The week-long Things Fall Apart Festival kicked off in Enugu on Sunday with the Chair, Mr. James Eze making a rallying call to enulate the famous book’s author, Prof. Chinua Achebe, who used his writings to fight for a better world.
He urged that people should live ‘in dignity and contentment with their ancient customs but still retained a healthy dose of curiosity and wonder’.
His full speech:
‘Umuofia kwenu
‘Kwenu
‘Kwezuenu o
‘Umunnem, nnonu o!
‘On behalf of the Centre for Memories Ncheta Ndigbo, I welcome you all to Umuofia obodo dike!
‘We have gathered here today to make history…to answer the call of our father, to keep a great heritage alive. We have gathered to celebrate Chinua Achebe and Things Fall Apart, but we have also gathered to acknowledge the culture that gave the world the gift of Chinua Achebe and his book.
‘And so, we are gathered, not as Achebe’s biological children, but as his literary and cultural offspring. A silent fire burns in our hearts. The desire to show gratitude to nna anyi Achebe. And the ambition, not just to preserve his legacy but to build on it. In doing this, we consider ourselves lucky. Not everyone has a father like Chinua Achebe. Not everyone has a father whose legacy redefined the place of the black man in the vortex of boiling ideological and racial prejudices that rule the world. Not every father left a lighthouse to guide their children to safe harbours…and certainly not every father took on the canons of western literature and made the world see them in a different light. But nna anyi Chinua Achebe did!
‘So, as we celebrate Things Fall Apart today, we remind ourselves of our debt to Chinua Achebe. And our debt to Chinua Achebe is our debt to Ndigbo, to Nigeria, to ourselves and to mankind. We remind ourselves that if Achebe fought all through his life to create a better world where the stories of the powerless will be told with the narratives of the powerful, we cannot afford to wallow in low aim. And perhaps more importantly, as we celebrate Things Fall Apart today, we invoke the spirit of Umuofia, that land of the brave, that home of chivalry, that cultural space of magic and beauty and aesthetics where men and women lived in dignity and contentment with their ancient customs but still retained a healthy dose of curiosity and wonder. Igboland. Igbo ga adi ruo mgbe ebighiebi! The sun shall not set on this dear land!
‘Umunnem, there is so much work to do and the labourers are few and far between. The odds are intimidating and discouraging, but we shall not despair.
‘We shall not bend and we shall not break!
‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Umuofia‘
