Cross River author and politician Rt. Hon. (Otuekong) Orok Otu Duke, Ph.D., has called on minority communities to begin documenting their personal and collective histories, insisting that silence allows others to define their past.
Speaking to journalists at the Ernest Etim-Bassey Press Centre in Calabar, Duke linked the appeal directly to his forthcoming presentation of five new books in Abuja on November 5.
“Until the lion learns to write”
Duke repeatedly returned to a familiar proverb to drive home his point.
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“Until the lion learns how to write his own story, the story of the hunt will always celebrate the hunter,” he said.
He explained that many communities, particularly those in minority areas, routinely fail to record their experiences — the good, the bad and the not-so-good. The result, he argued, is the gradual loss of communal information, culture and historical memory.
“On my own, I found out that a lot of times, we fail to document things about us,” Duke said. “If we don’t properly document our activities, culture and our ways of life, we tend to lose a lot.”
Five books and the Civil War gap
The five titles scheduled for presentation in Abuja are Treasures: (Calabar Festivals, Idim Uyo, Forbidden Streets and other Poems), Winnowing: (Duke Town, So, The Sky Stayed and other Poems), Welcome to Uyo: The Nigerian Civil War through the eyes of a Calabar child, Oluchi’s Journey: Three Generations of the Okerekes in Calabar: Before, During and After the Nigerian Civil War, and Calabar Modern Stories.
Duke singled out Welcome to Uyo as a deliberate response to what he described as the under-documented experiences of minority groups during the Nigerian Civil War. He noted that the conflict began in Gakem, Cross River State, and that many of the most severe incidents occurred in minority communities.
“More people in the minorities died in the civil war,” he said. “Everybody is talking about how a particular tribe was killed during the war. Not true. Not true at all.”
Drawing from his own childhood memories of Uyo as a major refugee and relief centre, he described daily deaths of classmates, mass burials and the grim aftermath when rain exposed bodies later scavenged by animals. These scenes, he said, needed to be recorded by those who lived them.
An open invitation to contribute
Duke did not present the book launch as a solitary achievement. He invited others to join the effort of documentation, whether by writing full accounts, contributing chapters or sharing personal stories.
“Let us write. Let us write about ourselves. It must not be only during your happier days, even sad days. Let us document and tell others about us,” he urged.
He also donated copies of his five earlier books — Clementines, Sentinels, My Song, Dances on the Plains and Ellipses… — to the Nigeria Union of Journalists library in Calabar, describing the gesture as a practical step toward preserving such materials locally.
With ten published works to his name, Duke said the mere act of starting and completing a documentation project could serve as a pedestal for others. The November 5 presentation in Abuja, he added, was both a personal milestone and an open call for more voices from minority communities to enter the written record.
