Reading Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc.
I first met Okey Ndibe in person upon his invitation for a book chat on his work, Foreign Gods Inc., which held at the Thought Pyramid Art Centre in Abuja a while ago. On the day of the event, the venue was full of people from all corners of the country who were proud to be associated, in one way or another, with the erudite Professor of African and African Diaspora Literatures at Brown University.
While he autographed copies of the book to be read, the event began in earnest as Okey met and exchanged pleasantries with friends, colleagues and associates. We swiftly took pictures together before being called to sit and get to know Okey even better. Before starting to read from a passage of the book, Okey took us back to his humble beginnings; the circumstances of his birth and upbringing; himself and siblings were raised as children of “C” and “E” (“C” being Christopher, and “E” being Elizabeth); the fond memories of Yola, his birthplace; and the horrid recollections of his family’s escape from a mob attack in Yola at the onset of the Nigerian civil war; etc.
Although I never met Okey in person before that event, but, by following his work in both print and online media, I was, nonetheless, aware of the ideals and principles he vouched for (his struggles for a better Nigeria, his longstanding commitment for good governance in our country, his unrelenting passion of confronting both political and social repressions under all situations, and his unflinching ability to speak truth to power) which sometimes attracted the Nigerian government’s fiat leading to an unlawful detention and seizure of travel documents.
Beyond familial pedigrees and early age reminisces, Okey never forgot to tell us, also of his detention in America on December 20, 1988, exactly 10 days after his arrival in that country when a policeman picked him up at a bus stop because he purportedly matched a description of a certain bank robber somewhere in the state of Connecticut. Okey also discussed about his first encounter with the legendary Chinua Achebe while in school in Nigeria; his subsequent meeting with the literary giant in the first assignment at his first job upon graduation in Nigeria, and how he was saved by Achebe from being fired from that job; the afterward friendship with the Achebe family in the United States; and finally, his becoming a godson of Achebe. While saying all these however, humility was the catch phrase for Okey who told us emphatically that we must always refrain from discussing Achebe and Ndibe in the same sentence, suggesting that the two names were most definitely and quite essentially, far afield.
Whenever the opportunity presented itself, it seems not in Okey’s nature to forget discussing issues on Nigeria by reminding his audience on the need to work on actualising a better country through improved leaderships. To attain a healthier nation, Okey argued that Nigerians must be steadfast in clinging to at least three moral principles: the will to recognise tyranny and the ability to confront it without assent to its accompanying psychological and emotional defeat; the resolve to repudiate hero-worship of leaders; and the need to radically impede our unfounded relationship with the Creator.
On the will to recognise and confront tyranny when faced with it and without agreeing to its psychosomatic impacts, Okey cited an example of himself refusing to address one of Nigeria’s leaders as president, but instead found a more apt description for him: Resident of Aso Rock; obviously for that was where he lived. He noted that since he believed that the elections which brought the leader to power was not credible enough, he did not want to accept such a person as president. But by addressing the person as Resident of Aso Rock, and by advocating that Nigerians refer to him as such, Okey thinks that any leader faced with such disapproval may have no choice than to concede defeat, as opposed to standing their ground.
On the second and third moral principles, Okey said once corrupt politicians and public officers continually find support groups from amongst the masses, who, through various acts of allegiance, cheer them on to mismanage the treasury, Nigeria will not be able to bring sleaze to a minimum. In order for the people to win over the fight on fraud as exercised by corrupt politicians and public servants, the masses must make it a civic duty to inform themselves and their wards to boo these corrupt people by calling them what they are. It is only by doing so that such dishonest leaders can feel ostracised, making them to sit down, reflect, and ultimately comply with their conscience. Again, Okey thinks that for us to chart a promising course we must begin to see things both in objective and subjective senses by radically taking a turn away from our present baseless relationship with God. To fall for the idea that God gives power as cheating politicians do claim (in order to pacify potentially probing, inquisitorial minds as to the legitimacy of their processional ascension to power) is, to concretise their otherwise illicit socio-political deeds as defensively divine rather than earthly. This is why, we must see, according to Okey, that God does not vote, people do; thus, do not say God gives power, just count the ballots.
Before taking a teaching position at Brown University, Okey Ndibe earned MFA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has taught at Connecticut College, Bard College, Trinity College, and the University of Lagos (as a Fulbright scholar). He also authored a book entitled Arrows of Rain and has served on the editorial board of Hartford Courant where his essays won national and state awards. Foreign Gods, Inc., published in 2014 by Soho Press, New York, narrates the adventures of Ike Uzondu, a New York-based Nigerian cab driver who heads off to steal the statue of an ancient war deity from his village and sell it to a sophisticated gallery in Manhattan. Uzondu’s journey, by turns funny and depressing, offers a pondering on the dreams, promises, and frustrations of immigrant life in America. It portrays the nature and impressions of religious conflicts and the ways in which modernity creates and intensifies infatuation with the “exotic.” From Brooklyn to Lagos, Foreign Gods, Inc. excellently brightens our globally interconnected world.
July 13, 2019
