Artman In The House: I’m a self-confessed Africanist – Kofi Awoonor

[Mirror]

Kofi Awoonor is a Ghanaian poet, novelist and academic who has dabbled in the political waters. The widely published diplomat was in Nigeria recently to speak at the maiden convocation ceremony of the Kwara State University, Malete. In this interview with Friday Flavour's TERH AGBEDEH, he talks about the relationship between iconic arts symbols in Nigeria and Ghana, among other sundry issues.

Before now, when was the last time you were in Nigeria?

Three years ago to take part in the programme organised by the Rivers State Governor (Rotimi Amaechi); Professor Wole Soyinka was there as well to honour that famous writer, Elechi Amadi. It was students sharing forum in a large gathering. What he was talking about, which I latched onto, was the crisis in the Niger Delta, the role of the artistes and writers to projecting an alternative vision.

Did you visit Lagos then?

No, I didn't pass through Lagos. I haven't stopped in Lagos for a long time. The last time was for FESTAC (Second World African Festival of Arts and Culture) in 1977. I stayed at the newly opened Eko Hotel; it was brand new and very exciting. Thousands of people came for the conference. I was part of the Ghana team; Ghana sent a troupe of dancers. I came with my colleague writers like Kwesi Brew, who has passed on now.

You sound nostalgic about 1977, how does it make you feel that the FESTAC experience did not continue?

Sure, I feel disappointed. I thought FESTAC was a wonderful gesture with people coming together in some kind of a wholesome expression of Africa. It gave expression much to not only the art but also to the humanities and their role in the development of the African people. That happened during the military rule in Nigeria. President (Olusegun) Obasanjo (while he was military head of state).

I remember the National Theatre in Nigeria is built in the form of a military cap. In Ghana, we ultimately accepted a gift from China to build a national theatre right in the middle of town, which is very active; it has a resident theatre group that uses it to do their plays and so on.

Also, Ghana's National Theatre hosts a number of television shows and some of the studios that want huge mass participation in their shows rent it and even telecast right from there.

The Ghanaian popular theatre called Concert Party, which was from way back in the 20s came to be resident there and is broadcast from the theatre every week. The artists pay government to use the place but it is subsidised.

Interestingly, in Nigeria, residents of an artists' village adjoining the National Theatre in Lagos can't seem to be able to get in the theatre because they have to come up with at least half a million naira to put up a play there.

I have not been in the board of the National Theatre in Ghana, but I was in a place where I could influence what was happening in the theatre. I was much interested in the appointment of the last director, a senior lecturer and professor in the School of Performing Arts. We brought him down to run the theatre.

The thing is they generate their own funds, pay electricity bills and take care of the grounds. They gave the restaurant to a good caterer with some of the best meals in Accra.

It is close to the military and public offices so people go there to have lunch. Also, maybe take in an art show or an exhibition. They have a good board whose chairman is a Ghanaian lady who has worked in Canada with the Canadian Council of Art. She brought home a lot of fantastic ideas. We supported all of them from the government side.

That is what I think should be done in National Theatre, Lagos. Let the board do what they can and let the state stay away. It should be an independent corporate board with orders to the minister of culture, but is not controlled by the minister of culture because it is a government property.

Considering what you have done with the theatre, how did Ghana handle the discovery of crude oil?

We were very cautious. They had been exploring for oil since the 70s/80s and they finally struck it in mid 2003 or 2004 by the previous government. President Mills, who was a close friend of mine, asked me to work with him at the time in the Council of State.

We reviewed every single agreement and we made all the necessary laws as to how every penny that came from the oil revenue would be used. Every quarter, oil receipts are published in public accounts; they visit parliament first then they are published.

So, anyone who is literate and interested would know that in 2010, Ghana earned so much from oil. What was it used for? It went for budget support, which then of course, translated to support for education, road sector and that sort of thing.

You have been close to power in Ghana and were the one who was the go-between for Rawlings and the academic community when he came to power. Is that correct?

I was very much involved in that.

Do you think it was at that point that Ghana began to get it right, move in the right direction?

I have a feeling that for the first time the Rawlings phenomenon –I use the word phenomenon advisedly– was a rebellion phenomenon. That is a rebellion which had fairly intelligent justification because we were taking a risk after we had adopted the so-called democratic parliamentary system since 1959. That was the last round after the overthrow of (Kwame) Nkrumah. So, 10 years after, Rawlings staged a coup d'état that was short-lived, three months and then election was organised and politicians came back again.

Within two and half years Rawlings came back with the support of many of us from the universities, the lecturers, the writers; the academic community as a whole.

Not 100 percent but at least, those of us who had been active on the left. The post Nkrumah remnant, most of us who considered ourselves the pan-African children of Nkrumah socialist ideas supported Rawlings and we worked with him for 10 years, 1982 to 1992.

The first i n – gredient was the reconstruction of the base government at the local government, we divided the country into new districts and now we have about 175 districts made up of 500,000 people where you can give them a mini parliament where they elect people.

This happened during the military rule?

Yes, we started it then and the whole formula was worked out at that time. A certain percentage of government budget is ceded to the district and his goes into markets, to build culverts, to look after roads; they are doing pretty well.

That was the basis on which we then crafted a new constitution, which was the 1992 constitution, which then created a parliament. Those of us who were involved in the politics around Rawlings came to the conclusion that you can't get it right at the top unless you get it right at the base.

In 1992 politi- cal parties were allowed to f o r m . We formed the party called the National Demo c r a t i c Congress, NDC, which won power twice. We lost to John Kufour in 2000, who stayed for eight years and we won in 2008 with John Atta Mills, who passed away and (John) Mahama took over.

You are said to have played a very important role in that transition?

Sure. Mills was my very good friend; we came from the same neck of the woods, academia. People believe that those of us from the academia cannot be good politicians, it is not true. There is a culture in these institutions which can influence the political arena and Mills came with that.

A humble man; he was a Professor of Law, tax expert and at a time called by Rawlings to head the National Internal Revenue Service. It was from there he went on to become the vice president. I was then in the diplomatic service, I served in Brazil, Cuba and ultimately at the United Nations.

When I finished my UN service in 1994, I came back and worked with the party. Ultimately, when Mills was vice president, I was made a minister in the office of the president and I worked very closely with him.

When he won in 2008, we had a council of state made up of 25 people, 10 elected from all the 10 regions, 10 appointed by the president and five included a former chief justice, a former chief of defence staff of the armed forces, the president of the national house of chiefs...

Your first publication of poetry was in 1964 that makes you a contemporary of Christohper Okigbo...

I knew him very well, he was a fantastic chap. I think we first met in 1952 in Kampala (Uganda). Chinua (Achebe) was there too. He had just published Things Fall Apart. J.P. Clarke was there as well, so was the man who wrote People of the City, Cyprian Ekwensi and Ngugi (wa Thiongu), who was still an undergraduate at Makerere University when he joined us for the conference carrying his manuscript of Weep not Child all over the place. What was also exciting was the presence of Langston Hughes, who came from the Diaspora.

It was there that we would attempt – I use the word advisedly – to describe or define what African literature is. Resolving the whole debate of whether we, who write in these colonial languages, can actually claim any authenticity to be real Africans. The debate has matured over many decades drawing the conclusion that European languages that came into Africa came to colonise and then we took them over by force of history, we needed to use them.

The guys who gave articulation to this brilliantly are Chinua Achebe and to a very large extent, Christopher Okigbo. In Okigbo's hands, the English language acquired its own classical resonance from where he was coming from. And of course, Achebe's classics, to me, he only wrote two books, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God.

The rest are monologues, dialogues sometimes of all kinds of contemporary discourse. I think Arrow of God is his best book because it generates a discourse, a debate. Things Fall Apart is too flat, it is a single directional proposition.

The stylistics is incredible however, and I see so many people trying to imitate him over the years, but they can't. He had mastered the English language and many people don't know that Achebe was a master of the English language.

He knows the English language inside out, that is why he can use it, and he can turn it around, as Caesar said, as a miraculous weapon against his naïve conquerors. Christopher on the other h a n d didn't produce much. He has, I think, one single slim volume then a few things scattered all over.

But the work that he did became a composition of both the linguistic and artistic cultural rostrum on which educated Africans were taught. in his work you will find classical allusions, you will find European classical music juxtaposed with traditional motifs.

That is not too different from what you have done with the oral tradition of your people. You turned it into impressive poetry written in English.

What I did is slightly different from what Okigbo did. He was working more or less as an African scholar who has discovered Western European thought and classical forms and has had courage not to run away from the traditions where he is from.

Your pen name was George Awoonor-Williams, what informed that?

That's not my pen name really, that's my family name. I come from Wheta, next door to Togo. We were very early anglicised in that area of the country. My great great grandfather was a member of the people who gave land to the Presbyterians and Christianity became endemic.

So, this was a family name but I chopped off all the Christian names for the purposes of sheer convenience. And I am a self-confessed Africanist and I don't feel right to go around with all these 'Anglo-Saxonist' tags.

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