Who Do You Write For?

After reading my recent article on Bongos Ikwue, which I posted on this forum, a friend of mine in Nigeria, a very productive thinker with a sharp analytical mind and a beautiful prose to boot, wrote the following words to me: “I read your piece on Bongos. It was concluded on a very fine note. But the texture is certainly too dense for home people. How do you handle that in your next intervention? Are you a post modernist?” To which I wrote the following lengthy response that bared the depth of my own anxieties over the issues he raised. Nothing troubles me more than alienation from my cultural roots and from my national and continental constituency. I know that the linguistic and stylistic zone is where alienation from the “home” audience occurs with the most profound and rapid effect. Yet because this kind of alienation is stealthy, insidious, and seemingly a product of a “normal” involuntary process of assimilation in one’s exilic abode, it is the...Read the full article.

[quietswami]

A bemusing dilemma! To proffer an opinion - dichotomising styles and writing for a diaspora and home audiences wins no favours with either, except where decipherable intellectual reasoning of the two can be asserted.

An extension of such rationale will require every form of writing to offer transcriptions or translations into "home" styles etc. A prejudiced reasoning will assume superiority of intellect where "home" writings are regarded as communicable but the reverse is not the case!

Would rather not be condescending in any approach but be safe in the knowledge that intellect is universal regardless of style, languange, writer or location. Reference points and theoretical sources may differ - justifiably so - but therein lies the object of any intellectual reasoning - a timeless mutual exchange learning ritual unencumbered by space nor distance! If intellectuals of the globe can communicate accross languages, cultures, philosophies, religion, race etc surely situation as described bears little merit as a dilemma.

To be elitist about it, intellectual cogitations is not necessarily the purview of the masses - that's what PRs are for - but rather for the consciously, discerning astutes who readily appreciate such offerings without pretentious shenanigans.

Without further pretensions, get on with it already! - except if there is some lingering megalomaniac persuasions to be assuaged!

[quietswami]

Shoot! Just been tagged a "Villager"! Much preferred the excluding anonymity of a "JJC"! Now I feel like some responsible insider of an undefined collective without a clue of the proceedings!

[Pius72]

Moses:

Thanks for sharing your dilemmas but let's clear a few misconceptions. Your piece on Bongos Ikwue is a mass appeal, popular audience article that no audience in Africa - whether Kenyan audience o or Gambian audience o - should have difficulty with. It is not jargony academese and it beats me that anyone would describe it as such - including you. I know your prose when it is addressed to strictly academic audiences. In fact you and Farooq are among my own models in terms of how to switch from mode to mode without losing one's signature. The second misconception here is you imply - unwittingly I think - that colleagues in Nigerian universities are less theoretical, less jargony, and hence more connected to streets of Oturkpo in terms of their prose. That is not true, Moses. Don't they send you their papers to assess? Don't you serve as assessor for Nigerian peer-reviewed journals? Don't you read the op-eds of home-based academics and public intellectuals? How are we different from Odia for instance? As for our colleagues in Nigerian Univesities, their references may be dated because of lack of access to current material but certainly their prose is neither less theoretical nor jargony. In fact, sometimes I find theirs a tad jargony than ours because they are under pressure to publish in international journals and to prove that they command the faddish prose we are running away from here. In essence, the alienation you are discussing here is not peculiar to Nigerian academics abroad. It is the eternal dilemma and damnation of academia- how to retrace it steps back to the street. How to reconnect with the idioms of the people without losing its sophistication. This dilemma affects colleagues in Ibadan just as it affects you. The response to this in my own field for instance is the growth of popular culture as a legitimate field of inquiry. That is why I can go to Nigeria to study the culture of paraga and burukutu joints. A third part of the problem that you failed to address is that we are in the age of intellectual laziness where folks prefer fast-foodish prose. When you were in secondary school, your teachers and parents gave you a dictionary culture. You remember that Oxford dico that we had to have with us always? You were socialized into checking up every new word you encountered in your textbooks, magazines or newspapers. That was part of one's education. Now you have a new generation that wears anti-intellectualism like a badge of honour. The instinct to check and inquire is no longer there. At the first unknown word - someone once emailed to abuse me for using a big word like 'pedestrian' in an essay of mine he was reading ! - they begin to abuse and insult you. In our days, you checked each word you didn't know and you thanked the author quietly for enriching your vocabulary and expanding your world. This laziness of the new generation is of course not peculiarly Nigerian. After all, no one can match the anti-intellectualism of American youth. We teach them and marvel at their ignorance. I've just sent this off-the-cuff. I should have more to say when you respond. You piece is too rich to be exhausted in one post!

Pius

[WayoGuy]

Let’s be honest and start with the major obstacle to any hope of some of our lost writers abridging the chasm between their Euro-American intellectual thinking and writing and our African intellectual thinking and writing.

That obstacle is our false sense of intellectual sophistication attached to writing like Europeans and Americans. As part of this false sense, among some writers of African descent, they immerse themselves into the protocols and analytical thinking of the western writers and academics and, very often, blame such immersion on their western education and their need to survive in the western world of academia.

What many Nigerian writers, who lay claims to intellectual erudition in Europe and America, want most is some esoteric prestige, the recognition of their western peers, and to impress their friends and audience with their writing styles. Thinking and writing in the ways of their African audience is often a secondary concern and usually surfaces only when their African audience complains. As a consequence, these writers are often too far immersed and indoctrinated in the Euro-American writing and thinking processes that it is difficult to, intellectually, come back home to Africa. Many of our prominent Nigerian citizens have been afflicted by this can't-go-home-again disease ever since we started coming to the west to acquire education.

To be fair, this type of struggle among expatriate African writers trained and schooled in the west, trying to intellectually return home, is not new. The movement in the 1940s and 1950s called Negritude, attempted, and to some extent succeeded, among French-speaking Africans living in the west to fashion Afro-centered thinking and writing processes that would capture the values and minds of the African audience in ways that French intellectual writing, thinking, and colonial policies had been deficient.

First, I place the blame squarely on the feet of the Nigerian intellectual writer who finds it difficult to articulate for his Nigerian audience his avowed message. I blame him simply because I consider such failure to be antithetical to true intellectualism which he claims.

Second, acquiring western education, writing in western jargon, trying to fit in with western peers, are no excuses for alienation from the values, idioms, peculiarities, heritage, and proverbs of his Nigerian place of origin. I am solidly persuaded that if he, the Nigerian writer, were not alienated, by choice or negligence, from the peculiarities of his Nigerian home and internalized his western indoctrination, there would be absolutely no reason, yes no reason, why his thought-processing (which, after all, are informed by his Nigerianess) and writing cannot easily capture his Nigerian audience because he himself, as a Nigerian, is a part of his own audience.

[Ph3y]

@ Quiet Swami......

You want to use grammar to scatter our heads??? Please in future do remember that there are small small children here o. so use less grammar....Thanx and congrats on your 'villager-hood'attainment.

[Ebe]

Let’s be honest and start with the major obstacle to any hope of some of our lost writers abridging the chasm between their Euro-American intellectual thinking and writing and our African intellectual thinking and writing.

That obstacle is our false sense of intellectual sophistication attached to writing like Europeans and Americans. As part of this false sense, among some writers of African descent, they immerse themselves into the protocols and analytical thinking of the western writers and academics and, very often, blame such immersion on their western education and their need to survive in the western world of academia.

What many Nigerian writers, who lay claims to intellectual erudition in Europe and America, want most is some esoteric prestige, the recognition of their western peers, and to impress their friends and audience with their writing styles. Thinking and writing in the ways of their African audience is often a secondary concern and usually surfaces only when their African audience complains. As a consequence, these writers are often too far immersed and indoctrinated in the Euro-American writing and thinking processes that it is difficult to, intellectually, come back home to Africa. Many of our prominent Nigerian citizens have been afflicted by this can't-go-home-again disease ever since we started coming to the west to acquire education.

To be fair, this type of struggle among expatriate African writers trained and schooled in the west, trying to intellectually return home, is not new. The movement in the 1940s and 1950s called Negritude, attempted, and to some extent succeeded, among French-speaking Africans living in the west to fashion Afro-centered thinking and writing processes that would capture the values and minds of the African audience in ways that French intellectual writing, thinking, and colonial policies had been deficient.

First, I place the blame squarely on the feet of the Nigerian intellectual writer who finds it difficult to articulate for his Nigerian audience his avowed message. I blame him simply because I consider such failure to be antithetical to true intellectualism which he claims.

Second, acquiring western education, writing in western jargon, trying to fit in with western peers, are no excuses for alienation from the values, idioms, peculiarities, heritage, and proverbs of his Nigerian place of origin. I am solidly persuaded that if he, the Nigerian writer, were not alienated, by choice or negligence, from the peculiarities of his Nigerian home and internalized his western indoctrination, there would be absolutely no reason, yes no reason, why his thought-processing (which, after all, are informed by his Nigerianess) and writing cannot easily capture his Nigerian audience because he himself, as a Nigerian, is a part of his own audience.

Wayo Guy,

Ouch!!!!!!

[Pius72]

"I am solidly persuaded that if he, the Nigerian writer, were not alienated, by choice or negligence, from the peculiarities of his Nigerian home and internalized his western indoctrination, there would be absolutely no reason, yes no reason, why his thought-processing (which, after all, are informed by his Nigerianess) and writing cannot easily capture his Nigerian audience because he himself, as a Nigerian, is a part of his own audience."

WayoGuy:

I give you twenty-five and a half gbosas for this statement. Remind me to send you thirty drums of palmwine. Moses must also give you the original LP of cock crow at dawn. The only draw back here is your reference to Negritude. It has nothing doing here. Negritude had nothing to do with the idea of writing to reconnect with the idiom of the street in Francophone Africa. At least not in the way Moses has framed this debate. Their "return to source" philosophy was ideological and spiritual. Senghor and the generations of writers he influenced never wrote for the "maquis" - what we would call burukutu joint. They returned spiritually to a rarefied version of Africa.

Pius

[Eace]

It is quite difficult to write with a different persona each time one prepares to put one's thoughts down and most writers will stick (unconsciously) with their mental and emotional thought process in writing - a piece of work is often reflective of the writer's personality. However, a good writer should like a good speaker, engage with his/her audience; it is therefore imperative that one must bear in mind the target audience for any write-up.

Incidentally, once a writer gains some following enough to acquire notoriety or a reputation as the case may be, people will still read whatever he/she offers - they just may not read an article from start to finish! To gain loyal followership however, one will have to be selective over what one writes - salacious, controversial and, inflammatory material will always attract the most attention. Ultimately, 'who you write for' really depends on what a writer's personal ambition is - to gain attention, to pass on information or perhaps, the most noble of all - to influence thinking and impact human lives.

[Suleimana]

I know I should keep quite and move on but how can I? After reading what is clearly an intellectual debate above my station, I counted all the books in my study and segregated them by African and Non-African authors. Seven out of every ten were written by Euro-American writers and I had lived most of my life under the illusion that I understood them!

[Ebe]

Moses:

Thanks for sharing your dilemmas but let's clear a few misconceptions. Your piece on Bongos Ikwue is a mass appeal, popular audience article that no audience in Africa - whether Kenyan audience o or Gambian audience o - should have difficulty with. It is not jargony academese and it beats me that anyone would describe it as such - including you. I know your prose when it is addressed to strictly academic audiences. In fact you and Farooq are among my own models in terms of how to switch from mode to mode without losing one's signature. The second misconception here is you imply - unwittingly I think - that colleagues in Nigerian universities are less theoretical, less jargony, and hence more connected to streets of Oturkpo in terms of their prose. That is not true, Moses. Don't they send you their papers to assess? Don't you serve as assessor for Nigerian peer-reviewed journals? Don't you read the op-eds of home-based academics and public intellectuals? How are we different from Odia for instance? As for our colleagues in Nigerian Univesities, their references may be dated because of lack of access to current material but certainly their prose is neither less theoretical nor jargony. In fact, sometimes I find theirs a tad jargony than ours because they are under pressure to publish in international journals and to prove that they command the faddish prose we are running away from here. In essence, the alienation you are discussing here is not peculiar to Nigerian academics abroad. It is the eternal dilemma and damnation of academia- how to retrace it steps back to the street. How to reconnect with the idioms of the people without losing its sophistication. This dilemma affects colleagues in Ibadan just as it affects you. The response to this in my own field for instance is the growth of popular culture as a legitimate field of inquiry. That is why I can go to Nigeria to study the culture of paraga and burukutu joints. A third part of the problem that you failed to address is that we are in the age of intellectual laziness where folks prefer fast-foodish prose. When you were in secondary school, your teachers and parents gave you a dictionary culture. You remember that Oxford dico that we had to have with us always? You were socialized into checking up every new word you encountered in your textbooks, magazines or newspapers. That was part of one's education. Now you have a new generation that wears anti-intellectualism like a badge of honour. The instinct to check and inquire is no longer there. At the first unknown word - someone once emailed to abuse me for using a big word like 'pedestrian' in an essay of mine he was reading ! - they begin to abuse and insult you. In our days, you checked each word you didn't know and you thanked the author quietly for enriching your vocabulary and expanding your world. This laziness of the new generation is of course not peculiarly Nigerian. After all, no one can match the anti-intellectualism of American youth. We teach them and marvel at their ignorance. I've just sent this off-the-cuff. I should have more to say when you respond. You piece is too rich to be exhausted in one post!

Pius

Pius,

A quick disclosure to begin: my interlocutor who sent me that comment actually came back and offered a very generous and encouraging clarification of his inquiry. In fact, like you, he asked me to discard my anxieties about such issues, explaining the dilemma of alienation as the burden not just of foreign-based academics but all Nigerian/African intellectuals who think and write in the hegemonic languages and proses of the West. He even referenced the conflict of Obi Okonkwo in NLAE to illustrate the alienation that afflicts every African initiated into the intellectual traditions of the white man and who tries to "reconnect" while preserving his/her Euro-American intellectual identity--and authority.

Our situation is not exactly analogous to Obi Okonkwo's. We have a bigger critical mass of potential audiences today than he had. But the imperative and frustrations of "switching" and pandering are the same. One has to make peace with this reality. Short of disavowing the white man's language, what else can one do? Ngugi tried to do it, but what was the outcome?

So, actually, I want to thank you for reaffirming my friend's comforting admonitions. You've put my mind to rest.

Moving on, the inaccessibility of faddish Euro-American academic prose is not simply a matter of vocabulary or theory--I don't think so--although I may have unwittingly conveyed that impression. I think, for lack of a better grasp of it, I would call it the cult of obscurity. There is a disturbing obsession with obscure prose in the social sciences and humanities in North America, which confuses obscurity with insight. But I agree with you completely that this is a malaise that inheres in the academic world in general. I just think that the variety that manifests itself in America is less subtle and more in-four-face.

On anti-intellectualism, my broda don't even get me started. It is something that Farooq and I frequently talk about. You know, I didn't want to bring my dictionary orientation here because I didn't want folks to label me a secondary school nerd, which I was in some ways (hahaha). But how can I forget when I used to read Dan Agbese, Adebayo Williams, and Niyi Osundare--all Newswatch columists then--in secondary school. I used to read them as much for what they said as for how they said it; as much for what I understood as for what I didn't--so I could look up the words and enrich my vocabulary. Today, who wants to look up a word or enjoy sophisticated prose for the sheer aesthetic pleasure that comes with encountering good, uncommon writing?

There are two issues here, which I clumsily conflated. The gap between the street and academia--the curse of the ivory tower, and the debatable gap between diaspora and home academic proses. Thetwo are separate and should be kept so. I have personally not encountered colleagues at home who didn't get my prose or thought it was too theoretical, but I know those who have.

Finally, I think WayoGuy is right on one crucial point, which is that if one wrote with a self-conscious desire to reach the "home" audience, it would mitigate the descent into unnecessary jargon or other communication-killing techniques. But this is not just about semantic choices. It is also about sprinkling one's writings, I think, with pidgin, peculiar Nigerian expressions, and adding a home flavor in the form of proverbs, idioms, imagery, and metaphors that resonate with and command exclusive appeal among a home audience.

[Shoko Loko Bangoshe]

On anti-intellectualism, my broda don't even get me started. It is something that Farooq and I frequently talk about. You know, I didn't want to bring my dictionary orientation here because I didn't want folks to label me a secondary school nerd, which I was in some ways (hahaha). But how can I forget when I used to read Dan Agbese, Adebayo Williams, and Niyi Osundare--all Newswatch columist then--in secondary school. I used to read them as much for what they said as for how they said it; as much for what I understood as for what I didn't--so I could look up the words and enrich my vocabulary. Today, who wants to look up a word or enjoy sophisticated prose for the sheer aesthetic pleasure that comes with encountering good, uncommon writing?

Ebe,

Are you saying that someone who dislikes having to consult their dictionary frequently while reading is somehow anti-intellectual?

Please clarify.

[Ebe]

Are you saying that someone who dislikes having to consult their dictionary frequently while reading is somehow anti-intellectual?

No, Shoko, I am saying that someone who dislikes having to consult their dictionary while reading is somehow anti-intellectual. The emphasis in your inquiry is on "frequently," which I left out of my answer. There is an extreme in all things, which I think your word "frequently" denotes. I am not advocating deliberately obscure, verbose, or hifallutin writing; I made that clear in my post. But it is intellectual laziness and the cultivation of an anti-intellectual streak to simply refuse to read something or dismiss it because it contains a few unfamiliar words that one may have to look up.

Whatever happened to the spirit of inquiry--the desire to increase one's understanding of a piece of writing or to simply enrich one's own grammatical repertoire.

[NWANZA]

Originally Posted by Ebe

No, Shoko, I am saying that someone who dislikes having to consult their dictionary while reading is somehow anti-intellectual. The emphasis in your inquiry is on "frequently," which I left out of my answer. There is an extreme in all things, which I think your word "frequently" denotes. I am not advocating deliberately obscure, verbose, or hifallutin writing; I made that clear in my post. But it is intellectual laziness and the cultivation of an anti-intellectual streak to simply refuse to read something or dismiss it because it contains a few unfamiliar words that one may have to look up.

Whatever happened to the spirit of inquiry--the desire to increase one's understanding of a piece of writing or to simply enrich one's own grammatical repertoire.

We already have serious problem with big grammar - called "Nigeriatude".

Europe & USA are constantly making it easier for the ordinary Joe to read and understand their books.

Nigeriatude is so Shakespeare's - old confusing tirade!

[Pius72]

Shoko, Shoko, Shoko,
How many times I call you? Now you know that you are using a combination of ojoro, magomago, and wuruwuru to play the devil's advocate here. You know damn very well what Moses is talking about. You had to slip in one word-frequently-to turn the entire thing on its head. Gerrout joo. The point one is making is about the bad hit that the spirit of inquiry has taken in this age of twittered knowledges.

@

Moses: thanks for the update about the feedback from your friend. Fear wan catch me initially. I wouldn't change one word in the Bongos Ikwue essay - except, perhaps, add where your readers could get cock crow at dawn. Yes, WayoGuy, offered an inspired conclusion in his intervention.

@Nwanza: you intervention no get head or tail. If you just wanted to be heard and be seen to have participated in a debate of this nature, my broda, we hear you. If, on the other hand, you are serious about contributing to a useful debate, come down a notch, stop being so dismissive when you are standing on powder, and clarify what you mean by that bland statement about American books getting easier and easier. Which books, which authors? Which areas/fields? What level? You can't just say American books - that means nothing. If, for instance, you are talking about academic books in the Arts and Humanities, your statement is totally wrong. The more difficult and abstruse you are, the more sophisticated the American system considers you and that is part of the problem Moses analyzes. If you are talking about public prose, you are still wrong. Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd are not more accessible than Okey Ndibe and Reuben Abati. Be careful before you make your next clarification. Moses and I read and teach those books for a living. By the way, that word that WayoGuy introduced is Negritude, not Nigeriatude, and there is no big grammar in Negritude. It was widely taught in Nigerian high schools. Remember Africa, my Africa? You sound like you are angry you didn't know it - like someone whose ego took a hit cos WayoGuy used a word he didn't know. Google it and say thanks to WayoGuy. Dat's part of what one is talking about here. Learn the word instead of being hostile to it. Una no dey hear word sef?

Pius

[Silent 1]

Most academic / intellectual writings, if not all, on Africa are in western languages -- English, French, German, e.t.c. These languages are obviously foriegn to Africa and must naturally, for a good while, until they are indigenized -- Africanized, pose a severe problem to both African academics and populations.

On the other hand, academic and intellectual thinking is pretty complex, very esoteric and so is its writing; thoughts and ideas naturally take on additional complexity in words and even more complexity in writing. Academic writing is not story telling -- new words, phrases and notations sometimes have to be invented to express some new thinking, some new concept -- a new understanding.

That said, was that Bongos Ikwe piece an academic piece? Did it need to be? What if Chinua Achebe had written "Things Fall Apart" in academic language? We must resist the temptation to be academic when we need not be. I am not saying the writer was.

[Shoko Loko Bangoshe]

Originally Posted by Ebe

No, Shoko, I am saying that someone who dislikes having to consult their dictionary while reading is somehow anti-intellectual. The emphasis in your inquiry is on "frequently," which I left out of my answer. There is an extreme in all things, which I think your word "frequently" denotes. I am not advocating deliberately obscure, verbose, or hifallutin writing; I made that clear in my post. But it is intellectual laziness and the cultivation of an anti-intellectual streak to simply refuse to read something or dismiss it because it contains a few unfamiliar words that one may have to look up.

Whatever happened to the spirit of inquiry--the desire to increase one's understanding of a piece of writing or to simply enrich one's own grammatical repertoire.

Sometimes, a person does need to do a bit of research before he can understand a piece of writing. But the writer also has a responsibility to reach out and engage with his audience. He needs to give them a reason to keep on reading so that they decide that it is worth making the effort in the first place. So sometimes, people who you may think are being 'anti-intellectual' may simply be deciding that the article is not engaging enough to deserve their curiosity.

[Uche Nworah]

@Ebe

On the issue of Oyibo grammar and the Nigerian or African, I recall a famous incident at the 1990 PMAN Nigerian Music Awards. Shina Peters who was the rave at the time while giving an acceptance speech for one of the several awards he won that night said - ‘I wish King Sunny Ade a speedy recover’.

The Media lampooned him and his response was ‘Grammar no be my language’. Perhaps, it may not just be only the ‘big grammar’ that tick your average reader off but other issues bordering on survival. What I find is that there are too many things competing for your typical Nigerian reader’s attention such that expecting an extra effort on their part to consult a dictionary in other to fully understand an essay will be asking for their arm or leg. Most people have now perfected the art of speed reading due to the many titles available at the newsstand and the different issues to take care of work -or family - wise. You skim through or rather gloss through articles as you never ever have the time to fully read a complete newspaper.

Notice that even in the west; major titles are now leaning towards providing bite sized information in small chunks complimented by blown up images. This I think is the way to go. I was once approached at a wedding in the UK by someone who regularly visits this website (NVS) and his feedback was that most of us write lengthy essays which could easily have been compressed. What he was actually saying was we should obey the golden rule of writing – KISS (keep it simple and short).

I guess every writer is different and every audience unique but perhaps listening to the readers and trying to at least accommodate some of their concerns may be the way to go but then there are some writers whose style you can’t just touch else they lose their very essence (their writing DNA), I’m talking about a writer like my brother Franklin Emmanuel Ogbunweze. Big grammar, dictionary, warts and all, the brother is a fascinating read any day even though I struggle sometimes to fully grasp his grammar, I ‘generally get the flow’ of his gist.

[Fjord]

Interesting, that last one, SLB.

Most who've mastered a language (first, second, or, well, third) have had to invest some time and effort; that includes checking words that're unknown - frequently if necessary - and particularly words whose context do not allow a reader to exactly figure what is meant.

But a writer - as you have succinctly written - has a responsibility: to write clearly, to give the reader a reason to continue the reading, and to thoroughly engage. Soyinka does this with almost effortless ease. The essence isn't 'difficult' writing, rather, something like 'engagement'.

Years ago yours truly worked with a fellow; technical reports had to be written. He went through a report, and placed a call: 'Fjord, you've got to write so you're not misunderstood', he said. That's a good one to go by for that discipline. Many times one's been subjected to the torture of having to read beautifully weaved words which could've been expressed better on other (simpler) words. Soyinka is engaging for the reason that you get the feeling the writer is - bizarre as it may sound - writing as simply as he could. Some have called it a gift; but one could be certain that even at that level, some deep and long thought went into the effort of not wasting words.

So then: "... the writer also has a responsibility to reach out and engage with his audience. He needs to give them a reason to keep on reading so that they decide that it is worth making the effort in the first place."

Infallible. Immutable, even, except, of course, in 'coding' and in deliberately cryptic writing.
.

[quietswami]

The gift of being able to review and revise ones views or opinions - the beauty of contemplative reflection! I realise that my initial dismissal of the dilemma as presented may have been a tad hasty. As with any given situation, no argument can exist solely at face value – there is always the implied or as I like to say, implied insinuations. The extension of this debate is the elephant in the room - in this instance the age old debate of establishing the distinction between intellect and academia - by extension the associated personification of the intellectual versus the academic.

A non- academic reasoning on my part will take the liberty to define as follows – academia will belong to the realm of the studied “administrative” rigour of collating and identifying sources or references to validate the originality of thoughts or ideas, whilst intellect can be said to be the intuitive grasping and organic conceptualisation of thoughts or ideas; the former would imply an embedded denial of originality until proven otherwise; conforming to established codes and body of known knowledge with a view to some form of famed accreditation, whilst the latter would imply an unfettered, un-associated, unaligned, unreferenced, unencumbered, non-conforming originality of thought - often unacknowledged .

A profile of both will place the academic as attention-fund-seeking obsessive, ruled by the sacred academic code not to plagiarise, and the mandated requirement to be published. The compulsion to adhere to these principles account for the expansive nature of the academic writing style, and the propensity to inundate with papers, writings, seminar speeches – all part of an established credit scoring system which at times explains the paucity of ideas or thoughts often contained in such outputs - in spite of the voluminous treatises. By contrast, the intellectual is a law unto him/her-self without the overbearing burden to be acknowledged or published – a self-effacing thinker driven by raging thoughts or ideas with the compulsion to establish communication with someone – anyone to at least validate his/her sanity. Accredited publications may be minuscule if at all but often loaded masterpieces full of organic intuitive thoughts and ideas -not necessarily original – usually one for the squabbling hyenic frenzy of the academic to pull apart to establish originality. An inclination to be set aside from academia in an attempt to be untainted by the overwhelming influence which may becloud or hinder the intuitive organic process required for originality. Originality, of course, is the holy grail for both!

The boundaries between the two is subtle - depending on which particular grouping has the floor – the academic will naturally claim to be both because some level of intellect is required to be an academic, as will the intellectual that some awareness of existing knowledge from academia is necessary for acceptance.

The “real” world ignores or sometimes derides the academic for their adherence to endless quotes and references but give more credence to intellectuals -seen to get straight to the point without the preamble of sources or references but somewhat unproven. The absolute sense of both result in the perception of the academic, lost in his or her world of tail-chasing to reconcile disparate and often obscure sources - unable to see the woods for trees. Whilst the intellectual is far removed from the reality of communicating his ideas – an isolated genius lost to the rest of the society! I’m sure Foucault and Derrida have dealt with this somewhere!!! (Genius and Madness?). Reality, of course, is that you do need both with varying degrees of proportionality, crucially though - context dependent. The bridging balance of the two is naturally the ideal!

How does this relate? Academics and intellectuals world-over do relate to one another within the context of their chosen fields equipped with discerning access to materials, sources etc - just as “home”, “diasporic” Nigerians, or (my favourite coinage) Nigerian affiliates do. The timeless debate of substance over style readily comes to mind! Question will be in which order would one put the emphasis? The intuitive, un-sourced, often unreferenced originality of thought or the carefully researched and referenced totem attempting to prove originality!

Situating this debate in the Nigerian context, I will opine that the intellect should be emphasised and encouraged to ensure that all ideas are espoused (heavens know we need them!) without fear of being subsumed by the demands of academic rigour – there will be enough fallouts for academics to mull over once the creative process has fully kicked in! Naturally, the Achilles heel of this rationale will be the concept that, there are no original ideas or thoughts but recycled ones – a possible counter would be - recycled or otherwise; if the idea works it is “the” original idea!

Let’s not squabble over style – the ones who get the ideas or the thoughts are the right ones to receive them, those who don’t have work to do! Simplez!

To go academic on y’all, my Chambers Dictionary offers the following definitions –
Academe – n (formal or literary)the world of scholars; academic life
Academia – n academic life
Academic – adj of an academy or university; scholarly; formal; theoretical only, of no practical importance or consequence [ouch!] n person studying or teaching at a university, esp. One who has narrow scholarly tastes (sometimes derog)
Academy – n a higher or specialised school, or a university; a society for the promotion of science or art; a riding school.
University – n an institution of higher learning with power to grant degrees, its boty of teachers, students, graduates, etc., its college or colleges or its buildings.
Intellect – n the mind, in reference to its rational powers; the thinking principle
Intellectual – adj of or relating to the intellect; having the power of understanding; endowed with a superior intellect; appealing to, or (thought to be) intended for, intellectuals; intelligible only to a person with superior intellect – n a person of superior intellect or enlightenment.

Succumbing to the cheat’s guide – Wikipedia offers the following -

Academia, Acadème, or the Academy are collective terms for the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.

An academic is a person who works as a researcher (and usually teacher) at a university, college, or similar institution in post-secondary (tertiary) education. He or she is nearly always an advanced degree holder. In the United States, the term academic is approximately synonymous with that of the job title professor although in recent decades a growing number of institutions are also including academic or professional librarians in the category of "academic staff." In the United Kingdom, various titles are used, typically fellow, lecturer, reader, and professor (see also academic rank), though the loose term don is often popularly substituted. The term scholar is sometimes used with equivalent meaning to that of "academic" and describes in general those who attain mastery in a research discipline. It has wider application, with it also being used to describe those whose occupation was researched prior to organized higher education.

An intellectual (from the adjective meaning "involving thought and reason") is a person who uses his or her intelligence and analytical thinking, either in a profession capacity, or for personal reasons.

"Intellectual" can be used to mean, broadly, one of three classifications of human beings:

1. An individual who is deeply involved in abstract erudite ideas and theories.
2. An individual whose profession solely involves the dissemination and/or production of ideas, as opposed to producing products (e.g. a steel worker) or services (e.g. an electrician). For example, lawyers, educators, politicians, and scientists.[1]
3. An individual of notable expertise in culture and the arts, expertise which allows them some cultural authority, which they then use to speak in public on other matters.

The approach adopted here was to establish my thoughts, and then check up on sources – not far off! Prefer mine of course!

Doubt if my thoughts are original enough to be classed as an intellectual, nor adequately referenced to pass as an academic, hopefully should suitably qualify as a layman! Perhaps with vested interest! Now I’m a step above the layman!!! An unwitting indulgence in all things cerebral – headache duly induced, I am at the mercy of the inevitable onslaught of the academics! Uuuhmmmm....

Silent 1 - Congratulations on your villagership!