UNITED KINGDOM (UK)-based Nigerian writer, Dr. Akintude Akinkumi, has described Chinua Achebe’s last book There Was A Country as the worst the late writer ever wrote, saying it was inaccurate in many cases.
He said though Achebe author Things Fall Apart, remained one of Nigeria’s prolific writers, he spoilt a good case with a very parochial view, adding that he might have written the book when he was declining. “But, his other books are absolutely superb,” Akinkumi said.
There was a country is Achebe’s last personal history of Biafra and published in 2012. Achebe passed on March 22, 2013. The book which is a memoir of Achebe’s early life in Eastern Nigeria, drew lots of controversies from Nigerians especially among the litteratti and his literary offspring who share most of his views about Nigeria in the book.
Akinkumi, who spoke recently at a reading session of his book Is Better Served Cold at Quintessence, Ikoyi, Lagos described Chimamanda Adichie as Nigeria’s most talented young generation writer. “One of the most-talented Nigerian writers now is Chimamanda Adichie. But, in terms of older generation I enjoy Achebe’s books. His last book, There was a country, is the worst he ever wrote. It is inaccurate in many cases,” he said.
Akinkumi, who left the Nigerian Army in 1989, but still serving in the British Army, said if given another chance of career choice, he would opt for law instead of medicine. “With the benefit of hindsight, if I am given the benefit to make career choice again, I will prefer law to medicine. My father had told me when I was much younger that my talents were better in the art than in sciences… I am a great fan of reading. I have two rooms that are stacked with books,” he stated.
Is Better Served Cold is Dr. Akinkumi’s first book and he is in the process of writing a sequel to it. But, in between the two he has completed a second book, which is a brief political history book of the Nigerian Army that will hopefully get published in October.
Is Better Served Cold looks at some themes and it is about a Nigerian-trained lawyer working as an investment banker, who returned to Nigeria and managed public privatisation issue. But, he had issue with refusing to play ball and that landed him into trouble; he and lost his wife and children. This led him to contemplate revenge. The book was first published in the United States as e-book last year, and published as a paper back in Nigeria last September. It took him six months to write the book, though he had written the foreword five years earlier.
On his next book, he said: “It has nothing to do with the Army authorities. It is a history book that looks at the evolution of Nigeria and evolution of the Army as an institution. And I try to examine how the interactions between the two have played out given the Army involvement in politics. The rough idea is that neither the Army nor the country has benefited from Army involvement in politics. It traces the period between 1963 and 1999.”
Recalling his days in the Nigerian Army, Akinkumi, who is also a lawyer, said the Army of today is different from what it was when he served because it was during military rule and the Army was in government.
Comparing the Nigerian Army and the British Army, he said: “It is a totally different setting. Army is a reflection of the society and in the UK, the Army has never had a stint in governance unlike in Nigeria.”
source:Nation
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