Wilfred Terlumun Uji
Author: Norbert Hwakaa
Book Title: The Untold Story of Kuje Yum
Publisher: Old Press, Abuja
ISBN: 978-978-59342-7-9
Year: 2023
Pages: 124
Introduction
The book is focused on a collection of folk songs composed by Kuje Yum, a Masev folk singer, who made indelible foot prints on the oral poetry of the Tiv nation.
Kuje Yum like his contemporaries in Tiv Society such as Tarker Golozo and Anche Igbaaze, laid a remarkable foundation for the understanding and insight into Tiv oral poetry, thus revealed the philosophical depth of Tiv Oral Literature, History and Culture.
The book is comprising of one hundred and twenty-four pages broken down into nine chapters.
The author of the book, Norbert Hwakaa who is a seasoned journalist is also the author of several literary works such as Ayua Num: Story of a Lawmaker and Gabon Akuhe: A Collection of Songs, Politics and Development in Tiv Society. He is also the Editor in Chief of the Surveillance newspaper, Makurdi.
Subject Matter
The book is an anthological piece that uses the folk songs of Kuje Yum to study both past and contemporary society in terms of change and development, looking at the forces that have shaped both change and development in Tiv society and the Masev nation in particular.
In chapter one, the author provides the outlay of the book that the folk songs of Kuje Yum have helped in the understanding of Tiv history looking at the origin and genealogy of the Tiv people. The folk songs also reveal the state of development of the Tiv society both in the historic and contemporary basis. Kuje's Songs have made a contribution to the development of Tiv oral poetry. He pointed out, “If one listens carefully to Tiv songs, most of them attempt to tell the world about the Tiv and their Cultural heritage.”
The author therefore dismissed the falsehood and stereotype that folk singers are traditional institutionalised beggars who use the profession as a means of begging.
Folk singers have a passion for the preservation of their society and sometimes use poetry as sources of prophecy that illuminate the future.
In one of his songs, Kuje Yum was prophetic when he said: “When I think how Nigeria is heading to doom, the Tiv would be the first to perish, I feel like committing suicide.”
Kuje Yum wrote the above song over forty years ago with lamentations about Nigeria. If forty years ago, Nigeria was heading for doom, has anything fundamentally changed about our country, looking at the spate of poverty, corruption and insecurity that has come to bedevil the nation?
The above song underscores the prophetic insight of folk singers who were stereotyped as illiterates and beggars. It appears that Nigeria and her political ruling class has learnt nothing from history and posterity.
In chapter two, the author welcomes us to the world of Kuje Yum, looking at his ancestral background, birth, early nativity, youthful adventure and his choice of career as a folk singer.
Kuje Yum was born in 1925 at the time of the Great Invasion of Locusts on Tiv Society. In both traddional and contemporary African societies, what is common has been the strategic warfare of insects on the natural and human environment. The locust invasion induced a season of draught and famine in Tiv society.
What a symbolism that a folk singer was born during the age of such desperate survival of humanity in Tiv society.
Kuje Yum was an object of survival and desperate poverty denied him the privilege of being thoroughly educated in a formal western school.
The forces of poverty and survival pushed him to live on the marginal fringes of survival as a gambler and hustler. Society, especially women exploited his handsome, good-looking physique to their advantage. For all intent and purposes, Kuje Yum was a ladies' man who lived the life of a Casanova.
It was therefore not anything strange that he married three wives, something that was to prepare his life as a philosopher and folk poet. The attraction of women also wrought an equal opposite of the war of the comforting hand of compassion and disaffection. He suffered a marital unfaithfulness from one of his wives, a major catalyst that turned around his life to become a folk singer.
In chapter three, the entangled love story continued and eventually lead to a separation. Kuje Yum turned his search for life’s meaning from that of a lover to that of a folk singer who had a vision to transform his society through songs.
To accomplish his mission, Kuje Yum had to be initiated according to traditional rites to equip him as a folk singer. The traditional rites of initiation were complimented with the state of arts of professional technics and skills of a folk singer. Kuje Yum used a lot of figures of speech and imagery in his song composition.
Over the years, he deployed a unique and distinctive style of vocalising techniques where he conjured vocal sounds and sometimes the use of rapping or talking in his songs. This created a unique identity for Kuje Yum that distinguished him from other Tiv folk singers like Golozo and Anche.
He collaborated with other folk singers but retained his unique sense of identity which his kinsmen, the Masev, did not appreciate and compliment.
In chapter four, the author looks at the gains and pains of a folk singer. Kuje Yum had good social networks as a celebrity that made him socialise with the high and low in society. He also travelled to many places including on overseas tours like Golozo. He wined and dined with the national and state political class but still resented the art of folk singers who were mirrored as society beggers. He also missed the comfort and compassion of his family as he was often away from his family through long tours and folk shows.
Poverty never let go of him as the lack of money continued to be a source of embarrassment and disgrace to him. He decried this state of material poverty when he said that it is man that made money, not money that made man. By modern standards, Kuje Yum was a Marxist Socialist thinker who detested the idea of Western Christianity as well as class relations in Tiv Society.
In chapter five the author looks at the contributions of Kuje Yum songs to both national and local developments. The folk songs of Kuje Yum dwelt on important national and local themes and issues. Like many folk singers including Golozo, his songs were vital vehicles that mobilised the Tiv masses for national events and developments such as the National Census, rural farming, voting exercise and electoral franchise.
He also explored local themes such as the practice and place of Iyuhe, (jealousy and envy) in the development and underdevelopment of the Masev people and the larger Tiv society.
Kuje Yum saw into the future to have been able to capture and define the political behavior of the Masev elite class that is often predatory and parochial. The fall of a Masev elite is always his brother who seeks for the same position his brother occupied in a public space. He gave the examples of Lushakyaa Anja, the first Masev elite who was the Minister of Shipping during the First Republic. He cited the example of Ayua Num, the first Masev elite/speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly and many more.
These Masev elites suffered destruction in the hands of their kinsmen who deployed Iyuhe, the idea of envy, and were pulled down to the rubbles of Tiv political history.
The fundamental question is: Since the First and the Second Republics, has the Masev elites learnt any lesson about their past Dracula political behavior, that sucks the blood of their own who occupy high public positions of power? Kuje Yum also decried the domination of Tiv politics by the Ipusu mega clans of the Tiv nation who have relegated the Ichongo people to the backwaters of political development in the Tiv nation.
The leaders of the Ichongo Nation such as the Ter Ichongo, Ullam Agasua, foresaw the enslavement of the Ichongo Clans to the hegemonic domination of their kinsmen Ipusu. It appears that the Tiv are made of different ethnic nationalities that through a process of fusion and assimilation were engrafted into the Tiv genealogical tree.
Where is the idea of “Ya na Angbian,” the principle of rotational power shift between the Ipusu and Ichongo in the share and distribution of political and economic resources of the Tiv nation in Nigeria? The Ichongo clans have come to occupy the backstage in the political history of the Tiv nation, isolated and marginalised by the Ipusu political class.
In chapter six, the author looks at the philosophy and lamentations of Kuje Yum. In the previous chapter, some of these issues have been discussed. It is obvious that some of the chapters as well as contents are overlapping in scope and significance.
Kuje Yum as a philosopher like many African philosophers conceptualised and defined death as a critical metamorphosis, a transition from one stage to the other. He also believed in the idea that the living elites should prepare for such a transition by preparing a successor who will carry on with the ancestral line and continuity in public life. He saw the death of JS Tarkaa as a transition in which he had prepared the Tiv sons of Aper Aku and Paul Unongo to succeed him.
Kuje Yum decried the destructive effects of ignorance and poverty. He advocated for a system of Adult Education to help the the generation born before the imposition of Western Education to cope with the challenges of a modern society. He saw a conflict of interest between tradition and modernity in all spheres of the life of the African and advocated that Adult Education was the critical bridge that would facilitate the smooth transition between what is traditional and what is modern.
He used himself as an example of a traffic warden story. He had bought a new motor cycle and drove down town without the basic knowledge of road traffic. At a traffic junction, the officer raised his hand for him to stop. He misunderstood it for a friendship hand gesture. He drove on and collided with an incoming traffic.
He was a critic of the Catholic Church where he resented the fundamental idea of the Lord's Meal, the breaking of bread and pouring of wine. The Celebration of Mass, by his understanding was selfish and self-centered as only the Priest on the altar drank the wine and excluded every other person. He felt the congregation were not fully participants and integral part of the Catholic Mass. The entire Celebration of Mass has been elitist and isolated.
We know that Western Christianity was handled down to Africans as a religion of the colonial conqueror to facilitate the subjugation and cultural genocide of the African. Western Christianity has been imported into Africa as a concomitant of capitalism. The priesthood and the ruling political class are two sides of the same coin.
In Latin America where the Catholic Church was an imperial power that oversaw conquest, occupation and subjugation, the Church emerged as the patron of the colonial state that had real power to define citizenship and identity. In Nigeria, in Benue State, we are beginning to see a foretaste of the power of the Catholic Church in the political empire building process. How was Kuje Yum able to see into our future?
In chapter eight, the author describes some of the qualities and attributes of Kuje Yum as a man of wisdom, a philosopher, a nationalist, a prophet and a man of unity. In the previous chapters, to avoid wholesome repetitions, these issues have been discussed. He was a man of many perspectives and perceptions. He made a contribution to both national and local development, but most especially, in the preservation and documentation of Tiv culture and literature.
In chapter nine, the author looks at the demise and transition of Kuje Yum that was caused by a broken heart and frustration. For many and several reasons, he died a broken heart because first, his Kinsmen, the Masev people, did not believe nor supported him. Kuje Yum decried the altitude of his kinsmen who had no confidence in him and treated him with disdain and contempt. In comparison to Golozo, his kinsmen's criticism was that Kuje Yum was a poor and ineffective folk singer.
The Kinsmen rejection were the scars and regrets that drove Kuje Yum to his grave. “The Masev People Don't Support Their Own.” In contemporary times, this adage has remained as an indictment of the Masev political and economic elites.
Second, was the war of sex, the discomforting hand of compassion and affection played out in the marital crisis that led to his decline and exit. Kuje Yum's wife was snatched by a fellow kinsman who was a tailor at Ullam in Mbaiase. Everywhere that he turned, there was a kinsmen conspiracy. Third, was the persistent, brutal and unbelievable poverty. Consequently, The Man Died.
Conclusion
There is need to harness and develop Tiv cultural theater. The theater is the cultural identity and preservation of a nation and society. In Western Europe, in Germany, the theater was strengthened after the end of World War I to promote German Propaganda.
By the end of World War II, Hollywood in the United States emerged to promote and project an American propaganda and identity. In the West, the theater exists not just for the purposes of entertainment but basically that of cultural preservation and dissemination. That is how through multinational corporations, satellite televisions and global media houses, the West has succeeded in the cultural conquest of the African.
From music, dress codes, figurative expressions, domestic values, politics, we look more like the West. Even in the areas of technological growth and survival of indigenous technologies, what is indigenous and ingenious to Africa has declined in the face of Western technology. There is a decline of the local blacksmith and craftsman who makes chairs and baskets. Africa imports everything including cultural relics like music, religion and films.
I appreciate the landmark development strides of Prof. Tor Iorapuu at the Benue State University Makurdi. He should also look into the possibility of a Centre of African and Cultural Studies that can research, preserve and harvest the gains of our indigenous folk singers who left a lasting contribution to the cultural preservation of our society.
I also suggest that the author of the book should synergise and collaborate with scholars in the field of oral literature at the Benue State University such as Professor Moses Tsenongo. I suggest that Masev political elites show more concern about the development of literature, culture and history of the Masev nation.
While it is good to invest in infrastructure and human development, it is equally important to think about our history, culture and literature that is going into extinction. In this regards, Professor JT Orkar can be of tremendous help to the Masev Nation as well as other scholars of Masev extraction with a research interest on the Masev nation. For instance, I am still expecting the sponsorship and publishing of the first indigenous history of the Masev nation as well as who is who, after much research and writing.
Somebody said that the Masev political class are good at donating money at funerals to bury the dead. It is quite okay given our value system but we can do better if we invest in scholarship and books. I suggest that the author review the book with each chapter having appropriate sources and references. Chapters overlap but this can be improved by a further review.
Professor Wilfred Terlumun Uji is Professor of History with the Federal University of Lafia, Nigeria.
NIGERIA REVIEW OF BOOKS 