By Rudolf Okonkwo
I am Unoka—yes, that Unoka. Okonkwo’s father. The most misunderstood and maligned character in Things Fall Apart.
Since I embraced this identity, I’ve known true peace. The kind that comes from dropping anxiety like a hot akara and breathing in the fresh air of authenticity, like when Unoka played his flute, even if nobody danced or clapped.
I cannot come and kill myself, abeg.
Like my spiritual predecessor, I’m perfectly okay with my swollen belly. Rich people have potbellies too, and call it “wealth.” Mine just came despite the pangs of hunger.
And let’s face it: no matter your accolades, the ultimate affliction—death—will still carry all of us like an angry flood.
The clan dumped me in the evil forest to die like yesterday’s vulture. Am I bothered? Not one bit. Go and verify—Earth Goddess still took my bones, like she takes everyone else’s.
What’s that?
They called me Ofo-ogeli, Efulefu. So what? They practically buried my spirit in the evil forest while I was still breathing.
Worry about where they’ll dump my body? For what? I won’t be around to care!
Let’s be honest: didn’t Unoka’s flesh rot like Okonkwo’s? Didn’t both end up as dust? Sand returning to sand, dust to dust, as your new Vatican-minted chief priests taught you. Please, who does a “proper burial” impress at Heaven’s gate? Saint Peter?
This obsession with which side of the forest is “evil” or “sacred” is old gist. You people now build churches, hospitals, and even nightclubs on what used to be dreaded land.
Like Unoka, I can still point out the houses of the brave warriors. I may even compose a song or two for them. What’s your own?
As long as their legends live, so will my songs. Some of those songs will be mine if I stay on my craft. And they will outlive me.
So leave me, abeg. I want to enjoy myself.
Carry your yam tubers, cross seven rivers, and seven tollgates to go and farm. Me? I’m chilling under the Udala tree my grandfather planted. You want to dig a hundred mounds in your mother’s village? Enjoy. I’ll stay in my backyard Ube tree’s shade and dodge rampaging herdsmen.
You can say it’s feminine preoccupation. Fine. I’ll plant cocoyam. That’s my side hustle. Add akidi to the mix—we move, slowing like the python, our great messenger of the gods.
Call me a coward, no problem. But I’m not slicing off Ikemefuna’s head because some angry god wants to flex. If a god wants a boy’s head, let the god come and take it himself.
After all, Udo and Ogwugwu do their own killing themselves. They don’t send egotistical men masking their cowardice under the guise of bravery.
Me? I’m creative, not violent. Zero masculinity is better than toxic masculinity, any day. If you doubt me, ask my granddaughter, Ezinma, what she is going through in her warrior husband’s house.
I didn’t wrestle as a young man. I won’t start now. You can think I’m not man enough because my back has repeatedly touched the ground. But try watching a wrestling match without music—or a masquerade dance in silence. That’s when you’ll understand my importance.
Working with my brain carries the same dignity as working with my hands. One grows muscle, the other grows the cerebellum. Check am. Na the same thing.
All of Okonkwo’s garagara, where did it land him? Hanging from a tree. Who brought him down? Strangers. And where did they dump him? Who knows – maybe by the edge of his farm or inside the same evil forest?
Did he stop the white man from taking Umuofia? Not at all. If not for Achebe, the white man’s memoir —The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger—would’ve diminished his role and made Obierika, the prime character.
Okonkwo was scared of failure. Me? I embrace it like jollof rice embraces fried meat. His fear was his downfall.
My superpower? I reincarnated. He didn’t.
He couldn’t. Suicide is an abomination. Me? I just had poverty. That’s not a sin—it’s a temporary buffering caused by a human condition’s software glitch.
As for all the people I owe, no vex. When Umuofia fixes its copyright laws, I’ll collect royalties from my work and pay you with interest. If not in my time, then in Okonkwo’s children’s time. Can you imagine? Nwoye and his siblings will chop the fruit of my labour.
Me – the same man their father, Okonkwo, was ashamed of, called lazy and spoke of in a condescending tone.
One day, the same white men you all capitulated to will open your eyes to the beauty of the songs I composed, the words I strung, the paintings I made with uli on walls that don’t leak. Then you’ll start giving me posthumous chieftaincy titles and naming your children after me, like you now do with the new name, Chimamanda.
That is—if you don’t tear down the Mbari house and convert it to The Ark, a shrine for 100,000 people to worship the God of Jerusalem.
In time to come, you will celebrate me like you now, throw a party when you have twins. Remember, you heard it here first.
Times have changed. And when you finally sit down to fast-forward this series on Netflix, you’ll see I was on the right side of history.
Don’t worry, I will accept your apologies then.
Okonkwo-style “idealism” doesn’t survive without Unoka-style practicality. That’s why the clan abandoned him after he killed the British court messenger. No be say he was wrong in fighting, but he wasn’t smart.
As Omenani commands, I reincarnated—upgraded version. These days, you know me as Flavour N’abania. You don’t just dance to my songs; you call me, Big Baller.
So eat your heart out.
I have found peace because I realized I’m Unoka. What about you?
If you’re creative, the stubborn type, and tired of trying to live up to the expectations of your society and meeting their definition of success, own it. Accept that you are Unoka.
Once you do so, okwu agwugo.
Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches Post-Colonial African History, Afrodiasporic Literature, and African Folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others. His upcoming book is called “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”
