A ChikaforAfrica review:
More hereWithin Nigeria it can be quite challenging being Nigerian. Outside Nigeria, presenting the green passport can quickly turn to a nightmare. In Today na Today, Professor Biko Agozino in a relaxing, seemingly unintentional way, vividly captures the difficulties that being Nigerian entail.
When he thought of the book, Agozino clearly set out to write for the ordinary, everyday Nigerian. Shunning class and daring the “global” publishing industry with its demand for an elusive global language, Agozino writes in pidgin or broken English, the street language of tens of millions of Nigerians.
In an era where several African writers place their fingers on the keyboard with eyes set on the Caine prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and other awards that prize impeccable English above reality, in Today na Today, Agozino looks the other way and awards himself with the prize of the hearts of the Nigerian, and by extension, the African masses. In the book, many will, perhaps for the first time, come in contact with a collection of poems that could be read with a microphone and loud speaker at a commercial motor park in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Warri and Abuja. The reading will be immediately understood, and thoroughly appreciated by the mass of travelers, commercial bus drivers, conductors, food and fruit hawkers and the security personnel attached to guard the parks. What better way to capture and communicate a people’s experiences than with the language in which the experiences are lived and played out.
