Category: Arts & Life

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim won the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2016 with his debut novel, ‘Season of Crimson Blossoms’. Two years later, he won the Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling. He was 2020 Dora Maar Fellow, 2018 Art Omi Fellow, 2018 Ochberg Fellow, winner, African Writer’s Residency Award 2016, 2015 Civitella Ranieri Fellow and 2013 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Fellow. In this interview with United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU, Ibrahim, who is currently a graduate student as well as teaching assistant at the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication, discusses issues in his just-released sophomore novel, ‘When We Were Fireflies’, about a man who suddenly realises he had earlier lived twice and was murdered because of love. Excerpts:

Can you recollect how you came about the idea for your new novel?

It was a process. It took some time to come together. But it clicked one day and the moment it did, I felt like someone held hostage by the story and had to work through all sorts of obstacles to power through and finish the novel. I suppose it started with musings over a sudden death for the sake of love, revolving around this figure, this character, who was murdered for love. And then it became an introspection into love And hate and the dynamics between them. Oddly enough, it occurred to me that the relationship between love and hate is often, not always, but often, like yin and yang. That the one exists, is perceived and defined in relation to the other. How would we know what love truly means and represents without a conception of what hate is? The seed of this novel was born out of this musing and quickly evolve into a story of love, hate, redemption and forgiveness. It became more.

Do you believe there are people who live between the margins?

We cannot discount the possibilities of marginal entities. The insufficiency of empirical evidence does not discount the multitude of inexplicable experiences and encounters that indicate the fiddling or meddling of these entities in human affairs. Not only in religious texts have these margins and their occupants been explored but also in the myths of people that predate encounters with these religious texts. In cultures that have not met or had contacts, like the Egyptians and the Aztecs, the Kwararrafa and Navajo, you find narratives that are often similar that feature some of these marginal characters. But what is of interest to me is what people and most especially my characters believe and how these beliefs influence the choices they make in the story.

What interesting interpretations of this work have you seen?

It is too early to say. The book has just come out and I think readers are forming and articulating their interpretations. It would be interesting to see these interpretations when they are fully articulated.

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Not necessarily. I am fascinated by the idea of it and what it means for the people who believe, or through a series of events, are made to believe it. I have read accounts of people whose stories lend credence to this discourse. Like Omm Sety and others, controversial as those others have been. What has always been important to me is how our cultures, especially here in Nigeria, have grappled with the concept, of how newborns are given the names of deceased relatives because they are thought of as returning souls of deceased loved ones. For me as a writer, this is a fertile field of imagination to be explored and that is what I did in this story.

There is a very profound statement about children dying in adults’ war. Do you wish for a world without this happening?

Don’t we all? It is always painful that children are often the victims of wars and conflicts they know nothing about. It is a haunting reality for me and I wish that something could change. My greatest desire is for an end to all wars and violence. In the absence of that, it would be less horrifying if children are not made victims of them. So I imagined another life for these children, sort of repurposed their deaths and gave it a new meaning, a new relevance, one that makes them consequential figures in the mysterious circle of life.

How long did it take to work on this idea?

Not too long to be honest. I believe I had this wrapped up in under a year. From the moment the first spark went off in my head, I felt like someone possessed or driven by some urgency to complete this story as quickly as I could. So I wrote obsessively for a few months and had the first draft down while working full time. It was a spiritual experience. But it was both exciting and apprehensive. I was relieved to finish. It was as if I was holding my breath for a whole year until it was done.

Can you remember when you wrote the first lines?

Not exactly. I think this might be in the second half of 2019. I don’t recall with certainty. I believe it was not long before the pandemic. I was fortunate to have some time at a residency in France where I did a lot of writing before the pandemic interrupted that reverie. That was very helpful. I completed the first draft during the lockdown back in Nigeria. So in a way, this was a book about trying to make sense of the chaos of life completed in a moment of global chaos and the pervasive fear of death.

I see this novel as a work of magical realism in the mold of the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ben Okri. Do you also see it this way or you see it differently?

I have always been fascinated by magic realism. Always. And everyone knows how much I adore Marquez’s works. I have also spoken of my affection for Okri’s Famished Road. Is this novel in their mould? That would be for the readers to decide. I have always wanted my magical to be firmly rooted in realism because our literature cannot escape from its commentary on the reality of our lives. At the same time, it must not ignore the reality of the fantastical beliefs that shape how a significant number of our population think.

Your stories have strong female characters. Aziza is particularly one who stands with her conviction. Are you a feminist?

I am a man who appreciates people, men and women alike. If that makes me a feminist, then I guess I am. My opinion is that such labels can be limiting in terms of boxing people into pigeonholes. The thing with writing women for me is that they are humans with the same motivations as every other human they are just different in the ways they go about it. This is because a combination of biology, society and culture have conditioned their actions and reactions but none of that takes away from their essential motivations, which are universal and generally common to all humans. I find it amusing each time I am asked how I write women so well, or how I have strong female characters and I wonder why I am not asked how I write men too so well or how the men in my novels are also strong characters. One thing I am very conscious of is that there is no perfect woman as there is no perfect man. For me, it is not black or white because they are all grey in varying gradients. Aziza’s motivation is a desire to keep her daughter and as we know, women tend to have strong maternal instincts and would often do anything, go to war or walk through a storm for their children. That was her motivation and I think it is a valid motivation for any woman as it would be for any, reasonable father as well.

Will you say writing has been good to you or would you have preferred something more profitable?

Haha. Writing makes me happy and it has taken me places. It has also given me a lot. I am grateful for the joy and fulfilment I have found in writing.

Bridge International Academies has stressed importance of reading books, saying it is a vital link between learning and culture

The educational provider spoke as part of preparations to mark this year’s Word Book Day.

It said the World Book Day on  Sunday presents opportunity to shine  light on ways books enrich lives.

Ezinne Tochie-Asogwa, Academics manager, said books connect pupils with opportunities and knowledge.

“It is clear reading connects us with endless knowledge, but what is less obvious is how books create links to culture and identity through stories.

Asogwa said at Bridge, Yoruba, the indigenous language of Southwest and central Nigeria, is taught weekly in 46 schools in Lagos and Osun.

These lessons, the Bridge official said,  are designed by experts and delivered using suitable learning resources to aid pupils’ assimilation and retention. Pupil-oriented activities as listening, speaking, reading and writing are incorporated into the lessons.

“By ensuring pupils at Bridge Schools have a connection to Yoruba, they can communicate valuable cultural values and norms transmitted across successive generations.

“The importance of indigenous languages is amplified in UNESCO’s   Global Action Plan of International Decade of Indigenous languages.

“It is through languages that people embed their worldview, memory and traditional knowledge, alongside their unique mode of thinking, meaning and expression, while –  even more significantly –  it is through language they construct their future.

“In tandem with teaching indigenous languages, ensuring learning materials are culturally relevant and representative is paramount. With this in mind, Bridge puts effort into developing and selecting books that achieve this goal. Every book in Bridge International Academies goes through a journey to get there. From working with governments to guaranteeing each child can engage with a textbook through inclusivity on a cultural, religious and language level.”

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UNESCO’s Director-General, Audrey Azoulay,  said:  “Indeed, books are vital vehicles to access, transmit and promote education, science, culture and information worldwide.

‘’Worryingly, for many children around the world, literacy is locked.”

World Bank report estimates nine  of 10 children, aged 10, in sub-Saharan Africa live in Learning Poverty

It described the figures as concerning considering that 90 per cent of children are missing out on benefits books offer, and the way they connect to culture and knowledge.

To close this gap, Bridge Nigeria said it is leading the mission to lower Learning Poverty by delivering data-driven pedagogy that ensures pupils make positive literacy gains.

 In a study led by Nobel Prize Laureate, Michael Kremer, the effects of Bridge methodology on literacy are clearly demonstrated.

 It  finds that  82 percent  of Grade 1 pupils in Bridge schools are able to read a sentence, compared to 27 per cent  of children in other schools.

Bridge International Academies added: ” We are  committed to supporting pupils who previously have been left behind in literacy, by prioritising equity in education these children can be pulled out of Learning Poverty.

” This World Book Day we must acknowledge the potential books have to inspire, connect with culture, and open the door to a world of knowledge – but more importantly, we must use this opportunity to drive the need for investment in literacy transformation.”

Title: Cocaine Hoppers

Author: Jude Roys Oboh

Publisher: Lexington Books,London.

Pages : 359

Year of Publication: 2021

Reviewer: Denja Abdullahi

THE book Cocaine Hoppers by Jude Roys Oboh, can be summarily described as a most authoritative work in recent times that clinically x-rays the Nigerian international Cocaine Trafficking business with a combination of a scholarly emperical approach alongside an embedded street-wise reportorial style. Before now, or before encountering the book, the much many of us know about the menace of cocaine and other kinds of drug trafficking is the unceasing news of arrests of Nigerian drug couriers at airports at home and abroad by anti-drug law enforcement agencies; the sentencing and execution of drug traffickers at home and abroad by the criminal justice systems of countries and the successful raids by anti-drug law enforcement agents on drug laden warehouses or marijuana farms and the arrests of some minions and barons. We are living witnesses to the menace of drug abuse in our society as it affects the youthful population and fuels all kinds of associated crimes. Surrounding all these peripheral knowledge of the phenomena of drug trafficking in our society, is the unverified and yet unproven generalized perception of the involvement of the high and mighty of our society in drug trafficking, which the author referred to as the “myth of elite involvement” (25).           

              What the author has done in Cocaine Hoppers is to transform two decades of field research in Nigeria and across all renowned centers where Nigerians are involved in the illicit drug trade , distilled  that into the requirements of  an academic inquiry , to give us an insightful book that lay bare the intricacies, modus operandi, the practitioners, the sociology, the politics and the economics of the Nigerian international cocaine trafficking industry.  The book as stated by the author, broadly seeks to provide answers to the following questions: 1.         What is the role of Nigeria and Nigerians in the international cocaine trade? 2.          What are the mechanisms behind the success of Nigerians in the global cocaine trade? 3.         What is the involvement of Nigerians in its primary cocaine export country (Brazil) and in destination countries globally, including the United States, United Kingdom, Indonesia, and China and how can this involvement be explained ? (6).

Copious answers were provided in the book to the above research questions and many more derived from the author’s interviews of over 250 persons involved directly at the various points of the illicit drug trade, observations of persons involved in the trade at the environment where they transact their businesses and the scouring of secondary data, institutional reports, media publications and academic theories in the fields of criminology, sociology and economics that seeks to explain the motivation behind crimes (274).           

         Cocaine Hoppers is divided into nine chapters which is  prefaced  with an introduction in which the authors stressed the methodology he adopted which is very strong in the  generation of primary data by interviewing directly the people involved in the illicit drug trade and observing “participants in the criminogenic environment ” (7). The emphasis on the methodology behind the research into the intricacies of the illicit drug trade in the introduction is germane for the validation and believability of the findings and conclusions at the end. The Nigerian International Cocaine trafficking industry is a world in which only the punitive anti-drug law enforcement agencies are supposed to go close to either as interceptors or undercover agents but in Cocaine Hoppers, we encounter a researcher gaining the confidence of traffickers, drug users, couriers, barons, incarcerated persons and everyone in the line of that business to conduct extensive interviews and sometimes peripherally observe them at work. The methodology reveals a daring-do on the part of the researcher and the possibility of an objective appraisal of the underbelly of the drug trafficking world with a view to humanely ameliorating its adverse effects on the society.

         Chapter one of Cocaine Hoppers dwells on “the emergence of cocaine in Nigeria,” tracing the primal source of the illicit trade in drugs such as “cannabis, cocaine, opiates ,amphetamine-type stimulants and new psychoactive substances”(17) to the precolonial period of slavery and later colonialism of Africa by world powers.

This chapter also foregrounds the emergence of Nigeria as a “transit-transaction country” and highlights the successes and innate contradictions in the Nigeria’s war on drugs by primarily the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the misalignment between the war on drugs and the criminal justice system. This chapter contains a novel or rather controversial postulation which is further pursued in the book on the need to decriminalize and regulate some hard drugs like cannabis and redirects the war on drugs to a rehabilitative and regulatory approach which is fast becoming the imminent reality globally.

         In Chapter Two which deals with ‘’“ State Crisis” ‘ and Fostering Cocaine Culture”, the author explains how the failure of the state signposted by endemic poverty, limited educational opportunities, pervasive unemployment and underemployment, loose border control, reverse social capital, lack of economic diversification, social injustice and inequality, failure of the criminal justice system, widespread elite corruption and sundry ills are causative factors to the involvement in the illicit drug trade by Nigerians. This submission is hinged on the many sociological and criminologist theories on the conditions that breed crimes of which drug trafficking is just one.