Onitsha Market Literature as Obiechina tells us is basically
the name given to short to medium-sized stories, ranging from 10-70 pages,
distributed for sale to the masses in the bustling
market, streets and
roadside stores of Onitsha (prounounced Onicha).
The literature he says first appeared in the city with two titles by
the famous Nigerian writer Cyprian Ekwensi: "Ikolo the Wrestler and other Igbo Tales";
and "When Love Whispers" appearing in 1947 in the market. This was followed by 2 short
stories by Chike Okonyia (a local Onitsha Schoolmaster), called "Tragic Niger Tales" appearing
shortly afterwards. From Onitsha, this form of "pamphlet" literature gained mass appeal and quickly spread to other major
cities and trading towns throughout Nigeria, to
the cities of Aba, Enugu (pronounced É-nu-gwu), Ibadan (pronounced I-ba-don), Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Sapele (pronounced Sa-pé-lé).
As Obiechina makes clear from the beginning, the choice of Onitsha for the birthplace of this literature
is somewhat paradoxical, because formal education had arrived much later to Igboland (the region where Onitsha
is located) than to other areas within the same country. This meant that one would have expected such production of
popular literature to have emerged first amongst the peoples inhabiting the coastal regions of the country (where formal
education had been introduced many years earlier) than amongst those of the interior, where Onitsha was located.
Obiechina suggests that it was perhaps the lack of an aristocracy amongst the Igbo that
was most likely the determining factor:
"For a hundred years, an indigenous intellectual elite...dominated
the intellectual life of the coast...(with)...its members (producing)
sophisticated literature of all sorts, from serious historical and
philosophical works to anthropological and polemic essays, newspapers
and journals. Whilst this coastal elite continued to be prominent
and dictate taste, the masses were unable to break down its solid
walls of prejudice against "low forms of creation", or to produce
a literature adequate to their experiences. In the hinterland, especially in the Igbo areas, the situation was
more propitious. Here, the absence of a black intellectual aristocracy
made it possible for newly educated men and women to feel free to enter into full participation in
the evolving modern culture without too many inhibitions..." (page 5, Obiechina.)
He goes on to list other factors that were also instrumental in
locating the industry in Onitsha. They were:
And then as Chinua Achebe
writes in the preface, it could also have been the aggressive force of a non-partisan land at
work; a place which in olden times had served as the bridge between old and new; between the
known and the unknown; between the buyer and seller:
"I am convinced that such a literature could only have begun in
Onitsha in whose ancient emporium the people of Olu and Igbo -
the riverine folk and the dwellers of hinterland forests - met
in guarded, somewhat uneasy commerce; the original site of
evangelical dialogue between proselytising Christianity and
Igbo religion, between strange-looking harbingers of white rule
and (at first) an amused black population; the ground where
old-time farmers met new urban retail traders; the occult
no-man's land between river spirits and mundane humans...it was
a self-confident place where a man would not be deterred even by
insufficient education from aspiring to improve his fellows."
It was probably all these factors and more that led to the flourishing of the
industry in the great city of Onitsha on the banks of the Niger. However,
what is most of importance is that the literature served as a training ground for a whole slew of
Nigerian writers to publish their works without encountering the barriers and
prejudice (implicit or otherwise) of lacking a formal degree. Indeed, some
like Cyprian Ekwensi used the medium as a means to launch themselves into careers as
full-time writers; other pamphleteers went on to gain their own local
fame; authors such as Pita Nwana with his "Omenuko"
or Ogali A. Ogali with his play "Veronica My Daughter", (recorded a sale
of 60,000 copies). With titles such as "Love is Infallible"
or "Money, Hard to Get but Easy to Spend" or even "How to study English,
Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba Languages" (to name but a few
culled from Obiechina's book), these writers of Onitsha Market most importantly
provided the common person with stories of romance, and adventure,
guidance and education. In this regard the object of their art was little
different than from that of other writers:
"The interest in people which led Achebe to explore the personal and social predicaments
of the characters in his novels probably urged Okenwa Olisa towards using the pamphlets to
interpret the aspirations of young men and women in the modern world. The same democratic
impulses and adventurous spirit is at work; the different forms and techniques adopted reflect
differences in education, literary exposure and intellectual orientation" (page 9)
Through Obiechina's book one gains a good understanding of a literature which whilst started at
Onitsha Market, today lives on in the lives of a vast number of people in Nigeria guiding and
directing them, humoring and entertaining them, as they too cut their own pathways through
life.
Obiechina notes that literacy in Igbo far preceded literacy in English in Igboland so that these Christian works and others had quite a large reading audience among common people even before the arrival of Onitsha Market Literature: