Fashola on Achebe’s Biafra explosive book, live at Achebe colloquium. By Chido Nwangwu

First on USAfrica: Fashola on Achebe’s Biafra explosive book, live at Achebe colloquium.

By Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of USAfrica multimedia networks (Houston), first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet USAfricaonline.com                                                      @Twitter.com/Chido247, Facebook.com/USAfricaChido n Facebook.com/USAfrica247

USAfrica: On a chilly Friday of December 7, 2012, Babatunde Raji Fashola, the popular Governor of Lagos State of Nigeria, flew into Rhode Island as a special guest and plenary session speaker at the Achebe colloquium on Africa. At almost 4:46pm,

he commenced his prepared speech with off-the-cuff remarks on a wide range of issues.

After a string of brilliant philosophical arguments regarding Africa’s renaissance to chronicling several remarkable achievements of his governorship, he cautiously stepped into thorny grounds….. Around the end of his impressive 38 minutes message, he carefully navigated the heated debates, the minefields of strong support and personal attacks which have followed Prof. Chinua Achebe’s latest 2012 work of history, poetry, education and creative exposition titled ‘There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra.’

Gov. Fashola, standing at the podium almost 15 feet away from Achebe, told the galaxy of African, American, European and Asian scholars, researchers, students, activists and business executives that the heat generated by the book almost made him look for a reason to avoid the event rescheduled for him from the 2011 colloquium, almost 300 days ago.
He said, according to the USAfricaonline.com notes at the colloquium: that after reading just about half of the book “I wanted to write Prof. Achebe to give him reasons why I cannot attend today’s occasion….” He said he was under pressure from his immediate Yoruba constituency.

He immediately ordered the new book to be mailed to an address in England, he would be traveling to– at the time. The man said he needed to read the book to know and understand why there was so much passion against and for the book; especially against the book by people of his ethnic group, majority of his supporters. “I’m Yoruba. Prof. Chinua Achebe is an Igbo. I’m a student of Things Fall Apart; things were No longer at Ease, but the center still held…”, he added, to applause from the audience, a play on words about some of Achebe’s novels.

Fashola, a senior advocate of Nigeria, whom I, as moderator of the 2012 Achebe colloquium on Africa, described a few minutes before his speech as “the governor who has shown himself as a worthy example of good governance in Nigeria” appealed to the dueling groups over Achebe’s new book on Biafra to calm things and “move forward.”

Consequently, during the Q&A session, he was asked by Prof. Obi Nwakanma (a contributing editor of USAfricaonline.com and staff of University of Central Florida): “When will the wounds of the war heal?”
In a frank, brief answer, Fashola said the wounds may heal but the scars will be there; adding that, in his view, the new generation of Nigerians want to move beyond the issue.

In a remarkable context for him and the audience, Fashola pointed out, according to the USAfricaonline.com notes at the colloquium: “I was only 4 years old” when the 1967-1970 Nigeria-Biafra war started.

But there were more follow-up questions, including the ones which raised the issue of the brutal devastations and genocidal killings held against Nigerian soldiers and wartime leaders (especially the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, as reiterated by Achebe in his new book, extensively quoting Awolowo’s own words).

Gov. Fashola blamed the national information management system and its failure to document and release official information about events like the war for the heated disagreements.
(USAfrica and

USAfricaonline.com will post more from Fashola’s comments to the USAfrica question on whether he will contest the 2015 presidential elections, and other issues which were featured in Chido’s live-blogging of his speech/remarks on USAfrica’s Facebook page Facebook.com/USAfricaChido and Twitter.com/Chido247).                                                                                                                                                       •Special report by Dr. Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of USAfrica multimedia networks, first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet USAfricaonline.com; and recipient of several journalism and public policy awards, was recently profiled by the CNN International for his pioneering works on multimedia/news/public policy projects for Africans and Americans. http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/29/mpa.african.media.bk.a.cnn.

WHY I CELEBRATE THE LIFE AND WORKS OF NELSON MANDELA. By Chido Nwangwu  https://usafricaonline.com/2010/07/15/mandela-why-i-celebrate-his-life-works-by-chido-nwangwu/