Thomas Iyambe

 

By

Obododimma Oha

Anyone who is searching the archives on staff of Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC) would find that one Thomas Iyambe of Banga who "absconded" from duty from the gang clearing the bush for the plantations, later became a young man, so energetic that he was put in the last line of laborers so that he would be forcing escaping wild animals to run to the center, to their doom. What actually happened was that the real Thomas Iyambe disappeared for good and a young man who came from Uri (Uli) in Nigeria agreed to be him, so as to be allowed to work as a laborer in CDC.

Absence created an opportunity for presence. If  the old Iyambe had not "escaped," the new Iyambe would not have come. Two Iyambes: Iyambe of Banga and Iyambe of Uri, an Igbo. So, Iyambe yesterday and today. Iyambe lazy and  Iyambe hardworking and energetic. Iyambe old and Iyambe young again. 

It was quite interesting that my late father was "Lawrence" in Nigeria but "Thomas" in Cameroon, not that he was rechristened but had to take another identity in order to survive as a young man. 

It wasn't just that "Thomas Iyambe" had become someone else but shows how labels could mislead us. There's no real Thomas Iyambe anywhere. Thomas Iyambe could become another label. And life in the plantation gang went on. Truly, small no be sick! 

So, my own father was once called "Thomas Iyambe"? He could even have been known as "Paul Biya"! Paul Biya of the CDC plantation. It was just a matter of labeling and re-labeling. 

Thomas Iyambe! Present, sir! 

But I don't know whether the person that was labeled "Thomas Iyambe" would also not mind answering my father's name if required to bear it. We need to find out. This earth, my brother, my sister. You can only guess and let your guess remain a guess. What is good for the goose may not be good enough for the gander. Ganders are choosy these days! 

When one Thomas Iyambe goes, another Thomas Iyambe comes. That is how it should be, ad infinitum. There should be a deferment of Iyambes. Iyambes uncatchable. Iyambes always many, more than legion. 

Maybe one Iyambe would seek to attack and destroy its kind one day. The problem of uncomfortable similarity. Uncomfortable oneness. I won't be surprised if one Thomas Iyambe attacks and tries to destroy another Thomas Iyambe. Maybe destroy the old Iyambe. We are not very comfortable with our kind, what more a replacement! One Thomas Iyambe may want to see justice done. But to self! 

Thomas Iyambe must have suffered in looking for where there was Thomas Iyambe penned down on paper. From plantation to plantation. Looking for self. From Miselele to Banana Bush. From Tiko to Yaounde. Looking for self in the overseer's paper. 

Thomas Iyambe is a sign of vanishing you and reappearing you. Many selves in oneself, one self. Thomas Iyambe that cannot be caught, trapped in one plantation. 

It is clear to me now that "Thomas Iyambe" is just another label put on a human being and could be replaced. Thomas Iyambe, you are just a sign used by humans. 

The Children from the City

By

Obododimma Oha

In those days, children from the city were our big problem. They came to the local area during Christmas or New Year celebrations and showed off a lot. Was it the ways that they spoke and what they spoke? Was it what they took and how they  took it? Was it the clothes that they wore? Even the ways that they walked! The children from the city deliberately went for us and against us. And we did not like it. So, they were a problem, a great problem.

I still remember how one held and drank from a bottle of "Mirinda." Obviously, he wanted me to watch, to die quietly, to see one child deal with precious liquid in a bottle, all alone! And when he gulped down the liquid, I, too, swallowed, but I swallowed no liquid, not to talk of a precious one.

Only one child drinking a whole bottle! They did not even dilute the drink with some water before he started taking it. Too bad. That's how the city spoils them.

It wasn't just that one child could drink a whole bottle, but even the way that child drank it and looked at the onlooker, as if to proclaim, "Yes. I did it. Can you also do it? Go and die!" That was clearly more than provocative  making one hate the city more.

As I said initially, they visited mainly during celebrations. Celebrations, indeed. They just ruined everything for us in the village and one secretly prayed that they won't be around. When one should be enjoying the carols and sharing the proceeds, they came to kill the joy. Celebration turned to bitterness and regret. I hated children from the city.

The children from the city were always arrogant. They are mainly interested in showing children from the village that the city children are different and better. They believed that they had better life, while one in the village had no life. Imagine children who could not climb trees! Imagine children who could not blow the fire! Imagine children who could not fetch fodder for goats, not to talk of knowing the names of the plants!

They did not eat cassava foofoo. No wonder they didn't have energy. It was only rice! Imagine feeding on bird's food. If one eats bird's food, what does one expect birds to eat? Yam and cocoyam?

What they uttered was also annoying. They spoke what they called English, "oybo sụprị sụprị." You need to see how those children from the city twisted their mouths as they spoke "oyibo," just to torment us. 

The children of the village knew proverbs and how to embellish speech in the local language. But, who cares? Who really cares for your embellishment in the speech of the past? We just envied the children from the city there.

Then, their clothes. They had better clothes with lots of pockets for things. I wished I had such. One pocket just for my treasured things. Another pocket for ropes. Another for bread labels. And so on. Well, their clothes had lots of pockets, which was important to me.

They were proud  very proud that they had better clothes and ours were just rags. How could one's clothes for Christmas, Easter, or New Year be called "rags"? I knew that most of them were "ekobe," which was ready-made and quickly done. But they were no rags and must have cost a lot of money obtained painfully through contributions at meetings and gifts at the carols. They were not rags. I knew that the children from the city must have said that to kill one's spirit.

How could one even forget the ways that the children from the city walked to show that they did not care? The same way that they carelessly widened the mouth while speaking, to show that they could talk rubbish or had no training on speaking. They deliberately walked as if they were drunk or want to take the entire space  as people coming in the opposite direction.

I know that the whole idea was to make an unthinking idiot dislike the village, a place where a child could explore every bush  eat every wild fruit with unwashed hands, walk barefooted and even naked. There was no way one was would prefer the city to the village.

The children from the city need to listen to us, watch us, and learn from  us. 

Mother Hen Is Chasing Her Children Away

By

Obododimma Oha

Hens look after their chicks with utmost dedication. They can even die for them, not to talk of making sure that they are well-fed. So, hens are not wicked when they peck at their young sometimes and drive them away to begin to look after themselves. Experts in poultry farming call this attempt to make the grown-up chicken live on its own "weaning." Among humans, this is similar to what is called "ịchụ ara" (stopping from breastfeeding), which, traditionally, every nursing mother has to do after about one year.

Weaning, in whichever forms it comes, is an attempt to make the young grow up. This growing up involves looking for food, defending itself when attacked, home making, etc. They have to learn how to hide from carnivorous aviators that may want to kidnap them.

But humans are not just good in it. They tend to protect and provide for their young too much. They behave selfishly as if their young is their property, for them alone! In the process they don't really wean. They want the young ones to live close, to make sure they are safe. They don't drive them away!

Mother Hen is telling the young ones: "Grow up from now on. Learn to wrestle with the world. Learn to look after yourself. Your life is yours, your future yours. Go and wrestle with the world." Mother Hen is a realist. Mother Hen is just an agent and should not be turned to the goal!

It's all about dependence and independence. In independence, an entity labours and tries to survive on own efforts, but with dependence, it has to parasite and live on the efforts of others. Unoka of *Things Fall Apart* is a good example of the sad things in dependence. He has to record his indebtedness with lines of chalk. A sad narrative, the record tells about his dependence. Taking loans and not bothering about repayment is not good life. Whether at individual or societal level, indebtedness does not guarantee honour or give respect. As the Igbo say, "Onye añụñụ ọgọdọ anaghị agbasi egwu ike" (One who borrows clothes for a dance does not dance energetically or dances extra cautiously). Yes, the clothes may get torn and that borrower would be in trouble. If that person is even commended, somebody may say: "Is it not because of the clothes that fellow borrowed? Don't we know the owner?"

 
Weaning is all about asking the weaned to learn to take initiatives, to make choices, actually, to take a risk, which is what life involves.

The time shall come when we all must go our separate ways. The time shall come. It is a matter of time. The Igbo would say: "Ụkwa ruo oge ya, ọ daa." Can I be helped by my father who was buried more than 20 years ago?

Mother  Hen in that homestead is wiser than its owner. It is chasing her children away. It wants them to learn to live on their own.

Mother Hen scratched forwards. Then  scratched backwards. Turned and looked at the two. Then asked her chicks:" The accumulated garbage in the front and the one at the back, which is greater?" They answered : "The garbage in the front." She said : "You answered well. From now, my pet name is 'Nkeiruka' (The one in front is greater). Then one in the future or that is coming is greater." They understood and continued feeding.

Mother Hen is a great teacher. A great teacher allows students to teach themselves.

The Return

 

By

Obododimma Oha

If she goes to market

And does not return

And he does not look for her

He is heartless and irresponsible

If she goes to market

And allows herself to be carried away

By the looks of things

Things flashy and misleading 

And forgets to go home 

Something may be wrong with her

If she turns this fish over ten times

And haggles over that biscuit 

Maybe she is  not buying 

Only touching the market 

And will pretend to have lost an amount 

If she remains when all have gone home

She has turned to gofment pickin

Or has become a vulture 

Tell her people she has to return 

And not turn the market upside-down

Problem-solving in Amos Tutuola's The Palm-wine Drinkard

By

Obododimma Oha

Many people who read *The Palm-wine Drinkard * by Amos Tutuola often focus on his use of language. That is to be expected, but one aspect of the narrative that should interest us is how it pictures problem-solving in Africa. It is along this line of thinking that I examine the novel briefly as a problem - solving narrative.

The narrator-protagonist likes drinking palm-wine but is in a fix because he has lost the person who taps the wine. Worse still, he does not know where this dead man has gone and cannot trace there, to tell him to come back. Nobody is willing to show him how to get there. So, he has to solve this problem. He has to work the solution out somehow.

Obviously, this is a serious philosophical problem for him to try to solve. It is a problem that affects his life and whose solution would shape his future. Normally, the first reaction would be to ask people. But they would not respond to help him solve the problem. So, he has to use cleverness and indirect means.

This shows us something about cleverness and survival, something the tortoise knows very well, as shown in many narratives. As the Igbo would say: "Anụ gbata ajọ ọsọ, a gbanyere ya ajọ egbe" (When an animal in a hunt runs badly, it has to be shot badly). So, the palm-wine drinker has to look for an "unusual" way to solve the problem.

So, what problems are at https://edutitra.blogspot.com/2021/09/problem-solving-in-amos-tutuolas-palm.htmlstake? What does one learn about problem-solving from the narrative? 

1.  According to the protagonist, he had been for days without drinking because his "tapster" was dead. Finding where his tapster was (a spirit), was his obligation. He was looking for his dead tapster.

2. The second and related problem was the unwillingness of people to help him to locate his tapster. A man he approached in this regard even wanted to extend his "help" to become a punishment for the drinker's "foolishness" and to get rid of him finally by asking him to go and find Death, bind him, and bring.

3. The secondary problem - - finding where Death lives - - was not simple. Nobody would help him out of fear of Death. So, this avoidance of such a discourse  is a big problem. It demands an unusual approach.

The solutions are necessary, though not easy. Just like Africa moving to modernity and vibrant economy. Locating the dead tapster  is dependent on locating where Death lives, binding the intangible that must become tangible, and bringing the terrible luggage. Solutions must utilize simple local methods, as we shall see. They require THINKING,  not daily drinking of palm-wine. This thinking is what would help the drinkard.
Now, let us see the solutions.

1.  Locating where Death lives:
As indicated earlier, this required solving another problem - - making the intangible to become tangible! Human discourse would  not help too. So, one has to enlist the nonlinguistic. The drinkard goes and lies down legs spread out, at an "orita" or crossroad. This behavior forces some talkative marketpeople to stop and ask: "Who is the mother of this idiot lying at an" orita" with one leg pointing to Deadstown, where Death lives?" That gives away the solution that they are unwilling to give!

2. The second is how to make the intangible tangible. This is just hard. Well, the narrative assumes that this is possible and involves switching of realities. In that case, the drinkard descends into a deeper fiction where Death is found, tied up, and brought to human world. Doesn't this constitute a big problem? These days, realities can switch places!

Even though we could argue that too much drinking of wine could elicit this kind of fantasy, we know that some drunkards can see and say things. It is possible for a drunkard to catch death, tie the fellow up and bring him to the world. Even the possibility of making death tangible is what a drunkard could affirm.

What  this suggests is that our Western logic and book knowledge would be wrong in giving the impression that all problems have to comply with straightforward thinking. In some contexts, the Western model would not work. The animal is running badly in the hunt and needs to be shot at badly.

Think about COVID-19. A local African may find remedy by plucking and eating some leaves or boiling some leaves as grandfather did, steaming thoroughly to clean the respiratory track. COVID-19 could avoid this Mr. Bones!

Many indigenous people in Africa that want to get confused after colonization, especially book people, should throw away their logic or think they can be Western. They are deceiving themselves. They can never be Western.

Problems ask for solutions and in many indigenous societies in Africa, those solutions can be found somehow. Tutuola's narrative is partly about working out or finding the solution. This makes us thinking beings.

OldManGuy

 

By

Obododimma Oha 

Oldman Guy he would walk  his bike

All the way

He would walk bent double

OldmanGuy he would growl

OldmanGuy he would bark

And you'd be forced to run

Run to your mother

Run into your mother's womb

OldmanGuy is coming

Coming to swallow you!

OldmanGuy he would walk

As if on all fours

As if getting ready to pounce

OldmanGuy from the past of the past

OldmanGuy now walking his bike

And bent double

In my adult dreams, in which I am still

Running to my mother for shelter 

OldmanGuy is growling and coming. 

The Cow and What It Will Mop up with Its Tail

 

By

Obododimma Oha

Some countries have a cow problem.  In fact, they can playfully be called "cowtries."  In "cowtries" ,  cows move about freely and enter wherever they like. They are not kept on leash or in ranches. They can enter a garden or a farm and eat up the crops in the name of going natural. If the gardener or farmer complains, the idiot can be shot with AK-47 and nothing would happen. 

In "cowtries,"  cows are more  important than citizens. If a citizen kills a cow eating in a farm, such a citizen could be killed and the law would look the other way. In short,  the cow is the law, the only law. The cow should actually wear a wig and sit on the bench. 

But the Igbo have this lovely proverb: "Ehi ga-eji ọdụ ya tere ihe ọ nyụrụ" (The cow will mop up what it defecates with its tail). It is a warning as well as a consolation. So, the cow should stop now and think. It should stop moving around freely and entering wherever it likes. Otherwise, the devil. 

The cow believes that it is defecating for others. No sir! It is defecating for itself. It may not know this but the excrement waits, steaming for somebody. It is a defecation and was cooked and dished out by someone. 

The cow is the authority on excretion and owns excretion. Its tail is busy driving away flies in vain. The visiting flies saw the excretion and would like to report it well. The cow should stop terrorizing the visiting flies. The flies are on duty. 

It is part of mopping up the excrement with the tail. Is the cow surprised? 

One was wrong in thinking that it was only in movies on endtime that strange things could happen. One now knows better. 

Cow rule is indeed an era in the endtime. If the cow takes over power, horns have come. And you know what horns could do. It has to be horns versus horns as the cow also confronts the excrement. Cow rule may occasion hurt, but expect endtime retaliation from the excrement.

Cows that defecate everywhere they enter should get ready for everywhere mop up. It is not only the garden and the farm now complaining. Everything in civilization is complaining bitterly. That's a lot of trouble. That's a lot of bitterness there.

That is not to say that you don't have rights, cows. But these are not the right to transgress and beat your chest. It is not right to be wrong, cows.

As a matter of fact, you ,are the only cows. Country  folks are also cows. Don't they have colonies and routes? Don't they follow the herder from Washington to Paris? Don't they follow successful coup plotters and damn unsuccessful ones? They should respect cattle culture!

Anyway, we will all mop up our defecations. Tailless cows are lucky!