Nwando Achebe Quotes

In Igboland, there is a proverb that says: Igbo enwe eze which means Igbo have no king. We do not believe in kings. If you want to be a king, you can be in your mother’s backyard; don’t think you can lord it over us.

It has everything to do with the nature of the culture. The areas you talked about are centralised societies which also have centralised structures that allow individuals to rise. In Igboland, we have egalitarian society; it is not a centralised society.

I have written and published two books, the first: Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings published by Heinmann ; the second book is called the Female King of Colonial Nigeria and other numerous journals and articles and chapters but my area is women history.

I want to do it; I want to write the story of my people especially women. That story has not been written. Women have been silenced in historical study. If you pick up a book, if women were mentioned at all, they were mentioned in footnotes. So, I want to change that and write a story that other women can pick up and be proud of.

For me, growing up when I was young, I thought everybody’s father was famous because that was my norm. But my father still writes with long hand and whenever I was with him, I type his notes and in that way you might say I was helpful. But now, it is a different kind of relationship. We talk about issues now that we are older.

Because I wanted to see myself in writing the history of the African woman. I started off as a Theatre major in my first degree. (Theatre, Music and dance) and after that, I decided to do documentary and film making. I wanted to do the kind of documentary that tells our story and in order to do that, I felt that I needed to do history, although I didn’t like history. I didn’t have a good history teacher, but when I went to University of California, where I did my Masters and PhD, I met a professor who later became my mentor who turned me around. He told history as a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. A story that I could relate to and I remember. I looked at him and said this is exactly what I want to do.

My parents want us to live the best way we possibly can and that is what I have been doing in terms of my education. I am doing the things I want to do. Again, it is not just my father’s achievements; my mother was also one of the senior professors in Nigeria from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. So, I have two extremely phenomenal role models who have brought us up to be the best of what we can be.

If you want to be an ally, you have to listen and truly hear what it is that African people are saying. We are equal partners. It is not one group dictating the way the relationship should be. It is a partnership where we listen to each other and truly hear each other. We can learn from each other, but it has to be an equal relationship.

Honestly speaking, I don't want to publish another book or article that does not have an advocacy purpose to it. I want to use my work to potentially change lives.

The Igbo people have a saying that a child who is carried on the back does not realize that walking is a painful activity

I want to write the story of my people especially women. That story has not been written. Women have been silenced in historical study. If you pick up a book, if women were mentioned at all, they were mentioned in footnotes. So, I want to change that and write a story that other women can pick up and be proud of.

I try to use whatever voice I do have to speak out against injustices, and that’s what I hope I continue to do in this part of my career. When I see bad things happening, I can’t just pretend I didn’t see them. I want to use my voice for good

Advocacy work is hard, and at times, it is thankless and even dangerous. But, it is the work that I choose to do - to use my voice and my scholarship to attempt to make a difference