Of Popular Memory and Official History

Teshome H. Gabriel (Dan Chavkin / UCLA)

"Once memory enters into our consciousness, it is hard to circumvent, harder to stop, and impossible
to run from. It burns and glows from inside, causing anguish, new dreams and newer hopes. Memory does something else beside telling us how we got here from there: it reminds us of the causes of difference between popular memory and official versions of history.

Official history tends to arrest the future by means of the past. Historians privilege the written word of the text -- it serves as their rule of law. It claims a 'centre' which continuously marginalises others. In this way its ideology inhibits people from constructing their own history or histories.

Popular memory, on the other hand, considers the past as a political issue. It orders the past not only as a reference point but also as a theme of struggle. For popular memory, there are no longer any 'centres' or 'margins', since the very designations imply that something has been conveniently left out. Popular memory, then, is neither a retreat to some great tradition nor a flight to some imagines 'ivory tower', neither a self-indulgent escapism nor a desire for the actual 'experience' or 'content' of the past for its own sake. Rather, it is a 'look back to the future', necessarily dissident and partisan, wedded to constant change."

Teshome H. Gabriel, 1989, 53-54

"Third Cinema as Guardian of Popular Memory: Towards a Third Aesthetics"

In Questions of Third Cinema, ed. Jim Pines and Paul Willemen

How Religion Undermines Nigeria's Development

(By Okenyi Kenechi) – I have never seen a dilapidated church. I have seen hundreds of dilapidated schools.

In my home town, the schools are rotting away while church buildings are growing bigger. No industries, just churches.

I once told someone that if the churches in Port Harcourt were to be transformed into industries, unemployment will vanish within one year and crime will be brought to a screeching halt. He agreed. 

Truth is, if a politician asks a certain village what they will prefer to be built for them, chances that they will chose a church will be higher.

Doubt me? Gitto in a bid to show appreciation to former president Goodluck Jonathan, asked him to chose one thing they will build for his village people and he chose a church. I don't know if there are world class hospitals in Otuoke or standard schools but he chose a church.

Of Nnewi and a Resourceful Igbo Town

(By Eromo Egbejule) – The Small Town Of The Super Rich 

Shortly before Nigeria’s independence in 1960, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, reportedly Nigeria’s first black billionaire, and founding president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The royal honor came after he helped the British during World War II with his fleet of trucks. He was so wealthy that during the Queen’s visit in 1956, she was chauffeured around in his Rolls-Royce – apparently the only one in the country at the time – on the request of the colonial administration.

Profiled in September 1965 by TIME magazine, Ojukwu made his money by importing dried fish for resale, and diversifying into textiles, cement and transport. When he died a year later, his wealth was an estimated $4 billion in today’s economic value.

His son, Chukwuemeka, who also ended up a billionaire, returned from Oxford University at 22 with a master’s degree in history and led his fellow Igbos into the Nigerian civil war as head of the secessionist state of Biafra in 1967.

Nnewi, Nkwo Market, and Biafran War

(By Azuka Onwuka) – How the Civil War aided Nnewi’s Industrial Transformation 

Before the 1966 pogrom against the Igbo and indigenes of the former Eastern Nigeria, Nnewi in Anambra State was under the shadow of Onitsha. The markets in Nnewi were like the typical Igbo markets that were in session every four days, depending on which name each market bore. The Nkwo Market, which was situated at the centre of the town, was in full session every Nkwo day, even though some isolated traders could sell some petty things, especially food items, on other days. Anybody who wanted to buy anything of substance went to Onitsha, some 20 kilometres away.

On religious matters, the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church (the two big churches in Nnewi) had their diocesan headquarters in Onitsha. So, the bishops resided in Onitsha and were seen occasionally in Nnewi. To travel to any part of Nigeria from Nnewi, one had to get to Onitsha first. If the trip was to the North or West, one had to cross over by boat to Asaba (before the construction of the Niger Bridge in 1965). But after the bridge was constructed, Onitsha became the connecting city to other parts of Nigeria for most towns and villages in the current Anambra State.

Ghana, Fufu, and Ebunuebunu Soup

Ariel Lee

(By Ayesha Harruna Attah) - Slow-Cooking History 

Fufu is boiled green plantains and cassava, pounded in a wooden mortar to a distinct pum-pum-pum beat. Fufu, the way I like it, comes out a warm yellow, with specks of black from the plantain seeds. But fufu on its own is bland. Fufu is both food and utensil, and strong enough to scoop up soup. Ghanaians eat it with palm soup, groundnut soup, a tomato soup called light soup or ebunuebunu, green soup. Adventurous eaters go for a combination of all four, known as nkatenkontobenkwan. But I am a purist. Ebunuebunu is my favorite.

Fufu originated among the Akan, the ethnic group that includes the Ashanti, Akwapim and Fanti people of what is today southern Ghana and Ivory Coast. It journeyed across West Africa as foofoo, foufou or foutou, and sailed across the Atlantic in the hearts of the people who were uprooted and enslaved, even keeping its name in Cuba. Of ebunuebunu, however, I am hard pressed to find derivatives. Its ingredients are the leaf of the cocoyam plant; dried mudfish, tilapia or other river fish; mushrooms; snails; onions; ginger; garlic; and sometimes grasscutter, the cane rat, which my mother says “adds gamy flavor for those who like it.” The ingredients are slow-cooked until they coalesce into a forest-green broth that looks like witches’ brew and tastes like smoke and earth, with a wholesomeness that lingers on the tongue.