Let me commence this stuff with a question: What is life if you have lived it without passion? What is life? If you have lived it, without neither fame nor fortune? Without progeny… when I die, feed my body to the vultures, let them enjoy my nutrient flesh… the moment, is fleeting… it is not death that I fear: BUT EXTINCTION! These are scraps from Olu Jacob’s only poem that I inherited in a file passed to me in UniJos 1996 on becoming coordinator of the Writers’ forum of the English Department .An obscure group known only to a few friends and lecturers. Owojecho Omoha, Olu Jacob, David Njoku, Helon Habila, Obinna Nwachukwu, Chike Peace, Toni Kan, Terh Agbedeh, I.K Akonobi, Abiye Krukrubo, Omale Allen Abdul-Jabbar e.t.c. The lecturers that nursed, befriended and fed our muse were: Zack Orbunde (R.I.P) Oyo Mahmudu (R.I.P) Obiwu, Aunt Kanchana Ugbabe …) Dul Johnson.

            Olu Jacob was Chiefly a critique. He never wrote anything other than this very piece as far as I’m concerned. But it has always remained with me. And its potency never in the least wavered.

Bury your impassioned Cry

in the soft susurrus of sighs

            Writing about Izzia, for me, is a most difficult, difficult thing. Tears rise slowly from my ankle and journey to towards my brain like an orgasmic release. I have positioned the above intro also as a delay mechanism. But I am determined to do this. I also want to be the first among all his numerous disciples, friends and cronies to say anything about him. In the poem THE WILL TO FREEDOM, Izzia had mused the earlier quoted lines and as my emotions threaten to overwhelm and undetermined this present effort:

I hear Izzia saying them to me.

            What does one say about Izzia Ahmad?

That he was a hermit? (for the greater, earlier part of the times I knew him) that he was a son of the living Jah? That he was every inch a friends of friends? That he was a lover and a Poet? That the joy of water auger-red his presence? (and he knew what it is to share a last glass of water – with a smile!) That he was a brother, mentor, dreamer and a role model? What does one say about Izzia Ahmad? That he was a teacher? A Christian? An excellent and flawless speaker of the English Language? A hell of a grammarian? A husband? A politician? (Considering his last involvement with his state government of Nassarawa, his last duty Post!) The question multiplies, seeking answers that only draw up more questions…. That he was a pioneer? A renowned, profound and genuine lover of literature (he could relish in talks of this for hours un-end). That he loved coffee like a faithful spouse? Worked tirelessly like an Albanian prostitute? That he was simply: Simply? A Humanist and Naturalist? A publisher? That he was effused with bounteous humility? Carlos Izzia Ahmad was all of these things and more, that very sadly enough; we shall no longer see.

            What? The question continues, does one say of Izzia? A rare genie like Obiwu said of him? That he was a fiendish lover of Bob Marley and Bob Dylan?

That he was uncle to Naan Pocen? And Juliet Tenshak?

            A friend of Dan Tenshak, Ibrahim Sheme,  Dul Johnson, Maik Nwosu, Odia Ofeimun, Uche Nduka, Obu Uduozo, Hyginus Ekwuazi, Olu Oguigbe, Ogaga Ofowodu, Emman Usman Shehu, Nduka Otiono, Steve Rampam, and even the obscures like myself? That he was married to Esther (a poem of tenderness who now bears the most burden of his demise!) that he was ANA Secretary – General and pioneer member of ANA Lagos? That he published a book titled: A SHOUT ACROSS THE WALL? That his final bus stop was Gudi Station in Nassarawa State where he sprang from , and his essence and was interred? (The earth that bears his artist bones).

Dreams and fantasies flicker in neon light

We shook up laughter from the tree of pain…

            That was Izzia, as Steve Rampam once sang in a Song! Indeed, he WAS SO GOOD WITH LAUGHTER – and laughter became him!

            “Look at this man carefully and see if he has a mark like yours” that was Dul Johnson in his office at the English Department of the University of Jos in  1997. That was how I met Izzia. He had a tendency to carry everyone along. And Oh! How he carried us along! Especially all who were   unusually fired by the love of the Arts. You could write it out this way. And give them to people at readings autographing them “ehen, autograph them na, what are you waiting for? That was I.K Akonobi”. That was the first work of Izzia that we came in contact with. It was called:

THE WILL TO FREEDOM (1995).

In the gray precincts of twilight

Where strange spices are mixed

By the secrets of the perfumer’s art

And opinions are gravely fixed

By the movement of the stars

And men perish under the wheels of a Cart.

Divine! That was the first stanza. It has never ceased to hold me spell bound. And the second continued with that tone of the master craftsman resplendent in all of everything that Izzia ever wrote!

In the diabolic incandescence

Of that tacky resinous hour

Shaken into liquid translucence

By the boomin’ chimes of a clock

There by the twisted, haunted tower

Life came to me at the crowning of the cock.

            Of all the contemporary or simply existing poets in Nigeria that I have encountered or chanced upon in my limited but much dedicated and steadily expanding ken as an apprentice of this trade (The closest which are: Toni Kan, Helon Habila, Obu Udeozo, Toyin Adewale, Odia Ofeimun, Remi Raji, Nduka Otiono, Ibiware Ikriko (R.I.P.) et al:) none has the same peculiar effect as Izzia Ahmad’s. As some lines reveal of themselves in this very analyzed poem:

She was simple, she was ample

Fleshed beyond the bones extremist possibilities

Such, is the poetry, and person, of Izzia Ahmad.

            In his numerous pieces of poems which he handed to me across the bounds of different times and occasions. In Dul’s house, (with his lovely wife: Ruth spoiling us more than a little with “maasa” . At my erstwhile office (Parable Communications) with Dan Tenshak (God bless him much), he concerned himself with so many divergent and hydra-headed issues, recordings of his own Keen inquiry into life and as custodian of the society in which he  found himself. Titles such as these live now to immortalize him:

THE NIGHT IS FRIENDLY AGAIN. (1992), QUEEN OF HEARTS (1991), LATELY (I’VE BEEN MISSING YOU (1990), PRISONER OF HOPE (1985), FARIDA/NA’OMI (1994), BLUE ANGEL (1991), VAGABOUND HEART (1993), THE LAWGIVER (1993), BLOOD (1993), DOVE ON DISTANT OAKS (1992), PURPLE SCENT OF DAWN (1990), SHAKE DOWN A BED FOR ME (1995), WILL TO FREEDOM (1995).

            In THE WILL TO FREEDOM, Izzia traced the very origin of life, from the primordial. Analogous to that very first time that God Almighty looked back at the world he had just created. And decided it was good!