Usen: Village Boy Is About Village Children, Village Life

…Says ‘Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist has encouraged me to do more’ 

For Usen, growing up carries a lot memories. He recalls with nostalgia how he was privileged to grow up with his grandmother under the palm trees in their village, smoking rats out of their dark holes for meals and chasing insects desperately at night for snacks.

“There is a chapter on flying termites in my books where I called it barbecue of termites,” he enthuses. As an orphan in the village, he became rugged. He lost his father when he was just two years old and only see him in pictures, he says.

“And that’s how I grew up with my aged grandmother in the village. My father died in the city of Lagos, on Broad Street, in a motor accident.” So, to get through primary school was a huge task, but he managed to pass through primary school.

And how his mother had sent a letter to some friends of his father who were here in Lagos, and told them about him and his desire to go to secondary school but there is no money for that.

“So five of them gathered together on a Sunday and decided to contribute money for me to go to secondary school. That was how I went to secondary school. So, I was on their scholarship. They used to send money to my school through postal order.

Eventually, with the help of my late father’s friends I was able to go to secondary school. “Now to go to the university was completely ruled out. I didn’t know that small boys go to the university, but one of my father’s friend employed me in his office in Lagos.

He was working with WAEC and he was sent to become the Deputy Registrar in Nsukka. And when they established Calabar campus at Nsukka, he was sent to be the Deputy Registrar And I had just finished secondary school through him, so he took me to his office to be opening admission letters.

I spent about seven months as a clerk in his office before I got admission. In those days, we were the first batch of JAMB in 1978. So, I went and told my mother that am going to the university and she said no that I just started working and let us make small money.

I heard that there was a man from my village who was staying in Port Harcourt and was very rich. I decided to go and see that man, and when I saw him, he promised me that he was going to pay my tuition fees. At that time, the man was an accountant and was working with Nigeria Airport Authority and he owned a hotel.

In the evenings when he comes back from work, he would stay in the hotel. It was in the hotel that I went to meet him and I saw someone from my village, who was a cook and he gave me plenty of food to eat while I waited for him.

When he came back from work in the night, I was taken to his office and was introduced as the son of the late Usen. And he said, “Oh, you have grown up, where have you people been?” I had a copy of Daily Times under my armpit because the list of those given admission was in that paper.

I showed him the paper and said, this is my name and I have admission and I am looking for school fees. He said, don’t worry that your father was a good man. We are going to pay for it. That was how, I went to the university.”

According to him, after university, he was sent to Kano for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), and in those days, nobody lobbied to be posted anywhere because Nigeria was good then. “So, when I got to Kano, in the camp, the governor then, Abubakar Rimi, came to the camp to do the opening ceremony.

I made sure I shook hands with him. Of course, two weeks later I was posted to the Government House, Kano, as my place of primary assignment. I went to look for the place and when I saw it on my way back, I was given a car that same day, to take me back.

I was working directly with the governor. I was given a three bedroom flat with a cook, gardener, security etc. I began to experience that life that I saw in a trance as a village boy.

About the book

Village Boy is about village children and village life. I just thought that I should get a picture with words about our villages and allow readers to see our villages even when they don’t get there in colours.

COVID 19 provided that opportunity for me to write the book. It is about village children, their struggles. The way their mindset, worldview, cosmology, their perception of life and situations. All of these are intertwined, there are different ramifications.

For instance, how do they have their medications and treatment? The type of their medications would daze you here. You can’t believe how it works but it was okay.

If somebody for instance has epilepsy, they will just pout the person by the plantain leaves and leave you there, you will come out after some time healed. How do these children get medication? How they play?

How they go to school? How they help their families and in the process become rugged. People used to tell me, how did you go to Liberia, Afghanistan in the middle of wars to report stories, I do tell them that I am a village boy that I used to run about like chasing rats in the bush.

The Village Boy is very experiential. There is nothing like writing about your experience. I want to encourage journalists, write something, leave something behind. There is a story all over the place to be written.

How does the longlist impact your future writing goals and ambition?

No! I transverse both private and public sector. Sometimes, I pick up political appointments and leave. My last point of call was with NDDC. I was the founding Director, Corporate Affairs in NDDC. When I was 60 years old I left.

People said that I should retire and I said no rather I will refire, that is, refiring by writing books. After all, I just started writing recently. Village Boy is about three years old. I don’t feel any pressure, I have so many books in the works right now.

I am just happy about the Nigeria Prize for Literature. It has come into the picture and it has encouraged me to do more. This is an encouragement and it is something to really commend NLNG because it has inspired me.

‘Village Boy’ was just seven weeks in the public space when it drew the attention of United Nations SDG’s book club in Namibia. I am inspired encouraged by the NPL recognition and nomination. I don’t feel any pressure.

I am happy about the NLNG prize and it has encouraged me to do more. More books are coming.

Foray in journalism

I was the best corper in Kano that year and they gave me a job in Triumph Newspaper, but I refused to work there.

I came back to Lagos and got a job with Punch newspaper, and from there joined the late Dele Giwa’s News Watch Magazine. I was a pioneer reporter at News Watch (first five reporter there).

When they employ you in those days and I was the first person to be promoted there in four months. In 18 months, I was already in the Board of Directors and by God’s grace, I did very well. I won so many awards both internal and external.

At that time, the only journalism award was sponsored by UAC Uni – lever and the winner used to go for three months Fellowship in the United Kingdom with Thompson Foundation and Reuters.

So, UAC Unilever took me there, all-expenses paid in 1989. I came back and won so many other journalism awards.

Telling stories and writing books

I have never had a formal training in writing or journalism. I gatecrashed into journalism.

I studied Political Science. But folklores and folktales in the village, when my grandmother will be telling you stories, sometimes, you will be gripped with suspense. If it is a frightening story, you will not be able to sleep.

Later on, in secondary school, we got addicted into reading books such James Hadley Chase, Pacesetters novels, among others. And that’s how I write the way my grandmother would tell those stories.

Your uncles will tell you those stories and then you jump into James Hardly Chase and compete with your classmates in reading books. I also read Time Magazine, when you read those stories, you would love them.

When I started writing, unconsciously, I was telling stories like that. I became the General Editor in a very short span of time which was the highest position aside the late Dele Giwa and Dan Agbese position. I was all over the world for them. After the Orkar coup, I went there and I captured a picture of mayhem, I was there that same day.