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Editorial
COURSING THE RUNES
 Few
feelings are more distinctive than that which an
editor feels at the writing of his first
editorial. What makes this even more so is when
it is for a literary magazine such as this one,
Nigerian literature being the cusp of this
writer and the ambience in which his magazine
will bloom, or wither.
When this project was announced a few months ago, with its emphasis
on contemporary Nigerian literature, a
perceptive American friend asked me if we would
be running retrospectives on Wole Soyinka and
Chinua Achebe side by side with Chimamanda
Adichie’s novels? I said we would not be, but
that he should think we would was exactly why
we were publishing. Further engagement led to a
grudging acceptance of his market {he was a
College professor} being ‘aware’ of the Nigerian
writers Helon Habila and Uwem Akpan. If there
was one thing I gained from that sparring with
my doughty Texan friend, it was a confirmation
that there exists a fostered global cynicism for
contemporary Nigerian writing particularly,
amongst the genus of African Writing. Some
others have gone so far as claim there is no
such thing as contemporary “Nigerian Writing”,
demanding with seductive logic that this phrase
be prefixed with “Diaspora”; equally enervating
discourse on the question of “rootedness” has
gone on for so long that one expects a Nigerian
T. S. Eliot and Richard Wright to show up
imminently and announce a general
nineteen-thirties era disillusion!
Nigerian writing hardly hits the global scene and when it does it
is in a state, or with the quality, of having
been assimilated, of losing its distinctiveness
as if some neutering has taken place such that
all that remains Nigerian in the literature
apart from the writers first or alternative
passport are recipe items such as setting,
character names and a few words of pidgin or a
convenient vernacular spicedly thrown in. This
is the milieu of Nigerian writing, the exact
same one that led to the formation of the
Sentinel Literary Movement of Nigeria and its
flagship, the Sentinel Nigeria Magazine whose
maiden edition you are now reading.
The Movement observed a locally felt disconnect from the
contemporary global fight for definition and
acceptance. There was the feeling, gotten from a
sampling of Nigerian writers’ opinions, that
what was being fought over on the global scene
was not Nigerian writing really but a
sub-species of it. An interesting parallel, to
further the irrelevance of that battle, was
repeatedly drawn from India. It was felt that
Indians in India had given the world, had
defined, what Indian writing was, not Indians in
the Diaspora – and that there was a distinct
global Indian Literature, and an attendant
market, now extant. It was believed that the
same would happen to Nigerian Literature, that a
distinctively 'written in Nigeria' Nigerian
literature did exist and it would take the field
the moment it entered the arena. The aim of this
magazine, in one phrase, is “to lead Nigerian
Literature on to the global arena.”
Now, what have we found from pursuing this aim? Is there a distinct
written in Nigerian literature markedly
different from what may be obtained in the
African Writing genera in bookshops across the
globe? Do we indeed have definitive Nigerian
literary swordsmen? The answer to these
questions, bordering on the vitality of Nigerian
writing, was critically important to this
magazine not in the least because of the fear of
a No Copy but for the global disgrace of a No
Show – for there have been many cynics amongst
our most respected friends. To answer this
question, you should join me in coursing the
runes of this maiden Edition of the Sentinel
Nigeria magazine, gotten from a sampling of over
seventy submissions across the genres of poetry,
prose and drama.
Seventeen poets with around forty poems have been chronicled here
and it is quite safe to say none, excepting Kola
Tubosun, has been heard of outside their
particular Nigerian locales. A reading and
assessment of their poetry, from the
appreciation of form to the way themes are
explored would indicate a protean vitality.
Consider for a moment the densely perceptive
formulations of Gimba Kakanda’s poem “Two
Bubbles Burst” to the honey run lyricism of
Amechi Obumse’s “Drummer”; consider the pithy
verse submissions of Auwal S. Muktar and then
Numero Unoma’s deceptively simple “Ulterior
Motives”. Study the remarkable siameity between
Gbubemi Amas’s “Darfur – A Letter” and Ahmed
Farah’s “Mogadishu”, both of which explore the
human incidence of peculiarly African social
dysfunctions in the Sudan and Somalia
respectively. DMD Goodhead’s poems indicate an
acute social perception of Nigeria’s often
troubled southern delta, especially his haunting
“The Ghost Town and the Weaverbird.”
The prose submissions used here, from eleven writers, are perhaps
the most vivid Nigerian painting there can be.
The bus as a metaphor of the country is explored
to its furthest extent by Uche Peter Umez,
Ifesinachi Okoli and Nwilo Bura-Bari V in their
work. Emmanuel Iduma gives us a variation of
this, using the road and the journey across
tragic difference, all within a strange
existentialism, to paint a picture of the civil
dislocations that have troubled Nigeria over the
last decade. Dami Ajayi and Henry Onyema give a
detailed showing of the peculiar strength often
demanded in making the compromises called for in
the Nigerian every day; each of their major
characters creates a sense of familiarity, we
recognize them only too well. Perhaps the most
experimental writers have been two young women
in their twenties, Sifa Gowon and Chinelo
Onwualu? In their stories, the first based on a
Bible parable and the second on an exploration
of femininity, may be found the most interesting
prognosis on the future of Nigerian writing.
There is a sense of creative scope about their
stories that is at once universal and yet,
distinctly Nigerian. Binta Shuaibu, from what is
considered the largely literarily arid Northern
Nigeria, presents an excerpt from her first
novel – an excerpt that in a few thousand words
debunks any assumptions of literary aridity. . .
Added to this is a short drama sent in by Emmanuella Nduonofit, a
multi-talented dramatist only just walking out
of the shadows. Nigerian poet Tade Ipadeola has
sent in an excellent review of Biyi Bandele’s
“Burma Boy”, arguably the finest Nigerian novel
in the last half decade. Jerome Dooga for his
part explores the Nigerian socio-polity through
the screen of Alpha Emeka’s debut novel, “The
Carnival”.
We should see the three paragraphs above in the manner of a
doctor’s hand running over a representative body
of Nigerian writing, from toenails to limbs to
the roots of hair, testing and observing - and
now a report must be made. This physician is
pleased to report that the pulse of written in
Nigeria Nigerian literature, and Nigerian
literature generally, is STRONG. And he
guarantees on oath that much gain, in
perception, in education, and intellectual
delight, would come from paying attention to the
nuance of Nigerian Literature sampled here.
I would like to thank my Editorial Board for their hard work in
bringing out this first copy, for attending to
each and every of those calls and emails – you
are Nigeria’s finest! Further, I express
admiring gratitude to my Board of Contributing
Editors for allowing the Editorial Board stand
on their monumental shoulders, giving us the
benefit of their faith and advice.
This first berthing of the Sentinel Nigeria ship is dedicated to
the future of Nigerian writing.
Richard Ugbede Ali
Editor In Chief, Sentinel Nigeria Magazine
Administrator
www.sentinelnigeria.org
Bwari,
Abuja, Nigeria.
+234 8062392145
richard.ali@sentinelnigeria.org
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