By Uduma Kalu
One thing I remember about Professor Charles Nnolim is his salacious jokes.
I remember this particular one. It was on the Igbo name Uju — a feminine name meaning full or plentiful. Prof told us the story of a female student who was so generously endowed that he told her the name suited her perfectly. Her back was Azuka — the back is supreme. Her front was Nkeiruka — the front is supreme. Together, they made her Uju — full.
I was aghast. I could picture the professor on the corridors of his department cracking such jokes with other professors. I didn't expect such a senior professor of his stature to know the kind of lecherous joke we learned as undergrads, let alone crack it. But here was the old man regaling us with our own jokes. How did he learn it? He must have been in the system long enough.
It was at an ANA event, perhaps Owerri. And he was so relaxed, drinking with us as if we were classmates and friends.
Such camaraderie you also get at the University of Ibadan. In fact, my UNN lecturer, Prof. Jonathan Haynes, an American exchange lecturer who later left for UI, told me he preferred UI to UNN because of the camaraderie between students and lecturers there.
We had such professors at the UNN. The Faculty of Arts had them in abundance, well, sort of.
Professor Ola Oloidi was a renowned professor of art history and art criticism in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at UNN who passed away in November 2020. He wasn't short like Nnolim, but he was as comical. I was surprised at the ease with which he interacted with his students.
There was Prof. Emeka Nwabueze of both English and Dramatic Arts. Nwabueze entertained and educated us a lot with humour and current issues all rooted in literature. He mesmerized us with the cultural milieu of Ekwulobia and its impact on the peers from that axis — Okigbo, Obiora Udechukwu, Chimalum Nwankwo, himself — especially the story of the phenomenon called Jadum, the demented, comical philosopher in Okigbo's Labyrinths.
Nwabueze told us that one day at the Ekwulobia market in the 60s, Jadum, who prided himself as the undisputed mad king of the market, was surprised to see another mad fellow. He asked the fellow if he was mad. The man said he was. Then Jadum said they would decide who was truly mad by trekking round the market twenty times. The man got tired before five rounds, while Jadum was just starting. Jadum then banished him, saying the market was only for real mad people.
Professor Bede Okigbo, cousin to Christopher Okigbo who took him to Government College, Umuahia, would later tell me another version. It was in his house at Ojoto. His house deserves a book — spectacular in its exotic plants plucked and planted from all over the world. Bede was Africa's first professor of agronomy.
It was during those bumpy twenties. Chinua Achebe, in his wisdom, organized his own brand of national dialogue because President Olusegun Obasanjo was toying with Nigerians' quest for one. So, through his Chinua Achebe Foundation, he selected some of us to tour the country to interview timbers and calibres of Nigeria. I played a key role. I was picked with Prof. Enekwe and Mr. Alvan Ewuzie of The Sun — who was my boss at The Champion — to interview professors like Okigbo and Prof. Chukwuemeka Ike in their homes. The outcome was serialized by _The Guardian_, thanks to the management then led by MD/Editor-in-Chief Mr. Emeka Izeze.
Back to Bede. He told another Jadum story from when he and his young nephew Chris lived around Ekwulobia. Okigbo was not from there, Nwabueze and Nwankwo insisted, in trying to assert that they owned the Jadum story, not Okigbo.
Bede said Jadum once asked: if a woman was cut into two, which part should a man take — the upper part containing her breasts, or the lower containing her other private parts? Many wanted the upper. But Jadum told them there was no gain up there, the real value was down below. He would take the lower.
Bede also recited a poem they were taught at Government College, about Humpty Dumpty jumping about. He said Achebe would recall it. I made mistakes in transcribing the poem and Achebe had to redo the interview with Okigbo. He recalled it later with me and said he remembered the verses.
Within the literary fold of UNN, I enjoyed the company of professors likre Dr. William Nwaegbe, Prof Nnadozie Inyama, Prof. Enekwe, Prof Damian Oparta and Prof. Mariam Ikejiani-Clark. We would troop to the GRA area of Nsukka town and share local delicacies and palm wine amidst jokes and serious discussions. It was beautiful. Do they still enjoy such hilarity there? Times have changed.
Yes, professors have their fun times too. Some would not be found sharing fun or drinks on campus. Enekwe wasn't a regular at the staff club whose motto is "Best Brains are Best Preserved in Alcohol." I never believed that saying until my science student friend told me how it works. Such brains are stored with alcoholic chemicals poured over them for preservation. Some brains stored that way, he said, included Einstein and Hitler.
But Enekwe drank and joked with us younger writers at Ikenga, Awka, venue of the annual Association of Nigerian Authors conference. I think he drank beer and told us about the formation of the association, his acting president years and how he was sabotaged. Then how he was working on Okike, the literary journal founded by Achebe.
Such literary bouts we had over bottles and pepper soup. I cannot forget those nights at Abuja and at Delta State University, Abraka, during the international conference on Tanure Ojaide. I remember Emeritus Professor Emevwo Anselm Biakolo (1957-2024). That night, with other professors puffing smoke and gulping beers, it was a literary voyage across the post-structuralist world and laughter across the hotel room.
Biakolo was of the University of Ibadan where he taught poetry, oral literature and folklore. He migrated to Botswana in 1994 after an ASUU strike and lectured at the University of Botswana for about a decade. He returned to become founding Dean, School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos. His inaugural lecture was "Communication, Communion, Community" (2010). He died in his sleep on 8th February 2024 in Lagos — same day as Herbert Wigwe.
In Abuja, it was totally different from the hilarious night with Biakolo. Prof. Ada Ugah and Prof. Onokome Okome slugged it out. They recalled their theories, achievements, personal fights and all that over, again, bottles and food. It was an ANA event under the Abacha regime. Odia Ofeimun was under surveillance and there were alleged moves to arrest him by the SSS. Ofeimun was smuggled out of the FCT as the argument between Prof. Ada Ugah and Okome raged.
That night, Dr. — now Prof. — Remi Raji was on rampage, trying to see that only registered voters voted at the ANA elections. I can never list the many literary rendezvous we had together. And there, we talked literature, academics, media, personal issues and others not in print.
My fun times with Achebe? Hmmm. Not much. He was rather fatherly. He never drank beer in my presence, only orange juice. He recalled things and provided solutions. Those salacious jokes weren't there for him. Yet he would engage you for hours. Same with Prof. Ike, same Umuahian as Bede and Chris Okigbo. I visited him severally in his Ndikelionwu village — the same place he shared with Prof. Nwankwo. Nwankwo is a different story in the carnival of life outside academics. He will drink and share his life story with you.
I was recently in his house when he hosted a literary and cultural event for Renaissance Nigeria. Later, Ndi Muo — Spirits, as his admirers called him — told me to sleep over. There, I saw a true human being. We shared secrets, stories about his literary growth, family, etc. And drinks? Hmm. The venue was a journey into the archives of family history.
I haven't named a female professor. Well, I remember some like Prof. Akachi Ezeigbo. Nothing much except her maternal and mentorship angle. She doesn't drink, like Achebe. But Prof. May Nwoye has a bank of humour. I remember one night in her University of Benin house. She was sharing her time in the US. The issue was the Igbo name Ikechukwu. May said she then understood why some Igbo men answering Ikechukwu decided to answer Iyke. She had been opposed to it as a Pan-Africanist. But one day, an Ikechukwu visited her house in the US. And a white woman called him, "Ike chukwu — God's buttocks." May said, ah, that's when she decided it was better Iyke than Ike chukwu. The white woman couldn't pronounce Ike as the Igbo do. Her pronunciation changed it to _ike_ — buttocks. But I saw that May could dance. She was made a Lady by the Anglican church at the University and danced and entertained her guests. I didn't see her drink.
But for Prof. Nnolim, they never changed for him. I didn't know his last moments, but I pictured him like Shakespeare's Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio would be cracking jokes at the expense of his life. You wouldn't know whether to feel sadness or joy or both.
But let's return to Prof. Nnolim. I really don't know why he kept his sideburns. I mean it wasn't attractive to me. But it boosted his height. Do sideburns boost anyone's height? Well, in Nnolim's case, it made his head bigger. He was not really tall. He was diminutive and perhaps without his beard, he could have been swallowed up by heavier people. Like Odysseus in the Iliad. Odysseus, we were told, was shor and was swallowed up in meetings by men of magnitude. But when he sat behind the table, his huge voice filled the room.
And this could be seen in his controversial literary outputs.
I had a close encounter with him at The Guardian. I was in charge of Friday Review.. The Review was a magazine inside the newspaper. Literature was accommodated. One day, I received an essay from the editor, Mr. Jahman Anikulapo. It was a firebrand essay from Nnolim on the new Nigerian writing.
New writers like me, Obi Nwakanma, Pius Adesanmi, Nduka Otiono, Maik Ortserga and Angela Nwosu in the media had been critiquing the new writing. No serious Nigerian academic had academically critiqued the works. Ofeimun, Prof. Ojaide and Prof. Niyi Osundare had some time in the past written or dismissively commented in the media on the new writing.
Nnolim's essay would open a floodgate. Serious academics like Prof. Femi Osofisan would later join.
Ah, Osofisan. I nearly forgot this father of hilarious tales in literary circles.
He narrated a story one Saturday night, again during the Abacha years. It was at the home of Chief Bola Ige. Ige was a June 12 fighter and ANA patron in Ibadan. At the event in his house, FO, as we called him, told the story of &Who Wrote Julius Caesar?'
A governor visited a secondary school during a tour of the state. The staff and students were happy to welcome him and prepared a reception. In his felicitation speech, the governor asked the students who wrote Julius Caesar All the students denied writing it. The governor was perplexed. He asked the principal who wrote Julius Caesar. The principal also denied writing it. His teachers also denied. The governor stormed out, asking the principal to find out who wrote Julius Caesar and report back to his office.
The story has today gone viral with several versions.
It reminds me of another "who wrote what" story. It was in 2007, in the US, during Achebe's 70th birthday anniversary. Prof. Wole Soyinka was there. In African literary circles, there's this thinking that WS, as we called him — like William Shakespeare, also WS — and Achebe didn't see eye to eye. But it was a myth. Soyinka was there and chaired a session. He recalled visiting a high school in the US. The teachers asked the students who was the greatest writer in Africa. They answered: Wole Soyinka. And his book? Things Fall Apart.
Soyinka s story reminds me of an encounter with him. We, Sola Balogun, now Dr Sola Balogun, then in charge of the Culture page of Arts Desk, I was the Literary Editor among other things, were sent out to interview Prof Soyinka in his Ake house he built with proceeds from the Nobel prize he won in 1986. We were to have a light chat with the Nobel laureate and observe him and his surroundings. It was difficult getting Soyinka in the village. After getting to the main park in Abeokuta, Ogun state, we asked and were told to take another drop to Ake and ask. It was a rural village then. Somewhere in the distance hovered a dense forest. But no one knew Soyinka in the village. Such experience I had also in Ogidi home of Achebe in 1999 when he returned home to Ogid, Anambra State.i. I was with Prof Tony Afejuku and Dr Wale Okediran, duo of ANA executives to visit Achebe. Sadly, his home folks didn't know him. One lady could only remember him as the man that returned from America. Imagine our shock.
Well, at Ake, it was same story. But finally, we got to a kiosk across the road. The lady didn't know Soyinka. But a man would come from the forest yonder to sit and chat with them. We trekked through the bush into the forest unsure who to find. It was a real forest. And it was Soyinka's house. It was from the adjoining forest that he escaped to Benin republic during the Abacha years.
I wrote the story, Soyinka: Foopaths to His Bush House. it got a National Media Merit Award Shortlist. When he saw me and Sola at his news conference in Lekki, he told the whole house that in his village, he wasn't Prof Soyinka but Baba Makin. It's traditional in the village to call elders by their children's names. Makin is Soyinka's son. And Baba Makin is Soyinka's name there.
Well, back to Nnolim. Prof. Charles Nnolim, the doyen of Nigerian literary criticism, wrote a famous critical essay called "'New Nigerian Writing: Between Debauchery and the Kitchen'". I changed the title when it came to me at the Review. And that title has stuck till now.
In it he attacked the young generation — Chimamanda, Helon Habila, Lola Shoneyin, and others — as: "the fleshy school of writers whose major satisfaction is to produce main characters ... in dire pursuit of the flesh, writers for whom the excitements and satisfactions of the body are far more important than the sanctity of the novel; for whom the pleasure of the flesh are of more moment than the essence of the spirit..."
He grouped them as writers who write about sex, kitchen, domestic debauchery, instead of the big political/moral themes of Achebe, Soyinka, Clark.
The young writers pushed back hard — they said Nnolim was too harsh and that they self-published without the Heinemann support Achebe's generation had, and that critics dismiss home-based writers unless validated by the West.
It was later published in _ANA Review_, November 2005 and reprinted in his book _Issues in African Literature (Malthouse, 2010)_ — Chapter 15: Contemporary Nigerian fiction.
His core argument was simple: The old guard wrote the nation; the new school writes the bedroom. Sex as plot, kitchen as world, Western prizes as compass.
That essay caused a huge fight. Pius Adesanmi and Chris Dunton responded with whole journal issues — "New Nigerian Writing" (English in Africa 2005) and "Nigeria's Third Generation Novel" (_Research in African Literatures (2008) — to defend Chimamanda's generation.
Nnolim and Achebe? Hmm. This is the big one.
The article that started the war: "A Source for Arrow of God" — Research in African Literatures_ Spring 1977. Later anthologized in Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe (Heinemann, 1979) edited by Innes & Lindfors.
What Nnolim claimed: That Arrow of God was not entirely original. That Achebe drew heavily from a small pamphlet written by Nnolim's own uncle: Simon Alagbogu Nnolim — The History of Umuchu (1953).
Nnolim laid them side by side: In History of Umuchu: High Priest Ezeagu of Uchu refuses a chieftaincy title offered by colonial admin, refuses to roast the sacred yam, is jailed in 1913 by District Commissioner J.G. Lotain. In Arrow of God: Chief Priest Ezeulu refuses to be made Warrant Chief, refuses to eat the sacred yams / call the New Yam Festival, is jailed by Captain Winterbottom. Same plot device.
Nnolim wrote: "What I found curious is that Achebe did not acknowledge the source which he obviously studied and whose use does him no injury."
Achebe was furious. He called Nnolim in an interview with Kalu Ogbaa (RAL, 1981): "a certain fellow who was claiming that Arrow of God was written by his uncle."
There's a famous Port Harcourt story: Achebe came to UNIPORT, all professors lined up to shake him. When he got to Nnolim with his hand extended, Achebe pretended not to see him and passed him by. He refused to visit the English Department as scheduled.
Defenders of Achebe like B.U. Buakei Jabbi (African Literature Today No.11, 1980) attacked Nnolim for "unfortunate ineptness in source attribution coupled with basic interpretative myopia" but never disproved the parallels.
And orally, the rumour mill in Nigerian academia still says that Nnolim's 1977 article was what made the Swedish Academy hesitate on Achebe for the Nobel.
Nnolim never backed down. Till his death in Port Harcourt in June 2025, he is said to have kept a copy of The History of Umuchu to show students.
And yet, people forget that Nnolim was not just Achebe's enemy. He was his biggest academic champion AND his sharpest critic. That is why the fight hurt.
He created the term "Sons of Achebe" — in _Issues in African Literature_ (2009), chapter 13, he calls John Munonye, Chukwuemeka Ike, Elechi Amadi and others "Sons of Achebe" because they copied Achebe's formula: "the novel of Igbo traditional life and the adaptation of English for African experience."
He called Things Fall Apart an Igbo Epic. In his early teaching, he compared Okonkwo to Beowulf, Odysseus, and Virgil's Aeneas. He said Achebe did what no one had done: invented the African novel as a field of study.
In his 2011 re-assessment essay — Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 48(1) — titled "Chinua Achebe: a re-assessment", he says: "It was Chinua Achebe who established and defined the Nigerian tradition in the novel... creatively makes use of our proverbs, legends, folktales... giving expression to our national culture..."
He defended Achebe's moral vision. He wrote chapters like "Achebe's Tragic Heroes" and "Achebe's Masked Spirits" praising Achebe as a social critic who diagnosed Nigeria's leadership failure.
So his position was: Achebe is the father, Achebe is genius, but even genius must acknowledge sources.
His problem was not that Achebe used _The History of Umuchu_ — all Igbo writers borrow oral history — his problem was that Achebe did not footnote it. For Nnolim, that was "critical responsibility."
That is why he said in ANA Review "It really should have been expected that some Igbo critics would have shown as much concern as the white critic about matters of critical responsibility in our literature."
In short: Nnolim loved Achebe's achievement, but he wanted Achebe to be accountable like any scholar. He never hid his mouth. That was his greatness and his trouble.
And that is why, when I remember him, I don't just remember the criticism. I remember the Uju joke on the corridor, the beer in Owerri, and a small man with bushy sideburns whose voice filled the room when he finally sat down behind the table.
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