Poet and former Commissioner of
Information in Adamawa State, Dr. Abubakar Othman, told a gathering in
Ibadan on Saturday that he lost about 3,000 books to the forced
occupation of his home in Madagali by the violent Islamic sect known as
Boko Haram.
The former commissioner, who now teaches
English and Literature at the University of Maiduguri, said he had felt
deeply hurt when the books, which he regarded as his most valuable
possessions, were destroyed by members of the Boko Haram.
He said, “In all my travels abroad, I
have never bought anything except books. When I served as commissioner
for information in my state, I travelled all over the world. My
estacodes went into purchasing books. Also, as a chief of staff with the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, I spent my estacodes on
books.
“So I had a large collection of books,
about 3,000 choice titles across every discipline – in addition to the
ones I had acquired as a student – in my home in Madagali. It was a
really special collection. Sadly, all the books were vandalised by the
insurgents.”
Othman said his home was looted and
virtually nothing was left behind, in addition to the destruction of his
personal library and its priceless cultural contents.
He said, “From the fragments of
information that I received from some of the residents – most of whom
are still trapped in Madagali – the members of the sect that moved into
my house hated anything that is intellectual or academic. I don’t have a
house any more. The Boko Haram have taken over my home. They have taken
over my community.”
In his keynote speech, the former
anti-corruption crusader described writers as very special people in the
society who have the capacity to see beyond the present.
He said that though writers had done a
lot for Africa by exposing and attacking social and political evils
plaguing the continent at different times in the past, the collective
spirit with which they tackled national issues no longer existed.
“The civil war crisis that provided a
platform for the rallying of creative talents, which generated an
impressive body of literature, is not replicated in the current national
crisis, such as the Boko Haram insurgency,” he said.
Othman also noted that the failure of
the Nigerian military, which parades a “long list of generals and highly
trained officers equipped with the most sophisticated instruments of
war”, to crush an insurgency led by street urchins and hoodlums is not
only baffling but a challenge to writers to start asking questions about
the state of the nation.
Indicting Nigerian writers for not
rising to the occasion, he said, “Great literary works usually come out
of great national tragedies. Today, Nigeria is faced with its worst
national tragedy since independence. We have a dehumanising government, a
strangulating corruption, a decadent democracy and an army of ethnic
lunatics and religious fanatics let loose on the entire nation with
brutal and gruesome consequences. The fact that no serious work of
creative imagination has come out in response to these tragedies is an
indictment of the relevance of the writer in contemporary Nigeria.”
To underscore the seriousness of the
situation in the North East, the poet added that academic life in the
University of Maiduguri had been adversely affected by the insurgency.
He said, “This is no longer the
University of Maiduguri that people used to know. The campus is dull and
most members of the academic community are always under a state of
fear. In the midst of studies and preparation for examinations, they
hear the sound of fighting and bomb blasts. This has become part of the
life of students on the campus.
“The insurgency has, directly or
indirectly, affected the quality of teaching in the university. We had
to scale down the duration of lectures from one hour to 40 minutes. This
means that all lectures must wind up by 4 pm. This rule also includes
other activities on campus.
“The insurgency has also affected
enrolment into the university to a large extent. The decline is almost
50 per cent. “I remember that I was trying to teach African poetry and I
wanted to introduce a Yoruba myth. When I asked if there was a Yoruba
student in the class, there was nobody. So I shifted to talking about ogbanje and I asked if there was an Igbo student in attendance. Only one person stood up. Even then, he was a Maiduguri Igbo.
“I would say that virtually 70 per cent
of the students who used to come from the South did not come as 100
level students this year. A few that are left in the institution are
mostly in final year or 300 level and they are probably still hanging on
because it is too late for them to leave for other universities. The
student enrolment has dropped seriously. To be realistic, it has gone
down by about 50 per cent.”
