I lost 3,000 books to Boko Haram – Othman Insurgency in the North East is hitting people in different ways, CHUX OHAI writes Poet and former Commissioner of Information in Adamawa State, Dr. Abubakar Othman, told a gathering in Ibadan on Saturday that he lost about 3,000 books to the forced occupation of his home in Madagali by the violent Islamic sect known as Boko Haram. Othman made the declaration while delivering a keynote address, titled Creative writing and the challenges of globalisation – The mediating role of residency, at the 4th anniversary of the Ebedi International Writers Residency in the Oyo State capital. The former commissioner, who now teaches English and Literature at the University of Maiduguri, said he had felt deeply hurt when the books, which he regarded as his most valuable possessions, were destroyed by members of the Boko Haram. He said, “In all my travels abroad, I have never bought anything except books. When I served as commissioner for information in my state, I travelled all over the world. My estacodes went into purchasing books. Also, as a chief of staff with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, I spent my estacodes on books. “So I had a large collection of books, about 3,000 choice titles across every discipline – in addition to the ones I had acquired as a student – in my home in Madagali. It was a really special collection. Sadly, all the books were vandalised by the insurgents.” Othman said his home was looted and virtually nothing was left behind, in addition to the destruction of his personal library and its priceless cultural contents. He said, “From the fragments of information that I received from some of the residents – most of whom are still trapped in Madagali – the members of the sect that moved into my house hated anything that is intellectual or academic. I don’t have a house any more. The Boko Haram have taken over my home. They have taken over my community.” In his keynote speech, the former anti-corruption crusader described writers as very special people in the society who have the capacity to see beyond the present. He said that though writers had done a lot for Africa by exposing and attacking social and political evils plaguing the continent at different times in the past, the collective spirit with which they tackled national issues no longer existed. “The civil war crisis that provided a platform for the rallying of creative talents, which generated an impressive body of literature, is not replicated in the current national crisis, such as the Boko Haram insurgency,” he said. Othman also noted that the failure of the Nigerian military, which parades a “long list of generals and highly trained officers equipped with the most sophisticated instruments of war”, to crush an insurgency led by street urchins and hoodlums is not only baffling but a challenge to writers to start asking questions about the state of the nation. Indicting Nigerian writers for not rising to the occasion, he said, “Great literary works usually come out of great national tragedies. Today, Nigeria is faced with its worst national tragedy since independence. We have a dehumanising government, a strangulating corruption, a decadent democracy and an army of ethnic lunatics and religious fanatics let loose on the entire nation with brutal and gruesome consequences. The fact that no serious work of creative imagination has come out in response to these tragedies is an indictment of the relevance of the writer in contemporary Nigeria.” To underscore the seriousness of the situation in the North East, the poet added that academic life in the University of Maiduguri had been adversely affected by the insurgency. He said, “This is no longer the University of Maiduguri that people used to know. The campus is dull and most members of the academic community are always under a state of fear. In the midst of studies and preparation for examinations, they hear the sound of fighting and bomb blasts. This has become part of the life of students on the campus. “The insurgency has, directly or indirectly, affected the quality of teaching in the university. We had to scale down the duration of lectures from one hour to 40 minutes. This means that all lectures must wind up by 4 pm. This rule also includes other activities on campus. “The insurgency has also affected enrolment into the university to a large extent. The decline is almost 50 per cent. “I remember that I was trying to teach African poetry and I wanted to introduce a Yoruba myth. When I asked if there was a Yoruba student in the class, there was nobody. So I shifted to talking about ogbanje and I asked if there was an Igbo student in attendance. Only one person stood up. Even then, he was a Maiduguri Igbo. “I would say that virtually 70 per cent of the students who used to come from the South did not come as 100 level students this year. A few that are left in the institution are mostly in final year or 300 level and they are probably still hanging on because it is too late for them to leave for other universities. The student enrolment has dropped seriously. To be realistic, it has gone down by about 50 per cent.” Copyright PUNCH.All rights reserved. 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Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 01:01:14 +0000
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