Letters from Yola IV

Books for Social Transformation

Dear Fellow,

“My friend is about to release his memoir.”

“I have a friend who is about to release a memoir.”

Both of the statements above are ways I have introduced Lengdung Tungchamma to every conversation that requires a mention of him. This has been the case since the first week of March: “Good Fellow, my friend is set to release his memoir. I can't keep calm!”

You must be curious about the responses I’ve received for my friend’s introduction. Bear in mind that everyone I’ve told about Lengdung in Yola knows I am here for my NYSC year. And that tells them I am below 30, the age limit for enrollment in NYSC. (The possibility of a false age doesn’t count here. Folks say I look younger than 25, even. And, indeed, I am not 30.) Therefore, my introduction of Lengdung is often met with one response: “How is that even possible?” Some of them can be kind enough to say more: “How is that even possible? How can your friend write a memoir at this age?”

I will respond to this question later in this despatch. For now, let me tell you about my Lengdung, his memoir, and my placeholder for him in Yola. Stay with me, good Fellow.

Motion: A Jenta Story is the memoir that Lengdung is set to release at the end of this month, God willing. Our age difference—Lengdung’s and mine—is a toddler's category. The memoir’s subtitle, “A Jenta Story,” communicates the book’s angle. Anyone who’s heard about Jenta or been there before 2018 will agree to this Nathanaelian assessment: “Can anything good come from Jenta?”

Elsewhere, I wrote:

“Born into a slum community that is Jenta in Jos North, Plateau State, Nigeria, Lengdung is one out of a few others who did not drown in the flood of misdirection, misguidance—and even stereotype. Jenta was popularly known in Jos as a thriving place for drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and for just about any youthful vice. Imagine the possibility of raising a child in such a community who is untainted by its vices. You don't want to be a parent in such a situation. But Jenta today remains home to Lengdung and to some of the most influential people in his life.”

I suppose you now see why the Nathanaelian assessment of Jenta makes sense. A valid and reasonable assessment to make, but there is now a conclusive answer to that matter. The book Motion is that answer.

Motion is the story of a community told by an individual—Jenta’s story. In this book, you’ll see how divine intervention saved Lengdung from the vices that plagued the place he calls home. You’ll see how he and his friends accepted responsibility to #ChangeTheNarrative of Jenta. You'll see how he and his friends sailed through the past eight years of labour in making Jenta what it is today. Jenta presently hosts a community learning centre that transforms individuals from within and outside of Jenta.

Motion: A Jenta Story is the story of a community told by an individual—Jenta’s story.

Sir Efada Udoh, tending to Karatu Library Foundation, Yola, is my placeholder in Yola for Lengdung and his neighbours tending to Jenta Reads Community Library. Founded in 2007, Sir Efada Udoh teamed up with Ma'am Martha Speirs, the pioneer university librarian of the American University of Nigeria (AUN), to found Karatu Library Foundation (KLF, henceforth).

Sir Udoh didn’t go beyond secondary school, he didn't have the opportunity to. Yet, in addition to co-founding KLF, he is the author of a book. His book, Adamawa Historical Book of Fame, is a compendium of biographies, a compendium of 100 short biographies of 100 pioneers and eminent daughters and sons of Adamawa State. Businesses, roads, and places in Adamawa State are named after some people listed in Sir Udoh’s Adamawa Book of Fame. For example, his book gives you more insights into the lives of the Lamidos of Adamawa State that are listed on a banner at the entrance of Ibrahim Babangida Library at Modibbo Adama University (MAU). Some of us only worry that Sir Udoh's book has not gotten the attention and care it deserves from the people of Adamawa State, especially their government.

The most striking similarity between Lengdung and Sir Udoh is that they are voracious and eclectic bookworms. I desire to see the day I get to sit with the two of them and have a conversation, while I ask questions.

Now to the question I left hanging:

First, for someone below 30 to write a memoir is not an anomaly. A simple Google search will show you that there are several memoirs by authors in the same age group across the world. However, the author who comes to mind to make my case for Motion is Anne Frank (1929–1945). “She gained fame posthumously and became one of the most-discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, which documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944.”¹ Died at 16, she couldn’t have waited until 30 to keep a diary that is now a primary source for research into the Holocaust (1933–1945) and the Second World War (1939–1945).

Second, Lengdung once said that when a Nigerian organisation survives more than three years in Nigeria, it deserves a celebration. Motion could be regarded as a celebration of the two three-year cycles of survival (and counting) of the Jenta Reads Community Library, co-founded in 2017 by him and his neighbours in Jenta. Plus, the entire revenue from sales of the memoir will be put into the parent initiative of the community library (learning) centre: Jenta Reads Community Initiative. While it lasts, wherever in the world, you should preorder a copy already:

Each one of us is living a story. We live to be talked about, not write it, or we write our stories. That our lifetime is a story is what matters. May your story be a light and a wonder, I pray for you, good Fellow.

Till I write to you again, may you never lose your wonder!

Your LetterMan,

Tongjal, W. N.

1. “Anne Frank.” 2025. Wikipedia. Last modified 5th April 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank.