Interview with Eugenia Abu

EDITOR'S NOTE: You are not alone if you fall in love with Eugenia Abu’s voice the first time you hear her read news on TV. As the Assistant Director, Creative Writing and Presentation with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), she anchors the 9pm News twice a week, a profession that has made her a household name in Nigeria. She is also a published author and newspaper contributor. In this interview that appears in the current issue of INSIDE TRACK MAGAZINE- PRINT EDITION, the author of In the Blink of An Eye talks about motivation, success, writing, and what "making a difference" means to her...

Eugenia Abu, writer and ace newscaster

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?

EUGENIA ABU: My Family, a good book, life and the spiritual, achievers, charitable persons, ordinary everyday people doing extra-ordinary things.



HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS?

EUGENIA ABU: I believe success is how much one has been able to impact positively on one’s environment and persons around them. Success is also translated to how efficient one is in his or her chosen field. If you are a successful doctor for instance, it should not be about how much money you make but more about how well your patients are pleased with the treatment they receive, how much of modern medicine and current trends you know, and are conversant with. A successful doctor for example is one whose patients trusts his judgement and his skill. He also brings kindness and a listening ear to his job. An arrogant doctor who is wealthy I am afraid I may not consider successful. Of course it is good for the doctor to be comfortable so I am not advocating that poverty is synonymous with success. Successful persons ought to be comfortable as well. But all these things earlier mentioned, kindness, efficiency, courage and knowledge of your field are the hallmarks of success. I am intolerant of arrogant, rude and disrespectful people. No matter how good you are, I cannot consider you successful. Success is generally about how you live life to make the world a better and strife-free place.



IF THERE IS ONE THING YOU COULD TELL THE WORLD AND YOU KNOW THAT THE WORLD IS LISTENING WHAT WOULD THAT BE?

EUGENIA ABU: It would be to stop the wars. It is not worth it. When it is all over with wounded soldiers, raped women, displaced families and the smell of death and sadness everywhere, where do the war mongers hide their faces? Was it really worth it in the end? In some cases, at the end of the war, not one of the stakeholders will remember why they went to war. It is a tragedy. In near zones women who go to fetch water, young, old under aged, grandmas and wives are still being raped by rebel soldiers, government soldiers, refugee workers, everyone takes the women for granted. The hunger, the deprivation which makes some women sell their bodies in exchange for food for their families, is so sad. When the war is all over what will one do with the broken pieces of life all over the landscape. Stop the war and adopt a poor person today.



ON HER FIRST BOOK

EUGENIA ABU: My book In the Blink of an Eye was presented to the public in 2006 and has been described as the longest running literary endeavour in Nigeria. We have had 31 book readings in Abuja, read in prisons in London, at a writing conference in Cambridge, in three cities in Australia and have had book tours in Jos, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna and Kafanchan. Lagos, Lafia and Calabar are in view. The promo of In the Blink of an Eye will be brought to an end after doing it in Lagos. We are waiting for the reprints and a special hard cover edition for Lagos. The new book is finished and we should be presenting it to the public soon.



ON HER WRITING

EUGENIA ABU: I started writing when I was seven years old. Lucky that my father let me run around his library early enough, so I am a voracious reader. That has helped my writing. Writing features for The Guardian Newspapers for over 23 years polished my writing skills. I also write a column for my church newspaper, The Good Shepherd and also the Voice of Nigerian, VON Quarterly. In the past I wrote a column for MTN Quarterly. I contribute literary reviews to the Leadership Newspaper. I have a collection of poetry, a collection of short stories, a half written novel and a cookbook; they are all works in progress.



WHAT DOES MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY MEAN TO YOU?

EUGENIA ABU: Making a difference in my community means everything to me. The world is constantly looking for role models. Communities deserve role models, are thirsty for it even if you consider that what you do is insignificant or too lowly. There are young people with no focus and no future who can change as a result of what you said and how you said it. We can all make a difference. It may be your loyalty to your boss or your thoroughness at your work. Role modelling is a huge community service and selfless too. More people should impact their communities through exemplary living. Exemplary leadership is too highfaluting even. Just exemplary living will do. People watch you. As a growing child, you may complain endlessly about your parents but there would be a neighbour, a doctor, a writer, a bricklayer, a hairdresser, a driver whom you adored. Exemplary living by these neighbours can change a child’s life and impact community.



In the summer I teach Creative Writing to children between the ages of 7-14 years and it is one of my more exciting projects, The Treasured Writers. The reward of making a difference in your community is awesome. Also I try to put something in place for the less privileged, I support St. Vincent de Paul, a society for the less privileged in my church (I am Catholic). Also, I try to send books, provide furniture, send pencils when I can to the schools n my community and my husband’s community in Kogi state. There is an afterglow with community service, it is indescribable. Soon I will start something with caregivers in hospitals around Abuja, people who look after their relations in hospitals. It is very traumatic. People care more about the sick person. Caregivers also go through their own stress and need help and empathy.



I also mentor two or three young persons a year. I take them in as my Personal Assistants and pay them a stipend. But when they leave, they have learnt so much. Everyone should be encouraged to do the same. Build a well rounded community, mentor a young person today. ■



(Eugenia Abu will be the Guest Writer at the Abuja Writers' Forum on Saturday, the 30th of January 2010 at 4pm. Venue: Pen and Pages Bookstore, White House Plaza, Plot 79, Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja. Editor)

Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo

Prof. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo is one of Nigeria’s most illustrious writers and role models. Her first work of fiction for young readers, The Buried Treasure, was published by Heinemann of UK in 1992. Since then, she has been making significant—and incomparable—contribution to literature by writing novels, short stories, and children’s books. But long before these feats, she was appointed as a lecturer in 1981 at the University of Lagos and became a Professor of English in 1999. As a scholar she has written and edited academic books in addition to teaching courses in English and African Literature and in Literary Theory to both undergraduate and post-graduate students. She also teaches Creative Writing and organizes Creative Writing Workshops in various venues in Nigeria and abroad. And while some women are too busy thinking of how to increase the size of their wardrobes, Prof. Ezeigbo is busy collecting awards. She was declared one of the two winners in the NLNG Prize for Literature for her children’s novel My Cousin Sammy in 2007. Another novel, House of Symbols, won four medals. Two of her books were shortlisted for the ANA Prize this year, one of which (Heart Songs) won the Cadbury Prize for Poetry. On top of all that, she is one of the most visible gender and feminist writers, theorists and critics in Nigeria today. She also travels in and out of the country regularly to give lectures at different venues—and she is writing more novels. All these make you want to ask: Is she a hard act to follow?

Hoping that we may learn some great lessons from the Professor, we asked her a few questions:

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO WRITE AND WHY?
AKACHI EZEIGBO: It depends on what I want to write and the audience I mean to write for at the time. You see, I write for adults as well as for children. I am motivated by the desire to write an interesting or pleasurable story that will also teach one or two virtues if I write for children. Mind you, I don’t preach but my stories still end up instructing the child like any well written children’s book. That total acceptance you see in children when they love or trust you is what motivates me to write stories that they can enjoy and identify with. But it is different with adults; I am motivated by what I see around me or what I read about. Sometimes an idea from a book or from what someone tells me motivates me. It could also be an experience I had or witnessed. Other ideas may develop from that single idea and I begin to develop a plot and create characters that act out the plot. I like experiencing life fully and from different perspectives, and then sublimating these experiences in fiction or any other literary mode that I consider most suitable for what I want to say.

WHAT’S YOUR PERSONAL DEFINITION OF SUCCESS?
AKACHI EZEIGBO: For me, success means doing my best in whatever I do so that I feel satisfied with the result. It also means empowering others to do well as I have done, if not better. From what I have said you can then understand if I describe myself as successful, especially considering the number of students I have produced over the years, and those whose lives my works and my life have impacted upon. These people are everywhere in this country contributing to its growth and development in various ways. Anyone who manages to touch so many lives positively is successful, as far as I’m concerned.

WHAT DOES MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY MEAN TO YOU?
AKACHI EZEIGBO: Making a difference in my community means being able to identify what needs to be done and doing it even if no one else wants to do it. I’m prepared to support what is right even if it is unpopular. One aspect of making a difference is to have an important effect on a thing, situation or condition. For instance, making an impact in the place where one works. I can say I am a good teacher and that my being at the University of Lagos and in the English Department has made all the difference for many students and even some members of staff. You could investigate this if you choose.

JOYS AND PAINS OF BEING A WRITER?
AKACHI EZEIGBO: Being a writer certainly has its joys and pains. But for me it has been more of the former than the latter. I have had what I could describe as a successful writing career. I have had publishers inside and outside Nigeria and my books are fairly visible. But what makes me very happy is the ability God has given me to create – to writer for my people, especially for children. I love writing for children and have more than fifteen titles in this genre. Some were published abroad and some in Nigeria. It’s wonderful writing for young people. Their appreciation of a writer’s work is pure, unpretentious and is not sullied by envy or bias, as adult readers’. Children will tell you they have enjoyed your work and express their pleasure openly. But some adults read your work, know it is good, but sometimes out of envy or mischief, they run down the work. It could be a deliberate attempt to ridicule or hurt you. Their criticism is not objective and may be spiced with untruths and faulty analysis. This is the pain a writer could go through. You feel you are being judged unjustly and that the reader or critic has become emotional and subjective. It becomes a personal attack on the writer rather than an objective analysis of a work of art. I believe Flora Nwapa, Ama ata Aidoo and Ifeoma Okoye had complained about this type of negative, destructive, paternalistic or patronizing criticism. Some of us have experienced it at one point or another. I tell you, it can be disconcerting. But one shouldn’t bother with such people really. One of our renowned writers stated that writing has nothing to do with age. I agree. It has nothing to do with gender either. The business of writing goes on as long as the writer has something to say and has the capability to say it. For me the pain of writing comes when my work is given subjective, false and illogical interpretations by inexperienced and half-baked critics, and when I am attacked personally by people who do not have facts. But then such people actually expose their ignorance and bias. I pity them because they are out to hurt others, but end up hurting themselves the most. They expose their incompetence. Other pains of writing include not finding a publisher, your books not selling and not getting your royalties from your publisher. But the joys of writing far out-weigh the pains for me and for most writers, especially writers who are serious-minded, profound and committed to their craft. For such writers, the act of writing brings great joy. Part of the joys of writing is getting published and being read, winning prizes if possible, meeting people and knowing places, because you are sometimes invited to read or participate in a festival inside and outside your country. ■

(First published in the 3rd Edition of Inside Track Magazine - Print Edition)

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