Title: IF YOU REALLY LOVE BOOKS, YOU WILL HAVE COMPLETE SUCCESS.
By  OGOCHUKWU PROMISE
May 27, 2008 (At the NLNG event, Dowen College, Lagos, Nigeria.)

I sat down several days afterwards and had a talk with myself. And this was the poem that came out of that encounter with myself:

Here I am alone with books
Friends I made long ago
To fill my cup when it is empty
And keep me going all day long

They ask me who I am
I tell them my name is Promise
They tell me of the promises I bear
I know it is my job to fulfill everyone of me

I am an only child, but I shall be for myself,
Words that speak tenderly to hearts, to change
The night into day, water into sweet wine
And for my parents, I shall be nine sons.

 

That was the poem my soul wrote when I was but a child. But it was a poem that has seen me into adulthood. It has inspired a lot of the things I have done. It has defined me to a large extent. It is standing by me even as I speak to you. For me, books are not just papers bound together with fleeting words in them. Books are the the boiled eggs, toasted bread with cheese, baked beans and the fresh orange juice for breakfast. They are the delicious amala and ewedu or the smooth and luscious akpu and onugbu soup I crave for at noon, especially when the ever vibrant African sun is determined to drain every liquid from the pores of my skin. Books are the palatable boli and peanuts I sometimes use as snacks. They are the sumptuous vegetable and mud-fish I choose for dinner. If I feed my body with food in order to stay alive, it is all the more important to feed my mind with books in order to live meaningfully. For what sense does it make to live on garbage when you can make a glorious passage with the incredible knowledge, opportunities for self-enhancement and a life of fulfilment which books and their authors offer you quite conveniently and at little or no expense.

The title I have given this discourse is IF YOU REALLY LOVE BOOKS, YOU WILL HAVE COMPLETE SUCCESS.

In my thinking, I see the truly rich in our society as those who genuinely have the following: Responsible friends, Reasonable prosperity, peace of mind, Good Health of mind and body, Security, Happiness, Excellent family relationship and Hope. These summarise for me, the eight fundamental human needs. Anyone who is able to satisfy these needs has undoubtedly attained complete success.

As you grow up, you will notice, everywhere you go, that people  are constantly seeking after these things. A lot of people seek financial success, and when they seem to have gotten it, they realise that they need security, sound health, peace of mind, loyal friends, and even something as abstract as hope. I must tell you here and now that none of these needs is more important than the others. You will realize as you grow up that you need to fulfill everyone of these needs. They are the nessesities of life. And the good news is that they are very achievable. A lot of people you and I know have achieved them, those who were not born with the so-called silver spoon in their mouths, those who, on a daily basis, have had to deal tenaciously with the terse circumstances of their environment. Among these people are orphans like Camera Didigana in one of my books entitled SWOLLEN SPACES, handicaps like John Foppe who was born without arms but he has gone ahead to become one of the youngest and exceptional motivational speakers in the world. He is listed as one of the ten outstanding young Americans.  If he can, through reading, through dreaming and becoming his dream, achieve complete success, everyone here can.

I will tell you what I did about these eight important needs. I saw that they were MY NEEDS. And that I NEEDED TO FULFILL THEM. So I personalised them, I wrote them out and laid them out on the table as one would lay out cards on the table. I asked myself what is it in me I can use to fulfill all these needs. I thought about it, I read a lot of books, I became inspired to contribute to my growth, to the growth of others. Books kept telling me that I could indeed do a lot. I encountered people in books who did a lot with all they found in themselves. By then I had discovered I could write poetry, novels, short stories, essays and stories for children. I started writing and people were telling me what my books did for them. I began to make reliable friends, to build friendship, to give my time, my talent, my love in order to affect lives positively.

As I made friends and got involved in the things that mattered to them, I realised that what hurt them hurt me too. I realised that everyone out there in the street, in the cold, in war torn zones, in impoverished homes, even in Aso rock, bears a bit of me. That I share in their pains, in their laughter, in everything that happens to them.  That the dehumanised person is part of me, that the hungry child hawking in the street is part of me,  that in the rich and the poor alike, I find an extension of me. I began therefore to express myself as the poor, as the rich in all the forms I recognise the extension of myself. That is why you see me writing in my book entitled THE STREET BEGGARS about children from broken homes, children living under the bridge, exposed to all forms of danger. That is why you see me writing about discrimination, class dichotomies and negative cultural divergencies as evident in the Osu caste system which my book, GROANING PASSAGE focussed on.  That is why you see me writing about the crisis in the Niger Delta in my book entitled OUTRAGE. That is why I write about the political malaise around me in some of my books such as HALL OF MEMORIES, ZITAZITA, FUMES AND CYMBALS, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. That is why I write about the fears confronting our adolescent girls and boys, the fears of forming friendship, of dating, of early marriage, of peer pressure, of HIV, of ignorance as is treated in my book for young people entitled, SURVEYOR OF DREAMS.