As I’ve continued to read your comments I’ve continued to feel that I
have a most forgiving group of friends here. The scolding for my going
AWOL (Away without leave) was mild. The urge that I stay put, like J. P.
Clark urging the Abiku child in his poem by this title, is heavy. Some
of you gave me the impression you missed my words, even with their
occasional incoherence and all species of blemishes. The mere presence
of most of the names excited me into frenzy. I can’t name all such
names, yet I can’t help mentioning my friend, Dr Susan Severino Lara,
whose prompt resurfacing at my wall told me much about her in spite of
the fact that our meeting in her country of wonders, the Philippines,
wasn’t prolonged. I remember her asking after her other Nigerian friend
and possible contemporary, the late Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike. Since we
left the University in the early 1980s, I am yet to set my eyes on my
friend and fellow tough campus politician, now Reverend Ini Ukpuho. We’d
come quite close to meeting each other, yet we callously allowed the
opportunity to slip off our fingers. And now he, too, is here to say
“Welcome”. My sister and senior colleague and boss and neighbour, Prof
Inyang Udofot, whom covid-19 has put asunder what UNIUYO had put
together! She, too, has advised, with the flavour of a warning, that I
no longer stay out of here. And then Richard Mammah, who picked almost
from the mouth of a dustbin the manuscript of my first collection,
Popular Stand and Other Poems, and got it published, in spite of my
protest that it wasn’t good enough. Some animated dance steps, too, and
as I watched the dances I became so absorbed that I soon began to feel
pains in my ribs from just watching. So if you don’t find me here after
this, look for me at some clinic, where Nseobong Inyang and Gertrude
Archibong would have sent me with their animated dances of welcome! One
naughty one, Dr Friday Okon, described me as a “prodigal”. I forgive him
as you all have forgiven my trespasses against you; and more so because
he went all the way with me to Akorshi, Bendi, when I was ordained a
full-blown orphan. As I’d said earlier, it’s just not possible to
mention us all by name, so persons like Wubong Akung, James Tsaaior,
Johnson Akeh, Joan Etukudo, Pastor Mbiatke Nyediong Thomas, my boss in
the struggle, Associate Prof Aniekan Brown, Joseph Edem, Dr Pat Aboh
Akande, Myke Odey, Ubong Udoetuk of impossible vocabulary and Dave Imbua
of unbreakable budget terminologies and all others, don’t be offended if
I don’t mention your names.

But there are some three or so names that I must mention specially.
These are Barr UnyimeAbasi EyenLuke Odong (the then-tiny drop in my Use
of English class), Dr David Ekanem Udoinwang and Dr Romanus Aboh. These
ones especially hinted that the terrain has changed somewhat at the
homestead, and that I should tread cautiously. I really thank them for
these words of caution, which I translate into their caring about me.
But then, I’d long come to see myself as a ghost, having long been
murdered by the state, by my country. And I’d also come to see what once
was a country now as a ghost of itself. So, since ghosts don’t usually
fear fellow ghosts, I’m not at all terribly afraid of this other ghost,
no matter its size. We’re all ghosts, after all. As I write, very many
of my colleagues in federal universities are yet to be paid salaries
since the month of February, this year, courtesy of the Almighty,
omnipotent and omniscient Accountant-General of the Federation and his
deadly IPPIS vaccine (more on this in my next outing). As I write, I’m
in possession of a text message from a former student who said she’s
been contemplating suicide since the lockdown as she’s had no job after
the national service and no one to look up to. As I write, there are
families who got paid just 5k for a whole month on account of their
being enrolled into the notorious Integrated Personnel and Payroll
Information System (IPPIS), and survival has been nearly impossible for
them. As I write, there are thousands and thousands who are otherwise
geniuses but who can’t have access to formal education because of the
lack of means to do so. As I write, I know of many who have just been
buried because of the means with which to buy more days from our health
system. As I write, I also know of some – my own students among them –
who, though in school, are still afflicted with such a high magnitude of
the disease called Ignorance that if you gave them stones to throw at
their enemies, my poor colleagues and I would be the first they would
throw the stones at for being ASUU members, fighting “an unnecessary
battle”. Yet, even one of the vice-chancellors who had fought ASUU most
fiercely, always confesses that public universities would have long been
dead if not for ASUU. So, I live in mud, so soft that it needs only a
little more pressure from above me, and I would sink in. So, does it
really matter whether I live or die clinically now? We’re all dead in
that one person who’s been allowed to die a preventable death while we
watched without doing anything. In the days of Romantic Literature in
Britain, it had almost become shameful to live to old age because it was
believed that society was so evil that only evil persons could thrive in
it for long. So, the great John Keats died before he was 25, Shelly also
left early, Mary Wollstonecraft (an early feminist and revolutionary)
drowned while going to participate in some revolutionary action. William
Wordsworth was embarrassed with longevity, and he wasn’t really too
happy about it. But the British society then would have been considered
a hell if it were as horrendous as this country is today. Or we would
weigh ourselves to be in paradise if we were ever to attain the standard
of living with which these great souls were utterly disgusted.

Beating up a person isn’t the worst thing. The worst is when you beat up
a person and also dictate to him how loud he should open his mouth in
crying. Most of us have been savagely pummeled, and we should, at least,
be allowed to cry as loudly as we can. So, now that I have returned
here, I’ll try to cry, and cry aloud. If they come for me, then they
would have outrun the mosquito which would still have arrived here some
day with malaria, which would send me in the same direction as their
gunshots; the difference, however, being that their gunshots would
generate much noise and people would hear, unlike the mosquito whose
polite, negotiated bite no one would hear about, and I would go without
the tongues nagging their characteristic emptiness.

Once again, I thank you all for the warm welcome. I pray to linger here
for a while, even if to appreciate your generosity with forgiveness for
me. Thanks immensely. Barka da Sallah and remember to stay safe.

Joseph A. Ushie,
University of Uyo.