An evening of critical reflections with Udenta O. Udenta
By Paul Liam
THE day was Sunday, January 12, 2025 when a group of young literary critics had a robust discussion with the erudite scholar and renowned democracy and good governance activist Professor Udenta O. Udenta at his Guzape residence in Abuja. The conversation focused on strengthening critical culture, organising the voices of the emerging critics, and the formation of a collective of young critical thinkers who will engage and represent the collective vision of their generation’s literary outputs. He offered to serve as a motherboard to facilitate the realisation of the vision.
He also shared with the young critics his inspiring journey as a scholar and public intellectual who, at an early age, fell in love with letters and scholarship. At 21 or 22, he said he had already registered his presence as an emerging literary scholar. He knew even at that young age that scholarship and literary theorisation was his stronghold. He said there is no age that is too young to assert oneself. He encouraged the critics to be bold in expressing their ideas and confronting the status quo or ideas of the older generation. He frowned at some young critics’ desire to be validated by the older generation, stating that the only validation they need is that of their own generation.
He also expressed a strong need to encourage young female critics and expressed disappointment at the fact that only male critics attended the meeting. He said it is imperative to support young women in literary criticism. Of course, the critics had a field day discussing various literary ideas, theories, and trends in contemporary Nigerian literature. Umar Abubakar Sidi’s novel, The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus, received scathing critique from most of the critics for failing to impress with its language and falling short of the critics’ expectations of a novel. This critic opined that majority of readers of the novel have misread it and disagreed with the positions of the other critics and attempted to establish the strength of the novel and why it should not be read solely from socialist literary perspectives. The others were vehement in upholding their positions about the novel. This critic informed them that he was doing an analysis of the novel to debunk the misreadings and subjective responses it has received.
It was a heated engagement. The group discussed several other things, such as the dominance of grief motifs in contemporary poetry. A charge ascribed to Carl Terver. They also talked about Deborah, the young girl that was killed in Sokoto for alleged blasphemy by some Islamic fanatics and how her death inspired poets to write poems in her honour. Michael Isangedighi Imossan’s poem titled ‘Deborah’ written in her honour was also a subject of the conversation. Some of the critics expressed sadness over her murder as well as disappointment with how she failed to recognise peculiarities of her environment, thereby subjecting herself to an untimely death. The death of Harira was also a subject of reflection by Carl and Imossan. Several other matters came up for discussion.
There was also a lot of eating and drinking. Prof. Udenta gave copies of his critical works and a collection of poems to the critics. It was truly a hearty conversation that enriched everyone present. Prof. Udenta’s humility stood out as the critics kept remarking about it to themselves. The group agreed to meet again soon and to develop a strategy that will lead to the establishment of a solid literary movement for the new generation. The collective is, by the way, for only critics.
Paul Liam (left); Oko Owi Ocho Africa; Prof. Udenta O. Udenta; Michael Imossan and carl Terver
* Liam is a writer and literary critic
