By Okoh Aihe
Dr Festus Iyayi died on Tuesday November 12, 2013; bumped into eternity by the recklessness of a convoy driver in Kogi State where high profile crashes are featuring high in official agenda. The death marked the glorification of a humanist who tried to change the world with his large heart and big ideas.
A professor of Economics at the University of Benin where he lectured for decades, Iyayi was renowned for his radicalism and trade unionism which he used to place a mirror of reality to the faces of the leaders whether military or civilian.
Plus his academic epaulette, Iyayi was revered for his creative writings which earned him a Common Wealth Prize for Literature for the book Heroes, a blistering focus on the Nigerian Civil War. His other books are Violence, The Contract and Awaiting COURT Martial.
Some say Iyayi shouldn’t have been on the road riding in a bus. I agree with the second leg of the sentence but so many people didn’t know Iyayi at all. He was always a team player and never sought personal comfort alone. The Iyayi I know couldn’t be flying knowing that so many other people across the country were in pains because of a strike action that shouldn’t have been.
Sleep wasn’t a good partner on Tuesday night. My mind went to the conversation we had at the wake-keep for late Professor Ambrose Alli, former governor of the old Bendel State in 1989. Although reporting the event for The Guardian Newspapers with the hopes of an appointment, I had told him that a friend was inviting me to join the teaching staff of the University of Benin. In a flash he told me to remain with The Guardian.
That was it. He helped to change my life.
Severally, I had thought over that conversation over the years. This was the height of his brush with the authorities. The school authority led by Prof Grace Alele-Williams was trying to crush his spirit by sacking him on behalf of the military government which proscribed ASUU then Could the treatment in the hands of the authorities have influenced his advice to me? His persecutors didn’t know him. Iyayi wasn’t just a fighter. He knew how to endure pain before sweet victory. These people perhaps never read any of his books or did a psycho-analysis of his fictional characters. Iyayi had a good laugh when he won at the Supreme Court.
My mind goes to his collection of short stories, Awaiting COURT Martial. That particular story which is the title of the book, for me, one of the best collections in the country, features a cheerful character, Alubiya.
I am looking at Alubiya now in Professor Festus Iyayi, an infectious personality that would endure pain for others in order to bring light and sunshine to the world. A distinct and stout character, tough and robust, unpredictable in conquering heights just for the world to have peace. That is Alubiya. That is Prof Iyayi.
Here is Iyayi on Alubiya: Alubiya had a heart bigger than his ribs could carry…..I have a black and white photograph of Alubiya and myself…..It is now a little bit yellow and must have been taken at time when Alubiya was perhaps five and I was fourteen. Both of us have black underwear on in the photograph. I am leading him by the hand along the edge of the road and there is sand on our navels. Alubiya’s left hand is raised to protect his eyes from the sun but you can see that he is smiling and saying something to me. He was always laughing. Where he found the energy for such, lively and never ending laughter I can never tell.
Yet, with his permanent smile, Alubiya would take the pain for others. Once a fragile, squeamish pupil committed an offence in class and the teacher was going to give each pupil six strokes of the cane, Alubiya claimed responsibility and received some twenty-four strokes of the cane and some punches to his face. Iyayi behaved the same way as President of ASUU and bore the ferocious wrath of a military government that wouldn’t understand that a moment of weakness and human sympathy can lead to a better understanding of humanity. There was only one night that Alubiya’s never – ending laughter was interrupted by the dead weight of sadness. Here is the reason Alubiya cried that beautiful night. The teacher told us today that the World Health Organisation has solved the problem of chicken pox in the world. This means I’ll have no other problem to solve for the world.”
Such innocence and enthusiasm to help others are some qualities Iyayi will be taking to eternity. The two brothers are in the army and the older one who doesn’t have a name, some kind of every man with evil at heart, has become the chief executioner for a bad regime. This was until one fateful night when Alubiya was brought to the secret firing range to be executed for a phantom coup. Beaten and traumatised, Alubiya is smiling at the face of authority. And his brother lost his nerves. Dr Iyayi tells this story with unpredictable savagery in order to expose the uncanny brutality of military administrations. He reaches down to the depth of wrath and bestiality associated only with animals.
Iyayi stood for fairness, truth and equality of humanity at all times. These are the virtues raised by the characters in his books; whether it is Idemudia in Violence, Osime in Heroes or Alubiya in Awaiting COURT Martial, Iyayi would always raise the lamp to expose the rotten side of a society that renews its strength by trampling on, and stealing from the poor and the helpless.
Iyayi would always hide behind his characters to question “problems that were written on the face of the country, on the faces of the villages in those days and which have become worse today. Problems such as hunger and kwashiorkor, the mass death from malaria and yellow fever, the ignorance and illiteracy on the streets, the private looting of the public treasuries by those in positions of power, the distance of government from the villages……… the lack of the most basic and essential amenities such as drinking water and electricity, the nakedness of the people on the street, the heavy burden of unemployment.”
Even as Iyayi goes home, these problems and many more remain stubbornly unsolved. But they will not disturb his glorious passage. Like the character of Alubiya in Awaiting COURT Martial, Iyayi will be laughing all the home, to his creator because he has played his role well.
• Aihe writes from Abuja
The post Festus Iyayi: A tribute appeared first on The Sun News.
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