WHAT SIMON TAR IMMOTALIZED

I have a couple of mentors living in the USA, namely Mr. Tony Barnacle who publishes a fortnightly journal entitled Droppings ….and O. Osuji, PhD, a pure African American of Igbo extraction. The last is a voracious thought-provoking raconteur and a respected authority. He recently stated that when you doodle a long treatise African shy away from perusing it. He dwells on nitty-gritty and that puts off many an African. What a Dickens or Don Quixote they must say. Contrariwise, I adore his stuff and whenever I traverse African or Nigerian forums on the WWW, for that matter, I first look for his psychological renderings that narrate nothing but the truth. 

Recently, he stated that he was no longer going to write as whatever he wrote, was not perused by Africans that were his targeted audience. As long articles, he surmised that Africans do not read them as they do not comment on what he says. My exhuming what Simon Tar, an Nsotologist and a Catholic religious of Erasmus caliber who passed away last year and comments, since they are long, make me to insinuate that not many of my readers who are essentially Africans would have the time to read. They just adore short reviews that they can browse and leave them with ample time to visit she-beens or bars and that may be one of the rationales Africans are behind in several global domains. I hope you will read this as some will be discovering for the first time what this dear friend left and I am publishing it posthumously as my way of saying adieu to him. As he had meant that I was to publish it in my compendium but was called earlier or timely and could not come to a concluding period. From my perspective, this half is better than nothing.

My dear Simon Tar was an avid writer and I will tell you why. I was not sure why he loved clear and concise writing. I discovered his raison d’être in due course of time.  It was when we had carried on with a flurry of internet correspondence that I one day insisted that we spoke over the phone. One, I was doodling a great deal too and had no time to keep on writing as he had wanted. It was my perseverance that he revealed to me that he had hearing impairment. It was then that he opened another revelation to me that some Nso ladies would not go out with him when he

was eligible to be married by virtue of his innate hearing difficulties. In place of his hearing, God gave him a special sense, speed in writing. I do not know his typing speed but having had the privilege of being a Secretary with the Nsaw District Council (NDC) in the 1960s and having also worked for the Ndop District Council where Nso (Nsaw) taxes were shipped to be counted, I presumed he had ample time and opportunities to polish his typewriting speed on the popular  Smith Corona. 

He was indefatigable. Irrespective if his ailing conditions for the brief period I knew him, he left no letter un-replied to and no stone un-turned provided there was no venom lurking underneath it. It was in the course of our correspondence that I found out that his English was good. At that juncture, I encouraged him to write on what he knew and was conversant with about the Nso culture, a term I coined for, “Nsotology.” He was still not confident and advised that I posed  barrage of questions in that sub-discipline that he would answer. The truth is that it is easier to ask questions than to answer them. It was then that I asked him to write on the development of the council in Nso to be included in the proposed Nso Encyclopedia or compendium I planned to coauthor with interested writers. I had written on Shundzev Forum (an Ngonsonian site manned by Mr. Martin Jumbam) soliciting contributors and one of them I can still recall, was Rev. Fr. Mbuh then in Rome. This Father who is still an ardent contributor in this forum, (as Martin Jumbam, Mr. Ngong, Dr. Samuel Lamlenn, Donathus Sinsai from Arusha, Prof. Fanso, Prof. Lantum, Shuu Faai woo Bastos, Prof. Kishaani Tanlaka, usw.) had written or edited the works of one of my mentors, Archbishop Paul Verdzekov of Bamenda Diocese was intended to be one of them.  Many shied away but he and Prof. Benn Bonganng of Georgia, USA, dazzlingly came forth.

In earnest, Tar started writing but then brought a rider that he could not be thorough as he was in the USA undergoing treatment of the malaise that he succumbed to and all his documents were languishing in Nso at St Augustine’s Junction ward of Kumbo citadel. I urged him to write what came to his mind to be interpolated with hard facts in due course of time, as time was against us. I continued that it was perhaps what he would say that would throw light on some of Nsonite (Nso’) lost, murky or fast dying history or lore. He threw light on the fact that Nkar was a brother of Ngonso, the foundress of Nso, my latinized Ngonsonia

I am now seizing this opportunity to resuscitate the project and writers are still wanted. I am not going to give any limited length and those who can carryout profound research on Nsotology and squiggle should do so. Let the fear of critics not put them off as Martin Luther never feared to even criticize Rome when he observed digression from the norms or Sir Thomas More rendering of his Utopia as he would have seen a just society pivoted on Christian values; subsequent works as The Praise of Folly by Erasmus or Nicolò Machiavelli on his infamous The Prince that some rotten governance shamelessly pursue hitherto. Whatever, it is hoped that  “nsophiles’ and would be Nsopholes contribution towards the up keeping of Nso tradition, history, geography, medicine, ethnographic studies and many more that would be digested as grains of gold in the future. 

Those of you who have ever read Polygotta Africana by Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle will appreciate what a modicum of knowledge means where there is nothing. Bungo woo Tuuntu aka Robert Shilling then residing in Sierra Leone interview in 1874 was the only window to Nsoland, my Ngonsonia that painted a picture of that geographical region in its pristine form. Sir Tar who was so humbled that he rejected being addressed sir or master by me his junior will appreciate keeping his thoughts and Nso culture alive than pouring beats of tears over his grave or paving it with gold.

Two, Mr. Simon Tar was religiose and no devil could stand on the path where he knelt to say his breviary to Holy Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus Christ to reach God. How vital are well-preserved written documents? You do no know how grateful. I need

not reiterate the above-mentioned interview Rev. Koelle recorded in Sierra Leone then Province of Providence of a manumitted Nso slave, Bungo. It could have been trivialized at the time of writing. Today it is more than silver and gold in value.

Where did Tar and I end? We toyed on the idea of having another compendium, Professor B. N. Fonlon’s writings, including manuscripts. The copyright debacle stepped in and I shelved it to approach Prof. Daniel Noni Lantum, Shufai woo Bastos for an answer.  As a Faanjang denizen and closer to Professor Fonlon, we thought that it was going to be easy. It was not for reasons I do not want to dwell upon. However, it was on June 11, 2009 that he sent me the article planned to publish in due course of time for an editorial. His slice of Nso social history was proofread and returned to him. As stressed in it, he had some revelation whose sources I do not doubt but will post it for the enjoyment of all our readers. No amount of obituary can immortalized his thoughts per se other than his vivid contribution to Nso social history and our emulation of his clean living. I have not altered the substance of the article “Introduction to Nso Social History.” I have simply done some editorial for clarity and nothing else. I hope this will further immortalized Sir Simon Tar who had ever held me in high esteem while encouraging me and others to hold aloft the Nso’ flag, chichiwaa. 

Prof. Viban N.

CATUC, Bamenda.