The Lagos Book & Art Festival, LABAF 2020 Series 1.0:
Theme: Isolation & the Writerly Impulse
Date: Thursday, August 19, 2020
Time: 3pm
Venue ZOOMdom
ID:843 3639 7226
Passcode:CORA20...
PROFILES
OGAGA IFOWODO -- Poet, Lawyer, Columnist
In 1997, while returning from a Commonwealth Heads of Governments Summit in Edinburgh, Scotland, Ifowodo was arrested by the military regime of Sani Abacha regime for calling for stronger sanctions against the dictatorship. He was incarcerated, along other human rights activists, writers, and journalists. He was never tried nor released until 1998, following sustained campaigns by Nigerian and international human writers and writer organisations. He was awarded the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, the Free World Award of the Netherlands-based Poets of All Nations and adopted as an honorary member of the PEN Centres of Germany, USA, and Canada. Excerpts from his detention memoirs have been published in Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (Heinemann), in New Writing 14 (Granta), and in Madiba & Other Poems as well as in his column in Vanguard newspaper and on African-Writing.com.
KUNLE AJIBADE -- Writer, Journalist
In 1995, the military junta of Sani Abacha arrested a number of Nigerians on suspicion of participating in a coup attempt. During the trial of the coup plotters, TheNews published a story: "Not Guilty -- Army Panel Clears Coup Suspects." Though he was no longer the editor of the paper Ajibade was arrested because his name appeared on the mast head. He was charged for 'publishing materials which could obstruct the work of the tribunal' and for 'misleading the public'. The crime was being "'as an accessary after the fact of treason" and the punishment was life in prison. International outcry led to his sentence being reduced to 15 years. On 8 June 1998, General Abacha died in office. Ajibade was released July 18, 1998 by General Abdulsalami Abubakar. He captured his experience in detention in “Jailed for Life.”
AKIN ADESOKAN -- Writer, Literary Scholar
On November 7, 1997 while returning to Nigeria from a fellowship in Austria, Adesokan was arrested by General Abacha’s goons and held incommunicado at one of the tyrant’s notorious detention centers, alongside fellow writer, Ogaga Ifowodo. He remained in the gulag until January 1 1998. Adesokan recalled the episode in an interview: “I had called my family on Tuesday morning that by Thursday, I would be in Nigeria. By that Thursday evening, I was already in jail and that would continue for the next two months… Some of those who had been detained actually died. My colleague at The News, Bagauda Kaltho was tortured to death in jail.” Years later, the author of the novel Roots in the Sky, captured the episode in an essay: The Amazing Career of Passport Number B957848, in Chimurenga.co.za (Oct. 15, 2015)
Moderator
TADE IPADEOLA -- Lawyer, Poet
His third volume of poetry The Sahara Testaments, which won the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2013 is said by the Jury to use “the Sahara as a metonymy for problems of Africa and indeed, the whole of humanity. It also contains potent rhetoric and satire on topical issues and personalities, ranging from Africa’s blood diamonds and inflation in Nigeria…"
