BOOK REVIEW: Epistles of Anthony Kila: Reflection on Nigeria

BY ABIODUN ADENIYI

It is clear from the invitation that gripping prose writer, epistemic TV and Radio commentator and former Presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati was originally slated to do this review. I do not know how I replaced the man I often like to call a professor of media practice, but I was fine to so do once I was assured it was not a coup against a former boss at The Guardian, but just to be a placeholder. Unlike the other placeholders, however, I am for now, irreplaceable, and no delegate here would have to head to the courts to ensure that I am irreplaceable.

More important is the fact of thinking as an endeavour that is easily imagined than practiced. It is that process of ruffles and riots in the brain, where issues are juggled, shuffled and wriggled and made to meet and mix, in advance of actions or inactions. It happens in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and over years. It is continuous and differentiated frequently by the quality of the reasoner and the productivity of the thoughts.

When high stake, it helps societal growth and of course becomes counterproductive when otherwise.
The case of Professor Anthony Kila belongs to the former: one of high stake reasoning, propelled by the need for change, having been agitated by social ills. As a thinker, scholar, researcher and polemicist, Professor Kila is welcomed to different routes of expression. One of these routes is columns, where he has now emerged as an epistolarian.

In writing a column, the writer assigns himself a social role. The role is not just about opinionating, which can be cheap and free flowing but should be discerned in rigour, sense and substance. He also has to keep the faith, delivering the messages within the assigned time, whether weekly or bi-weekly or monthly, as the case could be. This reliance has to be dutiful, irrespective of moods, convenience, or lack of it. You just have to write, otherwise, inconsistency comes in, probably leading to a decline in the reader’s trust, and the writer’s ability to be influential.

Keeping the schedule matters more, therefore, sometimes even more than the sense you might want to make, given the disparities that creep up in the quality of columns. This faith of the columnist is sometimes more important when it is called an Epistle like Professor Anthony Kila’s.

It has now been made to matter even much more with a compilation into a book, evening it up as an instalment for easier archiving, referencing, and storage. What, however, is the professor telling us in this edition? I’ll turn to this next.

Entitled Epistles of Anthony Kila, Reflections on Nigeria, the book is a 400-page literature split into thirteen sections including Aviation, Business and Economics, Education, Environment, Ethnic Nationality, Health and Covid-19, law and Corruption, Monarchy, Politics, Religion, Security, Social Media and Youths. The sections bear different subject heads, on topical, contemporary issues of the moment. The writer cuts into the issues, covering most sides of the argument, in granular details, in what is also evidence of examining the micro, the mezzo and the macro angles.

Many of the topics are as recent as the evolving political campaigns, including the party primaries, and perceptions of presidential candidates and with matters that are relatively far-flung, like the Col. Dasuki trials. Common to them is matter-of-fact headlining, where he comes out in unmistakable terms on what the content is likely to be. In those instances, you are left with no doubt about the direction of the argument. See, for instance, titles like “Time for a State of Emergency in Education”, “Time for a New Environmental Message” and “Religious Drivers Needed”
Some titles are also pregnant with meanings, bearing a ring of suspense and inviting you to dig deeper. Check: “The Favour Yahaya Bello did us”, “If Buhari does not probe”, and “Simple Needed Laws Nigerian Politicians will not pass” The piece entitled “Agenda for tomorrow people” is one case of the writer’s many prognoses, representing a variant of the styles in the book, evidently characterized with multileveled breadth, fashion and flavour.

The collection also detours from the mythical, hifalutin framing of the professor, rather coming in simple, breezy, readable and occasionally conversational prose, now and then reflective of a deliberate attempt to democratize his audience. He wrote in his epistle to Captain Yadudu for instance, that “Come to think of it, besides the revenue you generate and expenses you manage, you also oversee the safety of our airports: few people say it, but you also play a strategic role in our foreign affairs and international relations, generally”.

See another in his epistle to readers on the controversies around the health status of presidential candidates: “…It is safe to consider that the ruler should not just be one of us but the best of us” And in the piece, entitled “Baba”, referring to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, he said “This your big baby is sick”, in what shows one of the many attempts at metaphors, just like the one on “Suswan Kicks Penalty into Throw-in”; or in deploring a good power of description to capture the imaginations of readers.

The epistolary flavour of the collection is shown in the short, sharp messages, typical of the length of the regular letter, in what exemplifies the author as a deliberate epistler, distilling issues in a “thoughtful, incisive, courageous, and unambiguous opinion leader and agenda setter” according to the legendary journalist, High Chief Tola Adeniyi.

Nevertheless, I reckon the professor must have read and re-read the pieces, just as the editors that published many of the letters. This is not, however, enough to prevent a couple of typographical errors, like on line four in Roman Figure XVI (16), where the word “of” is redundant; and on line three of the second paragraph on Page 135, where “its” is written as “it”. Then some punctuation errors here and there. The word “Baba” between Pages 212 and 216 would have been more appropriate in italics, just like the French word “J’accuse” on page 222.

These minor, almost insignificant omissions are however not enough to detract from the above-average quality of the print, the packaging and the overall design: all combining to complement the excellent thoughts embedded within. It thus qualifies the collection as a good literature for a wide range of audiences, including students of practically all disciplines related to the thirteen sections in the assemblage, or for those seeking information on sundry subject matters.
Journalists, scholars, researchers, politicians and neutral readers are also welcome to this effort, as it represents a compendium of ideas, from a discontinuous intervention, away from the difficulty of press clips, and a disaggregated back copies of newspapers. In this effort, Professor Anthony Kila has demonstrated the courage of thought, a readiness to inspire, and the possibilities of an effervescent public intellectual. Congratulations, Prof. Many thanks distinguished ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention.

Adeniyi, Ph.D., is Professor and Head, Mass Communication, Baze University, Abuja.