By Rita Okoye

One of Africa’s leading historians, Professor Toyin Falola over the week led prominent African authors and poets in condemning the long history of western incursion in the democratic practice of many African countries.

This was part of the submissions made during the last Toyin Falola Interview Series held on Sunday across various social media and online platforms. The Toyin Falola Interviews is a series of discussions, hosted by Professor Toyin Falola at the University of Texas at Austin, that aim to amplify the voices of Africa and the African Diaspora.

Members of the panel, led by Professor Falola, were notable writers such as Rehema Ndumbaro, Bill Ndi, Nthabiseng JahRose, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Fadwa Ashraf. They all shared their expertise on outstanding African creative books written in English in 2023.

Leading the conversation, Professor Falola argued that the way Europe left Africa after the many years of debilitating colonialism left the continent in the hands of an African elite that has always been the bane of the continent. “Look at how Europeans set up Africa. During the colonial period, they governed as authoritarians. That’s what they did, there was no democracy. So when they wanted to leave, they said now go and contest elections, they took power from the chiefs and kings and then the sovereignty.

“That was in the last 15 years of the 19th century. When they were leaving, they did not return power to those they took it from. They gave it to an elite they themselves created, using their own educational institutions to create them and the problematic has been there ever since. I just finished a book myself on Achebe that will be published in which I turned all his works into what historians call the archive. I am doing a critical appraisal. I am just saying supposed this is the only document I have to write the story of Africa, what will that book tell me? And I mapped all his books, each of them into historical era speaking to what each era represents,” he said.

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On his part, Ibrahim argued that “I think when we talk about these things, we often neglect how this power was transient and how this broadened democratic culture was constantly interrupted through the influence of these colonial masters who sponsored coups, plotted coups, plotted assassinations. Someone like Patrick Lumumba for instance, he was murdered under the influence of the colonial masters of Belgium. Belguim has played a significant role in destabilizing the Congo; Britain had an influence in destabilizing countries like Nigeria; Portuagal has a significant role in destabilizing Angola. We had all these situations where in theory we had independence; in theory we are supposed to practice; we say you know Africans are prone to coups and military take-over. But France especially demonstrated every single time, that if there is any democratically elected president in any African country that won’t play ball with France, it is either he is assassinated or he is eliminated or there is military take-over sponsored by France; that is the modus operandi in most countries. So when we talk about instability in Africa, we must also acknowledge that these interruptions were sponsored and instigated by the people who handed over democracy to us and independence.”

Speaking on the literary works which made for great reading in 2023, Bill stated that “I decided to talk about the book Unraveling by Sue Nyamnjoh. I look at her work which covers a whole lot of themes. She approaches her work with the Keatian lens. When I talk of Keatain lens, I am looking at John Keats who is the father of negative possibilities, and I think African writing should embrace giving our worldviews and experience we have had historically and otherwise to embrace our history with that Keatan lens. In every verse possible in her poetry, she invokes the impossibility of satiation of what everything has in store for us. The terseness of the poem written, meaning that a 7 or 8-year-old child could pick up and read without having any trouble, is one of the things that compels me to look at her poetry as some of the outstanding works. But we have this conception either as poet as critic that the more complex the work of poetry is, the better, but we have this younger crop of writers on the African continent who are there to tell us that the sophistication of poetry is not in its complexity but in its simplicity with complex thoughts that they provoke.

“She emphasizes the transient nature of things and all of these simply set the stage for the exploration of the aftermaths of mistakes. What happened during the colonial era had certain mistakes made, and what is the aftermath of those mistakes, how are we dealing with it, how are we handling those things, how are we handling things of impermanence? How can we emphasise the fact that the realization of permanence is a myth?

“Her poem is replete with imagery, loss and memory; there is the theme of desire, which takes the symbolism of a healing balm. This means all is not lost when we find ourselves in a difficult situation. We did hear about Africans trying to be judged by standards that are foreign, or trying to be dictated to on what African literature should be.

“We have talked about our literature being treated as undesirable whereas it has everything. I remember sitting on a panel to determine a prize and I made clear that all the books in contention were equally good books in their own rights and could win any prize that they could get into. If we look at Africa, the blacks all over the world have been victims of catch and release somehow. Let’s think about the imagery of the palms of the hand that creates a very tactile and intimate atmosphere. The palms are symbolic and represent the order of the speaker’s experiences, and we understand that our experiences are being toyed with.

“My next favorite book is by Moshumee T. Dewoo. Her poems are being loaded with uncanny terseness, her language rumbles and compels with minimalism which speaks volumes. The themes she deals with are very current. They deal with themes of hybridization, the profane and the sacred. It shows her anger, and her thirst for freedom. Just reading the book I’ll say a thing or two about her. She is an Indo-African, and every time in her life, she has found herself trying to justify her Africanness. Does an Indo-African have to justify her Africanness? That shouldn’t be the case. So her work explores this lingering memory and invites the reader to ponder on the recurring motif of fear, dissolution, grief which embodies the guiding principle towards reconciliation when we are caught in the grip of painful existence.

“I believe poetry is that which has the ability to say a lot more in a little space, and with this in mind, I use my creative inspiration to say a lot more in a little space and in a prosaic language that is understood by all and giving them just something to reflect on. If you look at the works that I have picked I insist that it is about their terseness and brevity, I think if we are trying to think of it as a genre separate from a literary creativity. I must also add that the book of proverbs is an integral part of the holy book inasmuch as others would classify the holy book not literature, the literature in the holy book itself speaks volume and warrants that we reflect. It is like the battle we find ourselves in trying to classify maybe what is African literature. Then when the literature is produced what is this brand of literature?”

Vanguard Newspaper