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Category: Korede Yishau

  • Thoughts on Nigeria Prize for Literature’s list

    Thoughts on Nigeria Prize for Literature’s list

    This year’s the Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist showcases a diverse range of narratives. In some of them, ghosts and otherworldly figures are characters. 

     Two of the eleven authors on the list are past winners. Chika Unigwe won the prize in 2012 and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim won it in 2016.

    Of the eleven books, I have read nine and had a taste of the other two, Ayo Oyeku’s ‘Petrichor’ and Nikki May’s ‘This Motherless Land’.

    Ungwe is nominated for ‘The Middle Daughter’, which follows Nani, Ugo, Ephraim, the ancestor, Udodi, and others in this modern retelling of the Greek mythology of Hades and Persephone. Fresh off two tragedies, Ephraim becomes the shoulder Nani leans on. She tells him things she can’t tell Mother or Ugo. She looks forward to seeing him, talking to him and receiving the small, small gifts he has cultivated the habit of bringing. Ugo notices their closeness and starts calling him her boyfriend.

    Ugo and Mother eventually leave for America and Ephraim becomes Nani’s husband and father of her children, and she is estranged from Ugo and Mother. Ephraim becomes a disappointment but Nani is stuck with him and her centre is unable to hold.

    The author shows that humans are complex and dwell in moral ambiguity, and principle is the first casualty when our interests are at risk.

    Ibrahim is on the list for his sophomore novel, ‘When We Were Fireflies’. Like his first novel, this new one, has an opening that can compete as one of the best ever written: “The first time Yarima Lalo saw a train trundling into the Idu Station on a hot June day in Abuja was also the first time it occurred to him that once, many years before, he had been murdered in the carriage of an old locomotive with well-worn, seaweed-green seats.”

    The author brilliantly reimagines the fantastical beliefs that shape the thinking of millions of us. And his use of real events, such as the Kafanchan riots, the capture and killing of Boko Haram founder and several others, roots his magical rendition in realism and teases believability and will set you thinking, make you ask questions, question what you know and imagine new possibilities.

    Another major force on the list is two-time Booker Prize finalist Chigozie Obioma with his war-time novel, ‘The Road To The Country’.

    The novel tells the story of two men battling guilt which leads them to take decisions with far-reaching consequences.

    Obioma adds a second layer that takes away the ordinariness with his clever choice of letting the story of one character unfold through the other’s ‘mirror’ (opon Ifa), which at first appears blurry but eventually becomes clear and meaningful.

    Aside the divination touch, there is also something extraordinary about how the vision is presented. There is a sub-layer about the city of the dead, which gives the author a cosmic take on the war and the afterlife.

    In a precise and elegant voice, Obioma makes his characters sing and we dance along with them in this tale of brotherhood, grief, guilt, love, friendship and redemption.

    I have also read Yewande Omotoso’s entry on the list. It is her third novel, ‘An Unusual Grief’, which follows Mojisola, a mother who arrives Johannesburg from Cape Town, in search of a better understanding of her dead daughter Yinka who left home after catching her professor father pants down with his young assistant.

    On the surface, ‘An Unusual Grief’ is about a mother and her dead daughter, but it is much more. Omotoso’s prose is simple but certainly not simplistic. She appears to deploy words with empathy, perhaps because of the subject matter of grief.

    With his sixth novel, ‘Leave My Bones in Saskatoon’, Michael Afenfia grabs a slot on the list. The novel starts on Owoicho Adakole’s happiest day, which also turns out to be his saddest. Earlier, he got the green light to move with his family to Saskatoon city in Saskatchewan Province in Canada after two years of tedious paperwork, but then his wife and three of their children were killed by armed bandits in Benue State. The only survivor is their 15-year-old daughter, Ochanya, who was in Abuja for a school event.

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    ‘Leave My Bones in Saskatoon’ also hints at the downside of migrating as an adult, the loneliness most immigrants wrestle with, the cultural and culinary differences, the extreme temperatures, and the absence of familiar community. Even with steady jobs and a working system, they are constantly nostalgic about home. Owoicho misses home but the uncertainty about the state of things in Nigeria convinces him that his decision to ‘japa’ was one of the best things he ever did.

    One of the debut novels on the list is ‘Fine Dreams’ by US-based Linda N. Masi. The novel is narrated in parts by the ghost of a girl named Kubra  whose restless spirit lingers in her town. In her own voice, she recounts the haunting story of how she died. We watch her silently observe her grieving mother, who struggles to accept the cruel finality of her daughter’s fate.

    The book lays bare the manifold evils of terrorism, exposing its brutal disregard for humanity. We see terrorists masquerading as soldiers, perverting the honour of military service into a mask for brutality. We witness suicide bombers, mostly young women turned into weapons, their lives reduced to political statements. We see the abduction and impregnation of underage girls, their bodies seen not as sacred but as spoils of war, used to breed the next generation of fighters or to humiliate entire communities.

    I have also had the honour of reading Oyin Olugbile’s debut novel, Sanya, which took a well-deserved slot on the list.

    It is about a woman named Sanya, the one who defies death and serves as the protector of her elder brother, Dada.

    In this tale steeped in myth, culture, tradition, fantasy and more, Olugbile takes us on an adventure, a roller-coaster on the lives of the couple’s children, but with a special slot for Sanya, the special one, the warrior. 

    Sanya is just different. Almost everything that interests a girl makes her uncomfortable. She hates menstrual cycles. She despises the idea of marriage. And she hates the wrapper. She likes almost everything the world claims belongs to men.

    This gem of a book will take you on a path only few mortals have trod and you will see, hear and feel things beyond this world and your soul will hum tunes of joy for being led to such a path. 

    I have also read Chioma Okereke’s ‘Water Baby’, which uses Makoko, a Lagos slum to tell a very important story and in a beautiful way. Like ‘Fine Dreams’, there is also a ghost in ‘Water Baby’, but not as a narrator, but as the sibling of the narrator who goes on to conquer the world despite her humble beginning.

    My final take: The judges of the Nigeria Prize for Literature must have gone through hell coming up with a list of 11 from over 250 entries received. As an avid reader and reviewer of Nigerian literature, I know that scores of fantastic books have been written in the last four years. At the end of the day, a winner will emerge, but all on the list are winners in a way and they deserve to rejoice no matter what eventually happens when one of them is chosen in October.

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    The judges of the Nigeria Prize for Literature must have gone through hell coming up with a list of 11 from over 250 entries received. At the end of the day, a winner will emerge, but all on the list are winners in a way and they deserve to rejoice no matter what eventually happens when one of them is chosen in October

  • A stubborn past

    A stubborn past

    The Nigerian-Biafran war is in our past; it is also in our present. We ran from it; we flee from it, but we are stuck in it. Months after it, several novels and non-fictional books were published on it. Decades after, books are still being published on it and it doesn’t look like it is going to stop any time soon.

    Aside the novels written a few years after the war ended, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie returned us to this subject decades later with ‘Half Of A Yellow Sun’, which years after was adapted into a movie of the same title by Biyi Bandele, now an ancestor.

    Sam Omatseye’s ‘My Name Is Okoro’ came out later, x-raying the war from a minority’s perspective. It didn’t take too long after Omatseye’s that Uwem Akpan came out with ‘New York My Village’, another minority take on the war. While Omatseye’s novel uses a Delta minority angle, Akpan takes his perspective from the people of the old Cross River State, who are yet to forget the ‘saboteur’ treatment they received from Biafran soldiers.

    Akpan tells his tales with brutal honesty, and shows that the sufferings of the minorities were because Biafra and Nigeria were after crude oil on their soil. He also draws attention to how the war continues to shape the lives of the children of the victims of the war. He examines their trauma, their festering wound, and many more. 

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    Omatseye’s minority perspective to the Biafran story begins with blood, dust, sweat and all the violent imagery they often conjure. And there is the promise of a saucy story, whose end could be complicated. There are also hints of pain and death. With these images, he lures the reader into the world of Okoro. This Okoro is not Igbo. He is Urhobo. The novel’s tone is protestant in nature. Instances abound in it of efforts to properly situate the feelings of the minorities of the south. At a point in the story, Okoro asks: “Why do the newspapers keep writing about Igbo pogrom when they killed everyone who was southerner except the Yorubas?”

    In Omatseye’s novel, a woman from the South has come to the North in search of her son. She is married to an Ukwani man and narrowly escapes being wasted because she has Yoruba tribal marks.

    “Ukwanis are not Igbos,” she says. “The animals are killing everyone… Ukwanis can understand Igbo language but they can distinguish who is speaking Ukwani and who is speaking Igbo. The Igbos know who is speaking Ukwani as distinct from who is speaking Igbo.”

    Okoro, at a point, wondered: “But is it not worse when the language is not even close but seems to sound the same but is not Yoruba or Hausa? For instance, the Anang and Ibibio.”

    Now, we have a new novel on the war. It takes a different angle to examine this past that refuses to stay in the past. Written by two-time Booker Prize finalist Chigozie Obioma, ‘The Road To The Country’ employs Ifa (divination) as a mirror to tell difficult truths.

    The novel follows two men battling guilt, with their guilt making them take decisions with far-reaching implications. One of the men is a seer, Igbala Oludamisi who sees the death of his wife coming but is unable to stop it. After his wife’s death, Igbala feels guilty for her death.

    His quest to have a sense of his wife’s fate in the afterlife leads him into a ritual which allows him to see the life of the second man in the loop, Kunle Aromire, unfold right from when his mother is about to be delivered of him in 1947. Igbala also follows Kunle’s relationship with his younger brother, Tunde, and how he blames himself for the misfortune that befalls Tunde. He follows him as he plunges into Eastern Nigeria in the heat of the Biafra War from 1967 to 1970.

    Kunle, a 19-year-old undergraduate of the University of Lagos, is convinced that the best way to assuage the guilt wracking him is to go after his brother who has gone to the East. With the help of the Red Cross, he gets into Biafra and he finds out that the road to the country and the roads within the country are littered with un-envisaged things. Before he knows it, he finds himself reciting: “I pledge to Biafra, my country,” “to fight as part of the Biafran Armed Forces with all my strength” and “knowing that the cost of desertion will be with my life.” 

    Igbala’s mirror is riveted on Kunle as he forges a friendship with a female soldier, Agnes. Igbala doesn’t lose sight of Kunle as he falls in love with his female colleague and discovers that even in a time of war, love and friendship can birth redemption.

    The book brings back the history we try to run away from: the bloody chaos of 1953 in Kano, which saw southerners (Igbos in particular) being killed and their properties destroyed, a gang of largely Igbo officers killing top politicians in the country in 1966, the reprisal in which Northerners ambushed and killed all Igbos they found, the murder of Head of State Aguiyi Ironsi and the civil war of thousands of atrocities that the crises birthed. We see how tribalism is a challenge we face as a people, we see how lying becomes a defence mechanism in times of trouble, we see how the rain has beaten us as a people and if juxtaposed with what still happens in our country now, we see that we’ve learnt little to nothing from our yesterday.

    Obioma brings to life the ugly nature of war, but despite the heaviness of the topic, his soothing language pours balm on the wounds being inflicted.

    My final take: In every way possible, we must ensure peace, not peace of the graveyard but genuine peace built on equality, justice and sense of belonging. The alternative is war and war is something we shouldn’t wish even our enemies because the scars never fully heal.

  • Dear men of God

    Dear men of God

    On this bright day, esteemed fathers of faith, I’m reaching out from Houston, a city in Texas that I once mistakenly believed to be its capital until I learnt that Austin holds that title. This message carries weight—it’s not just any letter. It stems from a deep realisation, a painful one, that certain businesses affiliated with churches share a concerning similarity with government entities, something we’ve vocally criticised for years: wages that barely suffice for employees’ needs.

    I write not to belittle you or ridicule you but to say the truth and let the devil be ashamed as you always tell us sermon after sermon. It is out of love; it is because I believe the Church should show the way. I get disappointed when I see things that are below par within the body of Christ. Nothing more nothing less.

    Sirs, let me get to the story behind this letter, a story that will drive home my point, a story that many have experienced but have chosen to keep to themselves because they feel speaking out means touching the anointed.

    This is the story: A good friend of mine called me excitedly recently after a very rigorous recruitment exercise with the publication unit of one of Nigeria’s biggest churches. He had done written and oral tests and was chosen among a multitude, all professionals and members of the church. After he and another person were chosen, they were made to undergo medical examinations. While this long process was on, there was no hint about salaries and other emoluments. Since the church said it wanted professionals, my friend looked forward to a truly living wage.

    When I received his call, I didn’t share in this excitement, because a protegee and her hubby who work in businesses owned by another of the nation’s biggest Pentecostal church earn next to nothing. My protegee’s mother-in-law was so angry with the pay of her son one day that she wondered aloud why the church was spreading poverty. I don’t blame her. How can a grown man with a child still be living with his parents? He was being paid pittance despite his degrees, his second degree was even earned in the United Kingdom and his parents paid through their nose.

    The two of them are very brilliant. The wife nearly finished as the best in her set in a private university where her father paid handsomely. She also has a post-graduate qualification. These feats should reflect in what employers pay them, especially faith-based businesses whose leaders pray for people to thrive.

    Back to my friend’s tale: Curiosity, dear fathers of faith, made my friend ask a longstanding employee in the unit what the salary structure was and he was told not to expect much. In his previous job, he earned over half a million Naira monthly. When the much-expected offer letter came, the annual package was equivalent to what he earned monthly in his previous job. This miserable amount was a little over N50,000 in a month.

    In the Nigeria of today, to fill up a car’s tank, depending on its size, costs between N30,000 and N50,000. If you live far from where you work, a full tank may not even go beyond one week.

    Sirs, I am writing to you because the church shouldn’t champion the spread of poverty. The church should show a good example. When church members volunteer, it is a different thing, but when faith-based businesses employ professionals such as editors, engineers, accountants and so on, they deserve to be well-paid. They shouldn’t be told they are “working for God”. They are offering their services as professionals; they aren’t volunteering. How will they be able to pay their children’s school fees? How will they pay their rent? How will they be able to buy and maintain their cars? How will they pay bills? How will they feed their family? How will they enjoy the basic necessities of life without becoming nuisances to people around them? How will they avoid wearing rags?

    I have wondered what their dire situation must have done to their dignity. I imagined the indignity of them relying on friends and family members for survival, and the shame they must have been subjected to. Perhaps someone had insulted them before because of their constant requests for assistance.

    Civil servants, who have a history of being poorly-paid, augment their pay with bribes, a situation which has seriously affected the quality of the service they offer. People who work with faith-based businesses can’t go this route, which is filled with pot-holes and man-holes. The best the church can do is pay them like the professionals they are. They should be paid like their colleagues in the private sector; the public sector is not a good model. It is a faulty model that is at the root of the challenges our country faces and will continue to face until labourers get their dues.

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    As I write this, fear is etched on my mind that my intention will be misconstrued, that my faith will be queried, that I’ll be told I ain’t discerning enough to understand matters of faith, and that I’ll be written off as a busybody. But, I stand by all I’ve said. A labourer deserves his or her wage. There should be dignity in labour, a virtue that is absent in many establishments in our country because employers act as though they are doing those who work for them favours. It is even a different ballgame in faith-based establishments because workers are seen as working for the mission. In a nutshell, they are doing God’s work and shouldn’t be concerned about earthly things like money. But, how will they settle their bills?

    My final take, sirs: You pray for us to do well at work. Doing well at work involves receiving good pay. But when faith-based businesses pay pittance to professionals, it is a negation of the prayer to prosper in life. The status quo can’t remain, shouldn’t remain.

    I wish you well, Sirs, and expect changes.

  • Of COVIK one nine

    Of COVIK one nine

    We knew we were living in a changing world. What we didn’t know was the possibility of a virus breaking out and keeping all of us indoor for months. Businesses were closed, schools were shut down, the roads were cordoned and the airspace was off limit for aircrafts. And major events were put on hold. The holy pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia excluded people from outside the Kingdom. No thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, whose pronunciation was unknown to the then President Muhammadu Buhari. In his first speech on the virus, he pronounced it as COVIK One Nine. His mistake is now the title of an anthology of poems and short stories on the pandemic.

    It is a Paperworth Books project edited by Ibiso Graham-Douglas, who also contributed a story. Other contributors to this collection of captivating narratives, with themes such as resilience, despair, and redemption, are Obari Gomba, Michael Afenfia, Chimeka Garricks, Olukorede S. Yishau, Dolapo Marinho, Shehu Zock-Sock and Michael W. Ndiomu.

    “The book takes you on a journey through the intricacies of life in the COVID era with a rich tapestry of short stories and poems. Eight esteemed and emerging storytellers spin narratives that traverse the landscapes of Nigeria and its diaspora, offering profound insights into the essence of our shared humanity,” said the editor.

    The anthology opens with award-winning poet, Obari Gomba with the poem, ‘Wuhan is still next door’. In the poem, Gomba reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic. He focuses on the early stages and the repercussions of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. He uses the metaphor of the pandemic as a snake that escapes from a digital platform (WeChat group), and highlights the rapid spread and uncontrollable nature of the virus. The snake imagery evokes fear and the idea of something slippery and elusive, mirroring the elusive nature of the virus and the challenges in containing it.

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    With the lines “You cannot keep a viral snake in a bag that has a hole/You cannot keep a problem in a room that has many exits”, the poet emphasises the futility of trying to contain something so pervasive and infectious. He closes the poem with a reminder that Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, is still “next door” to all of us. This shows how connected the global community is. Gomba has two other poems, ‘Oxford Fellowship in Limbo’, which is about how the pandemic puts his fellowship in limbo, and ‘We Shall Rise Again’ about the human race’s capacity to build back what the pandemic has taken from it.

    Marinho’s ‘Smoke and Ashes’ is about grieving, grieving in a time of pandemic. In normal times, people would have hugged, held hands and more. But, with faces hidden under masks, they also keep their hands and their hugs to themselves. We see the pandemic affecting funeral proceedings and church attendance and the popularity of virtual church. The resolution of the crisis in this story is exceptional. Really beautiful.

    My short story in the anthology, ‘The Good Doctor’, is about undocumented immigrants and how COVID-19 worsens their already bad situation. It depicts the hell people with emergency cases must have gone through during the peak of the pandemic. The story follows a man who relocates to Houston because his business collapsed in Nigeria. He is still learning to find his feet when the pandemic strikes and threatens to take him out.

    Graham-Douglas’ ‘God Abeg’ is about butt enlargement gone wrong in a time of pandemic. It follows a lady whose parents are fond of, but is always taking the wrong routes, with the BBL being the height of it. The pandemic forces her to go under the knife in Nigeria instead of her original plan of doing it in Turkey. Things go wrong and all manners of pains become her best friends. Her woes are compounded when her sister, the one always looking out for her, falls under the COVID-19 jackboot, forcing her to go on her knees to say “God abeg”.

    Afenfia’s story, told in pidgin English, is called ‘Aproko’. As the title shows, it is about eavesdropping, but in a time of pandemic and the secrets that get heard are huge. Set in Canada, it also shows marital challenges, which become exacerbated during the pandemic. The mood at the funeral, where the eavesdropping takes place, also allows the narrator to think about the ravaging pandemic and its unprecedented damages, including how the lockdown keeps him at home and brings things between him and his wife to a breaking point. 

    Zock-Sock’s ‘Heavy’ is a suspense-fueled tale that examines some aspects of life that the pandemic put on hold, such as its effects on long distance relationships. Lovers in such situation are unable to travel to see each other, thus reducing conversations to video calls and voice calls. Hiding under life issues such as paternity fraud, murder and guilt, it unwraps the side effects of the pandemic. 

    Garricks’ ‘Original of the Species’ begins in a prison, when a lawyer visits a lady accused of murder. Set during the pandemic, the story is about restitution and is built around the ‘outside’ daughter of a big man whose manfriend is found dead in a Port Harcourt hotel room. It shows how frustrating Nigeria’s criminal justice system is.  

    Ndiomu’s ‘Captured Moments’ introduces us to a couple. At the time we meet them, the pandemic lockdown is about to start and the husband is on his way to Abuja in search of a contract. Several weeks after the lockdown lapses, the man refuses to return home, giving one excuse after the other until providence reveals a shocking secret.

    My Final take: Ours is a world where nearly anything is possible. The fact that we never saw the pandemic coming is a testament to this. Yes, we have found a way to get our grooves back but the lesson of it all must not be lost and it is that we need to always prepare for emergencies.

  • Finding a good thing

    Finding a good thing

    Ladi, about 30, returns from the United Kingdom with first and second degrees in his belt. The world seems to be his oyster and though he has not gotten his dream job, he feels that a wife will complete him. After all, the Bible says “he who finds a wife finds a good thing”. He meets a dashing beauty you just have to allow me call Sarah. They start dating, a Christian dating devoid of sex. They go from one counselling session to the other. Pastors feed them with words of God, verses upon verses about how to make the best of their married life and other tips considered vital to running a good home. Ladi’s parents feel that the two of them are not ready for marriage, given their son’s financial handicap, but they give in and will use this as a weapon later when issues start arising.

    The wedding ceremony comes and goes and they start a home. Weeks turn into months and months into years and they are having a blast enjoying all the sex they avoided while dating. However, the financial status of the two of them is a snag. Ladi earns next to nothing in his place of work and Sarah’s hustle brings cash in trickles. The turning point is when Sarah becomes pregnant and, in his husband’s wisdom, she will be better taken care of by his mother so he ships her to the home where he grew up. She does not like the idea but she reluctantly agrees because she wants her baby badly, especially because of her initial bad experience. All is going on well until she has her baby and her in-laws’ attitudes assume a frightening mien. One of the key areas of disagreement is that she wants to move out of their house after the baby’s birth, a decision vehemently rejected. Then there is also Ladi’s reluctance to continue a sexual relationship with his wife. His reason: His financial status does not support having a second child. So, for years, his young wife embraces celibacy because he is unwilling to go beyond occasional kisses and fondling. Sex thus becomes something needed only for procreation.

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    Let’s leave Ladi and Sarah and get into the story of a couple I have chosen to address as Abraham and Nkechi. They have been married for over a decade. The marriage is blessed with four kids, three girls and a boy, the last girl was conceived during the Coronavirus-induced lockdown. From time to time, Nkechi catches Abraham with one girl or the other, but for the sake of her home, she keeps quiet about it. The best she does is to explain to her sister-in-law and also quarrels with her husband.

    These two marriages show different challenges people face in their homes. If the challenge is not about the husband having a girlfriend, it is the in-laws interfering and, if it is not that, not having enough sex is the problem.

    I know of another couple. Let us just call them Bolanle and Omoniyi. They have been married for close to two decades and they have two kids. They used to have three until they lost one after an illness that saw her being admitted to a government-owned hospital. For all of the years they have been married, Omoniyi does not feel bad about being irresponsible. Paying school fees, house rent and other bills in the house is not his priority. His ready excuse is that he has no money and most times he disappears from home. Recently, he cultivates the habit of sneaking home to change his clothes when the wife and the kids are out. When they call him, he gives excuses that do not make sense. Now his kids face the danger of either not completing secondary school or ending their educational pursuit after that. Their mother ekes a living from selling retail products and barely manages to make ends meet. She owes rent for her shop and anytime her landlord calls; she avoids the call and thereafter lapses into a sad mood. She is on the verge of moving out of Lagos to a town in Ogun State, where she hopes her bills on rent and others will drastically reduce.

    Like Ladi and Sarah, Bolanle and Omoniyi have financial constraints. In the case of the former, in-laws’ interference has worsened the challenge and the wife is at the receiving end of their verbal attacks, which has become an every other day affair while, for the latter, the husband carries the crown of leaving the wife in a sad mood. As expected, their sex life has also suffered. Unlike Sarah and Ladi, Bolanle is the one denying her husband sex because she feels there is no sense in an irresponsible man ‘pummeling’ her. Sarah, like a normal woman, wants and desires sex, but Ladi hangs on his financial handicap to avoid giving her right and, when she complains, she is vilified, not only by Ladi, but also his mother, who relishes telling her that for years too she did not have sex because her husband was outside the country on an assignment.

    Let us get one thing straight: Sex is important. Let me say it again: sex is important. And let me add: No woman should be painted bad because she likes sex with her husband. To deny a woman sex deliberately for years is evil, and to now act as though she is a sex freak is immoral. It is a different ball game if the husband is incapacitated. But to use the excuse of not wanting to raise another child yet to dodge sex with one’s wife for years turns logic on the head. What happens to family planning? If the wife cannot use pills or any other method, the husband can use a condom or the withdrawal method or time the sex to periods when she is safe. Avoiding sex totally because you do not have money to raise another child is a no-no. To add salt to injury, you will kiss her deeply and do other romantic stuff but refuse to penetrate when her hormones are already on fire. Somebody should please explain this to me. I cannot fathom it. At all.

    My final take: The marriage institution is a school. In this school, some learn soothing lessons; some learn bitter lessons; some others learn semi-bitter lessons. Many learn from these and adjust appropriately and live happily ever after and sadly, the lessons are lost on many and their homes crash. Hardly any marriage is perfect, but from what I have found out, love’s role in sustaining a marriage is infinitesimal because in the face of unmet financial needs, love withers and dies. A man who is incapable of meeting the financial needs of his home quickly finds out that the love between him and his wife is powerless in keeping them together. In-laws’ interference is another factor that anyone desirous of keeping a home should check, be it from the man’s or the woman’s side. Genesis 2:24 screams: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” That is what it should be. So in-laws should let couples be.

  • America in six books

    America in six books

    America is a behemoth. This monstrous creature has fifty arms and each with its own peculiarities. The country is heaven, the country is hell, depending on which side it decides to show to you or which side you choose to face.

    America, an amalgam of components capable of being countries on their own, is a nation that has tickled the fancy of African writers in the Diaspora and they have captured it in different lights.

    The brilliant writer, Sefi Atta, is one of those who have captured this giant of a nation. In Atta’s ‘The Bad Immigrant’, the America that emerges is a bully, a country that values conformity over merit, a country where an immigrant’s academic prowess is no guarantee of success, a self-appointed defender of the universe, a nation always looking for trouble overseas, a nation which runs away from race issues yet confronts it every day, a nation united and divided in equal measures and a nation that will always have to watch its back because of the enemies it has created for itself.

    Set in New York, New Jersey and Middlesex, it follows the Ahmed-Karims and America. Through the eyes of Lukmon, the narrator, we glean race relations between blacks and whites, between Africans and African- Americans. Racism, we see, is a reality, which many an American still deny but denial or not, it leaves the country divided.

    We get so much insight into American lives, including how the people, at times, give so much personal information to strangers. We also see their ignorance, not just about things outside their shores but also about things within their shores. The craze for Ivy League degrees as pathways to success is also x-rayed.

    The book brings to mind a number of major events in America’s history such as Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and The Pentagon, the 2008 recession, the emergence of Barack Obama as the first black president, the killing of Amadou Diallo and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s  2009 Christmas Day underwear bomb attempt.

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    America was home to Bisi Adjapon, the author of ‘Teller of Secret, before she decided to return to Accra. While her ‘Teller of Secrets’ is set in Africa, her latest, ‘Daughter In Exile’, takes on America and the America that we see is one that doesn’t reveal its complete picture to the rest of the world. The novel strips the artifice off America, with Lola,  the protagonist, wondering: “Why didn’t Americans tell the truth about how hard life was in America?”

    The novel lays New York bare. Without the razzmatazz of Manhattan, we see its challenge with homeless people. Seeing someone sleeping in a bathroom is one of the shocks the protagonist has in New York.

    We also see how growing up in Africa and America are poles apart. In Africa, children are taught that only prostitutes and bush people chew gum noisily. In America, there is nothing to it. We see racism and we see what is undoubtedly black-on-black prejudice; or how best do we describe a family with Haitian roots rejecting an African?

    We are also treated to the role of the Church in the life of immigrants. The author subtly examines faith, the belief in the existence of God, and sundry matters.

    The ignorance of many an American about Africa, how they assume the worst of the continent, how they wonder how we’re able to speak English, how they assume Africa is a country, and such ridiculous notions also get some space.

    The novel shows that Africans, at a certain point, will realise that no matter how long they have lived in America, they will always be Ghanaian, Nigerian, or wherever they’re from.

    Like Atta, America is still home to Chika Unigwe. In her ‘The Middle Daughter’, she shows us that America is not ‘all sheen and glamour’. When Mother and Ugo move to Atlanta, Ugo discovers that her vision of the United States is vastly different. She sees a city and a country that are as flawed and imperfect. We also see a bus station in Atlanta that smells like a public urinal and makes Ugo feel like she is in a wrong country. The book also shows us there are beggars in America who beg for leftovers from McDonald’s lunch. Also, we learn that the land of the free is not free from the homeless, cold callers, thieves and racism. Through the book, we learn that Atlanta gets so hot they call it Hotlanta and that it is home to so many Nigerians that one can easily forget it is in America. “It’s just like living in Nigeria, only with no power cut.”

    Akpan Uwem, who also lives in America, used his debut novel, ‘New York My Village’, to make us see a ‘funny’ side of New York, one of America’s most important cities. We see the glittering Manhattan and the author didn’t forget to show us that bedbugs are enemies this famous city has been unable to conquer. The narrator, Ekong, takes us to Times Square and Starbucks. We see racial prejudices and the racial politics of publishing and how racism is often masked with progressive rhetorics. One of the prejudices which we come across in this book is the claim that an African is not  conversant enough about American culture to edit American stories yet Americans edit African fiction.

    In her 2013 novel, ‘Americanah’, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie took on racism and other issues in America. Ifemelu, who moves to the United States to study, struggles for the first time with racism and the several varieties of racial distinctions. In America, Ifemelu discovers what it means to be culturally black. Using Ifemelu’s blog, “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black”, Adichie reaches for the underbelly of race issues in America. The book shows that though America is a symbol of hope and economic mobility, it is also a symbol of disappointment and the American Dream is a lie to many who dare to dream.

    Unlike the other books, another America-based Nigerian author, Akwaeke Emezi downplays New York, the city that perhaps holds the ace as a setting for most American-centric novels. Emezi’s ‘You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty’ manages to dwarf sociology and focuses on the characters and their actions and inaction. The great city stays in the background for the characters to shine in all their glories and horrors. Even the beautiful Caribbean Island that is also a setting stays on the periphery. What shines all through are the characters and the plot. 

    My final take: America is good. It is, however, not heaven. It has its own challenges, many of which (like homeless people and shoplifters) it has learnt to manage because stopping them altogether hasn’t been possible. It has also been unable to answer the race question convincingly.

    Tomorrow is not promised

    From time immemorial, the rich have been unable to stop death with bags of cash. The poor’s parlous state has never been able to buy them more time from death. When it is time, it is time and the Grim Reaper will claim its own. Today is all we’ve got. In fact, this moment is what we’ve got. The next moment can be pregnant with death.

    Let’s make the best of today, of this moment. Tomorrow is not promised. Farewell to all 2024 has so far taken from us. Till we meet to part no more.

  • Not always greener 

    Not always greener 

    My major takeaway from Uwem Akpan’s first book, ’Say You’Re One of Them’, is that it is not always greener on the other side. 

    The story that drives this home is titled ‘Fattening for Gabon’, one of the novellas. In it, we meet Fofo, Yewa and the narrator, Kotchikpa. Yewa and the narrator are siblings. Fofo is their guardian. He became their guardian when sickness turned their parents into imbeciles and are left to the mercy of their grandparents. To give them a better chance at life, they were released to Fofo, who moved them to the border town he calls home. 

    Fortune suddenly smiles on Fofo and, by extension, Yewa and Kotchikpa, though they still live in a ghetto.

    Their guardian begins to acquire assets whose sources aren’t clear, assets said to come from the kids’ godparents. These godparents are unknown to the kids. They get to eat better food, wear better clothing and life looks beautiful and the future looks brighter than they have ever imagined since Fofo became their saviour. And they begin to envisage living in luxury and far away from the madding crowd in the ghetto. Fofo doesn’t help matter as he daily feeds them with tales of what lies ahead and they begin to pray tomorrow will come today. 

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    Paradise seems to have been moved to mother earth but from time to time the author drops hints that scream what you see is not what you always get.

    The suspense created with this technique keeps the story moving and moving and, in time, it becomes clear that it is not always greener on the other side. The choice of a child as the narrator helps to keep the kids ignorant of the weapons fashioned against them, which can be easily spotted by an adult.

    With time, certain things begin to happen that make them feel something is awkward, things like their guardian being ruffled up, like their guardian buying a cutlass and hiding it under his bed, like their guardian having a dagger with him when they go to church and more. The subsequent confession nails it all and fills the blank spots of the Gabon puzzle. The escape plot thereafter provides room for an exhilarating climax bound to keep a reader’s heart racing along with the rest of the tale. 

    The second novella, ‘Luxurious Hearses’, opens on a note of crisis and we see Jubril, a Muslim boy from the north disguising as a Christian fleeing south. This character, in a way, brings to mind Jangedi, a man whose finger was chopped off in Zamfara for stealing. In the story, Jubril suffers a similar fate and yet stands by his faith and defends his punishment. 

    Through the narration, we see the challenges facing Nigeria such as poor electricity supply, insecurity and fuel shortage. The backstory highlights challenges in the Niger Delta such as oil spills, respiratory diseases, rashes and more. 

    We see that the sentiment of those on the bus heading south is anti-Islam because of their experiences in the hands of fanatics, a situation that puts Jubril on the edge. His father being from a village in Delta means nothing in the face of the sentiment not just against northerners, but against Muslims. He was raised a northerner and a Muslim by his mother, who is both a northerner and a Muslim. 

    From the backstory we understand why Jubril is running to the south and chances are that whatever pity a reader might have had for him will evaporate like a gas in a leaking cylinder.

    We see how religion can set us against one another. Even blood ties mean nothing to fanatics. With this story, the author dissects religions and their complexities and how they often turn our lives upside down instead of making us better. 

    This storyteller looks at friendship from scary lens and makes us see the thin line between love and hatred and leaves us wondering how white can suddenly turn gray. He shows how people can capitalise on a crisis to settle personal scores and dress them in the garb of collective interests. It is also a study of dual identity and its pros and cons. We see the politics of being a northerner or southerner in Nigeria. We see the politics of oil and the claims of both northerners and southerners to the oil deposits.

    In Jubril’s case, he is both a southerner and a northerner because of his parents’ roots, but he is really not fully accepted by either. So, he finds himself in the middle, the middle of nowhere, no matter how he tries to fit in. It is a story whose climax says he who lives by the sword dies by the sword. 

    The first of the short stories, ‘An Ex-mas Feast’, shows us what lack can do to a family; how it can rob a father of his place, how it can make siblings and parents tolerate immoral acts from one another, and how life on the street is nasty and brutish! We meet Maisha, a twelve-year-old girl forced into prostitution through which she supports her poverty-stricken family, her ten-year-old sister, Naema, her eight-year-old brother, who is the narrator, and other members of the ghetto-dwelling clan. We see how Naema supports the family through the proceeds of selling her body to men old enough to be her father, men who see nothing wrong in sleeping with a child and men whose moral compass has lost focus. We see so many disgusting things, things that break the heart, repulsive things. 

    The short story titled ‘What Language Is That?’ is a clever examination of the evil the human race has wreaked through religion. It is largely about two young girls, one a Muslim and the other a Christian. They are best friends until a crisis in their land makes their relationship forbidden. Their parents struggle to explain why, suddenly, their sweet relationship has to end. The explanations make no sense. In the midst of the sudden hatred, these best friends find a new language to keep the flame of their affection for each other burning. 

    The author also rejigs our memories. Aside from the Biafran-Nigerian war, another crisis that will not be forgotten for a long time is the genocide in Rwanda. Though the country seems to be moving on, the scars remain. The author lays this bare in the short story titled ‘My Parents’ Bedroom’, about a couple and their children thrown into a battle not of their making and how they navigate this tortuous journey. This story raises posers: How can a child forget that his father is made to kill his mother because of tribalism? How can a child forget that his uncle led the men who abused her physically and emotionally? How is it possible to forget bodies falling from a ceiling where men and women are forced to hide from death? This story also let us in on the fact that Rwanda is not just Hutu and Tutsi or moderate Hutu and moderate Tutsi. 

    My final take: We need to rid our world of child trafficking, tribalism, and religious intolerance. We also need to end bad governance and man’s inhumanity to man. 

  • A book after my heart 

    A book after my heart 

    It started way, way back. Our ancestors laid the foundation and built a multi-storey structure on it. We inherited it from them. And even with our education and exposure, many of us are reinforcing patriarchy, the multi-storey structure our father’s father’s father bequeathed to us.

    As a result of this legacy, the man, we say, is supreme, his words are law. And the woman, and by extension the girl-child, we are conditioned to believe shouldn’t aim for the stars and, when she does, we find reasons to rubbish her achievements.

    The society puts lots of barriers in front of the female. For folks already bogged down by peculiar challenges such as menstrual cycle, period pain, hormonal differences and a truckload of others, the society adds unnatural ones that compel her to double her efforts to get what a man will get with less stress.

    Women are shamed for a myriad things: being single, not getting married early, not having a child, not wanting a man, divorce, child’s mistakes and excesses, having female children, not knowing how to cook, being assertive, and being career-driven, among others.

    The forces against ‘womanity’ are the themes Ololade Ajayi tackle in this collection of well-penned poems,

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    RHEAVOLUTION OF THE BODY: THE FEMINIST’S MANIFESTO!

    “We wear stereotypes about our cause with pride now that we have discovered we cannot please oppressors even with submission,” she croons.

    She rails against non-consensual intimacy, domestic violence, mutilation that ‘subdues’ urge, the hurt of the past that silenced mothers into “for bitter for worse” and those who say a woman’s place is in the kitchen.

    Ajayi’s poems show that for the female, happiness is not a given, because, like power, it has to be grabbed, grabbed from the oppressors. 

    In ‘Nigerhean’, the poet tells us about her country, which is Eden on earth and citizens enjoy so much and education is of utmost importance. Certainly, the poet is using her imaginary country to point out the things she wants corrected in Nigeria such as education, health and infrastructures.

    In ‘Barter By Ransom’, the poet takes on the government for its inability to rein in terrorists. She reminds us of Leah Shuaibu and other victims of terrorism.

    “The day sojourning was criminalized in our land

    We had no prior notice until we turned, 

    From Law abiding citizens to war abducted victims.

    “We boarded government trains only to end up as statistics of terrorism:

    3 more freed from the remaining 43!

    “The more we cried, the more you ignored.  

    It’s not your fault that you have been desensitized to horror

    “After all, the President’s cycle is well known

    Express shock, call a security meeting, issue threats, till the next blood flow.  Rinse, repeat.

    “Leah Shuaibu’s plea didn’t penetrate the wall of his thickened ear from her abductor’s camp, How then can ours? 

    “We could have called on God for rescue, 

    but then these destiny holders also claimed they were God’s employees,” the poet croons.

    The collection reminds me of the immense benefits the world stands to gain if gender equality is promoted. The Assistant to the United States President and Director of the White House Gender Policy Council, Jennifer Klein, shed light on this when she said studies have shown that closing gender gaps in the workforce could add between 12 and 28 trillion dollars in global GDP over a decade. She added that expanding access for women to markets and finance fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, with estimates suggesting that gender parity in entrepreneurship could add between 5 to 6 trillion dollars in net value to the global economy.  

    “Yet despite the clear benefits of women’s economic participation, too often, social, legal, and financial barriers remain. We know that on the average, women spend more than twice the amount of time than men do performing unpaid care work, and that the annual value of this work is approximately $11 trillion globally. We also recognise that 2.4 billion working-age women still face legal obstacles to their full economic participation, and that dismantling these systemic barriers is necessary to unlock economic gains. And we also know that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate effect on women’s employment, with devastating effects on families, communities, and economies,” she lamented.

    Ololade has written a beautiful set of poems, which seeks justice, justice against domestic violence, justice against women-shaming, justice against gender discrimination and justice against every weapon fashioned against women.

    My final take: Women are very important. They aren’t perfect because no one is, but they are jewels and their values (apologies to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo) are inestimable. 

  • Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo is my Minister of the Year

    Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo is my Minister of the Year

    I will always remember something Festus Adeniyi Keyamo, now Minister of Aviation, told me in the early 2000s while he was running his law firm on the premises where Maryland Mall now stands. Keyamo told me he was hungry for history to record him. He has come a long way between then and now. 

    The actions of Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, President Bola Tinubu’s Minister of Interior, show him as someone ready for history to record him. He is thus my Minister of the Year and I am excited because he is of my generation. He is the gold fish with no hiding place. 

    Since taking office, he has taken steps to ease the chaotic passport acquisition process. He is also doing many more that will make the passport acquisition process seamless. 

    I look forward to the day when we would be able to get our new passports sent to us by courier or NIPOST or EMS Speedpost. They should either be posted through our letterboxes or handed to us if we’re home. In the alternative, a card can be left for us, or a letter can be posted to us about how we can get it. And we should be able to track our passport application using our application reference number. With what the Minister has done so far, I believe he has the capacity to do much more. 

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    We need to get to a stage where Nigerians abroad do not have to travel far to get their passport renewed. American citizens and British citizens have their passports mailed to them anywhere they are in the world, and they don’t have to go through the hell Nigerians overseas go through to renew their passports. I see the Minister achieving this. 

    The Minister is also taking steps to make our correctional centres truly correctional. I was glad the Ministry settled the fines for some detainees as a way of decongesting the prisons. This is really commendable. Overcrowding has to end. Years of infrastructure deficit, which is the bane of proper management of the sector, should be urgently addressed. The old order must give way fast. And given what Tunji-Ojo has demonstrated so far, I believe he can do it.

    I look forward to him taking more giant steps in 2024. He is the kind of people we need in government. 

  • The Bad Immigrant

    The Bad Immigrant

    Telling a little lie here and there to be part of the American dream, to some japa candidates, is a task that must be done. In Sefi Atta’s most recent novel, ‘The Bad Immigrant’, there is an author, Osaro, who was in the academia back in Nigeria. He has a memoir which is taking him to places within and outside the United States for book reading and signing. The memoir is well-received. But when a colleague of his, Lukmon, who just moves with his wife and two children to the US after winning a visa lottery, reads the memoir, he is unable to recognise the person his colleague’s book is about. The details of political persecution and maltreatment in the memoir read like fiction, almost no part of it fits what he knows about Osaro. It is simply meant to arouse pity and confers on him the right to live in America as a political assylee, a situation which makes him avoid the Nigerian community capable of picking holes in his book.

    Osaro’s story is just a subplot in Atta’s new book. The main plot is about the man who discovers Osaro’s fraud, Lukmon, and his wife Moriam, and their children, Taslim and Bashira.

    The Ahmed-Karims’ movement to America is made possible by winning a visa lottery before the American government kicked Nigeria out of the list of eligible nations.

    The novel begins in 1999 shortly after AbdulSalami Abubakar handed power over to Olusegun Obasanjo, and ends well after 2011.

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    As soon as the Ahmed-Karims settle in America, their lives begin to change. Lukmon is forced to take a job as a security officer in a store where shoplifters reign. Moriam studies to qualify to practise nursing and midwifery and their kids start to Americanise. The kids start acquiring American accent. They start speaking “gonna” and “wanna”. They start referring to their parents as “you guys”. They start so many things that are not in tune with the culture back home. Of all of them, Lukmon, who sees himself as “bad immigrant” because he is “not the kind who aspired to be honorary whites,” sticks to his old (Nigerian) ways. The changes breed crises and how the family navigates one crisis after the other is a major plot driving technique. We are treated to a dysfunctional family in which the father and mother argue a lot, and the children are being changed by their new realities.

    After Moriam starts working as a nurse, Lukmon is persuaded to become the househusband, a role strange to his Yoruba heritage. With time, he intensifies efforts to get a job as a Lecturer and when he first gets a temporary job and later a permanent one in Middlesex, tens of miles from their New Jersey base, the family has to confront the challenges of running without a father figure. He returns during a vacation and feels he doesn’t know his family enough. He discovers new things about them and he worries.

    Set in New York, New Jersey and Middlesex, The Bad Immigrant follows the Ahmed-Karims and America, through the eyes of Lukmon. It also follows Nigeria throwing it blows and blows once in a while for corruption, economic inequities and tribalism. The United Kingdom also receives some mentions, especially because the narrator had his Master’s degree there.

    Through Lukmon’s unfiltered voice, we hear acerbic views of male-female relations, race relations, American lifestyles and his fellow Nigerian immigrants. We see race between blacks and whites, between Africans and African Americans. He entertains us with his journey to accept necessary changes.

    We get so much insights into American lives, including how the people, at times, give so much personal information to strangers. We also see their ignorance, about things within their shores and about things outside their shores. We also see how students have freedom to anonymously rate their teachers with opportunity for a response near non-existent.

    Racism, we see, is a reality, which many an American still denies. Denial or not, it leaves the country divided. The craze for Ivy League colleges as though they result in automatic success is also x-rayed.

    The book brings to mind a number of major events in America’s history such as the Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, the 2008 recession caused by Wall Street, the emergence of Barack Obama as first black president, the 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomb attempt, and the killing of Amadou Diallo.

    The novel equally spotlights parenting. The parents fret over the choices of their children, but the children stick to their stands and luckily, as time shows, the fretting could have been done without.

    The book is also about literature. We come across so many books, especially American and African books. Thanks to the narrator’s profession and the university setting in the latter part of the book. The literary and cultural allusions are a delight to read.

    The novel also examines the conditions that predispose Nigerians to leaving home for greener pasture abroad, even when they are aware of the challenges of assimilation in America and other developed nations. Moriam was a nurse in the military hospital in Lagos, where her colleagues were ever disappearing abroad for better opportunities and Lukmon, after a stint as a Lecturer in the state university, became a public relations manager in a bank and soon got bored with the routine of issuing press releases and statements. Both of them were barely getting by and also feared the quality of the education their kids would have amid dwindling cash in government coffers and the corruption that kept universities’ workers on regular strikes.

    In clever and compassionate prose laced with doses of wit, Atta tears apart the American dream. She hides under humorous lines to deliver honest blows about the elusive American dream.

    My final take: Atta’s exposition paints these pictures of America in my mind: A bully, a self-appointed defender of the universe, a nation which looks for troubles overseas, a nation which runs away from race issues yet confronts it every day. Also, America comes across as a nation united and divided in equal measures, and a nation that will always have to watch its back because of the many an enemy it has created for itself.