Olamide Babatunde
Remy Ajakah was still working as a contract staff with a popular radio station in Port Harcourt when he enrolled for a second degree in music but abandoned his final year screening exercise when he got a better job offer in 2009 with a foremost ICT company in Lagos.
His passion for writing would have been made manifest when he zealously joined the school press club in SS1, but his writing obsession was overshadowed by the call and love for his gift in singing and stage performance. He featured prominently during social events, performing only his own original songs and contributing just an essay “The Fall of Ngwa High School” to the school press club throughout his membership.
His combined passions for writing and entertainment exceeded even his tertiary education. Despite the busy nature of his new job Remy’s love for writing and entertainment continued to trail him. He spent his weekends in the recording studios and midnight hours writing random essays meant for a company magazine.
Each of these activities did not render him wanting as he had results to show for every one of them. His frequent weekend visits to recording studios culminated into a music album production in 2010 which was titled The Epistles of St.
Remy. His hard work endeared him to the hearts of the management team who recommended for his promotions and subsequent transfer to head the Liberia branch of the company. Though his essays were not later published in the company magazine due to its abandonment, they became handy when he launched his first blog, “Umuafrika.com.”
While in Liberia, Remy Ajakah narrowed his activities to his job and part-time blogging with an eye on destination branding and social critiquing. It was in the course of this that his obsession for photography also manifested. Unfortunately, in 2011, his little blogging activities landed him into trouble when he was doing a write up titled “The Grandeur of Power.”
Pictures of the presidential motorcade were discovered in his phone by the Liberian security operatives who arrested and detained for three days on the suspicion of being on espionage and terrorism.
The outcome of the sad event was the loss of his job. Remy went into personal business, focusing on branding and media production. To aid his business, he launched another blog libluv.com which centred strictly on showbiz.
By this, Remy became the first blogger in Liberia and the first individual to run a street based reality show called “Wetin U Get?” With the outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014, he returned to Nigeria and duplicated his pursuits, though with a different company name.
Currently, Remy Ajakah lives in Monrovia with frequent visit to Nigeria, sharing his time between creative writing and other businesses. The Libericans is his first published book.
Ajakah had a change in conviction when he had his first chance to leave the shores of Nigeria. With it came the need to reeducate the public about Africa. This led him on the path of writing.
“I was basically inspired to write the book The Libericans by the need for public reeducation about Africa; a continent that has been ‘beastified’ as an entity by the media (both local and foreign). I grew up to realise that there was more to reality than what TV and radio present to us.”
The little boy in him only knew certain parts of Africa had only to do with wars and warlords as well as child soldiers and accompanying social vices. These were information picked from the media.
“When a need for one of my visits to Liberia came up, I sort to know more about the country by surfing the internet. However, I felt disappointed that, more than 15 years after the civil war in that region, nothing far from my previous perception was displayed for me: children with guns longer than them, indigent kids and sections of a smoked city,” he said.
“After my visit, it was plain that traveling was one of the best forms of education. It was a whole new experience and I thought there was need to project the fact that people who lived simple and normal lives can also make good and big stories,” he added.
The novel, though a work of fiction, went beyond current struggles of some former child soldiers and the vulnerability of the girl child. In as much as the book did not neglect some ugly realities on ground, It is a story of romance and adventure that trailed a man’s life of work, thereby highlighting the less emphasised elegance of a people in an environment once ravaged by war.
Set in Monrovia, the postwar Atlantic Coast and beautiful capital city of Liberia, The Libericans showcases a West African state beyond stereotype imagery. It is another attempt to project the region from an indigenous perspective.
As much as the writer in him strives for truth and positivity, he would realise that writing is no soft beat. He experienced bouts of and unprecedented technical glitches. His original manuscript took two years to finish and later was split in parts. “The Libericans is only about one quarter of the entire work,” he said.
When he finally decided to get published his hopes were dashed by publishing houses in Nigeria. “I think communication is key to everything. I had started searching for Nigerian publishers, even before my manuscript was ready. I had thought it would have been more convenient dealing with them but the reverse was the case.
“Just to establish correspondence through a Nigerian company’s website was a herculean task. Those who were accessible had too much protocols. Then a friend of mine introduced me to some oversea publishing companies who started competing with each other as they bombarded me with offers. I must confess that the offers were not too fantastic but they were too available to be neglected despite not being cheap.”
He admits Libericans was hugely influenced by the works of Chimamanda Adichie. He remembers buying books by China Achebe and having read other authors, too. “I had read a couple of books while growing up. But, honestly, I am not sure if it was because they were written by mine or my friends’ favourite authors. I read books by Robert Ludlum, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, etc., but I am not sure if they were my favourites because I can’t remember buying their books with my money. They were all lent to me. However, I remember buying books by Ben Carson, Chinua Achebe”.