A new narrative from the North needed

Obadiah Mailafia’s column ‘Memories of a Fulani childhood’ published earlier this week by this newspaper was epic in many ways. I dare even say that were the article re-written in a certain structured way, it could be submitted as a literary novella in some places.

His memories on growing up amongst the Fulani people, intermingling with their culture, bartering with them – milk and butter for rice, corn or yam was a study in cultural tolerance. Most importantly, his assertion that his father, an evangelical churchman allowed them to learn as an almajiri at the feet one Mallam may be extreme to some, but it offers a lesson on interfaith understanding that we could all do with.

Indeed his summation and humble submission that most of the current herdsmen are mercenaries from outside Nigeria is not isolated. My good friend Emmanuel says the same thing. Although pained by the devastation lent to their family by driving them away from ancestral land, he often wistfully remembers the good days when his father’s Fulani friends would bring home prized game meat to share.

I submit that this article written by Mr. Mailafia is needed more than ever today in Nigeria, particularly at a time when the violence meted by the Fulani and Boko Haram in the North continue to confuse many who hail from these areas and their children.

More so, his position in society commands attention and carries weight hence would be a great conversation starter around the narrative of rebuilding these areas.

What we need is more voices like his. People who will write another narrative, an alternative voice that takes us back to our father’s days. From there we can begin to ask when did the rain start beating us?

This narrative is certainly needed to position the North before the days of extremist Boko Haram and the East before the Fulani name evoked sheer terror just by the mere mention of its name.

Blogger Bookshy in writing about fiction from Northern Nigeria mentions a couple of authors – Labo Yari, Mohammed Sule, Zaynab Alkali, Helon Habila and Richard Ali who have situated their works in the North.

In 2015, Cassava Republic released Elnathan John’s Born on a Tuesday; the story of Dantala who lives in Bayan Layi and later finds a new life with his benefactor Sheikh Jamal in Sokoto. The narrative weaves across different themes like survival for the Almajiri’s in the street, religious fundamentalism and how it impacts modern day Nigeria.

It also touches briefly on the topic of sexuality, a subject still taboo in Nigeria but one that must be faced as it is.

Elnathan’s book as a work of fiction is instructive in learning the ways of Islamic upbringing and rites, while touching on the extremism that now pervades much of this area particularly for outsiders.

This extremism finds itself through the life of Malam Abdul-Nur, brother to Dantala’s best friend Jibril, who breaks off to begin his own Mujahedeen movement. It is a movement that recruits the young, trains them for war and keeps them contained for a time they will be useful to him.   

As with most literature, particularly fiction, writers state that they never intend to represent any similarity with the living; that it is purely coincidental. Yet, authors have often borrowed from their own history, peeked into their environment and come up with narratives that make for great reading.

Chimamanda brings to life her own understanding of Biafra in Half of a Yellow Sun the same way she allows us to laugh at hair politics and the challenges of her people abroad in Americanah.  Similarly, Adaobi Tricia’s I do not come to you by chance tells in a gripping manner tales of 411 scammers keeping you on your own alert.

Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People published in the 60’s just before the coup happened could not have been more prophetic of things to come. Indeed when he finally wrote There was a Country – a Personal History of Biafra, it was done with much courage and insight about his thoughts from a period that would define Nigeria forever.

We need more voices to tell difficult stories not only for ourselves, but also for posterity. In his introduction to There was a Country, Achebe shares, “Most members of my generation, who were born before Nigeria’s independence, remember a time when things were very different. Nigeria was once a land of great hope and progress, a nation with immense resources at its disposal…”

Of the need to write this book, he notes, “It is for the sake of the future of Nigeria, for our children and grand-children, that I feel it is important to tell Nigeria’s story, Biafra’s story, our story, my story.”

It is for the sake of a future generation that we must interrogate through literature the story of Chibok. As the nation commemorated, rather mutedly, 2 years since the girls were abducted, we need to delve into the mystery that continues to surround our missing daughters.

There has to be a writer with an alternative voice, a stifled poem, an Anne Frank kind of memoir that will cause us to search within even as the country grapples with this kind of difficulty.

American writer E.B White stated that writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape it. To rebuild a new Nigeria needs writers of Mr. Mailafia’s ilk who go beyond their everyday positions and give us a dose of reality that we so badly need.

 Anne Mucheke

The writer is a journalist and Communications consultant based in Lagos.