The other secular event, which they simply called anniversary, was the annual commemoration of the coming of the Gospel to Igbo land , on July 27 1857. It is reported that Bishop Adjai Crowther and his missionary team, who arrived in Onitsha on that day. The day was heavily beaten by rain, and as a result every anniversary celebration has been ruined by bad weather. The good news is that the school children were always fed new Yams and Stew at the anniversary celebration. For most of the students it was their first taste of juicy new yam for the year.
White people were a rare sight in the British colonised Nigeria, whether in the administration, church or in commerce. But this rareness did not diminish their authority. Onitsha province of British resident was under the Captain O’Connor, Achebe saw him only twice from a distance. The Bishop on the Niger, Reverend Bertram Lasbrey came to their church perhaps once in two or three years. His sermon left him disappointed. Perhaps he thought that a Bishop must set congregation ablaze. Perchance it was the problem of having to preach through an interpreter.
Further Achebe explains the customary education system in Onitsha. “Elementary education began with two years in infant school and six years in primary school. For some children there was a preschool year in what was called religious school, where they spent a year chanting and dancing the catechism”. But he spared it as he gained the adequate amount of religious education at home from the daily portion of the Bible they read at prayer time in every morning and night.
Later, he recollects the incidents associated to the second world war. The Second World War began just as he was finishing his second year in primary school, that is, in Standard Two. The rest of his primary education happened against its distant background. But it got close one morning when two white people and their assistants came to their school and conscripted (compulsory enlistment to military service) our art teacher. They were loyal to Britain and did what they could to help. He remembers the campaign to increase the production of palm kernels for the war effort. Their headmaster told them that every kernel they collected in the bush would buy a nail for Hitler’s coffin. As the war continued, supplies for home and school became more and more scarce. Salt was severely rationed, and disappeared from the open market.
He sings a war song entitled “Germany is falling”
“Germany is falling, falling, falling
Germany is falling to rise no more.
Germany is falling to rise no more
Tell Hitler I’m not coming there
Germany is falling to rise no more.”
He talks about his secondary schools education that he had two choices for secondary school, the very popular Dennis Memorial Grammar School, a C.M.S. institution in Onitsha, or Government College, Umuahia, much farther away and much less known to him. His elder brother John, a teacher who had taken Achebe to live with him in his last year of primary school, decided he should go to Umuahia. It was not the decision he would have made himself. But John turned out to be, as usual, absolutely right about the decision.
The British colonial administration had established two first class boarding schools for boys in Nigeria in the decade following the end of the first world war, one at Ibadan and the other at Umuahia. Robert Fisher was the founding Principal of Government college of Umuahia and the college opened its door in 1929. The college reached at the peaks of excellence by the time Fisher retired 8 years later. After the advent of second world war the government college Umuahiya was closed down and its buildings turned over to a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian nationals. Then, the campus was returned to education and ready to accept my generation of students in 1944.
Their new principal William Simpson, a Cambridge man in the colonial education service did a great effort to rebuild the school. He was of the opinion that “excessive devotion to book work is a real danger”. Though Simpson was a mathematics teacher, he made a rule which prompted the reading of novels and prohibited the reading of any text books after classes on the weekend. He called it the Text book Act. Under the draconian (harsh) law, students could read fictions or biographies or magazines and so on.
The government college of Umuahia played a significant role in the development of modern African literature. The notable alumni of the college were Christopher Okigbo, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi and Ken Saro Wiwa etc.
When Achebe was in first or second year at Umuahia, the labour government in Britain decided to establish a university in West Africa. Afterwards a commission was formed under Walter Elliot. They were sent to survey the situation on the ground. The commission spent a whole weekend at their school. Most of them came to chapel service on Sunday morning, but Julian Huxley, the biologist, roamed over extensive grounds watching birds with binoculars. The Elliot commission report led to the foundation of Nigeria’s first University institution: a university college at Ibadan in special relationship with London. By that time he was ready for university education and no longer a British protected child but a British protected person.
One of the most remarkable teachers he encountered at Ibadan was James Welch, professor of religious studies. He played many roles as the as the head of religious broadcasting at the BBC in London, Chaplain (clerk) to the king and a principal of a theological college.
In his final year at Ibadan, he once had a chance to discuss with Professor Welch one of a growing number of disagreements the students were beginning to have with the college. He was then vice principal. In some exasperation he said to me, “We may not be able to teach you what you want or even what you need. We can only teach you what we know.”
“Even in exasperation, James Welch stayed calm and wise. What else can an honest and conscientious teacher teach but what he knows? The real teachers I have had in my life have been people who did not necessarily know what my needs would ultimately be but went ahead anyhow in good faith and with passion to tell me what they knew, leaving it to me to sort out whatever I could use in the search for the things that belonged to my peace. Because colonialism was essentially a denial of human worth and dignity, its education program would not be a model of perfection…”
Through the essay he wants to suggest that human affairs are unpredictable. On the other hand he doesn’t want to make protest against the harsh humiliations of colonial rule.
Again, he shares his memories of the Reverend Robert Fisher. Technically he was on the side of colonizers, he was such a spirit. Achebe appreciates the visions and passions of him to create a new school at Umuahia and he rejected the position of Bishop. Years later he explained this decision by saying that he can never be a good bishop. But, Achebe says this was not the real reason. The crest (emblem) he brought to Umuahia was a pair of torches, one black another white shining together. A generation later an Australian teacher added the logo “In unumluceant” (we can light together) under the emblem.
And there was William Simpson, teacher of mathematics, who would have been greatly surprised if anyone had said to him in the 1940s that he was preparing the ground for the beginnings of modern African literature. Or even that strange Englishman J. M. Stuart Young, who opted out of the colonial system in Onitsha and set himself up in competition against his own people in giant European trading companies. His ambition to open up commerce to African traders may have seemed quixotic at the time, but the people of Onitsha admired him and gave him a big traditional funeral when he died.
Eventually he concludes his words by saying that in 1976 U.S relation with Nigeria became unpleasant particularly because America mishandled the issues of Angola, Cuba and South Africa. The U.S secretary Henry Kissinger whose indifference to Africa spread a negative impact. Later, Kissinger and Joseph Garba, the Nigerian foreign minister decided to meet at United Nations. There, Kissinger asked Garba what he thought America was doing wrong in Africa. To which Garba replied stubbornly : “Everything”. But Kissinger didn’t admit this and said : “Statistically that is impossible. Even if it is unintentional, we must be doing something right.”
This is how colonizers always justified their act of colonialism.
Thanks da.
ReplyDeleteIt's indeed a good effort man