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! 

The Many Englishes of the Nigerian in America

By

Obododimma Oha

This essay has been inspired by a Facebook update by the historian, Moses Ebe Ochonu. In the update, Ochonu writes :

It just occurred to me that I speak many Englishes. The English I speak to my children is different from the one I speak with my folks in Nigeria, which is radically different from the one with my students and other US folks. 

You would agree with me that this update is provocative and exciting, not just that it reveals the nature of an immigrant's English pluralism, but it reveals something about standing one leg in the "Inner Circle" of English and the other leg in the "Outer Circle." Braj Kachru locates native speakers of English found in places like Britain and America as belonging to the Inner Circle of English, while those on whom English was imposed through colonization, such as Nigeria and Ghana, belong to the Outer Circle. While the Inner Circle is norm producing (that is, it dictates correctness) the Outer Circle is norm using or norm consuming. Don't scratch your skull. Tokunbo culture could extend to language and language teaching! Did I say anything? 

Anyway, a bit on Ochonu. This man was born and brought up in the Outer Circle but he is a distinguished professor of History in an American university. He has also been living in the US with his family for a long while, only visiting Nigeria once in a while. So, his world is characterized by the twonesss of Inner and Outer Englishness. He also writes regularly on Facebook and his updates initiate important discourses. Obviously, Ochonu is a name among names, among African scholars of the moment. 

 Now, that update of his. First, his use of the word "folks" exposes his Americanness. Some other people may be inclined to use that word, but our man carries it as the snail carries its shell. One could perceive America there. In the Outer Circle, people don't say "folks" except when they want to appear American and affected. So, Ochonu is doing something in its choice, suggesting his difference. 

Then, the bigger issue : the version of English with which he communicates with his children is different from the one with which he communicates with his "folks" in Nigeria! Natural. But what is commendable is that Ochonu shows sensitivity of differences of context in doing so. He does not try to show off his Americanness to his "folks" as such in Nigeria. Context puts an obligation on him as a speaker of English. He is not the only diasporic Nigerian that does this anyway. I know so many Nigerian professors living in the US with their families who consciously speak like touts in Onitsha or Lagos whenever they visit Nigeria. Why are they not showing off their Americanness in their use of English? 

OK, if Ochonu tries to speak a Nigerian English while communicating with Nigerians in Nigeria and American English while communicating with his children in America (essentially to be understood), why is his English in communicating with his students and other Americans still different from the one he uses at home (in America)? He uses a variety of the language expected in these contexts so as not to be ridiculed. The music of his speech (which American students would dislike and call accent) could jeopardize his interactions in these contexts. 

This dislike for "accent" in the educational system is getting to other parts of the globe rapidly. It is a kind of shibboleth signifying to learners whom to trusts  his or her knowledge and whom to distrust! Imagine. In that case, Outer Circle individuals who want to be natural cannot be so in the Inner Circle. Quite disturbing. 

But the most important thing is what this all suggests about the Outer Circle diaspora person. Such a person is multilingual and multilectal. As in the case of Ochonu, the diaspora person standing between Outer and Inner Circle has to speak many varieties of English or many Englishes. 

The Text without a Full-stop

By

Obododimma Oha

Two things become very clear to me. First, anybody could be a poet. Poets don't have to have grey hair or wear unkempt beard. Just anyone could be a poet. Was that not why an Igbo sage warned that if we have too much on our minds, we might pass a spirit unknowingly and fail to greet?

Secondly, it has become glaring that poets are not just writing poems. A poet may be rigorously theorizing. Just as many African ancestors used proverbs and folktales to theorize. Poets' theories on texts, societies, etc could be particularly interesting. It is on that basis that one would like to comment on Bimbola Faith's poem below. 

  that full-stop you saw

did not end that sentence

that full-stop

was never the closure to the text

for behind every dot on the page

are thousands and millions of unspoken texts

countless pieces of allophones, phones and phonemes

innumerable companies of allomorphs, morphemes and words

heavy, horrendous, homongous emotion

open, borderless, boundless, deep, vast feelings

but all approximated into a grunt, a tear or a smile

many things to say

many things unsaid

many things unsayable

everything rounded off to a dot

One thing that is noticeable is the shape of the poem: first, it is centralized and there is minimal punctuation, especially full-stop, at the end! And the poem is talking about full-stop and text-making! Punctuation marks or pauses could be check-points we create here and there on the highway of the text. They  create borders and boundaries to the stream of speech unnecessarily. By the way, did you notice that the poem was given no title? That could be deliberate. Don't titles that we give articles and books imply their having borders of meaning, of ideation? 

It means the poet would like us to shift from the sentence as we know it to the text and stop thinking of check-points. If we think too much about the sentence or make our grammar too sentential, then we would think of having check-points and they could slow our journey down! 

But apart from slowing down the journey to meaning, other things in the journey are worth thinking about. One could think of the "innumerable" morphemes and allomorphs, the phonemes and their friends. The unfathomable "vast feelings" and grunts that cannot be accounted for while checking the sentences for correctness. In addition, certain emotions can be uttered, some not uttered, and some beyond utterance. 

It is obvious that the poet is in the frightening zone of post-structuralism. It is typical of these thinkers who populate deconstruction to focus on texts and to discourage attachment to sentence grammar. Same for the later versions of systemic linguistics. Their fascination is with text grammar. 

This is clearly exemplified in the poem. The text and the world must be linked up. No boundaries. No check-points. No delays on this search for meaning. That ideological trash and that pragmatic statement about "everything" being "rounded off" can show us where we are secretly going. There is always some gain in checking how text and context are linked. 

The more I read the untitled poem, the more I learn about the text and test myself on text-making in this troubled world. Same way I learnt  some years ago about post-structuralist metafiction, while supervising a PhD project on it. We learn everyday and should be humble enough to allow the poem to theorize about the text and to teach us. 

ENDTIME BLUES

BY

OBODODIMMA OHA 

It is endtime, my friend 

You can no longer sneeze or cough

If you do that

At a community meeting

Everybody would run away 

Wetin e carry?

COVID? 

E suppose die now! 

There's fire on the mountain 

Run run run

Coughing and sneezing should have

Their own police

To monitor transgressions!

 

No coughing allowed here 

No sneezing allowed there 

Says COVID police 

Transgressors and terrorists beware

Be aware.