Arts/Literary
How Cheluchi Onuobia Won 2020/21 NLNG Prize For Literature
Being a text of statement by Chairman, Advisory Board, The Nigeria Prize for Literature & Literary Criticism, Prof Akachi Adimorah-Ezeigbo on Saturday, October 30, 2021.
Excerpts.
Good evening ladies
and gentlemen
Let me start by commending the Nigeria LNG for initiating and sustaining the three Prizes. It is noteworthy that while the company being a gas company should naturally gravitate towards science and engineering, they considered it important to establish the Prizes for Literature and Literary Criticism thereby bringing perceptible growth to Nigerian Literature. The phenomenal success recorded on a yearly basis is an indication of the ever-increasing commitment of the organization to fairness, integrity and excellence.
The journey leading to this evening started several months ago with the receipt of 202 Novels for the Literature Prize since the genre in focus is Prose Fiction. Immediately the Panel of Judges was constituted, they swung into action and despite the challenges imposed by the pandemic, found creative ways to do their work meticulously, using a set of 11 clearly defined and approved Criteria. The Panel of judges also worked in close coordination with the Advisory Board, and the Secretariat of the Prize to produce evaluate and prune down the 202 entries to 50, then 25. From this point, they were able to produce a longlist of 11 and thereafter, a shortlist of 3. For the avoidance of doubt, the final three novels shortlisted are mentioned here in alphabetical order of author’s name:
Abi Dare’s The Girl with Louding Voice;
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’sThe Son of the House; and
Obinna Udenwe’s Colours of Hatred
In a sense, the shortlisted Novels are axioms of a profound ‘paradigm shift’ from the preoccupation of the Nigerian Novel with collective, nationalist issues to an interrogation of the permeation of the notion of ‘the end justifies the means’ and the autonomy of the self or primacy of individuality in defining and pursuing what best serves its immediate interests. This portrait erases the efficacy of the moral distinction between the urban (loose and corrupting) and the rural (serene and authentic) in designation of the postcolonial space or setting by first and second generation of Nigerian writers. In aesthetic terms, the entries have, in divergent ways, been influenced by or constituted out of an interface between creative writing, film, home video and romance.
Abi Dare’s The Girl with the Louding Voice was published in 2020 by Sceptre. It is a narrative that tells the story of the plight of a girl-child, a valuable commodity who is sold into marriage at an early age. The heroine, Adunni, is forced by poverty and the death of her mother to drop out of school. She is married off to an elderly polygamous man with a view to raising funds for her father’s survival. The novel also tackles the issue of early marriage, child sexual abuse, childlessness in marriage, and domestic violence on one hand; and on the other, the urgent need of female bonding or sisterhood in transcending the constraints that have been placed in the life of women by men.
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’sThe Son of the House was published in 2019 by Parresia Publishers. The novel presents the predicaments of two women, Nwabulu a one-time housemaid and a successful fashion designer; and Julie, an educated woman who lived through tricks, deceits and manipulations, as they meet in captivity. Both women decide to tell each other their stories. They soon discover that their lives had crossed at different points. The subject matter of the novel is developed through the rupture of traditional plot and the mediation of a single narrative voice. It is made up of a prologue and a three part story moments, each dominated by multiple points of narration, The Son of the House is an experimental novel with a complex plot structure made up of a main plot and several subordinate plots that intercept.
Obinna Udenwe’s Colours of Hatred is a plot-driven detective story and published by Parresia in 2020. The novel is a confessional that centres on the story of Leona of the Dinka tribe and her involvement in the killing of her father-in-law. It is a whodunit, which through introspection and re-telling explores issues of love, hatred, war, revenge, oppression, extra-judicial killings, military rule, displacement and exile with their attendant tensions that leave scars on people and homes. In this context, the novel draws substantially from the tradition of modernism and deploys investigative techniques of detective narratives and flash backs to account for what has happened.
After a careful scrutiny of the three Novels, the Panel of Judges and the Advisory Board have, in consideration of its profundity of technique and subject matter as a Nigerian family saga, its thematic depth and social relevance as a commentary on the diversity of collective experiences that shape, hold and mar families in postcolonial Nigeria, and its feminist undertones, found Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’sThe Son of the House outstanding, and declare it the Winner of the 2021 Nigeria Prize for Literature.
May the ink continue to flow!
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and do enjoy the rest of the evening.
It is the idea of God that family should exit. Children form part of the family. God loves family so much that Jesus was born into the family of Joseph.
Everyone’s family is good and important. Children should not look down on their family whether they are rich or poor.
Children should respect and honour their family and foster love among their siblings. They should work together and make peace in the family. They should always stand in the gap. It is good for family members to carry all along since everyone may not be doing well.
The Christianity that children learn is practised in family. Faith-based organisations do a great job in moulding children’s character. Those are the behaviours that children exhibit towards siblings in family.
Every child born in a family is there for a purpose. A baby born into a family is supplying something. It may be joy, wealth and so on. Everyone is important in a family.
Adolescents who have graduated from school but may not be contributing financially can do one or two things at home. You can engage in preparing meals at home while parents are away for a job or business. Contributing in house chores will go a long way to relieve parents of stress after a day’s job.
What do you contribute to your family, especially during holidays both in nuclear and extended family?
The family you were born is constant but friends are temporary. You can decide not to continue in friendship but you cannot cut off your family. No matter how bad you think your family is and you decide to leave home, you must surely return. Your friends can harbour you for a while.
The child’s first identity comes from the family. What the child learns first comes from the family.
Family is the centre of love and care. People have started playing down on marriage because of neglect on basics of family. Marriage starts today and and the next few months, it is threatened. Respect for family plays a crucial role in marriage.
No child grows without parental control and influence. If a child refuses to grow without taking instructions from parents, he may grow up being wild. There are consequences when children do not obey their parents. There are those who want to be rebellious against their parents. They should know that their length of days are tied to their parents.
Your bioligical parents know you more than every other person. There is the wisdom and knowledge your parents have that you do not so it is proper to listen to them before choosing carriers both in academics and job. A young man or woman can choose who to get married to, but a greater role in the choice of who to marry and the marriage proper comes from the parents.
They know what is best for you. No matter how modern trends will influence you and prove it wrong, parent is the key. No one can love you more than your parents because they are your blood.
A lot of parents have been traumatised due to the fact that children they nurtured and trained turned their back on them at older age. Children should not abandon their parents for any reason.
As you grow up, situations may arise in marriage when you decide it is over with your spouse, but no matter the level of provocation with your parents, they will not despise you. Parents will also play a role in that regard. Problem arises in every family but how it is handled matters a lot.
Some children honour their mentors more than their parents. Although there are parents who shy away from their responsibilities. It is important that parents take full responsibility of their children. You cannot bring a child to the planet earth and refuse to perform roles as a parent. But parents may not quantify what they spent from childhood to adolescence. That is a blessing children cannot get from another person.
There are people who have attributed their failure in life to the fact that their parents, especially mothers are witchcraft. It is wrong to feel that your mother is instrumental to your failure in life. The only way to success is hardwork.
Let money not determine the level of love for your parents. Wherever a child goes, family is constant.
Eunice Choko-Kayode
Naturally, when a child is born, it is the role of the father and mother to decide a suitable name for the child. The husband and wife normally discuss and suggest the English or vernacular name of the baby.
But sometimes, when a baby comes into a family, grandparents hearts are usually filled with joy to the extent that they want to answer present, by giving their own names not minding the fact that the biological parents have given theirs.
This happens mostly when the marriage is an inter-tribal one. It also happens even in intra-tribal marriage. Grandparents want equal representation as far as naming a child is concerned. They also have special names as a result of circumstances surrounding the birth of the child.
This is still happening till date.
A lot of people have viewed this in different ways but there is nothing wrong about it. The most important thing is that the child bears as many names as he or she can. But one thing is certain, the child must bear one name in school.
Should circumstance determine a child’s name?
Women who are more emotional are always eager to name their children considering the circumstances surrounding the child’s conception and arrival.
The issue of grandparents naming a child comes up mostly when it is the first of the family.
In naming children by some parents in the olden days, they named their children according to the days in the week in which they were born, like Sunday, Monday, Friday and so on.
You may be shocked to hear that whether a child is given 10 names by parents or grandparents, when he or she grows up, will decide to change. There are several cases where some persons decided to change especially when they feel that the names given by their parents and grandparents do not give them joy. If they are not doing well in life, they may claim that their misfortune is caused by the name their parents.
Competition among children in schools be it primary, (kindergarten) and secondary come in different forms. It can be Mathematics , debate, quiz, spelling bee,competition, from organisations like Cowbell, multi-national companies, faith-based organisations among others.
They are organised mostly for selected intelligent ones, the best among their peers to represent a class, school or group. Prizes are normally set aside for the best as well as consolation prizes for runners-up at the end of each session.
The question is, are children willing to accept defeat when they fail? As parents, guardians, can you encourage your children or wards to accept defeat instead of shouting and comparing them with others who may be performing better either in schools or outside.
Some parents may be blaming their children for not doing well in competitions. They will like to tell their children if others who may perform better have ten heads. Those group of parents blame their children for every failure.
For your children to do better in competition, the parents too must have emotional intelligence. When you continue to blame your children for failure, how intelligent are you?
Some parents always want their children to be in the 1st position and unhappy whenever they secure 2nd position. There were instances where children smashed their trophies because they never got the position they wanted to get and their parents supported them.
Children should be able to accept it whether they win or not. They should be encouraged for every performance. Discourage the issue of “shame, shame, shame, shame”.
A parent says she always tells her children to win even if they will fail. Always give them the mentality that they can win. Children should be given the impression that they can win prizes and laurels in every competition.
Parents should not isolate their children from others in the neighbourhood. Allow them to play with others. Don’t threaten your children that you may not pay their schools fees if they fail. Comparing them with others may encourage or discourage them.
Coming first or getting award as a first class student from the university sometimes does not mean that the person is the best. And if the child does not merit any award in the lower classes, does not mean that he can not merit first class also.
It should be noted that coming first in academic competition may not really mean that the competitor will be the best at work place or business.
Accepting defeat is a way to move higher. Even if a child who competed with others did not come first, there are consolation prizes for runners-up. When you advise the child to accept defeat, you are encouraging her to win in next competition.
Remember all children cannot be on the same knowledge level Their learning abilities defer.
Eunice Choko-Kayode