Ahmed Maiwada has declared his interest in the Presidency of ANA. In his speech made available to Newsdiaryonline, Maiwada said “I have watched this litany of losses over the past years in utter helplessness, lacking the power to stem the tide. I know that what has been done has been done and some of those things may never be redeemed. However, I am positive that many of those deficit situations could be reversed, given the right people in position to exercise authority on behalf of our dear association. As for the future, I am very positive that, with a change at the helm of our affairs of personnel from the current ones whose style is either careless or lacking in clues as to what is amiss and what is to be done to put it right, ANA’s lost land, lost membership and lost image would definitely be restored.
According to him, \’It is for this reason that I, Ahmed Maiwada, a member of the Abuja Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors, poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright, humbly offer my services for the association, to serve in the office of President for the next two years. I am offering to serve along with Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, currently Chair of the Anambra Chapter of ANA, Professor of English (Comparative Literature Stress), author, dramatist, editor, humanitarian and girl-child activist. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh shall assist me as Vice-President, while Akogun Tai Oguntayo, Esq., author, lawyer, journalist, and current Chair of ANA Ekiti shall man the secretariat and assist me and the dogged and fiery activist lawyer and poet, Martin Ezimano (proposed National Legal Adviser) in our war for the recovery of our land, membership and image.
Declaration speech:
I would like you to put yourself in the shoes of a lawyer that went to court for his association, in order to recover a piece of land belonging to the association, of a particular size. The particular land and its original certificate of occupancy were in the physical possession of a developer who appropriated for himself everything and, when asked to surrender possession, filed a case in court that lasted four years. Imagine yourself as that who eventually won the court case for your association, thinking that, now the entire members of your association would benefit from that land. Imagine the rude shock at realising that the size of the land on paper, which you have recovered, was reduced by about half while you had been in court fighting. I want you to put yourself in the shoes of that lawyer: see yourself, soon after finishing the four-year long and energy-sapping litigation for your dear association, seeing other people apart from the developer you have defeated in court, rising up to lay claim that even that half-land that you have recovered had been sold to them and therefore your association had nothing there to lay claim on. Imagine you are that lawyer, left with no choice than return to court and continue fighting, most times all alone, for the next six years, in order to finally secure title for your association and thereby guarantee the full security of the land you have recovered during the initial four years of your battle in court. Imagine yourself in the shoes of that lawyer – your only reason for putting up those years of battle and stiff resistance against those seeking to take away the land belonging to your dear association being that all the other members of the association might eat from the fat of that land you have recovered, without discrimination against anybody on the basis of ethnicity, religion or membership status in the association. Imagine that you are such a lawyer who have, in the course of those ten solid years of legal battles, rejected overtures to compromise the trust that your association has vested in you by some of those seeking to take away the land; imagine that after all this sacrifice you have made for the association and the members of the association, you are expected to not be interested in how the said land is eventually administered and that proceeds of the investments made on it are fully accounted for and equitably distributed among all members of the association, through its Chapters all over the country.
Ladies and gentlemen, the lawyer in this hypothesis is no other than I; and the association mentioned is no other than the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), founded in 1983 by the one and only Chinua Achebe, whose position concerning unethical leadership we not only know, but also can never forget. The land in the hypothesis is the 36.9 hectares of land (originally 60.9 hectares) which Major General Mamma Jiya Vatsa of blessed memory, granted to ANA in 1986, for the use and benefit of not only one person but of all members across Nigeria and the diaspora. The first time the general assembly of ANA found me worthy of the trust to be in a position of responsibility on that land was in 2004, at the Convention held in Lokoja, which was my very first convention ever of the association (I became a member in October 2004, as my certificate of membership signed by the then Chairman of the Abuja Chapter, Haruna Penni and the then Secretary, Law Mefor would attest). I was made a member of the ANA Land Committee that year, chaired by the charismatic and amiable Nduka Otiono. There was no turning back on my role as a trusted eye for the association since then: I served as a member of the Land Committee chaired by Nnimmo Bassey, Odia Ofeimun and Wale Okediran, elected twice into that Committee in absentia! Therefore, it is inconceivable that I, for any reason or no-reason, I should betray the trust and responsibility vested upon me by my dear association; it is also inconceivable that I should compromise that trust or become a sitting-duck, for any reason or no-reason, at this critical juncture in the history of ANA when a foundation for transparency, accountability and equitable sharing of resources from the land shall become due.
While serving as a member of the Land Committee over all these years, I have advised some of the various constituted authorities that have decided to work with me, of the need to start the process of recovering every piece of the 60.9 hectares that got lost or taken by force since 1986, when the Certificate of Occupancy of the land was signed, sealed and delivered to Chinua Achebe by Major General Mamma Jiya Vatsa. Unfortunately, that advice never found favour with the said constituted authority that I had advised. I still maintain the position that our land shall be restored to us, else due and proper compensation paid to ANA for every inch appropriated or forcefully taken.
At the 2004 Convention in Lokoja my expectations of meeting with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Okara, J. P. Clarke, Niyi Osundare and those other spirits in our ethnic group of writers were not met; not ever, except for Gabriel Okara that I met at the Convention of 2011 that held in Abuja. Nevertheless, there had been consolations: I met Zainab Alkali, Wale Okediran, Abubakar Gimba, Odia Ofeimun, Nduka Otiono, Uche Nduka, Maria Ajima, May Nwoye, Akachi Ezeigbo and many other men and women of letters, then taking up the gowns of canons in our tribe. Sadly, the number of these heavyweights began to shrink; not because death had struck – as was the case with a few, but because ANA had become such an offence that fraternising with members at its convention had become abhorrent. At the last Convention that held in Lagos, I could only recognise names such as Akachi Ezeigbo, Yahaya Dangana and Dr. Mabel Segun, who attended the opening ceremony at the Ikeja Airport Hotel. Where are all the others? Many of those absent had lost interest in our Conventions and other activities. Even the younger ones preferred to attend the Ake Festival holding in the City of Lagos at the same time! It is the sad truth that we have lost not only part of our land, but our young and not so young members as well, and we need to do something about it with all the urgency we could afford!
The litany of losses suffered by our dear association does not end with only land and members. ANA has lost a huge chunk of the goodwill that our founding fathers have handed down to us since 1983. I remember an incident in 2013 when, pursuant to our taking back possession of our land and installing signboards to indicate our boundaries, we received a report that the signboards installed had been pulled out and damaged. I went to the Maitama Police Station to report the incident on behalf of ANA, so that action might be taken against those who carried out that terrible act. The mere mention of Association of Nigerian Authors attracted awe and respect among the police officers I met at the counter. “Is that the Association of Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka?” they asked, to which I said, “Yes”. That is just an example of how our goodwill had been healthy and vibrant. Of recent, ANA’s inability to settle N100,000 being prize money endowed by NECO and guaranteed by us had seriously dented our goodwill even further. This debt to ANA, together with all like debts shall receive my immediate attention. Goodwill is like milk; one cannot pick it up after spilling it on the ground.
Ladies and gentlemen, members of our dear Association, I have watched this litany of losses over the past years in utter helplessness, lacking the power to stem the tide. I know that what has been done has been done and some of those things may never be redeemed. However, I am positive that many of those deficit situations could be reversed, given the right people in position to exercise authority on behalf of our dear association. As for the future, I am very positive that, with a change at the helm of our affairs of personnel from the current ones whose style is either careless or lacking in clues as to what is amiss and what is to be done to put it right, ANA’s lost land, lost membership and lost image would definitely be restored.
It is for this reason that I, Ahmed Maiwada, a member of the Abuja Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors, poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright, humbly offer my services for the association, to serve in the office of President for the next two years. I am offering to serve along with Ngozi Chuma-Udeh, currently Chair of the Anambra Chapter of ANA, Professor of English (Comparative Literature Stress), author, dramatist, editor, humanitarian and girl-child activist. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh shall assist me as Vice-President, while Akogun Tai Oguntayo, Esq., author, lawyer, journalist, and current Chair of ANA Ekiti shall man the secretariat and assist me and the dogged and fiery activist lawyer and poet, Martin Ezimano (proposed National Legal Adviser) in our war for the recovery of our land, membership and image. Backing this team shall be other carefully selected but eminently qualified members of our association, who shall assist us in keeping our vow of rendering regular information on our financial activities to all members home and abroad and also in further investments of our resources towards building reserves for ourselves, which shall be shared between the national body and all State Chapters. This team shall help us stay on track regarding our promise to reinvent the annual Conventions of our association, such that neither old member nor young a young one might feel excluded or ostracised at any time during our tenure. The watchword for this team shall be “ANA renaissance”. Thus far, I have benefited from the camaraderie, counsel, support and advice of no less patriotic members of ANA as the poet laureate, former editor and publisher Chiedu Ezeanah, the playwright and lawyer Isaac Attah Ogezi, the children’s writer Patrick Tagbo Ogiejiofor, the Abuja culture industry heavyweight Jerry Adesewo, the media guru Diego Okenyodo, Nigeria’s foremost nurturer of children Baba Muhammad Dzukogi and his close associates in person of Muhibb Aslu and Al Mamun Muhammad Mallam. I have also benefited from the friendship and support of a younger Nigerian author in person of Stanley Augustine Kavwam, Chair of ANA Plateau. These men have already formed the nucleus of the ANA Renaissance Group, which many other patriotic and progressive members of ANA have been joining in numbers. The ANA Renaissance Group has already launched a Youth Wing, with younger, energetic, intellectual and patriotic ANA members such as Paul Liam, as members. We encourage all interested members of ANA wishing that their names should be written in the history book of this revolution to kindly join and offer us any useful advice on how to go about reinventing our dear association.
The detailed programmes we are proposing for our dear association, as a team, are being polished at this very moment. We shall make them available to you in a week’s time, so that you may examine their suitability for the ANA of the future we are dreaming of.
In closing, I want to remind the General Council of the Association of Nigerian Authors that, it had twice elected me, unopposed, into the office of ANA National Legal Adviser, a decision I am sure the General Council has not regretted. Therefore, I am offering myself, as I have offered myself before, not as a member of any ethnic group other than a member of the ethnic group of Nigerian writers called ANA, on the basis of my competence to lead a team of other qualified members. I request that the General Council should, during the forthcoming Convention in Enugu, give me the same votes it gave me before, knowing that doing so would not be regretted. I want also the General Council to vote in all my team members, so that I shall have the necessary tools to produce results, by the special grace of God. Amen.
Thank you and God bless the Registered Trustees of the Association of Nigerian Authors.
AHMED MAIWADA, ESQ.
