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By Henry Akubuiro
One of the major attractions of the 20th edition of the Nigeria International Book Fair, which was held recently at the Harbour Point Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, was the presentation of Wale Okediran’s latest novel, Madagali, a book predicated on the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria’s Northeast region.
In his opening remarks, Chairman of the occasion, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, said Dr Wale Okediran, the current Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers Association based in Accra, Ghana, was trained as a medical doctor, later became a member of Nigeria’s Federal House of Representatives, but “is more known in Nigeria and abroad as a writer of great distinction.”
He recalled that Okediran’s award winning book, Tenants of the House, a factional account of his stay in the National Assembly, was recently adapted into a motion picture.
Literary history, he said, was replete with books and novels capturing, in fictional form, momentous events in the historical developments of many countries. That informed the title of his speech — “When Fiction Mirrors Life”.
He gave more examples, “While the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was about World War 1, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was a fictional account of the American Civil War, while Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternack captured the Soviet Union at the time of the Russian Revolution.
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“Nearer home in Nigeria, a plethora of novels have been written on the Nigerian Civil War such as Cyprian Ekwensi’s Divided We Stand, Eddie Iroh’s Forty Eight Gun Salute for the General, Aniebo’s Behind the Rising Sun, as well as Chimamanda Adiche’s Half of a Yellow Sun, among others.
“For the past decade or so, Nigeria has been battling with the Boko Haram insurgency which has affected many Nigerians however far they were from the specter of the crisis. As expected Nigerian writers at home and abroad have commenced the necessary and very important duties of documenting the insurgency in fiction and non-fiction. One of such fictional efforts is Wale Okediran’s Madagali, which is being presented here today.”
The book’s title, Madagali, he reminded the audience, was derived from Madagali town in Adamawa State, which was recently in the headlines as one of those towns in the Northeast, which suffered a lot of attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Although the town might not be the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, the senator said the town deserved the book title in the hope that the expected global and national attention to it, among other badly affected towns in Nigeria, would lead to a further abhorrence of the insurgency.”
Calling on every Nigerian to support the fight against insurgency, he said, “As has been well elaborated over the years, the fight against insurgency is not limited to the government. It is the duty of every Nigerian to support the government’s efforts in every way possible.”
He congratulated the author and the publisher, Evans, on “another wonderful contribution to the Nigerian literature”, praying earnestly that, apart from being a form of reading pleasure to many, Madagali, by bringing attention to this decade old insurgency will assist in the urgent and the very important role of finding a quick solution to the problem.”
