I believe I was born to
write. The urge to write is innate in me. It surged within me long before I
actually knew how to write. Poetry was
my other name. I was so passionate about
it before the uncertainty of things in Nigeria weaned me of it. When I was
growing up, in my primary school, District Council School, Oke–Ola, Iwo, we
were taught no poetry nor nursery rhyme, but then everything written in verse
delighted me, every poetical expression fascinated me, until a cousin of mine
(Basiru) – God rests his soul, brought me a book of nursery rhymes. He attended
his own primary school at a village in Oke – Osun. I monopolized the book for
two months. I was just eleven, I created my first sets of English rhymes then –
though I had been writing things poetic in Yoruba Language earlier. Thanks to
all those classical Yoruba literary masterpieces, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo
Irunmole, Igbo Olodumare. Aditu Olodumare, etc. by D.O. Fagunwa (my
father’s books which I had also made my own) since then I have been writing
poems – and I wrote hundreds of them in 1982 – long poems patterned after those
in the book "Pageantry of longer poems’’.
I finished my primary
school in 1976, and poor me, I couldn’t go to a secondary school. Reasons – poverty
– poverty – broken home – Nigerian factors [demons that unmake prospective
genii]. I was forced to learn photography in 1977 – Read my short story titled “I
need someone to send me to school”. My failed efforts to go to secondary school
inspired that story. True, I couldn’t go to school, I taught myself. I bought
books and magazines. I read Times International and Newsweek, American
magazines. Nigeria was better off then. Despite everything, poor me could
afford buying those magazines in the 70’s, something I can’t do now. Those
magazines are not even being imported to impoverished Nigeria of today like
before. They are now for super elites.
I knew a lot about the
world then than now. Zimbabwe got her independence before my very eyes. Iran
and Iraq waged their war boldly before me. I knew Indira Gandhi one on one [through
reading however] but now, I hardly know what happens in Nigeria if not for Facebook
and other social platforms – I was closer to news especially in newspapers and
magazines then than I am now. I read I read I read, I became better even than
those in secondary school, especially in English and Literature –in –English. I
did this because I knew as a writer, I had to know English language. In 1982, I
sent my first collection of poems ‘’ Listen to a black man singing’’ to Vintage
Press in USA, a vanity publisher. I couldn’t publish the book then because I
couldn’t afford the $3,000 I was asked to pay. It was not until 1987 that my
poems were first published in the media
- in New Nigeria Newspaper, Kaduna, in Triumph Newspaper, Kano, The Arts
and Literary Editors then, who edited the poetry column known as, PROEM, Mallam Bashiru Al–Bishak even gave me
an award for an article on how to make Poetry popular in Nigeria. I also
remember that the poems in Triumph Newspaper then were preferred then in
bilingual – i.e. English/Hausa, English/Yoruba, etc. The Title of one poem of mine I remember is, “Igba
kii to lo bi Orere”. I can’t remember the English title now, but it dealt
with dynamics and non – permanence of things. I also published a poem, “When
the heaven shall fall down” in MAY ELLEN EZEKIEL’s (MEE of blessed memories)
Classique. Then I had only Primary education, but I had taught myself to some
extent and my poems were deemed publishable.
I loved writing very
much then, I got to Zaria in 1983 and by 1985, honestly, I had completed my
first Hausa poetry collection, “Sautin Saurayi” though this was never
published because my mastery of Hausa language was poor and not only that, the
fund was not there.
….TO
BE CONTINUED
