Fraction of A Youth Revisited

femi Akintunde-Johnson

I believe the last time I deliberately engaged in some sort of self-rendition was a decade ago, almost to the same week. It was in jubilant appreciation of reaching the then epochal age of 50 years. Shorn of any veneer of modesty, an entire book (over 200 pages), titled rather cavalierly as “Lifeline: A Slice of my Life” was pressed into service…in honour of my peculiar capacity to survive the fangs and gangs that cramped the crannies and crevices of Nigeria.

Ten years later, that exercise seemed narrow-minded, and its pretensions to helping others wade through the rigour and angst of living and thriving a little hollow. I hope to address that this time around by presenting four books encapsulating, to a large degree, the summary of my existence, both vicarious and tangible. Yes, four books of varying sizes and themes.

First is a collection of poems (virtually locked away in hiding for almost 40 years) apart from rare sightings in one or two gracious anthologies of the 90s. Second is another collection of creative attempts at ‘faction’, but of six stories and a play, with a longing desire to resonate with the youth of this millennium. The last two are mini autobiographies, essentially memoirs of epochal moments in my ordinarily normal life. One is a graphic (both in text and artistic illustrations) documentation of my detention experience in Kirikiri Maximum Prison many years ago, and a few other memories.

The last book is hopefully my most ambitious writing project yet. It’s a hard and frank recollections of the unforgettable ups and downs of birthing, sustaining and losing the FAME magazine project (between 1991 and 1997) – an exercise that has taken more than two decades of preparation and prevarication.

Back to the present… As this month delivers to me – three Saturdays from today – my sixth decade in the land of the living, I choose today to scratch back to a period when fear was caged, hope was exuberant, and the future was nonchalant. In nostalgic ululation, I reflect on a fraction of a youth long vanished. Join me…:

“I have always loved the media and the arts. As a young man growing up in Ebute-Metta, Lagos, it was inevitable that you were exposed to the artistic influences of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I remember “truanting” around the Noble Street (Yaba, Lagos) home of the late doyen of theatre, Hubert Ogunde…just to watch his group’s rehearsals and banters…in my childlike admiration, I was made for the theatre.

Down the Brickfield Road, where I lived for more than ten of my adolescent years, also lived music maestro, Sonny Okosuns… Then, I was filled with a tremendous passion to hug a guitar, and lead a band. I even gathered some street friends to bring alive our dreams to be superstars. Somehow, the band never got off the ground.

Then, the “FESTAC 77” came to town, and took the lead off my creative marbles, more or less. I wanted to perform a motley of artistic genres: Ipi Tombi and other mesmerizing dance troupes suggested I should be a dancer… At least many of them looked like me – tall, wiry and energetic.

Sundry crafts and pan-African motifs revealed my deep-lying artistic gifts… Of course, I used to serenade awed adults and envious mates with my pencil and crayon drawings of American western film stars and Indian filmic heroes…even earning a few kobos from appreciative neighbours and indulgent strangers.

I actually had made up my mind to study Theatre Arts in the university – after touting the idea of reading law for a couple of years. My teenage friend, Orii (Sunday Oribamishe, now late) and I had become some sort of fixtures at the National Arts Theatre (Abe Igi) hunting for acting opportunities. It was there I met and sustained a thoroughly bohemian and interesting relationship with friends who shared my craze for the theatre and the written words (we were easily infatuated with the bombastic and the obscurantist). In between the hiatus created by seasonal tussles with almighty JAMB after secondary school and gaining admission into the university, I formed a remarkable “musketeering unit” with Wale Obadeyi, aka WaleJay (MD of MaxiMargin Communications Ltd. – he died June 30, 2018 at 56 years old) and Muyiwa Kayode (current CEO of USP Brand Mgt). Between late 1981 and early 1983, our peregrinations (one of our favourite words) usually spanned the National Arts Theatre (where UK-returning star actor, Lari Williams was struggling to knock us into some recognizable artistic shape); to the Theatre Annex where Bassey Effiong’s Anansa Playhouse was holding brutal auditions and rehearsals; to the then NTA 7 station (Tejuoso, Lagos) where young producer, Kunle Ajala was whetting our acting thirst with rehearsals for sundry TV drama series; to the Guardian, ThisWeek offices where our star writers were building their reputations in serious journalism. We virtually had crushes (the intellectual type, that is) on great journalists like Sonala Olumhense, Tunji Lardner, Lanre Idowu, Taiwo Obe, Ben Tomoloju, and few others. They graciously listened to and encouraged our dreams and exertions; they sometimes tried to read and ‘edit’ our bellicose and bombastic articles, poems and pure vituperation… That was how we learnt about “stringing”, “freelancing”…running here and there to contribute to the greatest journals of the day. And when any of our articles got into print, which were far in between, we went delirious…. I still have a copy of my poems published in Times International (a news magazine publication of Daily Times) around 1982!

In the frenetic search for relevance and identity, I stumbled on co-travellers like Segun Aina (now Arinze, whose voice was larger than his body); Francis Onwochie (who would never accept that since he looked the youngest, he should be running errands for us); his older sister, Josephine; Mike Odiachi (now late), and some others I cannot now recollect.

However, a chat at the male restroom of the National Assembly Service Commission (Race Course, Onikan, Lagos), with a very senior colleague, the dashing and handsome Femi Oyewoh, convinced me that it would make sense to study English Language and acquire a canopy of knowledge which could also accommodate my first love, Theatre Arts. Less than two years later, I found myself in the English Department of the University of Jos. It was love at first sight. I met great scholars like Prof. Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike (famous novelist, died as a monarch on January 9, 2020 at 88 years old), Dr. Ayo Memudu (HOD), Mr. Francis Ngwaba, etc. That was some 38 years ago….