Eriata Oribhabor: A Writer With a Golden Touch- By Okeke Job Izuchukwu

Eriata Oribhabor: A Writer With a Golden Touch

By Okeke Job Izuchukwu

A treasurable testament on ERIATA ORIBHABOR former chairman ANA ABUJA on his birthday on 19th April, 2020

 Eriata Oribhabor, I didn’t know him from Adam. 

I remember vividly that sunny afternoon in Abuja when he waddled through to my office in Petra Press in Garki. Then I was passing through personal catharsis after serving the ANA Abuja as PRO for two years. The denouement was the type you want to forget easily. How you laboured every day, put in your best efforts, time and personal resources running the association, only for folks who walked away for months or years to return one day and hurl accusation on you for ‘not performing’. There were three writers groups functional in Abuja then, among which ANA was the mud of the earth. Our reading days were an eyesore. Empty rooms. Not even hall. We would have executives of members who I still think ran for posts to garnish their CVs with some appellation of having served as something in ANA Abuja. So, after election they go home and they never show up again, except to come and criticize those doing something.

I never had this kind of experience in service in my life, and never wanted to have it again. But the worst thing the experience did to me was that I suddenly lost total interest in anything about the association. It was comatose while we struggled to keep it up, and at the time we were leaving I was convinced to survive would be a herculean task, which I didn’t see anybody around who would be willing to pay the price it would call.

And I was not bothered. I wanted to face my writing and my journalism. So, when the next ANA election was going to hold in 2012, I was not interested, and did not go there let alone seek an elective POST. The election went, and I got a grapevine that the new Chairman, was one man called Eriata Oribhabor . Funny. In my two years in the city, serving ANA, attending other literary meetings, especially ALS, I never heard such a name. So, somehow some folks managed to con an unknown person to come and inherit this carcass of a fallen house. 

The grapevine also informed me that the Oribhabor was looking for me. He wanted me to come back to my former post as the PRO. He needed to see me badly. I couldn’t hold my laughter. He must be a diehard optimist to want to bring a person like me on board. I mean, a person who was so disinterested and wasn’t even there during the election. 

But he found me. He came to my office that fateful afternoon. And that was my first interaction with the man.

My first impression of him was the force of his personality. He must get whatever he wants; he keeps talking and cannot take your No, and yet cannot force you, rather rework his ideas to suit your present demands.

He listened to all I had to say, and like said refused to accept my polite declination, and rather persuaded me to give him a chance to change ANA Abuja for good. I saw myself giving up on my former position. Because there was something about him, Oribabhor. It was something I was seeing a new, and it is something I keep seeing every day of my interaction with him. The dedication to be premium in everything he sets his mind on. 

I wanted to be the best; that was my frustration with ANA Abuja then, the lackadaisical attitude of folks I think lacked the push to make it be the best.

So we had an understanding that day, a condition on which I would join the team he was building. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

Oribabhor became, if I am not mistaken, the best ANA Abuja chairman in recent years. He turned things around. Soon ANA Abuja became a go to place among the literary groups in Abuja. A wonderful venue (he found). Full hall at readings. Innovative changes (like celebrity readings). But importantly the passion with which he pursued ANA Abuja business, like it was all his life.

He inspired many, and from nowhere became a bedrock in the association, even nationally. And just like that in Nigeria writers’ circle, he is one activist of a sort. He loves the art, he loves writers, looks out for them, mentors younger ones.

In fact!

There is not enough time for a lot I could write on this man. We have been apart for years now; I left Abuja for further studies, he left Abuja on government posting. But in that which we profess; our love for literature, Oribhabor has remained a trusted hand in ANA.

So, as YOU celebrate YOUR birthday, I wish all the best to come. But more than that, to tell you why I have to write this; it is a reason captured in the Igbo adage, ‘if you praise a man who donated a goat to his kinsmen, if he has capacity for a cow, he sure will do the same.’ 

You get the point na!!

Happy birthday, sir!

Okeke Job Izuchukwu

Former PRO ANA Abuja