I strive to entertain and moralize in my books – Patrick Tagbo Oguejiofor
Patrick Tagbo Oguejiofor has published several children’s books, two novels
and three collections of poems as well as dozens of short stories in anthologies of literature and journals. He has also authored a play which was staged in Maiduguri, Yola and Abuja and won the NYSC Director-General’s Prize for Drama in 1996. Having served as Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Abuja and Yobe State Chapters respectively, he is currently the Executive Secretary of the Christopher Okigbo Foundation. The Enugwu-Ukwuborn civil servant has been shortlisted for ANA/Cadbury Prize for Poetry. In this interview, he talks about the intricacies of children literature and more.
You are releasing three children’s book. Could you tell us what they are about?
Actually, I have just released four new books for children, to the glory of God. The first, Emeka and the Kidnappers came out last years. The other three: Haunted House, The Great Medicine Man, and The Great Wrestler were released in the month of March, 2018. Let me talk briefly about them. First, Emeka and the Kidnappers is the second book in a trilogy of what I call ‘The Emeka Adventure Series’. The first in that trilogy was The Secret Place. It was one of the 109 entries that the Nigeria LNG Prize for Literature in 2015 received. The Prize, as you are aware, was never awarded that year. But the book made the list of the 17 the judges selected. Haunted House is the third in the series. The publication of the Secret Place gave me the opportunity of attending the Children’s Literature Master Class Workshop organized by the Nigeria LNG. Further, the book sold thousands of copies. This naturally encouraged me to do a sequel. And I ended up with a trilogy.
The two other books are in fact yet the last two of a trilogy. The first is The Great Hunter, which was published in 2015. The last two, The Great Wrestler and, The Great Medicine Man has just been released. The books tried to take the children of Africa to the past while at the same time trying to put in them the need to be upright. The books appeared in the Mazariyya Junior Literature Series, which was designed for teenagers and young adults with the aim of providing exciting stories set in Africa for pleasure and supplementary reading. Some of the stories (like The Secret Place, Emeka and the Kidnappers and Haunted House) are set in contemporary Nigeria, and deals with contemporary social problems. For example, The Secret Place deals with the problems of fake drugs, Emeka and the Kidnappers as the title indicates deals with the evil of kidnapping. Finally, Haunted House deals with religious fraud. The others: The Great Hunter, The Great Medicine Man and The Great Wrestler are set in the past. The aim remains to provide a pleasurable reading for children and young adults while keeping them away from the computer. On the whole there are two trilogies of six books published between 2015 and 2018. God has indeed been gracious to me.
It seems you are specializing on children story. Can you tell us why?
You see, before the publications of the last six books for children, I have published two other children’s books: Cobwebs in the Sky (2005), and On the Lap of the Gods (2008). With eight books for children, I can unashamedly claim to be a writer of children’s book. Many reasons account for my interest to write for children. To begin with, I was and still remain an avid reader of children’s literature. During my teenage years, I devoured them in the dozens. I was always in public and school libraries reading children literature. The more I read, the more I feel the urge to write. My favourites are works by Cyprian Ekwensi, Kola Onadipe, Ifeoma Okoye, Teresa Meniru among others. These books always set my imagination flying. I felt I could share my own experience. Secondly, I am strongly convinced that the best way to build a nation is to catch our children during their formative years through good literature about Africa. Good literature for children today will give us a better world tomorrow. Our world is sick and I am offering my services to cure it. I want to change the world through a revolution of wellwritten children’s book. Finally, I enjoy writing. Writing to me has become part of life. I can’t imagine how my world would look like if I do not share my views through the art of creative writing, particularly writing for children.
Speaking about the 2015 NLNG Prize, did you feel like the non-longlisting of children story was a negative indicator for the genre in Nigeria?
I must confess that I was not happy with the decision of the management of the Nigeria LNG Prize for Literature not to make a long-list of my work and others who made the list the judges initially selected. I had the opportunities of reading some of those books-I mean the list that was never published, and I can say that many of them were well written and could compete favourably with other previous long list of NLNG. This decision inevitably denied some of us the opportunity to give our works a boost. But then the decision to invite us to a workshop was great and I am grateful to be at that workshop. I do not see the failure to publish a long list as a negative indicator for children’s literature. Just as I said earlier, I read many of the books that did make the initial selection and I was impressed with them. The truth is that every judge has his own opinion of a literary work. I do respect the judges’ opinions and indeed the decision of the organizers of the Nigeria NLG Prize for Literature. But I have given suggestions on how they could improve. Nigerian writers should be grateful to Nigeria LNG Limited for the opportunities they are giving to them.
A workshop was organisned by the NLNG for some select children literature writers in the fallout of that no longlisting in 2015 and you were one of the people at the workshop. Would you say that workshop has been helpful to the genre?
It was very beneficial to those of us who participated in it. The workshop taught me so many things about writing for children which I never knew before. The organizers even sent me a book of proceedings not long ago. There were very brilliant facilitators like Prof. Kim Reynolds and Dr Helen Limon. Most of the texts that they used for the workshop were written by foreigners except for Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe and a book by Prof. Ezeigbo. I suggest that in future they use more of children’s classics by Nigerians such as Ekwensi, Onadipe, Meniru and so on. Then they should use more of Nigerian resource persons - we have many good ones.
Your books pose and tackle moral dilemmas. How important do you think moralising should be in children literature?
Yes some of them pose moral dilemmas not just for children but for adults too. Take for example, The Great Medicine Man.