I made a painful decision to leave the priesthood: I was going to be neither a priest nor a writer, says Uwem Akpan

IN Ibadan last Saturday, July 5, 2025 Nigeria-America based writer who teaches creative writing at the University of Florida in Gainesville, engaged a largely young audience and book enthusiasts who plied him with questions about the provocative content of his latest work, New York, My Village. One question Akpan also addressed was why he left the Catholic priesthood, a life-long vocation for those who choose to live a life of dedication to Christ. With the candour of a priest that he no longer is, Akpan told his audience how the vocation of writing jostled with that of the priesthood, so much so that he was at the crossroads where he was neither a priest nor a writer, with the latter finally trumping the former.

“The priesthood was making it difficult for me to work as a writer,” he said in response to a question put to him. “For example, I was at Ilasamaja, Lagos as a priest at Christ the King Church (CKC). Our parish had 18,000 members. We called it an Igbo parish, because 90 per cent members were Igbo, and nobody does Catholicism like the Igbo. So I enjoyed my stay very well. But I had this thing in my heart: I needed to write, and I needed to minister to the people of God. So I had to make a decision, because I was going to be neither a priest nor a writer. I made a painful decision and went for writing. So, I’m out. Not many people leave the priesthood in Nigeria. It wasn’t an easy thing for me to leave. These days I still run into Catholics; some are very angry with me. So I left; I’m happy now to write, because writing in that situation was difficult.”

On the difficult subject of oppression his Niger Delta people, including what his Anang people suffered in the hands of Biafran soldiers during the war, Akpan said not many Igbo people, young and old alike, know the deep psychological harm Biafra soldiers inflicted on the minority people in the areas they occupied. He therefore debunked the claim that only Igbo suffered during the war, noting also that big Igbo writers have not only failed to tell story of minorities, but helped to perpetrate the injustice they suffered.

“The second one is that young ones are asking a lot of questions and getting clarifications about Biafra,” he said. “A lot of Igbo people, both old and young people, don’t know what I’m talking about now. They grew up with this idea that ‘Nigeria was bombing us and we did nothing wrong.’ True, the Igbo suffered, but they were not the only ones who suffered. The minorities for whose oil the war was fought suffered greatly in the hands of both Biafran and Nigerian soldiers, but mostly in the hands of Biafra.”

For Akpan, the question of minority peoples like those in the Niger Delta for whose oil the war was fought would remain burning, as global geopolitics does not always favour the voiceless, with many already stamped out of existence, because they have no voice or anyone to amplify their suffering.

“When you’re outside Nigeria, people see you as either Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa/Fulani,” Akpan lamented. “And if you don’t belong to any of these, then you’re probably from Cameroun. They don’t know any other people in Nigeria. But I’m a minority. Sadly, we don’t know how many ethnic groups there are in this country. This year we will say 500, next year it will be 400 or 350. It’s a mess. I come from a small ethnic group called Anang; the Ibibio are the biggest. The Yoruba are smart to stay together. Even in Nigeria nobody really hears about the Anang. The big groups can overrun my people any time. What bargaining power do we really have? You can say we have Godswill Akpabio, but he has had to manuever to get that Senate President. I’m a minority here in Nigeria and in the US. Just like my Igbira friend here; well, you can say they have Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.”

He attributed the genocide happening in Benue State to this voiceless and their non-existence in the global geopolitics, noting that what was happening in Tivland couldn’t happen to the big three ethnic groups without global uproar.

According to him, “It’s like the genocide happening to the Tiv. Who are the Tiv? Nobody outside (Nigeria) knows about them compared to the Yoruba or Igbo or Hausa/Fulani. So, there’s a price you pay because nobody knows you. You can be deleted from life, and it has happened to many groups worldwide, because they didn’t have the numbers and the powers.

“In my book you will see tribalism and racism. My book allows me to talk about what the Igbo-dominated Biafra army did to the minorities of the Niger Delta in which my Anangland is a part. It was brutal. That’s why today, minorities do not want to hear anything about Biafra. But you may not know this, because they are minorities. So you will not find minorities of the Niger Delta celebrating May 30 – Biafra Day. Never. Absolutely not. We have nothing to celebrate. You will not find minorities of the Niger Delta sitting back at home every Monday. It doesn’t happen in my Anangland, because Biafra was evil to us.”

Akpan said the pogrom in the north that eventually led to the civil war had minorities as casualties just as the Igbo, but because they were minorities, nobody took account of them. He noted that among the Igbo also, no credence is given to minority victims of both the genocide and war proper, a situation that amounts to an erasure of an entire people in whose land sustenance of the country resides.

“And the sort of revelations in my book have shocked young Igbo, because their big writers have continually made them feel they were the only victims of the war – that they were traumatised, died of hunger, and the genocide before the war,” he said. “Igbo and Nigeria as a whole did not know that one third of those who died in that genocide in the north were minorities from the Niger Delta! The minorities were killed in Yorubaland, they were killed in the north. So why is there no stories about us? If they open that can, the Igbo writers would have to explain to the world what Biafra did to minorities during the war. So they don’t talk about it.”

Akpan, however, made concessions that there were some minorities who embraced Biafra and joined the army, but said many were conscripted against their will and in the face of instant death if they refused to join.

“Yes, there were some minorities who joined the Biafra army, not because they love Biafra but because their villages had been sacked,” he said. “Some wanted to be in Biafra; I’m not disputing that. But the majority of those who joined wasn’t out of volition. If you refused to join, they’d kill you. Nigerian army didn’t use child soldiers. Biafra used child soldiers. So we had our boys – 12 years old – forced to join Biafran army.”

Source: The Art Hub