Tag: Abani

Chris Abani: Distorting Africa’s History

Ikhide R. Ikheloa11 Comments

The world is now privy to the myriad lies and exaggerations of the acclaimed writer, Professor Christopher Abani regarding his imaginary ordeal in Nigeria’s prisons (mostly Kirikiri). The lies are compelling and give Africa a black eye: The death sentence imposed on him because of his involvement in military coups as a teenager and his alleged witness to the execution of at least one 14-year old through death by nailing of his penis to a chair until he bled to death. The shocking revelations of Abani’s “419” activities are detailed here on my blog.

There are many compelling reasons why Abani’s lies and exaggerations should not be ignored as mere fibs by someone intent on furthering his dream as a writer and intellectual. White folks need to understand the caste system in Nigeria. As the offspring of privilege, of a white mother and an upper middle class black father, Abani most likely luxuriated in the lap of adulation and luxury in Nigeria. Abani is biting the hands that fed him by lying about what did not happen to him in Nigeria. Shame on him.  You must understand the impact of these lies on innocent Nigerians who are viewed at home and abroad from the tortured lens of what passes for African literature today. Abani’s lies are not mere lies; these are muscular distortions of the history of Nigeria, and by extension, Africa.

Let me repeat: Chris Abani was never detained in Nigeria’s Kirikiri prisons. Abani was never at Kirikiri as a prisoner awaiting death. That is just not true. And he was never implicated in a military coup, never. And the most galling of the lies; Abani never witnessed a 14-year old prisoner on death row die by his penis being nailed to a chair so he would bleed to death. That these lies have gone unchallenged for over a decade is a damning indictment of those in his literary circle who knew about this and chose to keep quiet for whatever reason. It is also an eloquent testimony to the racism in the literary circle of the West populated by patronizing condescending Western liberals who work themselves daily into unctuous avuncular foam, willing to think the worst of Africa and Africans and consign us to a beggarly subhuman condition with their cloying, devastating faux kindness. They should keep their money, their grants, and their fake wines. We may be poor but we are definitely not idiots.

In the name of fiction, a tiny cabal of “African writers” seems willing to wheedle, lie and steal their way into stardom on the tortured back of Africa. As a result, Africa and Africans are being doubly victimized. In the decaying classrooms of Nigeria, children born into a war schemed by thieving politicians and lying intellectuals are being taught that dead white men discovered places like River Niger. And abroad their sons and daughters are assuring their white counterparts that in Nigeria 14-year olds are routinely executed by means so brutal and primitive, they reinforce the truth that Africa is a land of darkness. That is what Chris Abani and his roaming band of Diaspora literature pimps are telling young impressionable Westerners every day in classrooms. We should be outraged. If you do not believe me, here is the official website of  Professor Chris Abani who now teaches this kind of false odium every day at the University of California, Riverside.

“As a teenager in Nigeria, Chris Abani earned a little too much attention for the publication Masters of the Board, a thriller whose plotline about a military coup triggered paranoia in his country’s political dictatorship. Abani’s creativity combined with his college activism resulted in prison sentences from his government, sometimes in solitary confinement.”

“A collection of poems that grew out of that experience, Kalakuta Republic (2000), was described as “the most naked, harrowing expression of prison life and political torture imaginable,” by playwright Harold Pinter.”Reading them is like being singed with a red hot iron.””

This is outrageous. The distortion of our own history by our very own is beyond reprehensible, it is criminal and I intend to stop only when Abani stops. I am privy to private testimonials of Abani’s malfeasance, how it is near-impossible for honest hard working African authors to tell their story without some concerned Westerner in the audience asking about Abani’s ordeal and the penis nailing to death.

The University of California, Riverside must demonstrate to the world that it is not a racist organization by bringing down Abani’s website. What Abani is doing to Nigeria in the classrooms of America makes him an enemy of Africa and we must let the University of California know it in no uncertain terms. It is very simple: Abani is the accuser here. He has accused Nigeria of arresting him several times, putting him on death row, executing at least one teenager, seeking his extradition from Britain, lie, lie, lie. In the West where he peddles his lies, there is the presumption of innocence until you are proven guilty. The University of California at Riverside should at the very minimum ask Abani to take down the offensive lies about Nigeria on his website, failing which I would urge Nigeria to sue the university for defamation.

What should we do? Great question. If you are outraged enough email the responsible parties in the university and urge them to prevail upon Abani to remove the lies from the university’s website.  Chris Abani may be reached at Chris.abani@ucr.edu.  Andrew Winer, is Chair of Abani’s department; he may be reached at: andrew.winer@ucr.edu

Abani is trusted by the Western media; he gets rave reviews and attention wherever he goes to peddle his tales of African disease war and gloom. Sometimes children are the beneficiaries or shall we say victims of his lies as in this moving article in the Star Tribune about how he only charged $5,000 to attend an event thanks to the persistence of a little boy who wanted very much for Abani “the poet and activist” to come deliver a speech in his school. We are told Abani normally charges $50,000 to $100,000 per engagement. I can assure you that he did not earn those fees from simply being a professor; pretty much every dollar he has earned is from his tales as a teenage pain-in-the-butt-on-death-row-in-Africa. Why should we allow an adult to scheme children out of the money they made from bake sales? Here is how Abani is described in the article:

“Abani grew up under a military dictatorship and was imprisoned by the Nigerian government as a teenager for his writings. He speaks gently of his late mother, a 5-foot-2 woman with five children, “who stood up to soldiers who wanted to kill us.” He is the recipient of the PEN Freedom-to-Write Award and the Hemingway/PEN Prize for his bestselling novel, “Graceland.””

There are enough lies in there to sink the Titanic again.

If you feel outraged enough about the pimping of Africa for profit by the likes of Chris Abani, please send a nice polite email to the following at the Star Tribune and express your concerns about the misrepresentations in the article:

Gail Rosenblum, the columnist who wrote the piece: gail.rosenblum@startribune.com

Michael J. Klingensmith, Publisher and CEO: michael.klingensmith@startribune.com

Nancy Barnes: Editor and Senior Vice President, nancyb@startribune.com

Scott Gillespie: Editor, sgillespie@startribune.com

There is more. Abani’s lies have infected the hallowed halls of academia and institutions whose hallmark is excellence. Chris Abani is the 2001 recipient of the Netherlands’ Prince Claus Award for Literature & Culture. Write to the Prince Claus Foundation  at info@princeclausfund.nl and ask them to explain how and when Chris Abani was “a political prisoner of war” as they state on their website.

Chris Abani is the 2001 recipient of the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award. The award was given to Abani based on lies and misrepresentations about his alleged life as a prodemocracy activist in Nigeria. Write to the leaders of PEN USA at pen@penusa.org, ftw@penusa.org, libby@penusa.org asking them to explain the lies on their websites about Abani’s exploits.

Chris Abani is the 2003 recipient of the Hellman/Hammet Grant from Human Rights Watch, USA. Make your feelings known at http://www.hrw.org/contact-us.

Chris Abani says Africa is a land of savages that nail their children’s phalluses to chairs so they can bleed to death. Do you agree? If not, do something about it. Now. We are not savages.

Do something. Anything. Chris Abani knows he is lying through all his teeth; he has been in hiding since the revelations went viral on the internet. I shall not relent until the heat forces him to say something, anything. Please share the TED speech with friends in Amnesty and other institutions who can do something to tell the truth about what really happened. Ask them to investigate the penis nailing of a 14-year old, the death sentence on Abani, the stay in Kirikiri, etc, etc, etc. And more importantly show them the tales in his professional website, apparently the morbid basis for the lies he tells to American children everyday about the Africa of his nightmares. He also peddles his tales to school children for monstrous amounts of money, for example, here. This man’s actions are even more reprehensible than the stories fed to Nigerian children daily about Conrad’s heart of darkness and the discoveries of savage parts of Africa (the River Niger, etc) by dead white men. We must stop this man. Do this in the name of our children.

The Trials of Chris Abani and the Power of Empty Words

Ikhide R. Ikheloa18 Comments

I write this for Nigeria, beautiful but troubled land that houses my umbilical cord…

So, the other day I was watching a video clip of a Nigerian caught in the claws of the UK immigration. He had just alighted from a plane, clutching a fake passport and a detailed script for responding to pesky questions by UK immigration officials. The interview with the UK officials is at once funny and sad. If you have the time, you may watch the tragi-comedy here. When he is told he would be sent back home to Nigeria he breaks down in copious tears, kneels down and begs for relief. This warrior truly doesn’t want to go home for reasons different from the tissue of lies he has offered. The terror in his eyes hurts to behold. He looks like he is in his early thirties but he has definitely been schooled in the immigration laws of the UK; he loudly claims to be fifteen – a vulnerable minor in need of protection. He is clearly not fifteen but skeptical authorities decide to take him to a home where he would stay until his age is determined. He absconds and disappears into the catacombs of London never to be seen again. You cheer for this warrior until you realize that lacking any discernible skills his life is not going to be much better in London (English subtitles mock his halting English, humiliating hints of an abusive Nigerian educational system). Who knows, maybe his offspring will live a better life.  Our leaders should be shot. Yes, our leaders should be shot. I am not only referring to our political leaders. When the history of Africa’s troubled journey is accurately chronicled, the world will come to realize the horror of the self-serving perfidy of Africa’s intellectual leaders. We are the new self-serving colonialists perpetuating black-on-black crime on our own people. Ask the underclass of South Africa now attending to the narcissism of their black elite.

The degree of narcissism and self-absorption is mind-boggling. Many of our intellectual leaders are, like their political brethren, indifferent to personal responsibility. For them, flowery words are perfect substitutes for good character. Many will forever remember how the great fraud Philip Emeagwali wormed his way into credible history books as the “Father of the Internet.” Why, his face is permanently etched on a Nigerian postage stamp as a great son of Africa, this man who defrauds thousands daily by claiming that his graduate term paper makes him the founder of the Internet. His lies and exaggerations are copiously chronicled here by Sahara Reporters. If you need only the abridged Cliff notes, click on this. Please do not google “Emeagwali fraud,” your computer will crash from the e-rage. There are extremely reliable rumors that this trickster was set to receive Nigeria’s highest honor in 2010 until news of his hoax went viral on the Internet. Using his sordidly self-serving website here,  Emeagwali continues to ply his sick trade in America as a Black History Month pimp where folks desperate for black heroes uncritically accept his daring lies and obfuscations. By the way, whatever happened to the Nigerian government’s vow to investigate Philip Emeagwali?

When it comes to matters of immigration, I must concede that it is complicated; I generally make no judgment about how and why folks move from place to place. Right now, young people are doing daring things to escape what are admittedly harsh conditions in Africa. Hundreds die annually crossing roiling seas just to escape the disastrous consequences of their leaders’ perfidy. What they are doing is no different from what the colonialists did in coming to America. The face of immigration is browning, that is the only difference. This earth belongs to all of us, and you live where you can afford to.

The eighties and the nineties were particularly brutal years for Nigerians. Waves of murderous dictators took turns making life miserable for the people – and enriching themselves and their families in the process. Writers and artists were vulnerable. Many fought ferociously and were just as ferociously attacked for their beliefs and words. Many lost their lives and many are forever broken by the savagery that was visited upon them. The books of these brave warriors document their harrowing experiences in the hands of dictators. It is the truth. Well, not all of it is the truth. As in every instance, there are those who would take advantage of situations for self-serving reasons. Every now and then, a celebrated writer gets caught in the web of lies and exaggerations.  There is the sad case of Ishmael Beah, author of the memoir, A Long Way Gone, a bestseller about Beah’s days as a child-soldier. That book ran into difficulties when some dogged researchers did some homework and came up with the compelling conclusion that the book is mostly reams of lies and exaggerations (see some links here).  What is particularly tragic here is that Beah’s book is, in my humble opinion, a very good and important book; it could have been marketed as fiction, but no, I imagine that Beah and his agent concluded that the only way it would sell would be to claim fantastic adventures that have spurious basis in fact. The West’s hunger for child-soldier stories is insatiable and many alleged child-soldiers are wailing all the way to their suburban banks in Europe and America.

So the other day, I was doing some research on the acclaimed Nigerian writer Chris Abani and I came across these comic howlers on his Wikipedia page:

“Christopher Abani (or Chris Abani) (born December 27, 1966) is a Nigerian author. Abani’s first novel, Masters of the Board, was about a Neo-Nazi takeover of Nigeria. The book earned one reviewer to praise Abani as “Africa’s answer to Frederick Forsyth.” The Nigerian government, however, believed the book to be a blueprint for an actual coup, and sent the 18-year-old Abani to prison in 1985. After serving six months in jail, he was released, but he went on to perform in a guerilla theatre group. This action led to his arrest and imprisonment at Kiri Kiri, a notorious prison. He was released again, but after writing his play Song of a Broken Flute he was arrested for a third time, sentenced to death, and sent to the Kalakuta Prison, where he was jailed with other political prisoners and inmates on death row. His father is Igbo, while his mother was English born.”

“He spent some of his prison time in solitary confinement, but was freed in 1991. He lived in exile in London until a friend was murdered there in 1999; he then fled to the United States.”

Kalakuta prison! Who knows of such a prison? Based on these tales, in 2003, Abani is offered and happily accepts to be a recipient of the Hellman/Hammett grants awarded to 28 “brave” writers from all over the world. Here is Abani’s citation:

“Chris Abani (Nigeria), poet and novelist, was arrested in 1985 and again in 1987 when plots of his novels were said to be plans for attempts to overthrow the government. He spent six months in prison in 1985. In 1987, he was held in Kiri-Kiri Maximum Security Prison for a year and tortured. On his release, Mr. Abani entered Imo State University. Inspired by Wole Soyinka’s use of theater as protest, Mr. Abani formed a theater group that wrote and performed anti-government sketches. In 1990, he wrote a play, Song of the Broken Flute, for the University’s commencement exercises which the military head of state and military governor were scheduled to attend. The play, a series of monologues that decried government corruption and its effects on the people, landed him back in prison on treason charges. Released after 18 months, he graduated from Imo State University and joined the national service. Several attempts on his life while in boot camp prompted him to flee to England. He lived there quietly until publication of his prison memoir in 1997, when he began speaking out. As a result, the Nigerian government applied to have him extradited to stand trial for treason again. In December 1999, following the doorstep murder of his next-door neighbor, the only other Nigerian in the building, Mr. Abani left England for the United States. He now lives in California and is a doctoral student in literature at the University of Southern California.”

The story gets hilarious and changes with each re-telling. No one bothers to check. To be fair to his fellow writers, this award caused quite an uproar on krazitivity an online listserv of writers. He was put to task and he offered some defense of sorts before promptly disappearing out of sight. In the defense he pointedly avoids mention of the alleged death sentence. There were many responses, restrained, polite but expressing robust incredulity. The artist and poet Olu Oguibe asked for independent verification pointing out accurately that as an activist and student union leader himself he did not remember these tales; he did remember the late Chima Ubani who suffered eerily similar travails in the hands of the Nigerian government.  He has since expanded on his skepticism, with even more profound analysis on my Facebook page. The writer Nnorom Azuonye offered a compelling deconstruction of Abani’s 2003 defense here.

It is one thing for Abani to tell a lie and then move on with his life. It is another thing for him to continue to perpetuate the same lie at the expense of Africa. It is obnoxious and offensive, and if he was white, it would be considered racist. Since the confrontation/intervention in 2003, Abani has gone on to conduct moving interviews and given speeches expanding in graphic detail his alleged experiences. As I said earlier, the details get more fantastic in the re-telling and details and dates change each time. It is comic really. Watching Abani in 2008 here on TED, you wonder if he has delusions of grandeur, the man really believes all this stuff. You have to read this piece and watch the video clip. There is this piece of brilliant fiction where Abani talks about ending up in solitary on Nigeria’s “death row” and witnessing the execution of  “John James,”a 14-year old prisoner. “John James didn’t really understand death row and believed they’d get out. “They killed him. They handcuffed him to a chair, nailed his penis to a table, and let him bleed to death. That’s how I ended up in solitary, because I made my feelings known.” So many questions: How come no one has publicly called him on these lies? THAT is the real scandal. And the damage to Nigeria is needless. Such a brilliant writer, weaving unnecessary lies! Where is the outrage? Read this and marvel at Abani’s abilities to weave utter fiction. And yes, I have made up my mind, Abani is lying through all his teeth; he definitely lives in pure fantasy-land. Google Abani and there are all these Westerners fawning over him, they did not even bother to check the facts – reverse racism feeds some of our African intellectuals’ wallets. Read this interview and be royally teed. And here is another load of bullcrap. Abani ought to offer apologies for doing this to Nigeria and Africa.

These are questions I pose directly to Chris Abani: Were you really sentenced to death in Nigeria for your involvement in the Mamman Vatsa coup? Do you have copies of the extradition documents from the Nigerian government? Produce something, a newspaper clipping, anything and I will personally apologize to you for doubting you. It is amazing that up until now, no one has ever seen fit to call Abani on his lies and exaggerations. His appalling conduct threatens to distort permanently Nigeria’s already tortured history. There have been private complaints about his narcissistic behavior, yet no one has seen fit to come forth and complain about this outrage. The simplest explanation is that Abani is a hugely talented and influential writer; people, especially his peers are reluctant to confront him publicly because they do not want to be seen as raining on a talented writer’s parade. Words are powerful. In the hands of the gifted they can move armies to awesome destruction. It is not always a good thing. Words woven into lies can do major structural damage and trust becomes collateral damage. It is truly very simple; Abani should go to Nigeria, visit Kirikiri prisons like the writer and activist Ogaga Ifowodo recently did, show the world his cell and ask the authorities to give him copies of his incarceration documents. They are all there waiting for him. Failing that, he should shut up and keep writing. We will buy his books and love him regardless. Yes, will the real Christopher Abani stand up? In the name of Africa, I say stand up, speak the truth and sit down.