By Anote Ajeluorou
Talents, like natural resources, are in abundance in
Nigeria. But what is the rate of turnover of such talents to productive use?
How many geniuses get thrown up yearly to starve the streets of unemployed,
hungry, idle hands in meaningful engagement? What system can Nigeria invent to throw
up the likes of talents in the mould of America’s music icon Michael Jackson, Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg or Aple’s
Steve Job and such wonder kids? What measures can be created to bridge the gap
between poverty and wealth so that young people can genuinely aspire to be the
best?
These were some of
the core questions El-Nukoya had to ask himself when he embarked on writing his
latest fiction Baron of Broad Street,
which he unveiled last Sunday at The Lounge in Lagos. Baron of Broad Street explores the story of two boys raised in the
slum of Makoko, who aspired to the pinnacle of wealth in spite of their obvious
background. While one took the narrow path, the other followed the crooked crowd
to march his way up the ladder of success.
Book reviewer Toni
Kan described the book as revenge against society, but the author expressed his
concerns about how the convergence of poverty and wealth in the same space
could so affect the psyche of people to want to react in different ways to
arrive at the same point.
As El-Nokuya argued
while he spared with comic star Teju baby Face, in what could easily pass for
his TV show session, in his exploration of poverty and wealth theme, he said, “That
topic chose me rather than me choosing it. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty
are never permanent. Extreme poverty is not a sentence and extreme wealth is
not an escape. Social mobility is everywhere, as there’s a fair chance for the
poor to be wealthy.
“What bothers me is that
we (Nigerians) don’t always have confidence to move from poverty to wealth. It
becomes more disconcerting how many Michael Jacksons and Steve Jobs are being
born in Makoko or such places? It’s in our enlightened self-interest to create a
system that throws up geniuses that thrive. We need to create more
opportunities to absorb talents to reduce tensions in society.
“Baron of Broad Street is a final battle
to win the business and economic soul of Nigeria. Lagos’ Broad Street is the
centre of that commercial battle!”
Interestingly, El-Nukoya
noted that his book is not a commercial project, but one aimed at further
entrenching reading habits among Nigerians. He recalled how it was back in the
days, in the 1980s and beyond when Nigerians read compared to these days of
reading anomie, saying, “The book is not a commercial project. Nigeria not
reading today was not always the case. Nigerians used to compare with each
other the books they’d read and discuss them. I always had a Hardly Chase novel
with me.
“We were reading
like maniacs. We were readers inherently until something changed. We have to
make efforts to revive that section of our lives by making reading cool,
fashionable. So, our aim is to tell our stories to our own people and to the
rest of the world. We need to read and then get the world to read us”.
How could he have
written about the poverty travails of Makoko without having lived in the place
to experience it himself? Raised in Ibadan, El-Nukoya said he had to take
recourse to his imagination and creativity to make the place come alive in his writing.
As he put it, “It’s a validation that I probably made it; it demonstrates I’m
on point. Imagination is what it is. You can absolutely imagine it; you can
extrapolate it. Baron of Broad Street isn’t
my personal experience; it’s a cultural thing. If you can empathise you can
almost approximate it. You don’t necessarily have to come from a place but you
can imagine it”.
Tolu Ogunlese also
moderated the event.
Teju Babe Face said
he read the book in less than 48 hours and was so excited, as he felt inspired
by the themes El-Nukoya explored.
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