OFTENTIMES, people speak of Baobab trees with great deference and excitement, usually exploring mostly its gigantic potential, obscuring its longitudinal import. The Baobab tree is reputed for its big stature as it is for its height. Ngugi is one globally known arrowhead of serious activism championing revolutionary engagements for the African people. But more importantly, he is an ancestor in literary scholarship whose educative and academic contributions continue to spark debates in global intellectualism. The great man has bitten the dust, taking up afresh another journey where metaphysical negotiations are inevitable, but then, the one he left behind in the material world cannot be erased from the memory of the living. For context, I should establish from the beginning here that only a handful of versatile individuals looked at oppression and victimization in the face that dared vocalize their grievances to challenge the oppressors, and in that category, you would find Ngugi at the frontline. But before his giant strides, especially on the front of activism, where he sought for genuine liberation of his people, the writer made very significant marks in literature, helping to give as much knowledge as possible to guard Africans, especially in their journey to navigate the tenuous territory already complicated by the European invaders. In his scale of preference, he positioned knowledge far above activism, for he knew that fighting for people who are ignorant of the realities of their environment is tantamount to suicide.
Nobody would read the avant-garde literary works of this exceptional individual and would remain indifferent to the quest for freedom necessitated by the insufferable experiences that Africans have been compelled to undergo under their European oppressors. In one of his classics, Weep Not, Child, Ngugi helps us to understand the imperative of land in Africa and how Karl Marx’s conceptualisation of land as an economic component is defeated in the African perception of it, for land functions more than a mere instrument of power distribution, or economic redistribution. It was Ngugi who informed us that more than a piece of space that can be used for economic activity, the land is the agency of reconnection to the world beyond through which the departed members of the African world link up with the living. He educated us all that money is not the central ambition of the traditional or precolonial African individual, for they valued the association they maintained with others, and whether these members are still living or are departed to the world beyond, people in Africa maintained connections with them. For nonmembers of the African community, it is not impossible to view it as being fantastical in their thinking, for they could potentially believe that connections with the departed members are not achievable. But then, Africans rooted in the sociocultural sensitivities of the people would not hold the same view, for they have seen, if not physically, the manifestation of the presence of departed members, and that they have gone not in terms of their influence but only in terms of their physical matter.
I reread Weep Not Child after Ngugi’s demise. In the text, Ngotho must forego every conceivable humiliation suffered at the hand of Mr. Howlands, whose understanding of land leans towards the conceptual sentiment of Europe. Unlike him, Ngotho believes that it is essential to continue to connect with his ancestors through the land by means of different sociocultural actions that would facilitate their connections. For instance, pouring libations on the land, praying to his ancestors there, and informing them of the lonely experiences that he is condemned to, among others, provide him the purgatory engagements that would cleanse his soul and enhance his sanity. To him, he cannot forego the land on account that invaders have come to take over the inherited possession. If he had to succumb to the pressure and humiliation brought by the imperialists, he considered it a necessary price to pay. It would be very difficult to rationalise the obsession of Ngotho to the land if one relies exclusively on Karl Marx’s understanding of the dialectal relationship between land and economy. Marxism will not provide the needed explanation because it seems the case that the character ordinarily cannot transform the land into financial laboratories where he would rake monies for his material improvements, yet he clings to it. Instead, he is comfortable with the ownership of that land just so because he wants to maintain an unbreakable bond with his ancestors, who, according to their custom, are particularly involved in their earthly undertakings.
What should interest us in the reckoning of Ngugi is the portrayal of African intention to keep that legacy. Amidst every challenge he is confronted with, Ngotho still intends to keep the land for the generations that would come from him so that he would have the courage to meet his ancestors when he leaves the world. To be honest, it would have made him a complete man with fulfilled life goals if he had been able to bequeath the land to the children that he produced. This yet again reiterates the critical importance of land to the average African individual. Existence itself is conceived as having more than one leg. In essence, people who are in the land of the living should not limit their expectations to the things that they do while living on earth. Instead, they should understand that they have bigger responsibilities to manage so that increased problems and uncertainties would not consummate their next phase of existence. It seems the case, therefore, that whether he lives a great life or not, it is more important to ensure that the afterlife is taken care of so that he would not continue to lead an uninteresting life in whatever phase they are. Regardless of his indigence, he wants his children to also refer to him as an ancestor, which explains why he sends his son to the educational center introduced by the colonial imperialists so that he could have the opportunity to reclaim the land for him and maintain their family integrity. In the interim, that commitment demands a servile relationship with Mr Howlands, and Ngotho does not hold back in doing just that. Anything to keep his land.
It is equally important to mention that the imperative of land is not the sole purpose of his writings. Many other works credited to Ngugi are reflective of his deep-rooted immersion in the Gikuyu culture. In his The River Between, Ngugi reminds us about the dissociative clash between Western culture and African traditions. It is in the text that we understand how, sometimes, irreconcilable priorities and views that Africans and Europeans have about the different phenomena in life determine their actions. The case of the Muthoni, Joshua’s daughter who embraces Gikuyu’s culture, is reminiscing of the irreconcilable differences in both African and Western traditions and how the people in the former category make a mess of themselves whenever they want to compromise their culture while embracing the ideas fronted by the people in the latter category. Joshua’s insistence that Muthoni avoids the tradition of their land because he is now a Christian who should uphold the tenets of the new religion even when they do not conform to his cultural identity explains why many African traditions were eroded by the agents of imperialist expansion who are mostly unaware of the damage that they are doing to their own identity. Ngugi’s depiction of this event is a reminder to the others of the responsibility that they owe “Mother Africa,” especially in how they should not be an agent of destruction for the inherited practices if they cannot be instruments of preserving it. He does not believe that the right answer to morally delinquent practices is outright extrication. Instead, every practice can be improved on.
Remember that we are yet to even examine the revolutionary bent of his intellectual engagements. What should remain constant, therefore, is the fact that Ngugi was a trailblazer on many fronts. He belonged to a generation of Africans who invested much in their intellect just so that they could guide others and educate people about things that should become their priorities, especially in a world that is inundated with expansionist agendas, leading to people seeking opportunities for exploitation and predatory pressure. We cannot underplay how significant Ngugi was, especially in the literary territory and the broader body of intellectualism, where he used his intellectual power to provoke generational changes.