For Ebereonwu

Maik Nwosu

On Good Friday, the man of thunder vanished into the deep silence of the night. That is the way I remember the passing of Ebereonwu (Paul Obinali Ebereonwu) – romance journalist, poet, playwright, scriptwriter, film director, and producer – on April 6 this year. His mother, whom he spoke about so much, had died the previous week, and he was on his way home (Apapa) from O’Jez nightclub in Surulere when he ran into a truck, or was run over by a truck, around Alaka bus stop. And that was it.
When I heard the news the next morning, about how his mangled body parts were pieced together and taken to the Ikeja General Hospital mortuary, it sounded very unreal. Death catches up with us all eventually, of course, but people like Ebereonwu do not just die – like that. There was always a certain unity of being about him as if he was in harmony with all his aspects. And he radiated life so much that I still find it difficult to think of him as dead. Joe Slovo, the former South African minister, it was who once described life as a terminal disease. But Slovo was terminally ill. For Ebereonwu, or Ebere as I loved to call him, life was forever a carnival.
In his last years, Ebere was popular as a scriptwriter (Piccadilly), a film director (Sweet Sixteen), and a film producer (Salt and Pepper). From being a poet moonlighting as a film scriptwriter, he had become one of the movers of the Nigerian home video industry, both its passionate promoter and one of its tasking critics. One of my closest encounters with the home video industry was through Ebere. He had decided to shoot one of his movies in my apartment and he spent some time arguing with me about my curtain shades and camera lighting. Watching the movie being made in my living room was a front-seat education that I called “How to Make a Movie in Four Days or Less.” Then, last year, he took me on a tour of Nollywood, from the area around Winnis Hotel to O’Jez nightclub. Little did we know then that that tour, that excursion through this new world that he had become a vibrant part of, was his personal farewell to me.
But before he became popular in the movie industry, Ebere was already well known within the writers community sheltering under the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA. I first met him when he was acting editor of Emotions, a romance magazine. His passion for storytelling was evident. I would tease him that growing up in Aba – with its proverbial curiousity – must have had something to do with his fondness for stories. But it was as a poet that Ebere became known in ANA circles, as the author of three poetry collections – Suddenly God was Naked, The Insomniac Dragon, and Unpublishable Poems – and a play, Cobweb Seduction. He had a degree in English from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, but he wanted above all to create literature, not dissect it.
Perhaps even more than his poetry, his views on a broad range of issues – writing and criticism, ANA politics and prizes, the world of soccer and the English premiership league – particularly marked him out. The problem with ANA prizes, he believed, is that they come in small packages. Enlarge the package, he argued, and the world will take notice. I didn’t always agree with Ebere, but he usually argued his beliefs with passion and conviction. Every literary generation is highlighted both by its creative output and the character or personal dramas of its members. Ebere was certainly one of those colourful characters that should be remembered when the history of the new generation of Nigerian writers is written. Some other deserving writers include Sesan Ajayi (A Burst of Fireflies), Ademola Babajide (A Grave November), Lynn Chukura (Archetyping), Izzia Ahmad (A Shout Across the Wall), all of whom departed too soon.
Whether as a writer or a film producer, Ebere was very concerned about the world around him. His movies usually incorporate social commentaries foregrounded through biographical exploration – a technique that underscores the importance of the individual in the definition of a society and its values. In his play, Cobweb Seduction, Gaga says as much: “If we do not demand for bad government, it will not exist; if we do not accept it, it will not last. The real correction must start from the person.” In The Insomniac Dragon, Ebere is the poet-persona “Sketching in a void/A vanity for eternity” as well as the one authoring his own instructive obituary and farewell to the world in “Goodbye Day.”
In between the declaration and the farewell, Ebere is the poet-persona who screams “Let there be light” as well as the one whose “song wakes up the night.” Both Ebere’s spontaneity and reflexivity remain evident. He was fetchingly uncomplicated, but he also certainly had the capability for reflective insights. On that Good Friday, his song woke up not only the carnival of the night but its terrors too. And, at the crossroads of Alaka, the road became his driver. But among those who knew him, especially, Ebere remains quite a presence still. As the old saying suggests, to live in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die. Farewell, spirit.