By Chris Onuoha

Greatness is built on trials and risks. Greatness has never come on a platter of gold. This suffices to say that greatness and achievement are results of persistence and streamlined focus.

Onyeka Nwelue is a creative genius. He has shown undoubted creative prowess in the literary world through a focused ingenuity. This also accounts for the attraction he holds for an army of admirers, proteges and associates who have in one way or the other, attested to his relevance within creative spheres.

Obviously, as one may say, it will take a magic wand for a magician to perform optimally. So also, it would take an inherent creative spirit to excel optimally too. However, an Igbo adage says, “When a child washes his hand very well, he dines with kings.” And this, in a way, attests to Nwelue’s quest to wriggle out of obscurity if such ever existed in his DNA.

He started at an early age to exhibit creative skills through writing. He has persistently and consistently written, churning out books – twenty-one as at the time of this publication. The question of originality of his works cannot be met with smirk, knowing too well that the standard meets literary requirements. So, when a publisher tinkers with a need to yank off Nwelue’s books off their list, he should have asked to know whether readers have come up with furious or derogatory remarks to his style, skill or tone.

On integrity test, plagiarism and other literary misrepresentations do not hold sway in his stead, showing that Nwelue, armed with positive focus, strives to remain abreast of time in the literary sector.

However, the ensuing academic misnomer became worrisome as the entanglement tends to tilt towards what I can call in a Nigerian local parlance, “bad belle”. This in a way, probes the rationale behind the obvious not-too-called-for scrutiny and ‘bad belle’ aspersion on a creative persona in Nwelue, when it should have been an encouraging literary feat to the upcoming, and to his admirers.

Believing that I am not alone in this empathetic gesture towards Onyeka Nwelue’s ordeal, Nigeria’s iconic literary giant and Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka in his ‘say your mind’ approach, released a statement, clad with a lucid comment that reads thus; “BEYOND NWELUE: An Enabling Environment.”

“I feel compelled to intervene without further delay in this affair, having come across the following in Onyeka Nwelue’s efforts to “set the record straight” over his entanglement with the British university establishment.”

“If Nwelue was shocked, I felt both shocked and appalled. This is over-reaction in the sententious mode, a dangerous, extra-curricular response. The charges against this author do not involve plagiarism or other literary offence, nor any crime against humanity. Would his film documentaries – including his prize-winning latest be up next for the Censorship Index? Do we proceed to burn copies of that sociological expose and raunchy read – The Strangers of Braamfontein – already in our possession?” Soyinka queried.

Soyinka went further to say, “At the risk of this being interpreted as an attempt to lure attention away from, or diffuse culpability into a loose perspective, it is essential – and this is addressed largely to his society (and mine) – to emphasize that, beyond Nwelue, that very society is indicted and summoned to some intense soul-searching, involving remedial action.

“Public figures are often the creations of that promiscuous facility known as Internet or Social Media, and unfortunately, some such figures of marketable interest fail to exercise caution, refuse to apply the brake on the media runaway vehicle on which they are launched. It is rather ironic, but while Nwelue permitted himself to “go for the ride”, so to speak, he appeared to have been more concerned for others –certainly for this “Prof”! Soyinka added.

More aggrieved with the connection of his travail to the overemphasized status quo; ‘Prof’, Soyinka blotted with a noble gait that, “It has become a rampaging pastime. It extends across professions and classes. Not so long ago, I drew the attention of a young colleague to the fact that he was being falsely addressed as “Sir”, and needed to put a stop to it.

“For a while, he shrugged it off as inconsequential, but eventually took action. Yet the media persisted in investing him with this spurious knighthood. Discreetly, I pressured Mediaville to spare us the impending day of national embarrassment. It took some doing, but it stopped. That potential capture of the titular craze owes me,” remarked Soyinka.

He went further to assert that more airing is required on the media trade in personality conscription – be it for negative or positive packaging.
That, according to Soyinka, goes also for exposed individuals who get sucked in – through unawareness, nonchalance, or gradations of collaborative conduct.

He warned; “Among Nwelue’s intimate associates unfortunately, are some dubious hangers on who exploit his own susceptibility and frail health to nurse their hunger for notoriety. The ultimate responsibility is however his, and he has emerged upfront to accept this in a letter of apology. Now it is the turn of the enabling environment to also take stock and clean up its act. ‘Casting the first stone’ is easy enough; ensuring that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater is the harder, and far more productive responsibility. The literary world can do with more babies from the bassinet of The Strangers of Braamfontein!” Soyinka added.

In the same vein, a mother figure and one of Africa’s prolific writer, Prof Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo in her response to the ongoing cyber vituperation on Nwelue stated the literary community would not spare her silence, if she does not intervene in the hangman’s noose rested on a true son of the soil.
Thus, she responded: “THE ENIGMATIC ONYEKA NWELUE.”
“This is an intervention I consider very appropriate at this time, following a brief period of hibernation from active participation in the Social Media. I have gradually emerged from the shock I experienced when I read the avalanche of mostly unpalatable utterances that suffused the Social Media spaces, especially Facebook, since the news broke that Onyeka Nwelue’s appointment as Academic Visitor was terminated by the two United Kingdom’s top tertiary institutions – University of Oxford and University of Cambridge.

“The shock was not caused so much by the virulent statements in the Cherwell (a student newspaper at Oxford) report as by the bitter, uncharitable and sometimes vicious utterances made by quite a number of Facebook users. For me what is happening affirms the truth that when emotion is allowed to take over in any argument or controversy, objectivity, fair-play, restraint and compassion die inevitably,” Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo stated.

“I met Onyeka Nwelue in 2009 after he published his first novel, The Abyssinian Boy (Dada Books 2009) at the age of twenty-one. The reviews were good and I became interested in the book and its young author. I bought a copy, read it and was even more impressed. At the time, I was looking for new texts to use in one of the courses I taught, Nigerian Literature – a Third Year Course at the University of Lagos. After recommending the text, I invited Onyeka to my class to interact with students and talk about his book and his life. (Those were days when students acquired recommended texts and read them before they were taught or discussed in class.) The students were delighted and found the book and its author fascinating. They gave him a rousing ovation at the end of the class,” Ezeigbo added.

Extolling the virtues of such a young an vibrant writer, Ezeigbo said, “Onyeka Nwelue is a global citizen, but he never forgets his roots. He is African and Nigerian to the core. He has done a lot to promote African literature and African writing and writers. He has established a number of literary prizes to enrich directly and indirectly African literature. He is at home here in Nigeria and everywhere, building bridges, sowing good seeds, inspiring and supporting both young and not-so-young writers and culture theorists and activists. Many people have benefited from his kind and wise gestures, including this writer.

“An Igbo proverb says, “Egbe bere, Ugo bere; nke si ibe ya ebena, nku kwapu ya” – meaning: “Let the Eagle and the Kite perch; any that says the other must not perch, should have its wings broken.”

Ezeigbo could not but mention the most mending part. She said, “More importantly, he apologized, regarding the area where he felt he was culpable. I consider this a noble gesture. It is my earnest hope that Cherwell would also revisit its extreme view and divest itself of any unwholesome intent. No one has ever profited by destroying another wrongly. There are lessons to learn from this controversy by everyone, including Onyeka Nwelue, Cherwell, Oxford and Cambridge Universities and, indeed, all of us who have shown interest in the matter. At the University of Lagos where I taught for over three decades, I taught a course “Critical Writing” to First and Second Year Students in the Department of English. One of the issues I taught students in the course was the difference between ‘Constructive and Destructive Criticism.” she said.

Ezeigbo summed it with, “ultimately, our attitudes, utterances and actions will demonstrate the difference between maturity and immaturity, between compassion and cruelty and between sensitivity and insensitivity.