Interview ~ ANA would be the loser if we all stick to our guns ~ Odoh Diego Okenyodo
Odoh
Diego Okenyodo is a poet and editor who serves as Country Director of the
Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation. A former National Publicity Secretary
(North) of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), he was appointed into the
National Electoral Committee of the ANA at the Annual General Meeting held in
October 2019 in Enugu, the place of birth of the foremost literary association.
The AGM ended in chaos, as for the first time in the Association's 38-year
history it did not elect an EXCO. Okenyodo, author of the collection ‘From A Poem to Its Creator’, and a
former literary journalist has played a key role in the events that have
unfolded after the Enugu debacle. In this interview with Paul Liam, Odoh Diego
Okenyodo sheds light on some of the actions he and some other members of the
ELCOM took and why he thinks ANA should explore appointing a Caretaker
Committee before holding an election:
Thank you for accepting to speak with me despite
the very short notice, sir.
Thanks for the opportunity.
The ANA Convention held in Enugu last year came
crashing down when the election could not be completed. How would you describe
the build up to the cancellation of that election?
It was the most charged electioneering I've seen, probably after the one
that brought in the late Abubakar Gimba as President. It was needed, though,
because it was an opportunity for the members to know their association more
properly. Questions were being asked because the members seemed to have been
blindsided for very long by the leaders. It shows us what might happen in
Nigeria someday.
As a long-standing member of ANA, where did ANA get it wrong to have
found itself in this embarrassing situation where an out-gone executive
couldn’t conduct an election thereby leaving the association in turmoil?
It is the mental and intellectual laziness of our members that would be
blamed. We wanted freedom and independence without responsibility. I believe
that ANA has always prided in being a free-for-all space. We have not built our
membership with any sense of responsibility but members would always assert
their rights, and we willingly indulged them. In no space do you speak of
rights without responsibilities.
On the one hand are branches that keep no records of members and do not
insist on their members paying for their memberships dues. They sometimes do
not pay registration fees nor do they pay annual dues. On the other hand are
members who feel that they do not have to be affiliated to branches for them to
be recognized at National Conventions and they are indulged by National
Executive members who need such errant participants. It is my belief that what
happened in Enugu took too long to happen. ANA had too many second chances and
we didn't take them.
Will ANA survive this phase?
ANA will. Of course, that depends a lot
on what she does, what its stakeholders do. For instance, after the
postponement of elections in Enugu, we have had reckless interventions from
members at the high and low levels. They looked only at their entrenched
positions. Parties to the dispute who profess to love the Association have gone
on to issue statements in the media that can simply be described as reckless or
immature. There is a level of desperation that has made the mouth of many a
member ajar in surprise.
The ELCOM was constituted by the Congress at Enugu to conduct a free and
fair election for one of Africa's largest literary bodies. Although the
election was botched, would you say that the ELCOM was partly responsible for
the failure of that election considering that it was in its powers to give the
association a new national executive?
Not really. Some individuals in the ELCOM started working against what
the congress had mandated the ELCOM to do. But that was because of the 5th
columnists who held sway in the Association, and there was nothing that could
be done without the support of members. Don't forget that the ELCOM was set up
without any physical tool to work with and we have had to run with our own
commitment as the main resource. I think the unclear nature of the task in the
mind of members was also responsible.
What is the current state of the Electoral Committee?
It remains. An Electoral Committee is traditionally dissolved by handing
over the reins of leadership to the executive whose election it has conducted.
The election was not conducted, and the Congress, through the Committee of
Chairmen, mandated that the ELCOM go ahead and do what is necessary to conduct
the elections. Though one member of the ELCOM has resigned, and two are of the
view that the Congress acted in error, they have not resigned, so the ELCOM
remains, with one member down.
Could you shed more light on the development that led to the resignation
of a member of the committee?
Well, that's what I just explained. One member having resigned is just
that--one member needs to be replaced and the Chairman of the ELCOM, Prof
Adimora Akachi Ezeigbo, should be asked for a progress report on the assignment
we have been given. In all honesty, she maintained right from the outset that
she would not have the time to lead this committee, due to her academic
engagements. My only concern is the appearance of being willing to serve in the
committee named by Prof Femi Osofisan, our revered former President, author and
academic. I think it is a contradiction that Prof Akachi Ezeigbo would be
silent on that offer, instead of rejecting it, and also remain in the ELCOM.
Nonetheless, I choose to look at all this positively, given that it shows that
ANA is still a strong brand that we all want to identify with. I recall that I
also threatened to resign from the Electoral Committee, but here I am still
answering questions from you as a member of the Committee!
There is also the debate about the legitimacy of the Advisory Council
and its decision of setting up a new electoral committee as was sometimes
announced by Professor Femi Osofisan who is also a member of the Advisory
Council. Many are of the view that since Congress is the highest decision
making body of the association, the electoral committee mandated by the
Congress reserves the legitimate powers to conduct the awaited ANA election.
What is your take on this matter?
Right now, many positions being canvassed have an appearance of
validity. If we continue along that line of sticking to our guns, we would not
be near resolving the matter. For instance, as you know, I was a great
proponent of the illegality of the Advisory Council because the Council was never
constituted and presented to the Annual General Meeting for ratification, and
the Council is supposed act in advisory capacity, which a unilateral
dissolution of any organ isn't. I had also argued that the constitution of ANA
says the Advisory Council should advise an EXCO, which mean that since the EXCO
was dissolved and only an ELCOM was in place, the only organ empowered to
exercise discretion was the Congress at the AGM, and that Congress did take a
clear and unambiguous stance, thus no other power could step in.
But, as the Association tries to forge ahead, I put these arguments to
rest on the basis that we still need all parties for ANA to remain strong.
People have to come with clean hands and know that ANA members are aware of all
the antics in the underbelly of the Association now. They cannot be hoodwinked
any longer.
Given all the challenges that now confronts the ELCOM, do you think it
is still possible to have an election in the constitutionally stipulated 180
days? And is there really a way out of this quagmire?
If an election is the issue at stake, it can be held within two weeks.
However, the issues at stake are bigger than an election. Here we have lack of
transparency and a clandestine approach to running an organization clashing
with a greater yearning for openness by a more enlightened crop of members. It
is also a contest between rights and duties. What should a member be entitled
to and what should a member do? Before those two questions is that question of
who a writer is. Our other former President and member of the Electoral
Committee, Odia Ofeimun, has made the latter argument very succinctly in his
insistence on a membership audit before an election can hold. But, even if we
take his extreme position insisting on a membership audit, which I argue that
the Electoral Committee was not given a mandate to conduct, we can utilize
simple technologies to deliver these in one week. We can create an online form
for members or Chapter executives to fill in the information about each member,
including scans of book covers, ISBN, names of publishers, dues paid, and
previous National Conventions attended and we would have a membership audit.
Many things are not as complicated as the members have chosen to make them.
What do you think is the role of the state chairmen and secretaries at
crucial times like this? Do they have any concrete roles to play in all of
this?
They are the ones who hold the hammer and axe now. The Congress
particularly transmitted powers to them. The fact that the ELCOM was given the
authority to continue and conduct an election in 180 days is clearly hinged on
this. Truly, they are the ones who hold the future of ANA right now. It's the
vacuum they have created that is allowing any other person or group to lay
claim to anything. And this is one area of leadership we need to explore in the
future, a kind of capacity building for those taking on positions of leadership
in ANA to know what leadership entails. It's not about calling regular meetings
to read poetry or short stories, but about taking hard decisions in a time like
this. They have to have a sense of the moment they are in, and how their
actions or inactions shape not only the moment but the future.
You and one other member of the committee signed and released a
tentative time table for an election in spite of the challenges in the ELCOM.
What necessitated that decision and how legitimate is it?
It is just what I talked about, knowing what you are enmeshed in, and
what your silence or a single wagging of a finger would do. Yemi Adebiyi and I
believed that the efforts of the Congress should not be rubbished. We all who
went to Enugu could not have paid to participate in an AGM, only to have what
we did termed illegal by people who did not attend, when the Congress had not
said we contravened the constitution. We knew that the ELCOM was still
standing, despite the resignation of Prof Remi Raji. We saw what we were doing,
in releasing that timetable, as a speech on behalf of a whole of ANA, on behalf
of which we felt slighted by such condescending attitude.
What is the actual role of the constitution on matters like this, and do
you foresee this issue heading to the courts?
The constitution is being tested, but most importantly, the power of
those who gave the constitution life is being tested. This is the beauty of the
current situation. Those who have enjoyed fiat in the past do not like what is
happening, understandably; and those of us who have always had the short end of
the stick feel that it's time things rocked a bit. Fortunately, no one is
really thinking that the courts would be a choice anymore. Calls are being made
and there are talks ongoing to calm tempers and forge compromises in the name
of ANA. Like I said earlier, the Association would be the loser if we all stick
to our guns. That does not mean making silly compromises, either.
What do you advice as the best solution to this crisis?
Transparency. Members need to know some hard truths. Some people are not
members; they're not qualified to be members. They need to be told and made to
leave. Maybe they can go and form the Association of Book-less Authors, or
something like that. There are members who do not write, nor engage in creative
writing. They should be asked to leave at some point. We also might require a
Caretaker Committee charged with doing some of the hard stuff. A Caretaker
would resolve three main problems for us. One, it will clean the stable for the
incoming EXCO by conducting membership audits and doing some of the hard and
dirty works that need to be done. Two, it will bridge a silent problem that
would emerge when we elect a substantive EXCO at any time other than
October/November because our EXCO is constitutionally mandated to vacate the
seat after two years. That means, if we elect a new EXCO in February 2020,
ANA's Annual Conventions would start holding every February instead of every
October/November. This would shake the literary calendar in Nigeria. Even
though, I personally prefer an earlier schedule since all our creative events
tend to cluster around the last quarter of the year from NANTAP, through The
Nigeria Prize for Literature, the Etisalat Prize, and many others. A third
problem a Caretaker Committee would solve would be that of taking ANA out of
the limbo it is in at the moment. Right now, stakeholders do not know who to
deal with when it comes to ANA issues. For instance, the developers of the
Mamman Vatsa Writers' Village in Abuja need supervision but who is doing that
now? Some international organizations are trying to collaborate with ANA at
this point but there is no substantive person or persons to talk to. These are
potential losses for ANA, before we talk of the overall public relations
disaster that our raucous conducts have been.
Thank you for your time, I look forward to talking with you again.
Thanks a great deal for this comprehensive grilling!
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