q&a with okey ndibe. later, president obama holds a news conference in peru as his final trip overseas before leaving office. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] .> today on q&a, okey ndibe look an american in the eye is the name of your book. i have to know your story. [applause] it is one of my favorite --

[applause] -- i came to america in 1988 to find that my name became a sort of hilarity. i met this person in botswana. okey ndibeame was and he cannot stop laughing. he had gone to the grocery store and he said that it was funny. i see him put his card down the aisle. the woman said how do you like the snow? at first i said i don't like snow at all. i like it dry and warm. said, you have a next

time, where are you from. he said botswana. she said is that in africa. he said yes. the woman started to talk to him with great interest. they talked for 12 minutes or so. the man says i can't believe you are okey. said is there anything that suggest that i am not okay? town.rd that you are in i heard you're into publishing. he said no, i am a graduate student. he said i am fine. then she said that i am really sorry that someone in town is okey. after that account, the man went away thinking that the woman wanted to pick him up.

he said that he was willing to pick up -- be picked up. they came up with a story about somebody's name. day, he met me. that is when cannot stop laughing. brian: how many people in nigeria would be named okey? okey: a lot. okey is actually short for something. the full name means the creation of god. it means the strength of god. example, about four years ago my wife and i were in the bahamas for a friend's wedding. the guy who was wedding, his name was okey. in addition to make and this

guy, -- me and this guy, there were two other guys named okey. there was also a professor in the audience named okey. it is a fairly common name over there. brian: let's do some background quickly so that we can get onto the book. you lived where today? okey: i live in the west half of connecticut. brian: what do you do in your free time? okey: i write full-time now. i devil into teaching. atave done teaching different universities from brown to trinity college. a college in great barrington. the last year i spent in las vegas at the university of

nevada, las vegas. i had a fellowship to teach there. traveling, speaking on behalf of this book. i am not teaching at all. the first you that you give to the united states. okey: i came in december of 1988. in december, this will be 28 years in america. novelist.he nigerian i set up an african magazine called african commentary. brian: when did you become a u.s. citizen? okey: 1996. brian: why did you do that? question that my mother asks me to this day. why did i become american? i'm a big student of american history. particularly, the history of

african descended people. beginning in slavery and captivity. where we haveay great american presidents in history and barack obama. that story of tragedy and transformation has always impressed me. part of thise great socialist experiment called america. what is the view from africa of america? what is the view that africans have of africans's america. obama'sthink that election put a spotlight on africa.

it helps to reshape in a , the american conception of africa. when i came to america, the dominant view of africa was that it was some kind of kingdom of animals. the human population was somewhat incidental, almost peripheral to this continent. so i encountered so many questions. people couldn't believe there were no airport in africa. people believed that there were no airport in africa. people believe that africans lived in trees. they thought that encounters with lions were commonplace. i think the perception has changed that. i think social media has put

every corner of the world under the spotlight and a significant way. americans can sit down in any locale in this country and see a part of africa. i like more and more american universities and colleges are establishing relationships with universities in africa. of course, obama's election would be the third most important factor. brian: nigeria, tell us something about the country. where is it? going throughis very difficult times. when you say that, that is something that needs something that is contextualizing. nigeria has had difficulties since it was founded by the british. i think that nigeria still exhibits all the symptoms of artificial community.

to 400 collected close different ethnic groups and languages. nigeriathink that imagined the involvement that nigeria would need to become a meaningful community. there is this huge space where they could exploit the raw materials and then dump the goods. they could produce goods and so on. in 1960, they had independence. the political elite in nigeria did not pay. task thatlding was a was as urgent now as it was back

then. be advocated by the political elite. this great nigerian novelist said that nigeria is the country that manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. i say that nigeria was the nation that was conceived with hope that was knocked into hopelessness. ask you aboutto the crocodile story. i gave it away back to the view american people have of africa. what was that story? friends with a graduate student at the university where i live at the time. one day, he said to me, i would like to know how you africans come to america when there are no airport in africa.

i thought that you some kind of looking comedian who was trying out his material. i said we ride on the back of crocodiles. i crossed the atlantic. his face shifted in hard. -- kara. horror. said, for baby if -- won't they eat you? said, no, they will kiss you if you kiss them. where do you get your sense of humor? okey: first of all, in my culture, humor is so integral to everything.

weddings,eremonies, traditional marriage ceremonies, formal? it's -- formal christian weddings. you will always find people who are extremely funny. for many years, nigeria did not have professional comedians. we just had so many funny people around that you could find some in a bar who would hurt your ribs from laughter. --an: your mom is a life? alive? alive, she will be 92 next year. brian: where is she? okey: my hometown in nigeria. she is next to the neighboring town.

looking at the map, go down to the southwest corner. okey: do you see where it is? we would be very close to it. an hour from that. it is in the southeastern part of nigeria. nigerthe oil-producing delta. northern --n the northeastern part of nigeria. there was an islamic terror .roup that has been active that is where i was born. it was the precursor to the civil war. with myr sent us home

mother. he had to stay back. i lived there during the war. i was a child. i have vivid images of that war. brian: when was that were issued? okey: the war was in 1967 and it ended in 1970. there were calamitous consequences. many people died, mostly civilians. a lot of them children and women. many from starvation. i thought they were speaking about the war. it is one of those sharply divided memories that we haven't nigeria. there is no agreement on who won the war. one way of explaining the war is that it was a consequence of the

failure of nigeria to achieve a sense of nationhood. d'etat inwas a coup 1966. a military officer staged a coup. many other people were from other parts of nigeria. no other officer staged a counter group. this was followed by a series of christians and people from the southeastern part of nigeria. this led to this groundswell of the men for perfection. they were trying to make

southeastern nigeria a different part of the nation. what you find today is that there is another resurgence of that area again. reallyf young people who are disappointed in all of the failure in nigeria. they are looking for a sense -- a solution to the sense of despair. brian: nigeria is the largest country in africa. how many live here in the united states? somebody hase that put the information together but i don't have it. the highestnstitute

number of africans outside of the african continent. in europe and united states especially. everywhere you go. it is a joke that if you went to the most remote place in the world and you didn't find a notrian then it is particularly habitable, you might as well move on. brian: how big is the tribe in nigeria. a? there are three big ones. here are the ebo. the houser. and the euroba. they constitute 60% of the nigerian population.

roughly -- brian: what was it like when you moved here for the first couple of years? okey: difficult. the process of integrating into a new culture. i lead and -- i read an international magazine. came, sadly, there was not much money. that was something i had to deal with. to find out from an international magazine that your employer do not have the money to pay you. a lot of times, i had to make phone calls to ask for money to pay for money to make rent. i was living in amherst, massachusetts. died? --at year did he die? okey: he died in 2013.

he was a professor of brown university. providence? okey: in providence. brian: here is a video that will show you what he sounds like. the whole tradition of novel writing was based in new york. then it started going to other places. presented in ways that i personally found unacceptable. plan to deny these people language. to give them animal sounds instead.

it, read the heart of darkness and read it again. ?rian: your reaction to that okey: that was one of our most essential storytellers and intellectuals. mode was a quiet statement that was profoundly resonant. that was an example you saw there. he is speaking to that european -- the temptation of europeans. the temptation of americans to -- sometimes to reduce africa to the space of animals. quiet way to do it but very powerful. brian: why was he so admired and

popular? okey: i think it has to do with the fact that his novel was the most read book by an african. perhaps by a person of african descent. it has been translated into six different languages, it sold many in english. it alluded to this moment of encounter between africa and europe. world a subject that was written for discussion. brian: did he become an american like you? okey: note he never became an american. brian: why not? okey: the story of how i came to

starts back when i interviewed a bunch of young journalists. on one occasion i interviewed a god inist who said that his wisdom, planted him in nigeria. on a patch of earth if you like. that is where his loyalties lie. sadly, he could never turn to nigeria because of his condition. he had an accident and became paraplegic. he cannot return to nigeria. it was written and his persona that nigeria was at the heart of his being and his work as well. brian: what did he teach you? he taught me that stories have to have integrity.

he taught me the stories were important. there was something deeply moral about art and the art of storytelling. it is not innocent. to enslave andd oppressed. stories can also be used to liberate and free people. his mode of storytelling -- he was a writer who never wasted a word. , you hadrote something the sense that he had such deep respect for language that he would just play around with language. the way he said it and what he said came together beautifully. brian: i think you were sitting at a bar. --couple of guys were talking

women.wo youngster, i loved to ease drop -- huge drop -- eavesdrop on conversations. indifferencehave to the stories of adults. i was particularly curious to eavesdrop. in my world there was a sharp division. i would appear to be doing something, but that was an excuse to overhear what adults were talking about. one day, i was at a bar, i like to go to such places, to hang out.

about a was talking system called communism. he said it was invented by a man called karl marx. he said that communism meant --t everything was owned by in common. justoorest guy could find a mercedes and get into it. the key would be in it. you could get into a mansion and take the best bad and a mansion and so on. poor, iuse i grew up became a communist in my mind. soanted to come to nigeria that i could drive the great expensive cars that only a few privileged nigerians have drived. i wanted to go to a huge mansion and spend the night there. that is the young person that i

was that saw myself as a communist. when i went to a bar, i would to a train station to pick up my who is fromaw nigeria. i found out his train was running late. other than go home, i thought i and waitok into a bar for him to arrive. two women walked in and did quite inebriated. they struck up a conversation with me. she said what are you doing in america? animals, i love the jungle, if i was from africa, i would never come to america. i said that my mother in law is from there. so ie animals in vermont,

recommend vermont to you. my wife is named sherry. your wife is in sherry -- named sherry? okey: my weight is named sherry. wife is named sherry. brian: you talk about in your book that you used to be a partier. okey: i used be a rascal. still am.ys, i in a more innocent way. ice to be a rascal. a rascal.to be i was not particularly interested in others. particularly women who were in relationships with me. one day, i crashed sherry's par

ty. there.her was he was a very revered intellectual and a well-known figure in education. he was at this party. i went to him and said i did a professor -- are you the professor? he said yes. he said it was his daughter's birthday. i began to talk to him. i was rather flattered that he knew who i was. i had been a journalist in nigeria. him for 30 orto 40 minutes when his daughter said why don't you let this guy come and dance? and he said that i am not holding him, he is the one set here. -- who sat here.

i don't do great guessing but people do notice me when i am on the desktop. dancing buto great people do notice me when i am on the dance floor. there was a woman who knew of my reputation. she wanted to protect this beautiful wife of mine from may. this woman came to me and said i see you. i said what did you see? she said i wanted you to know that i see you. she said i want you to know that you don't play around with this one if you're not serious, just move on. years later, several years later, sherry and i got married -- got married.

she is the love of my life. she is american. her mother was born in nigeria. brian: what is the origin of your three daughter's names. okey: i have two sons and a daughter. brian: sorry i thought. fory: we call my son chibu short. it means god. there are three or four words for god. one is chibu, one is chi, and one is chineke. my favorite daughter, i call her that because she is my only daughter. my son is 24.

my daughter is 21. she is wonderful. is younger son's name kitibe. my father had just died. my father, i really are beer, so i named them after him. some of our friends say they are isi's because chi names.inning of their brian: where are they now? okey: they are all in college. my son goes to central

connecticut university where my wife teaches. he is finishing his education. it took a couple of years to travel in peru. he went to peru to learn spanish language and fell in love with the country and a young woman. it took two years to do that. ucdaughter is finishing at onn. family, is an eastern connecticut university. brian: what is the difference between a nigerian born person and your children who are nigerian descent. do you see a difference in their approach to people, their interests? okey: definitely.

children are encouraged to have a voice. in nigeria, children are encouraged but you have a voice within the world of children. nigeria, i wasn't allowed to speak to my parents unless i was invited to speak when they asked me questions. my children have a much more free relationship with made in my parents did. parents used corporal polish them -- corporal punishment. i received it at school as well. that was part of the mechanics of my shaving. it is not something that i

remember with any regret at all. rian: what corporal punishment was for you. okey: i was caned quite a bit. i was a difficult child growing up. the cane was not spared. i will tell you a very interesting story. i gave a reading in my home state. my mom kept saying to me, what do you do at these meetings? these that i talk to people. i respond to questions after i read the book. then i signed books. december 2014. book reading,ick

it was arranged. it was broadcasted live on state radio. i was ambushed because they invited my mother to introduce me. on air, my mother starts telling people that you love my son, he then the country because sum of mine was so difficult and such idyllic went -- a delight and i usemy husband the cane. so when it came time to me to speak i don't listen to my mother you just confessed that you abuse me as a child. i'm going to sue you. that the bible says if you spared the road, spent a child. i said i will file a lawsuit in

america. american children don't read bible. i wrote a column, why i will sue my mother. people in nigeria said why would you want to see your mother? of course i was pulling around. brian: did you use corporal punishment with your children? , compared toand most american parents, no. brian: i read that you did not sleep in a bed for a long time. you said you were poor. explain what the world was like for you when you were growing up. when did you start sleeping in a bed? okey: i didn't sleep in a bed until high school. i went to a boarding school. throughout the. at home, when i came home on mat.ay, i slept on a

in a lot of ways, my sense of from a comes retrospective. it goes backward. my life was magical and a lot of ways. i became an early lover of books. my parents encouraged us to read. they demanded that we read. my mother was a schoolteacher. brian: you read in english? okey: yes, we read in english. like rice. like today, you can go anywhere in the world and get rice. there is very little regard for rice. rice.ents would make it was a rarity. on christmas, easter, some other

traditional beach. -- beast. -- feast. for me, it was the magic. little gift we had become even more pronounced, or --ident -- more resident resonant. over a few days, two or three of us which share a bottle of soda. he would sit it and put it down. it was so rare. it was magical for you. did not see myself as poor. ien though i went to school, had classmates and schoolmates who had parents who are wealthy.

they could have soda every day. that was the definition of wealth to me. this kid can drink a soda a day. i could drink one soda every few months. if i was lucky. two or threeally of us sharing a bottle. postal man, my mother was a schoolteacher. they made very little money. elementary school teachers get paid better than professors actually. it is a fair living. in nigeria, it was not the case. my parents did not have a car. not until just before my mother retired. buy one.one alone to

that was the entirety of their involvement with automobile owning. when i was a child, you ran or walked to everywhere you went. brian: the story of your arrest, when did it happen and what were the circumstances? okey: the nigerian one or in this country? when i came to this country, i was in a bus stop. amhearst.ing to umass he was the editor of the magazine i have come to edit. , living inf the book america show that i was --

said don't look americans and yeah because they will shoot you if you look at them in the eye. here, i was at the bus stop. i was not aware that traffic had stopped. in fronti looked right of me and a police officer happened to look at the same time and our eyes met. i remembered my uncle's advice. i made a dramatic gesture of looking away so that is opposite would not shoot me. even though i looked away, i was watching him in the corner of my eye. i went to a side street. i thought i had lost him. about a minute or two later, i got a tap on his shoulder. i turned around to see somebody in uniform. he says to me, sir would you mind coming to the back of the bus stop. there was this crowded bus stop.

december 23, 1988. in nigeria, no police officer would say to you, sir and no police officer would say to you "do you mind" they would pull, push or shove it where they wanted. this man was calling the sir. he was saying do you mind? on second thought, i said that his genealogy put him off immediately. so i came back with him. everybody was turning to look. this officer folded his arms and sir,ng down at me he says, you know this is about. i said no i don't know. we went back and forth. makely, the obverse is to that i was avoiding eye contact.

said that if i didn't want to come, problems. he said there has been a bank robbery. and i fit the description. now my heart began to crack up. -- crank up. i did not know with the legal system was, what law enforcement , what idea was. are they going to frame it and so on? officer thatd the i had just arrived in america. i had not been inside a bank, i had not opened a bank account. he said to me, do you have identification? i said no. he said why not. i said my only point was my passport. risky to carryas it around, i might lose it. he said you might affect risk he said do you mind if i frisk you?

even though he said do you mind, it seems that i had little choice in the matter. he said to put my hands up. he patted me down. of masshad no weapons or single distraction, he said you might if i take you to your residence? i would like to see your passport. he drove me to the resident -- residence. there were two children there who were spending the christmas holiday with me. i walked in and said i have been arrested for bank robbery. room, brought my passport and he checked and he kept talking on his walkie-talkie. after a while, i was surprised to show that i was not the man that they were looking for. he handed me my passport etc. you for being a gentleman. i was when i said do you mind dropping me back up at the bus

stop? of peopley that a lot and she made me up. i knew that the narrative in town would be that this guy is he is some kind of criminal. he was arrested. i wanted people to see the officer drop me off at the bus stop so that there would be accountability for the narrative in town. that they saway him drop me off at the bus stop as well. maybe officer is his friend. is the mess alive -- is the man still alive? okey: he is. one of the things that we are

very good at an nigeria is names. when you see names like god's luck,godspell, good blessing, there is one in muslim that i refuse to call. his name is treetop. -- sweetheart. i say give me your traditional name. i will never call anyone sweetheart. brian: did anyone ever call you sweetheart? huge no but blessed is these days. i have a lot of names. like? i was born on a sunday.

so, my name there was different. it means somebody born on a sunday. i am roman catholic. on confirmation, i get the name of peter. i took the name peter. my baptism name is anthony. band my family -- my praise name that my family gave to me is different. what happened to your nigeria personality since you were in the united states? enhanced in been some ways. i'm not sure if there is a nigeria personality to begin with. whenever i was when i came to this country, it has been enhanced in some ways.

example, i take most of my .eals i make what nigerians call soup. as the not the same american conception of soup which is something you eat with a spoon. soup and nigeria is what you eat with a grain. grain that has a consistency and hardness. you scoop the soup and you actually swallow the grain. i make all kinds of soup. i make all different nigerian tips. americans would call our stews a

sauce. a flavorful tomato sauce with red peppers and tomatoes, i love that. i love spice. when ie. sweat i call it the moral equivalent of going to the gym. eat a meal that nigerians would identify with. ever since i came to america. somebody tell me that he went home to nigeria and a friend wanted to give him a treat. i avoid substances. i don't eat. americans invite me to a meal and i ask if it is ok that i eat at home so that i can keep politely. pizza does not interest me, nor does hamburgers or sandwiches.

i like to eat nigerian. cherish very much. the language. a committee politics and the language -- i like to hear the ofitics and the language back home. i have become more intensely interested in nigeria since living in america. brian: do you still write a column? okey: yes, it is widely circulated online. it gets me into trouble with the nigerian government. brian: you say in your book that you do not like american tv, talk shows and news. why? okey: i came to this country and talkshowed the programs where it was shocking

to find that it will come out on television to tell their best friend that they slept with their wife read or girlfriend. i come from a culture where that confessional mode is frowned upon. the very idea of doing something wrong and choosing to have some it, somenfamy out of mileage out of it. i'm going to be on the brian: -- jerry springer show. it seemed to me, baffling.

it still seems baffling to me. brian: i want to show some video that is out of context with everything. i want to ask you why you like to stop. okey: i know where you are going. brian: here we go. wrestling, why do you like this ? okey: this is what got me interested in america. look at their size, look at what they can do. that meant to live their legs and hit somebody with both legs at a time, and could jump from the top of the top rope and land on another man without smashing the meant to bits. man to bits. when i saw vesely, i was fascinated. -- when i saw a

wrestling, i was fascinated. that was my guilty pleasure. my wife does not understand it, my children don't understand it, my friends don't understand it. when i came to this country, i wanted to go to a live wrestling show. i had a friend that lived in boston and they said that this is all fake. this is choreographed. i said what do you mean? nobody could jump from so high and smash his body against another man it is choreographed. i was worried that nobody was really killed right there in the ring. my cousin took me to boston that when theyw hit you in the face, it was actually synchronized. i think it is great action still. brian: the name of your book is never look an american in the is what you were told

when you would come here. do you still think that? okey: of course not, i'm looking you in the eye. dissipate --id i when did that dissipate? okey: very quickly. many of my friends blessed me and sent me my way. i got all kinds of advice and was told not to marry a white woman. i said is there anything wrong with white women? she said, i just -- no, i just want somebody who will understand our language. then an uncle said don't look americans in the eye because every american carries a gun and they will shoot you dead. it turns out later i found out that my uncle for this impression from watching cinema.

specifically question cinema where cowboys would gather together in a bar and a change a few words. we never understood what they were saying but they would stare each other down and start shooting. so my uncle want that impression -- formed that impression from that. ,s soon as i came here especially after the encounter with the police officer, i told people what happened. the fact that he did not make eye contact might have made him really suspicious of you. i said really? they said yes, you're supposed to look americans in the eye because otherwise you look shifty. so i began to look americans and the eye and nobody has shot me yet. brian: you have written two novels. okey: the first one is hours of rain. -- arrows of rain.

one was foreign gods incorporated. best? which you like okey: i like both of them for different reasons. brian: which was easier to write? okey: that comes up a lot. because itwas easier was a recollection of events that happened. obviously, in the process of a still stuffthere is that goes on. you have to decide which details are important. it was to play up and which to play -- which wants -- which ones to play up and which ones to play down.

was close to a memoir. the man was imprisoned after a war for coming to the united states and traveling elsewhere in the world. trying to persuade the government's not to sell weapons to the nigerian government. mainly because he was opposed to the war. the nigerian government imprison him for 24 months. brian: where does he live now? okey: he lives in nigeria. the joke that i shared with him was that he was 82 now. they travel constantly. speak, he is as we somewhere in the air, going to

australia, china, israel, or france. brian: we are out of time. this is a memoir and it is called never look in american in the eye. our guest is okey ndibe. thank you very much. okey: thank you very much for having me. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> q and a programs are also available as c-span podcast.