 :
Most writers are intensely political people but tend to avoid formal
engagement in state politics as it involves electoral offices. You
bucked the trend then as an elected member of a national legislature
and now also as the elected President of the Association of Nigerian
Authors, ANA. Tell us more about the factors determining your involvement
in politics, and if you think more writers, especially in the developing
world, should be similarly engaged. Wale: I was introduced to politics
by Chief Bola Ige, the late Attorney General of the federation,
who incidentally, was also a writer. It was his opinion that it
is not enough for writers to criticize from the outside but should
also get engaged in the political system from the inside. From my
experience in the last four years, I agree entirely with him. When
I first got to the House of Representatives, I felt out of place
until I was able to find legislators of equal minds with whom we
formed a group, The Forum for Democracy and Good Governance, which
eventually formed the nucleus of the group that finally shot down
[President] Obasanjo’s tenure elongation bid. The group has
also been in the vanguard of insisting that only people-oriented
policies see the light of day in the parliament. In view of all
these achievements, it is my belief that more writers should join
politics in order to improve the standard of our fledging democracy.
:
What would you like to achieve and be remembered by as President
of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, and what have been
the main difficulties you are encountering in pursuance of these
objectives?
Wale: My objectives as ANA President
are, to improve the standard of writing in the country through regular
skill empowerment activities such as Writing Workshops, Literary
Exchange Programs as well as regular publication of our Newsletters
and annual Magazine. My Executive Council is also pursuing membership
drives so that each of the 36 states of the country will have an
ANA branch. Closely related to this is the membership auditing going
on in all the chapters in order to improve the quality of membership.
Finally, I will like to make sure that the ANA property in Abuja
is fully developed and commissioned before the end of my tenure.
In respect of the property, we have been able to get the services
of a developer whom we hope will be able to complete the project
on time. Finance remains the main challenge to all the above but
we have been lucky with support from many donor agencies.
:
Much of your time as President has also been spent fire-fighting
or settling disputes, in various branch associations and between
varied writer interest groups. Did you expect to meet this much
disunity in the body of writers?
Wale: Honestly, I never anticipated
that things were as bad as I found them. Although I had expected
that writers can sometimes be very emotional over certain issues,
I never expected that these differences would degenerate to such
high levels of attrition.
:
As a member of the Nigerian legislature you are specially placed,
it would seem, to lobby the case for increased government support
to Nigerian writing. Does your partisan involvement in Nigerian
politics and position in government actually help or hinder your
effectiveness as the voice of Nigerian writers?
Wale: Not at all. In fact, my
election as ANA President was well celebrated by my colleagues in
the National Assembly. In his letter of congratulations to me, the
Senate President, Senator Nnamani called my election a big honor
for the Nigerian Parliament. He went ahead to sponsor an ANA prize
for Igbo literature while the Speaker, Hon Aminu Masari hosted myself
and the exco [ANA Executive Council] to a dinner to mark the occasion.
All that demonstrations of support cut across party lines. The problem
I had in pushing forward issues for writers actually came from the
executive arm of government who by law are expected to execute decisions
of the parliament. This difficulty came in view of the well-known
hostility of our leaders to writers whom they don’t like to
empower so that they will not expose their weaknesses and sometimes
dishonesty.
:
Who are your favourite writers in and outside Nigeria, and why?
Wale: I enjoy Russian Literature,
especially the works of Pasternak and Dostoyevsky among others because
the Russia of their time had so many similarities with Nigeria of
today. In fact, Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed inspired my Dreams
Die at Twilight, which was shortlisted for the first NNLG fiction
contest. In Nigeria, Soyinka, Achebe, Osundare and the many of our
other up and coming writers continue to fascinate me.
:
These days a President of ANA must also pay attention to the
growing body of Nigerian writers and writings outside Nigeria. Is
there any plan to formally organize ANA representation outside the
home country?
:
We have been in touch with some of our writers abroad on the issue
of engaging them one way or the other in order to make use of their
skills and experience. I had a lengthy discussion on this issue
with Harry Garuba during my last visit to Cape Town, South Africa,
while Pius Adesanmi has promised to support the Association as soon
as possible. We also welcome more suggestions from our members in
the diaspora on this very important issue.
:
ANA is a writers’ body in a developing country with a
continuing history of government emasculation of free speech, sometimes
leading to the harassment of writers. Does ANA have a properly organized
means of intervening in these circumstances, or of generating public
debate on good government?
Wale: ANA has a pool of friends/members
in the media, law enforcement agencies and government. These people
have always been ready to assist us whenever we call on them for
help.
:
Tell us about your own writing. You are a recent winner of an
Association of Nigerian Authors Prize for Fiction. Is your writing
being affected in any positive way by your involvements in politics?
Wale: Positively and negatively.
Positive because I now have a lot of raw material, garnered from
my political experience, with which I believe I can produce new
and great works. In the negative way, the pressure and demands of
[political] office have not allowed me enough time to read and write
as I would have liked to do.
:
In these days of conflict in the perception and interpretation of
generations of Nigerian writing, have you any final Presidential
word for the country’s writers, young and old, new and established?
Wale: My final word will be for
our writers to develop a high degree of Emotional Intelligence with
which they should deal with each other. They should try as much
as possible to avoid the penchant for keeping malice and losing
their temper on the slightest provocation. It is also my hope that
once we can have more publishing opportunities as well as literary
activities, the vocational frustrations which usually spark off
these crises in the first instance will have been dealt with.
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