Title: It Could Have Happened to Anybody
Author: Ben Ezumah
Reviewer: Denja Abdullahi
MAZI Ben Ezumah’s literary excellence for years predates this new offering being reviewed here as it will be made manifest soon in the course of this short piece. All the same, this short story published in a multilingual creative writing book/journal , #14 Novum, Volume 5 , 2023, in Germany and contributed to by 33 authors from different nationalities, bespoke the literary adroitness of the author. The short story was published when the author was on his second sojourn for a Master’s degree in education at the University of Huddersfield in England(2023), after having bagged the first at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA(2015); and of course the foundation B.A. in English at the University of Jos in 1990.
The short story of 10 published pages entitled “ It Could Have Happened to Anybody” tells the story of Oko , a fisherman from a fictional Mkpa village, of which the author’s cosmological description situates as a character that can be from any part of Eastern Nigeria coursed through by a river. Oko, a character garbed with so much psychological depth that belie the literary form it inhabits, is in the story propelled by existential concerns of a large family of 15 persons waiting to be fed daily, to continually fish “in troubled waters” as it is said.
The detailed description of the Ntu river of the Mkpa village where Oko regularly plies his trade, the natural environment, the mythical ascription about the malevolent forces surrounding the river that has seen to the death of many in “boat mishaps or swimming,” forebode that it is a story that may not end well for the major character. Hear this: “ Mkpa folklore is replete with stories of strange sightings and paranormal activities around the Ntu river; mermaids, imps, hobgoblins, anomalous fiendish critters, ghosts, and eerie fish-like creatures, all ostensibly activated by certain enraged evil spirits, frenetically dance on the bank of the river every market day, only to skip back into their watery abode once humans approach them.” (217).
The antidote to the possible machinations of these malevolent spirits ,in order to allow for humans like Oko to ply their trades connected to the river, is to make propitiations and sacrifices , which the community do with animals of various kinds; but the river keeps claiming its victims all the same. Oko, a determined man with huge family responsibilities within a world in which “to grovel and stoop and sprawl for bread before a fellow man…. is to die a certain painful death;” cannot but damn any foreboding danger or omen to continue fishing in the river. The alternative to that is unfathomable.
And so Oko, rises as usual some minutes after midnight to make his way to the Ntu river to check his nets, egg on by whirling thoughts of mouths to feed, fees to pay and overdue indebtedness to the town’s union. Even a portentous omen such as his stubbing his toe against a tree stump that leads to its bleeding does not deter him from his fishing expedition, after all, he is a skilled fisherman of about two decades ,very knowledgeable about aquatic creatures and their weird dispositions. Oko paddles his canoe into the river, checks his nets and it happens that one has inadvertently entrapped a monstrous crocodile of about twenty five feet in length. Even in his epic battle with the crocodile that eventually cost him his left leg, Oko inner thoughts go thus: “ As he battles the monster while keeping himself afloat, he also thinks of how he’ll use the proceeds from it to take care of his immediate needs. The skin alone would yield a fortune at the local tannery shop while the meat could be sold to restaurants in the neighbouring town.
The Thought of the gains to be made from the haul energises him to no end and he keeps pulling with all his might.”(223). At the end , Oko with his near-death experience of hauling a huge fighting crocodile in his net to the bank of the river , lost his left leg, became an amputee and a folk hero to the appreciative villagers,holding court in his compound, feasting the villagers with palm wine and crocodile meats. The villagers in turn give Oko numerous presents , with the union resolving to take care of his children’s education, forgive his debts and continue to support his family, as what happened to him could have happened to anyone.
A reading of the short story by anyone will reveal that it is coming from the stable of a master storyteller steeped in the African traditional ways of storytelling. The story itself evokes the aura of the world of the African folktales where family heroes go to great lengths to provide for their families in the most honest ways they can in spite of impossible and extenuating circumstances. Even the description of Oko’s seeming tug of war with the crocodile in the net as he drags it to the shore reminds the reader of the ubiquitous African folktale tortoise’s contrived tug of war between two huge animals who pull from opposite ends without really identifying who they are tugging with until they become extremely exhausted and passed out.
The communal approbation and support to the folk hero , Oko, who meets with misfortune as he braved to feed his family can be said to be the stuff of folktales if placed against the mindless individualism and apathy towards the welfare of the less privileged ones or those who have met with misfortunes in our society of today. The short story itself, placed against the existential problems of an average man in Nigeria of today and the world over working to fend for himself and family is relatable and contemporary. Oko may be a fisherman living in a bucolic and superstition- ridden African village but his fate, as vividly painted in lean and highly descriptive prose, is not different from the average public servant, artisan or peasant farmer in an urban area of modern Nigeria: honest fending for a family of whatever number can lead to unexpected daunting occurrences that may not be reversible
The short story is a well told one with the right suspense, though linear in narrative structure but with the psychological introspections into the central character adding to the creation of a well-rounded character. The sociological and cosmological description of the world inhabited by the characters and events in the story foreground the richness and diversity of the narrative world of the story. The story in its telling seems to have no superfluous word or one put there for the purpose of mere embellishment. Each word moves the story along its course and adds something to making the world of the story believable and enthralling. Reading the story as a whole gives a feel that it is an excisable part of a whole somewhere or an excerpt from an extensive piece.
This leads us to our secondary concern in this review. The writer, Mazi Ben Ezumah, is someone who is known to me personally and to most of us who schooled with him at the University of Jos in the last years of the 1980s, as an intensely creative person and a literary gadfly whose writings were highly regarded way back then. He led us then in the students’ Writers’ Forum and once edited the famous “Weaverbird Magazine”, the literary journal of the then Department of English, University of Jos. As I have stated in another write-up about him, we together learned creative writing and literary criticism under legendary teachers in an intellectually fervent atmosphere that he captures so well in an essay entitled “ Denja: My Co-Traveller” in the festschrift on me “Of Foot-Soldiers and Hybrid Visions…” (2020: 653-657). He said the following about me in that piece which I will forever cherish: “Denja is at peace in the garret, as he is in the palace.
He can cavort with the peasant, as he would effortlessly dine with prince or king….He is always conference ready….As a team player, he believes in creating the necessary synergy across multidisciplinary divides so as to allow fresh ideas to thrive…. Denja is peace-loving and has no space for animosity or grudge. He is always far above the fray of pettiness and rancour that in the end renders worthwhile relationships ineffectual and unprofitable”(657).We have indeed been co-travellers since our undergraduate days. After graduation, we kept in touch by exchanging long literary letters written in the fashion of “ From the table of Lord Gordon Bryon to his friend and colleague Alfred Lord Tennyson.” Those letters both ways are literary masterpieces in their own rights and are still nestling in my archives. Of course, the world happened to both of us, we trod different paths, but remained united in our continued love for the arts , letters and enlightenment. He has read nearly all what I have written, sometimes doing a review of my writings and being there whenever I put up a public show of presenting my books and other such outings. He has been a friend who will do more than just being there by assisting also with the economic sides to friendship. Together, we have substantially mentored in ideas, experience and in finance young students from our alma mater over the years.
My Co- Traveller,Mazi Ben Ezumah, has done monumental works in the non-fictive area such as the trilogy he co-wrote on “Perspectives on Aro History and Civilization” Vol.1-3. I was on hand as the book reviewer at the presentation of his play “The Wedding Bell That Never Rang “ to the public in Abuja on the 13th of June, 2013. In my review which I titled “The Artist in Search of the Ideal” and which was published in several newspapers, I wrote thus on the play: “A reading of the play whets your appetite for a performance that is bound to call back the mind to the re-appraisal of the role, place and the survival instincts of an artist in today’s society. It is also an un-nerving exploration of how idealism or the lack of it and the supernatural still affect the affairs of men and women.”
Beyond this published play, I am unaware of any other published creative text of Mazi Ben Ezumah, though I have read many astounding poems of his since our school days right to the point when the instantaneous publishing pathways of the social media came on board and still thrive. I have watched his drama skits right from the Unijos days and read a full length published play as observed above but me and others may have been denied gems from this reticent master storyteller because many of what he has written are still in his closet. I am aware he has tomes of completed manuscripts; he showed me some dog-eared, brittle papered ones recently.
The literary fame( permit me to call it that with all sense of modesty) some of us had hugged could have been his too; the difference is just that we put ourselves out there while he held back, maybe subjecting himself to undue self-criticism or waiting for the right time to come. Some of our colleagues from way back then who knew him to be even a great writer then that nudged some of us to take to writing, at a point were asking around “ where the hell is Ben Ezumah,is he no longer writing?” Mazi Ben Ezumah, the ancient literary mask , it is you I am calling with this Oja flute ! This dance at the literary square will not be complete without you taking your own nimble and thunderous steps.
