CONVERSATION WITH DR. HALIMA SEKULA

By Isaac Attah Ogezi Dr. Halima Sekula attended the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where she obtained her B. A., M.A and Ph.D in literature. She cut her creative writing teeth while as an undergraduate and was an active member of the Creative Writers’ Club. Her early works were published in the anthology, Poetry from A. B. U, edited by Muazu Maiwada. Since then she has never looked back in her dream to bring African literature to a higher height both as a teacher and a writer. Her published works include Tongues of Flame (poetry, 2005) and Honour Among Thieves (drama, 2006). Some of her poems and short stories have also been published in various national and international literary journals and anthologies such as Transverse, The Halifax Review, Drumvoices Revue, Lorraine and James Penwomenship among others. Her first novel will be published later this year. She currently lectures at the Department of English, Nasarawa State University, Keffi. Her hobby is collecting of beads from different parts of the world. In this interview with Isaac Attah Ogezi, she bares her mind on issues that inspire her, her views on writing, background, publications and many others. OGEZI: Can you tell us a little about yourself? HALIMA: I’m Halima Sekula. I lecture with Nasarawa State University, Keffi, in the Department of English. I teach literature. My reading English at the University brought me into contact with some of the best writers in Africa and other parts of the world. I went to ABU, Zaria again for my M. A. and Ph.D after my first degree there. OGEZI: When and how did you start writing? HALIMA: I started when I was an undergraduate in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. We had this Creative Writers’ Club (CWC). I was a member. So, you know, meeting with like-minded students made me realize that writing fiction is something achievable. And also in the university, I took creative writing courses where we were taught as students the craft and forms of creative writing. Of course, as a student who majored in literature, I came across numerous poems and plays written by truly great people and it served as an inspiration. And also I published in university journals as an undergraduate, for example, Poems form A. B. U, edited by Muazu Maiwada. After graduation and national service, I went back to school for my M. A. and during that period, I concentrated so much at specializing in my field that I didn’t write much. Of course, I kept on reading even outside the prescribed texts. You know, ABU, Zaria, has this huge collection of literary works in Kashim Ibrahim Library, Samaru Campus, which I took advantage of. I read other literature from other parts of the world – Russian, English, French and American. So far, I have published two books – a collection of poems, Tongues of Flames in 2005 and a play, Honour Among Thieves in 2006. OGEZI: What is your collection Tongues of Flames all about? HALIMA: I don’t know if a writer is supposed to discuss the themes of her work, but since you’re forcing me into a corner, I’ll say the poems in that collection look into aspects of existence in post-colonial Nigeria. In general, I’m concerned with issues of individual survival in a nation that is struggling to achieve true development. OGEZI: In the opening poem, ‘Rupture’, perhaps, the manifestoe poem of the entire collection, you celebrated your resilience in singing again after a storm. What does poetry mean to you? Is it a kind of consolation after the trials and travails of life? HALIMA: Poetry for me is beyond consolation because poetry itself deals with every aspect of existence. So like I mentioned earlier, what I’m celebrating in that poem was as if a dead part of me has come to life. Poetry should be like a living vibrant thing. It was just like a period of three to four years but it was like a decade or more for me. That is not to say all the poems here are personal experiences. OGEZI: I’ve also discovered that in the first part of the collection, you dwelt at length on themes that affect women generally, such as polygamy, wife inheritance, betrayal, poverty and divorce. HALIMA: Yes. First of all, my gender is female and the issues or crises of daily living which concern women especially from the Northern Nigerian angle, I’m not saying that the other regions do no have these problems, but I’m more acquainted with this part of the country which I know very well. For instance, the issue of wife inheritance in ‘The New Wife’, it’s supposed to help the family’s continuity but where does the woman’s individual needs come? Must she always love or accept her husband who is a relation to the late husband? Polygamy is Islamically correct but when it is practiced in ways that negatively impact on wives and children, it becomes a social problem. ‘The Old Pot’, we’re talking about a woman who is already in crisis because there is no enough money to feed the family yet the husband is bringing in a new woman to share in his little earnings. However, it is not in all the poems that crisis situations are shown. ‘Black Mother’, for example, is a celebration of the African woman as a farmer, a mother who feeds not only her own children but the world. OGEZI: In the second part of the collection, your thematic concerns went beyond the plight of women to encompass themes such as hypocrisy in ‘My Good Friends’, child labour in ‘Boy Hawker in Nyanya’, inordinate affection or love in ‘Closed Spaces’ and jealousy in ‘Tears They Shed’. ‘Closed Spaces’ particularly appeals to me in this part because of the philosophy behind it and the universal truth that it preaches. Do you mind to read the poem for us? HALIMA: Yes. [Reads] When we touch and cling To people with such force Tenderness and true care Are stifled for lack of breath The birth of a new era Forces closed spaces To breed rank weeds Of putrefied weariness Steeped in disdainful need Hands clasped tight Around craning necks Force out clean breaths of love. OGEZI: Thank you. What experience informed you to write that poem? HALIMA: Sometimes when you say what informed you to write a particular poem, it could be a conglomeration of many experiences or many things seen or heard. It might be one’s profound experiences or somebody else’s. I love watching people interacting. Perhaps, it was one of these experiences. This particular poem was probably informed by my observations of human interaction. Like I said earlier, I’m interested in how the individual survives in the society and I realized that interrelationships are mutual but when one party is asking too much, too early of another, it can create the opposite of what is intended. OGEZI: In ‘Tears They Shed’, about the most formalistically accomplished poem in the entire collection, I’m impressed by how the line arrangement is able to depict the theme of jealousy very aptly in the poem. How did you achieve this feat? HALIMA: Through experimentation. Sometimes, the poem is influenced by what I want to say. And, of course, it also deals with universal values of people who find it easy to attempt to destroy successful people. OGEZI: In the last part, which contains four poems centred on social commentary, you expressed your cynicism at the ineptitude of our leaders to fulfil their promises especially in the poem ‘Independence Day’. Must a poet always be cynical and gloomy? HALIMA: It’s unfortunate that I’m living in an era where the facts of my country are often gloomy. So perhaps that’s what is reflected in my poetry. Daily experiences, facts and figures, show that Nigeria is an underdeveloped country. Daily we talk about corruption, inadequate leadership, about lack of opportunities for young people to grow, that is, grow socially, politically, and economically. Year in, year out, we cannot come out and say this situation was terrible last year or five years ago but we’re better this year. For the past five years, we’ve been without electricity, water and other social amenities. Can’t we be gloomy? For instance, in this year’s Independence Day, are we sure we are going to get a trickle of water? The poem, ‘Forty Years’, I personified Nigeria as a human being of forty years and I could only depict a human being in despair. OGEZI: I’ve noticed that in your poetry, the reader hardly knows anything about your personal life, your emotions, pains and triumphs as a writer unlike the American poet, Sylvia Plath whose poems are confessionals or Victoria Kankara’s Hymns and Hymens which are overtly erotic. Why are the emotions expressed in your work not personal like in Okigbo’s poetry but vicarious? HALIMA: OGEZI: Does that explain why you’re more at home with narrative poetry rather than lyrical poetry? HALIMA: OGEZI: You’re also a playwright and have published a play titled Honour Among Theives about disloyalty between two thieves. Did you consciously use the impotence of Danjuma as a leitmotif for the inadequacies of men generally? HALIMA: Certainly no. Not men generally but certain type of men. If I say men are generally impotent, that will label me a man-hater and I’m not a man-hater. The play is generally about role-playing, the social dislocations that occur when people are unable to adequately play their roles. The book is not really about men and women but social and cultural forces which prevent people from being honest to themselves and to one another. OGEZI: The feminist undertones cannot be written off in your play. Christiana’s act of taking in for her husband’s friend, Joe, is obviously the celebration of a new dawn for women where they refuse to be docile as the society would want them to be but rise up to take their destinies in their hands. Do you share that view? HALIMA: That’s a very interesting question because it bothers on several issues but I’d just mention just my motivation in creating Christiana as a character. I see her as an individual forced into an uncomfortable situation as a result of poverty and cultural norms and values. And the point I’m trying to make in this play is that morality is often relegated to a secondary position when people are in very, very difficult situations. I don’t think I’m the only Nigerian writer to hold such a view. Ben Okri’s characters are often forced into crimes and immorality as a result of their economic and social situations. But to talk of Christiana as a celebration of a new dawn for women, my perception is that it goes beyond the woman issue. I’m talking about an individual adopting strategies or rather unusual strategies in order to cope in a society that is not ready to give her own space. Everything seems to be against her – her birth, educational background, her family background and the Nigerian culture which demands that a wife must also be a mother. OGEZI: As a writer and a scholar, I’ve also noticed that you’re well at home with your dramaturgy in the use of mime, flashback, caricature, code-mixing in language, absurdist play-acting and alienation effect. HALIMA: OGEZI: The alienation effect in particular as popularized by the Marxist theatre of Bertolt Brecht and our Femi Osofisan, was also highly used in your play. Don’t you feel in a bid to make a piece of stage work highly theatrical, the Marxist playwright sometimes succeeds in killing the verisimilitude which is the whole essence of the theatre? HALIMA: OGEZI: What did you seek to achieve by the last scene of the play? To work out a pathos in the audience or hilarity? In my review of the play, I called it an indeterminate play – neither a tragedy nor a comedy. As the writer, do you subscribe to that assertion too? HALIMA: Certainly not. It’s not an indeterminate play. The ending for me is part of the crisis situation. Why will I end a play while the events are still being played out in daily life? For me, the crisis of characters such as Christiana, Danjuma and Joe, is that they’ll always be involved in police cases and I didn’t want a situation in that particular play where readers or the audience will think that the young woman’s problems have been solved. So, the tragedy for me in the play is that, unless society finds a place for a young, orphaned girl, there is always a possibility that her life will play itself out among undesirable characters. In short, what I’m trying to say is that, the tragedy is that Christiana’s tragedy continues. OGEZI: During a writers’ conference in 2007, E. E. Sule once put a question to the womenfolk which I intend to ask you now. When will you women stop telling the woman story, writing from the kitchen, to use Professor Charles Nnolim’s expression? HALIMA: I’m surprised that Dr. Sule feels that there is anything called the woman story. I thought that writing from different writers is a mosaic where different perspectives come into play to form a social convention. For instance, I believe in the Nigerian literary convention and within the Nigerian literary convention, there are men, women and youth writers. There are men who write about women, there are women who write about men, and there are men and women who write about children. Why should any critic or writer prescribe what other writers should write about? Besides, it’s a trend for certain critics to judge any work from a woman writer feminist or concerned with woman issue. So ultimately, when a woman publishes a work, the first thing those critics look out for is that her central character is female and she discusses issues from the female perspective. But these female characters are part of a bigger social milieu which some critics ignore. For instance, are we going to say that Chimamanda Adichie, Sefi Atta and Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo are less concerned with fundamental issues which affect the human beings in Nigeria because most of their central characters are women? Therefore, talking about the woman issue is simplifying what women writers are concerned with. They’re concerned with social stability and if their perspective is from the female characters’ experiences, does it make it less relevant? In fact, one of the strongest writings I’ve read in recent times about the woman issue is by a male Nigerian writer, Abubakar Gimba’s Sacred Apple. OGEZI: You were in the USA for a writers’ conference in April, 2008. What was the conference all about? HALIMA: I actually went there for African Literature Association’s conference which took place in ……………………………..It was such a beautiful experience. I had the opportunity of meeting African writers and critics of African literature who have made a big impact on African literature, namely, Bernth Lindfors, Eustace Palmer, Helon Habila, Niyi Osundare, Remi Raji, Chika Unigwe, Helen Chukuma, and Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo. It was generally about African literature, the way forward, problems, critical perspectives and how to integrate African literature into the mainstream of World literature. OGEZI: Since the publication of your play, Honour Among Thieves in 2006, we’ve not had anything from you again. What’s happening? I mean, when do we expect any more work from your forge? HALIMA: In-sha-Allahu, this year. It’s a collection of short stories between seven and eight. Also, I’ve finished a full-length novel and it will be published, hopefully, a few months after the short story collection.