With a foe like Odia Ofeimun, who needs friends?

It is clear, from the many tributes that we have been reading this week, that younger writers look up to Odia Ofeimun with admiration and gratitude. It is, I confess, just the opposite however with me. For my friendship with Odia is based on several unresolved quarrels. Friends should not wash their dirty linen in public, so goes the tradition. But everyone knows Odia does not respect tradition. So I shall not do so either in a case concerning him. It is time to come out in the open, especially on this important occasion of his 60th birthday, about the many things he has done to wound me.

I shall name only a few of them here, but they will be sufficient for the public to judge between us. The first one is well-known, and I am not the only aggrieved party here, I know. It is simply the fact that, in spite of all my urging, encouragement, temptations, inducements, even threats, etc, Odia has refused to marry. Can you imagine that! I mean, the man is 60 this week! To show him the example I went and got married myself, and have courageously remained married. What else was I supposed to do as his elder brother? At one point, several years ago, I even recruited my wife to join me in this noble campaign to get Odia to settle down like all decent men of his age. Indeed, the way we waged the campaign, you would think our getting to heaven after life depended on it. But did our efforts yield any result?

At the start of the year, Odia would announce to us, "Yes, my friends, I assure you, this is the year of Hope!" And we would wait feverishly, our fingers crossed, smiling sheepishly at any woman we saw with him, composing wedding songs in our heads. Then it would be December, and our bachelor would still be a bachelor. And, quite undisturbed, he would return the following January, and tell us, "Don’t worry, now is the year of Expectation!" Well, that year of Expectation changed to that of Aspiration, and was succeeded by that of Anticipation. That was soon followed by the year of Probability, which was replaced by that of Optimism. Before you knew it, the year of Optimism had fathered that of Likelihood; which gave birth to the year of Good Omen; whose grandson became the year of Fulfilment. Of course, needless to say, the Fulfilment went unfulfilled. And it became clear finally that Odia had only been dribbling us all along with his knowledge of the English dictionary. Weary, we stopped trying, and my wife finally consoled herself by making him the godfather to one of our children. I however have no intention of giving up the fight.

My second grievance against this man concerns his book on Awolowo, which he has also refused to finish, undoubtedly to spite me. I believe he enjoys my anguish on this subject, especially as I was one of those who had encouraged him in those uncertain days long ago to apply for the job of Awo’s Private Secretary. Odia grew to love, not just the job, but the man himself. While his appointment lasted, and before he was washed out in one of the great tides of intrigue bedevilling that political household, Odia promised us mouth-watering stories from the experience. He had come to know, with uncommon intimacy, all the grand actors that surrounded the chief, all those men and women with sonorous names and roaring ambitions who tried to fashion out the fate of the nation according to their own hungers and their personal desires.

Odia was there at several exhilarating moments, sitting at the very feet of those who held History in their hands, side by side with those who thought of Politics only in terms of a grand, commodious adventure. He was close enough to smell the dangers that perennially dogged them; to feel the thrill and the lust that drove them on nevertheless, almost in spite of themselves; and to share the grief that sometimes overwhelmed them, when History caved in under their feet, subverting their avid calculations. That was truly a time of epic narratives, a nostalgic rebuke to our present tawdry age. But all this exciting story, Odia has been hoarding to himself, these long years that Awo has gone, and his rambunctious disciples more or less dispersed. So many times Odia has promised to deliver, and failed to keep his word. The last time I asked him, he told me quite brazenly that it is no longer one book, but five that he is writing! Why not just finish one first, I sobbed and pleaded? Does he want to kill us with waiting?

My third grievance relates to his books. As everybody knows, Odia is a compulsive bibliophile and bibliophagist. He collects books and devours them as fervidly as our council chairmen allegedly eat contracts. I have not been to his new place of recent, but in his old apartment, when I used to go there, it was always impossible to find a place to sit because of books. On the chairs, on the floor, on the bed, everywhere, books sat and spread out like different generations of ants. Titles upon titles would be staring at you, beckoning to your fingers, daring you to walk away without a caress. As soon as you pulled one out, another would be making eyes at you. If you stayed the night, you would not sleep a wink throughout, what with so many authors murmuring nonstop around you from inside a myriad covers. It was also a trick of course, by a parsimonious host. For, caught in the trance of those books, who would remember to ask for food? Those searching for death by starvation only need to go and spend a week in Odia’s house. They will die happily there, reading books.

But that is not my grievance however. Where all this concerns me is that for some time now, Odia will no longer allow me to borrow any of his books. His reason? The complaint that I do not remember to return the books he gives me! Can anyone imagine a greater act of cruelty, especially coming from a winner of the Fonlon-Nichols Award? The magnitude of this wickedness can only be understood when you consider that, sometimes in the entire country, it is only in Odia’s library that you will find some valuable books! The most recent publications; the most current titles; the authors most prominent in public discourse; all are in that library to which I am being denied access. It is clearly a violation of my human rights, and I hope someone will inform Odia that if it gets known, it might cause a severe damage to his reputation. That is why I am still keeping it all to myself for now, in the name of friendship.

Again and again I have tried to explain to him that it is not that I forget to return his books. It is simply that I am obliged to lend them to others after reading them. Some books are so fascinating that you cannot be happy until you have shared them with others. Besides, how will ideas grow if books are not allowed to circulate? So why should one man be allowed to hoard away, in his house, books that could make a keen difference to the lives of others, on the mere excuse that he paid for the books and that they belong to him?

There is no more space now, fortunately for him, to voice my other grievances. But I am sure the case is made. As he turns 60 and joins the elders, will Odia see the unfairness of his ban on a legitimate reader and allow me access to his home-library again? Will he get married at last and end the agony of those of us who cannot rest until we interfere in other people’s affairs? Will he finally bring out the book on Awolowo, so we can all remember what it was to have a leadership with vision and a politics devoted, not to looting the common purse and amassing personal wealth, but rather to the welfare of the people? Odia, welcome to the company of the over-60s. You know now why our friendship thrives.

By Femi Osofisan

The Guardian, March 17, 2010

Professor Osofisan is a former President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA)