A medical doctor and a former parliamentarian, prolific writer, Dr. Wale Okediran, has won renown in Nigerian literature, with many of his works gaining currency in university syllabuses across the country. As a former National Treasurer, General Secretary and later National President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), he contributed immensely to the development of Nigerian literature through the establishment of ANA branches, organisation of literary seminars, conferences and publications.

In 2010, Okediran initiated The Ebedi International Writers Resort in Iseyin, Oyo State, which has since become the only functional writers’ residency in Nigeria open to international writers.

A multiple award-winner, Okediran’s offering, The Boys at the Border, was shortlisted for the 1992 Commonwealth Literature Prize; while The Rescue of Uncle Babs won the 1999 ANA/Matatu Prize for Children’s Literature.

Similarly, his novel, Dreams Die At Twilight, was longlisted for the 2004 NLNG Literature Prize and was in 2004 adjudged one of the 25 best books in Nigeria in the last 25 years by Spectrum Books. In 2010, Okediran’s highly acclaimed novel, Tenants of the House, was joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature. Recently in Abuja, HENRY AKUBUIRO engaged Okediran in an elaborate conversation on his blooming literary career, which perhaps has now overshadowed his medical practice.

Part of your oeuvre is three juvenilia. In writing for children, is there a passionate impetus vis-à-vis writing adult stories?

Before I ventured into children’s literature, I had the very good fortune of attending an ANA Children’s Literature Workshop under the veteran children’s writer, Mabel Segun, in 1990 in Kaduna, sponsored by the late Gen Shehu Musa Yar dua during the tenure of late Ken Saro-Wiwa as the ANA President and Bode Sowande the General Secretary.

One of the kernels of the event is the fact that children’s literature should not be seen as watered down adult literature; it should stand on its own. Interestingly, this is the same admonition paediatricians (children’s doctors) normally give to other doctors, that children are not ‘small adults’ but human beings on their own.

The other important lesson from Mabel Segun is that you cannot write for children if you don’t like children. This point was driven home to me a few years after Segun’s Workshop when I encountered a British writer in the UK, who told me that it was his dislike for children that made him hate children’s literature.

Yes, the motivations and skills for writing for children are far different from writing adult stories. Apart from a love for children, you have to be able to think like a child before you can adequately write for them. I get a lot of inspirations watching children play –this way, I am able to mimic their mannerisms and dialogue. As a general medical practitioner, I get additional motivations and in some instances, complete story lines from my patients, half of whom are usually children.

For example, the story line for my award winning Children’s novel, The Rescue of Uncle Babs came from a child who came to the hospital for a medical check up before proceeding on a long train journey to Kaduna with his uncle. This prompted me to also embark on a train journey to Kaduna from Ibadan just to research the story.

Another story, A Lesson for Odia was inspired by a 10-year-old boy, who came to the hospital to treat wounds sustained from being flogged when he was convicted by a magistrate for stealing his neighbour’s chicken. The other trick that has worked for me is to read out the first draft of my story to a group of children. When my children were younger, I used to use them as my sounding pad with fantastic results. Children as you know are more honest and sincere than adults. If a story is not good, they will tell you immediately; and if it is good, they will also tell you.

My children would even go a step further to give suggestions on how to improve a story line. Your debut publication was Rainbows are for Lovers (1987), followed by The Boys at the Border, which was shortlisted for the 1992 Commonwealth Literature Prize. As a beginner then, where you emboldened by those sudden accolades?

My original manuscript was about my experience as a youth corps doctor (which was later published as Strange Encounters by Heinemann Plc). However, when I presented the manuscript to my then editor in Spectrum Books, Mr Gbenro Adegbola, he suggested that I should try my hand at a romance story since, according to him, it is much easier to sell love stories. Having no previous experience in writing love stories, I quickly went through some old copies of my wife’s True Romance magazines and studied important points such as characterisation, dialogue and love scenes.

This research, as well as my recently completed diploma course in Creative Writing helped in making Rainbows are for Lovers one of Spectrum Books’ best selling books till date. Of course, you are right: I was really thrilled by the success of Rainbows, especially when Spectrum Books had to fly me from Lagos to Enugu where the book was publicly presented by the late Cyprian Ekwensi at the Enugu Trade Fair in 1987. Even though the book was my first, Ekwensi went to predict that the book and author will go places.

When I later discussed some of my challenges as a young author with the late icon, Ekwensi told me not to worry but to keep writing and that, very soon, my characters will be writing the book by themselves. I thought it was a joke or an exaggeration until much later in my writing career; eventually, some of the characters in my books started writing the stories by themselves. Just like many of my novels, I got the inspiration for The Boys at the Border from a patient of mine who came to treat her swollen feet in my hospital.

She told me she was a professional smuggler and had to trek a long distance across the Nigerian/Benin Republic when Customs officials blocked her usual smuggling route.

This sparked off a story line in me and, that weekend, I was in some border towns in Oyo North area to research the book. On reaching there, I was dumbfounded to discover that almost everybody in the area was into smuggling! I was also able to interview some Custom officials, hotel owners and commercial drivers, all who gave valuable information about the trans-border activities. Interestingly, I later discovered, in the course of my research, that both the smugglers and Customs officials patronised the same set of prostitutes and herbalists! Therefore, when The Boys at the Border was shortlisted for the 1992 Commonwealth Literature Prize, I was pleasantly surprised and also happy that the hard work had paid off.

Storms of Passion (Evans, 1995) followed later, and, yet again, it has the theme of love, like your debut –a theme echoed by your 2002 release, Sighs of Desire. What is it about love that engages your curiousity? As I stated earlier on, my then editor in Spectrum, Mr Gbenro Adegbola (until recently the MD of Evans Publishers), gave me the tip about the commercial value of Love Stories.

It was the commercial and critical success of Rainbows are for Lovers that motivated me to write Storms of Passion and Sighs of Desire, which were also well received. Although we all complain that Nigerians don’t read, what has been confirmed is that many Nigerians, especially women read many love stories.

This is obvious in the large readership enjoyed by the then Onitsha Literature Market, as well as the Soyayya Literature in Kano in which thousands of romance books written in Hausa and simple English are sold annually. It is, however, important to note that, even though the theme of some of my books may be love, I also use the medium to tackle and discuss many serious issues, such as culture clash and the importance of children in African marriages (Storms of Passion) while the important issue of brain drain and its effects on relationships and marriages are well documented in Sighs of Desire.

Expectedly, my foray into love stories is not without some embarrassing moments where some family members and friends are quick to romantically connect me with some female characters in my books. Question like ‘Who is Lizzy in your book?’ is common. All efforts to inform them that such characters are the fruits of my imagination usually fall on deaf ears. The Rescue of Uncle Babs (Macmillan, 1998), winner of the 1999 ANA/Matatu Prize for Children’s Literature), like The Boys at the Border, are picaresque tales.

What fascinates you with such adventures?

The fascination is the realisation that Nigeria is full of stories and adventures that can inspire great novels. In fact, the highly revered poet laureate and my very good friend, Prof Niyi Osundare, used to say that Nigeria is stranger than fiction. How true! When I boarded the Ibadan-Kaduna train from the Dugbe terminal in Ibadan in 1997 to research The Rescue of Uncle Babs, I never realised that I was embarking on one of my best adventures in life. Although the train was billed to arrive Kaduna Junction Terminal 24 hours after leaving Ibadan, it finally arrived in Kaduna 48 hours later due to a major breakdown just after Offa in Kwara State.

We were in the bush under the merciless attack of mosquitoes and other insects for over 12 hours, while the train was being repaired. At a point, the train’s kitchen ran out of food and water and some passengers became emergency food and water vendors, as they sold their personal reserves to other passengers.

However, the beauty of the experience was that it was the train’s breakdown that gave life to The Rescue of Uncle Babs. The incident gave me a good opportunity for good characterisation through many of the train’s occupants, which included students, soldiers, itinerary beggars and traders, pick pockets, thieves, as well as stowaways, some of whom were apprehended and locked up in the train toilets in lieu of detention cells.

Apart from using my experience on the Kaduna-bound train for The Rescue of Uncle Babs, I also wrote a long essay in The Nigerian Guardian, an exercise that earned the porter in my cabin a promotion when his boss read my piece where I had acknowledged the porter’s efficiency. The same attention to research drove the narratives of The Boys at the Border.

During the cause of my research, I discovered a symbiotic relationship between smugglers, prostitutes, food vendors and other commercial actors at our border towns.

When one of the Customs officials I interviewed asked me for the purpose of my book and I told him that it was to stop smuggling at our borders, he broke into a hearty laughter and said that smuggling can never be eradicated in Nigeria. It is even on record that many border towns are closer geographically, economically and emotionally to their adjoining foreign countries than their home countries. This fact can be gleaned from the realisation that many indigenes of some Nigerian border towns are of mixed parenthood while the signals picked by the TVs and Radios in these communities are usually from the foreign countries.

A proof that my research has certainly paid off was that the first reviewer of the book in an edition of The Guardian commented thus: ‘… so riveting and poignant are the revelations about the dastardly acts of smuggling in this book that it is obvious that the author is actually a smuggler’. Immediately after the release of The Boys at the Border in 1991, some security agents from the Presidency in Abuja visited my publisher asking for copies of the book under the guise of needing the book for their library.

I later learnt that the Presidency had ordered for an investigation into the book in view of what was termed the security implications of my enumeration of the activities at our border towns. I was later made to realise that when it was discovered that the book was a work of fiction, legal experts advised that no further actions should be taken against the author and publisher.

The positive development from this is that the book has since become recommended texts in some of the country’s institutions of higher learning, as well as the Customs Training School.

You published 10 novellettes on the HIV/AIDS in 2001. Were you motivated by your health background?

In 2001, at the height of the public awareness campaign on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, there was an urgent need for books on the issue by schools, government agencies and NGOs working in that field. In order to fill the vacuum, Longman Nigeria PLC (as it was then known) commissioned me to collaborate with some Zambian authors to produce short stories with the theme of HIV/AIDS. The idea was to make the topic of HIV/AIDS easy for teenagers to access through the story form.

As expected, since their publication, the books have been sought after by many practitioners in the HIV field. The publication of the novelettes was the first time I would earn a substantial amount of money from my writing as I was paid handsomely by Longman for the work. Dreams Die At Twilight (Malthouse, 2002) was longlisted for the 2004 NLNG Literature Prize and was also adjudged one of the 25 best books in Nigeria in the last 25 years by  Spectrum Books in 2004.

Were you disillusioned when the prize wasn’t announced in 2004?

Again, what inspired that symbolic, poetic title? Although I was not happy that the prize was not awarded that year, I did not take it personally. This is because I believe that the prerogative of organizers of any Literature Prize on whether or not to award a prize is valid and should not be questioned since the aim is to maintain the high standard for such a prize. By insisting that prizes must be awarded even if none of the entries are judged good enough for the prize will only compromise standards. In addition, I also belong to the school of thought that believes that the essence of writing is not to win prizes but to communicate.

Once a writer has been able to write, publish and garner an appreciable amount of readership, I believe that the writer has completed his/her duty. If along the way, a prize comes up, then that is just an extra incentive and should be applauded and celebrated. In addition, in view of the subjective nature of prizes, they should not be used to elevate a writer against another. Dreams Die at Twilight is a psychological novel. It was inspired by my reading of The Possessed by the Russian writer, Dostovesky.

Although love was the story’s matrix, the contemporary issue of drug trafficking told against the mind of a troubled medical doctor was the main thrust of the novel. At the end of the book, the dream of the protagonist of the story to become an overnight millionaire through drug smuggling hit the rocks and so the book’s title. In researching the book, I had to consult a lawyer to help put together the court room scenes, while a psychiatrist assisted in creating the psychological friction.

Interestingly, the lawyer is now a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, while the psychiatrist is now a US-based professor of psychiatry. Strange Encounters (Heinemann PLC, 2004) was the winner of the 2005 ANA Prize for fiction and, a year later, you published After The Flood (Longman Nig Ltd, 2005) and The Weaving Looms (Kraft Books 2005), which was shortlisted for the 2008 Wole Soyinka Prize For African Literature. There is a sense of history in these works.

What went into the research?

Strange Encounters was actually my first major work. It was inspired by my experience as a youth corp doctor in a rural Mission Hospital in the eastern part of the country. It depicts the experiences of a doctor in rural Nigeria against a backdrop of strange activities involving the police, quack doctors, as well as reverend fathers and nuns.

The book was rejected by six publishers because of what they considered to be offensive portions in the book, which related to some sexual encounters between some reverend fathers and nuns, as well as a homosexual priest. I was asked to expunge these ‘offensive’ portions if I wanted the book published, but I stuck to my guns. Heineman finally published the book in 2004, ten years after it was written. I was immensely thrilled when the book won the ANA Prize for fiction in 2005. After The Flood was inspired by the Ogunpa Flood disaster, which ravaged Ibadan in 1980.

When the same flood disaster occurred in Ibadan two years ago, Longman re-issued the book for wide spread distribution to schools in Oyo State as a way of reminding us about the ability of history to repeat itself if care is not taken. I had to consult some engineers while depicting the flood in order to get my calculations about the size of dams and volumes of water right.

Like many of my books, After the Flood is a recommended text book in many of our institutions of higher learning in the country. The recurring issue of family feud over inheritance is the theme of The Weaving Looms, an intricately woven tale of love, lust, greed and the clash of cultures both at the religious and medical fronts. I was in the House of Representatives when the book was published, and I had the honour of having the then Speaker, Hon. Masari, to publicly present the book in Abuja.

The Riot and Other Stories (Mosuro Books, 2006) seems not have won the same rave reviews like other works of yours. Don’t you think you are better novelist than a short story writer? What led to the seemingly obscurity of The Riot and Other Stories is not the literary quality but the unavailability of the book to the reading public and reviewers. The publisher, Mosuro Books, had an order for 5,000 copies from an international NGO that was into children’s literature.

The publisher, therefore, handed all the 5,000 copies published to the NGO without thinking of the reading public. Since then, all efforts to have the book re-issued have not been possible but we are working on it. You have collaborative works… I was approached in 1995 by the Amnesty International, Nigeria Section through Dr Olu Aina to contribute to a book on Human Rights for children. Other writers involved in the project were Mabel Segun, Mowunmi Segun, Professor Biola Odejide, among others. We were asked to write short stories, poems and plays on Human Rights accessible for children.

My contribution included four poems and two short stories. It was my first encounter with a collaborative venture, which included lots of meetings, rewriting and editing sessions. It called for a lot of patience, humility and perseverance since we were constantly asked to rewrite our works so they could fit in into the desired book. The same thing happened when the Encylopedia of Post Colonial Literature in English asked me to contribute two pieces on Mabel Segun and the Association of Nigerian Authors.

The experience taught me how to work in a group, as well as the enduring legacy of constant editing and rewriting in order to reach perfection in one’s literary activity. It was also the first time I would be paid in foreign currency for my literary effort.

You were a member of the Federal House of Representatives (2003-2007), and you initiated a move for an Endowment for the Arts. Why hasn’t it seen the light of day yet?

The Bill for the Endowment of the Arts was killed by civil servants, who never wanted government money to get into the hands of artists and writers, who they erroneously believe were already earning lots of money from their works.

In 2004, when the Bill was initiated, we thought that an Executive Bill (Bill sponsored by the Federal Government) will be faster and more effective to be passed; however, the Bill did not reach the Executive Council, which was expected to ratify the Bill due to incessant adjournment of meetings by the officials of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, who were expected to put the Bill together.

I am, however, happy that a current Member of the House who is also a writer and an ANA member from Imo State, Hon Jerry Alagbaso, has re-presented the Bill. Obviously learning from our experience, he has re-presented the Bill as a Private Member Bill instead of as an Executive Bill.

With educational background in Medicine, what informed your foray into literature and are you not unfulfilled that the literary side of you has now outshined other engagements of yours?

The truth of the matter is that I am originally an art-oriented person, having scored distinctions in all my arts subjects in secondary schools as against the credit scores I had in my science subjects. My original plan was to study Mass Communications, but my father objected since he had already boasted to his friends that one of his children would be a medical doctor.

And since I was also good in the sciences, I enjoyed my Medical School years during which I still found time to edit a campus magazine and play for the University’s Hockey Team. I was eventually awarded a university scholarship for my last three years in Medical School and also represented Oyo State in many national sporting events. After Medical School, I enlisted for a Diploma Course in Creative Writing before going into full writing alongside my medical practice, which I still carry out albeit on a part time basis.

However, I am not worried that writing has displaced my medical practice. I believe that I am just going back to what I was originally destined to do. I am, however, very fortunate to have attended Medical School before going into writing since like many doctor-writers, Medicine taught me how to write. The organic linkage between Literature and Medicine goes back to ancient times when the ancient Greeks recognised and honoured the connection by placing both medicine and poetry under the dominion of Phoebus Apollo, their god of the sun. The invocation of Apollo as the patron of Medicine and Poetry stems from the belief that the physician and the writer can both be healers. The list of men and women who have combined medicine and literature is long and varied depending on the inclination of the compiler. A writer like Chinua Achebe began but perhaps wisely did not finish medical school.

By contrast, William Somerset Maughan finished his studies but never practised. Others like the poet John Keats, eventually abandoned practice for full time writing while the greater number of doctors whose list is long continued and still continue to juggle both occupations throughout their lives. Famous literary physicians include Oliver Goldsmith (Circa, 1730) John Keats (1795-1821) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) Tobias George Smollett (1721-71) Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), Somerset Maughan (1874-1965), William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). Nearer home, the likes of Professors Olatunde Odeku, (late) Anezi Okoro, and Adeloye, as well as Ewa Henshaw, Tony Marinho, Femi Olugbile, among others, were able to combine literature with their medical practice.

The Ebedi International Writers Residency, Iseyin, Oyo State, an initiative of yours for writers across the globe, has gone into the third year. What kindled your interest in the residency?How have you been soldering on even without support from outside?

The idea of the Ebedi Residency came to me when I was looking for a place to complete a work at hand. When I complained to my wife, she then suggested we convert our country home in Iseyin, Oyo State, for the venture.

This is a laudable programme whereby aspiring and established writers can take time off their daily routines and seclude themselves for a while in a serene environment, sheltered from the noise and bustle outside, in order to fully devote themselves to the tussle with their creative imagination. Here they would have all the infrastructural support they require, without distraction from family or friends, distant from the endless ritual of weddings and funerals and other ceremonies; and well provided against NEPA and water shortages.

In addition, we pay writers a weekly stipend to stay in the residency and offer them a publishing opportunity for their completed works through a well known Lagos based publisher. In return, the writers are expected to interact with secondary school students in Iseyin for a few hours a week in order to mentor them. So far, many gifted writers from the schools have been discovered.

It has not been easy self sponsoring the residency these past three years, but I thank God that the residency is daily gaining national and international acceptance and recognition. Right now, a Belgium-based organisation, Arts Moves Africa (AMA), now provides flight tickets to intending residents from outside Nigeria. I am searching seriously for a corporate or government sponsorship for the residency in order to expand and sustain the project.

Your novel, Tenants of the House, was the 2011 joint winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature and is currently on the reading list of many Nigerian Universities. It also has a US edition launched in Atlanta Georgia, April 2012. Is it a book you hold so dear to your heart more than others in your more than a dozen fictional oeuvre?

I thank God, my editors, publishers, family and friends for Tenants of the House. It has surpassed my expectations for its critical and commercial success. Apart from a nationwide reading tour, which took me to 30 out of the 36 states in the country, I have just returned from a 6-City US reading tour sponsored by Arik Nigeria. Another US reading tour is in the making, while I hope to complete my nationwide tour before the end of the year. In addition to this, an Ireland based Film Company, Zanzibar Films, in collaboration with a Nigerian state government, is concluding plans to shoot the film adaptation of the book.

All things being equal, the film should be ready by the first quarter of 2014, God willing. However, despite its run away success, I do not consider Tenants of The House as my favourite book. That honour, I think should go to The Weaving Looms, because of its setting which is my home town, as well as the book’s deep cultural setting. Some of your former colleagues feel sold out by your depiction of political shenanigans in the lower house.

What do you consider your role as an artist? What prompted this offering? As an artist, I consider it my duty to tell the story around me in the best possible way possible. I also believe that the duty of a writer is to write as honestly as possible what the society often considers ‘unspeakable’. I was prompted to write Tenants of the House because of my deep seated conviction that Nigeria has great potentials once we can get our acts together both by those in power and the followership. One of the ways of doing this is to tell our stories however painful or uncomfortable this may be. This way, while laughing at our mistakes, we can learn how to correct them and move forward.

My experience with Strange Encounters and Tenants of the House has confirmed that well known fact that in creating good and memorable novels, a writer must be ready to ruffle some feathers. While it is true that some of my colleagues in the Nigerian Parliament were miffed by some of the expositions in Tenants of the House, the book has been well received by a large number of them. In fact, some of the legislators have praised me for helping them by telling the world some of the challenges politicians face when taking up the arduous task of nation building in a developing country such as Nigeria.

Your latest book, Fearless: The Emergence of a Virile and Formidable Opposition Leader (2012), is the political memoir of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. As a man who is given to fiction, how challenging was this experience with non-fiction? Is this an area you would like to pay more attention in future? One of the greatest challenges I found in writing biographies is the difficulties in getting interviews from some of our highly placed personalities.

While some of them are simply not interested in writing, some others find it difficult to give out of their busy schedule for the exercise, which they consider irritating. Sometimes it takes upwards of three to four weeks to get an appointment for a 30-minutes interview. And as it is to be expected, writing biographies is more challenging than writing fiction.

While you have the freedom to write anything in fiction, you can’t do that for biographies. You need to gauge the feelings of your subjects, as well as areas of potential legal litigations before putting pen to paper in biographies. Having said that, I enjoy writing biographies. Apart from the good money that accrues from the project, through biography writing, I have learnt so much about human foibles, struggles, achievements and failures, through which I have learnt to be a better person. Certainly, I will love to pay more attention to it in future. Looking back at your tenure as ANA President (2006-2009), do you think the creative writing workshop, etc., you initiated has paid off? As a beneficiary myself of a writing workshop, I am convinced that our writers, both the established and up-and-coming ones have much to gain from writing workshops. All serious professional organisations organise workshops for their members. T

he NMA, NBA, as well the Society of Engineers, have regular courses and workshops for their members to update themselves. This is why I am always ready to support the current ANA Executive in maintaining the tradition of Creative Writing Workshops. Recently, the current ANA Executive was able to secure some grant for a nationwide Literary Project during which ANA, through its members in state branches, will take literary activities to the various secondary schools in their respective states. I am happy that these projects that were initiated by my executive are still going on strong.

What are you working on now?

I have just finished a compilation of my short stories, which my publishers are currently looking at. I am also involved with the film adaptation of Tenants of the House as a script consultant to the film producer. In addition, I have just been commissioned to produce the biography of a very famous Nigerian politician in time for the November 2013 Public Launch. This is the biggest project of my literary career so far, because the project involves interviewing about 100 people, who are mostly VIPs both within and outside Nigeria. It also involves sifting through tons of documents, film videos, diaries, photographs, as well as internet publications.

So far, the project has taken me round about 20 states in the country, as well as the UK, while a trip to the USA is in the making. Luckily, I have a team of six versatile and committed writers and journalists to assist me in the onerous task.

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Posted in Nigerian Newspapers. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: The Sun Newspaper

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