BOOK
REVIEW: “TALES OF A TROUBADOUR: DECADES OF DELIBERATE ‘JOURNEY-ABOUT’ ON AIR,
RAIL, ROAD AND SEA”.
Book Title: Tales of a Troubadour
Author: Dr. Wale Okediran
Publisher: Literamed Publications (Nig)
Ltd., Lagos
No of pages: 286
Number of Chapters: 28
Date of Publication: 2019
Place and Date of Review: Ibadan: 6th
June, 2019
Book Reviewer: Professor Mabel
Evwierhoma
…Great causes have only prevailed through the vigour
and energy of resolute men who attempted and succeeded in making the impossible
possible.
Tales of a Troubadour, P. 199.
By now it is clear to all that Dr. Wake Okediran is a plier
of many trades, and has become master of them all. He is a physician, politician,
novelist of deep insight and of course a biographer. In all these, he has shown
the path of diligent pursuit and attainment of dreams. Many people know him as
a son of Ebedi in his display of mutual social responsibility to his
constituency of writers by the location of the Ebedi Writers Resort funded by
him in Ebedi/Iseyin his town of birth. In Tales
of a Troubadour, the author refers to himself as ‘a recorder of men and
events’ (p. 220) and the reader encounters him as such due to the travelogue’s
presentation of certain iconic ideas, people, especially writers and
politicians, memorable places as well as their historicity. I noted a few concepts
surrounding them like travel as a means of education, history and culture, travel
as a facilitator of knowledge about people and places, as a reflection of
personal and national politics and observing people and their roles in, and
contributions to society. Furthermore, the book marks out effect of travel on
family and friendship, how travels affirm the self, and the travelogue as a
showcase of national literature, and the possibilities of travel as pain.
* The memoirs
of travel as a means of education. It is often said that travel is the best
form of education. Wale Okediran helps the reader to form ideas on local and
global issues and shape the opinion of the reader by teaching him about the
lands of voyage in the stories of his sojourn across sundry lands. He
encountered and described people in a manner that they could as well be characters
in any fiction, even as Tales of a Troubadour
is non-fiction. The local name for items of people’s material culture could be
learnt from the book, even mores and norms concerning marriage, and cross
cultural appreciation of culinary expertise, nuptial rites, and agitation for
states creation, ethnic bias, and the Nigerian National Anthem, among others. The
author says: “For someone visiting Ibibio land for the first time, this kind of
sharp ethnic polarity in tastes and customs was a good education for me” (11). The
travelogue encapsulates history and
culture: the ways of life of people, be they nationals and non nationals are
freely reflected in Tales, especially
local politics, food, diplomatic and intercultural relations. Other examples
are allusion to python worship, the Chinese fortune cookie, history of lands,
history of lands, and World War I and II all aptly referenced in his book.
* Furthermore, we realise that a travel journal
becomes compiled tales that emanate into a travelogue which further facilitates knowledge about people and
places. Apart from places visited in Nigeria, the reader travels with the
author to Liberia, Zimbabwe, where one learned about racial segregation and
press censorship, (Pp. 19-26), The Gambia, Russia, United States of America,
Tanzania, especially Dar es Salam, and semi-autonomous Zanzibar are compared
with Nigeria A comparison of the local and international travel experiences
prove Nigeria to be a slow starter in providing destination satisfaction to
travellers. Why is this so? The sights that people may travel to see from
within and outside Nigeria and thereby generate, increase and multiply income
there from remain under-tapped. The tales may prod Nigeria Ministries of
Interior and Culture to take proactive and not reactive action in this regard. More
importantly the prospects of the military and civilian citizens of Nigeria in
active service should be profiled for assessment. Why were our soldiers not
catered for in Liberia? Why were their infractions not dealt with? How can
Nigeria repair the huge infrastructure deficit it currently faces? Is it
possible for Nigeria to speed up development and bridge its development gap in
Africa and beyond?
* The
reflection of personal and national politics as a means of judging today for a
better tomorrow comes out clearly in the book. The tales manifest the politics
in places visited more than two decades ago and disclose the mutations that
they underwent or are currently undergoing. Some of the experiences can never
be the same again as the countries have since undergone political, social,
economic and other forms of change. Russia and Tanzania are certainly good examples
of such change. Here, the economic hegemony of
the whites over the indigenous Zimbabweans (p. 18) is a case in point. Again,
his two visits to Liberia evince political leadership after recovery from
internecine war and the ravages of Ebola. The political and economic
turn-around of Tanzania under President Magufuli, is used to propagate
accountability sanitation, and health in African politics. The questions from
readers after every reading from Tenants
of the House by the author especially in America, are pointers to the
international interest in Nigeria’s local politics. For example, when he is
asked “Can Corruption be tamed in Nigeria?” What is the government doing about
the ‘Boko Haram’ problem? (p. 125), he only offers meek responses perhaps
because he is no longer in active governance. The political slant of the travelogue is
depicted in the author’s assessment of world politics and governance, the
functional institutions in UK, USA, Russia, vis-a-vis his analysis of the two visits
to Aso Rock as a legislator to further screen leadership in Nigeria tells us
that the governance deficit in the country is one that needs to be rejigged and
reworked for the future of the country called Nigeria. The twenty eight
chapters of the book relive the writer’s visits to eight countries in Africa,
Europe and America, and his passage to Nigerian cities like Yenagoa, Yola,
Sokoto, Abeokuta, Kano, Uyo, Akwanga, and Kaduna. For a young writer, or anyone
with the intention to venture into writing, the book creates the need to observe people and their roles or
contributions to society. Akintayo Abod in a review of Tales of a Troubadour dwells on the political, educational, tourist
and health contributions of local and international travel, especially domestic
tourism in the author’s homeland. Wither
Nigeria’s tourist sites? With Okediran’s popularization of this genre,
hopefully we shall experience an increase in the writing and publication of
travelogues in Nigeria.
Although not a bildungsroman,
the tales by Okediran reflect a growing-up experience through journeys from one
part of the country to another as well as aspects of opinion formation,
recognition of the influence of cultural heritage and moving from one aspect of
knowledge production to another. How does a man grow up? How does a writer
grow? By knowledge, from the things he does, by experience, by learning about
what to, or not to actually express, repress, or totally avoid.
* Creativity
and the human/Nigerian condition: Here, one may ask why most of the
experiences of the places he chronicled were pleasant? Were all the people he
encountered and places he visited pleasant or savoury? Of course they were not.
The usual demeaning attention Nigerians receive at international ports of entry
into other countries is not written about.
The answer is simple- the free flow of movement is a pointer that if
human beings are ‘water’ as we say in local parlance, movement of persons
should not be restricted, especially if the traveller could afford it and bear
the costs. However, national suzerainty and political integrity of most
countries would demand that travellers are screened before entry. In some
areas, the troubadour's eyes are obfuscated from the poor human condition,
especially if they are unseemly or unacceptable. Why not speak about the slums
of Europe the way the lens of foreign journalists capture the slums of Africa?
One wonders if this was a form of political correctness, or Okediran the
chronicler of travels merely wanted to escape the repercussions of doing this, if
any, as an African, nay Nigerian. Or did the author not encounter cities like
Kampala and Lagos outside Africa? Did the author have any
disagreeable experience? This reviewer doubts if he experienced any or may
deliberately not want to record such. Tales
reflects the feat of the author in highlighting environmental planning and
sanitation, in other climes, as acts or resources not common in Africa. When
shall amenities like water, power and other infrastructure be provided without
struggle?
*Effects of
travel on family. The many travels must have affected his family as a
result of his absence. Was Okediran alone on these journeys? One must say here
that the author managed to paint the picture of saintly sojourn in these
cities, villages and countries. He is therefore the alternative of Olabisi
Ajala, who acquired women and sired many children in many of the countries
visited by him. The cost of the travels on pocket and body could also be biting.
We must also appreciate God on behalf of Okediran for safety of life on these
trips. Okediran must have left things behind in places he visited like
impressions, culture, and took same with him from those places, though they may
be abstract items and not just mementos like friendship and linkages. The
comparison of the Nigerian ethos with those of other countries by the reader
from the author’s portrait could be bewildering like the comparison between
Nigeria and Tanzania, or Nigeria and America that despite the abundant human
and material resources in the former country, there is entrenched poverty. Readily
to our minds comes Ajala, already mentioned above, who left children and women
in the countries which he visited. I hope that this cost of travel is not laid
on Okediran many years from now! The book provides a very clear evidence of the
Nigerian hospitality. Every chapter is replete with the benevolence Nigerians
accord their fellow citizens at home and abroad and the essence of humanity is
underscored by the writer. Tied to this is the notion of Identity and travel. In the collection of travel tales, the author
accentuates his identity as son of the Nigerian soil, demonstrated in the book
reading tours undertaken by him in the United States of America. His identity
as writer and Nigerian is never shrouded. Through the cerebral event, his
audience set targets for him on the subject of upcoming political writing to be
undertaken by him in future. This agenda-setting exercise by the reader of
Okediran’s works proves to me as reviewer and reader of Okediran’s book, that
he is indeed accessible and quite appreciated by his readership.
* Travel as
self-affirmation-Through writing, Wale Okediran affirms himself, and
continues to extend the circumference of writing. One self-affirming stamp on
the travelogue is loyalty, noted by this reviewer as reciprocal. All over the
world you find this web of loyalty woven by Okediran and his friends. The
degree of bonding between Okediran and his friends and vice versa is quite high. As a loyal man, with much socio-political
capital, one sees this devotion is extended to writers, (both senior to him, or
younger than he is), friends and colleagues at home and across our international
borders. The book helps to fix in time the author’s friends, former teachers,
fellow travellers, writers and most of who are now reference points on support
in friendship across time and clime. In many towns and countries that he
visited, Wale Okediran had friends dating from decades, or years prior to the
trip. The welcome and hospitality extended to him at the airport, bus, boat,
and train stations in Nigeria and outside Nigeria permeate the book and should
be a lesson to younger writers.
* Travelogue as
showcase of national literature. Tales
of a Troubadour helps to shape the image of Nigeria as a country on the
verge of becoming. But for how long shall this be? The collection of travel
stories bear in them questions that help to form what the future entails for
Nigeria, or what the future of Nigeria entails, as the fused whole of many
parts, with unifying symbols of cultural affirmation, national import like
sport, civil liberties, diet, goals, optimism and national ideology. On
optimism, Wale Okediran keeps faith that Nigeria “was still workable” (p. 156).
A reflection of this is in his prayer for better facilities in Nigeria when he
compares the shuttle bus abroad and the ones in Nigeria (p. 123).
There are implications of the author’s use of the word
‘troubadour’ in the book’s title. It reminds one of Dennis Brutus’ poem, on chivalry,
where the troubadour traverses all his land. We therefore can verify that the troubadour
(Okediran) as lover of nation and the ideals of Nigeria, the troubadour as teacher
and inspirer, noble and responsible to those around him, especially his
audience, and the troubadour as preacher, using his tales to decry deficits at
all levels and promote the just cause of national cohesion and value for life
prove what Okediran is as a sociological writer. Consequently Okediran as
traveller-author through the book promotes the human essence, inter-racial
appreciation, the re-jig of Nigerian politics, and inspires the reader. Why
can’t Nigeria be like these countries despite her human and material resources?
The next point therefore refers:
* Travel as pain
– especially for a Nigerian when you consider the hope lost and joy deferred as
we journey though the undulated terrain of ethnic and religious politics in a
fragmented nation. In this
regard, the fear for health, risks of horrid shuttle experiences on different
means of transport, gastrointestinal challenges, security, inclement weather
conditions, are expressed by the author. At times, the traveller feels the pain
Nigerians abroad express on homecoming. He narrates to the reader: “More
disturbing was the remark of an elderly professor who vowed never to go back to
Nigeria again” (p. 125). The reason was not farfetched, as the reader is
informed that these arose out of ‘shocking experiences’ when people like him from
abroad visited home (p. 128). Such accounts have increased and assume national
importance. Can Nigeria be like as efficient as any of the small
nations visited by the traveler-writer like Tanzania in terms of infrastructure
and efficient delivery of service? Why are we doing this to ourselves in
Nigeria, causing deliberate pain to one another? The weightiest of the query I
found in the book was from a Nigerian Diasporan in America who asked Okediran
after a reading session: “When are we going to divide that country? (p. 156). If
despite the better political climate and peace that he encountered on the
travels Wale Okediran did not brain drain or brawn drain, especially as he saw
many of his peers in successful medical practice outside Nigeria, it meant only
one thing: He sees much hope in the country and it is this optimism that I want
Nigerian writers to fan into embers that consume us and generate a patriotic
zeal to make Nigeria one and great again. But is this
possible? Isé ló somo nù bà ókó
–
work throws man like a stone to distant places. Travel is therefore work,
evident in his trips to Uyo, Sokoto, Kano, Ogidi, Moscow, USA, etc., where
travel flung him far and wide in search of wisdom, knowledge and understanding
in no particular order. As he journeyed,
the author worked. The published tales are evidence of this careful labour at
compilation and publication of the stories. The output from creativity is
definitely, a meal ticket for both physical and psychological satisfaction-
writing has put food on his table, here food would be the physical one that
satisfies his biological need, and that which is psychological for pleasing his
readers.
The
author is a man full of understanding, taking one tourist destination as a
scene/ venue to preach human consideration and connectedness. Here, we note the
troubadour as preacher. As painter, he should be commended for painting the
cities, villages and countries he travelled to in life-like, yet positive
light, using humour, at times jokes even where certain restrictions against
democracy existed and when such liberties or amenities did not exist in Nigeria
his home country. As a teacher, Okediran the troubadour teaches us to be
tolerant and he used the places visited as his classroom and scripting board
for us. He has met the high, the low and the mighty in his journeys and the
summation of this reviewer is that:
Life
is a journey. You may not have a travelogue to speak of your experiences, but
life is never mute- life speaks and reveals through us its indelible imprint as
we voyage through it, like the imprint of the author’s mother Mama Okediran on
him, as a teacher who taught her son well.
COUNSEL
The
documentation of travel is a piece of history, sliced out for the reader to savour,
but not all travel is pleasure as we have noted. At times, it is work-turned
pleasure, and pleasure-turned work. It is my opinion that the author may have to specifically devote some period of residency
at the Ebedi Writer’s resort to the production of travel writing by the fellows.
Be the genre poetry, like Samarkand and
other Markets I Have Known, prose
like Gulliver’s Travels, or
non-fiction as In a Free State, or even the dramatic like Who’s Afraid of Solarin, the epistolary
travelogue, like Clarissa or other
experimental forms that combine two or more of these, we know now, that the
travelogue is a veritable means of education. The book is handy and would
easily fit into a pouch. The print is legible enough for young readers. Further
editions should made available in order to facilitate the accessibility of the
book all and sundry. It is my belief that the picture on the cover should have displayed a cross-cultural
exposé of the man who travelled and journeyed about
continents, or included a local tourist attraction and not feature the Red
Square alone. To me, this may also be a positive marker of the book as it panders
to another market, for global saleability.
As
we gather here today, may we experience hope- for a tomorrow of beauty devoid
of blood-letting. Tales of a Troubadour
is an immense contribution to travel literature in Nigeria and a piece of
history through which we get a view into past and present lives of different
people in order to aspire to greatness. Despite the genuine need for writers to
imitate Wale Okediran and travel across Nigeria, document their experiences and
for people to heed the call for domestic tourism as well, the insecurity in
Nigeria has generated fear that restricts or prohibits travel. Despite this
prohibition, Tales of a Troubadour
makes the reader’s mind a museum for the carefully collected tales told simply by
Okediran, of people and places. Like the Medieval Troubadour, Okediran has done
the reader and the Nigerian literati service, and proved one responsibility of
the writer- to reflect the society. This he has done. I strongly believe that
EVERY reader of this book shall be its recommender to the reading public here
in Nigeria and beyond. I do not expect the publisher to leave here with any
copies. The audience is therefore pressed to obtain copies to know for example,
‘What happened to the author’s suitcases in America, or his eyes in the train
in Russia?’ I wish the author more in his pen. As I sang to him in Abuja, join
me to sing to the Ebedi son: ‘He’s a man of many words, been to many places,
seen so many people’ by Tony Wilson. Thank you.
