Sam Omatseye Live @LASU: ‘‘Juju Eyes’ unveils absurdities in the Nigerian society’
* UNILAG, RovingHeights Bookstore, Oniru, VI next stop for Juju Eyes, June 17, 22
By Anote Ajeluorou
IT was a wet Wednesday morning, as late morning rain made Lagos one vast sheet of heavenly fine spray. Destination was the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Lagos State University (LASU) along the Lagos-Badagry axis, a campus in tune with nature, as all streets, lanes, quadrangles and walkways bear testimony to intentional greenery landscaping. Although scheduled for 11.00am, the rain and students still having classes delayed the reading programme somewhat, but when it began, it was fun and excitement as the author and Editorial Board Chairman of The Nation newspaper, Mr. Sam Omatseye took his audience through the contours of his latest literary offering, Juju Eyes.
In attendance were faculty members like the chief host and Dean, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Prof. Jide Jimoh, Prof. Tunde Akanni of Journalism Department who steered the reading event, alongside his colleagues – Dr. Ganiyat Tijani-Adenle and Dr. Suleiman Hassan, and their counterparts from English Department of the university – Prof. Rachel Bello and Mr. Adejobi Adetunji, among others including students from both Communication and English departments and Omatseye’s guests from town that included the media and publisher of Juju Eyes, Mr. Victor Agbro.
The Dean, Prof. Jimoh expressed delight in hosting Sam Omatseye to the faculty for his second reading from his new book after he first made a stop at his alma mata Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun Sate. Prof. Jimoh said the event was important for town and gown meeting that should periodically take place, so students benefit from practical wisdom that comes from outside campus. Prof. Jimoh then shared his experience as a trainee journalism student when his article was published in The Guardian years ago, and he’d had to display it for his colleagues to see. He said such zeal among students was lacking these days even as the world is at their fingertips with the array of gadgets at their disposal unlike what obtained in his days as a youth.
Sam Omatseye reading from Juju Eyes
Steering the reading event was Prof. Akanni who said Omatseye was once their employer, as a former Governor Council member of LASU. He was full of praises for Omatseye’s journalistic adventurism, saying, “Sam ranks among the wittiest of the columnists that Nigeria has ever produced; he’s a gift to our generation. It’s my great pleasure to welcome a great man, Sam Omaseye, to the faculty again. He has always identified with any progressive thing we are doing. The student union would remember how he had been of help all along, including helping to publish LASU Gong, one of the editions. He has been a friend of the faculty. We are very happy to have you here.”
Prof. Akanni took time to explain some of the complexities they face as academics with students in an internet and social media age that tends to blur a lot of lines, and how entrenching both journalism theory and practice could make the difference. He said students were no longer as adventurous as it was in years gone by when he was a student, with values also gone awry.
“We are in a period where students no longer engage with the public, with the practitioners on the field,” Prof. Akanni said somewhat ruefully. “And when this faculty was started, we insisted that this Town-and-Gown relationship would be given priority, and we can’t expect less. Most of us that started this faculty as staff were practitioners – journalists, PR, advertising people, and we felt the need, because people were complaining that sometimes you find somebody who has a 2:1 (Second Class Upper degree), give him a news story to write and he cannot. So, we said our own is going to be different. We have tried to marry practical experience with the theory that we give in class, so they can see the transition. They’re not just writing news for writing news’ sake; they are also informed of the ethical and professional rules that go with writing.
“We have a problem these days. The Internet and social media has made a journalist of everybody. Well, we are not saying journalism should be a close shop, but even if you go to learn mechanic, you should be able to distinguish between 12/13 spanners and other things. You now need to learn from those who were there before you, that there are some ethical and professional obligations. That is why people will post nude pictures, post scary things, post things that can divide society, because they do not have that ethical or professional background. We teach both the theory and practice of the profession here, and we continue to do that.”
He said having Omatseye in the faculty was a proper Town-and-Gown meeting, recalling the inspiring excitement the visit of journalism titan Mr. Dan Agbese engendered in them during their undergraduate days. He, however, lamented that heroism now receives a somewhat curious slant with the way society has been rewired to favour the mundane over values of ethical stricture or restraint.
“When we have opportunity to have a practitioner speak to us, we are always happy,” he said. “I remember the excitement we had when Dan Agbese visited us at the University of Lagos. It was as if angels were coming to the campus, the way we were running around. These days, the heroes of the present generation, maybe dancers, some bloggers with doubtful credibility, that would do things without thinking that they are corporate people by definition, and that youths would see them as people who can lead them on what society should be, and if they falter, the younger generation would most likely follow their steps. ‘So, if he can do it, why can’t I do it? He or she is driving this big car; that means it’s alright.’ These are some of the things we should try to clear.”
Omatseye read three excepts before students and lecturers alike started asking questions about his new book – the inspiration, the characters, the feminist angle to the story, if he’s satisfied with the outcome, among other issues.
In response, Omatseye explained, “A lot was on my mind when I was writing Juju Eyes, and when critics say things about it, I’m like, “was I really saying what people are saying?” Then I remember what the British poet Robert Browning, said, “when I write, only God and I understand it. After I’ve written it, only God understands it.” I’m sure Soyinka will agree with that. After Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, and the whole world caught fire, he said, “the book that will make people go to the streets, and say that I was against Islam as a religion, that is not the book I wrote.” So he was thinking one way, and the readers were thinking another way.
“And that’s why French author, Roland Barthes who wrote ‘The Death of the Author’ said once you have written the book, it is no longer yours. Your name may be there, but it belongs to the universe. I have a few places to read from the book to give you a hint of what the novel is about. The main character is called Shay, who goes through a lot of experiences in this book, which kind of unveils the absurdities Nigerian society can be.”
On the choice of title, Omatseye said, “The answer is actually in the book. There was a fellow called Mr. Naija, a white man who became Shay’s man, and one day, in the height of their ecstasy, he calls her ‘juju eyes’, and Shay is offended, because she’s afraid that it calls up the first chapter that I read. It gives her retrospection: am I manifesting as a village juju, or something like that. She responds by saying that the term is racist, and he now says, “no, it’s not racist. I got this expression from the stewards of one of my friends in Port Harcourt. I heard him call his girlfriend ‘juju eyes’, and I asked him, ‘why would you call your girlfriend ‘juju eyes’ and he said ‘because I dey worship am.’” That’s how the name, Juju Eyes, came about. You can look at it from different angles: is it racist? Is it worship? Is it also a throwback to the haunting Okumo priestess? Is Shay the goddess? It’s part of the unravelling of this story; just a rumination of beauty. Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky actually said ‘beauty will save the world.’ And an Austrian poet said that ‘beauty is the beginning of death.’ That’s how the world views her.”
“I don’t know whether to call it a rape or sex scene in the book, between Shay and her uncle,” Omatseye said in response to a possible sexist charge a feminist and lecturer Dr. Tijani-Adenle raised, who said to read the novel, and if she found its against women she promised to take issues with Mr. Omatseye. “Was it rape?” Omatseye continued, “was it Shay who led the uncle on? That matter became troubling to the TV presenters who interviewed me. Was I trying to say that the girl was a bad girl? I was not, but that was an interesting one. But even less interesting was a young lady who confronted me in Ibadan at The Booksellers, and she said the rape or sex scene was written to demonize the young girl. Was I justifying the fact that the girl was actually responsible for what the uncle did? She was very angry and actually anticipating a certain kind of response from me, and I saw the rage and the fury as she was asking the question. So I referred her to the ambiguity that was in the mind of the fellow.”
Omatseye further explained the sex scene that would throw spanners in the life of a young girl and completely change her course in life for one of unrestrained debauchery.
“Well, I said it is true that the girl went to see the uncle alone,” he continued. “She dressed in a certain way to see the uncle. Did she seduce the uncle? Maybe, I don’t know. Did she flirt with the uncle? Yes, it seemed so, but I concluded that the uncle was providing for this lady. The lady had become something of a human doll, and I concluded that no matter what happened, when you have power over a minor, at the end of the day, you have to show responsibility (and not succumb to base instincts).”
Dr. Ganiyat Tijani-Adenle (left); Prof. Tunde Akanni; Prof. Rachel Bello; the author Mr. Sam Omatseye and Dean, Faculty of Communition and Media Studies, Lagos State University, Prof. Jide Jimoh displaying copies of Juju Eyes PHOTOS: JOE AGBRO
Like all dubious lifestyles characterised by lies and subterfuge, Shay’s life would unravel, and when she senses her lover Osa’s naivety, and decides to open her own can of worms before him. Omatseye also rejected the charge of being anti-feminist in the work but an unflattering expose of the underbelly of both men and women.
“In the case of Shay,” Omatseye said, explaining the complicated life of his female protagonist, “Osa is not exactly innocent, but she believes that Osa is naive enough to let her know of his own iniquities, because Osa loves her so much that he doesn’t want to make any errors by her, but she is very cold in her maneuvering of men and god. Maybe because she has the power of Okumo, her village god. Shay is a woman of action, a woman of activity, and she goes beyond Osa into bigger, better and even more troublesome situations. So, it is not a novel that is against women, but it tells the story of women that even women would not want to say about themselves, and about men, that men would not want to say about themselves. It’s a story of both sides, of living dubious lives… Shay ate the forbidden fruit and became the forbidden fruit herself.”
Perhaps, the most exciting question was how Omatseye masterfully navigates the political part of the novel by embedding a slice of Nigeria’s experience into it. Constantly swimming in the stormy waters of Nigerian politics himself, with his own interventions, either as ‘In Touch’ columnist with The Nation or his TVC programme and other non-fiction books, Omatseye is at home when talking politics.
“I think you would agree with me that our politicians are full of so many facets,” he said with a hint of humour. “We have the humorous; we have the dark, we have the brigands; we have the bureaucratic, we have the devils; we have the visionary, we have he sunny; we have all of them tied into one – the good, the bad and the ugly. And if you look at Chief Lambe, he loves money. He is accused of kidnapping and murder, he gets out of it. He threatens, he blackmails, asks a follower make a burn-fire of his money, makes his followers put a dead animal in front of Osa’s house. I think the full range of the Nigerian politician is in Lambe. I think that he could not be satisfied.”
Omatseye also took a dig at permissive parents who glory in the wealth their children bring home without asking for the source, arguing that they’re also at the root of society’s rot.
“As a reviewer says, one of the most fascinating characters in this book is Shay’s mother who is even more virulent, because she leaves her daughter into the hands of the hawks, because she is benefitting from the corruption, and then after a while, when the daughter is already rotten, she starts saying, ‘know the mother of whom you are!’ And she’s still benefitting.”
