“A Citizen of the World,” written by Isaac Aju, is an essay about finding one’s voice and connecting with the larger world through art.

There was something very claustrophobic about being in Nigeria. Nigeria gagged its people. Nigeria strangled people’s voices. People were often afraid to speak out. People were always afraid for no reason, and so being in Nigeria was the last thing you wanted to do. You wanted to move out of Nigeria. If that would not be possible, then you wanted to connect with people who were not Nigerians. You wanted to know more about the world. You wanted to move into the real world. You wanted your mindset to morph from Nigeria to the world.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but you made efforts by reading non-Nigerian books. You already knew a lot about Nigeria, so you wanted to know more about the rest of the world. You wanted to understand how the world worked and how things were done in other places. You had read lots of books on Nigeria, starting from Chinua Achebe’s books down to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who had almost become a goddess to you because she opened up Nigeria to you through her stories. She opened up the present Nigeria. Chinua Achebe was sort of ancient, but Adichie was contemporary. Adichie wrote just the way contemporary Nigerians spoke, mixing up several languages in a single sentence. Her books were like revelations, and so you read her over and over again and never got tired.

When you moved out of Nigerian literature, the next thing that presented itself was African American literature. African American literature was a bit similar to that of Nigeria in the sense of marginalisation and the gagging of voices. The African American slavery reminded you a lot of things about Nigeria. It reminded you of the Biafran war. The pain of slavery and war felt similar. You were not in the world during the Biafran war, but that war also happened to you.

When that war happened, it also happened to many generations of Biafrans who were not yet born. Years later, after the war, the descendants of the Biafrans who were bombed, displaced, and killed would begin to ask questions, to write stories, to dig deep into the past, to find out what really happened and how it really happened. You yourself felt every bit of that war, despite of yourself, and you knew this because Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was the first book in this world that made you cry in a manner you’ve never seen before.

You wept, just like Jesus wept when His good friend Lazarus stunk in the grave. Why didn’t you know all these before? How come no one told you? In the midst of reading the book, you would shift it aside and shed tears. You couldn’t explain why you cried so much, but the only thing you knew was that the war also happened to you. Yes, there were still vestiges of sorrows and tears and questions still buried in you, as a man born by a man who was a child in Biafra.

Why did nobody tell you that there was a war of yours yet to be discovered? Why did no one explain the war to you? The people you read about were people who lived in the same Eastern Nigeria where you now live, but you didn’t know what happened to them. About fifty years ago in this same place a war happened, a terrific war that got the attention of the whole world, but the only thing you knew about it was that a war happened. Full stop. Nobody gave you the details, and so discovering the details by yourself gave you a terrible shock.

So African American slavery brought back the Biafran war to your mind again. But you did not cry while reading about African American slavery. African American slavery was not your story, but Biafra was.

Reading about the African American slavery opened your eyes to know that Nigeria was not the only place where evil could happen. Evil also happened in America. Evil was also unleashed upon the black people in America. So you took note of that.

The first book that broke your heart was Native Son by Richard Wright. It broke your heart, but you did not cry. You only felt enormous pity for Bigger Thomas. Bigger Thomas wanted to fight against something that was quite bigger than him, but he failed, and the Americans sent him to the electric chair. You would never forget the plight of Bigger Thomas, not in this world!

After Native Son, you read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. A very painful story also. Maya Angelou was subdued in a world where she asked nobody to bring her into. A world of neglect and sorrow. A world of shame and prejudice.

Then you read Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, a book in which a black girl fantasised about being white and having blue eyes. You realised then that there were people outside Nigeria who were also aspiring to become more, to have more, to belong to the world, to blend in with the world. You realised that a particular group of people had stipulated the right way to be in the world, the right religion to practice, the right colour to have on your skin, and the right way to behave, and if you didn’t appear in those right ways then you were going to run into troubles.

After that, you moved over to South Africa through Nelson Mandela. Long Walk To Freedom tore your heart, but you did not cry. You only felt shattered. How could a man suffer in that manner just to be free? Just to be given the opportunities and rights that other human beings like him had? You also took note of that. You took note of the fact that people could come into a place that was not theirs and then subjugate the real owners of the place. And it happened in this same Africa where Nigeria is located.

……………………

Because you could not move out of Nigeria at the time, because you were trapped in Nigeria, books became your door to the world. You went on to read different books from different authors around the world. You began to have a grasp of the histories of the world. You found out about apartheid in South Africa. You discovered how slavery started and how thousands of black people were uprooted from Africa and then thrown into the farms of white people in America.

You discovered the processes they went through in order to achieve the freedom they have today. You discovered Martin Luther King Jr., the black activist who spoke against racial prejudice and who would be later assassinated. Should it be a surprise? No. Messiahs are often assassinated—remember how the Roman government went after the life of our dear Jesus?

You discovered Ben Carson, the man who proved or rather helped to make the world know more about what people of colour could achieve. That we have the same capabilities. You discovered Obama, the wonderful black man with Kenyan ancestry who would later become the first black president in America. You read all his books; what a great storyteller he was. A Promised Land is still one of the best books you ever read. You went on to know more about the histories of the world, and you were comforted. Nigeria had its own problems, but it was not the only place in the world afflicted with problems.

After a long research about the world, you came back to Nigeria. You read a few more Nigerian books until you were ready to tell your own story. It was one thing to have a story, and then it was also another thing to tell the story. The two were quite different from each other. You wanted to speak back to the world. You wanted to become a citizen of the world. You wanted the world to know what you knew. You wanted the world to have a taste of your narrative. You wanted the world to accept your story and make you one of their members. You were tired of Nigeria. You were tired of the voicelessness of Nigerians. Nigeria angers you. The present government of Nigeria irritated you. And what was more annoying? Everybody kept quiet. Prices of commodities increased every day, and people only said God will help us when it was very evident that God had left men to their own devices.

So when you got ready to say something to the world, you did that in a short story where you wrote about the present agitation for Biafra in eastern Nigeria. You wrote about the sit-at-home that was happening in the eastern part of Nigeria to remember the fallen heroes of Biafra, those who fought and died during the war, and perhaps those who were starved to death. When you were done with the story, you sent it out into the world—something you had never done before—sharing your art with the world.

Until then, your writing had always been a personal thing, something you did that gave you bundles of joy. You felt as though the world was going to tell you to shut your mouth up. You felt as though the world would reject you. You felt as though the world wouldn’t even look at your story, but one day, in the middle of the night, you woke up to see a letter from a publication.

The mail said your story was a good fit for their publication. They were interested in your story. They loved your story. They believed in your story. You stared at the mail for minutes, and then you felt yourself transcending the gagging spirit of Nigeria. You had now become a citizen of the world. You had now spoken to the world. You had now told your story, and you had become a bit more confident about your storytelling. And yes, you now have a voice.