Every writer, teacher, preacher or public communicator is like a dispenser. His offerings impact human consciousness, leading to new thoughts, words and actions. The dispenser can be an agent of growth and development and ultimately enhance humanity and societal well-being, or he can become an agent of decay, degeneration and death. That is why teachers and preachers in particular are said to be practicing the two most dangerous professions of the world. Unlike the road builder, the electronics engineer, or the architect who are engineers of our everyday infrastructure, these others can best be described as engineers of the human soul. Once the right or wrong values are imparted, their work is finished. All else will follow therefrom like clockwork. The ‘dispenser’ has a very grave social responsibility, just as the ‘receptacle’ must be suitable for what is dispensed. You cannot collect air with your bare hands, but someone with a balloon, or other appropriately adapted material, can collect packaged air. You can collect peanuts with a basket, but not water. The question of whether the receptacle or the dispenser has a problem is often at the root of the disagreements between writers and their readers. Someone once said of Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate who is celebrated as ‘Kongi’ by his admirers here, in the US, in the UK and elsewhere: “Soyinka is simply a phenomenon. He knows how to create poetry as a story and still maintain the story, as well as the poem”. Another said of the same writer, “Wole Soyinka is not my man in literature at all. He is barely literate and I don’t understand him. That is why I don’t like his works.” Then hear this about Achebe: “The man is an ‘annoying’ writer, because of the way he allowed Okonkwo, a character in Things Fall Apart, to die. His language is also just too simple and villagish.” Another reader sees Achebe as “the quintessential African writer”. A regular reader of The Guardian newspaper once complained bitterly about Dr. Reuben Abati’s musings on the realities of life in Lagos, complete with the challenges faced by commuters, etc. But Reuben’s writing was also eagerly awaited by many other readers for whom it was the ultimate. This brings us to something called “the reader’s presumption” in the philosophy of language. Every reader somehow assumes that his or her opinion about any piece of writing is valid, incontrovertible and most probably has more weight than that of anyone else. Thus the writer who does not satisfy the personal tastes, views, idiosyncrasies and whims of a reader in any particular article is easily deemed a disaster by that reader. The reader may even then declare that he will, forthwith, no longer read the ‘hopeless’ writer; implying that there will henceforth not be any good work from such writer. Does it then mean that sense and nonsense are defined by every reader, no matter how informed or uninformed? So a writer who does not say exactly what a particular reader expects to hear on a particular subject matter, even once, is thereby diminished? The fickleness of the reader whose opinion of a writer fluctuates with the wind actually points to an unfortunate character trait that suggests a slightly rigid personality. A man who throws away everything, no matter whatever good works his craftsman may have done in the past, just because of one arguable terrible work passes judgment on himself, does he not? It does not matter with what pontifical gravitas he declares his position. The reader does not define the goal of the writer? Some writers set out inform, others set out to entertain, some others simply analyse, others are purposelessly variegated while others try to subliminally stimulate new thinking and question apparently settled conclusions. It rarely occurs to some readers that some articles are deliberately written to create controversy and compel a re-evaluation of apparently sure beliefs about certain issues, people and experiences. While the writer has the sacred duty to ensure that he does not become a channel for impure currents to flow to the wider society, he has an even greater duty to ensure that he does not take his bearings from the average reader. He should neither try to please all readers, nor have such inflated ideas about himself as to assume that he is better than all his readers. But a writer without a mission is best kept behind bars, for his own good and for the good of society. Above all, there is the question of authenticity. Each writer is a person with beliefs, aspirations and writing goals. Carrying forth that individual, distinct flavour in style, subject focus and intended effect on society define him. A writer may be obscure, and sometimes deliberately so, as was Friedrich Nietzsche the German philologist turned philosopher, who once wrote about the writer’s light-heartedness as the reward for an ‘inward seriousness’. His later day German cousin, Martin Heidegger, made a distinction between writing and what he called “scribbling”. It is the scribbler who brings writing into disrepute, as scribbling is incapable of moving the human spirit to great possibilities, thoughts or deeds. The reader is a great constituency, but not every reader is every writer’s constituent. The writer who is ‘damned’ by some readers is not under obligation to try, with tremulous strokes of the pen, to please them. Who can succeed, even if he tries, in satisfying the variegated desires, demands, expectations and delusions of all readers? To aspire to please every reader is to run with the crowd in every direction of the wind and ultimately to also have no message. It is against the background of the foregoing that one would like to share a few exchanges with readers, following “Mbaise, Fani-Kayode and ‘Alaiyemore’ which appeared on this page two weeks ago. Governor Kayode Fayemi’s of Ekiti State said via a text message: “Hi Okey, just to commend you for this beautiful piece in Thisday today. We just must always confront these prejudices with the kind of facts on display in your article. Keep it up bro.”Austin Isikhuemen, writing from Ajah in Lagos, said: “Just read your engaging piece in todays Thisday back page. Real Edifying Elucidations. The good turns that have been done you by the Yorubas enumerated go to show we can be one and should be one, no matter our ethnic origins, so-called. But, Okey, there are several Nigerians who elect to forget such goodwill but dwell only on the negatives done them by other folks. They conveniently forget to list the sins committed agsinst them by their own kiths the and kin. Your piece, which I have just read, has reinforced my conviction that this needs not be so. And believers in mankinds innate goodness, in spite of the accident of birthplace, need to stand up and be counted”. The Ooni ‘Alaiyemore’ himself, Adegboyega Adewoyin,shared the article and said via facebook: “King! All I can say is that I am really flattered to read this after so long. Of course it is a compliment and in the context of your article it was a compliment well deserved by both of us. I am so grateful for being in a position I was when we met. I also want you to know that I have no regret whatsoever and I will do so again if the opportunity presents itself. Thank you for expressing this!!” Mr Frank ihekwoaba of Nima Capital Advisory, one of the major protagonists on the matter in questions had this to say:“Though currently out of the country, your wonderful writing and dissociation from bigotry was variously conveyed to me by several people. I read it a few minutes ago. Thank you brother”. But all the foregoing comments contrast very sharply with Mr Sam Hart’s entry on the same subject matter, which is published under as a Right of Reply. Right of Reply Okey Ikechukwu’s write up of October 1, 2013 titled Mbaise, Fani-Kayode and Alaiyemore was, to say the least, a collection of gibberish. With allusions to online comments to weak pot-shots at Femi Fani-Kayode - to his glorification of his Yoruba connections. One was left wondering what the whole write-up was all about. I am pained this much because October 1st 2013 was a public holiday and I had to drive a fair distance from my Estate in Abuja to get to a vendor stand to buy my favourite Thisday as the vendors close by had not gotten copies yet. Again, been (sic) a public holiday, I had time to relax and digest the contents of the edition from front to back page. All was going well until I got to the back page of the October 1 edition and read Okey Ikechukwus column. It felt like an anti-climax and a disappointing finale to an otherwise interesting edition. What exactly was Okey trying to say with that piece? Were there no issues of even patriotic relevance that could have been? As a personal principle, when people do well, I commend them. When they deviate and do badly, I equally let them know immediately so I am neither a praise singer nor a critic. I write quite regularly too and I would be the first to admit to my fallibility. I am not perfect, nobody is. I could have opted for the option of he that lives in a glass house ought not to throw stones but on this occasion, I cant and I wont. The reason is simple. I buy my Thisday everyday. That to me is a contract Thisday has entered into with me to ensure value for my money. If I am the only one that has made this complaint against Okey Ikechukwu’s writing of October 1, 2013, then ignore me by all means. I rest my case.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 09:12:29 +0000
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