The only other good thing was that Obu Udeozo came back. Then Carmen whom I enjoyed a warm but transient friendship with for a while. A good editor and devout lover of literature. Dul is the bone of the Association. Dr. Klien introduced the Yahoo groups and networking for the group. There’s also Kenana. But as far as I’m concerned the Plateau Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors has seen better days. We used to read at the boat house in Rayfield resort! With “Suya and Wine” bought by Dul Johnson. Dul Johnson was every inch a “father” then. Again a “brother”, mentor and finally “friend”. Now he’d give you a very stern warning when you err that reminded you he was FIFTY and you would shiver to your bones …

            Dr. Dul Johnson is still and remains the custodian of ANA Plateau State.

            “Ours is a tribe that sits on stones. Content to bring little pieces from home and read to a number of same old five. Opinions have become gravely fixed about persons and their works… and there’s hardly any excitement there for me anymore” This I told someone who asked about our ANA. There’s much more we could do, as Izzia and Dan Tenshak had planned.

1.         We organize a literary day at the University.

2.         We could visit the Government House and use literature (our reading) to inform public opinion and contribute to the restoration of the much needed PEACE on the Plateau (And be carried on T.V).

3.         We could single out Philanthropist and known individuals or groups who adores literature and pay a courtesy call, reading, and thereby raising some fund for our Chapter.

4.         We could organize competitions for and among Secondary Schools on the Plateau (Like Ascalf) and in ANA Niger.

5.         We could invite established and celebrated writers for a reading to invigorate and ginger our chapter and create liaisons between our chapter and others.

6.         We could compete among ourselves either daily during the readings like Dan Tenshak used to do at his donated gallery where the best work for that session either in poetry or short story got home with some token money.

7.         And million innovative others … but we only sit on stones in a circle (Kinda Cool though but sounds from passing cars makes reading and hearing sometimes a useless venture. I thought inside, in the cool ancient northern architecture of the museum was more ideal but popular opinion negated this).

            I don’t go to the readings much anymore… funny, I am now an “outsider” in my own very family as most of the siblings I tend to have parleyed with have had reasons to become absent. They are namely!

ü      Dan Tenshak

ü      David

ü      Obu Udeozo

ü      Super

ü      Steve Rampam and

ü      Izzia Ahmad.

            Let me conclude this write-up then, again, my tribute to a truly loved and cherished friend who has embarked on an eternal voyage, with how he viewed life and like this stage in this piece, when and how: it ends! In the poem VIGNETTES, GUDI STATIOM, Izzia noted in his usual elevated and thought provocating craft:

                        Such lines, such cruel lines

                        Scrawled with knotted finger,

                        On the underleaf, Defines Death’s

                        Fatal hieroglyphics, such spurting

                        Juices propel the worm that gnaws…

            We tend to die everyday. And  I always say we LIVE while we can, taking the gifts that each moment brings and blessing those moments for their gifts. Death is a gradual process that is only completed when you severe your ties with the physical world. Though it’s sad to note: each new birthday is another step towards the grave, and the final conclusion of activities of this earthly realm. This gradual process is athin to the action of the sand at the bottom of the sea. The sand eats up the sea and some day, the sea is no more. Hear Izzia:

                        Under the Ochre shade of mushroom cumulus

                        Death drinks of the sap dripping

                        From the broken stem of your leaf

                        Around his feet collects your debris

                        Your humus, dawn framed you against

                        The bolted door as you lifted a broken hand

                        To proclaim the benediction.

            And again, most interestingly, what another valued friend Chim Newton creatively described in a letter to me sometime ago, the logic of the illogicality, Izzia postulated herein as well. Death as pitched earlier to be an ending, is also actually, another beginning. (Like cycles in a gyre?) In the final stanza of the 7 stanza-ed poem, the following lines buttresses this notion:

                        The Earth breaks

                        Where a cow spreads her flanks

                        Digs in her hooves and drops her calf

                        Under the leveling force of her exploding

                        I breath. The matted meadow flattens beneath

                        The thin film of birth fluids

                        Beneath the seminal smell of afterbirth.

                        The essential cow totters knobble-knee’d      

                        It waits to be licked into recognition.

            He was buried in his home of Gudi village along your way to Abuja. The man that bore the name: Carlos Izzia Ahmad was no more. I wasn’t there. Although I should’ve been. But I simply couldn’t bear to see him: Dead!

            My memories of him is therefore secure. Devoid of that “Stupidity” that the morgue seldom imposes on men of goodwill. Izzia: Chubby Salubrious laughter that brightens the room!

THE END