( CNN ) -- Chinua Achebe died , aged 82 , almost exactly 23 years to the day a car accident in Nigeria left him paralyzed from the waist down . I wonder what Achebe scholars might make of that . I wonder , too , what Achebe himself might have made of that , in his final moments . I 'm trying to imagine what went through his mind in those moments . Would he have pondered , for one last time , on the inauspicious beginnings of his bestselling novel , `` Things Fall Apart ? '' ( He once said that Heinemann , the publishers of the debut edition `` printed very , very few . It was a risk ... It went out of print very quickly . '' ) Would he have mused on the fact that `` Things Fall Apart '' never appeared in Igbo , the Nigerian language that fed its style , and rhythms , and that its characters spoke ? Would his mind have been crowded by violent images from Nigeria 's civil war of 1967 to 1970 , in which he lost friends , his library , and any illusions he may have had about the unity and inherent goodness of Nigeria ? Or by violent images from the 1990 accident ? Would he have preferred to die in Nigeria , instead of America ? Would he have chuckled at the thought of the Nigerian government unleashing a torrent of tributes -- the same government that suggested in 2004 ( under another president , it must be said ) , in response to his criticism of it , that he did n't deserve the country ? Would he have tried to imagine how his life might have played out had Biafra and the accident not happened ? We will never know . Watch Achebe interview : Africa 's man of letters . The war has been written about extensively -- Achebe 's final book was a much-awaited memoir of the war . The accident , on the other hand , is the tragedy that is not much talked about -- perhaps because Nigeria is an accident-factory . The title of Nigerian author Ben Okri 's 1991 Booker-winning novel `` The Famished Road '' comes from a Wole Soyinka poem , `` Death in the Dawn , '' a 1967 lament for the victim of an accident on a Nigerian road : `` May you never walkÂ / when theÂ road waits , Â famished . '' Achebe 's accident happened in Awka , in southeastern Nigeria , not very far from his birthplace . Nigeria 's hospitals could not take care of him , and soon after he had to be moved to a hospital in England , where he was told he would never be able to walk again . In the eight years before the war Achebe published four novels , but after the war it took him 17 years to publish another . After the accident he never walked again . And never had the chance to live in Nigeria again . And never again published a novel . `` I have found that I work best when I am at home in Nigeria , '' he told the Paris Review in a 1994 interview . When the magazine asked if he missed Nigeria , he said : `` Yes , very much . '' But coming back was not an option : `` One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed . If I decide to go back now , there will be so many problems -- where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require ? '' More Achebe : Father of African literature . That anger -- triggered by the Biafra civil war , and crystallized by his accident , and the continued failings of Nigeria 's successive governments to bring real change to the country -- defined his relationship with Nigeria . Things were always falling apart between the writer and his country . In 2004 , the government chose to offer him a national honor . Not surprisingly , Achebe rejected it . In response the Government described his decision as `` regrettable . '' Seven years later , the government -- this time under a new president -- tried again . Again , Achebe said no , arguing that `` the reasons for rejecting the offer when it was first made have not been addressed let alone solved . It is inappropriate to offer it again to me . '' And yet again the government described his action as `` regrettable '' and hoped he would `` find time to visit home soon and see the progress being made by the Jonathan Administration for himself . '' That same government will now arrogate to itself the position of `` Mourner-in-chief . '' Someone ought to let them know that the biggest tribute they can pay to Achebe would be to create the kind of Nigeria he would have been proud to receive a national honor from . And for Nigerians everywhere , the biggest tribute we can pay to Achebe would be to get more familiar with his oeuvre ; read his writing with the passion with which we revere his person . Read also : Achebe was a talent and moralist . I must confess I came to his work rather late . Chimamanda Adichie has spoken eloquently of reading Achebe at 10 , and having her life transformed from that moment . I came to Achebe much later -- I did n't encounter `` Things Fall Apart '' until I was in my mid-20s . I love his essays and short stories the most -- essays full of wisdom and wit , and without the urge to impress with scholarly intelligence ; stories marked by an expertly wielded lightness of touch , and the most compelling characters you will ever meet . And it occurs to me that the novel I 'd most love to write would be a 21st-century update of Achebe 's final novel , `` Anthills of the Savannah '' ( 1987 ) . I got an opportunity to see Achebe in person in November 2010 , when he went to speak at Cambridge University , England . It was an opportunity to see for myself the sort of reverence Achebe inspired . `` I think all you need to tell the stories that I have told is to live the life that I have lived and keep your eyes and senses open and working , '' he once said . But that was the humble , self-deprecating Achebe , the man who insisted he never taught creative writing because , `` well , I do n't know how it 's done . '' What he did took more than just open eyes . It took vision , a certain way of seeing the world . He was a genius , laden with -- to borrow from his own description of Adichie -- `` the gift of ancient storytellers . '' May his soul rest in peace . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Tolu Ogunlesi .
Chinua Achebe was a genius , laden with 'the gift of ancient storytellers , ' writes Tolu Ogunlesi . Achebe twice rejected awards from the Nigerian government . Anger triggered by civil war , government failures , defined his relationship with Nigeria , says Ogunlesi . He died in exile in England at age 50. We should 'read his writing with the passion with which we revere his person '