A Review of Emmanuel Iduma's I Am Still With You

Korede Teriba 

The title first. Extracted from Psalm 139:18, it foregrounds the author’s belief in God’s presence in man’s affairs. Additionally, the title also foregrounds the memory of his uncle, Emmanuel, who fought in the civil war. Though he never met his uncle, the memory of him is still with him. Since the author’s father named him after his uncle to preserve his memory, the title could refer to the meaning of the name, “Emmanuel.” 

“A year after I returned home, Lagos erupted in protests” begins the text the author scripts in lyrical prose. He further writes, “I checked the news every waking hour throughout those unsettled weeks of  October 2020, gathering details of arrests, of ill-fated spectators hit by stray bullets, and of roadblocks set up by roving groups of begrudged young people.” This opening paragraph sets the background of the memoir. The writer returns home from New York where he studied Art criticism in search of his uncle who never returned from war – Nigerian Civil War. 

The writer, Lawyer by training, travelled to Afikpo, his hometown in Ebonyi state to seek information about his missing uncle. However, the information he obtains about him is in clues and fragments which he skillfully uses to reconstruct a personal history. His references to Christopher Okigbo, a Classicist and war poet; Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, leader of the Biafran nation; and several other figures of the Nigerian Civil War brings the story alive.

Iduma explores memory, which in the text, is elusive; the elusiveness stems from silence hovering over the memory of his missing uncle. Those he tried to obtain information about him from could not give him coherent information – only fragments and vague clues. Iduma dwells on the effects of the war on its victims. This is evident in the secessionist struggles of the Indigenous People of Biafra the author records. Worthy of note is the author’s stand on secession: He sees himself  as a Nigerian. This is evident in his marriage to Ayobami Adebayo, a Yoruba woman and novelist. Additionally, he discusses the suppression of history. He travels to the Nsukka, seeking documents on the war. But access to the library ‘s war section is limited. This depicts despotic leaders as suppressors of memory and truth which could birth national healing.

In the text, History and Literature meet. The writer skillfully weaves  national and personal history to create a powerful memoir – a literary contribution to the corpus of writings on the Nigerian Civil War. I describe the text as History and Literature holding hands. For me, the fields are Siamese twins.

The writer’s elegant and graceful prose is worthy of note. I felt what he felt when scripting the text – longing for clarity of an elusive memory; memory of his uncle. Being an Art critic, he uses his imagination with writing skill to reconstruct a personal and national history. The book is a mark of excellent penmanship.

I think the author presented, excellently, his overarching theme of the elusiveness of memory in the text. This is evident in his search for his uncle – the fragmentary information he obtains from which he can only construct a vague history of him.

Another theme the author did justice to is the destructive nature of war. The Nigerian Civil War almost wiped out the Ibo race. Iduma captures this well. And deserves credit for it. Several years later, victims of the war still bear its trauma. To suppress what happened during the war, information concerning it is cordoned off at University of Nigeria Nsukka Library.

However, the author telling of the Ibo story, alone, in the war is a single – story narrative. He makes the narrative seem like the Ibo were innocent victims when they were not. He fails to tell of events that culminated in the war; the assassination of top politicians in the Southwest and Northern region – an assassination that left Dr Nnamdi Azikwe. 

All said, I think the work is beautiful. An addition to the burgeoning corpus of texts on the Nigerian Civil War.