Poetry as the literary form that exalts the most in mnemonic devices repetition, rhyme, rhythm, imagery, not to mention economy of words - is for that reason a perfect vehicle for the preservation of memory
Very, very important. Those who cannot remember the past, the philosopher George Santayana, famously warned, are doomed to repeat it. And closer home, we are all familiar with the aphorism on the importance of knowing “where the rain began to beat us.” Poetry as the literary form that exalts the most in mnemonic devices - repetition, rhyme, rhythm, imagery, not to mention economy of words - is for that reason a perfect vehicle for the preservation of memory.
How much of a validation would winning this prize be for you?
I can’t say. It will no doubt be quite considerable, considering the growing interest it has been generating, many thanks to the prize money! In a different context, in Europe and America, for instance, a prize like the NLNG Nigeria literature prize would instantly catapult its winner to global literary fame. But that is due to a longestablished culture of respect for writers, writing and books - in short, for intellectual labour - with institutions dedicated to promoting its value.
In Nigeria, unfortunately, the cultural infrastructure to optimise the validation conferred by a prize was not only weak to start with, but is now in total shambles. It is going to require even more interventions that go beyond prizes - radical interventions, for instance, in the educational sector, the book publishing industry and in the revaluation of cultural work - to be able to speak of the true extent of validation conferred by a literary prize in Nigeria.
You have been known as an activist for many years and were at some point detained by the Abacha government. Was prison life important to your writing life? Has it inspired any works from you?
It has. The poems I wrote in prison are part of my second collection, Madiba. Moreover, excerpts from my detention memoirs, more than half complete, have been published - in the seminal anthology Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing, edited by the poet Jack Mapanje; in the New Writing Anthology NW 14, published by Granta in collaboration with the British Council, and on the online platform african-writing.com. It is one of the works-in-progress that I hope to bring to fruition next year.
We look forward to reading them. What are your thoughts on the state of poetry in Nigeria at present? Do you think the volume of work being produced has the required quality to define a critical period such as this?
I think that poetry is very much alive and well in Nigeria, as well as in any other epoch. It is, of course, the case that the number of books published anywhere and in any genre is never matched by their quality. It is precisely why prizes, among other means, act as literary gate-keepers or arbiters of taste. I liken this to panning for gold: a horde of “miners” and a great deal of dross, but few and far between the lucky instances of gold nuggets!
Your foray into politics in 2014, aspiring to be a legislator, proved futile. Could you tell us what happened? And from your experience how different would you say poetry and politics are?
Simply, I lost. Because I had no money. When I solicited donations, as little as N10,000, as is done in more respectable climes (though I doubt I can use this word with what happened in the United States of Trump and with Brexit in mind), I was mocked as being unsuitable for the office I sought: “He doesn’t even have a kobo, and he wants to run for the House of Representatives!” What happened was that my opponent, arrested a few days before the primary election by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on suspicions of being a 419 scammer, was released on the very day of the election and escorted by a police convoy into the arena, with him waving triumphantly to the delegates from the back of a pick-up van.
On the strength of tall promises of personal rewards in cash and kind - and, as I heard, of even flying some delegates to Dubai - he beat me hands down. Only for him to disappear the very next day. Such that the party leaders summoned me back from the United States where I had gone to lick my wounds to return home so I might be substituted for the victorious flagbearer who, curiously, was never seen nor heard from again, until he learnt of efforts to substitute my name for his. Well, that didn’t happen, INEC’s window for substituting candidates having closed by that time.
As for the difference between poetry and politics? Between night and day, I’d say! Two totally different preoccupations and I don’t think this needs to be explained beyond saying that one is entirely an activity of the mind, practiced most often in the solitude of contemplation, while the other is the most public of human activities, where the mind, or more precisely, mindlessness, of others, determines the outcome.
Oh, one more thing: you don’t need money to write a poem, while money is just about the only thing you need to have any hope of being taken seriously as a politician. At least, as tends to be the case generally with the brand of electioneering politics we practice in Nigeria. I hope that changes very soon.