At what point did you decide to become a writer?
I started writing while in secondary school but they were comedies. I was a comedian so had to write comedies to make people laugh and that continued while I was in Federal Polytechnic Oko. But the turning point came during the Warri crisis, between the Itsekiris and the Ijaws. The crisis was horrible. It was bloody. Every night, we awaited the cry of massacre somewhere. No one deserved to witness such a bloody conflict again.
We saw youths with double barrel guns, AK47, axes, machetes and charms hunting their fellow mankind. Humans were hunted like goats. The most terrible thing of all was that our very compound, where we lived, shared the same fence with the Meinbutu boys. The most dreaded and scary militant youth of that crisis. Those Meinbutu boys sacked the occupants of that very compound and occupied it. It became their headquarters. They brought their juju priest and armoury. And our backyard became their training ground. You either wake up with the sounds of sporadic gunfire or you sleep with gunshots echoing everywhere. There were things the eyes saw that the eyes should never have seen. I knew my childhood, teenage years and adulthood were painted with conflicts and bloodshed in Warri but that Abacha’s instigated conflict of the mid 90s was the mother of all conflicts that changed my writing from comedy to tragedy.
Any published works?
My first play, Drumbeats for Darkness, was published during the Niger Delta conflict. It wasn’t for profit so we gave copies to youths, especially students. We then went on to perform the play in streets, market places and institutions in Warri and environs.
I have a novel that really revealed more details of the Niger Delta crisis but it’s in the editing stage in US. My most recent play is still in manuscript but it has been read and performed in London and Paris. Certainly, more of my literary works should be in published form in 2015.
Opportunities writing as diaspora citizen?
There are opportunities in the diaspora but you must have a strong passion and never get tired in trying to make your work stand out. Writing is competitive so you must unravel from your work what will give you that competitive edge and hold on to it. It is the same philosophy in other spheres of life. One beauty about London is that you will always find very passionate actors who are willing to perform your work – paid or unpaid. This gives room for upcoming and established writers to have their work performed before audiences. Once your literary piece is good, you will always have reception for it.
Any major challenges writing abroad?
What matters abroad especially in London is to make your work stand out, don’t stay isolated from the literary network and learn to use the social media. The social media is a new channel that can build bridges for you in the world of writing. As for challenges, there is no special difference as with other parts of the world.
What genres do you prefer working on?
I write poetic-drama. They are tragedies. They have the sharpness to pierce your heart and you will feel the message for a long time. When Farewell Sister was being performed at the New Diorama Theatre in London, I watched the response of the audience. You will know that something was piercing them. I write my works from the great pains that I felt during the Warri crisis – the dusk to dawn curfew, the shootings, the screaming, the siren, the dreaded nightfall, the spill of human blood and the fear of a waiting death knocking at the doors of our hearts. We perceived death during the day and at night so when I write, I expect the audience to have that sharp piercing too. I do have poems and currently have my first novel being edited in the US.
Is writing your passion or major career?
Though I’m of two worlds, literature and computing, I find passion and fun in literature. Writing is my passion. It’s an eternal duty. There’s an eruption of the myth of the pen when I put pen to paper. I write to challenge the voices that enjoy the screams of innocent death. It’s the same passion that has pushed me into the forefront of the campaign against Boko Haram and even petitioning Mrs Fatou Bensouda, the President of the International Criminal Court, for the sponsors of Boko Haram to be arrested. It’s the same passion that inspired me into many campaigns like that of the Kenyan 2008 electoral violence where we called for the ICC to arrest the sponsors of the bloodshed and the campaign for the release of the jailed 28 Nigerian soldiers during the administration of late President Musa Yar’adua. Writing is my passion – an eternal duty.
What kind of messages do you pass across to readers?
I write more to mirror violence from the viewpoint of a victim. I write to tell the stories of the lost voices. Those voices deserve to be heard. What is violence? And who has the power to authorise the killing of innocent children and people? Who has the exclusive power to turn innocent women into sex slaves in conflicts? This is the spring where my message flows from. My literary works view conflicts from the eyes of the victims and not the sponsors.
Your dreams and aspirations as a writer?
At present, my sole purpose of writing is to make copies of my works available to readers, especially students to curtail the violent and bloody conflicts in Africa, especially in Nigeria. I started from Warri but other war torn communities need support. Recently, an organisation in London had a contract with me to tour Abuja, Jos, Port Harcourt, Lagos and a Northern city with Farewell Sister, a religious tragedy, in honour of Nigeria’s independence but the pattern of some news reports in September where the drive is that Ebola is ravaging the entire West Africa discouraged the international cast so the tour was called off for now. It was good that Nigeria was able to eradicate the Ebola virus.
How about writing in any local dialect?
I’m learning to perfect my writing skills in the Isoko dialect. I couldn’t learn it when growing up because of the influence of the Pidgin English but I do write the Pidgin English very well and I have used it for scenes in my first drama, Drumbeats for Darkness.
How do you view Africa literature?
African literature is still burning brightly. Young writers are springing up daily and this is good for its future and posterity.