In April 2014, at the London Hilton, we gathered to mark the first anniversary of Chinua Achebe’s passing. The room was full of writers, diplomats, and Nigerians who still believed his words could save us.
As I closed my address that night, I said something I had never planned:
“I am an Ijebu man from the Southwest region of Nigeria, born by a Northern mother at the heart of the Eastern region of Enugu. Therefore, I’m a miniature map of Nigeria.”
The hall rose. Not for me. For the idea. For the possibility that one person could carry the whole country and not break.
Achebe spent his life warning us that Nigeria’s trouble was not in our diversity, but in our leadership. Ten years after he left us, I stood at the London Hilton for his first memorial and tried to answer him with my life.
