The eaters of the living have eaten the prize

The blurb to Musa Idris Okpanachi’s first collection of poetry, ‘The Eaters of the Living’, trumpets that the volume “examines the destiny of our nation floundering in the throes of anomie, corruption, power games and politics.”

Around the time the author was picking up the ANA/Cadbury Prize for Poetry for the book, he was short-listed for the biggest laurel in Nigerian writing, the NLNG Prize for Literature, which sought to honour the poetry genre this year.

A Cinderella analogy

“I strongly hoped to win,” Okpanachi says. “I’m not a defeatist; I’m a very optimistic person.” He however adds that he does not write to win awards. “When I was writing, the NLNG was remote; I wrote to please myself. But when it became public, I got carried away. It looked like a dream.”

Winning aside, it felt good just being short-listed alongside eight other poets, including Omo Uwaifo, Hyginus Ekwuazi, Lindsay Barrett and Ahmed Maiwada.

But the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) Book Party, held for the shortlisted poets at the Goethe Institut in Lagos, and at which eight of them showed, was as good as it got. “The CORA Book Party was the only place we were celebrated,” Okpanachi says.

“They didn’t get in touch with us (for the award event); they didn’t invite us. Our names were not on the list of invited guests; only the big people. I kept phoning Ekwuazi,” he recalls. “I laughed and laughed. I said: when you write poetry, you’re using irony to recreate the world, you shouldn’t be surprised if the irony starts to play itself out in your life.”

Going by the Cinderella analogy of the NLNG managing director at the award gala on October 10, the nine would-be kings of Nigerian literature were turned into pumpkins before the night was over.

The judges decided that none among the short-listed poets merited the $50,000 prize; the cash haul would go instead to the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL).

“The eaters of the living have eaten the prize,” Okpanachi says flatly. “What can I do? You want me to go to the creeks and take up arms and wait for national amnesty? I am patient. Let me be patient. What happened is part of being a victim.”

He says the metaphorical equivalent of the NLNG fiasco is already prefigured in his book, the title poem of which best encapsulates his current mood. “‘The Eaters of the Living’ has a very deep metaphorical connotation.

It is a paraphrased metaphor from the Quran, which asks: ‘will you eat the flesh of your dead brother?’ Eating the dead, of course, is less painful than eating the living.” The Quran was warning against backbiting, he informs, adding that ‘The Eaters of the Living’ is a victim of its own title.

It was written

“If you read the book, I feel I’ve predicted what is happening in the country,” Okpanachi declares. “Look at the pages of newspapers, what is happening in the country, and the level to which they are tolerated. Corruption is like water that is absorbed by the absorbent. We are all guilty. We tolerate a lot of things.”

To him, the NLNG award decision is also part of the malaise. On the one hand, Okpanachi feels the treatment meted out to him and the other short-listed writers is destiny. On the other, he views the decision “not in terms of the reward, but in terms of the insult to Nigeria as the intellectual powerhouse of Africa.

"We have placed the value of money above creativity. How can you say in the entire country, nobody has won this? How can you say that?”

Journalists and critics, he insists, have a role to play in the matter. “If something is wrong, just say it – even if you have no power to change anything.”

The framework of Islam allows one to act; if one cannot act, one speaks; at worst, one can hate the wrongdoing in one’s mind. Okpanachi would like an independent evaluation of the short-listed books, “To redeem the state of literature in Nigeria, especially poetry, which is the cultural articulation of nationhood.”

The judges’ report

According to the judges’ report, ‘The Eaters of the Living’ is at a “distance from the everyday picture of its environment” – and its “bleak vision blunts the incisiveness and poignancy of the verse.”

Musa Idris Okpanachi, a lecturer at the Department of English, University of Maiduguri, disagrees: “I do not think any establishment person will like my poems in ‘Eaters’.

It seems the judges are pro-establishment and they don’t want anything that will touch the sensitivity of government. I don’t believe I’m distanced from my society. Let the people judge.

“Poetry is poly-semantic. A poem does not mean only one thing. Like a stamp you can put on any envelope, you can stretch and transpose the meaning. Love can mean strangulation, or dictatorship. The ‘I’ of the poem can mean ‘We’. Look, they are mistaken.”

He throws a challenge to the judges: “Let them tell me how many members of the Nigerian Academy of Letters have produced outstanding literature. We want to read their literature. Let us see what they have done to promote literature in the past.”

The poet says that the judges’ conclusions contradict the body of their report, pointing out that Ekwuazi, Maiwada and two others were held up as the role models on the shortlist. “Role model is an archetype, which means perfection.

They said the best of the best cannot hope to win. It is a clear refusal to grant the award, not based on the evaluation of the works,” Okpanachi insists. “If George Orwell had written ‘Animal Farm’ now, the judges would have called it child’s play, that it doesn’t merit literature of national stature. I can say that on their behalf.”

Okpanachi takes solace in the groundswell of public support . “I have received letters of condolences,” he reveals. He has also gleaned Facebook discussions expressing disappointment, as well as fellow shortlisted poet Lindsay Barrett’s statement.

“Many people are not happy,” is the conclusion. “When Cadbury short-listed me, I didn’t think I would win. When they announced me the winner, there were no negative reactions. The NLNG is supposed to be an institution; they need to protect their reputation.

Islamic ideal versus reality

“If the judges are listening, they must have seen the kind of anger... If they are sensitive to public opinion, they will change.” However, the poet believes nothing will change just now. “Journalists and public commentators have spoken; has anything happened?” He asks.

Does that not contradict his earlier stance on the need to speak up? “That was the ideal. I was talking about the Islamic ideal versus the reality,” he insists. “Putting something on record; you don’t know what it has for posterity – as long as this world lasts. Many will say nothing, but they support.”

But what of those who say the judges are correct and that the poets are just sore losers? Okpanachi says he’s not surprised at such views. “Some people inherently believe in authority,” he declares.

He says any future entries of his for the prize will depend on publishers, who are unhappy about this year’s outcome. “They may be very sceptical about future participation. But it is a business enterprise; you should be ready to take risks.”

Meanwhile, he says the judges’ decision will only spur him on to work harder and produce better work. He is putting finishing touches to a second poetry collection, tentatively titled ‘Pigs, Angels and Dogs’. He is also working on a novel, ‘From the Margins of Paradise’.

On the 2009 NLNG Literature Prize, Okpanachi says he cannot, “like Lot’s wife,” look back. “It’s not just about winning. You can win and not be honourable. That would be more shameful than winning.”