingsley in the 1957 novels Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Two Years Ago, which expounded the ideological parity of moral and physical strength – a misinterpretation of Thomas Arnold’s reforms at Rugby. Arnold had privileged religion, morals and gentlemanly conduct over intellectual ability,16 rather than games and chivalry.17 But the cult of athleticism and team spirit championed by such Victorian headmasters as Edward Thring of Uppingham, George Edward Lynch Cotton of Marlborough, Charles John Vaughan and James Welldon of Harrow elevated the ‘muscular’ standard of imperial masculinity to the superlative degree. In 1895, Welldon, an ardent ideologue of imperial education, outlined the 14

Kelsey A. Harrison, An Ardous Climb: From the Creeks of the Niger Delta to Leading Obstetrician and University Vice Chancellor (London: Adonis & Abbey, 2006), p. 47. 15 Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 25. 16 Thomas Arnold quoted in Jonathan Rutherford, Forever England: Reflections on Masculinity and Empire (London : Lawrence and Wishart, 1997), p. 13. 17 Jeffrey Richards, ‘Introduction’, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Ideal, ed. J.A. Mangan, (London: Routledge, 2000) p. xxiii

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desirable attributes of the Victorian public school: sports, courage, character (‘the supreme ruling quality of Englishmen’), and religion (in that order).18 In such a milieu, what mattered was a boy’s willingness to submit himself to the strictures of the public school order and prove his good character. In this Spartan environment the language of ‘pulling together’ and the almost religious espousal of loyalty to home and school formed the micro-language of loyalty to race and nation. Games-playing became the emblem of this regime, and its athlete the touchstone of imperial manliness. The cult of games and its promotion of team spirit molded boys into the vocabularies and discourses of nation and empire.19

As well as attitudes of loyalty and deference, public school boys acquired the confidence and initiative of the ruling elite. When, as educators, they transplanted the English public school to the outposts of Empire, they sought to ‘create a universal Tom Brown’,20 a leader of his people and a powerful advocate of English values. Tom Brown, the cheery schoolboy protagonist of Hughes’ novel epitomized ‘the primacy of character over intellect, and the necessity of a healthy mind in a healthy body’21 and like his creator, idealized Anglo-Saxon heritage. As an archetype for colonial schoolboys, he was a deeply problematic figure. In his incisive analysis of a lifetime association with cricket, Beyond a Boundary, the Trinidadian writer, historian, and journalist C.L.R. James states that the Victorians, in their quest of a culture ‘found it symbolized for them in the work of three men, first in Thomas Arnold, the famous headmaster of Rugby, secondly in Thomas Hughes, the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and lastly in W.G. Grace’.22 A close look at the historical and biographical record confirms that these were the very symbols that constituted the Umuahia’s public school ethos in the 1940s. The British masters, all of whom had attended public schools before the First World War, their moment of greatest political importance,23 spent considerable time igniting the students’ imaginations and mimetic impulses by telling stories about their own schooldays at Eton, Harrow, Marlborough and Rugby.24 Tom Brown’s Schooldays became something of an authoritative guide to 18

Quoted in J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London: Frank Cass, 1998), p. 36. 19 Jonathan Rutherford, Forever England: Reflections on Masculinity and Empire, p. 16. 20 J.A.Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal, p. 18 21 J.A. Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School , p. 3 22 C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary (London: Yellow Jersey, 2005), p. 212. 23 Rupert Wilkinson, The Prefects: British Leadership and the Public School Tradition (Oxford: UP, 1964), p. 3. 24 Chike Momah’s email to the author, February 23, 2008. The masters also transplanted Oxbridge traditions to Umuahian Soil. In 1948, when J.E.H. White took up the Acting Principalship during Simpson’s three months of leave in England, he brought over ‘The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’ to Umuahia, a tradition from his days as a chorister at King’s

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the desired outlook, and from 1947 onwards, the figure of W.G. Grace loomed large over Umuahia’s cricket field. As the impact of the public school ideal was by no means negligible in the colonized’s experience of Umuahia in the 1940s and 1950s, we must ask: what was it like to live and learn in Simpson’s Umuahia? How exactly were students encouraged to admire, imitate, and wonder at the mores and values of their English public school counterparts? What lessons can we learn from Okigbo and Momah’s experience of cricket – one of the principal signifiers of Englishness – about self-construction in ‘that transportable fragment of the English countryside’ 25 that was the cricket oval? Character-building was the mainstay of the English public school, and by extension, of the colonial government colleges. To achieve the desired level of discipline, Simpson reinforced the prefectorial system and established an official fagging scheme whereby each new student was appointed to a senior boy for guidance. The college functioned in a tightly ceremonial and hierarchical regime, and all its members were required to respect and obey their seniors. Despite the privileged nature of the institution, ‘the Principal and staff went to great lengths to inculcate modesty’.26 Hence, when a student talked pejoratively about one of the school labourers, Simpson counseled: ‘Look, my boys, everybody has his job. And that pail carrier is as important as I am’.27 While the Principal placed a high premium on academic brilliance, a boy’s intelligence did not suffice to keep his place at the college. Petulance and argumentativeness were strictly discouraged. Simpson had a ‘fetish for punctuality’,28 and it was not unusual to see him rushing around the school compound, setting an example. The daily schedule of a Government College student began with the wakeup bell at 5:30. Students engaged in physical training or manual labour for an hour. After a cold morning shower and breakfast, they attended a 20-minute non-­denominational morning assembly. Classes, taught in intervals of 45 minutes, took up the rest of the morning, with a break at noon for the ‘Palm-Wine Parade’.29 Lunch was at one, followed by an hour-long compulsory rest period. Evening prep (supervised by a master), ended at four and there was a two-hour interval of compulsory games. The boys then took a shower and had supper. The College, Cambridge. White had been friends with Simpson at Cambridge and was the Provincial Education Officer of Onitsha at the time. See ‘A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’, Government College Umuahia Magazine 2 (1948–49), p. 11. 25 Anthony Bateman, Cricket, Literature and Culture, p. 142. 26 Chike Momah’s email to the author, February 29, 2008. 27 W.E. Alagoa, qtd in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1984), p. 78. Also see Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb, p. 47. 28 Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography (Oxford: James Currey, 1997), p. 26 29 The Palm Wine Parade was instituted in 1940 and took place every school day during the midday break, and consisted in lining up at the quadrangle to receive a glass of watery palm wine. It was believed that its yeast intake would arrest the increasing need for prescriptive glasses. See Randal F. Hogarth, ‘A Short History of Government College, Umuahia, 1929–1943’, p. 6.

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rest of the evening was free, and could be employed in either academic or leisurely activities. Evening prayers were said at eight-thirty and the boys went to bed at nine. On Saturday mornings, students worked hard to clean up their houses, belongings and surroundings for the inspection parade, led by the Principal and the housemaster. This was immediately followed by the Matchet Parade, during which the principal called out the punitive measures for the week’s breaches of discipline. Standard punishments ranged from written ‘impositions’, ‘detentions’ (punitive grass-cutting spanning a minimum of two hours), and the grueling ‘Umuahia Run’ (one and half miles uphill at an Olympic pace, to be repeated if not completed in time). The unenviable post of ‘Bell Fag’ was assigned on a weekly basis to the student with the highest number of detention hours. Corporal punishment, the bane of colonial schoolboys around the country, ‘was extremely rare, and administered only by the Principal and in the privacy of his office’.30 Indeed, these punitive measures ensured that rules were obeyed at the college. But at times, a youthful thirst for adventure stood in the way of absolute subservience to school regulations. For instance, the infamous ‘eleventh commandment’ barred student access to the mouth-watering orchard, lined with pineapple plants and dwarf orange and banana trees. The orchard’s produce was usually served at table. However, ‘Making for the Uppers’ – code name for audacious trips to this restricted zone – became one of the feats to attain before graduating from the college. With the exception of the week’s ‘culprits,’ who had to spend the rest of the day carrying out their punishments, the boys were free to spend Saturdays as they wished. Many travelled to town, but others stayed behind reading, studying, or engaging in games and other extracurricular activities. Saturday evenings were devoted to concerts, debating, ballroom dancing, and European games like chess and monopoly. The boys also watched adaptations, documentaries, and educational films. Occasionally, distinguished guests would come to deliver lectures. These included notable alumni like the artist Ben Enwonwu, distinguished government functionaries, members of the Education Department, and such dignitaries as C.W.M. Cox, Educational Adviser to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In contrast to Fisher’s days, traditional rulers were never invited to the college.31 All the students were nominally Christians, and Sunday activities included Protestant Service in the mornings – Catholics attended mass outside the college premises – and Evensong, for which boys practised during the week.32 Several class periods were allotted to Christian Religious Knowledge until 1948, but the subject ‘was not geared to any syllabus or examination’.33 Christian Brother 30

Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb, p. 53. Ibid., p. 59. 32 For more on religion and cultural conflict at Government College, Umuahia, see Chapter 6. 33 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 26 March 2013. 31

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hood provided the ideological impetus for Fisher’s Government College, but the Umuahia of the 1940s was a secular institution. Christianity was simply part of the public school tradition. In 1945, Houses I, II, and III became School House, Niger House, and Nile House. On January 12 of that year, newcomers Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo and Vincent Nwankwo Chukwuemeka Ike34 arrived at Government College. They joined Chike Momah in School House with W.E. Alagoa, ‘a genial, elderly man who took life easy and would not hurt a fly’,35 as their housemaster. Chinua Achebe was placed in Niger House, where a young Elechi Amadi (then Emmanuel Daniel) eventually joined him in January 1948. Each house included two dormitories, with neat rows of beds in red and white linen, bedside lockers, individual cubicles for school prefects and a common room. Fisher house was created in 1951. By then, Elechi Amadi was the sole Umuahian writer in the college. Simpson’s Government College prepared its students for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination, and the curriculum reflected this change. The subjects offered were Biology, Geography, English Language, English Literature, Elementary Mathematics, British Empire History, and Physics with Chemistry. The lack of a classical curriculum was a marked departure from the English public school ideal, even though, from 1945 onwards, the principal taught unofficial Latin classes, a task which Charles Low took over upon his appointment in 1947. Immediately after taking over, Simpson embarked on an aggressive recruitment campaign to bring the best available masters to Government College. Prominent among Umuahia’s teachers in the 1940s were A. Farmer (Music), G.T. Ifon (Physics), A.D.A. Mengot (Art), I.D. Erekosima36 (Mathematics), Charles W. Low (English and Latin), S.O. Bisiriyu, (History and English), M.C. English (English, author of An Outline of Nigerian History), J.C. Menakaya (Geography), Alex Opukiri (History), Mrs. W. Simpson (Mathematics), Adrian P.L. Slater (English), A.K. Wareham, (Geography, author of Map Reading for Tropical Schools), R.H. Stone and B. Cozens (authors of New Biology for Tropical Schools). The European masters had university degrees, mostly from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Bisiriyu was the sole graduate African master, and held degrees in History and English from the Universities of London and Cambridge respectively. The African teachers with less privileged backgrounds – usually graduates of the Yaba Higher College – however, proved to be exceptional educators. Menakaya, for example, was widely acclaimed as 34

Ike became the School House prefect in the year 1948/49. He was also one of the student librarians that academic year. When Elechi Amadi arrived at the college in 1947, Chinua Achebe was the Niger House Prefect. He later became a School Prefect. 35 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. 36 Erekosima became the school’s first African Principal in 1963.

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‘the best Geography teacher there ever was’37 and when he finally travelled to England for an honours degree, his students agreed that ‘he might improve his knowledge of English, but scarcely of Geography’.38 Erekosima was a ‘brilliant science teacher’ – his colleague, B. Cozens also described him as ‘a genius, really a great mathematician’39 – and Ifon was known as ‘The Master’ ‘as if he were the only master around’.40 The competence of the teaching staff was one of the college’s strengths, for only the most elite of Nigeria’s government colleges could boast of such a proportion of excellently-educated teachers. Unlike English public schools – which catered to boys from socially-elevated classes – Umuahia was premised on academic potential, a quality that Achebe was to defend vehemently on several occasions: ‘any system has to have an efficient corps. In an army every other word, is ‘special.’ You have an elite corps. When things get tough, you send them; they break it up and move out. Then the other soldiers will go in.’41 In fact, the school was probably the most affordable institution in Eastern Nigeria. It awarded a number of scholarships, and the college fees – including tuition, board and equipment – totalled five pounds, six shillings and eight pence per term. Text books, uniforms and provisions were complimentary. The boys could also raise pocket-money from the yamplantation scheme, the only hand-down from Fisher’s vocational years.42 They enjoyed a balanced diet and sumptuous cuisine, which contrasted with the meagre and watery portions of surrounding schools, and enjoyed piped water supply and electricity. Despite the overbearing shadow of ‘the Cambridge Man’ (students’ informal name for the School Certificate Examination) and the high academic requirements for admission to the college, Simpson kept reminding his boys that ‘excessive devotion to book work is a real danger’ and that ‘the cramming which often passed for education in the colonies was in fact education’s greatest enemy.’43 While in Simpson’s own schooldays, English public schools favoured brawn over brains, the rise and reforms of education in the twentieth century had jolted them ‘out of their academic complacency.’44 Thomas Arnold of Rugby, while underplaying academic competence, believed more in the power of acquiring 37

Chike Momah’s Email to the author, 23 February 2008. Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 19. 39 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 58. 40 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. 41 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1991), p. 55; also see Chinua Achebe, ‘Continuity and Change in Nigerian Education – A Jubilee Essay’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 39–40. 42 The villagers were also allowed to farm 64 acres of the college land under supervision. 43 ‘The Education of a British-Protected child’, p.  56. See also Ike, ‘William Simpson O.B.E.’, p. 26. 44 J.A.Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, p. 211. 38

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knowledge than in knowledge itself.45 This idea was encoded in the Text-Book Act of 1945.46 The stringent measures against ‘cockroaching’ or burning the midnight oil in the college’s darkest nooks and corners after ‘lights-out’ were also consistent with Simpson’s ideas about cramming and the overarching notion of mens sana in corpore sano. Notwithstanding the danger of being caught redhanded by a night-gown clad and thoroughly bemused principal, ‘cockroaching’, like ‘making for the uppers’, was a forbidden activity that every Umuahian flouted at some point. What’s more, the practice was so normalized among the student body that one of the boys, A.I. Etuk, openly alluded to it in a short piece on hypocrisy published in The Umuahia Government College Magazine of 1950/51.47 Academic competitiveness was a prominent feature of Umuahia school life. The boys competed not just for the top positions in their respective classes, but in the entire school. Prizes were awarded on academic merit to the three best results in each class, and to the best students in mathematics, science, music and the arts. The horrific prospect of ‘carrying the canda’ – remaining at the bottom half of the class – resulted in overbearing efforts to improve academic performance. The double-promotion of six class one students in 1944, among whom was Chinua Achebe, intensified this outlook. Apart from the periods devoted to the school’s official subjects, students enjoyed more relaxed avenues for learning. These included the Art Club and the Contemporary Science Society. Despite their informal nature, these societies had sophisticated learning programmes. For instance, the Contemporary Science Society, which also had astronomical and meteorological branches, enabled students ‘to become acquainted with some of the modern scientific research, recent inventions and discoveries. To achieve this aim, friends were invited to deliver lectures on various interesting scientific topics and members were also encouraged to read science magazines regularly provided for the team’.48 Their activities included interclass quizzes and science film shows. Another striking scheme, in which Chukwuemeka Ike and Christopher Okigbo participated in the 1948/49 school year, was the Adult School. Through this altruistic venture, reminiscent of the outreach projects of the Fisher days, a number of students were appointed to teach barely-educated villagers. In the 45

C.LR. James, Beyond a Boundary, p. 215. For a complete formulation of this Act and its impact on the Umuahian writers, see Chapter 3. 47 A.I. Etuk ‘Theophraica: The Hypocrite’, Government College Umuahia Magazine, 4 (1950–51), p. 17: ‘When in the college and in sixth form [the hypocrite] used to show disgust at the habit of his classmates reading at two o’clock in the morning in preparation for Cambridge, but he in preparation for a half term began the job at 10.30 p.m., narrowly escaping being caught by a master by running quickly away.’ 48 K.A. Harrison. ‘The Contemporary Science Society’, Government College Umuahia Magazine 4 (1950–51), p. 11. 46

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1948/49 academic year, the Adult School had sixty-four students, and its young teachers completed two adult education textbooks. The pedagogical knowledge that the student teachers gained from this experience can only be imagined. Interestingly enough, both Ike and Okigbo became educators in later years. After his graduation from the University College, Ibadan, Ike taught for eighteen months at St. Catherine’s Girls’ Secondary School, Nkwerre, and began a successful career in education administration in 1957, including distinguished posts at the University College, Ibadan, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the West African Examinations Council. He has published extensively on literacy and tertiary education.49 Okigbo’s career in education was brief but remarkable. In his short period as Assistant Principal and English and Latin master at the Fiditi Grammar School (1958–1960), he did much to strengthen the school’s record in those subjects and to foment academic links between Fiditi and the University College, Ibadan. The students’ exceptional results in the Cambridge School Certificate Examination, the Junior Civil Service Entrance Examination, and the University College Entrance Examination proved the value of ‘the Simpson approach.’ As Chukwuemeka Ike recounts, ‘throughout his tenure of office as Principal, only one boy failed the School Certificate examination, passing it in the second attempt’.50 Most of the Umuahian writers were among the most brilliant students of Government College. As mentioned, Achebe’s marks were so high at a mid-year examination in his first year that he was one of the recipients of the famous double promotion of 1944, finishing ahead of his class. Despite the difficulties of the endeavour, he took the first position again in less than a year. According to a classmate, Ben Uzochukwu, ‘there was no subject he couldn’t master. At school, boys always thought some teachers favored certain students. Whatever Albert did was far excellent, and some of us thought the masters were biased for Albert. Menakaya, our Geography teacher would pass around Albert’s work to show us how it was done … He was an all round man’.51 In the School Certificate Examination, Achebe passed with distinctions in every subject, with the exceptions of English Language, which he passed with credit. When his turn came a year later, Momah led the 1944 class with the same exact results as Achebe: an A in every single subject and a C in English Language. Chukwuemeka Ike passed the 1949 Cambridge School Certificate Examination in Grade 1, with exemption from the London Matriculation examination. 49

For more on Ike’s career in education, see Terri Ochiagha, ‘Ike, Chukwuemeka Vincent’ in Dictionary of African Biography, eds, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Emmanuel Akyeampong (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 149–50. 50 Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, p. 26. 51 Ben Uzochukwu qtd. in Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru, Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple, an Oral Biography (Lagos: Malthouse, 2002), p. 22.

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He obtained three As and four Cs.52 Elechi Amadi shone in both internal and external examinations. The Government College, Umuahia Magazine of 1950/51 reports that in his second year, he was awarded the Arts Prize during the Annual Prize Giving Ceremony. The only subject in which he did not earn a distinction in the School Certificate Examination was English Literature. Okigbo’s results were somewhat less impressive. He obtained distinctions in Mathematics and Physics/Chemistry; credits in Biology, English language, English Literature, and British Empire History; and a pass in Geography.53 These grades were not entirely unexpected, for Okigbo ‘was a thorough truant, who was known more for his great sporting talents than for any concentrated scholarly interest’.54 Principal Simpson – despite the famous potbelly that earned him the nickname of ‘Dewar,’ after the similarly shaped laboratory flask – had been a thorough sportsman in his youth. At Cambridge, he had been a distinguished member of the Hawk’s Club, an association of the best sportsmen in the university. He was an impressive cricketer and was said to have narrowly missed a blue in rugby. From his arrival, games became compulsory, and were ‘nearly as important as the actual school work’.55 Simpson fostered team-spirit and healthy rivalry and, as in all other facets, ‘could not stand undue showmanship or playing to the gallery.’56 The school’s games included rounders, athletics, tennis, volley ball and ping-pong. Boxing was another of the official games, but was also deployed to other ends: boys caught in private fight were made to box in the public arena refereed by the housemaster. The school team was highly proficient in hockey and cricket, but never managed to excel at football. Chinua Achebe was not very good at sports.57 The one game he enjoyed playing was table-tennis, but – uncritically at the time – he appreciated the school’s cricket culture and its imperial bonding qualities.58Amadi played a variety of games: cricket, hockey, boxing, football, baseball and athletics, which he enjoyed but in which he ‘was not a star’.59 Ike was more successful. In School House, he played inter-house athletics and pole vault. Ike was also the captain of the Second XI Hockey Team and formed part of the College First XI Cricket Team until, as he relates, he ‘scored “a pair of spectacles” i.e. two zeroes in two innings 52

Chukwuemeka Ike lost his Government College, Umuahia records at Nsukka during the Nigeria/Biafra War, hence the lack of details on his qualifications. Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the Author, 26 March 2013. 53 Bernth Lindfors, Early Nigerian Literature (New York: Africana, 1982), p. 159. 54 Ibid. 55 Saburi Biobaku, When we were Young (Ibadan: University Press, 1992), p. 139. 56 Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, p. 26. 57 Chike Momah qtd. in Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru, Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple, p. 24; Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography , p. 26. 58 Chinua Achebe, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 22. 59 Elechi Amadi, Personal Communication, 30 May 2013.

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Figure 2.2  Second XI Hockey Team, Government College, Umuahia, 1949, featuring Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike. (See original identifications on the photograph. Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison)

at our annual cricket match against Government College, Ibadan – which we nicknamed “The Ashes” and was chucked out of the team’.60 Okigbo played with Ike in the second XI Hockey Team, was Captain of the School House Boxing Team, won football colours, and was re-awarded cricket colours in his last year. 60

Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008.

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As early as in 1972, the critic Sunday Anozie used the imagery of soccer to interpret Okigbo’s Limits61 and in the essay ‘Okigbo as Jock’, Bernth Lindfors recapitulates Okigbo’s sporting feats at Umuahia and the University College, Ibadan and comes to the conclusion that the poet’s strategy and performance at games can offer deeper insights into his literary achievements: In the games he played, it is significant that he excelled in offensive rather than defensive positions – inside forward in soccer, batsman in cricket, aggressive puncher in boxing and ping-pong. He was the kind of player accustomed to making moves to which others had to respond. Feinting, veering sharply in one direction then another, alternating his speed, hitting out in bold and effective strokes, occasionally attempting risky shots but always keeping plenty of pressure in his opponent, Okigbo was a formidable adversary challenging all comers to try and stop him. He was, in other words, a quick and elusive trickster-athlete bent on avoiding capture and scoring goals. It is not surprising to find such a person carrying over into other activities some of the same qualities he consistently displayed in sports. As a writer, Okigbo remained agile, tricky, unpredictable, evasive, hard to pin down – in short a stubborn challenge to anyone venturing to confront him. 62

Both Momah and Okigbo were among the college’s top sportsmen, but it was as cricketers that they most distinguished themselves. Cricket was the preserve of the most elite government schools in Nigeria. As we have seen, in the Victorian and Edwardian public school the cultivation of physical fitness and competitiveness was believed to teach moral and spiritual values, leadership qualities indispensable to run Britain’s vast Empire, and ‘a sense of solidarity, duty and service.’63 The transplantation of cricket to the colonies was part of the civilizing process, another way of instilling discipline, reinforcing colonial loyalty, and upholding Anglo-Saxon cultural supremacy. Moreover, its discourses were thought to be endowed ‘with the ability to transform the colonized into English gentlemen’.64 Its purported inclusivity had notable limits: in Nigeria, the national cricket teams remained segregated until the mid-fifties. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s leading anti-colonial nationalist from the late 1930s through the 1950s and whose political allure for Government College boys I discuss more at length in Chapter 4, had almost represented Nigeria in the British Empire Games of 1934, but had been disqualified as a result of a white South African’s complaints about his participation. And while the official excuse for Azikiwe’s exclusion 61

See Sunday Ogbonna Anozie, Christopher Okigbo: Creative Rhetoric (New York: Africana Publishers, 1971), p. 69. 62 Bernth Lindfors. Early Nigerian Literature, p. 163. 63 J.A. Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School, p. 250. 64 Anthony Bateman, Cricket, Literature and Culture: Symbolising the Nation, Destabilising Empire (Burlington: Ashgate, 2009), p. 122.

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was that Nigeria had not entered him formally for the competition, his response underscored the fact that games were not the ‘arena for inter-racial and international fellowship’ that they were touted to be. He dropped his ‘English’ name, Benjamin, and deployed the spirit of sportsmanship so dear to the British in his anti-colonial editorial and political activities.65 Azikiwe’s engagement with the politics of colonial sports bears an interesting likeness to the symbolic rearticulations of cricket of some of the Umuahian writers. He recognized that notwithstanding the covert purpose of sports in the imperial agenda, there was no denying its benefits. Apart from the cultivation of physical fitness and the finer qualities of sportsmanship, games also teach ‘one to treat triumph and disaster – ‘the two impostors, just the same,’ as the famous line has it,’66as Chike Momah pointed out to me when discussing his sporting feats at Government College. As can be expected, cricket was a focal point of school life in Simpson’s Umuahia. As Achebe recalled, One of the most thrilling particularities of the Umuahia experience was the culture of playing cricket … Umuahia had a huge cricket field, which had a beautiful grass lawn and a clear sand pitch area with wooden wickets. It was cared for almost more carefully than grass anywhere else in the school. In the afternoons, cricket matches were packed, and the bleachers and grasstands had scarcely an empty spot.67

However, the school’s cricket culture took a quantum leap upon the arrival, in 1946, of the new assistant principal and English and Latin master, William Charles Low. The Australian was enamoured – some say obsessed – with the game: ‘he understood it, he played it, he analyzed it, and he taught people to play it well – the ‘gentleman’s game,’ he called it’.68 The first thing he did, upon arrival, was to make the acquaintance of the college cricket team and scout for talent amongst the junior students. From that moment onwards he devoted much time and energy to upgrade their individual styles and collective acumen. A number of cricket prodigies thrived under Low’s insistent training and supervision, including Chike Momah, Patrick Ozieh, Namseh Eno, Kelsey Harrison, and Christopher Okigbo.69 65

Nnamdi Azikiwe, My Odyssey: An Autobiography (London: C.Hurst, 1970), p. 415. Chike Momah’s email to the author, February 29 2008. 67 Chinua Achebe, There was a Country, p. 22. 68 Alex Osuji, ‘Looking Back with an Aborigine: History of Government Secondary School, Afikpo’ Government Secondary School, Afikpo Old Boys Association Webpage Retrieved 3 May, 2008.; also see Chinua Achebe, There was a Country, p. 23. 69 With the exception of Christopher Okigbo, all these alumni came to play in the national team. Namseh Eno was the first alumnus to play for Nigeria in 1950 against the Gold Coast, three years after Low’s arrival at Umuahia. He was a remarkable batsman during his time at 66

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Figure 2.3  Cricket XI team, Government College, Umuahia, 1948-49. Standing, first from the left, Kelsey Harrison; third from the left, Christopher Okigbo; second from the right, Chike Momah. Charles W. Low features prominently in the photograph. (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison)

Low, who ‘always walked swinging a stick about the same length as a cricket bat’70 was fond of seeking out these boys whenever he pleased, including on the otherwise ‘free’ Saturdays, to demonstrate and practise batting strokes. He involved the whole college in this exercise when it was his duty to supervise morning physical training. The model for this curious practice was probably the Victorian cricketer and imperial hero, W.G. Grace, revered by Low, and who as a batsman ‘used all strokes, played back or forward, aggressively or defensively, as the circumstances or the occasion required.’71 Low’s adulation of Grace occasionally took eyebrow-raising forms. In 1948, he famously grew a shaggy beard to commemorate the century of the birth of the famous batsman, as J.O. Onwuka – widely claimed to be the school’s best writer of English – amusingly chronicled in the school magazine:

Government College, and went on to become the best batsman on the University College, Ibadan team upon entry. 70 Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 June 2010. 71 C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary, p. 235.

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On our return to school last September, we beheld a monstrous portent. We infer that the reason why the gentleman who takes charge of the school cricket chose to hide the lower part of his face in a hirsute jungle was to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the late Dr. W.G. Grace. In fact, some of the new boys mistook a photograph of the Doctor in a magazine in the library for one of the aforesaid gentleman. The growth, however, did not survive the return to Nigeria of the gentleman’s wife.72

Notwithstanding the fact that the Australian’s antics won him the nickname of ‘Mad Low’, the marked improvement in the dedication and technique of his cricket trainees demonstrates that his unorthodox methods were efficient. Nonetheless, he did not succeed in introducing rugby and baseball to the school’s repertory of games. Under Low’s direction, Okigbo’s batsmanship reached impressive heights. His teammate, Kelsey Harrison, remembers the poet as a ‘prodigious schoolboy batsman, being the first in the college history to make a century: 109 against Ibadan Government College in 1948’ and recalls that Okigbo did not only earn the admiration of his teammates and the college’s masters, but also of the colonial dignitaries beyond the college. That year he made a century and won the coveted cricket bat that A. Smith, the Resident of Owerri Province presented annually to ‘the boy has done most by example and inspiration to promote the best interests of the game.’73 Of more interest, perhaps, is the fact that Okigbo’s careful assimilation of cricket principles did not preempt the development of his own distinctive style. As Chike Momah recalls, his cricket ‘personified him: dazzling, almost flamboyant.’ 74 As Simon Gikandi writes, cricket and literature are ‘the institutions that allow formerly colonized peoples to hallow new spaces of identity and selfexpression.’75 As we will see in the next chapter, Achebe was already quoting indigenous proverbs in his Government College essays, vindicating ancestral wisdom in the ‘English’ medium of the colonial schoolboy composition. Okigbo and Momah’s transcendence of cricket’s symbolic models are also intimately connected with their humanistic training. This is particularly evident in the singular relationship between Christopher Okigbo and Charles Low. In the Australian ‘was the bohemian spirit – the free spirited, outdoorsy, sportsmancricketer, dramatist, poet, and cosmopolitan – everything that Okigbo aspired to be and indeed became. He copied Low down to his pipes’.76 This fact has 72

J.O. Onwuka, ‘General Notes’ Government College Umuahia Magazine 2 (1948–49), p. 5. Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb, p. 353. 74 Chike Momah’s email to the author, February 23 2008. 75 Simon Gikandi, Maps of Englishness, Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism. (Columbia: UP, 1996), p. 13. 76 Obi Nwakanma’s email to the author, 18 February, 2008. 73

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Figure 2.4  Cricket XI team, Government College, Umuahia, 1948. Standing, second from left is Christopher Okigbo. (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison)

been known since Obi Nwakanma first revealed it at the Christopher Okigbo International Conference at Harvard University in 2007, and later expounded in his 2010 biography of the poet. René Girard’s mimetic theory is of particular use in explaining the poet’s fascination with Low and the ‘patterns of deliberate self-fashioning’77 that resulted from his interactions with the Australian master. This is of interest for what it reveals about Okigbo’s psychology, as well as the poet’s unique take on aesthetic hybridity. According to Girard, mimetic desire occurs when we crave for an object, place, status, or person simply because someone else desires it.78 Thus, the romantic concept of spontaneous desire is illusory, for one learns the value of desired objects from desiring subjects. Mimetic desire is schematized by a triangle of which the desiring subject (Christopher Okigbo), the model/mediator (Charles Low), and the desired object/s (cricket, the classics, and creative writing) form the angles. I will discuss the two other components of what I will call ‘the Low triumvirate’ in succeeding chapters. Okigbo’s first encounter with 77

Paul Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000), p. 1. 78 See René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (New York: Continuum, 2005), p. 155.

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the Australian master and their subsequent and frequent interactions in the cricket oval attracted Okigbo to the triumvirate. His was a case of what Girard calls external mediation, which occurs when the hierarchical, geographical, or professional distance between the subject and the model of desire is so great that it cannot lead to rivalry. In the relationship between Okigbo and Charles Low, the age gap, difference in academic attainments and the colonial situation are ‘sufficient to eliminate any contact between the two spheres of possibilities of which mediator and the subject occupy the respective centers’.79 The following paragraph will better illuminate the point that I am trying to make here: Reading poetry and watching cricket were the sum of my world, and the two are not so far apart as many aesthetes might believe … Most of us need an ideal. Nor is it necessary for that ideal to symbolize one’s particular ambition. An actor can prove to be the spur, rousing one’s spirit to a realization of the greatness in mankind and the latent powers within oneself, but more often it is a work of art, the reading of a poem, the hearing of music, the sight of a great painting … and to me Don Bradman [the famous Australian cricketer, considered the greatest Test batsman of all time] became the symbol of achievement, of mastery over fate, all the more powerful because it was impossible for me, a cricketing rabbit, to compare myself with him.80

Thus writes the (white) Australian writer Philip Lindsay. But it could easily have been Okigbo reflecting on his own particular ‘mimetic apprentissage’ 81 under Charles Low at Government College. Before Low, Okigbo had already been a good cricket player and had a highly developed sense of the theatrical. He was more known for his friendliness and ‘rascally’ behaviour than for outstanding academic performance, and he tended to engage in activities that earned him praise and distinction. Okigbo, according to Nwakanma, tried to negotiate the trauma of his mother’s death by drawing attention to himself.82 However, until the Australian’s arrival, he had not found the personification of the kind of distinctiveness that he craved. The masters at Government College, despite their personal idiosyncrasies, mostly converged in their outlook. But Low was distinct in his tastes and pedagogical preferences, despite his pro-imperial attitude and high standing in the school’s colonial hierarchy. Every single reminiscence on Charles Low stresses the master’s uniqueness – his peculiar and much-imitated walk (‘short strides, 79

See René Girard’s Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1976), p. 9. 80 Quoted in C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary, pp. 123–124. 81 Chris Fleming, René Girard: Violence and Mimesis (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), p. 18. 82 Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight: Christopher Okigbo 1930–1967 (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), p. 13

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his body leaning forward slightly, his shoulder inclining from left to right’83), character, sartorial style, offhanded erudition, spontaneous composition of poems, unorthodox sportsmanship… Other boys were also drawn to Low’s unique qualities, love of cricket and fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan Operas, 84 but it seems that none was affected as profoundly as Okigbo. The triumvirate of cricket, the Classics, and literary creativity were desirable to Okigbo not for their intrinsic qualities but because they were desirable to Low, and following the premises of mimetic desire, these objects underwent ‘a transformation in the perception of the desiring individual so that they [were] imbued with an aura’.85 After all, metaphysical desire, Girard tells us, is a yearning ‘not for the objects of the desire but for the model’s uniqueness, spontaneity – his or her ‘qualities’ … the possession of objects is merely a path.’86 In imitating the Other, Okigbo did not renounce his own particular sense of Self. His strategy of selfhood did not consist in appropriating the Australian’s image as an ‘English’ gentleman, but as an individual striking for his difference. This aura, Lindfors and Nwakanma show, followed Okigbo beyond the college walls. For even in the midst of personal crisis he fell back, when appointed Vice Principal of Fiditi Grammar School in 1958, on the ‘Low triumvirate’: he taught Latin, was the school’s sports master, patronized the senior literary and debating society and convened special lectures in the classics and poetry all while developing his new-found poetic voice.87 This is not to say that Okigbo’s mimetic desire was oblivious of the colonial templates on which Low’s assimilation of the ‘triumvirate’ was based.88 But it allowed him, like his fellow Umuahian first-generation writers, to break the shackles of the colonial double-bind and configure a third space of cultural negotiation, a discursive space that first came into textual existence in Chinua Achebe’s early work. Momah’s decidedly subtle ‘counter-hegemonic re-articulation of cricket’,89 in the autobiographical school story The Shining Ones: the Umuahia School Days of Obinna Okoye is an interesting counterpart to Okigbo’s mimetic apprentissage and Chinua Achebe’s early deconstructions of colonial discourse. The text ‘writes back’ to a certain extent to Tom Brown’s Schooldays. In his seminal school story, Thomas Hughes correlates cricket with Englishness thus: 83

Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 February, 2008. Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb, p. 48. 85 Chris Fleming, René Girard: Violence and Mimesis, p. 19. 86 Ibid., p. 24. 87 Bernth Lindfors, Early Nigerian Literature, p. 161. 88 According to Brian Stoddart and Keith A.P. Sandford, ‘[Australian] determination to succeed at cricket came at least in part from a colonial psychology which created an endeavour to keep pace with their arrogant and imperializing metropolitan cousins.’ (Brian . Stoddart & Keith A.P. Sandiford, ‘Introduction’, The Imperial Game: Cricket, Culture and Society, eds. Brian Stoddart & Keith A.P. Sandiford. (Manchester: UP, 1988), p. 2 89 Anthony Bateman, Cricket, Literature and Culture, p. 2. 84

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‘It’s more than a game. It’s an institution!’ said Tom. ‘Yes’, said Arthur ‘the birthright of British boys old and young, as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British men!’ ‘The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches is so valuable, I think,’ went on the master, ‘it ought to be such an unselfish game. It merges the individual in the eleven; he doesn’t play that he may win, but that his side may.90

This is one of the memorable passages that every Umuahian came across in the school library at some point, and which must have drawn the attention of the school’s cricketers. Momah’s descriptive portrayal of Umuahia cricketing culture is lively, exciting and optimistic. And yet, the school hero’s absorption of cricket codes is somewhat marred by an unsettling ambivalence. As Simon Gikandi explains: Even as the colonized were touting cricket as an example of their simultaneous mastery and transcendence of Englishness, they were well aware of the extent to which the game had become what Orlando Patterson calls ‘a byword for all that is most English in the British way of life,’ and hence the symbol of a difficult, if not embarrassing colonial grammar. 91

Obinna, though taken with the game, is aware of the overarching ideological politics of cricket: ‘I knew intuitively that this was not a game I would ever play with carefree abandon, no matter how proficient I ever became’.92 Taken on its own, this affirmation is not necessarily vested with political meanings. But the development of Obinna’s anti-colonial consciousness in the Umuahia of The Shining Ones, as we will see in Chapter 6, is largely conditioned by the convolutions of his double-consciousness. Hence, Obinna gives particular weight to the game’s democratizing possibilities, which include playing and winning against teams of British Commonwealth Civil Servants, as well as the Masters XI team in which ‘sometimes a few personal scores were settled’.93 Ngugi wa Thiong’o expresses this line of thought more explicitly in his school memoir, In the House of the Interpreter: ‘Consciously so or not, every sports event between white and black became a metaphor for the racialized power struggle in the country.’94 Momah also conjures Okigbo’s aesthetic subversion of the game’s imperial authority by comparing the batting of Obidike (a thinly-veiled Okigbo), which caused ‘gasps of wonder and disbelief ’ exhibiting ‘a brilliance 90

Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 1993), p. 328. Simon Gikandi, Maps of Englishness, p. 9. 92 Chike Momah, The Shining Ones, p. 72. 93 Ibid., p. 75. In an email to the author on 13 June 2010, Kelsey Harrison, in answer to a question on Umuahia’s cricketing culture, also pointed out the fact that he could liaise with British masters more easily in the cricket field. 94 Ngugi wa Thiong’o, In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir. (London: Harvill Secker 2012), p. 143. 91

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which showed little or no respect for the basic principles of batting enunciated in cricket manuals’95 with the more orthodox style of James Wolf, the Antipodan master (Low) who ‘batted in a quite masterly fashion without causing us to grasp in wonderment. His bat was as straight as it was possible to be; perhaps a little more so than seemed absolutely necessary’.96(emphasis added) Christopher Okigbo and Chike Momah’s appropriation of the game ‘as a tool for remedying deeper, more serious allegations’97 illustrates the fact that students did not merely ‘admire, wonder, imitate, and learn’98 in Umuahia’s colonial enclave. They saw themselves as occupants of a liminal space, co-opting the cultural codes of their elite English education in symbolic ways. Nowhere was this sense of subversive aesthetic hybridity more evident than in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and the succeeding literary output of his four talented school friends.

95

Chike Momah, The Shining Ones, p. 224. Ibid., p. 236. 97 Boria Majumdar, ‘Tom Brown Goes Global: The ‘Brown’ Ethic in Colonial and Post-colonial India’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 23:5 (August 2006), p. 816. 98 C.L.R. James, Beyond a Boundary, p. 39. 96

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3

It doesn’t matter really what you teach; it is the spirit. I think that the best teachers in Ibadan, in Umuahia, seemed to be formed by that spirit. They weren’t teaching us African literature. If we had relied on them to teach us how to become Africans we would never have got started. They taught us English literature; they taught us what they knew. And a good student could take off from there. (Chinua Achebe, quoted in Wren, 1990)

Government College, Umuahia recruited some of the very best pupils in Nigeria and the British Cameroons. Nevertheless, their European teachers were concerned about their fluency in English. In Eastern Nigerian primary schools, teaching took place mainly in the vernacular. Village boys barely spoke any English outside the school. Consequently, the authorities of the Umuahia Government College spent the first year after the relocation laying the ground for advanced instruction leading to the Cambridge School Certificate Examination. The learning objectives of the official English syllabus for 1943–44 were ‘to use the English language simply and soundly: get rid as far as possible of the faults of previous bad teaching (this occupies much time and persistent effort): to develop clear thinking and clear expression: to speak smoothly and correctly: to gain a desire for private reading’.1 At Umuahia, students were required to speak English at all times. Form I students found this strict prohibition of pidgin and the vernacular challenging, if not downright impracticable. Many ended up contravening the rule in the first weeks and were punished for it.2 In his ‘Reminiscences of GCU in the Forties’, Chike Momah recalls his first encounter with the ‘No-Vernacular Rule’ and the life-long effects of the suppression of indigenous languages at Government College:

1 Randal

F. Hogarth, ‘Annual Report for 1943–44’, Umuahia Government College, Nigeria. Information Required by the Member of the Elliot Commission of Higher Education. February 1944, p. 24. RHL: Mss. Brit. Emp. S 351. 2 Achebe’s very first punishment at Umuahia was for speaking Igbo to a schoolmate. (See Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography, p.  30) Kelsey Harrison, on his part, had to copy out a stanza of a poem by Longfellow fifty times for speaking to another boy in his native Kalabari (Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb: From the Creeks of the Niger Delta to Leading Obstetrician and University Vice Chancellor (London: Adonis & Abbey, 2006), p. 43.

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Quite early, my elder brother administered something of a shock to me. One day I was chatting with him. Then I became aware that he was not responding as he should have been doing. Instead he had his arms akimbo and was looking at me with a very disapproving expression on his face. I stopped and only then he said: ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying’ – or words to that effect.

‘You don’t understand?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘I don’t!’ he snapped. ‘And as long as you continue to talk in Igbo, I won’t understand you.’ … From that day to this, to my eternal shame, I can hardly make a sentence in Igbo without mixing in a word or two of English.3 (Emphasis added) The ‘no-vernacular’ rule had ‘obvious advantages in terms of discipline and control,’ as Anthony Simpson has said in a different context,4 but the rationale given at Government College was the need to erase communication barriers between students from different ethnic groups. About two months into Chinua Achebe and Chike Momah’s first year at Umuahia, the school received the visit of the Commission of Higher Education in West Africa (also known as The Eliot Commission). The commission’s 1945 report eventually led to the creation of the University College, Ibadan. This development radically enhanced the Umuahian writers’ academic prospects. The report also affected English instruction at Government College in a different way – the Elliot Commission had found the standard of spoken English in the schools it visited ‘unsatisfactory’ and recommended that specialist teachers of English in Nigerian secondary schools be Englishmen, so as to ensure that students’ pronunciation did not diverge from that of the native speakers of the language.5 While these recommendations were not entirely feasible in Nigerian missionary institutions, the high proportion of British Education Officers recruited to teach at government colleges and the availability of film and tape recordings gave Umuahians an edge over the less-privileged students of other schools in the quest to thoroughly anglicize their spoken English. The literary culture of Government College, Umuahia began in earnest with Adrian P.L. Slater’s arrival in Easter Term 1945. The new master had studied English and Classics at St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. His career in education began at King’s College, Lagos, so he was not a complete stranger to Government College. At Umuahia, he taught English, History, and like most 3 Chike

Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 15, my emphasis. 4 Anthony Simpson, Half London in Zambia: Contested Identities in a Catholic Mission. (Edinburgh UP, 2003), p. 89. 5 Colonial Office, ‘Report of the Commission on Higher Education in West Africa. Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Colonies by Command of His Majesty’, (London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, June 1944) Bodleian Law Papers O.Pp.Eng (1944/45 Cond 6655)

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teachers, Religious Knowledge. Chinua Achebe and Chike Momah studied English under Slater throughout his tenure at Umuahia, and Achebe also studied history with Slater in his third year. Slater’s lofty academic expectations and harsh punitive measures inspired a sense of awe and wonder. He set a high standard for English Studies at Umuahia, and impressed the boys with a lifelong ‘respect for language’.6 One of the hallmarks that he brought to student writing at Government College was stylistic simplicity, which he taught with the help of William Hazlitt’s ‘On Familiar Style’. At a time when most Nigerian schoolboys associated verbose language with erudition, Hazlitt’s premises must have seemed revolutionary: Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style is to write as anyone would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.7

These standards were to dominate the teaching of English composition and student writing at Government College during Slater’s time at the school and beyond. To ensure the thorough assimilation of Hazlitt’s principles, every week, Slater read aloud three chapters of Pinocchio or The Piper’s Tale and asked the boys to write out a page and half précis during prep. He also assigned a twopage essay at least once a week. In these writing assignments, Slater looked for detail, brevity, relevance, logical order and stylistic simplicity.8 In later years, he admitted that he ‘marked them very carefully, absolutely ruthless, very hard’.9 His extreme marking system consisted in deducing one mark for every grammatical or spelling error. He considered a score of thirty out of fifty ‘the pinnacle

6 Chinua

Achebe qtd. in Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru, Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple, (Lagos: Malthouse Press), p. 23. 7 William Hazlitt, ‘On Simple Style’ . Accessed 18 January, 2013. 8 Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Education Officer. Notes of Lessons: King’s College Lagos, September 1943-March 1944; Government College, Umuahia January 1945-April 1946. Unpublished notebook. 9 Adrian Slater qtd. in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years (Washington DC: Three Continents Press, 1984), p. 54.

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of achievement’,10 but even this could be converted to a negative score, as he kept subtracting marks for every error, notwithstanding his initial evaluation of the essay. If a student’s grade sank below a zero, the negative marks would be deducted from future work. He graded student performance according to scale ranging from ‘quite good’ to ‘useless’.11 Slater was rumoured to mark Cambridge School Certificate papers, but students happily surmised that their papers would be beyond his sphere of influence. When an entire school failed the English paper in the School Certificate, they deduced that ‘Apples’ was behind it all. Along with schoolboy staples such as ‘The Game I like Best’, ‘What I did in the Holidays’ and ‘Tell a Dream – Real or Made up’, the boys wrote essays on such topics as ‘The Most Stimulating Book I Have Read,’ which called for a measure of literary interpretation, ‘What Age in History I Would Have Loved to Live in’ – which, considering the colonial situation could be a potentially sensitive topic – and the most polemical of all: ‘The Effect of Climate on Man’s Work or Character’. This last title, interrogating the racist trope that links ‘African indolence’ to the climate, was in keeping with Slater’s penchant for bringing up incendiary subjects and deploying shock tactics in the English classroom. The textbooks used in the course included Lancelot Oliphant’s Progressive English Course, R.W. Jepson’s English Exercises for School Certificate – which focused on précis and essay-writing – English Grammar for Today and An Outline English Grammar. Apart from the compulsory set texts, students had a free choice of thirteen novels and a number of essays to choose from the vast library holdings each term.12 Slater’s notoriously long reading list included such varied titles as Macaulay’s ‘Horatius,’ Noyes’ ‘The Highwayman,’ Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’, Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’, Milne’s ‘The Old Sailor’, Masefield’s ‘Sea Fever’, and ‘Captain Stratton’s Fancy’, Goldsmith’s ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’, and Southey’s ‘God’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishop’. Rudyard Kipling seems to have been the most represented author in Slater’s syllabus with three entries: ‘Boots’, ‘The Camel’s Lump’, and Just So Stories. Other recommended texts included Joseph Jacob’s ‘Lazy Jack’, H.G. Wells’ ‘The Man Who Could Work Miracles’, Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Wyatt’s Tale of the Bounty. 13 The Shakespeare plays included Macbeth, Twelfth Night and As you Like It.14 While Slater did not seem 10

Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 18. Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Notes of Lessons. 12 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 56. 13 The Cambridge School Certificate Examination set the agenda for the material covered at Government College. Nonetheless, the teachers enjoyed a degree of flexibility in structuring individual syllabi, which were apparently were not submitted to the principal or education inspectors for inspection. This is apparent in the rough nature of Slater’s lesson plans, and the improvisatory nature of Low’s classes. 14 Adrian P.P L. Slater. 11

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to favour any particular period, he had a preference for British patriotic and historical themes.15 Conversely, texts like Ivanhoe, Tale of the Bounty and ‘God’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishop’ offered the students openings into which they could slot their grievances as colonial subjects and obtain a measure of psychological redress.16 Slater aimed to teach his students ‘to appreciate the finer structure of language, character or plot’ and to identify the arguments of the essays they read.17 Poetry was not merely an object of literary instruction,18 but a medium for teaching vocabulary and pronunciation. He would begin his poetry classes by eliciting meanings and explicating difficult lexical items, and then ask students to copy down the poems and read them carefully. During prep, students memorized the poems for recitation the next day. The master supported the recommendations of the Elliot Commission and was very particular about student pronunciation. One of the assigned textbooks used in Slater’s classes was Arthur Lloyd James’ Our Spoken Language, which advocated the idea that English dialects were detrimental to the grandeur of the language and the unity between Anglophone speakers. Slater spent many class periods on recitations, dictation exercises and interactive speaking activities to steer the students’ spoken English in the desired direction. Slater’s lesson notes are less explanatory of his history classes.19 Unlike his flexible and interactive English classes, Slater’s history course was conducted mainly as lectures. Students took copious notes and submitted them for approval after class. Slater also stressed the use of charts to remember key dates and events, which he marked alongside class notes. While this approach could very well emphasize the truth value in imperial history, his steady use of a certain textbook of logic – whose title I am going to reserve until the next chapter – which pointed out the dangers of making assumptions based on the over-simplification of historical developments, seems to prove otherwise. At Umuahia, corporal punishment was rare, and apart from the detentions and runs, was usually administered in the privacy of the principal’s office. Slater, however, was infamous for his ‘love tap’ – the harsh use of a wooden ruler on the palms of the hand – and the ‘hatred tap’, dispensed on the knuckles. He valued proactivity and penalized ‘slackers’: ‘If nobody asks for prep again,’ he wrote in a lesson plan, ‘all [students to be put on] detention’. His references to ‘African stupidity’ and ‘Renascent Africa’ also inspired a degree of discomfiture. I will 15

He was later to describe these texts as ’pretty stodgy‘ (qtd. In Robert Wren Those Magical Years, p. 57) 16 I am indebted to Stephanie Newell’s phrasing in Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to Play the Game of Life (Manchester UP, 2002), p. 105. 17 Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Notes of Lessons. 18 Slater outlined ‘the Elizabethan stage’ and ‘poetry’ as ‘big topics’ in literature in his lesson notes. 19 Slater’s ‘big topics’ in history were the period 1400–1600, slavery, and abolition.

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come back to this question in the next chapter, for it is noteworthy enough to follow up. Rather than constrain student learning, Slater’s demanding pedagogies proved the innate intellectual capacities of Government College students: Chinua was one of twenty-five or thirty who were so able but I took it for granted. And I am rather shocked even now to think of how I threw everything at them as if they were native English people, speakers who got enormous European background. I am surprised at my nerves, but I did it and they took it. I never let them get away with incorrect English. They learned and wrote as good English as I could teach. If I were responsible for any of Chinua’s style of English, I am very proud of it. What I would say is that this class as a whole would be writing this English of the same calibre …I was concerned with their written English. I would not let them get away with anything being out of place. I would like to think that I made them realize they couldn’t get away with bad English. I am sure I demanded more from non-native students than I did from native born English students. 20

Achebe and Momah’s first year was certainly momentous. Before Slater’s arrival, they had already studied under ‘a wonderful history teacher’21, Martin Ogle. He had been educated at the University of Oxford and began his career in 1938, working for the Malayan Education Service.22 Ogle was among the pioneer staff of the ‘new’ Government College and also taught English until his departure in Easter Term, 1944. At first, Ogle limited his classes to the history of the British Empire.23 As time went by, his history course became inclusive of alternative histories. On the year he taught Achebe and Momah, he told the boys gripping stories on the Empires of Mali, Ghana and Songhai, which served to counterbalance the degrading history of colonialism and the slave trade. He also enthralled the students with fascinating stories of the ancient world.24 This was a crucial contribution to the boys’ historical consciousness and a welcome change from the overt manifestations of British cultural superiority that pervaded school life. However, ‘liberal’ history teachers like Ogle were not entirely unusual in Nigerian colonial schools; as P.S. Zachernuk explains, W.E. Ward’s primary school textbook Africa before the White Man, also discussed ancient

20

Adrian Slater, quoted in Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru, Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple, an Oral Biography (Lagos: Malthouse, 2002), p. 23. 21 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 15. 22 He was later awarded an OBE for service to education in the Federation of Malaya and Malaysia. See ‘Expatriate British Educationist Dies’ The Straits Times June 9 1995. 23 See ‘Professor Bede N. Okigbo in Conversation with Professor Ossie Enekwe, Uduma Kalu and Alvan Ewuzie’ The Achebe Foundation Interviews. Accessed 18 March 2013. 24 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 15.

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Egypt and the great Sudanese empires.25 Teachers like Ogle ‘did not necessarily transcend imperial paternalism, or conclude that Africa was Europe’s equal in civilization,’ as Zachernuk affirms, but were ‘keen to promote cultural and historical pride rather than render it impossible’.26 The Umuahia Government College had an impressive library to complement its outstanding teachers. According to Chinua Achebe, this was the most valuable asset of the institution, being ‘of crucial importance in creating both committed readers and future writers’.27 Incoming students were enthralled by the well-organized library and its countless rows of books. This in itself was an incentive to read voraciously. But the principal further promoted its use with his famous Text-Book Act of 1945, formulated in an intent to curb ‘excessive devotion to bookwork’: During games time, that is from five to six, nobody may be under a roof; nobody may read a text book. If you are not put down for games, go on a stroll with a friend, chat, discuss. Or make your companion a good book – a novel, a book of poems or essays. Sit under one of the many shrubs around and have a pleasant one hour.28

The rule was enforced on three days of the week: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And woe betide the boy who fell foul of the rule! Apart from literary works, students also availed themselves of the forbidden periods to browse through magazines such as US News, The Illustrated London News, World Report, and Life magazine. Elechi Amadi loved the Text-Book Act: ‘I read a novel a week on the average. It was a great innovation ... I loved stories. When I left school I continued to read novels. I found that if I didn’t have a novel to read, then I wouldn’t feel happy … So that was the great thing about Umuahia: the library and the classics that were available to read there.’29 Achebe had a similar experience, ‘I was entranced by the faraway and long-ago worlds of the stories, so different from the stories of my home and childhood’.30 The most popular authors at Government College included Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan-Doyle. Individual works such as Treasure Island, Wuthering Heights, Prisoner of Zenda, Mutiny on the Bounty, School for Scandal, Gulliver’s Travels, Up from Slavery, and Tom Brown’s Schooldays were well-liked, 25

P.S. Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, Africa 68:4 (1998), p. 493. 26 Ibid. 27 Chinua Achebe. ‘What do African Intellectuals Read?’ Morning Yet on Creation Day (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975), p. 40. 28 On October 26, 1950, the principal added another clause to the Act: ‘No reading during break.’ 29 Personal Interview with Elechi Amadi, 25 February 2008. 30 Chinua Achebe, ‘My Home under Imperial Fire’, Home and Exile (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2003), p. 21.

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as were Shakespeare plays.31 The masters fomented affinity to masculine adventure stories and strictly discouraged the boys from reading popular literature, especially novels of the Marie Corelli type.32 Amadi recalls sitting in the library with a friend, who was engrossed in a penny dreadful – apparently not from the library holdings – when the principal materialized out of nowhere: ‘ WHAT ARE YOU READING, MY BOY?!!’33 Amadi chuckles as he recalls the principal’s chagrin, but the student culprit must have shivered with fright at Dewar’s unexpected intrusion. However, literature was mostly a source of enjoyment. The boys enjoyed the use of ‘uncritical borrowings of literature’ as nicknames.34 The signal for Mr. Jumbo’s presence, for instance, was ‘Black dog appears’, lifted from Treasure Island. A student became ‘Captain Bligh’ after the character from Mutiny in the Bounty, ‘when he ‘messed’ or broke wind rather loudly in class’.35 But beyond the light-hearted appropriation of sobriquets from school literature, how did the boys respond to such novels of Empire as She, Alan Quatermain, and Prester John? Achebe recalls, I did not see myself as an African to begin with. I took sides with the whitemen against the savages. In other words, I went through my first level of schooling thinking I was of the party of the white man in his hair-raising adventures and narrow escapes. The white man was good and reasonable and intelligent and courageous. The savages arrayed against him were sinister and stupid, or at the most, cunning. I hated their guts.36

English studies in the colonies were meant to strengthen and endorse ‘the legitimacy and authority of British institutions, laws and government.’37 The desired effect was to bond the schoolboy subject emotionally and intellectually to Great Britain, and the school’s traditions and curriculum were instrumental to this task. While it is true that this first literary encounter was ‘a wonderful preparation for the day [the boys] would be old enough to read between the lines and ask questions,’38 Achebe’s readerly experience, despite his protests to

31

The set books for Senior School Certificate always included a Shakespearean play and a novel by Charles Dickens. 32 This was the case of most schools in British West Africa. See Stephanie Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: ‘How to Play the Game of Life’. 33 Personal interview with Elechi Amadi, 25 February 2008. 34 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 19. 35 Ibid., p. 19. 36 Chinua Achebe, ‘African Literature as Restoration of Celebration’, Chinua Achebe: A Celebration, eds. Kristen Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherord, (eds) (Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books, 1991) p. 7. 37 Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 117. 38 Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography, p. 27.

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the contrary,39was symptomatic of an alienation that was not necessarily representative of all government college students. A number of Umuahians began to question their alignment with the cultural and political imperatives of their rulers in these early years, as we will see in subsequent chapters. Slater left the college in the last term of 1946 and was succeeded by William Charles Low – cricketer, poet and playwright, ‘unequaled in terms of individual characteristics that bordered on the extraordinary’.40 He had a BA in Classics from Clare College, Cambridge and an M.A. from the School of Classical Philology of Ormond College, Melbourne. One of the first things that he did upon his appointment, apart from making the acquaintance of the cricket team, was to administer an English proficiency test to the entire school. Chukwuemeka Ike and Christopher Okigbo’s class excelled in this evaluation, and this predisposed him to the group. Initially, students had difficulties grasping Low’s Australian accent and digressive style of teaching. References to Charles Low’s famous individuality abound, but Kelsey Harrison’s portrayal of Low’s appearance and pedagogical approach is probably the most illustrative: First his attire [:] it was khaki shirt and khaki pair of shorts, not trousers. He dressed very informally but by goodness, he knew his stuff. His weakness was that his talks on English novels, on Shakespeare or whatever were often unstructured. As a listener you would think he was rambling but he was not. He read at an astonishing speed, which meant that he had time to discuss the subject matter in greater detail than other teachers of English. He was in a class of his own in teaching poetry. He was fond of iambic metres especially the tetrameters. His eyes lit up when he read his own poems … He was averse to learning by rote, rather he insisted upon thorough understanding of basic principles. For this purpose, he often wrote on the blackboard to make his points. He could also be jocular when the occasion demanded but this was seldom.41

Low marked a vital difference between Umuahia’s literary culture and that of its sister institution: he was the first (and last) master to introduce creative writing as an integral part of English Studies at the college during those years, as we will see in Chapter 5. Unlike Slater, who mainly deployed literature to convey the mechanics of language and sharpen analytical skills, Low imbued literature with a distinct artistic aura, the preserve of the enlightened few. He certainly preached by example. He was said to know ‘Paradise Lost’ from memory42 and

39

See Chinua Achebe, ‘Named for Victoria, Queen of England’, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Anchor, 1990), p. 35. 40 Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography, p. 29. 41 Kelsey Harrison’s email to the Author, April 13 2010. 42 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 57.

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encouraged the boys to ‘write poetry, read other poets and to appreciate them’.43 Umuahians also found his voracious reading stirring, as Momah recounts: I always looked forward to the turn of Mr. Charles Low, the Australian, as the prep supervisor. If I had no home work to write, I would pretend to be reading a book, while most of the time I watched him leaf rapidly through whatever book had taken his fancy from the library’s shelves. It seemed incredible at the time to most of us, but Charles Low was actually reading those books, not just flipping the pages over idly. The speed at which he did so excited our wonder, and I for one, never stopped to marvel at it. He was credited with reading The Prisoner of Zenda a sizeable novel, and other similarly fat works, each in one ‘Prep’ period.44

Umuahia did not offer Latin as a subject option in the Cambridge School Certificate at the time, but the Principal, proficient in Latin and Greek, had been teaching informal Latin classes from 1945. Ike and Okigbo were among the first beneficiaries of this scheme. They found the course engaging, and the elite associations of the classics must have added to the allure. There was also room for entertainment – the boys enjoyed getting the principal to say ‘amabunt’ during the Latin class ‘for the fun of watching his pot belly nod as he laid the stress on –bunt’!’ 45 From 1946 onwards, and capitalizing on his degree in Classics, Low taught Latin in the senior classes. Despite the unofficial nature of the course, Low’s passion was contagious. Predictably, Okigbo was the sole student in his cohort to go for a Classics degree, despite his lack of formal qualifications.46 Not much is known about their interactions in the classroom, but according to Obi Nwakanma, he was among the privileged set of students to meet unofficially in Low’s bungalow to study the Latin and Greek classics and was often seen clutching The Prisoner of Zenda, a novel that students associated with Low.47 Despite common perceptions that Okigbo was not literary-minded at the time,48 Nwakanma relates that the Australian presented him with T.S. Eliot’s poetry volume Ara Vos Prec and the collection of essays The Sacred Wood in his last year. Whether the motive behind this gift was an acknowledgement of latent literary talent or recognition of Okigbo’s peculiar psychological traits is impossible to

43

Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 172. Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 21. 45 Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979.) p. 24 46 Apparently, Okigbo was not entirely a neophyte. Nwakanma states in his biography of the poet that before Christopher was admitted to Umuahia, his brother, Pius had introduced him to the Greek poets and Latin historians. Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight: Christopher Okigbo 1930–1967 (Oxford: James Currey, 2010) , p. 37. 47 Obi Nwakanma, ibid., p. 48. 48 See Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 79. 44

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ascertain.49 Elechi Amadi also took Low’s Latin course, and linked the exciting new subject to his growing passion for reading and writing in English: ‘although Latin was [initially] a difficult subject, I later discovered that it is a powerful weapon in learning English. Because half the English words have their roots in Latin, we can trace their meanings.’50 Ike recalls that when Charles Low took his and Okigbo’s class on Christian Religious Knowledge, ‘he took advantage of his classical background to refer us to Latin and Greek translations of the Bible.’51 Low’s love of Latin had another enduring consequence: he added the words In Unum Luceant to Fisher’s crest of intertwining black and white torches. The motto remains one of the college’s most beloved assets. Towards the end of September 1947, the college welcomed another inspiring teacher in its fold. Saburi Bisiriyu, an old boy of Government College, Ibadan, was an extraordinarily accomplished young Nigerian. He arrived at Umuahia ‘with the aura’ 52 of two Honours Degrees from the University of London (History) and Trinity College, Cambridge (English). These rare credentials distinguished him from other Nigerian teachers and made possible his integration into the principal’s exclusively European social circle. ‘I was very well treated by all my colleagues, expatriate and Nigerian’, he recalled years later, ‘My claim to senior service status was impeccable’.53 Bisiriyu’s elite British education helped waive the requirement that teachers of English be native speakers. The students were ‘dazzled’ by Bisiriyu’s British honours degrees and his ‘presence and carriage’.54 They also found his peculiar brand of colonial mimicry remarkable.55 As Chukwuemeka Ike – his favourite student – recalls, ‘he had a habit of brushing back an ‘imaginary’ lock of hair, a mannerism that students found amusing. 49

As James Longenbach asserts, Ara Vos Prec is ‘a book about pain, pain in all its guises, psychological and physical, the pain of belonging and the pain of standing apart’. (‘Ara Vos Prec: Eliot’s Negotiation of Satire and Suffering’ in T.S. Eliot: The Modernist in History. ed. Ronald Bush (Cambridge UP, 1991), p.  41. Intriguingly, Bisiriyu told Nwakanma that ‘Christopher was a complicated child. Outwardly he was so full of life and activity, but there was a deep sense of gloom and loneliness, an agony, which was very real in his life at the time I knew him in Umuahia. He could just withdraw totally from his world and stubbornly cocoon himself in his private existence, and he would resist attempts to draw him out …’ (qtd. In Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 42.) 50 Personal Interview with Elechi Amadi, February 25 2008. 51 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 26 March 2013. 52 Saburi Biobaku, When we were Young. (Ibadan: University Press, 1992) p. 137. 53 Ibid. 54 Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa’s email to the author, 24 June 2013. 55 Charles Akpan Ekere, an Ibibio, was the only other Nigerian to teach English phonetics at Government College in the late 1940s on account of his British education – he held a BA from the University of London. The students felt he had been recruited because ‘the spoken English of some boys was too heavily accented to be understood.’ Ekere was very competent, but unlike other Nigerian he was ‘perhaps a bit aloof … He did not mix well with us in the way other Nigerian teachers did’ but seemed to get on well with A.B. Cozens. Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 5 February, 2014.

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Although he kept his hair short, he kept stroking it backwards as though he needed to do that to keep it in order. He tried to speak like an Englishman’.56 Like Slater before him, Bisiriyu used Oliphant’s Progressive English Course and assigned an essay per week. Bisiriyu’s methods were less rigid than Slater’s, but they still retained much of the Englishman’s fetish for perfection. He was a severe marker and deployed ‘a grading system in which students were placed on a descending scale of performance. Once placed in a certain performative bracket, a student would require a landmark improvement to score above the given average’.57 Hence, Ike – whose best subject was English – was delighted and motivated when he scored twenty-seven out of thirty in an essay on the ‘Eclipse of the Sun’.58Every week during term students selected a novel from the library and submitted a notebook with ‘a written report on the book, covering the name of the author, the title, contents of the book, and evaluation of the book’.59 Unlike Slater, Biobaku signaled out the salient among his students. For instance, he recalled that ‘Things Fall Apart was the type of thing [Achebe] would write. Even at College, he punctuated his essays with sayings from old people’,60 proof that Achebe was not entirely uncritical in his assimilation of English literary templates at the college. Bisiriyu’s commitment to his students is best illustrated with an interesting anecdote. To rectify what he saw as the inaccessible contents of the School Certificate English paper, he wrote to the Cambridge board with suggestions for improvement. He tried out the adjusted paper they sent him and did not find it suitable either. Unremitting, Bisiriyu prepared a sample paper and sent it to the examination board, but there is no evidence his recommendations shaped future School Certificate papers. The only students to get an A in English during those years were Ekpo Etim Inyang, who went on to become a medical doctor, J.O. Onwuka, and Elechi Amadi. The list of ‘Taboos: Words and Expressions to Avoid’ that he compiled to correct common student errors was a popular novelty. It corrected student usage of the word of ‘with’ as a possessive (as in ‘I am with the book’ instead of ‘I have the book’), promoted the use of ‘owing to’ and ‘because of ’ instead of ‘due to’, and banned the popular use of the expressions ‘so therefore’ and ‘supposing if.’ The boys steered clear of Bisiriyu’s ‘taboos’ and laughed at trespassers. If Ogle had inspired the students with his stories of African Kingdoms, Bisiriyu ingrained further the need to retrieve the untold histories of the African continent. Despite his apparent anglophilia, he recruited several students as interpreters in his ‘attempts to collect oral evidence on Igbo History’61 from 56

Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 42. 58 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. 59 Ibid. 60 Saburi Biobaku, quoted in Egejuru, Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple, p. 24. 61 Saburi Biobaku, When we Were Young, p. 147. 57

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the surrounding villages using questionnaires. According to Obi Nwakanma, the members of this select group included Chinua Achebe, Chike Momah, Chukwumeka Ike, Christopher Okigbo, Benjamin Uzochukwu, Celestine N. Egbuchulam, Vincent Aniago, Festus Emeghara, and Johnson Obi. From these expeditions, the boys found out the intricacies of oral historical research and the curtailed nature of the history textbooks they studied. Bisiriyu’s decision to study for a PhD in African History from the University of London was a further proof that they too could dream of writing themselves back in history. This newfound consciousness became the fulcrum of most of the Umuahian authors’ oeuvre in later years. Notwithstanding their friendly relationship with the Yoruba master, his student research assistants declined to teach him Igbo.62 Did they feel that Biobaku – with his privileged education and high standing in the colonial hierarchy of the college – did not need to add yet another vernacular language to his stock? Were they afraid of the European masters’ reactions? Or did they, like Bisiriyu’s servants, feel that ‘they could not teach Master’? One thing is certain: by inviting his students to teach him Igbo, Bisiriyu made a tacit statement on the dignity of indigenous languages and subverted the school’s strict policy on the use of the vernacular in the school compound. Bisiriyu did have official backing for his oral history trips outside the college, but this could have been conceded for a number of reasons: to stress the developmental benefits of British rule, to use the knowledge gathered for the colonial authorities’ benefit, or for the more liberal of the three possibilities – to uphold the extracurricular study of African history at Government College. Whatever the case, Bisiriyu’s research trips to the surrounding villages were still constitutive of a subversive desire to balance the contents of the history syllabus, which he taught in strict accordance with official rules. In 1948, Saburi Bisiriyu and Charles Low, who got along ‘famously’, proposed to co-write an English textbook, with an emphasis on comprehension exercises. However, these plans, and the rest of Bisiriyu’s prospects at Umuahia, were nipped in the bud by a most tragic event. Bisiriyu had successfully introduced a tradition that had its origins in Government College, Ibadan, and was fashioned to release accumulated tension before the infamous encounter with ‘the Cambridge Man’63: a picnic on the eve of the School Certificate Examinations. Chinua Achebe had been among the first boys to participate in the activity. The following year, on 28 November 1948, two boys from the Rivers Province, E.A.D. Green and F.I. Derrima, drowned during the excursion, unheeding the master’s prohibition to dive into the dangerous confluence of the Imo River and a tributary, about twenty-five miles from the college. The shock to the 62 See 63

ibid., pp. 137–138 and p. 140. T.M. Aluko. Built on the Rock: Government College, Ibadan: The First Twenty-Five Years (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1979), p. 61.

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school community can only be imagined. After the funeral service in the packed school chapel, the Bishop on the Niger, Rt. Reverend A. Patterson, pronounced a corner of the school compound a Christian Cemetery, and the deceased boys’ classmates took on the responsibility of tending to Green and Derrima’s graves. The college authorities lent the distraught Bisiriyu their unconditional support, but the pangs of conscience proved overwhelming and ‘psychologically, things were not really the same after that experience’,64 as he wrote in his memoirs of the period. After a physical and psychological breakdown, he decided to leave the college to pursue doctoral studies. William Simpson had grown quite attached to Bisiriyu and was sorry to see him go, but nevertheless wrote him a strong letter of recommendation to proceed to the University of London for his Ph.D. The ‘Yorubaman,’ as the boys fondly called him, left a parting message to the school’s future authors: ‘Although some of us could have taken science degrees in our own stride at the university, Biobaku swung us to Arts because he regarded scientists as bush men!’65 Years later, Saburi Bisiriyu – renamed Saburi Biobaku – earned his PhD with a thesis entitled The Egba and their Neighbours: 1842–1872. In 1953 he reunited with most of his Umuahian students at the University College, Ibadan, of which he became the first Nigerian registrar. 66 It appears that Bisiriyu was not the only African master to question the official versions of history, as Kelsey Harrison’s memories of Alex Opukiri indicate: I still recall one of the textbooks used. It was titled How Nigeria is Governed [by Cecil Rex Niven]. We used the earlier edition of this book printed at the government printing press in Lagos … In private, Opukiri never tired of pointing out to me passages in that book that were erroneous in his view. We were both from Abonnema and our homes were quite close. So during the holidays when both of us were at Abonnema, I called on him often and it was on such occasions that he taught me much of what I wrote in chapter 1 of my autobiography [an account of Kalabari social history]. He dwelt very much on Niger Delta issues, decried the general lack of interest in the welfare of the area, and predicted that there would be trouble and restlessness there in coming years.67 (Emphasis added)

Around 1950, most of our protagonists had left the Umuahia Government College. Only Elechi Amadi, Charles Low and the principal remained at Umuahia, but not for long. In the first years of the 1950s, the school maintained its high 64

Saburi Biobaku, When we Were Young, p. 143 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the Author, 28 June 2008. 66 At Ibadan, Biobaku kept in touch with his Umuahian students. As Chukwuemeka Ike relates, ‘[Biobaku] fished me out from secondary school teaching and opened the doors for me to begin a career in university administration.’ Biobaku also served as one of his referees when Ike applied for appointment as Deputy Registrar at the University of Nigerian, Nsukka. The two men remained friends until Biobaku’s death. Ike’s Letter to the Author, 23 June 2008. 67 Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 April 2010. 65

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academic standards, but the freshness and excitement of the first years had given way to a more serene learning environment. In the humanities, M.C. English and P. Johnston took over with far less fanfare than Charles Low and his singular predecessors. Johnston was a quiet, pleasant man, who like Slater and Bisiriyu stressed the importance of clear writing. He introduced Forster’s The Gun, Sheridan’s The Rivals, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, and Shakespeare’s Henry V to the list of Umuahian favourites. Johnston was passionate about Henry V. His enthusiasm was palpable not only in his detailed explications of the text, but also in his impressive recitations. Act III, scene iv, and Act IV, scenes iv and v of Henry V were mostly written in French, and Amadi found Johnston’s flawless rendition of these parts of the play spellbinding. He worked hard to mimic the master’s pronunciation and the effort augmented his own fascination with the book. As he recalls, he could recite the entire play by heart in those days, and still remembers many of its lines.68 Amadi was very good in English literature, and Johnston reckoned that he would get a distinction. However, Amadi fell victim to the ‘English/Literature Curse’ that seems to have pursued the Umuahian writers – Achebe and Momah obtained credits in their School Certificate English papers, and Amadi got a credit in English literature (although he remains the only Umuahian writer to have earned a School Certificate distinction in English). His ‘disappointing’ grade was the result of distraction during the exam. He answered five questions and had finished revising them when he realized, five minutes before the paper was due, that he that he had not answered the questions on one or two books. Amadi found the episode distressful, but took especial care to read the instructions thoroughly in subsequent exams. He later found that he ‘had that mistake to thank’69 for his impressive performance in the rest of the subjects. In his first two years, Amadi had studied English and History with Saburi Bisiriyu, but M.C. English – whom students called ‘the man mountain’ – was his history teacher in the years leading to the School Certificate Examination. English was the author of An Outline of Nigerian History (1959), but during his years at Government College, he taught British Empire History in accordance to the official School Certificate syllabus. Amadi recalls that although M.C. English was ‘very meticulous and prepared his lessons with military discipline,’ history ‘threatened to ruin [his] School Certificate results’.70 What Amadi did to avoid the impending catastrophe was to repeatedly read the assigned textbook as if he were reading a novel. The day of the School Certificate Examination arrived, and Amadi answered the questions succinctly; he did not find it difficult to extract the necessary salient points from his ‘novelistic’ reading of the history 68

Elechi Amadi, personal communication, 30 May 2013. Personal Communication with Elechi Amadi, 30 May 2013. 70 Ibid. 69

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Figure 3.1  Elechi Amadi’s class after final exams in 1952, with the chemistry teacher Mr. Singh (front row, second from left), Mr A.B. Cozens (Principal, front row centre) and the English and Literature teacher, Mr. P. Johnston (second from right). (Courtesy of Elechi Amadi, who is indicated in the back row by an arrow)

textbook. Meanwhile, Okigwe, a boy with a reputation for being the ‘the class historian’ kept calling out ‘paper, please!’ as he filled pages and pages of answer sheets. When the results came out, Amadi had scored a distinction in history; Okigwe a credit. The downcast ‘class historian’ went to the principal’s office to complain about the possible mix-up that had led to Amadi’s outstanding grade. But as we have already seen, not all the history masters of the late Simpsonian period were as compliant with curricular demands as M.C. English. Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa, who was admitted to the Umuahia Government College in September 1948 and later became one of Nigeria’s foremost historians, assessed the teaching of history at Government College thus:

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The history teachers were good. History of the British Empire was the subject for the final Certificate exam, but I learned a great more from a course in Ancient History of the Middle East. It taught me ways of looking at the history of what Professor K.O. Dike described as the City States of the Niger Delta. The teaching was open and objective. We saw the atrocities of imperialism as well as the efforts of some officers to be fair to subject peoples … I decided against the general run of the school as officially a science school to take to history. I did well in all subjects, but found History the most interesting and congenial. I was fortunate also to have Professor Dike visit the school in 1953 to recruit historians to his project to build a National Archives of Nigeria. Umuahia made my mind up for History, not merely influenced it. 71

The variety of experiences and pedagogies confirm that the teaching of history remained as tentative in Simpson’s period as it was in the 1930s, but despite the contradictory messages that the Umuahian writers and their contemporaries sometimes received from their ambivalently disposed teachers, they learnt that there was more to West African history than the official narrative of colonial conquest revealed, and that it was their prerogative to retrieve their communities’ untold histories. Thus it was that the initially less than fluent, but extraordinarily gifted boys who first cowered under the ‘no-vernacular rule’, The Text-Book Act, and the high demands of their Oxbridge-educated masters bloomed, steadily and surely, into eloquent speakers and writers of the English language. They learnt the art of ‘clear thinking’, began to detect the inconsistencies of their British public school-type education and through it all, forged distinctive subjectivities at the crossroads of cultures. The school’s English and History masters bestowed an indispensable passport to greatness: ‘They instilled confidence in us by making us believe that we were as good as, if not better than, students in England and anywhere else, where the language and literature were taught’, Momah recalls.72 Despite the overarching colonial situation, the masters gave the best of themselves. As Achebe cogently put it, ‘They weren’t teaching us African literature. If we had relied on them to teach us how to become Africans we would never have got started. They taught us English literature; they taught us what they knew. And a good student could take off from there’.73 Despite his desire to remain at Government College until retirement, Mr. Simpson was transferred to Enugu as Deputy Director of Education in October 1951. Before his departure, he witnessed a landmark in Umuahia’s cultural history. Upon return from leave in England in 1949, Charles Low had brought 71

Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa’s email to the author, 23 June 2013. Chike Momah’s email to the Author, 23 February 2008. 73 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 66. 72

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back a present for the boys – two records of William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan’s comic operas The Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore. Like Kelsey Harrison, many students loved the operas and enjoyed learning the songs. Pleased with the success of his gift, Low decided that it was time to embark on ‘the most ambitious [dramatic endeavour] undertaken ever by any secondary school in Eastern Nigeria’74 – a production of The Mikado or The Town of Titipu (1885). Not everyone shared ‘Mad’ Low’s enthusiasm. ‘There were not lacking, at first, many who saw only the difficulties of the undertaking’, M.C. English reported, ‘nor those who hinted that it would prove unsuitable to African taste.’75 The concerns of these (ostensibly European) members of the staff were not merely aesthetic. The Mikado was a lighthearted parody of the rigidity and formality of Victorian society, but it problematically relied on the exoticization of the Japanese to achieve this aim. Admittedly, at the time of its production in Victorian England, ‘no one thought the Mikado was meant as a serious representation of Japan. Reviewers fully registered without confusion or ambivalence the opera’s intent to make fun of English culture’,76 but there was no escaping the fact that the opera circulated not only appreciative, but derogatory stereotypes of the Japanese.77 British discourse on African languages and cultures – driven by a different set of political imperatives – also relied, as some Umuahians had begun to see, on a similar dissemination of stock images. At the same time, The Mikado satirized British understanding of Japanese culture and ‘knowingly presents cultural stereotypes as themselves artefactual part of a genre parody’.78 Some of its lines could be potentially empowering in the colonial educational context, including the reference in ‘My Objects all Sublime’ to ‘the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone all centuries but his, and every country but his own’ (my emphasis). But at the same time, as Stephanie Leigh Batiste explains, The Mikado upholds the submission to state through marriage [similar to the ritual of colonial bonding embodied in the Umuahian production of The Mikado] and submission to the colonial state through subservience.79 The racist references of the original opera to ‘the nigger serenader and others of his race’ and the lady who ‘is blacked like a nigger with the permanent Walnut juice’ in the songs ‘I Have a Little List’ and ‘My Objects all Sublime,’ which would have been especially problematic in the context of an African production, were replaced by A.P. Herbert in 1948 with ‘the banjo serenader and others of his 74

Kelsey Harrison’s email to the Author, 13 April 2010. M.C. English, ‘The Mikado at Umuahia’, Nigeria 38 (1952) pp. 140–143. 76 Carolyn Williams, Gilbert and Sullivan: Gender, Genre, Parody (Chichester: Columbia UP, 2012), p. 256. 77 Ibid., p. 267. 78 Ibid., p. 260 79 Stephanie Leigh Batiste, Dark Mirrors: Imperial Representation in Depression-Era AfricanAmerican Performance (Durham: Duke UP), p. 153.

75

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race’ and ‘the lady who’s dyed a chemical yellow’, following objections from the African-American public.80 The Umuahian libretto reflected these changes.81 Low persevered. He obtained the necessary permissions from Madam Bridget d’Oyly Carte of the D’Oyly Opera Company for two performances. With the assistance of Arthur Farmer, he held the auditions for the opera’s parts in 1950. Mr. Farmer trained the selected boys and accompanied the whole opera on piano. Mrs Simpson and Mrs Wareham made the costumes for the leading parts and female chorus respectively. They made the kimonos from ordinary cotton-print material sold in stores and markets, the ‘Japanese’ ladies’ buns from horsehair, and the fans from painted stiff paper covers of old magazines and cartridge paper. Mrs Wareham also took charge of the makeup. M.C. English designed the scene, assisted in the painting by two students, O.O. Amogu and E. Obuekezie. Peter Chigbo, another student, was the property manager. While the stage scenery was painted on the wall, nearer scenery was drawn on white oil cloth placed at the sides of the stage. Mr. Farmer made the flats for the wings. As the red-letter day approached, the Public Works Department and many other outsiders joined the intense preparations. The two performances of the opera took place on Friday, 6 April, and Saturday, 7 April 1951 in the School Hall, filled to the brim with Nigerian and European visitors from Aba, Uyo, Enugu, Onitsha, and Port-Harcourt. The cast included F.N. Udeh as The Mikado of Japan, B.C. Oranefo as Nanki-Poo, R.C. Opara as Ko-Ko, Kelsey Harrison as Pooh-Bah, W.N.Ezeilo as Pish-Tush, L.O. Ndu, P.A. Anwunah, G. C. Iwuagwu as Yum-Yum, Pitti-Sing, and Peep-Bo respectively, and E.G. Iwuagwu as Katisha. The chorus of school-girls, nobles, guards and coolies involved 36 other students, including Laz Ekwueme, who later became a Professor of Music. Sixty years later; Harrison captured the grandeur of the occasion: After the last night, we were all emotional when the curtains finally came down. While the producer and master of music stepped forward to take their bow as the audience cheered loudly, several of us not having seen anything like it before, were in tears. When I was called up to make a speech, such was the lump I felt in my throat, that the speech was totally incoherent and I was lost for words, which was unusual for me. The principal was different. Flush with the success achieved, his face lightened up, as he spoke to cheers all through. It seemed each sentence was greeted by a tumultuous applause. But it was the vote of thanks by Justice DoveEdwin on behalf of the appreciative audience that brought everyone down to earth. In it, the judge referred to Dr.Aggrey’s figure of a key board with black and white notes combining in harmony, an excellent example of which had been given in the 80

Jan Bradley in Sir Arthur Sullivan and William Schwenck Gilbert, The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, ed. Jan Bradley (Oxford UP, 2005), p. 492. 81 I am indebted to Kelsey Harrison for sending me the pertinent pages of this libretto, and to Elechi Amadi for sending me the programme and synopsis distributed on the occasion.

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Figure 3.2  The Mikado, Principals, 1951. (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison)

overture played as a duet by Mr.Farmer and E.J.Ekong, the latter one of the pupils of the college.82

Recollections of the event prove Kelsey Harrison’s assertion that ‘there was nothing [in the sanitized lyrics] to have caused offence on racial grounds.’ He goes on, ‘on the contrary, there were repeated demands for encore especially the one by Koko, when Ralph Opara as Koko repeatedly mimicked our principal, William Simpson, in the passage ‘And St - St- St- and What’s his name, and also You know who - The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you’. That, literally, brought the house down! I can still see it in my mind’s eye!!’83 T.I. Francis, writing for the school magazine (which was incidentally edited by Charles Low) focused on the arduous preparations for the opera and 82 83

Kelsey Harrison’s letter to the author, 13 April 2010. Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 8 August 2013.

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Figure 3.3  The Mikado, Chorus, 1951. (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison)

the rapturous reactions of the audience. However, in the progressive magazine Nigeria, then edited by E.H. Duckworth, M.C. English addressed some of the cultural tensions underlying The Mikado. He pointed out the universal nature of the opera’s plotline, mentioned the ‘remote worlds’ that ‘were successfully brought before a mixed local audience’, stressed that the difficulties encountered during the preparations for the play ‘were of another kind’ to those envisaged by the reluctant European staff and expressed the desire to ‘see something indigenous of the kind’. He also alluded to Mr. Justice Dove-Edwin’s comparison of Mr. Farmer and E.J.Ekong’s overture with Aggrey’s figure of a key board with black and white notes, symbolic of the harmony produced ‘when black and white played, or worked together’. In The Umuahian Mikado, the school’s European masters and their African students did shine as one. But this union consisted in joining forces in a ritual of imperial bonding. Like the rest of the Umuahian brand of colonial education, it co-opted Umuahian schoolboys as ‘English’ even as it denied them total inclusion. What makes the event significant

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for our purposes, however, is the fact that this successful appropriation of yet another emblem of Englishness prefigured a less subordinate engagement with English literary and cultural forms in the postcolonial era. William Simpson did not live to see his students receive standing ovations in the literary stage. Had he had the chance, his fatherly face would have undergone an even greater transfiguration than suffused it on Saturday 6 April, 1951.

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I took the new knowledge in my stride, quietly, and kept news of it in my heart. It is one of the few memories I can recall in such clarity from those faraway days. And so I assume that it must have been of considerable significance in my evolving consciousness. (Chinua Achebe, ‘The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen’, 2008)

The above captures a minor but significant epiphany in Chinua Achebe’s colonial childhood – his first encounter with Nnamdi Azikiwe’s name in print. Achebe was six or seven years old at the time. Up until then, he had thought that ‘Azikiwe’ was composed of two names – the foreign Christian name Isaac and the Igbo surname Iwe. He had also been accustomed to Church Missionary Society wall hangings and not to secular almanacs like the one in which he saw Azikiwe’s name for the first time. But instead of proclaiming the subtext that he had so precociously deciphered in this first encounter with ‘nationalist’ print – the inscription of an indigenous selfhood at odds with a colonial frame – he instinctively decided to keep this newfound knowledge to himself. This episode preceded Achebe’s entrance to Government College, Umuahia by at least five years, but it stresses the psychobiographical significance of minor, albeit intense political epiphanies – a notion of crucial importance in decoding the imprint of the college on its future writers, and one that drives this chapter. The singular setting of the Umuahia Government College was politically advantageous to its authorities throughout the school’s first twenty years. In the 1930s, Reverend Fisher had relished the school’s isolated location “far away in the Bush”1 for the institutional independence it afforded, and in the 1940s, a period of major political upheavals in Nigeria, the school authorities ardently hoped that the college site “‘far from the madding crowd’ of such places as Lagos and other major townships”2 would efficiently shield students from the ‘unwholesome influences’ and ‘seditious tendencies’ that came to be associated with 1 Quoted

in Edward Harland Duckworth, ‘The Editor Visits Government College, Umuahia’, Nigerian Teacher 1:5 (1935), p. 22. 2 Chike Momah’s email to the author, 29 February, 2008.

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such centrally-located institutions as King’s College, Lagos. Notwithstanding the bucolic setting and unremitting colonial surveillance, nationalist undercurrents and politically dangerous knowledge did permeate Umuahia’s tranquil domain – albeit with fairly understated effects – through three overlapping channels: the long shadow of King’s College, ‘the sweet aroma of Zik’s kitchen’,3and the ironic agency of the school’s European masters, whose intents to rein in and redirect the impact of anti-colonial ideas also furnished students with potential tools for mental emancipation. With the period 1944 to 1945 as my focus, I reconstruct the inroads of specific pedagogies and moments of political awareness into the authors’ consciousness and question the outward impression that Government College students of the Primus Inter Pares years lived in blissful ignorance of the discursive practices that fixed them in a subservient position.4 To this end, I collate a number of unconnected but mutually consistent epiphanic moments in the life-writing and interviews of Chinua Achebe and Chike Momah, reading them against the institutional and historical context that gives them their significance. Crucially, I trace and identify the mysterious textbook of logic; a vital component of the school’s political-cum-humanistic instruction in the Umuahia of those years. By locating in the book a series of openings into which the psycho-political preoccupations of the Umuahians of this period can be slotted, thereafter re-reading the dispersed records and memories of the book’s classroom use, it is possible to reconstruct the discursive mechanisms for political control deployed at Government College.5 3 Chinua

Achebe, ‘The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen’, The Education of a British-Protected Child (New York: Knopf, 2008), p. 23. 4 The reasons for my focus on this very restricted period are threefold. First, it was a period of adaptation to the school’s newly-acquired British public school ethos; second, it coincided with such historical events as the Second World War, a decisive anti-colonial incident at King’s College, Lagos, and the height of colonial aversion to the nationalist press; and last, because there is no evidence that such tangible circumstances as the ones I describe here ever recurred in the rest of the Primus Inter Pares years. Chuwkuemeka Ike, who was admitted to the college in 1945, affirms: “I do not recall any explicit attempt to curtail nationalist thought and political consciousness at the College. Our isolated rural environment insulated us from political activities”. Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa, Class of September 1948 coincides, “I was not aware of any efforts to curtail information.” However, there is a key difference: in Alagoa’s time, it does seem that there was a measure of political activism: “It was in Government College Umuahia that the boys from the Niger Delta began to make contact with Harold Dappa Biriye, when he began to rally the people for political action in the Nigerian state. We did not experience any official curbs or interference.” Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author 26 March 2013; Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa’s email to the author, 23 June 2013. 5 Here I adapt and appropriate Stephanie Newell’s approach to retrieving historical readerships in the absence of interview material from the archives. Her strategy – to reread Marie Corelli’s novel, The Sorrows of Satan, and locate a series of openings into which the aesthetic debates and social questions of the colonial period can be slotted – is a highly illuminating exercise in inferential criticism. Stephanie Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to Play the Game of Life (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 105.

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What did Umuahia’s prospective students know about colonial politics before their admission to the Umuahia Government College? From all accounts, the Second World War and the rise of Nnamdi Azikiwe as bête noir of the colonial order were the two principal influences under which children awakened to the political realities of the period. Like every other sector of colonial society, children experienced or witnessed such manifestations of ‘war imperialism’ as food rationing, forced conscriptions, and the barrage of official propaganda to promote wartime production of raw materials. Picking palm kernels for the war efforts, singing pro-British songs such as Rule Britannia!, and marching in front of the white Resident on Empire Day all fostered a sense of imperial belonging. On the other hand, the quasi-antithetical figure6 of Nnamdi Azikiwe – popularly known as Zik of Africa – ‘bestrode the world’ of these children ‘like a colossus’.7 The story of Azikiwe’s rise to fame was well known among the masses. After concluding his secondary education in Nigeria, Azikiwe had moved on to the US for his university education, gaining degrees from Lincoln University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. During his American sojourns, he experienced extreme forms of racial discrimination and came under the influence of Garveysim, Communism, Pan-Africanism and the Harlem Renaissance. He returned to Nigeria in 1934, but moved over to the Gold Coast after his failed application for a teaching position at King’s College, Lagos. In his new station, he founded the African Morning Post. In 1937, he was convicted for publishing a seditious article, but won the case on appeal. Determined to make his voice heard in his fatherland by all means, he founded the polemical anti-colonialist newspaper West African Pilot (1937) upon his return to Lagos and amplified his journalistic enterprise with provincial papers in Kano, Warri, Ibadan, Onitsha and Port Harcourt. Zik’s gadfly papers were characterized by their light style, banner headlines, blend of radical nationalism and gossip, and a belligerence that sometimes veered into ‘malice’ and ‘irresponsible name calling’.8 Azikiwe’s defence of workers’ rights and improvement unions, confrontational attack on white racism and the British colonial government won him a large following.9 While Zik’s newspapers – ‘the principal source of his fame and power, and the most crucial single precipitant of the Nigerian 6 Barbara Bush, Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919–1945 (London: Rout-

ledge, 1999), p. 123; Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), p. 222. Nigerian nationalists, fearing the potential outcomes of Nazi domination and expecting political change, supported the British war effort. This contradictory stance infuriated the colonial government. 7 Chinua Achebe, ‘The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen’, p. 28. 8 Gunilla L. Faringer, Press Freedom in Africa (New York: Praeger, 1991), p. 25. Also see Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nations, (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2004), p. 51. 9 James Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley: California UP, 1971), pp. 220–24.

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awakening’10 – fulfilled, to a large extent, their mandate to ‘show the light’ to adults, children absorbed the ‘headiness, even [the] slight intoxication’11 of Zik’s legend through oral lore. As we have seen, after its closure for use as a prisoner of war camp from 1939 to 1942, the Umuahia Government College re-emerged as a visiting institution at King’s College, Lagos. Despite its status as the premier and most prestigious colonial government college, the name of King’s was often mentioned in connection to Nigeria’s nationalist movement. In 1934, Azikiwe was denied an appointment at the college on the grounds of his ‘unsuitable’ American education. That year marked the creation of the Lagos Youth Movement, comprised mostly of King’s College students and alumni, and in the late 1930s, the school’s students became active in the Youth Study Circles convened by the alumnus and leading nationalist H.O.Davies for the discussion of Nigeria’s colonial problems and their possible solutions.12 Despite the Primus Inter Pares tag that Umuahians so proudly attached to their school, they were grudgingly conscious of the national prominence of King’s College. Not only had the 1942 and 1943 sets come back to Umuahia with wondrous tales of that most elite of government colleges, but some of them had actually experienced and participated in its politically charged ambience. In March 1944, three months into Achebe and Momah’s entry into Umuahia, King’s College, Lagos grabbed the national headlines for a notorious student strike. Like the Government College school compound, the student dormitories of King’s College had been requisitioned and turned over to the army, and students were obliged to take unpleasant and highly inconvenient accommodation in town. They wrote a petition protesting ‘the physical hardships and study problems created by congestion, filth, and factors of a degenerating moral character’,13 but their appeal went unheeded. The ensuing strike culminated in the detention, trial and expulsion of seventy-five senior boarders and the conscription of the eight ring-leaders, one of whom died in custody.14 The incident provoked national outrage and reinvigorated the nationalist cause. The Nigeria Union of Students (NUS) convened a mass meeting on June 10, 1944 to discuss the strike, raise funds for a national school and form a representative student committee, which became the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in 1945. The news of the King’s College incidents found their way into the Umuahia Government College, like everywhere else, and its

10 James

Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, p. 233. Chinua Achebe, ‘The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen’, p. 23. 12 James Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, p. 460. 13 Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nations, p. 56. 14 For more on the King’s College incidents, see ‘Disturbances at King’s College, Lagos: A Parliamentary Question’, The National Archives, Kew. CO 583/274/ and Anon., 75 Years of King’s College Lagos (Lagos: King’s College Old Boys’ Association, 1987). 11

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bewildered students took in the merits and demerits of the non serviam of their revolutionary peers on the other side of the Niger.15 The Second World War was still raging when the students of Government College relocated to the original site in Umudike. Martin Ogle, the sole owner of a radio in the entire school compound, kept staff and students informed of the war’s progress:16 ‘He had a map of Europe put up on a wall, and shaded in the advance of the allied powers on Germany as they bore down on her from East and West’, Momah recalls, ‘As good and loyal subjects (or rather protected persons) of his Imperial Majesty, we fervently prayed for the success of the ”free” world’.17 The new students, already familiar with war propaganda, did not worry unduly about this facet of life at Umuahia. If anything, Ogle’s talks and the solemn prayers in the assembly hall were a refreshing departure from the unsophisticated interventions of primary school teachers at home. But one of the students, known to have participated in anti-war revolts at King’s College during the Umuahian exile,18 found in Ogle’s news meetings an opportunity for subversion. When the history master left the college at the end of 1944, said student culled news stories from the old radio set in the assembly hall and posted them up on the notice board. These reports were not always complimentary to the powers that be, and when the ‘informant’ was identified as Sam Anthony K. Epelle of the 1942 class, the Principal saw him as ‘something of a political renegade’.19 Luckily for Epelle, Simpson did not believe in radical solutions. He had been on the staff of King’s College, and knew the likely results of punitive intervention in politically sensitive affairs. He was keen to have his students capitalize on their talents,20 and had been secretly impressed with Epelle’s journalistic gifts. What he did was divert these talents to a more ‘conductive’ end by ‘asking’ the unruly student to limit the scope of his reports

15

See Chike Momah, The Shining Ones: the Umuahia Schooldays of Obinna Okoye (Ibadan: University Press, 2003), 93–96; Wole Soyinka, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir 1946–65 (London: Methuen, 1994), p. 144; Wole Soyinka, ‘The Precursors of Boko Haram: Text of a Lecture by Wole Soyinka at King’s College, Lagos’ Accessed 13 May 2013. < http://nigeriatelecomawards.com/The%20precursors%20of%20Boko%20Haram.html 16 Randal F. Hogarth ‘Annual Report for 1943–44’, Umuahia Government College, Nigeria. Information Required by the Member of the Elliot Commission of Higher Education. February 1944, p. 24. RHL: Mss. Brit. Emp. S 351. 17 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 15. 18 Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight: Christopher Okigbo 1930–1967 (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), p. 44. 19 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 18. 20 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1984), p. 79; Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb: From the Creeks of the Niger Delta to Leading Obstetrician and University Vice Chancellor (London: Adonis & Abbey, 2006), p. 47.

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to the progress of the Allied Forces.21 Epelle would have preferred to continue to enjoy journalistic freedom, but the Principal’s decision gave him confidence. He soon became one of the school periodicals’ main contributors and sub-editor, under Charles Low, of the school magazine in 1947. That year, he also cultivated the friendship of Saburi Bisiriyu,22 whose diffident approach to discursive repression most students had come to respect and emulate. As the Principal had hoped, Epelle fulfilled his potential. Immediately after his graduation from Government College, he was employed as Assistant Publicity Officer in the Public Relations Office, Lagos,23 and many years later culminated a brilliant career in journalism as Federal Director of Information. But the kindly Simpson did not entirely succeed in containing Epelle’s rebellious streak. The young political renegade is credited with being the first student to sneak copies of The West African Pilot, The Nigerian Statesman, and Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Renascent Africa into the school.24 It was thus that the sweet aroma of Zik’s kitchen began to waft, alluringly, at the Umuahia Government College. According to James Smoot Coleman, Azikiwe’s display of erudition and academic achievement, his genuine efforts to encourage athletics, his heroic Horatio Alger career, his interest in education development, his vigorous press attacks upon European and their follies, and his strong support of youth groups won for him a large following in the generation that came of age during the war and in the mid-1940s. The main accent of Azikiwe’s Renascent Africa was upon youth.25

But what to the students was a sweet aroma was more of a deadly stench to the European masters ‘and perhaps one or two of the Africans’.26 Around this time, Zik’s two Lagos dailies were banned for purportedly misrepresenting the facts of the general strike of 1945. There was also the scandal surrounding his denunciation of an alleged government plot to assassinate him. These incidents brought Zik’s popularity to fever pitch, but also hardened the already infuriated 21

With his subversive act and the principal’s posterior corrective assignment, Epelle founded one of the school’s lasting traditions. Elechi Amadi and Ebiegberi Alagoa both recall that in their time in the college, four years after the ‘Epelle’ incident, it was customary to have a group of students listen to the BBC, write a report, and paste it on the school notice board. (Elechi Amadi, Personal Communication, 30 May 2013; Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa’s email to the author, 23 June 2013) Ken Saro-Wiwa performed this task as a senior boy in the late 1950s. 22 Saburi Biobaku, When we were Young. (Ibadan: University Press, 1992), p. 138. 23 That year, Epelle endowed an annual English and History prize, to be awarded to the best Class VI boy in these two subjects. See J.O. Onwuka, ‘General Notes’, Government College Umuahia Magazine, 2 (1948–49), p. 5. 24 Sam Onyewuenyi quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight , p. 45. Apparently Epelle’s political leanings attracted a large following, including Christopher Okigbo. 25 James Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, p. 289. 26 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 18.

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and alienated British officials’ ‘feelings of distrust’.27 And while the nationalist press was never explicitly banned at Government College, Principal Simpson’s handling of the ‘Epelle Affair’ set the tone for future interventions – the use of subtle arts of suasion to keep seditious fumes at bay. The favoured approach was to drive home the fact that nationalist writings ‘were not fitting works of the intellect’28and thus not worthy of the attention of cultivated gentlemen. But as the underground readers of Renascent Africa soon noticed, the kind of education promulgated in Zik’s manifesto,29 inclusive of contributions to precolonial African history was not entirely at odds with the kind of historical instruction proffered at Government College. There was the fact that Martin Ogle highlighted the ancient African kingdoms in his 1943/44 classes30; furthermore, Principal Simpson, ‘often sang [the] praises’ 31 of E.H. Duckworth, the inspector of education and editor of the magazine Nigeria, whose counterhegemonic cultural militancy from within the ranks of the colonial hierarchy and symbiotic relationship with the nationalist press had raised many eyebrows at the Education Department.32 But there were occasional lapses: There was a white teacher who had come to Umuahia from King’s College, Lagos, and was said to have been beaten up (or nearly so) in Lagos. This teacher had a habit – perhaps excusable in those colonial days – of making the occasional ill-considered remark about Africa and especially her politicians … As little black colonial boys, we thoroughly disapproved of, but could do little about the teacher, already referred to above, who now and again reminded us that he was ‘sick and tired of this African stupidity’. He was always derisively referring to our Renascent Africa!’33

Momah first revealed the above in ‘Reminiscences of GCU in the Forties’, published in the golden jubilee edition of the school magazine. He was careful not to disclose the identity of the teacher in question, despite the fact that he would be instantly recognizable to the editor of the volume – his classmate and 27

James Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, p. 287. Sam Onyewuenyi quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight p. 42. 29 Nnamdi Azikiwe, Renascent Africa (London: Cass, 1968) , p. 10. 30 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties,’ p. 15. 31 Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author 4 March 2012. Harrison’s reference to Principal Simpson’s amity towards Duckworth came up in a conversation on the recovery of Umuahian material from Duckworth’s papers at Rhodes House. In 2014, going through Duckworth’s diaries for my next project, I ascertained that Simpson had enjoyed a collegial friendship with Duckworth during their time together as staff of King’s College, Lagos. 32 Edward Harland Duckworth, ‘A Survey by E.H. Duckworth of the Development of Science Education, of certain Experiments in Education, of the Development of Nigeria, of the fight for the recognition of Nigerian Arts and Crafts, for the Establishment of Museums, for the Preservation of Anitiquities and for a Wider Conception of Education,’ GB0162MSSAfr.s.1451 Box6/2, Rhodes House Library. 33 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’ , p. 17–18. 28

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Figure 4.1  Chinua Achebe’s dedication in Adrian P.P.L. Slater’s copy of Arrow of God. (Courtesy of Mrs Elizabeth Smith)

friend, Chinua Achebe – and other contemporaries. He also tried to defuse the explosive nature of the master’s statements by highlighting the colonial context in which they took place. Ezenwa-Ohaeto finally identified the instructor as Adrian P.L. Slater in his 1997 biography of Chinua Achebe. This information is somewhat sensitive, but it is crucial to completing the Umuahian puzzle. By revealing the teacher’s identity, it is possible to examine his words within the context of his broader pedagogical practice and its overall impact on the students’ subconscious. Taken on their own, Slater’s allusions to ‘African stupidity’ and ‘Renascent Africa’ reek of colonial prejudice. However, they speak to something more, and reading them against his experimental pedagogy makes the casting of blame more problematic. Slater’s teaching methods were distinctive, and he forged for himself a reputation as one of Umuahia’s most demanding masters. His ‘love’ and ‘hatred’ taps,

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rigid marking scheme, astounding amount of homework, and extensive list of recommended readings are among the most remembered facets of the man credited with impressing Achebe and Momah ‘respect for language.’34 But there was something else – a ‘little book of elementary logic’, mentioned in Robert Wren’s interviews with Achebe and Slater in Those Magical Years: The Making of Nigerian Literature at Ibadan: 1948–1966. The title of this book remained elusive to me until I read Slater’s lesson notes in 2010. Scrawled in pencil near references to the popular press, propaganda, and nationalist newspapers was the title: Clear Thinking: An Elementary Course of Preparation for Citizenship (1936). A reading of this tome confirmed that Jepson’s book was the mysterious book of logic. The volume, fashioned ‘to help the reader to cultivate habits of clear thinking so that he may acquire the power to detect his own and other people’s prejudices’35 was the outcome of R.W. Jepson’s own UK-based experiment with boys who had just passed the School Certificate Examination, and was intended primarily for use in the upper forms of British secondary schools. That Slater chose to use this particular book with Form I students at Umuahia – aged anything between 11 and 14 years – is the first inconsistency with his complaints on ‘African stupidity’. The political agenda of Clear Thinking is evident throughout the book, particularly in the three chapters that Slater singled out for attention in class: ‘Language’, ‘The Popular Press’, and ‘Propaganda’. On account of the war campaign and the authorities’ aversion to the nationalist press, these themes would invariably appeal to Umuahian readers. As Jepson indicates in the introduction: If we can succeed in warning our pupils of the errors in reasoning they are likely to make themselves, in training them to detect sophistry in other people’s arguments, and in making them aware of, and thus able to resist their natural susceptibility to suggestions, we shall be contributing more to the making of citizens than by merely imparting knowledge of our central and local government.36

Jepson’s aim is a lofty one, and his prescription for the solution of ‘the political, social and economic problems’ of society – adopting a critical and unprejudiced attitude and expressing the results of purposive thought in clearer and unequivocal speech and writing37 – of crucial importance in alerting students the snares of both colonial and anti-colonial discursive manipulation. To help students attain the desired outlook, Jepson draws from psychology and formal logic to exemplify instances of muddled thinking so as to enable students detect 34

R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking: An Elementary Course of Preparation for Citizenship. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1936) p. 130. Note that the allusion to this very phrase in Achebe’s inscription in Slater’s copy of the novel Arrow of God. 35 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p. vi. 36 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p vii. 37 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p. 4.

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the ways in which such obstacles as pride, prejudice, and laziness can lead them to get ‘flattered, cajoled, bullied, stampeded or drugged into ways of thought’.38 Jepson recommended that the book be used primarily to prepare students for the oral discussion of texts and exercises in class, but it also featured essay topics and written tasks. As his lesson notes show, Slater followed the book’s prescriptions to the letter. In between his official English and history classes, he slotted periods for ‘General Knowledge’, which he devoted to Jepson’s particular brand of ‘clear thinking’. In these classes, Slater led discussions on such topics as the rulers of Oyo, the 1930 Economic Regression, and the cause of the two World Wars. He also analyzed popular newspapers to exemplify prejudice and its manipulations. The contents and premises of Clear Thinking also formed the basis of the essays he assigned and his expectations of written work.39 Jepson’s engagement with race and Empire exemplifies the unbiased, detached outlook he promulgates throughout Clear Thinking. However, the book’s projected readership was comprised of democratic citizens. The chapter on the popular press highlights the prerogative of a democratic government to abet ‘freedom of expression, freedom of discussion, freedom to criticize, and full knowledge of the facts.’40 However, Jepson qualified that ‘in times of stress or crisis, on the ground of self-preservation … we are not unwilling to forgo some of our liberties in order that we may ultimately retain all of them’.41 Thus, Jepson provided space into which to slot ‘the colonial difference’, which precluded the extension of these universal rights to the colonies.42 The school authorities could also grab on to Jepson’s belief that the popular press was as dangerous and tyrannical as state journalistic monopoly to justify their own strategic manoeuvre of weaning students away from the burgeoning nationalist papers. However, the emphasis of Clear Thinking on mediatic manipulation also provided students with ideological ammunition with which to question the school’s pretentions to persuasive control. Hence, attentive students – and ‘the students were a captive audience, intelligent and able students’, as Slater himself recalled in an interview43 – must have extrapolated Jepson’s exhortations against ‘the tendency to accept without question whatever one sees in print, or in the expressed opinions of so-called authorities’ 44 to their own British history books, literary works, 38

R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p. 134. Adrian P.P.L. Slater, ‘Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Education Officer. Notes of Lessons: King’s College Lagos, September 1943-March 1944; Government College, Umuahia January 1945-April 1946.’ Unpublished notebook. 40 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p. 97. 41 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p. 98. 42 Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense, (Princeton: UP, 2009) p. 97. 43 Adrian P.P.L.Slater qtd. in Phaneuel Egejuru, Chinua Achebe: Pure and Simple. An Oral Biography (Ikeja: Malthouse, 1997), p. 24. 44 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, p. 98. 39

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official information channels, and the school’s implicit endorsement of British cultural superiority. Autobiographical and imaginative recreations of life at the Government College of those years reflect subjective processes of interrogation, revelation and subdued integration of politically-sensitive knowledge in the configuration of non-servile selfhood, as we shall see in Chapter 6. It is not hard to find traces of Jepson’s quasi-scientific approach in the colonial schoolboy subjects’ individual quests for truth. The Zik group of newspapers typified the features that Jepson reviled in the popular press, including the ‘catchphrases of the politician, the ‘slogans’ and axe-grinding propaganda’.45 While Achebe never referred to Slater’s explicit admonitions in any of his interviews and autobiographical essays, he did capture an instance of the master’s use of the nationalist press in the classroom in the essay ‘The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen’: Many school authorities banned Zik’s newspapers from their institutions, which only made them doubly attractive. I went to a more enlightened school, where the teachers did not talk of banning but showed you how badly the articles were written, which was not surprising in view of the low standard of American education. I remember my English teacher in my second year [Slater] setting an exam for us in which we were expected to explain such incredible words as ‘gubernatorial’ and ‘eschatological’. We all scored zero in that number, whereupon he revealed to us that he had taken the words straight out of a recent issue of one of Zik’s papers. I suppose it was a way of telling us what a sticky end we would all come to if we followed Zik’s bombastic example. It turned out, instead, to have been a very effective way of learning new English words and remembering them forever afterwards.46

Achebe’s quotation also reflects colonial aversion to African-American revolutionary ideas, which were absorbed and reproduced in the nationalist press. These contrary ideas also had to be contained, hence the need to signal them out for attention in the Umuahia’s particular campaign against nationalist leaders: Americans, when they were featured at all [in class discussion] were dismissed summarily by our British administrators as loud and vulgar. Their universities which taught such subjects as dish-washing naturally produced the half-baked

45

Interestingly, colonial officials such as C.J. Mayne, the Resident of Calabar Province praised the independent but conservative Nigerian Eastern Mail in analogous terms for “refusing to be coerced into the parrotlike repetition of empty slogans, and in attempting always balanced, reasoned and progressive comment on matters of public interest.” C.J. Mayne, quoted in David Pratten The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007), p. 172. 46 Chinua Achebe, “The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen”, p. 30.

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noisy political agitators, some of which were now running up and down the country because they had acquired no proper skills.47

Apart from Jepson-inflected discussions of the nationalist press and Nigerian current affairs, life at Umuahia was rarely punctuated by political distractions. Indeed, there was a ‘monotonous sameness of outlook and behavior pattern among the boys’48 when it came to political matters. This serene temperament was imbibed to such an extent that even the less conforming students learned to contain their impulses. One day, after Slater had ‘probably over-stepped the mark’ with his comments, An Abiriba boy, reflecting more of the fierce and warlike temper of his forebears than the phlegmatism of the typical Umuahia Government College boy decided single-handedly to teach him a lesson. Tucking his loin-cloth in bellicose fashion between his spindly legs, he set out for the white teacher’s house. He came back ten minutes later, mission unaccomplished. Apparently in mid-stream, he had thought better of it and changed his mind.49

A close reading of this passage gives interesting insights. Note the way in which the Abiriba boy visually divests himself of the symbol of identity imposed by the college – the all-white school uniform – sartorially asserting his indigenousness before taking on this independent, albeit inconclusive, act of insurgency. Also note that the student ‘thought better’ of the planned retaliation before reaching the teacher’s premises. Did it dawn on him that such ‘exaggerated and intemperate language accounts for many misunderstandings and misjudgements, and not only because it may arouse our worst passions and prejudices, but also because we often discount it, as it were in advance’50 as ‘the little book’ established? Or was he merely safeguarding his place in the college, knowing the fate of the mutinous students of King’s? Both options need not be mutually exclusive. What matters is that the student’s proud assertion of selfhood evinces an ongoing process of mental decolonization that was not necessarily disrupted by his conformist decision. I will return to this matter presently. But back to Slater’s polemical statements. Were the references to ‘African stupidity’ and ‘Renascent Africa’ a roundabout way to demonstrate the correlation between emotional involvement and impaired/muddled thinking? Or was this simply a case of ‘true colours’ showing through in unguarded moments? The allusion to Renascent Africa can either be interpreted as a metonymic evocation of Zik – the epitome of everything the school authorities held contrary to their 47

Chinua Achebe, ‘Postscript: James Baldwin (1924–1972)’ Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. (New York: Anchor, 1990) ,p. 172. 48 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 20. 49 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 18. 50 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, 130.

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educational principles – or as a slight to African collective pride and uplift. The reference to ‘African stupidity’ is even more ambiguous. Jepson devoted much of the chapter ‘How Judgments are Made II’ to the flawed reasoning involved in this type of national typecasting, categorically affirming that in times of crisis ‘sweeping generalizations about people arouse the worst barbaric passions … The habit of attributing qualities to nations as a whole instead of to individuals is a dangerous one and a serious obstacle to international understanding’.51 To test students’ comprehension of the bad logic involved in the common retort ‘the exception proves the rule’ when instances are quoted against a generalization, Jepson set the following example: Comment on the course of this argument: ‘Negroes are incapable of intellectual development.’ ‘But what about Booker Washington and Paul Robeson? ‘Yes, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule!’52

Such questions and the provocative essay title that Slater once assigned in class, ‘The Effect of Climate on Man’s Work or Character’53 allowed for a logical interrogation of racist tropes and must have impressed valuable lessons on the construction of stereotypes and the politics of representation. However, it was one thing for ‘little black colonial boys’54 to read and apply such lessons in the controlled environment of the classroom, and another to hear a severe European master, and an annoyed one to boot, rehash such stereotypes. According to Ann Laura Stoler, this unsettling gap between rhetoric and practice was frequent in colonial situations: ‘sometimes political grammars constrained what colonial agents thought, sometimes those grammars delimited the political idioms in which people talked, indicating not what they thought, but only what they said’.55 The less flattering explanation for Slater’s words is that he actually thought what he said, but there is no evidence to support it. But if we choose to read his declarations through the prism of How to Think Clearly, it seems reasonable to realize, as Slater probably wished his students would, ‘how often differences arise merely through the misunderstandings of words and phrases! How easy to be misled by ambiguities! … Words, too, can be used to conceal or disguise thought, not to elucidate it’.56 In private, the English and history master always told his family of his students’ potential, the high expectations he had of them and disclosed his 51

R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, 25. R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, 33. 53 Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Adrian P.P.L. Slater, Education Officer. Notes of Lessons: King’s College Lagos, September 1943-March 1944; Government College, Umuahia January 1945–April 1946. 54 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties,’ p. 18. 55 Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain, p. 233. 56 R.W. Jepson, Clear Thinking, pp. 8–9. 52

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objection to ‘many aspects of the colonial education service and the attitude of the British government and many Europeans he came across’.57 In public, he only had praise for their remarkable intelligence: I don’t think I appreciated what a lot they were. At the time I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll try this. Oh? They can do that! Very well, I’ll try that. Oh, they can do that!’ Now, I can look back and say, ‘for goodness sake, you had the nerve to ask them to see parallels – or differences – looking at say, the Chartists in England, or the federation of modern States into Modern Germany, on the other hand, and the civil disturbances, and the multi-national issues in Nigeria. But I did, you know – I was asking for perspectives on enormous issues. Achebe told me, ‘I remember you using a book on logic’ and he was fourteen! I said ‘so I did.’ I’ve got the book upstairs. I, now, I wouldn’t dare use it – not even in my good classes’ … I could do it with these kids – they weren’t even Europeans. It was all outside their experience, and yet they took it.58

Slater made the above reflections in an interview with Robert Wren forty years after his Umuahia years, and the element of hindsight is hard to obviate. His statements neither refer to nor explain possible lapses in his relationship with the students, but incur in a retrospective evaluation of a quality he did not consciously recognize, but took for granted – his students’ intellectual acumen. I concur with the historian of colonial education Clive Whitehead that It is surely the task of the historian to endeavour to empathize with, or to understand, the people and the issues of the period under study and to judge their acts not with the superior knowledge of hindsight but in the light of the conditions prevailing at the time and what seemed then to be a viable option.59

It is not my intention here to condemn or exonerate Slater’s words. Rather, ‘the conditions prevailing at the time’ were more complicated than might appear at first sight and it is important ‘to see that form of multiple and contradictory belief that emerges as an effect of the ambivalent, deferred address of colonialist governance’,60 as postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha has written. My use of pedagogical material to illuminate personal testimony, inferential as it may be, coalesces and complicates the political, institutional, and psychological registers that affected the students of Government College, Umuahia, and ‘it is in this admittedly colonized – but also confused – space’, to quote P.S. Zachernuk, ‘that we

57

Elizabeth Smith’s email to the author, May 29 2010. Robert Wren, Those Magical Years (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1984) p. 54. 59 Clive Whitehead, ‘Education for Subordination? Some Reflections on Kilemi Mwiria’s Account of African Education in colonial Kenya’, History of Education 22.1 (1993) p. 86. 60 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 136. 58

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must look for what could not have been simple imperial success and African loss but was rather imperial negation operating among many contending forces.’61 Government College students may have found the nationalist movement stirring,62 but they never developed a manifestly militant attitude. Writing on the King’s College incidents, Momah affirmed, ‘It would have been unthinkable for any such thing to have disturbed the serenity of life in the Umuahia of my time. It was as if we had all been put – or at least that an attempt was being made to put us – in a kind of straitjacket.’63 The masters in charge of King’s College had also tried every possible means to put their students in straitjackets, but failed dismally. So, how do we account for this difference? The school’s location was certainly a factor in its political impermeability. Demonstrations, dissident study circles and other anti-colonial networks were simply too far off the radar for Umuahia’s boarders, who were far more preoccupied with the ‘Cambridge Man’ and other academic endeavours. There was also the triumph of suasion over coercion – established by the Principal’s subtle interventions and Slater’s deployment of Clear Thinking. But there was another factor governing political response (or rather, no-response) at Government College, Umuahia – one of its founding principles: ‘close friendship and co-operation between the races’.64 This tenet, embodied in the school crest of intertwining black and white torches and the motto ‘In Unum Luceant’ had in turn been inspired by James Aggrey’s famous imagery of black and white keys playing in harmony. During the course of their life at Government College, students confirmed that despite ‘on the one part as the other, the occasional cause for friction’,65 their teachers, black or white, were wholeheartedly dedicated to their personal well-being and intellectual edification, a belief that pervades every reminiscence, published and unpublished, of Umuahian school life. In response to my question on race relations in the college, Chukwuemeka Ike affirmed: ‘we had no ill feeling generally towards our European teachers … Our Principal – Simpson – was a father who knew each of us well and had the best of intentions for his students”-66 Ebiegberi Alagoa also invokes the figure of Principal Simpson to deny the existence of racial conflict at Government College: ‘my Principal was Mr Simpson, a father to all students, who knew each student by name, and wrote individual notes on the development of each student at the end of the term. Colour did not intrude

61

P.S. Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 68:4 (1998), p. 486. 62 See Achebe, ‘Named for Victoria Queen of England’, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Anchor, 1990), p. 38. 63 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 20. 64 Robert Fisher, ‘Editorial Notes’, The Eastern Star 1:4 (1935),p. 6. 65 Chike Momah, ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, p. 18. 66 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June, 2008.

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as a significant factor in relationships’-67 Momah, probably on account of Slater’s comments, was slightly more circumspect: ‘most things were skewed very much in a Pro-British way. But we were not, by and large, overtly ultra-nationalist in our interactions with our British teachers, whatever our true feelings about our condition as a subject people’.68 But these are retrospective responses. In 1950, Edward Chukwukere wrote a poem which captured the essence of the school’s motto so well that it became, and still remains, the school song. One of its stanzas is particularly noteworthy: As all of us, or black or white Beseech Thee now us to unite That all may seek this gift Thy Light The will to shine as one

The cooperative principles enshrined in the school song – which originated in the Achimotan image of black and white keys playing together in harmony and its successor, the Umuahian emblem of black and white shining torches – were at variance with Zik’s tendency to play music mostly ‘on the black keys’, the white keys, ‘often employed to stress a contrast or a disharmony’.69Was not the liberating power of free choice, attendant upon clear thinking, a more effective counter-technology of power? The sociologist Emile Durkheim’s work on moral education is relevant to complicate the students’ seeming conformity and the triumph of suasion – established by the Principal’s subtle interventions and Slater’s deployment of Clear Thinking.70 According to Durkheim – who formulates the elements of morality as sprit of discipline, attachment to the group, and autonomy – the voluntary acceptance of norms does not entail passivity, for it involves reasoned choice. 71At first sight it may appear that such cases as Epelle’s seditious news reportage, only to end up composing pro-imperial propaganda; the Abiriba boy’s planned retaliation against racial slights, only to cancel his mission a few minutes later; and the throng of silent students that took the school’s overt and covert impositions in their stride, instantiate the successful submission of the colonial schoolboy subject at Government College. But such a view would obscure the students’ liberation from subservience by allowing reason to govern its constrictive aspects. Rather than passively obey the dictates of the school 67

Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa’s email to the author, 23 June 2013. Chike Momah’s email to the author, January 22, 2008. 69 James Smoot Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism, p. 223. 70 I am indebted to Amy Stambach’s use of Durkheim’s work for reading student subjectivity in Anthony Simpson’s Half-London in Zambia: Contested Identities in a Catholic Mission School (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2003) at the ‘Education in Africa’ MSc course at the University of Oxford. 71 Emile Durkheim, Moral Education (New York: Dover, 2002), 124–125. 68

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authorities, students took responsibility for their political choices even as they problematized the authorities’ mixed messages. In this framework, ‘thought’, or rather ‘clear thinking,’ becomes ‘the liberator of will’,72 for it allows students to forge new subjectivities in the ambivalent colonial space. This, of course, was not the case of every Government College student, and my reconstruction of the boys’ double-consciousness and political awakening is necessarily partial. Nonetheless in colonial schools ‘processes of cultural colonization and decolonization were often simultaneous, operating in different ways and different times, and indeed sometimes operating without effect’.73 It is with these multiple and ambiguous pathways to mental emancipation that we should be concerned in our evaluation of the feats and failures of the education imparted at the Umuahia Government College.

72 73

Emile Durkehim, Moral Education, 116. P.S. Zachernuk, ‘African History and Imperial Culture in Colonial Nigerian Schools’, p. 499.

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‘Something New in Ourselves’: First Literary Aspirations

5

Government College, Umuahia was where I had the principal foundation for whatever merit there might be in my literary endeavours. It was there that I received my first real exposure to the world of literature. GCU was where my writing skills were developed and molded perhaps close to its most refined quality. I may not have dreamed then that I would write books later in life, but then who among my classmates dreamed such a dream? (Chike Momah, Email to the Author, 23 February 2008)

The English classics were at the core of the Umuahian mindscape; a source of instruction, entertainment and intellectual elevation. Fueled by the Textbook Act and the literary demands and habits of the school’s English masters, Government College students became voracious readers. The authors of the books they devoured were remote and unattainable Englishmen, and it simply did not occur to the students to write for anything but academic reasons. This was not to last. Before long, the boys ‘experienced a first rate creative writer in action, sampled and cherished his creative output’.1 In early 1948 or thereabouts,2 the school invited a group of girls from the nearby Women’s Training College, Ogbanelu, to a netball game at the college. The match proved disastrous for the home team, who lost in their eagerness of ‘catching breasts instead of catching the ball’,3 as an incensed Mr. Jumbo recriminated after the match. Shortly afterwards, an Old Boy of the school, newly admitted to the University College, Ibadan, wrote to inform the principal of an awkward experience with a member of the opposite sex. When a classmate visited his rooms to borrow a set of mathematical tables, the bewildered alumnus had obliged her request and fled the room. Would Mr Simpson please instill in his students the pertinent habits of comportment to avoid future embarrass 1 Chukwuemeka

Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. sources for many of the key incidents explained in this chapter are oral, and there are discrepancies amongst the different accounts on the order in which they took place. Mine is a logical interpretation – further abetted by a number of written records – of the timeline of creative awakening, as I further explain in note 9 below. 3 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008; Chike Momah ‘Reminiscences of Government College, Umuahia in the Forties’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Publication, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 19. 2 The

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ment? The principal found the suggestion a good idea, and rallied Mr. Bisiriyu and other masters to the cause. The testing ground for the boys’ newly acquired social graces would be a weekend of activities with girls from the Women’s Training College, Ogbanelu. The weekend and the formal ball that brought it to a close were a resounding success, but little did the boys suspect that their philistine diversions would culminate in an intellectual epiphany. The Monday after the event, Charles Low appeared in Ike and Okigbo’s class brandishing a piece of paper. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, he began to intone a poem he had written just hours before. Initial smiles of recognition turned into roaring laughter as the students realized that Low’s poem rehashed the incidents of the previous night. To Ike and his classmates, ‘this was almost like a miracle, to see this experience we went through coming out in the form of a poem’.4 I here quote the two surviving quatrains: Alone in the corner Egbuchulam glowers Regretting how Oliphant’s wasted his hours You don’t learn from Durell how to say it with flowers, The W.T.C. are here! Oh where is the Capon-lined belly of Bassey A rogue with an eye for a nice female chassis He is under the stars with a slim little lassie – The W.T.C. are here!5

The students found Low’s faithful portrayal of Inyang Bassey and Celestine Egbuchulam’s temperaments,6 as well as his references to popular textbooks – C.V. Durrell’s General Arithmetic and Lancelot Oliphant’s Progressive English Course – delightful, but there was a deeper reason for their enthusiasm: As far as many of us were concerned and in our thinking in those years, poets were dead men! Chris [Okigbo] actually went about trying to construct a line or two of poetry, although I can hardly think he came through to it at that time. I think he abandoned the whole idea entirely after the initial euphoria and went back to his

4 Chukwuemeka

Ike quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years: The Making of Nigerian Literature at Ibadan 1952–1966 (Washington: Three Continents Press, 1984), p. 72. 5 Quoted in Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Publication, ed. Chinua Achebe. (Umuahia: Government College Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), pp. 26–27. 6 According to Kelsey Harrison, ‘it produced a roar when the name Egbuchulam was mentioned in the poem. Egbuchulam was known to be particularly shy’. Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 April 2010. Ike pointed out to me that Celestine Egbuchulam ‘Class of 45, retired as Surveyor General of Eastern Nigeria, and has been a traditional ruler for many years’ Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the Author, 23 June 2008.

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old ways. He never did write much at Umuahia. But he was struck like many of us. Charles Low offered us that day something new in ourselves.7

‘The W.T.C. are Here!’ soon overshadowed the event that prompted it, and students could scarcely talk of anything else. The poem’s lines echoed around the school compound and many boys were seen trying their hand at Low’s peculiar brand of commemorative poetry. While Okigbo composed ‘Flute Calls at the Quadrangle’ 8 on the spur of the moment, Elechi Amadi – in Form One at the time – took the general exhilaration in his stride. Ironically his poem ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C’, penned five years after the W.T.C. furore, is the sole surviving response to Low’s poetic evocation. Pleased with his poem’s success, Low began to engage the students in further creative endeavours.9 He read out his poems – many of which Kelsey Harrison recalls were “about social affairs in the college”10 – in class, and encouraged students to compose poems of their own. He also involved the boys in reconfiguring his White Flows the Latex ho! (1942). Low had originally written this play, aimed at stimulating wartime rubber production, with his Cameroonian students at Normal School in Kake, Kumba in English, Pidgin and Douala. 11 At Government College, ‘he would come to class and give us assignments, so that we would try our hands at moving the play a little further,’ Ike recalls, ‘sometimes we would discuss with him what he had done’.12 Low never published the Umuahian White Flows the Latex ho!, but he gave the students the opportunity to participate in a striking creative effort and whet their literary appetites further. The possibility of leaving their mark on the admired master’s play boosted their confidence. Low’s experiments with literary creativity in the classroom soon expanded to include the entire student body. The house magazines, ‘aimed at bringing

7 Quoted

in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight: Christopher Okigbo 1930–1967 (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), p. 49. 8 J.C. Obi quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight p. 49. 9 Considering that Low arrived at Government College in 1946, that Achebe was still at the college during the W.T.C. event, that Amadi’s ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C.’ reflects the influence of Low’s poem, and that Bisiriyu left Umuahia in 1949, these incidents must have occurred sometime in early 1948. If any creative endeavours had been taking place at the college before those years, students would not have found Low’s composition of ‘The W.T.C. are Here’ that revealing. The first school magazine was the 1947/48 issue. The logical date for its publication would be September, 1948, but there is a general consensus that the house periodicals preceded its creation. 10 Kelsey A. Harrison, An Arduous Climb: From the Creeks of the Niger Delta to Leading Obstetrician and University Vice Chancellor (London: Adonis & Abbey, 2006), p. 48. 11 See John E. Reinecke, ‘Pidgin English in West African Writing’, Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications 14 (1975), pp. 361–364. 12 Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 72

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out the creative talent in students, and also providing reading material for relaxation’13 became hugely popular, and many students submitted their work for publication. These periodicals were ‘hand written and hand copied on sturdy foolscap-sized paper notebooks with hard covers’.14 The members of the editorial board included the housemaster, two student editors, a scribe (usually the Form I or II boy with the best calligraphy), and two house artists, who created the covers and illustrated the magazine in watercolour. The editors invited entries for each issue and vetted the contents before final hand-copying. The board was especially keen on poems, 15 but also accepted jokes, letters, cartoons, house reports, and very short stories. HOUSE

MAGAZINE

Fisher

The Complete Angler

Niger

The Excelsior

Nile

The Sphinx

School

The Athena

UMUAHIAN WRITERS IN EDITORIAL ROLES

Achebe (Editor,1947)

Ike and Okigbo (Editors,1949/50)

Table 2  Umuahian writers in editorial roles in school magazines

There was a healthy spirit of competition, and the houses tried to outshine each other in creative and editorial finesse.16 After their jubilant presentation at the school assembly, the magazines were kept in the house common rooms for everyone’s enjoyment. Old issues were archived in the school library. These relics are irretrievably lost. However, a number of the pieces that once filled these magazines endure in their readers’ memories, giving us a glimpse of the scope of 13

Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 April 2010. 15 Ibid. 16 This is apparent in The Athena’s motto, ‘Our government is not like the government of our neighbours. We are an example to them rather than they to us.’ Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 46. 14

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these ephemeral periodicals.17 While it is difficult to judge from such a reduced sample, it seems – considering other students’ recollections – that like the above, most contributions to the house magazines were informal, light-hearted pieces with no pretensions other than to entertain fellow students, evoking elements of life at Government College. Other contributions to the house magazines have survived in a most unlikely repository – two of Africa’s best novels. Such is the case of the concluding couplet of the panegyric that the school’s poet/musician Herbert Oboli composed in honour of Umuahia’s unprecedented win over a rival school’s football team:   Thanks to Onuorah the goalie The Writer of this poem is Oboli.18

Oboli composed the poem in 1948, and Chinua Achebe echoed the above lines in his 1979 essay ‘Umuahia and Soccer’. But let us loop back to 1965, and settle on Odili’s schoolday reminiscences in Achebe’s A Man of the People: Maxwell Kulamo, a lawyer, had been my classmate at the Grammar School. We called him Kulmax to Cool Max in those days; and his best friends still did. He was the Poet Laureate of our School and I still remember the famous closing couplet of the poem he wrote when our school beat our rivals in the Intercollegiate Soccer Competition: Hurrah! To our unconquerable full backs. (The writer of these lines is Cool Max.) 19

The likeness is considerable – an intertextuality best defined as allusory permutation. This is distinct from Elechi Amadi’s textual transposition of his short story ‘The Night of the Crushers’ into a climatic moment of The Great Ponds.20 On the night of the crushers, Aliakoro raiders attack the house of Chiolu’s oldest inhabitant, Ochomma. They restrain the hut’s occupants with the help of a hypnotic powder, but a village sentry manages to unbind the elderly woman’s thirteen-year old grandson, Okatu. Ochomma had prepared him to defend 17

These include Nicholas Azinge, ‘Okafor Went to Town on Saturday,’ quoted in Chike Momah’s email to the author, 23 February, 2008, and Anthony Sam Epelle’s ‘Here Mr. Otu’s Gallant Horse,’ reproduced in Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb, p. 51.That school life informed most student publications is also reinforced by Ike’s assertion that Government College slang was not ‘allowed to come into the students’ written work, except when used in dialogue in a short story.’ Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008. 18 Chinua Achebe, ‘Umuahia and Soccer’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Publication, ed. Chinua Achebe (Umuahia: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys Association, 1979), p. 53. 19 Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People ( London: Heinemann, 1978), p. 73. 20 Personal Communication with Elechi Amadi; Elechi Amadi, The Great Ponds (Ibadan: Heinemann, 2005), pp. 74–75.

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the family from possible assailants. Thus, when the sentry beheads one of the kidnappers, Okatu rushes forward to crush the skull of the other captor. This incident is epoch-making, for Okatu becomes the youngest boy in village history to drink the wine with the eagle feathers, the highest distinction for warriors. Despite the inevitable formal and stylistic changes made to the original short story – which first appeared in The Excelsior – so as to weave it into The Great Ponds, Amadi’s choice of an Ikwerre village as the setting of ‘The Night of the Crushers’ is telling, as is the value he places on the traditional honours. His hero, Okatu, is not an African Tom Brown, but a boy who rises to the highest echelons of his society by revering his grandmother’s teachings. Considering the school’s cultural models and generalized derision of ‘bush backgrounds,’21 it must have taken considerable cultural pride to hold such a piece to scrutiny in the house magazine. This is not altogether unexpected. In an interview on his formative years, Amadi stressed ‘I spent my first twelve years in the village, fully in the village. So by the time I went to secondary school I had a very clear picture of village life. I lived it.’22 And while he was not the only Umuahian to have spent the entirety of his early years in a rural community, Amadi had an advantage: ‘a virtual monopoly of access to a famous Aluu storyteller and historian, from whose lips he must have garnered a vast store of oral tradition’,23 as fellow Umuahian Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa notes.24 This extraordinary raconteur was Gabriel Ohabiko, a relative from the village of Omuokiri, Aluu, who lived in the Amadi compound until his death. ‘The Night of the Crushers’ reflects this influence and preempts the centrality of Ikwerre village life in the trilogy of novels that made Amadi’s fame. The first issue of the Government College, Umuahia Magazine appeared at the end of the 1947 school year. Unlike the house periodicals, the school magazine was printed and sold outside the school. It was entirely written by the boys and their teachers, but on account of its annual production, the number 21

An example would be R.F. Jumbo’s use of such expressions as ‘fat pig from thick Ajalli’ and ‘bush schools where you sat on mud benches’ to reflect students’ ‘primitive’ backgrounds. Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 June 2008; Chinua Achebe’s editorial note to Ike’s ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, p. 27. See also my discussion of Ike and Momah’s school stories in Chapter 6. 22 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 80. 23 E.J. Alagoa, ‘Elechi Amadi and His Roots’, Elechi Amadi at 55: Poems, Short Stories and Papers, eds, Wilfried Feuser and Ebele Eko (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1994), p. 24. 24 Incidentally, Joe Ebiegberi Alagoa contributed to an unspecified school periodical with a poem recounting ‘the heroic-fight of the Nembe-Grass people against the British Royal Company in 1895.’ Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa’s email to the author, 23 June 2013. I am inclined to believe that such an effort would appear, like Amadi’s story, in a house magazine rather than in the more widely scrutinized and disseminated school magazine. Whatever the case, Alagoa’s effort is yet another significant example of in-school mental decolonization. It also prefigured Alagoa’s career as a historian.

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of contributors was considerably lower. Moreover, only the best writers could hope to publish their work in the magazine; for ‘an annual was regarded as a status symbol, as concrete and tangible evidence that a school was prospering and its students receiving a sound education’.25 The production of Government College, Umuahia Magazine was a labour-intensive affair, and the editorial board – the general editor (a master), a student sub-editor, and eleven board members – worked on the issue throughout the academic year. Charles Low was the general editor until Trinity Term 1951, when Mr. Wong Sing took over his duties.26 Chinua Achebe was sub-editor, with Anthony Epelle, of the magazine’s maiden issue and Chukwuemeka Ike and Chike Momah were part of the editorial team for the 1948/49 number. With the exception of Amadi and Momah, all the school’s future writers contributed to the school magazine, but Ike was the most enthusiastic about the venture.27 These writers’ memories of their editorial work are sketchy, and Kelsey Harrison’s vivid reminiscences of his editorship of the magazine in 1950/51 are worth quoting in full: The editor was appointed by the principal and both liaised to appoint other members of the board. I believe the master who taught English and Literature in the higher classes had a major hand in making the appointments but I am not absolutely sure. Each member of the board was assigned the task of responsibility for each section of the magazine. He was free to delegate. Reports on games were the responsibility of the master in charge of the particular game. For example in my time, the report on cricket was by Low himself. The editor called the meetings. I do not recall minutes being taken. Board members met formally and informally to review progress of work. Everything was hand written at this stage. Next, the whole board met to collate efforts. This was when serious editing took place and the master in charge i.e. the editor, and his chief assistant crafted the final draft. At this stage, it was not unusual for one of us to be asked to edit or even rewrite poorly written articles and stories. In my time, Mr. Sing and I did this, working sometimes in his house and sometimes in the senior staff office of the school. Incidentally, it was the policy to leave poems as they were submitted. The manuscripts were passed on to the secretaries and typists, who worked in a pool with one in charge. They produced the final typescript, which was hand delivered by the editor or his appointee to the head of CMS printing press at its office in Port Harcourt. Proof copies reached the editor at the college by post. The principal, the editor, and the chief of CMS press dealt with the finances. Production and printing costs and other business aspects were borne by the principal’s office. Individual purchase had to be 25

Bernth Lindfors, ‘Popular Literature for an African Elite’, The Journal of African Studies 12:3 (1974), p. 474. 26 Sing was a British Chinese graduate of the University of London. He taught additional mathematics at Government College. See Kelsey Harrison, An Arduous Climb, p. 49. 27 Chike Momah’s email to the author, 22 January, 2008.

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paid for. We worked largely in our spare time mainly on Saturdays after the school parade, but sometimes on Sundays after church service and before lunch.28

The magazine cover featured the school crest and motto. The first page contained the editorial, a directory of staff, school officers, and the editorial board. The next two pages were devoted to the sub-editor’s ‘General Notes’ on the highlights of the school year. The ‘Diary’ gave a breakdown of salient events in chronological order. Other sections included chapel notes, house reports, and accounts of the activities of sports teams, school societies, and the Old Boy network. The last pages reproduced School Certificate, Junior Civil Service, and University College Entrance examination results in order of merit and featured photographs of the school prefects, the outgoing Class VI students, and participants in such initiatives as the Adult School or The Mikado. As we have seen, most of the college literati formed part of the editorial board at some point. Nevertheless, and despite the widespread impression that Umuahia’s school magazine was primarily a literary venture, only three of its thirty pages featured creative writing. I could not locate all the pertinent numbers, and cannot speak on the nature of Achebe and Okigbo’s contributions. The former dismissed his Umuahia writings as ‘odd, non-literary things’,29 but the pieces I have read, such as Ralph Opara’s ‘The Truck Pusher’, A.I. Etuk’s ‘Theophratica’ and Edward Chukwukere’s ‘The Tropical Storm’ reflect serious, if somewhat inchoate craftsmanship. Of the extant texts published in the magazine, two remarkable pieces have survived the vicissitudes of time. One is the poem ‘The Will to Shine as One.’ Kelsey Harrison recalls that when Edward Chukwukere submitted the piece for consideration, Charles Low thought it suitable for use as a school song. After an open competition, involving Principal Simpson, Low himself and some Old Boys, the school ratified Chukwukere’s poem as the official school anthem.30 Mr. Farmer set the poem to music, and its inaugural rendition took place in the chapel on 11 February 1951.31 There will be occasion to see the piece in a subsequent chapter. I am here more interested in the sole retrieved text by one of the college’s future writers – Chukwuemeka Ike’s short story, ‘In Dreamland.’ The exhumation and reproduction of juvenilia is not without its detractors. Sometimes the writers themselves, embarrassed by the jejune nature of their early writings, deny authorship of these texts, or do everything in their power to hide them from the critic’s sight. Legatees are also known to have blocked 28

Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 April 2010. Chinua Achebe quoted in Biodun Jeyifo, ‘Literature and Concientization: Interview with Chinua Achebe’, Conversations with Chinua Achebe, ed. Bernth Lindfors. (Jackson: Mississippi, 1997), p. 111. 30 Kelsey Harrison’s email to the author, 13 April 2010. 31 T.I. Francis, ‘Diary’, Government College Umuahia Magazine, 4 (1950–51,) p. 6; K.A. Harrison, ‘Chapel Notes’, Government College Umuahia Magazine, 4 (1950–51), p. 10. 29

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the publication of such potentially ‘unflattering’ material. 32 But to dismiss early writings is to renounce key entries in the Umuahian archive, ‘the chance to catch precocious experimenting children in the act of growing into the great authors we have come to admire,’ as Christine Alexander and Juliet McMaster explain in their introduction to The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf.33 To enjoy this view for what it is worth, we must bear in mind the writers’ young age, and see attendant errors or stylistic infelicities as ‘a natural part of the process of growth, of literary apprenticeship of the youthful writer maturing into the adult author’.34 Only then will juvenilia illuminate the intellectual climate in which Umuahia’s future writers thrived.

In Dreamland35 V.C.N. IKE ‘We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.’             – Shakespeare I had scarcely thrown myself down on my bed before I found myself in another world. I was enjoying the ‘season of all natures’ – sleep. There was no more thought of ‘Marks’, no more thought of our general activities. A sounder sleep could never have been enjoyed by any mortal. I was thus enjoying this ‘chief nourisher in Life’s feast’ when I heard a loud knock on the window just above my head. By my rough reckoning I felt it must have been 1 a.m., and I thought that at such a time every righteous man ought to be fast asleep in his room. The reader can, therefore, imagine for himself how I was shaking like a drenched rat to hear such a noise. My heart was in my mouth as I listened. I could hear the friend sleeping next to me snoring quite peaceably. Then the single knock was doubled, after which there was complete silence. My fears almost had the better part of me when I remembered a passage from Montrose that says that 32

See Christine Alexander, ‘Defining and Representing Literary Juvenilia’, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf, eds, Christine Alexander and Juliet McMaster. (Cambridge UP, 2005) , pp. 70–100. 33 Christine Alexander and Juliet McMaster, ‘Introduction’, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf, p. 4. 34 Christine Alexander, ‘Defining and Representing Literary Juvenilia’, p. 73. 35 First published in Government College Umuahia Magazine 2 (1948–49), p. 19, reproduced by courtesy of Chukwuemeka Ike.

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‘He either fears his fate too much, Or his desserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all.’ I was now determined to put this passage into practice. After an interval that seemed like ages to me, the sound of three large knocks echoed through the whole room. Then almost mechanically I shouted, ‘Who goes there?’ There was no answer. A dead silence followed. I knew that my shout had awakened my friend because his snoring stopped instantaneously. I therefore crept silently to him to consult with him how best to deal with our unwelcome guest. Little did I know how cowardly my friend was. As soon as I touched him, he jumped on his feet and would have cried out had I not assured him of my presence. At the mere mention of going out on such a night he nearly boxed my ears, only he lacked the courage. ‘Why do you need to worry yourself about him?’ he whispered. ‘After all there is no possibility of his entering this house at least. All the doors and windows have been securely bolted.’ Finding words very inadequate, I decided to carry out my plan alone. Armed with a small dagger and a piece of rope, I cautiously moved out through the door into the still night. Just as I stepped into the cold air my friend’s question came back clearly to me: ‘Why do you need to worry yourself about him?’ I was on the point of going back quietly to my bed when I heard a movement to my right. Was I being watched? I prayed God I was not. But the movement made me stick to my guns. The opportunity was not to be lost. I now moved nearer and nearer to the direction from which the movement came. I waited only for a few seconds before I could make out a dim figure moving away to my left. This was a comfort to me. At least my presence had not been detected. Then the dim figure turned sharply and started approaching me. By the dim light I could make out that it was a man carrying a heavy matchet. His huge size made my teeth rattle. As he approached nearer and nearer I decided to lie flat on my back and depend on Providence. Nearer and nearer came this huge rogue, and faster and faster was my heart knocking at my ribs. The distance between us was now about twenty yards but he still came on, step by step. Then when there were only about ten yards between us there sounded a sharp blast behind me. Was it my cowardly friend who was coming to help me? I hoped so! But the whistle had an effect on that huge man. He turned back to bolt for it, but I was soon on my feet and threw my rope between his legs. This entangled

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his feet and the huge mass fell with a heavy crash. He could have resumed his flight had it not been that my friend had come in the nick of time with some neighbours. But the rogue did not give in easily. In his struggle to get free he gave me an ugly cut with his knife. My companions, however, quickly disarmed him and had him securely tied with ropes. My pains were lessened by our success. We carried the rogue on our shoulders, rejoicing to have got rid of such a man. We were just on the point of waking up our neighbours and communicating our victory to them when to my dismay, I heard six clear strokes of the bell, summoning us to be off our beds. You can imagine how disappointed I was to discover that I had merely been dreaming!

Ike wrote the above story at the age of seventeen, a year before taking his School Certificate Examination. He was a keen student writer – one of the best in the entire college – and an enthusiast of the school magazine and its editor, Charles Low. It is not hard to visualize the conscientiousness and passion with which he threw himself into the task of writing this first incursion in print. The carefully constructed and highly allusive text reveals the author’s awareness of his readership – the academic staff, students, and Old Boys of Government College and other prominent schools – and the desire to outdo himself. Writing in a formal style with a sprinkling of popular schoolboy expressions, Ike embarks on his literary adventure with an epigraph from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Bard, acme of literary attainment, hovers over the rest of the story in the form of further allusions to Macbeth, another staple of the Umuahian literary diet. His insertion of the lines from James Graham’s ‘I’ll Never Love Thee More’ is not as skillfully accomplished as the references to Shakespearean reveries, but is resonant for expressing Ike’s youthful sense of bravado, the public school mandate to ‘play the game,’ and the influence of Principal Simpson’s famous axiom, ‘Fight your own Battles.’ ‘In Dreamland’ is well-structured and efficient at maintaining suspense and portraying the narrator’s simultaneous feelings of apprehension and determination. The dream motif is a hallmark of Ike’s adult writing; The Bottled Leopard, The Naked Gods, Conspiracy of Silence and The Potter’s Wheel, all reveal a similar interface between the conscious and the unconscious. The humorous undercurrents in the denouement anticipate Ike’s pronounced satiric edge. But the closest connections between ‘In Dreamland’ and Ike’s future output are with The Bottled Leopard: Amobi, the novel’s schoolboy hero, like the narrator of ‘In Dreamland,’ is a student of Government College, and like him, is determined to confront his nightly terrors. Further echoes of the story in the novel include the forays to the dormitories and final detention of the thieving man-leopard that terrorizes the college. There is a possible source for both quests to catch an intruder

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– ‘Blue Shirt,’ who consistently robbed the school community from 1945 until his detainment in Easter Term, 1948.36 However, unlike The Bottled Leopard’s Amobi, the first-person narrator of Ike’s early story is not at the crossing point between the traditional and the Western worlds. He is firmly enshrined in the ways of the British school he inhabits. ‘The Night of the Crushers’ remains Amadi’s sole submission to the periodicals of Government College. The reason he gives for this creative paucity is that Umuahian school life ‘was a very tight regimen; everything was timed; you didn’t have much room to maneuver. People may have had time Saturday, Sunday mornings, but with three evenings in the week we couldn’t read textbooks, people would use their weekends to catch up – or play games’.37 When the ‘Cambridge man’ was finally over and done with, Amadi felt free to indulge his creative yearnings. The first such attempt, written in the twilight of his Umuahia schooldays, is the poem ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C.’ The generative context will sound familiar: Just before the Cambridge School Certificate Examination in December 1952, the final year class of Government College, Umuahia played host to the final year girls of Cornellia Connelly College, Uyo. After the examinations I recalled the party so vividly that I wrote the following poem in January 1953.38

Despite its origins in a communal event, ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C’ lingered in an old notebook for fifty years until its appearance for ‘sentimental reasons’39 in Amadi’s Speaking and Singing: Essays and Poems. Because of its local dissemination and marginal status as a piece of juvenilia, the poem has smoldered in obscurity.

A Social Day with the C.C.C. From whither hail the C.C.C. Those lovely flowers grace of earth? From Marian Hall, a place whose girth Is but a part of U.G.C. That morning faces grew serene, Good Clarks, nice watches both were sought, In garments whiteness reigned and nought Uncouth or fraught with stains was seen. 36

J.O. Onwuka, ‘General Notes’, Government College Umuahia Magazine, 2 (1948–49) p. 5. Elechi Amadi, quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 83 38 Elechi Amadi, ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C.’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems. (Port Harcourt UP, 2003), pp. 144–146. 39 Elechi Amadi, ‘Foreword’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems, pp.i-ix. 37

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The morning proved both fresh and clear Ten sharp, the radiant M.C. spread Good news our hearts were not misled The C.C.C. at last were here Mine, which is she? Gents paused to gaze And scanned the little charming things, But ballot, friend to none e’en kings This solved, and hearts were set ablaze, Contented ones their partners drew With faces beaming bright and gay, While others to their seats made way With steps unwilling why we knew The day alas too short advanced, With all things fair was it enriched, Each tree shade had a pair bewitched Whose sighs the whistling breeze enhanced Assembled we desired to dance Our fairies blushing all demurred But they when gents implored concurred And then with glee pairs took to prance ‘We’re fast’, fat men and slow confessed ‘The tempo’s slow’, slim ones complained, Our stalwart brothers large rooms gained But pressed for space small pairs coalesced At last the time to part drew nigh With sighs a hurried meal was snatched For sorrow some ate naught but watched In silence girls who soon would fly As drivers horn began to moan Gents roused themselves and quickly wrote Addresses for the girls to note And write to them in loving tone So closed the day with C.C.C. A milestone in the path of youth To lead to something which in truth Is nature’s strangest high decree.

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The influence of Charles Low’s ‘The W.T.C. are here!’ – to which Amadi succinctly alludes in line twelve – is considerable. Note the similarities in title, form, content, and theme – the stirrings of young love and the triumph over ‘Umuahian maladroitness in feminine engineering’,40 to use Achebe’s jocular phrase. Both poems are blithe, meticulous chronicles of the boys’ encounter with a girls’ school, and both privilege particulars of the everyday – in Amadi’s case, the coveted Clarks shoes, pristine white uniform, and the school lorry and its driver – over displays of erudition. The only reference to high-brow literature comes from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which students associated with Charles Low. It is true that in some instances, Amadi avails himself of poetic license with youthful abandon. But unlike Low’s poem, concerned merely with teenage romantic pursuits, ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C.’ hints at loftier concerns – the poet’s transition to adulthood and the beginning of a solitary period of literary experimentation, free from the exigencies of a highly-scheduled school life. The critic Eustace Palmer has said of Amadi that he ‘remains unrivalled in his presentation of the torments, anxieties, tortures, joys, uncertainties, frustrations and ecstasies that are part of being in love.’41 It is remarkable that this early poem reflects his thematic preoccupation with love. The student writings we have seen radiate unquestioning exuberance and confidence. After decades of personal and political change, the School House writers – Ike, Okigbo, and Momah – revisited their beloved Umuahian setting in their work. But this time they did not elide the psychic injuries of Empire. Their adult representations of Government College will be the subject of the next chapter.

40 41

Editorial note to Chukwuemeka Ike ‘William Simpson, O.B.E.’, p. 27. Eustace Palmer, ‘The Art of Elechi Amadi’, Elechi Amadi at 55: Poems, Short Stories and Papers, eds, Wilfried Feuser and Ebele Eko. (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1994), pp. 46–58.

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The Dangerous Potency of the Crossroads: Colonial Mimicry in Ike, Momah and Okigbo’s Reimagining of the Primus Inter Pares Years

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The crossroads does have a certain dangerous potency; dangerous because a man might perish there wrestling with multiple-headed spirits, but also he might be lucky and return to his people with the boon of prophetic vision. (Chinua Achebe, ‘Named for Victoria, Queen of England’)

Colonial acculturation in elite boarding schools has been the subject of the memoirs and school stories of a number of first-generation Nigerian writers, including Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, T.M. Aluko, and the children’s literature writer Anezi Okoro.1 However literary critics and cultural historians have remained remarkably quiet about the intricacies of these representations of colonial education, which reveal interesting insights into literary awakening, the making of colonial and postcolonial subjectivities in educational settings, the psychocultural tensions resulting from the simultaneous pull of indigenous and colonial/modern expectations, and the counter-discursive use of Western literary genres, formal elements, and conventions. This chapter examines the ways in which Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Bottled Leopard and Chike Momah’s The Shining Ones: the Umuahia School Days of Obinna Okoye – both of which are set in Government College – critique the educational arm of the colonial enterprise, and interrogate the complexities of self-definition in the liminal space between the British school and the indigenous homestead. My argument – informed by the work of the postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha – is that in these stories, the intricate negotiation of identity at the crossroads of cultures is embodied in the protagonists’ colonial mimicry, as well as in the very creative acts that produce these school stories, which replicate and subvert the generic conventions, colonial ethos, and exaltation of Englishness of the nineteenth and early 1 See

Wole Soyinka, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir 1946–65 (London: Methuen: 1994); T.M. Aluko, The Story of My Life. (Ibadan: Heinemann, 2006); Anezi Okoro, One Week, One Trouble (Ibadan: African Universities Press, 1972) and Double Trouble (Ibadan: African Universities Press, 1990).

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twentieth-century English school story. I am interested in the ways in which the protagonists – and by extension the authors of these stories – negotiate the psychopolitical tensions exerted by the simultaneous pull of the colonial school and the indigenous community beyond. This negotiation takes place by opening up what Homi Bhabha calls a ‘third space’: ‘a place of hybridity, figuratively speaking, where the construction of a political object that is new, neither the one nor the other, properly alienates our political expectations, and changes, as it must, the very forms of our recognition of the moment of politics’.2 This third space transcends binaries of power and subjectivity and is thus germane to personal and political freedom. But before interrogating the ways in which the opening of the third space plays out in the schoolboy subjects’ negotiation of identity, it will help to quote Bhabha’s definition of colonial mimicry, which complements the theoretical construct of the third space: Colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite. Which is to say that the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference. The authority of that mode of colonial discourse that I have called mimicry is therefore stricken by indeterminacy: mimicry emerges as the representation of a difference that is itself a process of disavowal. Mimicry is, thus, the sign of a double articulation; a complex strategy of reform, regulation, and discipline, which ‘appropriates’ the Other as it visualizes power.3

How does this apply to The Shining Ones and The Bottled Leopard? First, in the intent of the schoolboy protagonists of both novels to seamlessly ‘blend’ with the colonial environment of the school, imbibing colonial knowledge, partaking of imperial traditions, and modelling themselves on young English gentlemen, while at the same time asserting difference through the covert and subversive construction of their indigenous subjectivity and seeming to fit the colonial mold. Second, the authors’ appropriation, adaptation, and ultimate disavowal of English cultural and literary models also embodies colonial mimicry. In their appropriation of English models for the purposes of cultural surveillance and postcolonial contestation, Ike and Momah represent both ‘resemblance and menace’4 because they ‘mock [their] power to be models, that power which supposedly makes [them] imitable’5.This mimicry, effective as it is in exposing the colonial mind control, is construed around the ambivalence resulting from simultaneous exaltation and abjuration. But at the climax of both narratives, 2 Homi

K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 37. p. 153. 4 Ibid., p. 131. 5 Ibid., p. 125. 3 Ibid.,

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the schoolboy protagonists undergo an epiphanic moment, upon which they acquire the prophetic vision necessary to formulate a third space. This formulation – the narrative dynamics of the novels suggests – culminates in the authors’ counter-hegemonic appropriation of the school story genre. This appropriation ‘displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority [and] new political initiatives’. 6 The publication of Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Bottled Leopard in 1985 was a significant development in the realm of Nigerian children’s literature, as it was the first time that one of the country’s most recognized authors held up his alma mater and its educational model to scrutiny. It soon became a highly popular text in Nigeria, and one of the set texts for the Literature in English paper of the West African Examinations Council’s Senior School Certificate Examination. Almost twenty years later, Chike Momah used the Umuahian setting in The Shining Ones: The Umuahia School Days of Obinna Okoye (2003).7 This work is still largely unknown. Momah has described The Shining Ones as a schoolboy memoir with few fictional liberties. His stated motivation is ‘nothing but a compelling desire to tell the story of my alma mater, which just happened to be the Primus Inter Pares of schools at the time’ and ‘perhaps to challenge the alumni of the rival schools to tell their own stories!’8 Ike, however, adamant on the fictionality of many of the events reflected in The Bottled Leopard, has been more explicit in outlining its critique of colonial educational praxis: [The Bottled Leopard is] an attempt to use fiction to explore some of our traditional beliefs in the supernatural, those beliefs which the white man and our western education made us sweep under the carpet but which continue to influence the lives of our people, including Ph.D. holders in the sciences… . My second objective in writing the book was to take a critical look at an educational system with a very high public rating but which appears designed to produce black English men rather than to help the pupils to grapple effectively with their societal problems.9

Before offering close readings to explicate and clarify the terms of my argument, it will help to situate the setting of the stories in its proper perspective. Most Government College students were the children of converts and had already undergone an initial phase of acculturation at church and primary school. But their villages were still accommodating their ancestral culture to Christianity 6 Homi

Bhabha qtd. in Jonathan Rutherford, ‘The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha’ Identity: Commnunity, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), p. 211. 7 Re-published for international dissemination under the Xlibris imprint in 2010. 8 Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 23 February 2008. 9 Chukwuemeka Ike, quoted in B.E.C. Oguzie, ‘An Interview with Chukwuemeka Ike’, in Goatskin Bags and Wisdom: New Critical Perspectives on African Literature, ed. Ernest N. Emenyonu. (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2000), p. 370.

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amidst colonial flux. Thus schoolboys could not entirely dissociate from ‘the other world at the other arms of the cross-roads’, which tended to exercise a ‘dangerous potency’ on their progressively colonized minds.10 The negotiation of this psychocultural conflict was prolonged beyond their schooldays, as the composition and representational dynamics of The Bottled Leopard and The Shining Ones attest. In both stories, the plot revolves around a bright Igbo boy who leaves the relative comfort of his home for the alienating world of Government College, Umuahia. He joyfully partakes of the school’s colonial traditions and knowledge while meeting a series of obstacles, mostly revolving around his attempts to integrate his indigenous sense of self with the colonial expectations of the school’s masters and senior students, finally emerging as the mature schoolboy hero, restored to the principal’s good books while dreaming of a future postcolonial subversion. In this chapter, I probe the complexities of self-definition in The Shining Ones and The Bottled Leopard at three distinct levels. First, I discuss representations of apemanship amongst government college students in both novels so as to set the stage for the discussion of Obinna and Amobi’s colonial mimicry in succeeding sections; second, I examine the development of Obinna and Amobi’s anti-colonial consciousness – which is prompted by two different forms of colonial educational intervention – as well as their covert strategies of mental emancipation in the face of colonial praxis. In the case of Obinna, this consciousness emerges as a result of the political maneuvers of the school authorities to prevent anti-colonial nationalist thought from permeating the college. In Amobi’s case, anti-colonial consciousness materializes as a reaction against the school’s suppression of indigenous religion. My discussion of Obinna’s overtly political tribulations will lead into Amobi’s struggles with cultural colonialism. Moreover, I will trace links between Amobi’s self-conflict in The Bottled Leopard with the spiritual quest and fulfilment that Christopher Okigbo outlines in Heavensgate. This poetic sequence is not specifically about Okigbo’s years of colonial indoctrination at Umuahia. However, it reflects Ike’s thematic preoccupations and does reference, if succinctly, the Umuahian connection. In the concluding part of the essay, I shift my attention to the boys’ ambivalent formulation of a third space in which to initiate their own peculiar process of mental decolonization. This space allows them – as it allows the three School House authors in adulthood – to transcend the colonial double bind of their early years, culminating in a hybrid, transcendent vision. In both The Bottled Leopard and The Shining Ones, Government College, Umuahia emerges as a site of what Murray Carlin, a colonial educator at Makerere College, Uganda, once described as ‘the subversion… of the African mind; 10

Chinua Achebe, ‘Named for Victoria, Queen of England’, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Anchor, 1990) , p. 34.

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the breaking down of mental tissues; their reconstruction in the Western Mode; the reordering of thoughts, feelings, habits, responses, of every aspect of the mind and personality’.11 While the protagonists of both stories resist this subversion, several of their schoolmates exemplify colonial apemanship, the uncritical assimilation of colonial binaries.In the introduction to The Bottled Leopard, Ike describes Government College as ‘a place where students were brought up to regard their culture as primitive, as something to be discarded in order to acquire the modern, scientific outlook.’12 Such aptitudes as submission, dexterity with cutlery, and the successful elimination of vernacular influences from one’s spoken English are visible signs of effective integration into the college atmosphere. Even such trivialities as village songs and games are considered ‘unbecoming’.13 The informal pledge that students take upon entry (and which is fashioned by the senior students themselves) emphasizes this idea of indigenous cultural inferiority, for it involves the resolution of the ‘fag’ (fresher) to dissociate from his ‘bush’ home background, disparage his African surname, and promise to ‘discard all rustic and outlandish behaviour’,14 which, in the context of the novel signifies ‘inherently African. ’While other students seem to absorb the derogatory language of the colonizer both at their induction and in the course of their life at the college, the protagonist of The Bottled Leopard, Amobi ‘emerge[s] from the ceremony totally dejected and confused. Never in his life had he been made to feel so out of place’15 And yet, he manages to soothe his unsettled mind with the resolution to make the most of this ‘curious institution’ and its effective transformation of ‘young African youth into English gentlemen’.16 Hence, Amobi struggles to rid his spoken English of ‘Igbotic’ influences, works hard to excel academically, and almost blends with his more acculturated schoolmates. However, he soon falls into disrepute for being ‘slow in shedding some of his native ways’17 and his apparent inability to pull himself away from ‘the primitive beliefs’ and ‘pagan ways’ of his people.18 Such inconsequential acts as running around the dormitory in the rain to refresh himself while singing an Igbo song are disparagingly referred to as ‘a ritual dance’ by 11

Quoted in Carol Sichermann, ‘Ngugi’s Colonial Education: ‘The Subversion …of the African mind’, African Studies Review 38:3 (December 1995), p. 11. 12 Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘Introduction’, The Bottled Leopard (Ibadan UP, 1985), p.vii. 13 Ibid., p. 63. 14 Ibid., p. 8. 15 Ibid., p. 10. 16 Ibid., p. 12. Amobi’s resolution alludes to Mr Brown’s desire to see Tom turn into ’a brave, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a Christian‘ at Rugby. I am indebted to Ciaran O’Neill’s ‘The Irish Schoolboy Novel’, Éire-Ireland 44:1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 2009), p. 83 for this observation, made in connection with a scene in William Patrick Kelly’s Schoolboys Three (1895). 17 Chukwuemeka Ike, The Bottled Leopard, p. 104. 18 Ibid., p. 82.

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a classmate or as ‘running around naked like a mad man’ by a senior student, and culminate in Amobi giving ‘himself two cracks on the head for forgetting his status.’19 Despite his reverence of the college, he never sinks to the levels of parrotry apparent in other schoolmates and some of the college’s non-academic staff, but attempts to reconcile his embattled sense of subjectivity, as we will see. On his arrival at Government College, the protagonist of The Shining Ones, Obinna, also encounters a constrictive ambience. He watches the principal’s appearance ‘with trepidation’ and ‘the extremity of fear which the formidable presence of an authoritarian white man so often induced in the hearts of subject black Africans.’20 This apprehension grows at the knowledge that vernacular languages are prohibited in the school, and at hearing a fellow student – his cousin Samuel – say of the students of King’s College, Lagos, who reputedly speak Yoruba outside class hours, that ‘their language is an incurable disease. It’s terrible’.21 Obinna protests against both the ‘no-vernacular rule’ and Samuel’s internalization of colonial values, anticipating future struggles. In the same vein, he is shocked to hear a bully’s aggressive replication of colonial binaries in the dining hall. Nwanna, the bully in question, calls one of the freshers a ‘bushman’ for ‘holding the knife like a dagger’22 and gives his own particular rendition of the ‘rationale’ behind the Housemaster’s nickname ‘Black Cat’: ‘he is black, like some of you ugly toads, and he wears rubber-soled shoes … He just sneaks up on you suddenly, mysteriously, black as the night, like a messenger from the devil’23 (Emphasis added).While the intrusions of these characters and their mimetic absorptions of colonial discourse do not take up much space in The Bottled Leopard and The Shining Ones, they underscore the negative self-images resulting from such students’ colonial quiescence, while underlining the amount of pressure the novels’ protagonists have to endure from the college’s staff and its more successfully Europeanized students. As a primary school student, Obinna had been vaguely conscious of the demarcations between Africans and expatriates in his hometown of Aba. But despite its geographical isolation and comparatively sedate surroundings, it is not until his arrival at Government College that he begins to truly experience the reality of colonial subjection and mental disenfranchisement. To dramatize the development and negotiation of this consciousness, Momah centralizes the figure of the European master – image of academic authority, mediator of ‘superior’ notions of Englishness, and visible avatar of colonial power. Momah’s ‘look of surveillance [implicit in colonial mimicry] returns as the displacing 19

Ibid., p. 63. Chike Momah, The Shining Ones: The Umuahia Schooldays of Obinna Okoye (Ibadan UP, 2003), p. 19. 21 Ibid., p. 43. 22 Ibid., p. 32. 23 Ibid., my emphasis. 20

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gaze of the disciplined, where the observer becomes the observed and ‘partial’ representation rearticulates the whole notion of identity and alienates it from essence’.24Intricately linking expatriate masters with the awakening of political consciousness, Chike Momah deals with anti-colonial undercurrents in the college at three connected levels. First, by recreating individual and collective responses to the incendiary comments of the English master, Mr Theodore; second, by engaging with the issue of nationalist newspapers and mediatic manipulation within the college; and third, by foregrounding the ways in which two of the school’s masters challenged the inaccurate versions of African history proffered in the imperial curriculum. Obinna’s resistance to school authority is located at the core of these three levels. Despite their continued exposure to the colonial gaze in the college and their general perception of the workings of colonial rule, Obinna and his fellow ‘fags’ still experience an overwhelming feeling of disorientation in the ironicallynamed Mr Theodore’s English classes: Whenever he was displeased he would shout out ‘I’m sick and tired of this African stupidity!’… There was another phrase he loved to throw at us. ‘Oh! Renascent Africa!’ His tone of voice, far from being laudatory, left us in no doubt whatsoever that he did not think Africa was renascent, or would probably ever be. And to rub salt into our wounds, he borrowed the phrase from the title of a book by Nnamdi Azikiwe, the foremost politician on the Nigerian national scene, and the bête-noire of British colonialism.25

These and similar insults during the course of Mr Theodore’s otherwise effective classes lead to a collective decision to waylay and beat up the master at night. However, the Principal hears about the students’ retaliatory plans and discreetly removes Mr Theodore from the college, a decision which ‘proved to be in the interest of the collective mental well-being of the students’.26And yet, the school authorities do not openly condemn Mr Theodore’s outbursts, for despite their insensitivity, they are in keeping with the college’s imperative to keep nationalistic influences at bay. When Obinna’s friend, Stoneface, begins posting hand-written bulletins based on radio broadcasts from unofficial sources on the assembly-hall notice board, the principal finds ways to divert his journalistic gifts to a more conductive end: he suggests that the bulletins focus on the progress of the British troops in the war. However, Stoneface’s apparent malleability does not signal defeat or political unawareness. As he tells an incensed Obinna:

24

Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 127. Chike Momah, The Shining Ones, p. 144. 26 Ibid., p. 210. 25

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The Principal wants us to remain good, loyal boys of the British Empire. That’s why we can only read the Daily Times which, I think is the only Lagos newspaper that does not attack the British Colonial Office all the time… This war against Hitler means so much to our British masters, they’ll do anything to win it, including making our people believe it is our war.27

Other instances, such as his conversations with Obinna on the sexual politics of empire and the Colonial Office’s scrutiny of expatriate civil servants, show that Stoneface perseveres in his critical attitude to colonial praxis within and beyond the college. Even though he is the only student to whom Obinna dares to confide his increasing opposition to colonial policy, Stoneface, while responsive to his younger friend’s unrest, stifles the public expression of his grievances. In this climate of quiet antagonism, the students are thrilled to have Mr Eagleton, another political renegade of sorts, as their history teacher. His friendly, nonpaternalistic approach, and his gripping stories on the Egypt of the Pharaohs, the code of Hammurabi, and the West African Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai give the students a sense of self-worth following Mr Theodore’s tirades, and do much to assuage their feelings of shame and helplessness as a result of their personal awareness of their reality as colonial subjects and their study of the slave trade. However, Mr Eagleton’s attractions in the eyes of his students are also responsible for his quiet dismissal from the Umuahia Government College. The students are never told the reasons for Mr Eagleton’s departure, but they surmised that ‘a good man was let go by an unfriendly and reactionary authority (the British colonial office) … perhaps Mr Eagleton had been a little too sympathetic to the national struggle for political self-determination and independence’.28This incident, and the mystery surrounding the dismissal from the college of another sympathetic teacher, Mr Hunter – linked at first to his conciliatory attitude towards anti-colonial nationalism, and later connected to the pregnancy of the school messenger’s niece – leave further dents in Obinna’s psyche, and he begins to contest all forms of authority. Notwithstanding his academic brilliance, the Principal repeatedly alludes to Obinna’s ‘natural inclination to disobey’29 in the reports he sends Obinna’s father at the end of every term. At first, Obinna restricts his disobedience and argumentativeness to school prefects, but finds himself in deep trouble when he defies colonial authority by talking back to two white teachers when they berate him for his lack of enthusiasm at rugby practice. As a punitive measure, the Principal forces Obinna to sit with the school’s youngest students at college assembly for the duration of the term and further humiliates him by telling the whole school of 27

Ibid., p. 51. Ibid., p. 139. 29 Ibid.p. 251. 28

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his misdeed. This incident triggers Obinna’s epiphany through the advice of Mr Mokelu, one of the African masters: I have had some experience dealing with white people. They think they are the lords of the universe, and perhaps they are. As an individual, you can stand up to them, but then you better be sure you can deal with the consequences. If it is their word against yours, then young man, you are sunk. It is better to go softly with them, even if it makes them think you are a fool … Don’t simply take them on, unless you think you are their [intellectual] equal. Take someone like Mr Babatunde. What can they do to him? He has studied in the best universities in England. He is better educated and knows their language better than most of them.30

Mr Babatunde, the English and History master that Mr Mokelu alludes to in the above fragment – with his degrees from the University of London and Cambridge, and his outspoken desire to earn a PhD in history so as to redress ‘the story of our people as recounted by those who propagated the notion that we had little or no history worth the telling’31 – efficiently embodies Bhabha’s notions of colonial mimicry and the third space. The master appears to be successfully Anglicized. This is visible in his elite English education, mannerisms, and successful integration into the college’s colonial hierarchy as the only African Senior Education Officer. Officially, he ‘taught only aspects of the history of the British Empire, and inevitably, of the West African Slave Trade. Williamson’s History of the British Empire was his Bible … He read it to us like a set book in Literature.’32 But by revealing the lacunae of this distinctly English pedagogical instrument, he ‘transforms the meanings of the colonial inheritance into the liberatory signs of a free people of the future’33 by dismantling the very colonial binaries around which the college’s ideological core and function is constructed. That is precisely how he alerts his politically-conscious students to the emancipatory possibilities of colonial mimicry, thereby endowing his students with a metaphoric prophetic vision. As Obinna recalls, ‘we saw in him what we could ourselves achieve, given a little luck and the right circumstances’.34 Mr Mokelu’s remarks on Mr Babatunde help Obinna determine how to cope in the ambivalent setting of the college: with reinforced academic excellence and outward quiet service. Igbo traditional religion is based on the continuity between the ancestors, the living, and the unborn, linked through reincarnation and presided over by a pantheon of deities and the supreme creator, Chineke or Chukwu. Both Obinna 30

Ibid., p. 244. Ibid., p. 215. 32 Ibid., p. 212. 33 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, pp. 55–56. 34 Chike Momah, The Shining Ones, p. 328. 31

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and Amobi are cognizant and respectful of its precepts. Yet, this knowledge must remain concealed if they are to keep their place at Government College. Some minor events in The Shining Ones complement the preeminence of the theme of the repression of the traditional pieties in The Bottled Leopard. When some of his friends speak ‘in hushed tones’ about a man supposedly disfigured through the occult agency of a jealous classmate, Obinna seems skeptical: ‘I had my doubts about the man’s story. My papa and mama had told us, over and over again, that they did not believe in the occult, like the good Christians they were. But how could one be sure?’35 And yet, on several occasions in the college, such as a discussion about a hyena said to be operating under supernatural powers, the possible connection of a classmate’s death with a water deity, and Obinna’s reflections on popular myths about Mammy Water36 as goddess in residence of the River Niger indicate the persistence of indigenous beliefs, despite students’ continued exposure to the ‘scientific outlook’37of the college and the fact that ‘if there were any boys among us who, notwithstanding their years of western-style education, remained infidel to Christianity, they did not come out of the closet.’38 In The Bottled Leopard, Amobi Ugochukwu’s anti-colonial consciousness is not awakened by political manoeuvres, but by cultural colonialism. The coercive suppression of spiritual affinity with the ancestral homestead that took place in both missionary and government-owned secondary institutions in Nigeria was particularly evident in the dismissal of African traditional religions as ‘heathen’, ‘primitive’, ‘barbaric’, and ‘superstitious’. Through missionary intervention, most aspects of traditional life were branded pagan and devilish, and converts were forced to abandon, or secretly participate in such traditions as dancing, polygamy, secret societies, initiation ceremonies and communal feasts. Interestingly, many of the missionaries’ restrictions did not have any dogmatic backing but were rather products of their imagination and established perceptions of ‘darkest Africa.’ Secular educators further appropriated the pervading image of Africa as a treasury of savagery, barbarism, and immorality disseminated by traders, explorers, and pioneer missionaries. In promoting the image of the English gentleman, they adhered to colonial binaries in their efforts to eliminate the African’s ‘savage ways’. Amobi Ugochukwu, the protagonist of The Bottled Leopard, is a typical Government College fresher. He is the son of Christian converts, intelligent, hard-working, and determined to reap the institution’s many academic benefits. 35

Ibid., p. 10. Mammy Water is the collective name given to West African female water deities ’when addressing audiences beyond the local communities.’ Sabine Jell-Behlsen, The Water Goddess in Igbo Cosmology: Ogbuide of Oguta Lake (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2008), p. 22 37 Chukwuemeka Ike, ‘Introduction,’ The Bottled Leopard, p. vii. 38 Chike Momah, The Shining Ones, p. 84. 36

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However, three strange dreams in his first year inhibit his adaptation to college life. In the first dream, set in his village, he panics – rather than rejoices – when a gun is pointed to a murderous leopard’s heart. In the second dream, Amobi fights with an unseen opponent and wakes up with physical signs of struggle, skin bumps and an odd strand of white hair in the mouth. The third and last dream is an intensified repetition of the second. From the onset of his psychic experiences, Amobi, somewhat informed about the capacity of some humans to transfer their spirit to a live leopard and thereby control its movements, tries to unravel the mystery through the school’s British masters and physician. Their answers, however, prove unsatisfactory. First, the doctor ascribes Amobi’s leopard dream to his traumatic encounter with the animal as a child and his skin bumps to an allergy. Second, the Divinity master Mr Sands, the epitome of academic rigour who uses the Latin Vulgate, the Greek New Testament, the King James Bible, and the Old Testament in Hebrew, is unable to see the parallels that Amobi draws between the biblical story of the demons and the swine and the Igbo belief in leopard possession. Moreover, thanks to another student’s untimely diatribe on witchcraft, Mr Sands cuts Amobi’s inquiries short, decrying them as ‘mumbo-jumbo’, ‘grotesque’, and ‘cock and bull stories’.39 This episode is particularly fraught with irony. The college authorities’ pejorative references to indigenous beliefs emphasize their purported irrationality and unscientific nature, but Christianity is as distinct from scientific rationality as Igbo traditional religion. Mr Sands’ acceptance of Judeo-Christian cultural translatability is evident in his simultaneous use of the King James Bible (yet another signifier of Englishness), the Latin Vulgate, and the New Testament in Greek. However, he does not allow Amobi’s use of biblical imagery to explain leopard possession, which he perceives as a politically dangerous threat to British cultural and religious hegemony. Soon, Amobi’s ‘undue interest in superstitious beliefs’40 becomes a topic of discussion amongst the college’s expatriate staff. Amobi seeks the opinion of an African master, Mr Meniru, in class, but he ignores the question. Later, in the privacy of the staff car park, Mr Meniru counsels Amobi: My advice to you is to chew your stick thoroughly in the privacy of your bedroom and use your tooth-brush in the public places. Stop raising those questions in class. You will not receive any useful answers and yet you’ll continue tarnishing your public image. Whenever you go home, find out the people who know what you are looking for. Listen to them. You may find that some of them may lead you on to the answers you seek. Who knows, sometime after we have become an independ-

39 40

Chukwuemeka Ike, The Bottled Leopard, p. 56. Ibid., p. 82.

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ent country, such matters may assume enough respectability for open discussion in class.41 (Emphasis added)

The complicity of the African masters with their students in such circumstances is a recurrent trope in Umuahian school stories, as we have seen. Meniru’s attitude mirrors that of Mokelu in Chike Momah’s The Shining Ones. Both characters contend that despite the school’s outlook, Africans are far from being on an equal footing with Europeans, and they promote apparent submission as resistance. Realizing the futility of consulting teachers, Amobi’s family decides to seek solace in traditional medicine clandestinely, for if any ‘unchristian’ movements on their part came to light, ‘that would be the end of [Amobi’s] career… It would be seen as primitive conduct incompatible with the status of a student of Government College’.42Ike employs the epistolary technique to demonstrate the widespread conflict resulting from the repression of the traditional pieties among Christian converts. Nma, Amobi’s girlfriend and a student in a girls’ government college, narrates two such events in her letters to Amobi. The first is the story of a classmate, supposedly possessed by Mammy Water. The girl’s elder sister had suffered from a similar ailment, and their father’s reluctance to placate the water deity resulted in her death. The second incident involves the mysterious headaches that a dead childhood friend supposedly inflicts on Nma. In this case, another Nigerian teacher advices Nma to seek traditional remedies, resulting in surreptitious visits to two different medicine-men. These accounts leave Amobi ‘grappling with the intractable problem of reconciling the claims in Nma’s letter with the uncompromising attitude at Government College to African traditional medicine’.43 The traditional conciliation ceremony that the villagers of Ndikelionwu hold after the eclipse of the sun (a phenomenon they cannot decipher) also reflects the tenuousness of Christianity among its converts and their preference for the traditional pieties to Christian prayer in times of imagined trouble. At the same time, the villagers’ superstitious perception of the eclipse exposes the limitations of traditional religion while reaffirming the need for cultural and educational syncretism. Despite his curiosity over the uncanny, Amobi remains unconvinced of the efficacy of traditional medicine until his secret consultation with a medicine man who confirms that Amobi is the reincarnation of his late uncle, a leopard man. He substantiates the claim by unravelling the signification of Amobi’s three episodes: that Amobi, on account of his entry into adolescence, is finally in a position to exercise his leopard powers, and that until he learns how to deploy these powers, his late uncle will guide the leopard’s movements on his behalf. However, Amobi remains distraught because ‘his admission to the prestigious 41

Ibid., p. 84. Ibid., p. 50. 43 Ibid., p. 115. 42

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Government College had mapped out for him his future direction in life’. At this point, Amobi decides to renounce all knowledge of leopards and ‘bottles’ his leopard through an undisclosed ritual, which the medicine man performs in the privacy of a sacred grove. This ‘bottling’ ritual entails the temporal deactivation of Amobi’s leopard powers, which are sealed in a mystical pot to ensure that they do not disrupt his studies at Government College. As in The Shining Ones, skepticism about the supernatural is only skin deep. Hence Amobi’s fellow students give credence to the rumors that associate him with a leopard intimidating the college, despite Principal Williams’ insistence that the report is merely ‘mumbo jumbo’, a ‘primitive superstition’, and an ‘unscientific allegation’.44 When Amobi is finally cleared, the principal ends his ostracism, declaring that ‘this school is set up to liberate all of you from the fetters of superstition and juju’.45 Amobi is tempted, once more, to discuss his uncanny experiences with the college authorities, but finally decides to follow Mr Meniru’s advice to keep his experiences to himself, for ‘hopefully, one day his discreet but determined search for the truth would yield fruit, and help to throw light on some of the mysteries of African science’. 46Amobi’s epiphany does not immediately follow the African master’s advice – as in Obinna’s case – but Mr Meniru’s counsel does catalyze it. The college does not liberate Amobi from ‘the fetters’47 of the traditional beliefs. Upon the medicine man’s disclosure of his leopard powers, Amobi decided to sever his links with leopards, but at the end of the novel, he simply decides to stifle the public expression of his renewed interest in traditional beliefs. Thus, Amobi’s subversive strategy and coping mechanism is to remain – at least nominally – Christian and appear to renounce outward signs of ‘paganism’ while he continues his discreet quest in search of traditional cosmological truths, assisted by the Western modes of knowledge he acquires through his colonial education. Ike’s choice of leopard possession as a literary ploy to explore cultural colonialism is quite telling. According to David Pratten, the popularity of leopard men in Western-authored fiction at the turn of the twentieth century onwards resulted from ‘the way in which they seemed to confirm the most sinister of European colonial fantasies about Africa’.48 However, Ike turns European perceptions of leopard possession on their head not only by endowing his protagonist with unknown leopard powers, but also by sensitively exploring its cosmological principles and deconstructing colonial discourse on the phenomenon, contoured by the ambiguous ontological status of man-leopards: were 44

Ibid., p. 164. Ibid., p. 165. 46 Ibid., p. 168. 47 Ibid., p. 165. 48 David Pratten, The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007), p. 9. 45

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they men dressed in leopard skins, or men who transformed themselves into leopards? Even if shape-shifting did take place, Europeans perceived it as an interior consciousness and not as a change in objective reality, thereby rejecting supernatural explanations for the phenomenon.49 The end of the novel, which features a school gardener donning a leopard skin to wreck havoc on the school community, can be considered a satiric allusion to this ‘underlying puzzle’ of colonial reports on leopard men.50 Furthermore, Pratten informs us that Westernauthored leopard stories ‘were popular allegories for both European encounters with the African continent, and of African encounters with Europe. They invariably portrayed characters who straddled these boundaries – Europeans in Africa and Africans who had been educated in Europe’.51 In these texts, Pratten recounts, the Europeanized West African who tries to uncover the secrets of leopard possession ends up entirely renouncing his acquired Western outlook and deploying his newfound knowledge in violent ways.52 Amobi’s discovery of his own particular ‘leopard secret’, however, culminates in his ability to open a third space of cultural translation and negotiation. Rather than wholeheartedly subscribe to indigenous modes of thought at the end of the novel or reject the prospect of leopard-possession, Amobi resolves to deploy Western modes of knowledge to unravel Igbo cosmological mysteries. Ike’s evocation of Mammy Water possession in Nma’s letter responds to a comparable contestatory and hybridizing impulse. Ike’s seemingly peripheral use of the water goddess in the novel may also be read as a response to the colonial bias against the Igbo notion of divine womanhood and as a reassertion of said figure. As Madhu Krishnan says of Chris Abani’s similar use of the Mammy Water Figure in his novel Graceland, these representations strive ‘towards emergent and heterogeneous collectivities that surpass the binaries of male/female Africa/ Europe, and colonizer/ colonized’.53 This observation may well be applied to Ike’s novel. In conjuring Mammy Water possession in his otherwise male-centered novel, Ike makes visible the submerged Igbo divine femininity, situating its cult and colonial misrepresentation on a par with that of the ‘masculine’ leopard phenomenon. As I mentioned earlier, Christopher Okigbo’s autobiographical sequence of poems, Heavensgate is not specifically about Okigbo’s years of colonial indoctrination at Umuahia. But Heavensgate, and the poet’s life that frames it, closely parallel Amobi’s travails at the crossroads. Okigbo, like Ike’s Amobi, secretly combined his traditional duties and position as the reincarnation of a spiritually endowed ancestor with his prestigious standing as a student of 49

Ibid., pp. 9–17. Ibid., p. 9. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid., pp. 17–18. 53 Madhu Krishnan, ‘Mami Wata and the Occluded Feminine in Anglophone Nigerian-Igbo Literature’, Research in African Literatures 43:1 (Spring 2012), pp. 1–18. 50

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Government College, Umuahia and must have tried to come to terms with the ensuing ­psychocultural confusion. However, Okigbo’s references to Government College, Umuahia, as site of colonial indoctrination in Heavensgate are veiled, shrouded in characteristic ‘obscurity’. While biographical knowledge is essential to situate this important signpost of his evolving cultural consciousness, reading Heavensgate comparatively with The Bottled Leopard – as yet another instance of the ‘dangerous potency of the crossroads’ – reveals further layers of meaning, this time associated with Okigbo’s time at Government College. As Obi Nwakanma recounts in Christopher Okigbo 1930–67: Thirsting for Sunlight, Okigbo’s maternal uncle, Nweze, was the priest of the Ajani shrine, realm of the river-goddess Idoto. He had inherited the office from his own father, Ikejiofor. The significance of this office was great, as ‘generations of Ojoto people depended on their powerful water deity for all ritual meaning’.54 Not surprisingly, when his grandmother informed him that he was the reincarnation of Ikejiofor, Okigbo ‘felt himself part of the lineage of the priesthood of the goddess’.55 This priesthood, however, was discordant with Okigbo’s Catholic faith, and, as the years went by, with his status as a student of Government College, Umuahia. It is doubtful that the poet ever made known his calling amongst his school mates. At Government College, ‘Nixton’, as he was fondly called, was known for his love of worldly pleasures. But in an interview with Robert Serumaga, the poet recalled the veiled dimension of that phase in his life: My maternal grandfather was the head of a particular type of religion which is intimately connected with my village, and since I am a reincarnation of my maternal grandfather, I carried this on, and I began to show them my responsibilities in that direction as soon as I grew up; and even when I went to secondary school, I had to take something out of my pocket–money to regularly to send home to my grandmother for my maternal uncle who was, as it were, standing in for me until I should grow up to carry on the various periodic rites which were connected with the worship of this particular deity. And my ‘Heavensgate,’ is, in fact designed to do that sort of thing – it is my own contribution to this. 56 (Emphasis added)

In late 1958, a few months after the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which in itself was ‘an atonement with [Achebe`s] past, the ritual return and homage of a prodigal son,’ Okigbo ‘felt a sudden call to begin performing 54

Obi Nwakanma, Christopher Okigbo 1930–67: Thirsting for Sunlight (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), p. 30. 55 Ibid. 56 Christopher Okigbo quoted in Robert Serumaga, ‘Interviewing Christopher Okigbo, London, July 1965’, eds. Cosmo Pieterse & Dennis Duerden, African Writers Talking: A Collection of Radio Interviews (London: Heinemann, 1972), p. 145.

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[his] full functions as the chief priest of Idoto’. 57 His approach to this role was not expressly ritual, but rather a poetical worship of Idoto’s cult. It was an offering of his superb creative talent to the abandoned mother as a contrite sacrifice, an intellectual return to the ancestral homestead through a renewed covenant involving the amalgamation of Western myth, imagery, literary modes and Judeo-Christian liturgy and symbolism with their indigenous counterparts, perfectly captured in the sequence’s opening poem, ‘Idoto’: Before you, mother Idoto, naked I stand, before your watery presence, a prodigal, leaning on an oilbean; lost in your legend . . . . . . Under your power wait I on barefoot, Watchman for the watchword at HEAVENSGATE; Out of the depths my cry Give ear and hearken.58

Heavensgate traces the poet’s formative years and the progressive encroachment of colonial education – and more particularly, proselytization – on the speaker’s psyche. It follows a ritualistic pattern of homecoming moving through five different phases/poems – ‘Idoto’, ‘Passage’, ‘Initiation’, ‘Watermaid’ ‘Lustra’ and ‘Newcomer’ – to find a new meaning in the transcendence of both Christianity and the traditional pieties. The particulars of this individual pilgrimage are beyond the purview of the present book. What is of importance is that Umuahia is a key location of Okigbo’s spiritual journey, as the site of literary awakening, intellectual kinship, and deracination that became a drawback to his ‘agonistic search for roots and for a more stable identity,’ 59 the one place from which he could not fulfil his duties to Idoto. As Nwakanma asserts, ‘the quadrangle: the rest, you and me … .’ is in some way an oblique reference to the emergence and shared life of his generation of Umuahians – Achebe, C.C.Momah, V.C. Ike, who had begun to write with him late in the 1950s’.60 57

Marjorie Whitelaw, ‘Interview with Christopher Okigbo, 1965’, Journal of Commonwealth Literature 9 (1970), p. 36. 58 Christopher Okigbo, Heavensgate (Ibadan: Mbari, 1962), p. 5. 59 Obi Nwakanma, ‘Okigbo Agonistes: Postcolonial Subjectivity in ‘Limits’ and ‘Distances’, Of Minstrelsy and Masks: The Legacy of Ezenwa-Ohaeto in Nigerian Writing, eds. Christine Matzke, Aderemi Raji-Oyelade and Geoffrey V. Davis (Rodopi: New York, 2001), p. 334. 60 Obi Nwakanma, ‘From Ojoto to Umuahia: Figuration of Childhood in Okigbo’s Poetry.’ Conference Abstract for unpublished paper read at Okigbo International Conference of Harvard University. September, 2007. Nwakanma confirmed in an email to me on March 10, 2008 that

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In the above quotation, Nwakanma alludes to the following lines from ‘Initiations’, where Okigbo stratifies society in accordance to differing assimilation of Western values: Square yields the moron, Fanatics and priests and popes, Organising secretaries and party managers; better still, The rhombus – brothers and deacons, liberal politicians, Selfish selfseekers – all who are good doing nothing at all; The quadrangle, the rest, me and you...61

The quadrangle is a fitting signifier for the Umuahian connection for a number of reasons. The terraced quadrangle of Government College, Umuahia, which is situated in front of the iconic Administrative Block, is a college landmark and one of the recurrent features in alumni’s reminiscences of the college. And if we are to believe the testimony of fellow-alumnus J.C. Obi, who claims that Okigbo’s first poem, composed at Umuahia, was entitled ‘Flute Calls at the Quadrangle,’62 then an Umuahian interpretation for the metonymical evocation of the quadrangle is not entirely implausible. Furthermore, considering the poet’s confessed period of secret priesthood from ‘secondary school’, it is viable to consider the opening lines of ‘Watermaid’ a reminiscence of these years of clandestine and unconsummated worship: EYES open on the sea, Eyes open, of the prodigal; Upward to heaven shoot Where stars will fall from. Which secret I have told into no ear; Into a dughole to hold, Not to drown withWhich secret I have planted into beachsand, Now breaks Slat-white surf on the stones and me, & lobsters & shells in Iodine smellMaid of the salt-emptiness, the allusion to the Umuahian quadrangle was not specific, but merged with the general effect of the poem. 61 Christopher Okigbo, Heavensgate, p. 15. 62 Quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 49.

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Sophisticreamy, native, Whose secret I have covered up with beachsand

Nwakanma considers the above lines to reflect Okigbo’s clandestine affair with a married woman, conjuring Ovid’s tale of King Midas and the Igbo fable in which a palm wine tapster, witness to an act of adultery, digs a hole and confesses the secret into it to release himself from the guilt.63 However, the pilgrimage embodied in Heavensgate is manifestly spiritual and, consequently, devoid of this and the many worldly excesses that Okigbo committed in his short life. In this context, his covert acceptation of Idoto’s office seems more relevant than an extra-marital liaison. Moreover, Heavensgate invokes several agents of Okigbo’s cultural formation. And even though, as Dubem Okafor points out, Okigbo ‘did not poeticize or immortalize’64 any of his masters at Government College, as he did with identifiable figures from his childhood years, it is only logical that the sequence should reference his period of suspended priesthood and advanced colonial education at Government College. At the beginning of The Shining Ones, the reader is allowed a voyeuristic glance into a solemn occasion. Obinna Okoye and his friend Innocent Dike (clearly Ike and Momah’s fictional alter-egos, as any reader cognizant with Umuahian history will surmise), now in their old age, are ‘talking rather poignantly, about [their] alma mater, the Government College, Umuahia’.65 Momah’s choice to frame the narrative with this retrospective conversation is significant. It situates his narrative as a continuation of Obinna’s deconstructive process at the college and as a complementary narrative act to Ike’s The Bottled Leopard.66 Much of this conversation revolves around the elderly men’s recitation of Edward Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ which, Obinna emphasizes, was ‘a poem first written for children in England’.67As they attempt to recite the poem, they reflect on Umuahia, simultaneously praising its glorious past while critiquing its literary and cultural models, and their own unsuspecting assimilation of these colonial templates (Innocent refers to the poem and their childhood recitations 63

Ibid. Dubem Okafor, The Dance of Death: Nigerian History and Christopher Okigbo’s Poetry (Trenton: Africa World Press, 1998) , p. 131. 65 Chike Momah, The Shining Ones, p. 1. 66 While Momah does not mention The Bottled Leopard in The Shining Ones, it is telling that out of his two close author friends at Government College, Umuahia, (Achebe and Ike), Momah chooses Ike for this retrospective scene (A thinly-disguised Achebe appears throughout the novel as a schoolboy). Bearing in mind that both Ike and Momah have written school stories set at Government College, and that both appropriate English literary models in their criticism of colonial praxis in the college, I believe that Momah considers his story a continuation, from other angle, of Ike’s critique. The theory gains force if we consider that Momah might have sent Ike the manuscript of The Shining Ones before submitting it for publication. (Chike Momah’s email to the author 28 July 2013). 67 Ibid. 64

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as ‘a lot of gibberish’). Chinua Achebe similarly recalls that the English texts they read at Umuahia, including Tom Brown’s School Days, ‘were not about us or about people like us, but they were exciting stories. Even stories like John Buchan’s, in which heroic white men battled and worsted repulsive natives, did not trouble us unduly at first. But it also added up to a wonderful preparation for the day we would be old enough to read between the lines and ask questions’. 68 Momah and Ike’s schoolboy protagonists do ask uncomfortable questions within the colonial enclave of Umuahia and spend most of their time at the school trying to decode the answers.Despite this apparent disparity, Achebe’s youthful experiences help explain the resolution of Amobi and Obinna’s psychocultural tribulations. Recalling his Christian upbringing and fascination with the nonChristian side of the crossroads, Achebe affirms: If anyone likes to believe that I was torn by spiritual agonies or stretched on the rack of my ambivalence, he certainly may suit himself. I do not remember any undue distress. What I do remember is a fascination for the ritual and the life on the other arm of the crossroads. And I believe two things were in my favour – that curiosity, and the little distance imposed between me and it by the accident of my birth. The distance becomes not a separation but a bringing together like the necessary backward step which a judicious viewer may take in order to see a canvas steadily and fully.69

This ‘backward step’ and the ensuing panoptic vision is what Achebe metaphorically calls the ‘prophetic vision’.70Unlike the case of Obinna and Amobi, Achebe affirms that this transcendent perception of culture contact was not preceded by self-conflict. However, Achebe’s formula for eluding the dangers of the crossroads – internalized oppression and unquestioning deference to colonial values – is analogous to Bhabha’s assertion that ‘if the effect of colonial power is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the noisy demand of colonialist authority on the silent repression of native traditions, then an important change of perspective occurs’.71 Upon this epiphanic revelation, which Achebe calls prophetic vision, our schoolboy protagonists begin to envision the possibilities of cultural hybridity for aesthetic, personal and political emancipation. But this newly acquired vision, disruptive as it is to colonial hegemony, cannot be revealed until the conclusion of the boys’ colonial education. As we have seen, Obinna gains this prophetic vision upon Mr Mokelu’s remarks on Mr Babatunde’s liberating combination of academic 68

Chinua Achebe, ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’, Cambridge Review 114 (June 1993), p. 56. 69 Chinua Achebe, ‘Named for Victoria, Queen of England,’ p. 35. 70 Ibid., p. 34. 71 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 160.

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excellence and outward quiet service. Amobi’s prophetic vision comes as a result of the principal’s conclusive disavowal of the leopard phenomenon and the apparent closure of his own leopard troubles. Rather than polarize colonial and indigenous perceptions of leopard men, he realizes the need to illuminate indigenous modes of knowledge with the help of his colonial education. In the end, Obinna and Amobi are heroic because they seem to mature into young English gentlemen while acquiring a prophetic vision that enables them to open up a third space of cultural translation, reserving open manifestations of their newfound hybrid subjectivity for politically tenable times. Their inward subversion of British political and cultural primacy does not imply a desire for an ‘untainted’ indigenous selfhood either.Upon their respective epiphanic moments, the boys are transformed in ways that transcend the purported fixity and incommensurability of the two cultural locations – the elite colonial secondary school and the indigenous society beyond – that exert such simultaneous potency on their young minds, and establish a subjectivity that is ‘neither One nor the Other’ but merges the traces of both to create a self that is ‘something else besides’.72 The authors, through their intimate association with Western knowledge and indigenous modes of thought, translate the principles of both, rethink them, and extend them for the benefit of their readers in the locale of the school story, to borrow Bhabha’s apt phrasing.73 In the same vein, Okigbo’s Heavensgate follows the poetic speaker through his spiritual odyssey, culminating in the adulthood resolution of his earlier cultural conflict. As Okigbo explained in the aforementioned interview with Serumaga (and as The Bottled Leopard’s Amobi also realizes) Christianity does not necessarily conflict with traditional religion, since both were: ‘just a way of going to the same place by two different routes’.74 This transcendence of both religions can be seen in the following lines from ‘Newcomer’: Mask over my faceMy own mask Not ancestralI sign: Remembrance of Calvary which is of Age of innocence Which is of Time for worship … 72

Ibid., p. 313. Homi Bhabha quoted in Jonathan Rutherford, ‘The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha’, p. 216. 74 Quoted in Robert Serumaga, ‘Interviewing Christopher Okigbo, London, July 1965’, eds. Cosmo Pieterse & Dennis Duerden, African Writers Talking: A Collection of Radio Interviews, p. 145. 73

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Figure 6.1  School House in 1945. First row (sitting), second and third from the left, respectively, Chukwuemeka Ike and Celestine Egbuchulam (mentioned in ‘The W.T.C. are Here!’); third from the right, Christopher Okigbo. Second row (fourth from the left), House Master W.E. Alagoa. Third row, third from the left, Chike Momah. Back row, second from the left, Godwin Momah, Chike Momah’s brother. (Courtesy of Chike Momah)

O ANNA of the panel oblongs, Protect me From them fuckin angels, Protect me my sandhouse and bones.75

Here, we see Okigbo putting on ‘a protective mask to insulate his new individuality from being swamped by communal values’.76 But despite his transcendence of both the ‘ancestral’ mask and the ‘remembrance of Calvary’, traditional values reign supreme in the incantation to his late mother, Anna, as an ancestor. The overall feeling, as in The Bottled Leopard, is that the ancestral gods do not lie in state for long, but rather, rise above the alien power of Christianity and colonial indoctrination on the threshold of political independence. Both The 75 76

Christopher Okigbo, Heavensgate, p. 35. Maik Nwosu, ‘Christopher Okigbo and the Postcolonial Market of Memories’ Research in African Literatures, 38: 4 (Winter 2007), p. 75.

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Bottled Leopard and Heavensgate follow the same pathway of hidden knowledge, clandestine attachment to traditional pieties, open manifestation of a Western and Christian ethos, and postcolonial regeneration of the reader and the self through literary expression. As Homi Bhabha has led us to see, It is the ‘inter’ – the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the inbetween space – that carries the burden of the meaning of culture. It makes it possible to begin envisaging national, anti-nationalist histories of the ‘people’. And by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of ourselves.77

Through their exploration of Amobi and Obinna’s trials at the crossroads, and their own successful transcendence of the colonial double bind, our schoolboy protagonists and their creators demonstrate, for the benefit of their readers, the psychological and political opportunities afforded by the creation of a third space of cultural translation and reinscription. It is thus that they survive the dangerous potency of the crossroads, and return to their people with the boon of prophetic vision.

77

Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 56.

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An Uncertain Legacy: I.N.C. Aniebo and Ken Saro-Wiwa in the Umuahia of the 1950s

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There was order, and there was law. There was no room for indolence … You were reminded from the very first day that privilege came with its responsibilities. There was no room in Umuahia for eccentricity and individualism. ‘In Unum Luceant’ was the school song. And it was for real. (Ken Saro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’)

I began this book by signalling Chinua Achebe’s recognition of Principal Simpson’s role in setting off the fireworks of modern Nigerian literature. From Chapter 2 onwards, we saw Achebe, Ike, Momah, Amadi and Okigbo navigate the deceptively tranquil waters of Government College with Simpson at the helm. We are on the brink of fully decoding the Umuahian connection, but it is time for a well-deserved break. Let us visit the Umuahia of the 1950s and listen for echoes of the past. The year is 1954. Most of the 1940s writers are studying for – or about to earn – degrees from the University College, Ibadan. ‘Dewar’, the Olympian principal, now retired from colonial service, keeps up correspondence with some of his former students and colleagues from his retreat in Canterbury. A new house at Government College was named after him last year. Barry Cozens sits on the Umuahian throne. I.N.C. Aniebo and Ken Saro-Wiwa are both students in the school. The two future writers’ careers blossomed after the boom of the 1960s, but their first creative steps occurred before those magical years came to a close.1 As both writers studied at Government College, it is tempting to draw formative links between them and the five protagonists of this book. But does the idea of an all-encompassing Umuahian literary ferment stand up well to scrutiny? 1

I.N.C. Aniebo entered the literary scene in 1963, publishing a number of short stories in the magazine Nigeria – which was then under the editorship of novelist Onuorah Nzekwu – and other national and international journals. In 1964, he reached a certain notoriety with the polemical ‘Novelist or Sociologist?: A Review of Arrow of God’, Nigeria 81 (June 1964), pp. 149–50. His first novel, The Anonymity of Sacrifice was published in the African Writers Series in 1974. Ken Saro-Wiwa published poems, plays, and stories in the student publications of Government College. His first widely-disseminated adult work was a radio play entitled The Transistor Radio (1972) and the children’s book Tambari (1973). His first novel, Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English appeared in 1985.

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Ifeanyichukwu Ndubuisi Chikezie Aniebo was admitted to Government College in 1952. Like Achebe and Amadi before him, he was placed in Niger House. Unlike Saro-Wiwa, who spent his entire childhood in Bori, Aniebo’s upbringing had been remarkably cosmopolitan. He was born in Port Harcourt and lived in Enugu, Minna, Zaria, Kafanchan, and Bukuru before attending the Umuahia Government College. Until the arrival of Ken Saro-Wiwa – then Kenule Beeson Nwiwa – at Government College in 1954, Fisher House had remained, along with Nile House, the less ‘literary’ of Umuahia’s social and intellectual hubs. School House and Niger House had previously played host to budding friendships between the literati of Government College. Aniebo and Saro-Wiwa moved in different circles; around this time the school fortified the barriers between juniors and seniors on the one hand, and members of the school’s different houses on the other. Saro-Wiwa entered Umuahia as a ‘School Scholar’, an honour reserved for the best five of the sixty students admitted that year. He kept up the scholarship throughout his stay in the college. He also became a college prefect and the captain of Fisher House in 1961.Both Barry Cozens and A.K. Wareham, Simpson’s consecutive successors, had been teachers at the college in the preceding decade. Aniebo remembers Cozens as ‘a no nonsense man, cold and distant’, who saw him as ‘a very troublesome boy’ and ‘prosecuted’ him as such, ruining his Umuahia schooldays in the process.2 A.K. Wareham was headmaster from January 1956 to June 1961. His celebrated contributions to Government College include the successful transition from the ‘Cambridge Man’ to the West African Examinations Council School Certificate Examinations, prompting the creation of a four-year WAEC stream for exceptional students in 1958 and a higher school section in the sciences (which admitted boys from other schools). Wareham was also the mastermind behind Umuahia’s first cadet corps. Like Cozens, he was ‘a strict disciplinarian’, a perception somewhat assuaged by his image as a ‘real family man’, fond of strolling ‘hand in hand’ with his wife and two sons around the school.3 Despite Wareham’s remarkable ‘transformation into a very strict and sharp army officer’ during field exercises, Aniebo also recalls him as ‘genial, relaxed and ready to lend a hand … a middle-aged gentleman who cared for and about his students’.4 Saro-Wiwa’s memories of Wareham’s reign are less forgiving: [it was] the era of the dictatorship, Umuahia was gripped by an iron discipline… Masters and boys alike had to take duties like military assignments. It was said that

2 I.N.C.

Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April 2014. C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 4 I.N.C. Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April 2014.

3 Eugene

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Mr. Wareham had fought in the Second World War and was inclined to think that the Third War would be fought at Umuahia.5

Throughout the 1950s, and in the early years after independence, Government College, Umuahia ‘was still very much a British institution’.6 Changes in the school’s image, traditions, ideology and curriculum were minimal.7 The majority of teachers were British. There were a few Africans – including long-time masters W.E. Alagoa and I.D. Erekosima – and two Chinese teachers.8 The prevalence of Europeans began to wane after 1961 and the range of expatriate masters increased, now including ‘Indians and the occasional American peace corper.’ Students were unfazed by the school’s overt Englishness. To Aniebo, having European principals was ‘a thing of pride’.9 Saro-Wiwa’s life-long admiration of elite British education is also well-known. At Cozens and Wareham’s Umuahia ‘the teachers ran the classes and the prefects ran the school.’ The school’s history and traditions were not transmitted through solemn speeches or induction handbooks, but ingrained ‘via molestation, tail cutting and punishments’.10 In the essay ‘Umuahia in the Fifties,’ Saro-Wiwa reiterates that Umuahia’s first lesson was discipline: ‘the law enforcement agency, while it did not breathe down your neck, was there all the same, omnipresent sort of, to make sure you obeyed the rules. And it could be a nuisance, if you decided to be a nuisance too. It doled out punishment remorselessly’.11 All the reminiscences of this era emphasize the throes of chastisement and prefectorial bullying. The games ethic also seems to have reached apotheosic heights. According to G. Igboeli (class of 52), ‘of all activities at Umuahia, sports contributed most to sharpen the Umuahia spirit and discipline’.12 Every boy, whether ‘blood’ or ‘reducing agent’13 partook in games at least thrice weekly and underwent two physical training sessions each week.14 In the 1940s, students like Chinua Achebe could become prefects solely on the basis of intelligence and character. 5

Ken Tsaro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’ The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe (Umuahia: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys’ Association, 1979), p. 31. 6 Ibid. 7 I.N.C. Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April, 2014. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Eugene C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 11 Ken Tsaro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’, pp. 30 and 31. 12 G. Igboeli, ‘The Philosophy of Sports at Umuahia’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition, ed. Chinua Achebe ( Umuahia: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys’ Association, 1979), p. 36. 13 ‘Reducing agent’ was the term used to describe “those who were not gifted in sports.” Eugene C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 14 G. Igboeli, ‘The Philosophy of Sports at Umuahia’, p. 34.

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But Eugene C. Ibe, Saro-Wiwa’s classmate, recalls that this time around and up until 1958, ‘sports excellence was one parameter for appointment as a prefect. Houses were rated by the number of shields they won’.15 Thus, Aniebo and SaroWiwa partook of the school’s many games. Saro-Wiwa was a good gymnast and was part of the school’s first XI cricket and second XI football teams, and became the table tennis captain. Aniebo played such games as hockey, football and lawn tennis at all levels, both in house and inter-college matches. Despite Igboeli’s affirmation that ‘victory for quite a long time was sacrificed in order to ensure discipline and to maintain our philosophy’,16 the authorities took punitive measures against less sporty students. Saro-Wiwa jocularly affirmed, ‘down the cricket nets [Cozens] made you do the cartwheel and bowl with the same motion. If you bowled into the wrong net as some clumsy ones often did, you stood a chance of having four pence subtracted from your pocket money. It was too much money to lose. We tried to bowl straight. We still try to do so’.17 Despite Charles Low’s departure in 1953 to establish the Government Secondary School, Afikpo, Latin gained curricular relevance in the Cozens/Wareham eras thanks to Mr. G.C. Akabogu, who later succeeded Low as Principal of the Afikpo Government School.18 Latin also seems to have been endowed with symbolic authority around this time. Aniebo recounts how Cozens refused to promote him to Form III on account of failing Latin, despite having passed all his subjects. Less qualified classmates passed on to the next class. This measure had profound implications for Aniebo’s life as a Government College student. As a repeating student, he was in class with his former juniors while his former classmates became his seniors. In this limbo, it became impossible for him to ‘develop any close or meaningful friendships at Umuahia,’ one of the most agreeable experiences of public school life. Ironically, Cozens’ decision had probably less to do the curricular value of the classics than with its association with the public school ethos, which upheld obedience and subservience as necessary steps to leadership, and which Aniebo, who was emphatically ‘not a follower by nature’,19 as he himself puts it, had apparently not imbibed in desirable quantities. Despite falling within the period under study, the school authorities overlooked the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. While it would have been far-fetched to expect the book to find its way into the classroom, it would have been cogent to advertise its publication – considering Achebe’s place of honour in the school’s particular hall of fame as a school prefect and 15 Eugene

C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. Igboeli, ‘The Philosophy of Sports at Umuahia’, p. 36. 17 Ken Tsaro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’, p. 31. 18 Eugene C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 19 I.N.C. Aniebo’s email to the author, 12 April 2014. 16 G.

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winner of one of the first full government scholarships to the University College, Ibadan. Still, every colonial school has its stock of ‘ex-centric’ Europeans, and 1950s Umuahia was no exception. Mr. Wilson, a chemistry master who was also Aniebo’s friend lent him a copy of Things Fall Apart, but Aniebo was immune to its appeal: ‘I did not think much of the book then. I guess I was more interested in foreign literature, on which my whole education was based.’20 The school’s prescribed texts had remained substantially the same as in the 1940s, including such classical works as Gulliver’s Travels, She Stoops to Conquer, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and the ever-reigning Shakespeare. ‘The books we read were British,’ Ibe points out, ‘we never realized when Kipling wrote about savages he was referring to us.’ The school’s acknowledgement of Things Fall Apart might have led to a different appreciation, and students might have sought out Achebe’s novel and the work of other African writers. There is also a possibility that such publicity could have gone unheeded; after all, the Umuahians of this age were ‘more concerned with dodging prefects and punishment than looking for new publications,’21 in Ibe’s amusing phrase. Government College, Umuahia remained a centre of academic excellence, and students stood out in external examinations. However, as Saro-Wiwa stressed in his 1979 recollections of the school, ‘no Umuahian wanted to study the arts’.22Aniebo and Saro-Wiwa were literary-inclined students, but there was nothing particularly notable about literary instruction at Government College. True, the library, the Text Book Act, and the magazine culture were still extant, but there were neither unconventional teachers nor extraordinary circumstances to bring them all to life as in the previous decade. There were, of course, a number of very efficient teachers, but their methods and approaches seem lacklustre in comparison those of the masters we met in previous chapters. Mr Johnston, Elechi Amadi’s English teacher, was the one link with the previous era and was ‘the most famous of all teachers’23 of the 1950s, and Mr D. Marriot – nicknamed Mr. Tarkpa (Igbo for ‘tighten’) on account of his remarkably tight shorts – did seem to merge some of the most remembered pedagogical quirks of his predecessors. Aniebo remembers Marriott as the strictest English teacher that I ever knew. Getting a 3/10 in his essay assignments was like making an ‘A’. I appreciated him more after he left on leave and a Nigerian university graduate took over. Suddenly I found myself getting 70/100 in most assignments, but the close marking Tarkpa had got me used to was not there. Because of this dissatisfaction I formed a small group of ‘friends’ to meet twice weekly to

20 I.N.C.

Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April 2014. C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 22 Ken Tsaro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’, p. 33. 23 Eugene C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 21 Eugene

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practice essay and story writing. My friends were of course my former juniors who were now my mates. We marked each other’s work, except our own. 24

Ibe recalls that Mariott made his class ‘write a novel similar to Treasure Island’, a task that Saro-Wiwa, who loved writing and ‘could write an essay on any topic’,25 must have relished. But Saro-Wiwa’s reminiscences of English instruction at Umuahia focus on Mr Radford, reputedly obsessed with oral English and phonetics: ‘Well, Captain Smolett, what have you to say?’ Complete with inflections and pauses. We laughed hilariously. ‘You boys do not laugh when you are taught to play football, which is as English as English pronunciation. Why do you laugh at phonetics?’One still remembers Hamman’s English Pronunciation Exercise.26

In their own way, both Aniebo and Saro-Wiwa were proactive in honing their literary skills. As we have seen, Aniebo worked hard to maintain Mr. Marriot’s exacting standards. He read avidly, among other reasons, because the library made time ‘pass most pleasantly’, a source of escapism from his unhappy life at Umuahia.27 Saro-Wiwa submerged himself in the school’s magazine culture. He wrote poems, stories, and plays. He became the scribe of his house magazine, The Pioneer (formerly The Complete Angler) in Form II, and later formed part of the editorial team of The Umuahian.28 He also became the editor – and occasionally the only contributor to – The Umuahia Times, a hand-written school weekly produced entirely by students.29 These tasks gave him lessons in proofreading that were to come handy when he created his own publishing outfit, Saros International, through which he published most of his work. Like the school’s pioneer newsman, Sam Epelle, Saro-Wiwa was also responsible for culling reports from the radio to post in the assembly hall notice board. Ibe affirms that Saro-Wiwa ‘was an activist even at Umuahia’ and that ‘there was a so called Red Night where class 3 boys molested class 2 boys even after tail cutting. Saro went straight to A K Wareham and got this abolished’.30 His editorial work 24 I.N.C.

Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April 2014. C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 26 Ken Tsaro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’, p. 31. 27 Literary activity seems to have remained an escape “from everyday existence” throughout Aniebo’s adult life, as he told Don Burness in a 1982 interview. See ‘I.N.C. Aniebo’, Wasanema: Conversations with African Writers, eds, Don and Mary-Lou Burness (Athens: Ohio UP, 1985), p. 32. 28 E.R. Ufot was the master in charge of The Umuahian in 1961. The student editor was W.C. Onyeama. The members of the editorial board were G.S. Elonge, G. Ofoezie, and G. Nwokolo. 29 In the essay ‘Notes of a Reluctant Publisher’, Saro-Wiwa affirms that ’some weeks there was such a paucity of material turned in by contributors that I had to write everything in the magazine myself ‘ (Ken Saro-Wiwa, ‘Notes of a Reluctant Publisher’, The African Book Publishing Record 22.4 (Jan. 1996), p. 257. 30 Eugene C. Ibe’s email to the author, 13 May 2014. 25 Eugene

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also reflected his militancy against injustice. In an editorial entitled ‘The Men with the Golden Teeth’, he critiqued ‘prefects who ate ‘dodo’ (plantain) while lesser mortals had to contend with plywood (fried yams).’ The editor-in-chief, F.Y.E. Ogu, asked Saro-Wiwa to withdraw the editorial but he stood his ground because ‘the Umuahia Times was not to please the authorities’.31 Saro-Wiwa’s sole surviving contribution to The Umuahian, ‘Ave, Ave Sathanas!’(1961), reprinted in the collection Adaku and Other Stories (1989) was less polemical and reflected the school’s English literary templates. Dark, brooding, distinctively gothic and reminiscent of aspects of Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights, the story revolves around the narrator’s encounter with a ghoulish, mysterious visitor, intent on wreaking vengeance on his unfaithful wife and his best friend, her lover, culminating in a midnight pursuit and revenge in the dark waters of a secluded river. The only indication of the story’s ‘Africanness’ is the name of the protagonist and his rival. In the 1930s, Government College played a decisive role in the emergence of a group of modernist fine artists. The humanistic ambience of the 1940s nurtured the literary careers of five future writers, including the acclaimed father of modern African literature. And the 1950s triggered a number of outstanding military careers, including those of Aniebo himself, C.C. Emelifonwu, Emmanuel Udeaja, Tim Onwuatuegwu, George T. Kurubo, Alexander Madiebo, Anthony Eze, M.D. Morah, and Patrick Anwunah.32 This dimension of Umuahian history calls for further study. For our purposes, it will suffice to note that the cadet unit, established in 1958 and run jointly by Principal Wareham and the Chemistry master, Mr Wilson, was very probably the driving force behind these career choices. The formation caught the imagination of the two protagonists of this chapter. According to Saro-Wiwa, staff sergeant of the unit, it was a serious affair, with weekly parades, military exercises, and, once a year at Easter, an annual camp at Aku in Nsukka. Three weeks of fun and hell, camped out in the bush. We marched long distances, practices shooting at range, and we crowned it all with a grand parade at the battalion headquarters in Enugu. We little knew that we would soon be using those lessons in a bitter civil war.33

Many students found Wilson and Wareham’s military bearing and authority fascinating. Aniebo remembers that ‘these officers looked so resplendent in their uniforms; I longed to be like them.’ He also ‘enjoyed being in the unit and 31 Ken

Tsaro-Wiwa,‘Umuahia in the 1950s’, p. 32. Things Fall Apart may have been ignored by the school authorities, but when Tim Onwuatuegwu proceeded to Sandhurst after Government College, the school ‘was proudly informed [that], he became the first African to be made a “junior under officer” – no mean feat, that.’ Ken Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War (PortHarcourt: Saros International, 1989), pp. 25–26. 33 See also Ken Tsaro-Wiwa, ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’, p. 32. 32 Achebe’s

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taking part in the field exercises. Furthermore, people were assessed on what they could do physically, rather than theoretically.’34 Aniebo went straight on to cadet schools in England and Ghana, and was also trained at the Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth, Kansas. He rose to the rank of Major in the Nigerian army. His military career was cut short in the aftermath of the war, in which he supported Biafra. 35 Despite the rapid developments in the country, Government College boys do not seem to have been significantly more politically aware than their predecessors. Ibe affirms that students were ‘insulated from politics’. Of the preparations for independence itself, Aniebo, who admits to ‘never have been interested in politics,’ only recalls that ‘students had to officiate as voters’ aides at the town hall … it was an opportunity to wear my red school blazer’.36 In the same vein, Ibe affirms that ‘the only impact independence meant for my class was that we were served chicken on Independence Day!’ Party politics did seem to draw more attention: ‘most students were leaning towards the predominant party in Eastern Nigeria, the NCNC; we really didn’t have tribalism as we know it today. Prefects were appointed from any part of the east … Igbo, Ijaw, Ibibio, etc. You were more concerned with whether a prefect was “wicked” or not than if he was from your area or tribe’. However, Saro-Wiwa’s experience of tribalism at the hands of the school’s Igbo refractory workers, who berated him on account of Ogoni rejection of the NCNC marked his own political awakening. After a tearful night, Saro-Wiwa resolved to join the INIKIO Students Union for IjawSpeaking Students of the College, a first move towards his opposition to Igbo domination over the minority tribes of south-eastern Nigeria.37 Throughout this time, the school held on to its Christian identity. As Ibe put it, ‘In Umuahia, you were either Roman Catholic or Protestant … [...] A Yoruba Muslim, O. Balogun class of 1952 registered as a protestant!’ Sunday service was compulsory, the only difference from previous eras being that instead of worshipping outside the school premises, Catholics held mass in the school chapel. The traditional pieties remained ‘taboo’ and while discussing religious issues was permitted, Aniebo never heard students engaging in any such conversation. 34 I.N.C.

Aniebo’s email to the author 12 April 2014.

35 Saro-Wiwa supported the federal side in the war, but his interactions with Aniebo took place

in war-torn Nsukka, as he recounts in On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War: “[Aniebo] shared positive distaste for all that was happening. He objected in strong terms to the propaganda being peddled in dull and monotonous editorials by the Eastern Outlook, Ojukwu’s mouthpiece. He told me Ojukwu was an arrogant fellow who would lead everyone to disaster. He was very critical of the unabashed euphoria which was prevalent on campus. He was even more critical of the region’s dominant shade of opinion which refused to accord the minorities the right to self-determination. At least so he told me. I did not have cause to disbelieve him.” Ken Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain, p. 67. 36 I.N.C. Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April 2014. 37 Ken Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain, pp. 44–45.

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As he put it, ‘those who needed to negotiate tensions found other ways to do so: for example simply running mad’.38 Despite the elements of continuity, it must be clear by now that the Government College, Umuahia in which Aniebo and Saro-Wiwa studied differed from the serene – if pregnant with unspoken tensions – and more humanistic environment in which Achebe and friends thrived. The 1950s may have been less fallow than Okara’s ‘adaptationist’ Government College, favouring an intellectual model of education and retaining some of the literary components of the Primus Inter Pares years. But something was clearly missing. The epigraph to this chapter sums up Ken Saro-Wiwa’s impressions of the premium Umuahia placed on conformity and uniformity. I.N.C. Aniebo’s closing words to me on the course of our correspondence on Government College, which touch on the same theme from another angle, seem a fitting way to end: Before I close this note, let me comment on the ambience of Umuahia. For me, it was not humanistic in any way. With what happened to me, I felt it was a well run prison. As long as one obeyed or followed the rules and performed well academically, one was well-regarded. I took part in all the sports in the school: cricket, hockey, football, and lawn tennis. I represented the school in matches against other schools such as King’s College Lagos, Holy Ghost College, Owerri, Methodist College, Uzuakoli, and later Government College, Afikpo. I played in all the teams –Colts, 2nd and 1st Elevens. I had also joined two or more societies such as the Debating Society, The Geographical Society, and even created a Musical Society that played gigs for Staff and students. But there was no literary society. All we had then was a well-stocked library for its times, and a liberal system of accessing it. We were also constantly being reminded to use the library, especially when there was an arrival of new books, usually a mixture of clean second-hand and new books from the United Kingdom. Despite all my activities, I felt I was not well regarded, and I was glad to leave.39

If we pay close attention to the testimonies reproduced in this chapter, we will see in Aniebo’s words not the lament of a disgruntled student, but a legitimate 38 I.N.C.

Aniebo’s email to the author, 7 April 2014. I.N.C. Aniebo’s email to the author, 12 April 2014. Saro-Wiwa’s experience was different. He affirmed: ’I left school with friendships that cut across tribe and religion, friendships that have endured to this day. Umuahia made of me of a loyal, honest and patriotic Nigerian. But I already knew I had to be involved in mobilizing Ogoni people from progress and against indigenous colonialism.’ (Ken Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain, p. 46.) His biographer, Amayanabo Opubo Daminabo mentions that ”later in life, Kenule was found of using the expression ‘Umuahia made me.”’ (See Ken Saro-Wiwa, 1941–1995: His Life and Legacies (Port-Harcourt: Hanging Gardens, 2005) p. 20. However, it should be noted that Saro-Wiwa never explicitly linked the college to his writing career. As I mentioned earlier, his ‘Umuahia in the 1950s’ is striking for the lack of reference to literary and humanistic study. This silence is consistent with Aniebo’s affirmation above.

39

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complication of the Umuahian experience. Is some degree of eccentricity or individuality a necessary condition for the flowering of precocious talent? Can genius flourish in intellectual isolation? I will leave that for my readers to judge. The missing piece of the Umuahian puzzle may well be found in our next and final chapter.

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The Will to Shine as One: Affiliation and Friendship beyond the College Walls The quadrangle, the rest, me and you...

8

(Christopher Okigbo, Heavensgate)

It is 23 May 2013. The tropical sunlight streams through the tinted windows of St Philip’s Church, Ogidi, illuminating the congregation’s colourful outfits and the tapestry’s vibrant hues. The church service is over and the rapt assembly listens to a succession of encomia. But for the centrally placed mahogany coffin, shining glossily with two white garlands atop, one could be forgiven for thinking that the occasion is a joyful thanksgiving rather than a funeral. In many ways, it is. After a fulfilled and fruitful life, Chinua Achebe has finally returned to the home of his ancestors. At exactly five minutes before two, on Professor Laz Ekwueme’s prompting, around thirty-five elderly men, prominent among whom are the writers Chike Momah, Elechi Amadi, and Chukwuemeka Ike, cut through the sequence of increasingly politicized speeches to intone the Umuahian anthem, The Will to Shine as One: 1 We lift our voice to thee, O Lord To Thee we sing with one accord 1 See

Talent Ugo, ‘Musings at Chinua Achebe’s Funeral,’ 247 Reports ; Henry Akubuiro, ‘How Achebe was Buried’, The Sun News, ; Anon. ‘Chinua Achebe Burial Live Blog’, Premium Times, 23 May 2013 . Accessed 22 July 2013. Ike’s much more personal reminiscences of the event are worth quoting at length: ‘[The] rendition of the Umuahia song was not in the printed programme for the Achebe funeral service. Protocol (with two African Heads of State and State Governors in attendance) made it difficult to push the song into the programme. It took three Anambra State Umuahians – HRH Igwe Professor Laz Ekwueme (eminent Professor of Music and Traditional Ruler), Architect Ilozumba, (Anambra State Commissioner for Works) and I to prevail on Anambra State Governor to intervene. Eminent Umuahians had assembled from all over Southeastern Nigeria (including Chike Momah from the USA) many in their scarlet College blazers. Achebe’s wife and children, and wives of Umauhians – including Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of World Bank fame and Nigeria’s Minister of Finance – rose to identify with the Umuahians who sang the entire song to the appreciation of all present. The author of the words of the song, Dr. Edward Chukwukere, was present.’ (Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 11 October 2013.)

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To grant us through Thy Son adored The will to shine as one. From Morning till the approach of Night With humble minds, with all our might We seek this gift which is Thy light The will to shine as one As all of us, or black or white Beseech Thee now us to unite That all may seek this gift Thy Light The will to shine as one We beg thee now to show the way That all of us may kneel and pray And see and keep from day to day The will to shine as one.

Less than forty-eight hours earlier, Achebe’s body had lain in state at the Enugu auditorium of the University of Nigeria, the sanctuary in which Christopher Okigbo had poetically enacted his prodigal return and which he defended with his life in the Nigerian civil war. Here in Enugu, at the Citadel Press offices, both Ike and Achebe had held their final conversations with Okigbo.2 To the surviving Umuahian writers, the symbolic implications of this confluence must have been ineludible. This chapter shadows the literary pathways of Achebe and friends as they leave Government College, Umuahia. Here, I ask about the exact nature of the Umuahian writers’ personal and literary relationships with each other at the college and the adult world beyond. What creative steps did these writers take at the University College, Ibadan and what were they doing in the years leading to the publication of Achebe’s first novel? In what ways did the publication of Things Fall Apart (1958) affect the other writers’ literary careers? By the mid1960s, Ike, Amadi and Okigbo were published writers, and Chinua Achebe was already the uncontested figurehead of modern African literature, a force to be reckoned with in world letters. We will trail the Umuahian writers’ individual development in this eventful decade, focusing on their continued interactions with each other until the months leading to Christopher Okigbo’s death at the war front, fighting on the Biafran side. The sequential outline of the writers’ rapport with each other will end at this tragic point. We will then fast forward to Chike Momah’s unexpected literary awakening, long after the apogee of

2 Chinua

Achebe, ‘Don’t Let Him Die: A Tribute to Christopher Okigbo’, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. (New York: Anchor 1990), pp. 133–120; Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 11 October 2013.

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first-generation Nigerian writing, following up with a discussion of the poetics and production of the Umuahian writers writing under Achebe’s shadow. Chinua Achebe left Government College, Umuahia in 1948 to study medicine at the newly-founded University College, Ibadan. But we have to wait until 1949 to see the school’s future writers re-forge personal bonds and take further steps as apprentice writers. Chike Momah, who Chukwuemeka Ike remembers as ‘a self-effacing but outstandingly bright student’,3 made a grand exit from Government College, Umuahia a full academic year after his friend, Chinua Achebe. Achebe and Momah had sustained a warm friendship at Umuahia. However, because of their assignment to different Houses, Achebe’s double promotion at the end of 1944, and the fact that Achebe did not share Momah’s sporting interests, their contacts were ‘few and far between’.4 Ike, Okigbo, and Momah spent three years together in School House and were consequently much closer during those years. Okigbo’s admission to School House two years after Achebe did not avert their inevitable friendship, as the latter recalls: Christopher Okigbo was a very extraordinary person. He was two years below me, but was not one to allow two years to get in his way. He quickly became one of my closest friends … Christopher was just somebody you could not ignore or suppress. He struck people because he was so energetic, and so fearless.5

As destiny would have it, after a few months as a medical student at the University College, Achebe decided to switch to the Faculty of Arts. As he explains in ‘My Home Under Imperial Fire’, by choosing a science degree, he had abandoned the realm of stories and they would not let him go.6 Thus, Achebe and Momah were reunited and spent the next four years as classmates specializing in English, history and comparative religion.7 Together, they experienced the ‘landmark of rebellion’8 that erupted with the momentous encounter of their class with Joyce Cary’s Mr. Johnson. Achebe and Momah were outstanding students; more than thirty years later, George Parrinder, professor of religious studies at the University College, still recalled the diligence of these ‘particular

3 Chukwuemeka

Ike’s letter to the author, 26 April, 2009. Momah, ‘Tribute to my Friend, Chinua Achebe, (Ikejimba; 1930–2013)’, The Guardian 2 May 2013. Accessed 22 July 2013. 5 Chinua Achebe, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 23. 6 Chinua Achebe, ‘My Home under Imperial Fire.’ Home and Exile, (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2003), p. 21. 7 Achebe’s initially specialized in English, History and Geography, but he changed to Religion upon the appointment of Professor George Parrinder, whose comparative approach to the study of world religions he found inspiring. 8 Chinua Achebe, ‘My Home under Imperial Fire’, p. 23. 4 Chike

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friends’.9 In 1951, Ike and Okigbo joined their school friends at Ibadan. Ike followed Achebe and Momah’s suit and studied English. Okigbo, belying his formative limitations, enrolled to study the classics. Achebe and Ike’s literary connections, formed in the editorial board of the Government College, Umuahia Magazine, grew stronger at the University College. Achebe was a member of the exclusive Magazine Club, which ran The University Herald, in which he had published the story ‘Polar Undergraduate’ (1950). When Ike arrived at the University College, Achebe invited him to join the Magazine Club. From 1951–1952, he edited the magazine and published the essay ‘An Argument Against the Existence of Faculties’, the poem ‘There was a Young Man in Our Hall’ (1951–52), and two stories that anticipated his novelistic recreations of village life amidst colonial flux – ‘In a Village Church’ (1951) and the unnamed story that later became ‘Dead Men’s Path’. Ike also published two short stories in The University Herald: ‘Up the Social Ladder’ (1952) and ‘Into the Jaws of Death’ (1952/53) and contributed to a rival publication, The University Voice, with his story ‘Hunting the Impossible’ (1953). Achebe’s alternative outlet was not The Voice, but The Bug, a satirical bulletin published by the Students’ Union, in which he published two other essays. Okigbo’s literary experiments at the University College were of a different nature altogether. Eager to master the structure of classical poetry, he assiduously translated scores of Latin and Greek poems to English and vice versa, publishing many of these translations in the self-funded Varsity Weekly, edited by his friend, Ben Obumselu. Amadi took the most uncharacteristic and solitary route to literary realization après Government College. He spent a year at the Survey School, Oyo, and by the time he had arrived at Ibadan to study Physics and Mathematics in 1955, his former schoolmates had all graduated. Apart from the old boys’ tie, Amadi and the rest of the Umuahian writers appeared to have little in common. At Government College, interactions between junior and senior students occurred within a tightly stratified framework. ‘Fags’, like children, were to be seen and not heard, and close friendships with seniors did not usually happen outside the normative mentorship scheme. Amadi’s relationships with Ike and Momah at Umuahia were practically inexistent. Not only were they senior students at the time of Amadi’s admission in 1948 – Ebiegberi Alagoa, who was also admitted to the college in that year remembers them as ‘big, solid characters’10 – but they were both in School House. Amadi did interact ‘up to a point’11 with the immensely gregarious Okigbo. But as fate would have it, his closest association ended up being with Achebe himself: 9 Robert

Wren, Those Magical Years: The Making of Nigerian Literature at Ibadan 1952–1966. (Washington: Three Continents, 1984), p. 46. 10 Joe Ebiegberi Alagoa, email to the author, June 23 2013. 11 Personal Communication with Elechi Amadi, 30 May 2013.

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I got to know Achebe in 1948 at Government College, Umuahia when we were both students. We were not only in the same school; we were in the same house – Niger House. At one point we were in fact in the same dormitory and he was the prefect. He was three years ahead of me. He was soft-spoken, diligent, and hardworking and like most boys from that school, reliable and honest. Even in those days one habit of his became noticeable – he always carried a book. Even when he was marking out portions for our grass-cutting chores on Saturdays, he would have a machete in his right hand and a book in his left, with his forefinger buried in it to mark where he had stopped. This picture is particularly vivid in my mind. After school days, we went our different ways, but whenever we met, the passage of time would make no difference. We would recall incidents during our school days and laugh endlessly. He had an honest and rather infectious kind of laughter.12

Amadi found Achebe’s love of literature as infectious as his mirth, and the prefect’s example did much to encourage his expansive reading. Despite the age difference and hierarchical distance, it was not unusual for students in the same dormitories to spend free periods after dinner and over the weekend in animated discussion in the dormitory. Amadi was a well-behaved boy, and one of the best students in his cohort. The sympathy between the two boys grew during their months together at Niger House. At the University College, Amadi kept trying his hand at creative writing. In the early 2000s, he unearthed an old book featuring six poems and three short articles, all written in his undergraduate years.13 One of these was ‘Penitence (Rustication Reverie)’, which appeared in the second number of The Horn, the poetry periodical founded by J.P. Clark and Martin Banham, then edited by Abiola Irele and Minji Karibo. Amadi also submitted a limerick entitled ‘The Moon’ for publication in The Horn, but it was not published – it did not help that the poem poked fun at J.P. Clark’s newly shaved hair!14 Amadi contributed to The Bug with the satiric poem ‘To the Pidgin Lover’.15 The rest of his undergraduate writings, none of which was fiction, remained unpublished. It is outside the scope of this book to examine how the University College, Ibadan further nurtured the literary talents of the Government College writers. These matters have been described in great detail elsewhere. But it is important 12

Elechi Amadi, quoted in Precious Dikewoha, ‘The Achebe I Knew’, The Nation: Saturday Magazine, March 31, 2013. Accessed 11 June 2013. 13 Elechi Amadi, ‘Foreword’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems (Port Harcourt: UP, 2003), p. vii. 14 Elechi Amadi, ‘The Moon’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems, p. 150; Elechi Amadi, ‘A Celebration of J.P. Clarke’s 50 years of Artistry’, 13 August 2010 Accessed 7 July 2013. 15 All these pieces of juvenilia are compiled in Elechi Amadi’s Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems.

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to note that the students of colonial government colleges were better equipped to flourish at the University College than their mission school counterparts, judging from the testimonies of their lecturers and peers.16 In an interview with Robert Wren, Jean Mellanby, Achebe and Momah’s history lecturer, mentioned that undergraduates resisted the study of African history because they were ‘afraid that it would emphasize their inferior cultural status and development’.17 The Umuahian writers were immune to such concerns – they had been well schooled on the need to retrieve Africa’s lost histories in Martin Ogle and Saburi Bisiriyu’s classes at Government College. Another lecturer, Joyce Garnier, who taught Achebe and Momah English literature, bemoaned that before Ibadan, the literary diet of the average student would have consisted almost entirely of Marie Corelli,18an opinion with which Achebe concurred in the essay ‘What do African Intellectuals Read?’19Again, this was too great a contrast with the average Umuahian’s vast literary culture. Moreover, their reflective study habits and exquisite public school training meant that Government College students adjusted better to the academic and cultural life of the University College, a constituent college of the University of London. They were better equipped to make the most of the ‘pattern of realizations’20 – ranging from the ‘Mr. Johnson incident’ to the comparative study of world religions and its implications for Christian hegemony – that marked their transition from colonial schoolboys to debonair intellectuals. Certainly, some students stood out, even within that range of excellence. As Chike Momah recalls, ‘throughout those four years, our professors and lecturers, again and again, let us know that Chinua was, not only the best student in the class, but also the best writer of English’.21 Upon his graduation in 1954, Achebe spent a year teaching English and History at the Merchants of Light Secondary School, Oba. This private institution was radically unlike Umuahia – its meagre resources could simply not compete with those of the formidable government colleges. Achebe tried to bring something of his own English education at Government College to his new station, a recurrent pattern adopted by Ike, Amadi and Okigbo in their respective positions as secondary school teachers. The most noteworthy facet of Achebe’s pedagogic preferences during those years was that he encouraged students to write essays from ‘local’ rather than ‘foreign’ sources of information.22 He had 16

John Munonye, quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 63. Wren, ibid., p. 19. 18 Obi Wali, quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 22. 19 Chinua Achebe, ‘What do African Intellectuals Read?’, Morning Yet on Creation Day (New York: Anchor), p. 41. 20 Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, p. 61. 21 Chike Momah, ‘Tribute to my Friend, Chinua Achebe, (Ikejimba; 1930–2013)’ 22 B.N. Igwilo, quoted in Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography (Oxford: James Currey, 1997), p. 55. 17

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cause to be prescriptive – he was already pondering his first novel and crystallizing his cultural nationalist poetics. Momah remembers that around this time, Achebe conveyed the following prophetic words in a letter to Chukwuemeka Ike: ‘There may be many stars in the firmament, but some shine brighter than others.’ Momah goes on to affirm, My memory, at my fairly advanced age, is like a sieve but, as near as I can remember, those were his exact words. I know this because I saw and read the letter he wrote to the friend, and I was involved in the sequence of events that led to that innocent prediction. The mutual friend, I am happy to relate, also achieved considerable success, in his own right, as a novelist. Glory be!’23

After a year, Achebe took up a job as talks producer in the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos and began working on Things Fall Apart. Of this exciting time, Achebe would recall: I was conscripted by the story, and I was writing it at all times - whenever there was any opening. It felt like a sentence, an imprisonment of creativity. Through it all I did not neglect the employment for which I earned a salary ... I worked on my writing mostly at night. I was seized by the story and I found myself totally ensconced in it. It was almost like living in a parallel realm, a dual existence not in any negative sense but in the way a hand has two surfaces, united in purpose but very different in tone, appearance, character and structure. I had in essence discovered the writer’s life, one that exists in the world of the pages of his or her story and then seamlessly steps into the realities of everyday life.24

Okigbo also moved to the capital city in 1957, after a stint in Ibadan working for the Nigerian Tobacco Company. At Lagos, he was employed as trainee manager at the United Africa Company but resigned that same year to become an assistant secretary at the Ministry of Information and Research. During this time, Achebe and Okigbo met regularly for drinks in the evenings.25 Ike and Momah – respectively employed at the University College as Assistant Registrar and Assistant Librarian – joined them on occasion. According to Alex Ajayi, Okigbo was one of the select few to read the manuscript of Things Fall Apart, and had been ‘very excited by it.’26 Another interesting novelty was that in 1956, Okigbo had embarked on a new creative direction. After years writing music and translating classical poetry, he began to write his own poems.27 But besides Achebe 23

Chike Momah, ‘Tribute to my Friend, Chinua Achebe, (Ikejimba; 1930–2013)’ Chinua Achebe, There was a Country, p. 35. 25 Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight: Christopher Okigbo 1930–1967 (Oxford: James Currey, 2010), p. 109. 26 Alex Ajayi quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 109. 27 Lewis Nkosi ‘Interviewing Christopher Okigbo, Ibadan, August 1962’, Critical Perspectives on Christopher Okigbo, ed. Donatus Nwoga. (Washington: Three Continents, 1984), p. 240. 24

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and Okigbo’s new writerly activities, nothing seemed to forecast the whirlwind that was to change the life course of this group of friends. Ike and Momah remained absorbed by their new positions at the University College. Amadi, on his part, was in the final phase of his Physics and Mathematics degree. In January 1958, Achebe was promoted to the position of controller of the broadcasting service for the Eastern Region. Six months later, on 17 July, William Heinemann published Things Fall Apart in hardback, and the novel achieved wide international acclaim. Young Nigerian graduates of Achebe’s generation saw in his feat a call to action. Ike, Okigbo and Amadi found it exhilarating as it revived their fleeting dreams of authorship from Government College days. From this point onwards, and despite their sporadic engagement with each other and with Chinua Achebe – the impetus of their renewed aspirations – the Umuahian writers’ literary steps remained, in many ways, distinct. As Momah recounts ‘The inevitable consequence followed. Chinua, force majeure, began to shift out of my orbit. He discovered, as his friends did too, that he had been drawn onto a world stage – to all of humanity, and not just to a narrow circle of friends and admirers’.28 In the first decade after Things Fall Apart – and indeed for the rest of his life – Achebe found himself wearing many different hats, and taking on the many commitments that came his way with aplomb. He brimmed with new energy and the 1960s, notwithstanding the demands of his broadcasting job, were his most prolific years. Apart from three novels, No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964) and A Man of the People (1966), he wrote two children’s books, Chike and the River (1966) and How the Leopard got his Spots (the latter with Christopher Okigbo and John Irogonachi, published in 1972). He also put together a collection of short stories and a number of essays for newspapers and the literary media. Throughout this time, Achebe,Ike, Momah and Okigbo kept up their friendship, visiting each other as often as they could, and keeping each other abreast of their writing projects. Achebe’s pioneering achievement placed him in a key position to advance the cause of modern African literature. In December 1962, he became editorial adviser to Heinemann’s African Writers Series. Soon after, this position brought him back in touch with another school friend. One of the submissions to the series, a novel entitled The Concubine, was written by Elechi Amadi, the junior student he had come to know fairly well at Niger House. And so it was that, though Government College was the germ of their literary talent, Achebe was the focal point around which the Umuahian writers converged in their reignited writerly exertions. In his literary interactions with Ike, Amadi, Okigbo, and Momah, Achebe was always honest and fairminded. His reviews on their work and public addresses at their book launches were incisive, but never dogmatic nor condescending. He was cognizant with 28

Chike Momah, ‘Tribute to my Friend, Chinua Achebe, (Ikejimba; 1930–2013)’

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the Umuahian writers’ individual gifts and temperaments, and saw that their paths, although springing from shared origins, forked in different directions of the same creative universe. They were never a literary caucus or movement, but school friends with shared beginnings and a common passion, interacting with each other in different ways and at different times. The timing of Achebe’s success seemed especially pertinent to Christopher Okigbo. The year 1958 had been something of an annus horribilis – on the heels of a failed business venture, he had lost his prestigious position as the private secretary to the Nigerian Minister for Information and Research. As Obi Nwakanma explains, ‘he suddenly became a social failure and an outcast from merciless high society’.29 His prospects looked dismal and he sank lower and lower into depression. His friend Alex Ajayi, the principal of Fiditi Grammar School came to the rescue. He enlisted Okigbo to teach Latin, Greek and English literature at the school. The change of air – it was his first intellectually-demanding position – and Fiditi’s bucolic location, away from the lures and commotions of colonial Lagos gave Okigbo a much-needed space to reconstitute his shattered spirit. His fall from grace had opened old wounds. He became acutely aware of the psychocultural tensions that had governed his childhood and youth, and it was time to resolve old conflicts and start anew. With Charles Low as his model, Okigbo threw himself into the task of building up the humanistic profile of Fiditi Grammar School. He was a deeply committed, passionate teacher and an excellent games master.30 Despite his hectic teaching and pastoral duties at Fiditi, he was in a contemplative mood. He took long solitary walks in the evenings, and spent many a night reading and discussing poetry with Ajayi. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Ajayi’s own neo-romantic poetry and Amos Tutuola’s The Palm Wine Drinkard – which he taught in his literature classes – gained added significance. His influences became increasingly varied. Fiditi was not far from Ibadan, and Okigbo rallied old friends and new acquaintances around him. Ike and Momah were among these friends, and Okigbo told them how much Achebe’s novel encouraged him to become a poet. 31 One of the new people he met was J.P. Clark, who introduced him to Anglo-American modernist poetry. Okigbo was transformed swiftly in this milieu: ‘I found myself wanting to know myself better, and I had to turn and look at myself from inside … And when I talk of looking inward to myself, I mean turning inward to examine myselves. This of course, takes account of ancestors … Because I do not exist apart from my ancestors’.32 Okigbo 29

Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 117. Ibid., pp. 140–142. 31 Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 128. 32 Marjory Whitelaw, ‘Interview with Christopher Okigbo, 1965’, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 9 (July 1970), p. 35. 30

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decided that he couldn’t be ‘anything else than a poet,’ an epiphany he felt with the intensity of religious experience: ‘It’s just like somebody who receives a call in the middle of the night to religious service, in order to be a priest … and I just didn’t have any choice in the matter. I just obeyed’.33 Okigbo’s new-found vocation soon yielded its first fruits: ‘Moonglow’, ‘On the New Year’ (published in The Horn in 1960), and the Four Canzones (comprised of ‘Debtor’s Lane,’ ‘Song of the Forest’, ‘Lament of the Flutes’, and ‘Lament of the Lavender Mist’). But his most impressive work was yet to come – Okigbo realized that a poet was not merely a writer, ‘but also a technician’ and that it was necessary ‘to keep practicing … keep playing with work’34 to attain the heights he craved. In 1960, a few years before the publication of their first books, Ike and Okigbo moved east to join the staff of the first indigenous institution of higher education, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Ike was the university’s deputy registrar, and Okigbo, possibly inspired by Momah’s successful career,35 became the acting librarian. Achebe and Momah lived in Lagos – Achebe was then the Director of External Broadcasting at the Nigerian Broadcasting Services, and Momah was now a librarian at the University of Lagos – but they visited their friends in Nsukka on their way to their respective villages on holidays. At Nsukka, Okigbo’s sociability and intellectual curiosity procured him many more literaryminded friends. It was at Nsukka that Okigbo’s prodigal return, as embodied in the Heavensgate sequence, took place. The poet began to surround himself with local lyricists and experiment with indigenous music. The period also marked the beginning of Okigbo’s friendship with another Umuahian, Gabriel Okara, who was then the head of information services for the Eastern Region. As in Fiditi, Okigbo engaged a ready audience with his spontaneous compositions and passionate rendition of his poems. As Nwakanma recounts, he could be insistent: once, he literally sequestered Chike Momah and his wife Ethel, who were on their way to other engagements, to listen to his latest poems. Ike and his wife, Adebimpe, occupied a house on campus, and received Okigbo’s demonstrative visits much more regularly: As classmates at Government College, Umuahia, we were both taught to write conventional poetry, with Iambic and Trochaic pentameters and all that. Okigbo’s emerging poetry rejected all that. Just as he opted for the cross bat rather than the straight bat we were taught in cricket, he opted for the unconventional in his poetry. He would come over to my official residence in the morning, use a desert spoon to knock a rhythm on an empty beer bottle, and hand both to Bimpe, my wife, to knock the rhythm to accompany him as he read ‘what came last night’! This went

33

Ibid. Lewis Nkosi ‘Interviewing Christopher Okigbo, Ibadan, August 1962’, p. 241. 35 Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 147. 34

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on morning after morning. After listening to some of the sessions I came out with a pronouncement: ‘my friend, what you are doing will make you a genius or dismiss you as fake. There’s no half way house!’ He went ahead, and emerged a literary icon.36

These displays of poetic craftsmanship and prowess, however, were not a strictly Umuahian affair. From the early years at Fiditi, Okigbo made a public spectacle of his authorial whims and exertions. By contrast, Ike kept his creative activities much more private. Like Okigbo, Ike had found the success of Things Fall Apart ‘a stimulating, inspiring experience.’37 The novel’s motivational effect – ’there was one of us who had become published, a living writer! It was suddenly clear that we too could write’ 38 – is curiously similar to the terms in which Ike couches the impact of Low’s ‘The W.T.C. are Here’ during his Umuahia school days. But what Ike found most intriguing in Things Fall Apart was Achebe’s flawless transliteration of the Igbo language into English.39 Mapping out Achebe’s impact on the Igbo novelists of his generation, he asserts, He showed us the way, projected our culture, not just our customs and tradition, but also something involving our language. He showed that there is dignity and beauty in our language and he being knowledgeable in Igbo language had the ability to move from Igbo to English languages and still retain the idiom. He showcased the beauty of Igbo language in English.40

Ike thus challenged himself to write a full-length novel, Toads for Supper, which he completed in 1962. The novel, like Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, reflected on the challenges facing Nigeria’s educated elite in the twilight of the colonial order. Ike’s focus was on tribalism and inter-ethnic conflict. When Achebe read the completed manuscript of Toads for Supper, he recommended it for publication in the African Writers Series. Unfortunately, Heinemann ‘did not share his enthusiasm’,41 but Achebe put Ike in touch with Van Milne of Heinemann, London, who offered suggestions for revamping the manuscript. Through the

36

Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 11 October 2013. Quoted in Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 128. 38 Ibid. 39 Sola Balogun, ‘Prof. Chukwuemeka Ike: The Nobel Prize needed Achebe for Credibility’, The Sun. 26 May 2013. Accessed 13 June 2013. 40 Alphonsus Eze, ‘Achebe was right on Awo – Chukwuemeka Ike’, Daily Newswatch. Accessed 23 July 2013. 41 Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in B.E.C. Oguzie, ‘An Interview with Chukwuemeka Ike’, in Goatskin Bags and Wisdom: New Critical Perspectives on African Literature, ed. Ernest N. Emenyonu (Trenton: Africa World Press: 2000) p. 200. 37

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mediation of Ike’s new literary agents in the United Kingdom, Toads for Supper was finally published in Fontana paperback series in 1965.42 Unlike Ike and Okigbo, Amadi did not have the pleasure of an Umuahian literary coterie. He had felt ‘thrilled that a Nigerian could write a novel’ when Cyprian Ekwensi published People of the City in 1954. But the appearance of Things Fall Apart jolted him into awareness: ‘A novel written by my own schoolmate and friend! Wow! I rushed for a copy and did not put it down until I finished it. I have no doubt at all that I drew much of my inspiration to write from Ekwensi and Achebe.’43 However, in the first two years after Achebe’s landmark achievement, Amadi could not indulge his desire for protracted literary activity. In 1959, he was busy with his finals, and upon graduation, he took up a taxing job as land surveyor for the East Regional Government. He craved serenity to read and write, but his yearnings remained unfulfilled until he became a secondary school teacher in 1960. He devoted his holidays and weekends to literary pursuits: I was able to read a little more. And the time came when I could pick a novel and say this is a bad one, or this is a good one. And I could see some awfully bad novels and some very good ones. So the idea came, why don’t you start writing? Somewhere around ’62, ’63, I started scribbling short stories. One of them grew into a book, The Concubine. I chose to write about the village because it was the life I knew best. 44

Note the rationale for Amadi’s choice of subject matter, which echoes the incentive for his Umuahian short story, ‘The Night of the Crushers’ (which incidentally found its way into The Great Ponds, as we have seen). Amadi worked diligently on The Concubine and sent the manuscript to Heinemann on 8 November 1963.45 Achebe must have been pleasantly surprised to receive Amadi’s novel – their paths had not crossed since the heady days at the Umuahia Government College. He lapped up the novel excitedly. The rest is history: according to James Currey, in April 1964 Keith Sambrook was in Nigeria for the launch of Achebe’s third novel, Arrow of God and ‘Achebe and [Sambrook] decided to publish Elechi Amadi’s novel, which was set in a period before the arrival of white men; its concerns overlapped with those of Chinua Achebe. It made an interesting companion, not least in the confidence of its writing.’46 (Emphasis added) I will return to the notion of literary companionship later, as it exemplifies the 42

Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography, p. 107. Elechi Amadi, quoted in Precious Dikewoha, ‘The Achebe I Knew’, The Nation, March 31, 2013. Accessed 24 May, 2013. 44 Elechi Amadi, quoted in Robert Wren, Those Magical Years, pp. 85–86. 45 James Currey, Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series and the Launch of African Literature. (Oxford: James Currey, 2008), p. 47. 46 James Currey, ibid., p. 48. 43

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connections that I am trying to trace here. Achebe described The Concubine as ‘an unusually successful first novel’, Amadi was ecstatic; he ‘could not have had a better encouragement than that’.47 On 10 September 1961, Chinua Achebe married Christie Okoli in the Chapel of Resurrection at the University of Ibadan. Chike Momah was the best man, and Chukwuemeka Ike was also at the wedding.48 By the end of the year, Okigbo had finished Heavensgate and Limits. He had also decided to leave Nsukka to begin a new career in Ibadan as West African regional manager at Cambridge University Press. These years marked ‘his most vigorous life as a poet’.49 The position would afford him more liberty to pursue his free-spirited lifestyle. He turned his lodgings, Cambridge House, into a hub of intellectual activity. The proximity to the Mbari Writers and Artists Club, which Wole Soyinka and Ulli Beier had convened earlier that March, was a welcome incentive. Its founding members included J.P. Clark, Aig Higo, Chinua Achebe, and Ezekiel Mphahlele. The name of the club had been Achebe’s idea – his fascination with the eponymous Igbo art form, consisting of mud sculptures created in the honour of the earth goddess, Ala – was one of his principal artistic influences. The Mbari Club’s activities included readings by its founding members, drama premiers and exhibitions. Elechi Amadi, although not a founding member, turned up to Mbari meetings ‘rather frequently’.50 From his arrival in Ibadan, Okigbo organized many of Mbari’s initiatives. He later became the secretary of the club and the editor of its publishing outfit, which released his Heavensgate (1962) and Limits (1964) and fifteen other publications. Silences (1962) and Distances (1964), which Okigbo also composed around this time, appeared in the literary journal, Transition, of which he was the West African Editor. Despite the less than frequent appearance of Chinua Achebe in Mbari events, the early sixties ushered in an era of timeless collaborations between Chinua Achebe and Christopher Okigbo. Alerted by lack of adequate children’s literature for African children, Achebe had been reflecting on the need to extend his decolonizing mission to young readers. He thus welcomed Okigbo’s invitation to write a children’s story for Cambridge University Press. The resulting book, Chike and the River was published in 1966. Apparently, Okigbo had also facilitated the publication of an advance chapter of Arrow of God in Transition in June 1963.51 And as James Currey reveals in Africa Writes Back, before the two writers’ flight to the east on the heels of the national crisis that led to the Nigerian civil war, Achebe was involved in the decision to publish a collection 47 Elechi

Amadi, quoted in Precious Dikewoha, ‘The Achebe I Knew’. Chike Momah was uncertain whether Okigbo was present at the wedding. 49 Obi Nwakanma, Thirsting for Sunlight, p. 175. 50 Obi Wali, ‘Elechi Amadi – His Life and Times’, Elechi Amadi at 55: Poems, Short Stories and Papers, Ebele Eko and Willfried Feuser eds. (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1994) p. 26. 51 Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography, p. 95. 48

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of Okigbo’s poems in the African Writers’ Series.52 Okigbo selected the poems he wanted to preserve, which included the poems published in Black Orpheus, his Mbari books, and his war poetry, Path of Thunder. He then wrote an introductory essay and handed the resulting manuscript, which he called Labyrinths, to Aig Higo at Heinemann before leaving for the east.53 In early 1967, Achebe moved to Enugu, where Okigbo had been living since his return to the east in August 1966, and they became neighbours. Their renewed immediacy in this critical time further strengthened their friendship. Chukwuemeka Ike was a constant presence in their lives around this time.54 Since 1963, he had been the first African Registrar of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and had written two more novels, The Naked Gods and The Potter’s Wheel. Ezenwa-Ohaeto relates that Ike wanted to set up the Institute of African Studies at Nsukka with Achebe. Okigbo also wanted to take part in this initiative, but some members of the academic staff resented the potential presence of the two writers. While the disgruntled faculty came around to accept Achebe, Okigbo’s ‘reputation for unconventional behaviour’ stood in the way of his appointment.55 However, it was agreed that Achebe and Okigbo would work together at the Centre of Creative Writing of the Institute of African Studies. Also around this time, Achebe, Ike, and Okigbo joined hands to establish Citadel Press, convinced that ‘it was necessary at this time to publish books, especially children’s books that would have relevance to our society’.56 Citadel’s editorial projects had a distinctly Umuahian flavour – Aniebo joined the venture,57 Okara was to contribute a short story and a volume of poetry, Saro-Wiwa submitted a play entitled Eneka for consideration,58 Okigbo planned to publish a project 52 James

Currey, Africa Writes Back, p. 41. Ibid., p. 54. 54 There was a short hiatus. Ike was studying for a postgraduate degree at Stanford University, ‘when Achebe and Okigbo were forced back to the East’ and could not ‘participate in the physical arrangements of getting the Press started at Enugu’. (Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 11 October 2013) 55 Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography, p. 120. 56 Chinua Achebe, There was a Country, p. 176. 57 3‘I.N.C. Aniebo’, Wasanema: Conversations with African Writers, Don and Mary-Lou Burness, eds (Athens: Ohio UP, 1985), p. 31. As a matter of fact, Okigbo interacted with all the literary alumni of Government College during this period. I.N.C. Aniebo has said that although he was not ‘very close to him, but quite close’. He had joined up in the Citadel venture and they ‘had a series of discussions and at the time [Okigbo] he did express an interest in joining what he called the revolution that is the battle Biafra was waging against Nigeria’. Aniebo, like many others, tried to dissuade him. As a trained soldier, he was concerned for Okigbo’s romanticized view of military combat. 58 Saro-Wiwa visited Okigbo’s bungalow in Miliken Hills in early June 1967 to hear Okigbo’s opinion of the play. The poet, before deciding whether to publish, ’wanted to see it in performance, to gauge popular reaction to it’. Ken Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War (Port-Harcourt: Saros International), p. 124. 53

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entitled Modern Poetry and the Imagination, and his co-founders also planned to publish their work in the press. As it turned out, Citadel’s sole fulfilled venture, How the Leopard Lost his Spots united Achebe and Okigbo in their last and most poignant literary partnership. The genesis of How the Leopard Lost his Spots was peculiar. John Irogonachi had originally submitted a children’s book, entitled How the Dog was Domesticated for consideration. Achebe and Okigbo ‘realized immediately that they wanted a different story and decided to spend time on it’.59Achebe’s editorial work on the manuscript took on a life of its own, and he was soon rewriting the story as an allegory of Nigeria’s precarious situation. Achebe described How the Leopard Lost his Spots many years later as ‘a book that challenged the very essence of the Nigerian federation’s philosophy, depicting the return of the spurned former ruler to vanquish and retake his throne from the entrenched and conniving usurper’.60 Okigbo worked closely with Achebe on the project, and also graced the book with a short poem, ‘The Lament of the Deer.’ Citadel Press was destroyed during the civil war, and How the Leopard Lost his Spots was finally published by Nwankwo-Ifejika in 1972. Before the outbreak of the civil war, Elechi Amadi had written and submitted The Great Ponds (1969), the second volume of his pre-colonial trilogy, for publication in the African Writers Series. He had also written a number of poems and a verse play, Isiburu. Although as yet unpublished, Amadi took a school theatre troop to perform the play at Nsukka in late 1966. After the performance, a grinning Okigbo walked up to Amadi at the campus rest house. He was amused at the play’s opening lines: I hear you! Ebulu with the crooked fingers, I hear you! Ebulu, wizard of the drums, I hear you Beat them, beat them hard; The blood boils, The mouth foams, We leave our food untasted, Our new wives unattended, When you wield the drumsticks. Chei! Ogbudu! Ota? 61

Although he was not quite sure what to make of Okigbo’s laughter, Amadi 59

Chinua Achebe, There was a Country, p. 177. Ibid., p. 185. 61 Elechi Amadi, Isiburu. (London: Heinemann, 1973). 60

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smiled broadly; the rascally Okigbo had not changed one bit. But Okigbo must have been immensely thrilled by Amadi’s play. Like his own Heavensgate, it was incantory and invocatory – Isiburu had been in fact originally conceived as a ritual invocation to Amadioha, the god of thunder. Amadi then created the drama ‘backwards’, adding characters and events. The play’s focus on a wrestling hero’s decision to defend his wrestling championship for the seventh and final year before heeding the call of the priesthood of Amadioha was comparable to Okigbo’s deferral of the priesthood of Idoto to seek the golden fleece of western education. On 20 September, Christopher Okigbo, ‘the finest Nigerian poet of his generation … one of the most remarkable anywhere in our time’,62as Achebe eulogized, was killed in action defending the university town of Nsukka.63 The buoyancy that had characterized the literary interactions between the Umuahian writers, even in the terrible moments they experienced in the year leading to Okigbo’s death, would never return. ‘Mango Seedling’, the poem that Achebe dedicated to Okigbo’s memory in May 1968 reflected this raw sense of despondency.64 Three months earlier, Okigbo’s Path of Thunder had been published posthumously, heralding a new era in Nigerian literary history – the emergence of the literature of the civil war. Umuahians took precedence in the notable corpus of imaginative responses to the conflict. Achebe’s war poetry appeared in the collection Beware, Soul Brother and Other Poems (1971), and his war-themed short stories were included in Girls at War and Other Stories (1972). I.N.C. Aniebo contributed The Anonymity of Sacrifice (1974), some of the stories featured in Of Men, Talismans, and the Dead (1983), and the eight short stories that constitute Rearguard Actions (1998). Chukwuemeka Ike wrote 62

Chinua Achebe, ‘Don’t Let Him Die: A Tribute to Christopher Okigbo’ Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. (New York: Anchor, 1990), p. 118. 63 Achebe has told of the story of his final meeting with Okigbo on several occasions. Chukwuemeka Ike’s final farewell to Okigbo at the Citadel Offices has not been told elsewhere and will undoubtedly be of some interest in the present context: When, early in the Nigeria/Biafra War in 1967 I learnt that a Nigerian bomb landed in the grounds of Citadel Press, I drove to Enugu to see what happened. Okigbo was at the Press and took me round. He narrated his exploits at the war front, including the unorthodox straight line formation his boys adopted when advancing on the enemy. The wrist watch he wore was taken from a white mercenary fighting for Nigeria whose armoured vehicle was blown up by a grenade one of his boys gallantly crawled on the ground and lobbed into the armoured vehicle. Okigbo said he preferred to go in mufti rather than in military uniform which would reveal his rank and compel him to salute officers of superior rank even when he had no respect for their brain power. He resisted any plea to leave the army and return to a civil role. He subsequently returned to the frontlines and I never set eyes on him thereafter. (Chukwuemeka Ike’s letter to the author, 11 October 2013.) 64

After Okigbo’s death was confirmed, Ike wrote a citation on Okigbo for the posthumous award of the Distinguished Service Cross.

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a novel, Sunset at Dawn (1976). Elechi Amadi has written three very different works on the conflict and its immediate aftermath: his war memoir, Sunset in Biafra (1973), The Road to Ibadan, a play published locally in 1977, and Estrangement (1986) his last novel for the African Writers Series. To this corpus we may add Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Songs in a Time of War (1985), Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten in English (1986), On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War (1989). Chike Momah’s Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva (1999) recreates the conflict’s effects on the lives of Biafrans in the Diaspora. Top ranking military alumni of Government College, Umuahia, including Alexander Madiebo (1980) and Patrick Anwunah (2007) also composed accounts of their involvement in the war. None of the Umuahian writers’ war literature, however, generated the polemical response in Nigeria of Achebe’s final opus There was a Country: A Personal Memoir of Biafra (2012). The irritated reactions to this work were a testing ground for other Nigerian writers – the press queried many of them on their estimation of Achebe’s unapologetic Igbo nationalism. Despite Amadi’s allegiance to the Federal side during the civil war, he responded to one such pointed question: ‘Achebe, like most Igbo, felt very strongly about the civil war. He has every right to feel the way he felt … I don’t think there is anything to quarrel about. He merely expressed his own views. When I wrote my own book, Sunset in Biafra, I expressed my own views’,65 showing that fair-mindedness and literary camaraderie stood above political differences. Many years earlier, Saro-Wiwa had expressed a similar sentiment by declaring that ‘no war, however acrimonious could ever separate Umuahians’.66 Momah’s creative steps at Government College and beyond were the most tentative. For decades, he remained a keen witness to his friends’ creative activity. Then he took the plunge: I was motivated to become a writer by one of the most basic urges in our human condition: the desire to try to do what my two best friends had done so well, namely Chinua Achebe and Chukwuemeka Ike. The three of us were best friends, first in the mid-forties in the Government College, Umuahia, and later in the University College, Ibadan. I held back when they launched their literary careers because I knew I could never match their deep knowledge of the Igbo cultural underpinnings so essential in the telling of OUR stories. But as I advanced through the autumn of my life, I learnt to overcome that mental paralysis, and began to write my stories.

65

Elechi Amadi, quoted in Okafor Ofiebor, ‘Achebe Died when Biafra Died’, PM News, 2 April 2013. Accessed 24 July 2013. 66 Ken Saro-Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain, p. 236.

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Achebe and Ike, both told me, in their different ways: ‘If you have a story to tell, just go ahead and tell it!’ That is what I have tried to do ever since.67

There is no doubt whatsoever that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart ushered in a new era in world literature. The novel’s paradigm shift has continued to fascinate critics and writers through the years. In Achebe’s inaugural novel, Ike, Amadi, Momah and Okigbo found the announcement of a hitherto unentertained possibility – international publication and critical attention. Things Fall Apart also demonstrated the possibilities of linguistic malleability in counter-discursive literary practice. But did these writers converge in their understanding of their roles as postcolonial writers – if indeed they recognize there is such role at all? And stepping outside Achebe’s seminal position and looping back to Government College, can we single out a distinctive Umuahian ethos in the five writers’ work? Chinua Achebe’s encounter with Joyce Cary’s Mr. Johnson at the University College famously revealed the convolutions of ‘the colonization of one people’s story by another’68 and the political and psychological implications of the misrepresentations of colonial discourse. In his undergraduate story, ‘Dead Men’s Path’ (1952), Achebe first dramatized the twin concerns of discursive manipulation and mental decolonization. But the international publication of Things Fall Apart allowed him to ‘write back,’ portraying the richness and complexity of precolonial Igboland. Colonialist myths of ‘darkest Africa’ crumble upon Achebe’s inscription of the intricacies of indigenous orature, cosmology, language, tradition and political institutions. The picture is far from idyllic; rather than claim an uncheckered past for precolonial Africans, Achebe shows that they were ‘not angels, but not rudimentary souls either, just people, often highly gifted people and often strikingly successful in their enterprise with life and society’.69 In the second and third parts of Things Fall Apart the complex, self-contained world of Umuofia and its environs crumbles at the onslaught of colonial power, variously embodied in the colonial administration, missionary intervention and trade. The final part of Things Fall Apart deconstructs colonial discourse and foregrounds the novel’s status as a counter-hegemonic text through what Boehmer aptly calls the ‘epistemological and textual aboutturn’70 of the last pages. 67

Chido Nwangwu, ‘Chike Momah on his novels, tips on longevity, Chinua Achebe’, USAfricaonline, 17 March 2012. Accessed 20 July 2013. 68 Chinua Achebe, ‘The Empire Fights Back,’ Home and Exile. (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2003) p. 43. 69 Chinua Achebe, ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,’ Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Anchor, 1990), p. 18. 70 Elleke Boehmer, ‘Achebe and His Influence in Some Contemporary African Writing’, Interventions 11.2 (2009), p. 148.

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Beyond contesting flawed representations of Africans in Western historical, anthropological and literary texts, Achebe’s stated motivation was to alleviate the psychic scars inflicted by colonialism and its discursive practices. In one of his most celebrated essays, ‘The Novelist as Teacher’, Achebe unambiguously declares this self-imposed didactic mission: ‘I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did not more than teach my readers that their past – with all its implications – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them’.71 Considering the motivational value of Things Fall Apart and the patent manifestations of Achebe’s authorial motivations in the novel, it will be interesting to revisit Achebe’s friends’ perception of their authorial roles and its expression in their textual practice. Let us begin with Christopher Okigbo. While Achebe’s sentiment that his literary works are ‘an atonement with [the] past, the ritual return and homage of a prodigal son’72 fits Okigbo’s poetic vision like a glove, the two writers’ pathways to spiritual homecoming are distinct – not only on the account of the different genres through which said conciliation takes place, but also as a result of their dissimilar authorial intentions and personal experiences at the crossroads. Speaking with Marjorie Whitelaw in 1965, Okigbo was adamant on the difference between his aesthetic-cum-cathartic objectives and the Achebean brand of didacticism: I have no function as a writer … I don’t in fact think that it is necessary for the writer to assume a particular function as the Messiah or anything like that … Well, as an individual he could assume this sort of role, but I don’t think that the fact that he’s a writer could entitle him to assume a particular role as an educator. If he wants to educate people he should write text books. If he wants to preach a gospel he should write religious tracts. If he wants to propound a certain ideology he should write political tracts.73

Elsewhere, he emphasized his poetic preoccupation with ‘with intense, personal experience’, hoping that African writing should veer in the direction of inward exploration. 74 His poetic sequences are ‘as it were, [his] own way of responding to an intensely ritualistic experience’.75 The sheer variety of cultural and literary 71

Chinua Achebe, ‘The Novelist as Teacher’, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. (New York: Anchor, 1990), p. 45. 72 Chinua Achebe, ‘Named for Victoria, Queen of England.’ Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Anchor, 1990), p. 38 73 Quoted in Marjorie Whitelaw, ‘Interview with Christopher Okigbo 1965’, p. 33. 74 Ibid. 75 Christopher Okigbo quoted in Robert Serumaga, ‘Interviewing Christopher Okigbo, London, July 1965’, Critical Perspectives on Christopher Okigbo, ed. Donatus Ibe Nwoga. (Washington: Three Continents, 1984), p. 248.

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influences contours Okigbo’s nonpareil performance of ritual return, culminating in a truly syncretic transcendence of psychocultural anguish. Okigbo’s poet-protagonist may be as epic as Achebe’s Okonkwo, but the poetic persona’s trancelike spiritual journey as he contests and wallows through the obstacles posed by ‘the collective rape of innocence and profanation of the mysteries’76 – is distinctly psychological, a journey rendered even more personal by the poet’s use of obscure symbolism and multivalent cultural references – English, Latin, Greek, ‘a little French’, ‘a little Spanish’ and Babylonian,77 wrought in a deliciously syncretic rhapsody. Reflective as Okigbo’s poetic homecoming may be of such issues as mental decolonization and cultural alloyage, for Okigbo, writing was exclusively a spiritual-cum-aesthetic experience. But Okigbo’s perception of his role as a writer altered in the uncertain era of political turmoil. The transition from contemplative poet to agonized towncrier at the dusk of those magical years became evident in his final sequence, Path of Thunder. Oblivious of the circumstances that would later push him to take a more vocal stance in regards to Nigeria’s precarious political situation in Path of Thunder, Okigbo described committed literature as ‘very cheap’. Elechi Amadi expressed a similar line of reasoning in his first lecture, presented at Iowa University in 1974, in which he expressed that ‘hiding behind the façade of a novel to launch a political assault is prostitution of literature’.78 To Amadi, a political or didactic impetus is detrimental to the art of creative writing, and using a novel as a means of propaganda akin to ‘sweeping the streets with brooms of gold’.79 Elsewhere he asserted ‘I have no messages for anybody. I am quite simply a storyteller.’80Achebe, however, insisted that ‘all of our writers whether they’re aware of it or not, are committed writers. The whole pattern of life demanded that one should protest, that you should put in a word for your history, your traditions, your religion, and so on. The question of involvement is really a matter of definition.’81 When confronted with this possibility in an interview with Don Burness, Amadi clarified, ‘broadly speaking, every writer is committed – universal values, truth, beauty, goodness, being your brother’s keeper – all that. Every moral writer would consciously or unconsciously uphold these values. This is not what I mean by commitment. 76

Christopher Okigbo, Collected Poems of Christopher Okigbo (London: Heinemann: 1986), p. xxiv. 77 Christopher Okigbo quoted in ‘Interview with Robert Serumaga’, p. 249. 78 Elechi Amadi, ‘The Novel in Nigeria’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems (Port Harcourt: UP, 2003), p. 55. 79 Elechi Amadi, ‘Problems of Commitment in Literature’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems (Port Harcourt: UP, 2003) p. 32. 80 Elechi Amadi, ‘Literary Criticism and Culture’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems (Port Harcourt: UP, 2003), p. 35. 81 Chinua Achebe, There was a Country, p. 58.

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I’m talking specifically about a writer who goes all out to project a point of view or try to alter a political situation by propagating an ideology to which he is emotionally committed’.82 But like Okigbo in his final days, Amadi finally had to submit that it is almost impossible to remain creatively impervious when setting literary works in politically-charged moments, as he discovered while working on his play, Dancer of Johannesburg, set in apartheid South Africa: ‘I made up my mind to be dispassionate as possible and to concentrate on the dramatic aspects of the work. But eventually I found myself preaching here and there. I was committed!’83 Almost as strong as his distaste for committed writing is Amadi’s aversion to the colonial theme, a peculiarity that he foregrounds when confronted with the issue of Achebe’s influence. But this distaste cannot be put down to a bout of Bloomsian anxiety, but from Amadi’s love of village life and deep-seated conviction that ‘history, from precolonial times to the present, should not emerge in our literature as one long boring catalogue of our suffering under colonial rule or as a litany of our current problems blamed on our former colonial masters. It should be recorded with dignity, confidence and hope for the future’.84 His first works, a trilogy of novels – The Concubine, The Great Ponds, and The Slave – and the verse play, Isiburu, are all set in a timeless, pre-colonial milieu. Many of the poems and folksongs Amadi wrote in later years are also written in the traditional mode, recomposed from Amadi’s knowledge of the themes and pattern of Ikwerre poetry. Amadi’s sole concession in his early work to ‘the violent shift of the temporal order of the African experience’,85 as Abiola Irele puts it, is found at the end of The Great Ponds, where the ravages of the disease known by the villagers as Wonjo are found to stem from the Influenza epidemic of 1930. After the civil war, Amadi reflected the ensuing spiritual void by counterposing images of abandoned shrines, reminiscent of Okigbo’s ‘Fragments out of the Deluge’, with colonial village churches, as reflected in the following lines of the poem ‘Deserted Temples’: In front, the blue-black highway Roars by with a silly rumble Vainly imitating the roar of the thunder-god; Behind, an experimental farm With new-fangled crops

82

‘Elechi Amadi’ Wasanema: Conversations with African Writers, Don and Mary-Lou Burness, eds. (Athens: Ohio UP, 1985), p. 6. 83 Elechi Amadi, ‘Problems of Commitment in Literature’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems, (Port Harcourt: UP, 2003), p. 24. 84 Elechi Amadi, ‘The Sovereignty of African Literature’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems, (Port Harcourt: UP, 2003) pp. 71–72. 85 Abiola Irele, The African Imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black Diaspora (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 39.

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In straight unnatural patterns Make inroads on the holy grounds. Inside, the image of the god grins still, Unshaken in its beleaguered shrine. Its failing walls discoloured with clay Put on by poor women In lieu of tithes Stands proudly no longer; No, not now, Then, yes, When its doors were thronged With confused half-converts Who for six days Communed with familiar household gods And on the seventh endured a creed Rejected by Jews Acclaimed by Gentiles, Tired of a long era of godlessness.86

While Amadi has excised the colonial encounter from his oeuvre, he has nevertheless admitted to a cultural nationalist orientation: ‘If the novelist turns a blind eye to these gems in our culture, who will interpret them and keep them forever alive? Who else will challenge the odious interpretations of ignorant foreigners?’87 It will be interesting to see in which direction Amadi’s forthcoming work will take his deeply-entrenched writerly convictions. In late 2013, he published two works of science fiction, When God Came and Song of the Vanquished, extending the possibilities of literary métissage and forging new ways of understanding the African encounter with metropolitan culture. Chukwuemeka Ike’s authorial preoccupations are on the opposite side of the spectrum from those of Christopher Okigbo and very partly akin to Elechi Amadi’s. Like Achebe, Ike feels keenly about the didactic potential of literature. This concern with education pervades his view of his role as a writer, which is worth quoting in full: The dissemination and preservation of my culture. This is an important role, considering the views the white man propagated about our culture and our lack of confidence in ourselves. I see it as my role to project our culture in the proper light.

86

Elechi Amadi, ‘Deserted Temples’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems, (Port Harcourt: U P, 2003), pp. 120–122. 87 Elechi Amadi, ‘Religion and Culture in African Literature’, Speaking and Singing: Papers and Poems (Port Harcourt: U P, 2003), p. 19.

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The Potter’s Wheel is an attempt to portray child upbringing in an Igbo home, an Igbo family, bringing out its merits and demerits. Another area is the documentation of the history of our development as a people. The fiction writer has as much a responsibility in this area as the conventional historian. Let me illustrate with my fourth novel, Sunset at Dawn, which I wrote as a historical novel to cover a significant 30-month period in the history of my people. Military histories of the period have been written, giving detailed accounts of the progress of the Nigerian-Biafran war. While my novel carried historical facts, I saw my role as that of documenting the human angle, the everyday lives of the people in the war zones, their stresses and strains, as individuals and as a nation. The third area is education. As a writer I also see myself as an educator – to use my writing to throw light on certain facts of life within the society. I was the Registrar and Chief Executive of the West African Examinations Council for eight years. Although there was widespread public concern during the period over the problem of examination leakages, the solutions often proffered suggested that the public did not appreciate the complexity of the problem. Expo ‘77 is my attempt to throw light on the problem, to educate the people on the underlying issues, to use my knowledge to write a novel rather than a sociological tract, on the subject. The fourth area is social criticism. I see it as my role to prod, to criticize, to commend as circumstances dictate. This is one of the better known roles of the writer so I need not elaborate. The fifth role is entertainment. Although some critics run down this role, I see nothing dishonorable about it. You can put across important lessons though entertainment. If you can bring an unconscious smile to the lips of a reader, you have done something to help him.88

Up until 1985, Ike’s novels were published and reviewed in the United Kingdom. However, Ike is less preoccupied with waging counter-discursive wars with the Western literary establishment than in addressing the general reader. He sets out to write simply so that they ‘can understand [him] without frequent recourse of the dictionary’,89 and elucidates on corruption, colonial alienation, the foibles of civil and military institutions, examination malpractice, and neocolonial intervention with engaging plots and satiric humour. And while the hallmark of Ike’s work is its ethical and political purpose, education remains his principal thematic preoccupation: colonial and postcolonial schools, colleges, universities, examination boards all come under severe scrutiny, sometimes as vehicles for the author’s avowed cultural nationalism, and other times as microcosms of a decadent postcolonial society. Ike’s take on rural life is also distinct; his 88

Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in B.E.C. Oguzie, ‘An Interview with Chukwuemeka Ike’, pp. 369–70 89 Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in B.E.C. Oguzie, ‘An Interview with Chukwuemeka Ike’, p. 374.

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traditional villagers are neither pre-colonial paragons nor hapless victims of colonial violence, but adaptable communities, valiantly navigating the impositions of the new world beyond. Ike’s villagers often prove to be more sagacious than the educated elite in navigating the convolutions of culture conflict. Yet, the constant evocation of village life in Ike’s work does not respond to a preconceived pedagogical design, but to the logical consequences of growing up in its ambience: I find myself constantly returning in to the village in my writing not because I want to glorify the past, but because that’s where my umbilical cord is buried, that is where I have my permanent residence to which I return every year, and that is where I will be buried when I die.90

Ike’s thematic range remains nonpareil in Nigerian literature. He has experimented with a variety of novelistic genres, including the school story in The Bottled Leopard, detective fiction in The Naked Gods and Expo’77, and the travelogue in To my Husband from Iowa. He is also one of the most prolific writers: his published output includes eleven novels, several short stories, a fictional travelogue and several books of nonfiction. In 2008, he published Toads for Ever, the sequel to his first novel. He is the sole Nigerian first-generation writer to have translated one of his early novels, The Potter’s Wheel, into Igbo. This translation, Anu ebu Nwa, was published in 1999. So, where does this discussion on the generic and thematic range of the Umuahian writers and their stances on literary commitment lead us? I would argue that it says something about the ways the idea of an ‘Achebe School’ of writing has come to be entrenched in postcolonial literary criticism. It is certain that in all cases, the ‘final’ verdicts on Ike and Amadi’s work have been issued taking only their first works in consideration, and excluding formative, ideological, and metaliterary factors. Implicit in the use of the appellation ‘son’ or ‘follower’ to describe contemporary writers is the occlusion of the myriad potential textual nuances and uses of Achebe’s pioneering narrative poetics when it came to representing precolonial life in Africa. Nigerian literary history will remain incomplete until more research is done on the lifelong work of all the country’s first-generation writers. Since Achebe’s work and literary pronouncements have been the scales on which his friends’ work has been weighted, I will leave it to him to address such hackneyed distinctions: I for one always resisted the idea that this [the AWS, but applicable to other firstgeneration writers] is ‘The Achebe School’. Personally, I didn’t want a school at all and looking back at that generation and you not being aware what it was like to grow up in a situation in which you have no literature, in which you do not belong 90

Chukwuemeka Ike quoted in B.E.C. Oguzie, ‘An Interview with Chukwuemeka Ike’, p. 366.

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to the stories that are told, a period in which you went to school and passed through school and you did not hear anything about yourself throughout that period – unless you went through that, it will be difficult to understand why there was all this to-do about writing our own stories, crafting our own style and so on.91 (Emphasis added)

Beyond the generative impetus of Things Fall Apart and its lessons on form and language, there is a shared view, a shared bond, hitherto obscured, hopefully to be reconsidered. Reflecting on the golden jubilee of the Umuahia Government College in 1979, Chinua Achebe wrote: One has been struck again and again by the persistence of certain values of mind and behaviour which this great College seems above all else to have inspired in its pupils through the greater part of its fifty years: a love of excellence and of quiet service. There are of course, other attributes clearly discernible, such as that healthy skepticism which ensures that an Umuahian would take independent decision on serious matters rather than follow what our Australian teacher, Charles Low, described at one memorable Assembly as ‘the sheep principle’. But I believe that this questioning mind as well as other fine attributes of Umuahia can be distilled down to the two fundamental ideas – the pursuit excellence in work and behaviour and the desire to serve without ostentation.92

The literary careers of Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike epitomize these values. They – like their fellow Umuahians Gabriel Okara, I.N.C.Aniebo, and Ken Saro-Wiwa – ­represent five different approaches to the representation of African realities; five different aestheticizations of shared and individual travails at the crossroads of cultures. It is impossible to disregard the rich readings that would ensue if the Umuahian writers were read together as writers of complementary works, shining as one, over and above critically imposed hierarchies, in the firmament of twentieth-century African literature. In Unum Luceant.

91

Helon Habila, ‘An Interview with Chinua Achebe’, Chinua Achebe: Tributes and Reflections, Nana Ayebia Clarke and James Currey, eds. (Banbury: Ayebia, 2014) p. 167. 92 Chinua Achebe, ‘Editorial’, The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Publication, Chinua Achebe ed. (Umuahia: Government College, Umuahia Old Boys’ Association, 1979) p. 1.

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Appendix 1

The Shining Ones: A Bibliography *Note: This bibliography features the major literary works and collections of plays, poems, and essays of the 1940s Umuahian writers. Edited collections and non-fiction have been excluded. References to more exhaustive bibliographies are given for the most prolific writers.

CHINUA ACHEBE (Niger House, Class of 1944)1 Novels

Things Fall Apart (London: William Heinemann, 1958; New York: Astor Honor, 1959; London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 1), 1962). No Longer at Ease (London: William Heinemann, 1960; New York: Obolensky, 1961; London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 3), 1963). Arrow of God (London: William Heinemann, 1964; New York: John Day, 1967; London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 16), 1965; revised edition, London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1974). A Man of the People (London: William Heinemann, 1966; New York: John Day, 1966; London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 31), 1966). Anthills of the Savannah (London: William Heinemann, 1987; New York: Doublesday, 1988).

Collected Short Stories

The Sacrificial Egg and Other Short Stories (Onitsha: Etudo, 1962). Girls at War and Other Stories (London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 100), 1972); Garden City NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973). (Revised versions of the stories in The Sacrificial Egg and Other Short Stories)

Children’s Literature

Chike and the River (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966). How the Leopard Got His Claws (with John Irogonachi; featuring a poem by Christopher Okigbo), Enugu: Nwamifie, 1972; New York: The Third Press, 1973) The Drum (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1977) The Flute (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1977)

1 A

more detailed bibliography is available in Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s Chinua Achebe: A Biography (Oxford: James Currey, 1997) pp. 304–309.

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192

Achebe and Friends at Umuahia

Collected Poems

Beware, Soul Brother and Other Poems (Enugu: Nwankwo-Ifejika, 1971; revised and enlarged edition, London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1972; Reprinted as Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems, Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1975).

Essays

Morning Yet on Creation Day. Essays (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975; enlarged and revised edition, Garden City NY: Ancor/Doubleday, 1975). Hopes and Impediments. Selected Essays, 1965–87 (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1988). Home and Exile (NY: Anchor Books 2001; Edinburgh: Canongate 2003). The Education of a British-Protected Child, (NY: Knopf, 2009; London: Allen Lane 2010)

Memoir

There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. (New York: Penguin, 2012; London: Allen Lane 2012)

ELECHI AMADI (Niger House, Class of January 1948) Novels

The Concubine (London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 25), 1966) The Great Ponds (London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 44), 1969) The Slave (London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 210), 1978) Estrangement (London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 272) 1986)

Collected Poems and Essays

Speaking and Singing: Essays and Poems (Port Harcourt: Port Harcourt University Press, 2003)

Plays

Isiburu (London: Heinemann, 1973) The Dancer of Johannesburg (Ibadan: Onibonoje, 1977) Peppersoup and The Road to Ibadan (Ibadan: Onibonoje, 1977) The Woman of Calabar (Port Harcourt: Citelle Press, 2001)

Memoir

Sunset in Biafra (London: Heinemann Educational Books (AWS 140), 1973)

Science Fiction

When God Came (also featuring Song of the Vanquished) (Port Harcourt: UP), 2013.

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The Shining Ones: A Bibliography

193

CHUKWUEMEKA IKE ( School House, Class of 1945)2 Novels

Toads for Supper (London: Harvill Press/ Fontana, 1965). The Naked Gods (London: Harvill Press/ Fontana, 1971). The Potter’s Wheel (London: Harvill Press/ Fontana, 1971). Sunset at Dawn (London: Collins & Harvill Press/Fontana, 1976). The Chicken Chasers (London: Fontana, 1980). Expo ’77 (London: Fontana, 1980). The Bottled Leopard (Ibadan: University Press, 1985). Our Children are Coming! (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1990). The Search (Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1991). To My Husband from Iowa (Lagos: Malthouse Press, 1996). Toads for Ever (Ikeja: Longman, 2007). Conspiracy of Silence (Lagos: Longman, 2001).

CHIKE MOMAH ( School House, Class of 1944) Novels

Friends and Dreams (Princeton: Sungai, 1997). Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva (Princeton: Sungai, 1999; Bloomington: Xlibris, 2011). The Shining Ones: the Umuahia Schooldays of Obinna Okoye (Ibadan: University Press, 2003; Bloomington: Xlibris, 2010). The Stream Never Dries Up (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2008). A Snake under a Thatch (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2008). The Jericho Wall (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2011).

CHRISTOPHER OKIGBO ( School House, Class of 1945)3 Poetry

Heavensgate (Ibadan: Mbari, 1962). Distances, Transition 16 (1964). Silences Part I Lament of the Silent Sisters, Transition 8 (1963). Part II Lament of the Drums (Ibadan: Mbari, 1965). Limits (Ibadan: Mbari, 1964). Labyrinths with Path of Thunder (London, Ibadan, Nairobi: Heinemann 1971 in association with Ibadan: Mbari; reprinted Trenton: Africa World Press, 2008)

2 See

Adebimpe Ike, ‘Bio-bibliography’, in Chukwuemeka Ike: A Critical Reader, ed. Kanchana Ugbabe (Ikeja: Malthouse, 2001), pp. 187–205 for Ike’s non-fiction and other writings. 3 See Obi Nwakanma’s Thirsting for Sunlight: Christopher Okigbo 1930–1967, p. vii for early/ minor poems.

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Appendix 2

List of Supplementary Material and Sources available online See: http://boybrew.co/9781847011091_2 File A: The Eastern Star Vol. 1, No. 4 (1935) school magazine, produced by Reverend Robert Fisher for the now-extinct coalition of five Eastern Nigerian secondary schools. File B: Photograph of a group of friends at Government College Umuahia (c. 1946-1947). Sitting left to right: Namseh Eno, Chike Momah, Nze Sam Onyewuenyi, ‘Colonel’ Otiteh, and Patrick Ozieh. Standing left to right: Edward Chukwukwere (composer of Government College Umuahia School Anthem), Festus Emeghara, and Ralph Opara. (Courtesy of Chike Momah) File C: Nnewi District students at Government College Umuahia (c. 1947). Middle row sitting first from left Chike Momah and fourth from left Godwin Momah (brother of Chike Momah). Nnewi is Chike Momah’s home town. (Courtesy of Chike Momah) File D: Government College Umuahia Magazine No. 2 (1948-1949) selected pages, including Chukwuemeka Ike’s ‘In Dreamland’. (Courtesy of Chukwuemeka Ike) File E: Photograph of Niger House, Government College Umuahia (1950). Elechi Amadi is identified by an arrow; first row centre: I.D. Erekosima, the school’s first African Principal. (Courtesy of Elechi Amadi) File F: Government College Umuahia Magazine No. 4 (1950-1951) selected pages, including a reference to the school’s performance of The Mikado. (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison) File G: The Mikado programme and cast list from the Government College Umuahia performance (April 1951). (Courtesy of Kelsey Harrison) File H: Photograph of Government College Umuahia graduates at Ibadan (c. 1953). Elechi Amadi is identified by an arrow. (Courtesy of Elechi Amadi) File I: The Umuahian 14, 1 (1961), selected pages of the school magazine.

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Index

Achebe, Chinua  1–8, 10, 14–16, 28, 39–41, 47–49, 53–57, 60, 62, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 74–76, 80, 81, 83, 85, 91, 92, 94, 98, 99, 101, 104, 111–116, 137, 138, 140, 141, 145–147, 153, 155–179 Things Fall Apart*  1, 2, 4, 19, 39, 41, 67, 148, 149, 151, 156, 161–163, 166, 172, 173, 179 A Man of the People*  2, 113, 162 No Longer at Ease*  2, 165 Arrow of God*  2, 4, 98, 162, 166, 167 ‘Dead Men’s Path’*  158–172, ‘The Novelist as Teacher’*  173, How the Leopard got his Spots*  162, 169 ‘The Education of a British-Protected Child’* 3 There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra*  2, 171 Achebe, Christie  158, 167 Achimota College  9, 10n.4, 14, 24n.21, 25, 26, 38, 46n.6, 49, 106 Aba  87, 128 Abani, Chris  136 A.D. Block  27, 47, 139 African Literature  3, 4, 5, 69, 85, 15 Aggrey, James  26n.26, 47, 89, 105 Aggrey Memorial Grammar School, Arochukwu 47 Ajayi, Alex  161, 163 Akaabogu, G.C.  148 Alagoa, Ebiegberi Joe.  12, 79n.54, 84, 85, 92n.4, 96, 105, 114, 158 Alagoa, W.E.,  43n.87, 46, 48, 53, 143, 147 Aluko, T.M  1, 6, 123 Amadi, Elechi  2–8, 14, 15, 53, 57, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82–84, 87, 96, 111–115, 120, 122, 145, 146, 149, 155, 156, 158–160, 162, 166, 167, 169, 170–172, 174–176, 178, 179

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‘The Night of the Crushers’*  113, 114, 120, 166 ‘A Social Day with the C.C.C.’*  15, 111, 120, 122 Isiburu*  169, 170, 175 Dancer of Johannesburg*  4, 175. Precolonial trilogy*  4, 114, 169, 175 The Concubine*  4, 162.166, 167, 175 The Great Ponds*  4, 113, 114, 166, 169, 175 ambivalence  35, 39, 66, 86, 104, 106, 124, 141 Aniebo, I.N.C.  3, 6, 7, 15, 145–153, 168, 170, 179 Anwunah, Patrick A.  87–89, 151, 171 archive  xi, 12, 13, 15, 85, 92, 112, 117 Arnold, Thomas (see Rugby (school)) arts  55, 57, 82, 97, 149, 157 The Athena (School House magazine)  112 Athletics  29, 57, 96, 31 Azikiwe, Nnamdi,  59, 60, 91–94, 96, 97, 101, 102. Renascent Africa*  96, 97, 98, 129 Bassey, Inyang  110 Bhabha, Homi  13, 104, 123, 129n.24, 131n.33, 141, 144 colonial mimicry*  13, 15, 124, 126, 131, 79 The Third Space*  13, 15, 65, 124, 125, 131, 136, 142 Bible  28, 32, 35, 79, 131, 133 Biobaku S.O. (see Bisiriyu S.O.) Bisiriyu, Saburi O.  48, 53, 79, 80–83, 96, 110, 111n.9 Boehmer, Elleke  2, 172 boxing 57–59 Brontë, Emily (see Wuthering Heights) The Bug  158, 159

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198

Index Cambridge School Certificate Examination  22, 24, 43, 53, 54, 56, 72, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 99, 105, 116, 119, 120 canonization (literary),  2, 8, 9 Carey, Joyce (see Mr. Johnson) Carpenter, A.J.  27, 28n29, 29 Cadet Corps  146, 151, 152, 171 Citadel Press,  156, 168, 169, 170n.63 character  22–24, 39, 50, 51, 65, 147 Christian Religious Instruction  32, 49, 50, 52, 71, 79, 133 Chukwukere, Edward,  106, 116, 155n.1 Clark, J.P.  2, 122, 159, 163, 167 Classics  24, 63, 65, 70, 75, 77, 78, 148, 158 C.M.S. College, Awka  30, 32 Colonial Discourse  1, 2, 7, 65, 86, 99, 124, 128, 135, 136, 172 The Complete Angler (Fisher House Magazine)  112, 150 Corelli, Marie  76, 160 Cozens, A.B.  53, 54, 79, 84, 145–148 Cornellia Connelly College, Uyo  120 creative writing  5, 15, 63, 77, 109, 116, 159, 168, 174 cricket  14, 29, 50, 51, 57–67, 77, 115, 148, 153, 164 Currey, James  166, 167 Dauntsey’s School, Wiltshire  14, 25, 28, 29, 49 Dennis Memorial Grammar School Onitsha  30, 47 Derrima, F.I.  81, 82 Dewar (see Simpson, William) Dickens, Charles  75, 76 double-bind  65, 66, 107, 126, 144 (also double-consciousness) Duckworth, Edward Harland  29, 34, 42, 89, 97 Eastern Star (coalition)  30, 31 Eastern Star (magazine)  36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43 Education Department  25, 33, 34, 42, 43, 45, 48, 49, 52, 97 educational policy  11, 13, 20, 21, 23, 36

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Egbuchulam, Celestine N.  81, 110, 157 Ejiogu, N.O.  37n.64 39, 40 Ekere, Charles Akpan  79n.55 Ekong, E.J.  88 Ekwueme, Laz  87, 155 Ekwensi, Cyprian  1, 6, 166 elite  3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 24, 34, 35, 45, 46, 49, 50, 54, 59, 67, 78, 79, 94, 126, 130, 131, 142, 147, 165 Elliot Commission ( Commission of Higher Education in West Africa)  70, 73 Elonge, G.S.  150n.28 Emelifonwu, C.C.  151 English (Subject),  30, 45, 53, 56, 70, 71, 74–77, 79, 83, 96, 101, 103, 129, 131, 157, 158, 174 English gentleman (ideal)  9, 59, 65, 97, 124, 127n.16, 124, 127, 132, 142, 146 English Language  33, 54, 56, 69, 70, 73, 79, 85, 111, 165 English Literature  15, 34, 53, 69, 83, 85, 100, 109, 140, 160, 163 English M.C.  53, 83, 84, 86, 87 Englishness  11, 49, 51, 65, 90, 123, 133, 147 Eno, Namseh  60 Enwonwu, B.C.  33, 34, 41, 43n.87, 52 Epelle, Sam Anthony K.  95–97, 106, 115, 150 Epistemic Violence  2, 39 Erekosima, I.D.  13, 36n.62, 48, 53, 54, 147 Eton  20, 28, 50 Etuk, A.I.  55, 116 Eze, Anthony  151 Ezeilo, W.N.  87, 88 Ezenwa-Ohaeto  98, 168 Farmer, Arthur  53, 87–89 Fiditi Grammar School  56, 65, 163–165 First-Generation  2, 5, 9, 39, 41, 65, 123, 157, 178 First World War  19, 20, 50 Fisher, Robert Reverend  12, 14, 19, 22–25, 26–32, 36–39, 40–43, 46, 49, 52–55, 79, 91 Fisher House  53, 112, 146 football  30, 31, 57, 59, 113, 148, 153 Francis, T.I.  88

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Index friendship  5, 7, 8, 9, 16, 26, 34, 47, 51, 55, 67, 82, 96, 97, 113, 132, 140, 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 156, 157, 158, 162, 163, 164, 166, 168, 171, 172n.39, 173, 178 games  12n.20, 28, 29, 31, 49–52, 57, 59, 60, 62, 65, 66, 75, 115, 116, 120, 127, 147, 148, 153, 163 Girard, René  14, 13, 63, 64, 65 Gikandi, Simon  13, 62, 66 Gilbert, William S.  65 (see The Mikado) Government College, Ibadan  6, 10, 23, 25, 33, 48, 58, 70, 79, 81 Government Secondary School, Afikpo  148, 153 Grace, W.G.  50, 51, 61, 62 Greek  28, 78, 79, 133, 158, 163, 174 Green, E.A.D.  81, 82 Harrison, Kelsey  12, 41n.73, 49, 60–63, 66n.93, 69n.2, 77, 82, 86–89, 97n.6, 110n.6, 111, 115, 116 Harrow  13, 49, 50 Heinemann  162, 165, 166, 168 Hicks, E.C.  47–49 Higo, Aig  167, 168 History  1, 3, 6–9, 11–13, 15, 19, 20, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34–36, 46, 47, 53, 57, 62, 70–75, 79–85, 96, 97, 100, 103, 129–131, 140, 147, 151, 156, 157, 160, 166, 170, 174, 175, 177, 178 Hockey  29, 57, 58, 148, 153 Hogarth, Randal F.  28n.29, 29, 30, 32–44, 46 Holy Ghost College, Owerri  153 The Horn  159, 164 House magazines  11, 113, 114, 150 Hughes, Thomas (see Tom Brown’s Schooldays) humanistic  7, 11, 13, 14, 15, 92, 151, 153, 163 Hussey, E.R.J.  22–27, 42 Hybridity  8, 13, 14, 20, 33, 42, 63, 67, 124, 126, 134, 136, 141, 174, 176 Ibe, Eugene C.  12, 148, 149, 150, 152 Ifon G.T.  13, 43, 48, 53, 54, 143n.87 Ilozumba, Architect  155

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199

Igbo  2, 5, 80, 81, 91, 126, 140, 149, 152, 167, 171, 177 language*  43, 69, 70, 81, 165, 178 religion* (see traditional religion) Ike, Chukwuemeka  2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 14, 48, 49, 53, 55–58, 77–82, 92, 105, 110–115, 119, 123–125, 127, 134–136, 138, 140, 141, 143, 145, 155–158, 160–168, 171–172, 176–179 ‘In Dreamland’*  15, 116, 117 The Bottled Leopard,*  5, 15, 119, 120, 123–128, 132, 137, 140–143, 155–158, 160–162, 178 Toads for Supper*  5, 165, 166 Sunset at Dawn*  5, 171, 177 The Potter’s Wheel*  5, 168, 177, 178 The Naked Gods*  5, 119, 168, 178 Conspiracy of Silence*  5, 119 To my Husband from Iowa* 178 Ike, Adebimpe  164 Ikwerre  4, 114, 175 imperial masculinity  49, 76 indigenous  1, 10, 11, 15, 24, 28, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 62, 69, 81, 89, 123, 124, 126, 127, 136, 138, 142, 153, 164, 172 indigenous pieties* (see traditional religion) Irele, Abiola  159, 175 Irogonachi, John  162, 169 Iwuagwu E.G.  87, 88 Johnston P.  83, 84, 149 Jumbo Reginald F.  28, 30, 43n.87, 45, 46, 109 Juvenilia  12, 13, 15, 116, 117, 120, 159n.14 King’s College, Lagos  10, 21, 24, 35, 36, 39, 43, 45, 48, 70, 92–95, 97, 102, 105, 128, 153 Kipling, Rudyard  72, 149 Kurubo, George T.  151 Lagos  22, 23, 31, 33, 41, 46n.6, 82, 91, 93, 96, 130 Latin  30, 53, 56, 60, 65, 72, 78, 79, 148, 158, 163, 174 Lindfors, Bernth  xi, 59, 65

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200

Index Low, Charles  14, 53, 60–67, 77–79, 81–83, 85–88, 96, 110, 111, 115, 116, 119, 122, 148, 163, 179 ‘The W.T.C. are Here!’*  40, 110, 111, 122, 143, 165 Madiebo, Alexander  151, 171 Makerere College, Uganda  22, 126 Mbari  167, 168 Mellanby, Jean  160 Menakaya, J.C.  53, 56 Mengot, A.D.A.  53 mental decolonization  92, 102, 107, 114, 126, 172, 174 (also mental emancipation) Methodist College, Uzuakoli  30, 43, 153 The Mikado  86–89, 116 Milton, John (see Paradise Lost) Mimetic Theory (see Girard, René) missionary  10n.16, 19–21, 25, 30, 41, 47, 70, 91, 124, 125, 126, 132, 138 Momah, Chike  2, 3, 5, 6–8, 14, 16, 42, 48, 53, 56, 59–62, 65–67, 69–74, 78, 81, 83, 85, 92, 95, 97, 99, 102, 105, 106, 109, 114, 115, 116, 122–126, 128, 129, 131, 135, 138–141, 143, 145, 155–157, 161–164, 167, 171, 172, 179 The Shining Ones: The Umuahia Schooldays of Obinna Okoye*  5, 6, 14, 15, 65, 66, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 132, 134, 135, 140 Momah, Ethel  164 Momah, Godwin  47, 143 Morah, M.D.  151 Mr. Johnson  157, 172, 160 Murray, Kenneth  33, 34, 41 Nationalism, anti-colonial*  10, 11, 15, 21, 39, 59, 60, 66, 91–93, 99, 103, 105, 126, 129, 130, 132 cultural*  8, 75, 87, 101, 159, 176, 177 nationalist press  92n.4, 97, 99, 100–102, 129 Newell, Stephanie  13, 37, 73n.16, 76, 92n.5 Nigerian Civil War  4, 12, 152, 156, 167, 171 Nile House  53, 112, 146 Niger House  53, 112, 146, 153, 162 Ngugi wa Thiong’o  66

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Nsukka  56, 57, 82, 151, 156, 164, 168, 169, 170 Nwakanma, Obi  12n.20, 63–65, 78–81, 95, 137, 138, 140, 163, 164 Nwokolo, G.  150n.28 Obi J.C.  139 Ofoezie, G.  150n.28 Ogidi  47, 155 Ogle, Martin 46, 74, 75, 80, 95, 97, 160 Okara, Gabriel  1, 2, 6, 7, 14, 20, 41, 153, 164, 168, 179 Okigbo, Christopher  2–4, 6–8, 12, 14, 15, 48, 51, 53, 55, 56–67, 78, 81, 110–112, 122, 126, 136–140, 142, 143, 144, 145, 155–170, 172–176, 179 Heavensgate*  4, 15, 126, 136, 137, 138, 140–143, 155, 164, 167, 170 Path of Thunder *  4, 168, 170, 174 Onwuatuegwu, Tim  151 Onyeama, W.C.  150n.28 Opara, Ralph C. 87, 88 Opukiri Alex  13, 53, 82 Oranefo, B.C.  87, 88 Onwuka, J.O.  61, 80 outreach, 32, 36, 55 Oxbridge  70, 85 Ozieh, Patrick  60, 195 Paradise Lost  77, 122 Parrinder, George  157 Pidgin  69, 111 The Pioneer (see The Complete Angler) political  2, 9, 10–13, 15, 20, 29, 34, 36, 37, 50, 59, 60, 66, 67, 77, 86, 91–96, 99, 102–105, 122, 124–126, 129, 130, 132, 141–144, 171–175, 177 postcolonial,  x, 2, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 43, 90, 104, 123, 126, 144, 172, 177, 178 postcolonial contestation (see ‘writing back’) Pratten, David  135–136 Primus Inter Pares  3, 7, 12n.20, 14, 16, 92, 94, 125, 153 proselytization (see missionary) psychobiographical 91 public school  9–11, 14, 23, 24, 28, 29, 45, 49–54, 59, 85, 92, 119, 120, 123, 148, 160

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Index quadrangle  51n.29, 111, 138, 139, 155 race relations  72, 103, 105, 106 recommended readings (see set texts) Rugby (school)  49, 50, 54, 127n.16 rugby (game)  57, 62, 130 Sambrook, Keith  166 Saro-Wiwa, Ken 5, 6, 7, 12, 96n.21, 145, 146, 147–154, 168, 171, 179 school crest  79, 105, 116 School House  53, 57, 58, 112, 122, 126, 146, 157, 158 school library  34, 36, 66, 72, 75, 112, 149, 112, 153 school magazine  41, 43, 57, 61, 88, 96, 97, 111–116, 119, 150–151, 158 school motto  79, 105, 106, 116 school song  32, 106, 116, 145, 155–156 school story  65, 114, 123, 125, 134, 142, 178 school uniform  54, 102, 122, 152, 155 Second World War  43, 45, 92n.4, 93, 95, 147 self-fashioning  12, 15, 63, 123, 126 set texts  34, 72, 80, 99–106, 110, 125, 131 Shakespeare, William  28, 34, 72, 76, 77, 83, 119, 149 Simpson, William  3, 6, 7, 14, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 76, 82, 85, 88, 90, 96, 97, 105, 109, 116, 119, 145 Simpson (Mrs)  48, 53, 87 Singh, Wong  84, 115 slave trade  74, 130, 131 Slater, Adrian P.L. 53, 70–74, 77, 80, 83, 98–102 soccer (see football) Soyinka, Wole  2, 6, 8, 123, 167 sports (see games) St. Catherine’s Girls’ Secondary School, Nkwerre 56 Stone, R.H.  53 Sullivan, Sir Arthur (see The Mikado) syncretism (see hybridity) teacher-training 14, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25n.24 tennis  148, 153

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201

Textbook Act  55, 75, 85, 109 Thorp, William H.  46, 47 Tolfree, W.N.  43, 46 Tom Brown’s Schooldays  49, 50, 65–67, 75, 114, 127, 141 Tutuola, Amos  1, 163 Traditional Religion  39, 40, 131–136, 138, 142, 144 Udeaja, Emmanuel  151 Udeh F.N.  88 Ufot, E.R.  150n.28 Umuahia Entrance Examination  47 The Umuahia Times  150, 151 The Umuahian: A Golden Jubilee Edition 5, 6, 43n.83 The Umuahian Connection  8, 15, 126, 139, 145 Umuahian writer  xi, 7, 9, 11–15, 53, 54n.46, 56, 60, 65, 70, 83, 85, 112 117, 156, 158, 159, 162, 163, 164, 170, 171, 174, 178, 179 Umudike  19, 43, 45, 95 University of Cambridge  3, 25, 48, 50–51, 57, 77, 79 University College, Ibadan  2, 10, 16, 45, 56, 59, 61, 69, 70, 82, 109, 116, 145, 149, 156–162, 167, 171, 172 University Herald 158 University Voice 158 University of London  2, 53, 79, 81, 82, 115n.26, 131, 160 University of Oxford  70, 74 vernacular  69, 70, 81, 85, 127, 128 Varsity Weekly 158 Victorian  34, 49, 50, 59, 61, 86 Vocational 10, 14, 20, 24, 25, 29, 54, 21, 33, 35, 42, 43 Wareham, A.K.  48, 53, 146–148, 150, 151 Wareham, Mrs  87 wartime closedown  43, 94, 95 Washington, Booker T.  34, 35, 103 West African Examinations Council  56, 125, 146, 177 West African Pilot  93, 96

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202

Index White, J.E.H.  13, 50–51 Wilson, Mr.  149, 151 Women’s Training College Ogbanelu  109, 110 Wuthering Heights  75, 151 Wren, Robert  40, 99, 104, 160

13 Achebe Index c.indd 202

‘writing back’  6, 8, 39, 65, 123, 124, 172, 177 Yaba Higher College  23, 30, 42, 43, 46 n.6, 47, 48, 53 Zik (see Azikiwe, Nnamdi)

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Terri Ochiagha holds one of the prestigious British Academy Newton International Fellowships (2014–16) hosted by the School of English, University of Sussex. She was previously a Senior Associate Member of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

Simon Gikandi, Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University

Series Editors Stephanie Newell & Ranka Primorac

An imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620–2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com www.jamescurrey.com

Achebe jacket 03.indd 1

Terri Ochiagha

‘Focusing on the emergence of an African elite at Government College Umuahia and their turn to literature as a mode of self-expression, Terri Ochiagha’s Achebe and Friends answers one of the outstanding questions in African literary history: Why did the most important group of pioneer writers emerge from one institution in Eastern Nigeria in the last decades of colonial rule? Ochiagha combines the archival skills of a cultural historian with the sensibilities of a literary critic to produce perhaps one of the most important commentaries on African literature in recent years. This is a remarkable book on the origins of African literature and an unmatched model of how to do the literary history of the postcolonial world.’

ACHEBE AND FRIENDS AT UMUAHIA

Photograph by Carlos del Cerro

This is the first in-depth scholarly study of the literary awakening of the young intellectuals who became known as Nigeria’s ‘first-generation’ writers in the post-colonial period. Terri Ochiagha’s research focuses on Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Chike Momah, Christopher Okigbo and Chukwuemeka Ike, and also discusses the experiences of Gabriel Okara, Ken Saro-Wiwa and I.C. Aniebo, in the context of their education in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s at Government College, Umuahia. The author provides fresh perspectives on Postcolonial and World literary processes, colonial education in British Africa, literary representations of colonialism and Chinua Achebe’s seminal position in African literature. She demonstrates how the writers used this very particular education to shape their own visions of the world in which they operated and examines the implications that this had for African literature as a whole. Supplementary material, including original photographs and documents, is available online at http://boybrew. co/9781847011091_2.

ACHEBE AND FRIENDS AT UMUAHIA

The Making of a Literary Elite Terri Ochiagha

Jacket front Detail from School House 1945, Government College, Umuahia (Courtesy of Chike Momah). Full photograph reproduced inside the book Jacket back Novelist Chinua Achebe, Enugu, Nigeria. Photograph by Eliot Elisofon, 1959. Eliot Elisofon Field photographs, 1942–1972, EEPA EECL 7037, Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution

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