By Lasisi Olagunju
There is a huge noise over Chief Bisi Akande’s autobiography released on Thursday, December 9, 2021 in Lagos. I have not read the book. But I have read what the media says the book contains. I have also read the book review by a brilliant professor of English at the University of Ibadan who spiced it with copious quotes. There is a particular ‘something’ that interests me in what I read. President Muhammadu Buhari’s other name among his fans is Maigaskiya, the truthful one. Buhari was present at that book launch where he declared that he loved Akande so much that he would follow him into the jungle without asking questions. But snippets from the book say Buhari, ‘the truthful one,’ promised something in 2014 but did the opposite in 2015. Before bedtime, Maigaskiya offered to make someone his soulmate; then at satiation, he denied saying so; he said it was a mere partnership he offered. And Akande asks: what is the meaning of partnership?
Like Aesop’s winds, Akande’s controversies fall upon us with their gusts and gales
It will be nice to hear the president’s defence of that charge from his bosom friend. Or will he be quiet, guilty as charged? That won’t be good for Maigaskiya. There are many other contentious claims in that memoir. We will soon see how firm the ground is under the author’s feet. However, the question of who is truthful and who is trustworthy and reliable is my greatest takeaway from the book – at least for now. I look forward to reading the front cover, the photos, the leaves inside, and the back cover inscriptions, then draw conclusions. Whatever the book says, however, the good thing is that it has provoked its victims to counter-write the author, tell their own stories, and put audacious Akande on the spot. It has also challenged us to ask questions on the characters of our leaders, how we got to where we are, and how to avoid falling into another ditch as we forage and trudge forward.
Autobiographies and biographies are floodlights; they illuminate fields and sack dark alleys. They are also swords with two edges- injurious to the author, to the subjects, and to the objects. Some come plainly audacious like Barack Obama’s; some come wearing the masks of fiction – like George Santayana’s ‘The Last Puritan’ – a story of a “fearless but helplessly subjective” character; a book about a puritan “who convinced himself on puritan grounds that it was wrong to be a puritan.” If I meet Chief Akande tomorrow, the question I will
ask him is not just why he wrote that book of vitriol; I will also ask him why now? Why is almost every outsider bad and his friends good? I will ask too about the factuality of his facts. And there is a reason for that. From the letters of Cicero to Saint Paul’s letters; Julius Caesar’s ‘Commentaries’ to Saint Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ and now to Bisi Akande’s ‘My Participations’, what we see is what Graham Greene said are “a sort of life” – and what another writer described as accounts of “a life, reshaped by recollection.” To ‘reshape’ is to rearrange. How much rearrangement of facts is in Akande’s book of attack and abuse? How accurate biographical recollections are determined by the justness of authorial verdicts. We will hear more on this author’s judgmental intrusions in days to come.
There will be other ‘puritanical’ books of push and punch. There should. But the ones I want to read are life stories of those seeking to rule me in 2023. That is what sane people demand of their princes and aspiring kings. Barack Obama is a son of nobody who wanted to be many things in the politics of the United States. He started by deciding to tell his full story. He wrote ‘Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance’ in 1995 and republished it in 2004 with updates. Through that book, he lucidly told the world that his father was Barack Obama Sr. of Kenya and his mother Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, United States. He said his parents met while they were students at the University of Hawaii. Then in 2006, he decided to be president, and he wrote ‘The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.’ That book is an outline of his beliefs, political and spiritual. Obama then delivered speeches, granted interviews, and never ran away from debates. Through all these, he made his life an open book and offered deep insights into who he was, where he was coming from, and where he could take his people to. There was no ambiguity in his mission and no dark shades in his vision beyond what his long shadow cast. We want politicians who would do this, not slithering snakes scheming to enter the palace through sewage pipes.
Every book, notwithstanding its moral shape and form, has values. We definitely need more ‘unusual’ books to provoke and force us to think. We are not normal people. What do we want as a people? Business as usual? At the beginning of this year, it was either restructuring or self-determination. Now, the year is ending and it would appear that we have dropped the ball. Everyone now talks about the next elections and who holds next the ladle. Every activity, whether book launch or birthday luncheon, is tied to answering the next question: Who is my next governor? Who is the next president? Everyone asks that question because of the sauce in the pot and the meat in the plate and who eats what.