Ama Ata Aidoo’s dedication to Africa’s liberation described as incredible at global conference

A global conference, tagged the Toyin Falola Interview Series, has described one of Africa’s greatest female writer, the late Ama Ata Aidoo’s dedication to Africa’s liberation as incredible.

This observation formed part of the unanimous assessment made by the panel of discussants on the literary and socio-cultural contributions of the late writer to the development and emancipation of Africa.

Speaking at the conference, put together by Professor Toyin Falola and which was streamed across various social media platforms, literary critics, authors, writers, poets, academics and many others, spoke of the enduring contributions made by Aidoo in pushing for the betterment of Africa’s humanity.

Senior fellow at Humanity United, and founding Executive Director of TrustAfrica—a foundation dedicated to promoting equitable development, social justice, movement building and democracy in Africa, Dr. Akwasi Aidoo, stated that “She was dedicated to Africa’s liberation; this was simply incredible. She went to Zimbabwe when the genocide occurred. At that time, I was teaching at the University of Dar’ Salam in Tanzania. She was at Arare. I went there for a conference. We met. I asked her why she moved to Zimbabwe given the genocide. Her response was ‘if there is one reason you’ve got to die, it should be for Africa’s liberation. We need to be liberated from colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism and all.’

Aidoo was a close friend of the First Lady at that time, Mrs Mugabe. But when the governance of Zimbabwe worsened under the dictatorial Mugabe, she left. She was a very inspirational person. She also never wanted to work alone. She had a wonderful team spirit.”

For prose writer and dramatist, Professor Mofola Ajayi, Ama Ata Aidoo questioned the biting issues between Africans and African-Americans, especially issues that had seldom been explored by male writers.

According to her, “She aroused my interest in what women had to say. I caught my feminist criticism from Aidoo’s work. Years after reading My Sister Killjoy, I had my first appointment at the University of Ife.

And soon after, the Department of Dramatic Arts was created and I had to teach some courses. After a while, I deliberated and realised that I had to bring Aidoo’s work into my course and look at it from this feminist, womanist point of view. I was teaching drama and wondered how to bring a novella there. I came across The Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa at the same time. It was a difficult choice to make. I chose Dilemma of a Ghost. I did that because of an earlier experience that I had when I was a student there.

“Some African Americans were returning home. There was scholarship made available to them. They were coming to Nigerian universities. Some of them came to Ife. We didn’t understand one another. The African American students had been fed with negative stereotypes about us. The same thing had happened to us. At first, we tried to be friends. But in no time, the differences just split wide open. We had this massive class. We were all students and young.

But it stayed with me. Why did they misunderstand us? Why did we not know about them? The Dilemma of a Ghost was a way of exploring this. I taught that course. That play tucked at me for a long time. One of my first feminist critical papers was on The Dilemma of a Ghost. It helped me to formulate my feminist concept for African women. That was how I came about double patriarchy for colonised African women. She really questioned the biting issues between Africans and African Americans that had been seldom explored by our male writers.”

Bisi Adjapon described Aidoo as providing the impetus for her creative oeuvre. She described the late Aidoo as vibrant and feisty, noting that “Despite difficulties, I expected her to live for another decade. Her torch flamed mine and mine has ignited others. Her spirit and works will continue to live forever.”

Founder of the African University College of Communications in Ghana, Kojo Yankah, told the conference of the efforts of the university in immortalising the memory, works and innumerable contributions of the late writer and others who have passed on.

“We at the African University College of Communications decided on the 75th anniversary birthday of Ama Ata Aidoo to establish a centre of creative writing and named it after her. We did this in 2017; it has been one of the most impactful centres at the university. Since its establishment, over 4000 students have participated in the activities of the Ama Ata Aidoo centre. The director of the centre has produced four anthologies.

I met her on many occasions. It is important that we keep the memories of our writers. We need to find centres or establish many where students can go and study about them. We are working on the Pan-African heritage world museum in Ghana where we will have a literary section,” he said.