The Nation Newspaper

Category: Korede Yishau

  • The power we don’t use

    Every day we gnash our teeth. Every day we wish to play Andrew and check out. By ‘we’, I mean the youths. We are an angry generation. We feel the generations before us, especially the immediate past, have failed us.

    This feeling of frustration led rights activists such as Samson Itodo, the Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, to work assiduously for the actualisation of the Not Too Young To Run bill. His team worked with Tony Nwulu in the House of Representatives and AbdulAziz Nyako in the Senate to get sections 65, 106, 131, 177 of the Constitution altered. The alterations were meant to reduce the age of running for elective positions for House of Assembly and House of Representatives from 30 years to 25 years, Senate and Governorship from 35 years to 30 years and office of the President from 40 to 30.

    Itodo and his team made many an advocacy visit, including to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, between May 2016 and mid-2018 when President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the bill. The National Assembly, however, refused to reduce the age for governorship and National Assembly membership. That notwithstanding, not a few felt a milestone was recorded.

    Like young people who felt the need for the alterations in the Constitution for them to have a pride of place in the leadership chamber, women have also been complaining of low representation. A paper delivered by Nse Etim Akpan of the Department of Political Science, Federal University Wukari, Taraba State titled ‘Men without Women: An analysis of the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria’ shows that women are under-represented.

    Women, Akpan said, do not often receive the support and mentoring they need to compete with their male counterparts in politics. The researcher added that even voters do not fully appreciate the benefits of having a mix of men and women in government. The percentage of women’s participation in elective positions, Akpan found out, nose-dived from 2007 to 2011 and now 2015.

    My grouse about all of these is that women and youths and women have the figures to call the shot, if only they will unite. Statistics released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) supports this. The breakdown of the 84,004,084 registered voters shows that female voters constitute 47.14 per cent, which is 39,598,645 voters; male voters constitute 52.85 per cent, which is 44,405,439 voters. Youths between ages 18 and 35 constitute 51.11 per cent, which is 42,938,458 voters. Those between 36 and 50 constitute 29.97 per cent, which is 25,176,144. Those between 51 and 70 constitute 15.22 per cent, which amounted to 3,100,971 voters. The septuagenarians and above constitute 3.69 per cent, which is 3,100,971 voters.

    The youths, especially, are not using their power. Many rather become tools for the same generation they are complaining about to keep themselves out of power.

    In the current electioneering, young people have been helping politicians to use fake news as weapons against their opponents. So bad is the situation that Osinbajo and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka recently called for criminalisation of fake news. For Soyinka, fake news has the capacity to cause the Third World War.

    They spoke in Abuja yesterday at the BBC Conference, on Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News.

    Osinbajo at the conference on Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News painted a picture of the destructive power of fake news, which he said has the capacity to cause personal harm and lead to violence.

    “I have also been a victim,” Osinbajo said, adding: “Fake news may also cause you marital peace. About three weeks ago I got a call from my wife in the office and she said, Yemi what are you doing with strippers. There is this story on a very famous blog that said, ‘Osinbajo caught with strippers.’ And there was also a photograph of me standing in between the perfectly clothed ladies and under the photograph, the same ladies now not wearing much. It turned out that I have taken photograph with the ladies at an entertainment event when they were perfectly clothed.

    “The capacity of fake news to cause great arm is not in doubt at all. It has been the realisation that it may even mislead. I think it was Wilson Churchill who said a lie gets half way round the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. But why fake news is now news, is obviously because of the greater dimension of content of harm that it can do and then the scope.

    “A lot of these are as a result of the advancement in technology, especially in the past few decades or so. But I think as for the damage done to the credibility and integrity of public information, the capacity of fake news to cause alarm, fear and even violence has been demonstrated again and again.”

    Fake news is a danger to the general elections. Politicians are using fake news to gain advantage. And youths are the major culprits helping them to foul the political space. This is the season of lies. The airwaves, online, offline and so on are seeing the young telling barefaced lies and keeping a straight face. And even when they are caught, they will explain away everything as part of the game of politics. Everything is fair in war, they will say. No time but now is Femi Anikulapo-Kuti’s song ‘Truth don die o’ more relevant.

    Aside the lies, I am also pained that almost twenty-years after the return to democracy, we are yet to start crawling, not to talk of walking, and far away from running. Our politicians are just a little better than the military. In a lot of sense, many of the players on the political scene are yet to be cured of the military hang-over. A sizeable number of the key players even have garrison mentality. Ours is a democracy without democrats. Selfish interests are masqueraded as national interests. The good of one is sold as the good of all.

    Will the youths ever realise their power and use it to their own advantage? The answer seems to be blowing in the air. No thanks to violence. Politics in Nigeria is all about cash. The youths only have the number but not the cash! Numbers without cash amount to zero in our polity.

    My final take: Politicians know the youths have a collective power they lack the capacity to use. This is because millions of youths are under the jackboot of poverty and this makes them easy prey for all sorts of nefarious activities, including hooliganism. Electioneering periods such as these are when they recruit young men to do hatchet jobs and our society is the worse for it.

  • Adjapon’s portrait of Ghana, girl-child

    It reads like the experiences of a girl, Esi. That is only on the surface. Of Women and Frogs is deeper. BisiAdjapon just hid behind Esi to recall Ghana’s tortuous history. This book brims with so much information disguised as fiction. It shows an author who knows the importance of research, even in a fictional work.

    Adjapon tells a gripping tale. A girl, Esi, and her brother, Kwabena, find themselves in Ghana, their fatherland. They leave Nigeria to stay with their father, stepmother and stepsiblings. Adjusting to life with their new family is not easy. Even pronouncing the names of her four sisters is a daunting task for Esi, who soon gives the sisters monikers based on their attitudes towards her.

    She experiences so many unpleasant things. For example, she is exposed to elders in love with superstitious beliefs (Or is it lies?). Elderly people are fond of telling kids lies to get them to avoid certain actions. Esi is told by a friend, who is some years older, that she will turn to a boy if she allows a frog to jump on her. This lie instills fear in her for a long time until the day she seeks to become a boy after a terrifying experience. Of course, she never became a boy! This discovery has a lasting impression on her.

    Another unpleasant exposure for her young mind is about her father, the one she fondly calls Papa, who comes across to me as a man with low moral compass. What manner of a father sleeps with a concubine on a king-size bed on which his daughter is sleeping?  If he fails to show good example, his wife Auntie and other children do not fare better. At almost every given opportunity, they make Esi feel bad about herself. One even calls her ‘Nigerian animal’ because she has a Nigerian mother, who she finds out painfully was long dead while elders were lying to her.

    Her father, Edward, always sees a lady through her womanhood—her education counts less. He sees nothing wrong in Abena’s husband almost throwing her out of the window. All is well with Mansa’s husband pummeling her. To him, being a woman equals being the wrong one in any dispute with the man of the house.

    But Esi is a strong girl, brilliant and strong-willed. The young girl in Esi becomes fascinated by her own body, but her stepmother and sisters criminalise this and punish her. That, however, does not stop the fascination. Her stay in a boarding school gives her the freedom to discover her body. Her fascination reaches a crescendo when she visits her relatives in Nigeria and falls in love with Kayode. Their relationship eventually ends on a sad note, with Rudolph appearing to fill the vacuum.

    Her father and stepmother always drum it in her ears that the glory of a woman is in her husband. She is constantly reminded that equality when it comes to man and woman relationship is a mirage, and she must learn to live under a man’s shadow. In fact, she is made to feel men do not like educated women! In some other instances, her father makes her feel special, makes sure she gets into the best girls’ school and the University of Ghana—but reminds her what vacuum will be in her life without a man.

    She is deceived into what she assumes is an engagement to Rudolph who is planning to relocate to Hollywood. Her father pursues her from home, arguing that their traditional engagement is equivalent to marriage. She is heart-broken, but nonetheless heads for Ibadan to stay with her husband. In Ibadan, her eyes open to the fact that Rudolph is not willing to sacrifice his Hollywood dream to start a family. So, when she falls pregnant, she is made to undergo another abortion, a development which marks the beginning of the end of their union. She soon heads for Dakar for a one-year stay as part of her French and Spanish degree programme, where she is forced to declare: “I am the queen of my body.” What happens after then? You need to read this important addition to literature to find out.

    The themes Adjapon examines in this amazing work include feminism, deceit, heartbreak, domestic violence, deaths, failure of leadership, military dictatorship and abuse of power. And these, plus concise use of language, are the main strengths of this novel. The use of present tense mainly in the narration almost makes one forget that the events happened long ago. This, for me, is a plus. It brings some freshness.

    Adjapon deserves kudos for her use of language. You will laugh at how words that look ordinary have meanings far beyond the surface. Imagine a pupil asking a teacher to explain how a man can enter a woman! The confused teacher rambles and eventually gets angry. What does it mean to eat a woman? Language is indeed a plus for the novel.

    She paints imageries with words and uses them as planes to fly her readers from one point to the other. She blends words almost perfectly. She shows that with simple words you can tell a story, and perfectly too.

    I, however, see some readers or critics complaining about the unpretentious depiction of sex. There is a school of thought, which believes that African literature should shy away from graphic depiction of sex. A member of this school of thought moved unsuccessfully against the award of the NLNG Literature Prize to Chika Ungwe’sOn Black Sisters’ Street because of its depiction of sex.  He was to complain later when Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Season of Crimson Blossoms won the prize. I do not belong to this school. I also feel some will want to argue that Esi’s sexual baptism is premature, but I think they only need to think back and they may face the reality.

    Anchoring the Esi story around major political developments in Ghana and Nigeria is a major plus. It takes the novel to a serious realm. I believe it will be nostalgic for an average Ghanaian, especially. The country saw hell and came back. This is a fact that an average Nigerian who travels to Accra, the Ghanaian capital, and is amazed that things work better, should have at the back of his or her mind. It is not that there are no hawkers or beggars on the streets, but Ghana works the way Nigeria is still dreaming of.

    Adjapon gives us insights into the fire Ghana passed through before becoming the destination for many a Nigerian to have fun: The aliens’ expulsion, the coups, the counter coups and the coming of Flight Lieutenant J.J. Rawlings, the one called Junior Jesus. J.J. led a revolution, which saw many being killed on account of being allegedly corrupt. Soldiers took advantage of the revolution to wreak havocs on ordinary folks. But in the long run, Ghana rose above it all and is better for it. Aburi and its significance to Nigeria find a creative space in Adjapon’s narration; so is the Ghana-must-go saga, a retaliatory action for Ghana’s earlier aliens’ expulsion.

    My final tale: Like Ghana, Nigeria has also been to hell, but unlike Ghana, Nigeria is not back. We are still trying to find our way back. It is taking so long that many are wondering if the labours of our heroes past are not in vain.

  • Season of lies

    Until we are ready to follow the best democratic practices, we will just be deceiving ourselves. We will continue to lag behind in the comity of nations; we will continue to play second fiddle; and we will remain static while deceiving ourselves that we are on the march. Nothing more proves this than the circus going on all in the name of electioneering campaign.

    Welcome to the season of lies. This season really started months back; it is going to get worse now. The airwaves, online, offline and so on will see men and women—old and young—telling barefaced lies and keeping a straight face. And even when they are caught, they will explain away everything as part of the game of politics. Everything is fair in war, they will say.

    Men will shed crocodile tears on national television claiming it is because of the love for the people. Ghosts will be exhumed. Green will become black. White will turn brown. And conscience will no longer be an open wound, which only truth, according to Othman Dan Fodio, can heal. No time but now is Femi Anikulapo-Kuti’s song ‘Truth don die o’ more relevant.

    President Muhammadu Buhari and ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s men are out with the daggers. Wounds are being inflicted. The way these guys are going about the General Election gives the impression that what matters is winning the people over. How it is done is secondary.

    Truth is so killed to the ridiculous extent that we are told Jubril not Buhari is our President. Weeks back, the pulpit joined the fray when the founder of Winners Chapel, Ota, Dr. David Oyedepo, got his church praying hard against the recolonisation of Nigeria. His evidence: A satiric piece by long-standing satirist and The Nation columnist Dr Olatunji Dare. Bishop Oyedepo got the people praying fervently over a non-existent problem. Yet the piece in reference has clear signs that it was meant to be a joke on people trading the rumour that President Muhammadu Buhari died in 2017 in a London hospital and that a clone, a Jubril from Sudan, is our current leader.

    Aside the lies, I am also pained that almost twenty-years after the return to democracy, we are yet to start crawling, not to talk of walking and far away from running. Our politicians are just a little better than the military. In a lot of sense, many of the players on the political scene are yet to be cured of the military hang-over. A sizeable number of the key players even have garrison mentality. Ours is a democracy without democrats. Selfish interests are masqueraded as national interests. The good of one is sold as the good of all.

    We have, in the last few months, seen defections upon defections. Lawmakers abandon one party to join another and defending it as if it were based on sound principles. The defections and the reasons behind them are interesting. For instance, Ibrahim Shekarau, former governor of Kano State, who has returned to the All Progressive Congress (APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), joined the PDP in 2014 citing “a lack of transparency and accountability” in APC. His spokesman, Sule Ya’u Sule, said he decided to return to the ruling party over lack of internal democracy in the PDP.

    In 2014, Shekarau had said at the time of the APC: “We intended with the merger to form a solid foundation for the entrenchment of democracy. The Legacy Group sacrificed all interests for the merger, but for the past six months, all agreements reached by the merged parties had not been met. No clear leaders, no registration of APC members at any levels. This shows a clear lack of commitment, transparency and accountability.” The Bukola Sarakis of this world will certainly not agree with him. Neither will Atiku.

    There is absolutely no doubt that the Buhari administration has not met our expectations. Things have changed. Certainly, but at a ridiculously slow speed. Yes, they say slow and steady wins the race, but when vital decisions are left untaken, things degenerate and that is my grouse about the president’s style.

    My final take: Will Atiku make the difference? I am not really sure. His supporters say we should give him a chance. Anything but Buhari, they scream. Buhari’s men say the President should continue in the interest of the people. And both are selling their candidates most of the time using doubtable information.

  • Just before 2019

    I have asked God for this before, but what better time to remind the omnipotent and omniscience one than now. By the time you read this column next, 2019 is here—the magical year we are all waiting for, the magical year ambitions will be realised and dreams will be shattered. It is the year boys will become men and some men will age backward and become boys.

    It is the year friendship, trust and loyalty will suffer. It is the year politics will bring some together and push others apart.  At a time like this, it will not be a surprise to see opponents carry a casket and say what they have inside is the body of a man who is alive. Blows will be exchanged; guns will boom; and ways will be parted. Like I once noted, at a time like this, everything becomes Charly Boy Show where anything can happen. Certainly, it is not all about serving the people.

    As we are set to enter the magical year, please permit me to bore you with a piece which appeared on this space in October titled ‘The President I want’ and join me in begging God to grant my heart’s desire:

    My beloved, I doubt if there is anyone who honestly can say he or she is not troubled by the state of our nation. To the best of my knowledge, there is discontentment in the land. Some have even predicted a bleaker future if something drastic is not done. The economy is struggling; and security challenges are refusing to give way.

    No time but now when we are preparing for another presidential election is appropriate for us to search our souls. I have searched mine and I believe instead of lamentation and whining about our circumstances, we should let those seeking to lead our nation know the kind of nation we want.

    I worry for our nation when ethnicity rears its head; I cry inward when the issue of who is an indigene insists on taking the front row; and I wonder why I cannot be an indigene of anywhere I choose to live in Nigeria. I also believe I should be able to change my indigene status when I move elsewhere in the country.

    There is a scary development around indigeneship that has reared its head in our nation. Now, we see instances an indigene of a state who resides in another state is considered by those at home as an outsider. This has come to play in states, such as Osun and Ekiti during electioneering campaigns. Indigenes living in places like Ibadan and Lagos have been portrayed as outsiders. You hear politicians saying they do not want ‘Lagos or Ibadan people’. The impression these guys create is that you can only identify with your state if you live in your home town. Yet, many back home depend on remittances from those in Lagos and Ibadan to survive.

    Another development that scares me is the migration of Nigerians through the Sahara desert, a development which is akin to walking with eyes open into enslavement. The exodus is to escape the Animal Farm we currently inhabit. Most of the men and women who take this root are educated but hopeless.

    Our dear nation, beloved, is in trouble. Just a few days ago, a faction of the dreaded Boko Haram sect killed an aid worker, after attempt to use her as bait to get money off government failed.  Hauwa was killed when the remaining Chibok girls and the Dapchi girls are still in the dungeon, with their relatives in tatters. Their friends and mates are daily expecting them to return and wondering if their wish will be ever realised.

    Many out there are looking for jobs that are not available. Not a few have died this week all because what we call medical centres are consulting rooms that they have been since military era. Even the private clinics where we pay through our noses cannot compete outside of our shores.

    There is graveyard silence in the Niger Delta. Boys have become used to free cash and they use every available excuse to demand cash from contractors handling developmental projects and so on.

    There are fears we will go back into recession. These fears are coming at a time many in their private lives cannot feel the fact that we ever got out of recession. In fact, millions are in depression.

    In the past, our leaders have been callous in the management of our resources. Past error is no excuse for the current government not to change our fortunes like it promised.

    In Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Season of Crimson Blossom, a woman was well over 50 before she got her groove and experienced what it really means to be a woman! It is not too late for Nigeria. We can experience the much-desired orgasm even at this age!

    The President I want is the one that can right the wrongs of the past. I want a President who will make nepotism a thing of the past. I want a President who will ensure no Nigerian feel left out because of which part of the country he or she comes from.

    I seek a President who will end this era of epileptic supply of electricity. I will be glad that day when our electricity generating sets will only be useful for picnics at beaches and such places where a temporary source of power is required.

    I want a President who will provide enough direction for members of the National Assembly to truly legislate in the interest of the people and not out of any pecuniary interest. I am sick and tired of the current situation where everything but national interest seems to take the first position.

    I also want a President who will give us a Nigeria where our schools can compete with others in the advanced world. I long for a President who will take Nigeria out of the Third World. What is wrong with being a First World?

    Beloved, I look forward to a President who will deliver a Nigeria where we can reap from medical tourism instead of the current situation where we are the major loser to this trend.

    I certainly want a President who will make our economy so robust that we can hold our head high anywhere in the world and our green passport will command respect and not scorn.

    I look forward to a President who will give us a Nigeria where oil takes the back seat and agriculture and tourism take the front seat and contribute more to our foreign exchange earnings and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    I want a President who will give us new songs, not songs of sorrow, not songs of despair, but songs of joy, songs of a country, which experiences orgasm at old age and hold on to it forever! I do not want a President like Samusangudu in Adebayo Williams’ The Remains of the Last Emperor.

    Am I asking for too much, beloved?

  • Without a name

    He would have died without a name. Death visited in the dying hours of Tuesday in the form of men without brains but brawn. They pumped hot lead into ex-Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh. They also shot his driver. It was first thought that the two of them died. Before this riddle was resolved, it was as though the driver, whose only sin was driving a big man, did not matter.

    Aside the fact that Badeh’s death revealed the unfairness of humanity, it has also shown that many of us have lost the ability to respect the dead. Not a few have said Badeh deserved what he got. Their reason: he squandered the Defence cash while in charge. Then there are those playing politics with the calamity. I saw a tweet by a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) henchman saying Badeh was one of the harshest critics of the Muhammadu Buhari administration. This was a man who never granted interviews. So, where was he criticising the government, which would now think of silencing him with death? Maybe in his bedroom! This funny chap also claimed Badeh knew so much of the things the Buhari administration is hiding.

    This Badeh matter has made me realise that there are times not to die and there are people in whose company it is not good to die. When a poor man dies in the company of a big man, he becomes nothing but a footnote. It is like his death means nothing. Almost everybody will talk about the big man while the poor man’s family will mourn in silence.

    It is also not good to die in a tragedy where one of the victims is a big man who those in authority cannot move against.  When you die in these circumstances, you become mere footnote.

    The way Badeh’s driver became a footnote when he was thought to have died with his boss reminded me of victims of the Uyo church tragedy, whose deaths seem to have gone in vain. This month makes it two years since the tragedy. It all played out at Reigners Bible Church Int’l Inc. The founder of the church was to be ordained a bishop. He is not a small fry so the church was jam-packed. Akwa Ibom State Governor Udom Emmanuel came with some of his commissioners and aides. Some of the commissioners are new in the State Executive Council. They were sworn in on December 1, 2016, few days before the tragedy.

    Thirty minutes into the governor’s arrival, hell literally came down. No thanks to human error, the church’s iron pillars gave way and the blue roofs came thumping down. Of course on people! An account even said someone was cut into two by the iron pillars. A policeman who reportedly saved the governor is now six feet below. And some others broke their necks, their limbs and their back. The founder of the church, Pastor Akan Weeks, had his leg broken.

    As typical of our nation, no one appears sure of how many people died. The day after the incident, we saw figures as high as 160 in the media. It was attributed to the Chief Medical Director of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, who later denied it. Police gave the figure as 29. Governor Emmanuel said only 23 died. And no one is willing to give the names of the dead. Not even two years after. And there is no memorial anywhere with their names inscribed.

    This tragedy turned the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), Anua General Hospital, Life Care Hospital and the Ibom Specialist Hospital into Mecca of some sort. In these hospitals, those who defeated death received treatment to heal their broken necks, arms, backs and heads. Tears from families of those recuperating now rented the air in these hospitals for months. The story at the mortuary sections of these hospitals was grimmer.

    For students of the University of Uyo, and the Uyo City Polytechnic, believed to have been worst hit by the disaster, reality looked like a dream.

    Emmanuel’s men, who crawled out of death’s hole, had interesting testimonies to share. His Chief Press Secretary, Ekerette Udoh, said an iron rod nearly cut his neck, but eventually hit him on the back. The cap of his left knee was broken and pains traveled all over his body.

    The Commissioner for Information, Charles Udoh, who joined the State Executive Council only some one week before the disaster, thought he was watching a movie when the pillars started coming down. He was on his way out of the church to catch a flight when tragedy struck. He would have been out but protocol demanded that he told the governor before vanishing from the church hall. It was this protocol-induced task he was accomplishing when death almost took him away. He had to run here and there to prevent the iron pillars from turning him to a candidate for the mortuary.

    Nollywood actor Ekere Nkanga, who has acted almost all roles imaginable, was humbled when he had to wade through bodies to safety.”Shortly after the governor and his entourage and the bishops took their seats, the next thing I heard was the bang from the falling iron. By the time the iron came down, I noticed that people from the safe areas were running to the centre, where I was sitting,” he said, adding:  “I hid under some people. A few seconds later, as I was trying to get up, the body of a man cut into two and fell on me. There were other corpses on me. I looked out for my brother but I couldn’t find him. Later, I found my phone. I called the Chairman, Uyo Local Government Area, to mobilise rescue officials to the venue.”

    He managed not to have a direct impact with falling rods, but by that Saturday evening, he discovered his neck was broken.

    Of all those who died in the tragedy, we were lucky to identify Josephine Effiom because of his mates at the polytechnic, who described her as “one of the first three brilliant chaps in my class”. The result of the panel set up by Emmanuel has been less than impressing. Two years after, no one has, in the real sense, been punished for men’s evil on men.

    My final take: When you pray in the morning, pray never to die in the company of a big man because only your family will mourn in silence. There will be so much noise about the big man everywhere and it will be as though you never matter. Also pray not to die when a big man is to blame. If you do, it will just look like you are without a name.

     

  • My mind is no longer here

    Let me introduce you to a man I met for the first time on Sunday: His name is Yinka. This bundle of deceit is evil. Almost everything about him, including his quest to become a lawmaker, has ulterior motive. Like a typical politician, he feigns ‘lack of interest’ when a sponsored delegation visits to beg him to run for office. He pleads for time to pray about the offer when the truth is that he bribed the chairman of the party to lead the delegation to offer him the ticket to replace the stingy incumbent.

    Pardon me to tell you more about Yinka. He does it all— hard drugs merchant, human trafficker, advanced free fraudster, internet fraudster and every other bad business you can imagine. He wants to clean up by becoming a lawmaker and is dreaming of moving into Banana Island, the rich enclave in Ikoyi, Lagos.

    I am sure a number of Yinkas have been prowling the streets in the last few months. Many politicians are being begged by their people to run for offices. Forms have been bought for money bags and tears have been shed. Like Yinka, we have seen those who have asked for time to pray about the offer to run for political offices when they are actually the script writer, the producer and director.

    Sorry, Yinka is a fictional character, but you and I also know he is real. Nze Sylva Ifedigbo created him, obviously from the realities of our time. Ifedigbo’s debut novel My Mind is No Longer Here just released by Parresia Publishers is the story of four men—Donatus, Chidi, Osahon and Haruna. Connecting all of them is Yinka, who preys on their avarice and ignorance.

    Donatus is a photojournalist, who worked for a newspaper whose publisher is a big-for-nothing fool. Salaries were not paid promptly, allowances non-existent and welfare zero.

    Chidi is an undergraduate who suddenly feels the urge to hit it big. Osahon, on the other hand, has been on the run from Benin where he is wanted for cult-related offence. As for Haruna, his case is different. The medical doctor just feels tired of Nigeria after his mother’s death and he feels going abroad is it.

    Their displeasure with Nigeria leads them all to Yinka, whose motive for wanting to help them go abroad is far from noble. The signs that Yinka’s gestures may not be noble are glaring, but these men are blinded by their frustration with Nigeria. Their minds are simply no longer here. Even when family members call these guys’ attention to possible danger in the offer from Yinka, they lie to make the whole thing look good. All that is important is to just get out of Nigeria, which is likened to hell.

    The near monologue between these guys and Otunba shows how crooks with money prey on the desperate.

    Otunba says to the guys: “You see, eyin boys, let me tell you something nobody else will tell you. Hunger is a very good thing. Our people do not know this. That is why they remain poor. They think hunger is a bad thing. No Hunger is a blessing, I tell you. There is no motivator like hunger. It is only hunger that can make you do anything without fear. You see, when I see young men like you wallowing aimlessly about, I tell myself they have not yet tasted hunger. Because when you taste hunger, nobody will tell you to get serious and do something about it.”

    In another instance, he says: “I tell people I am rich today because I was hungry yesterday.”

    But he adds the icing on it all, when he says: “But I was not just hungry, I did something about it. Today, see where I am? All those mouths that were running like watery toilet, talking nonsense against me back then, where are they today? The ones that are not dead yet are well on their way there. Every day they are on my phone, begging me for pocket money. These are the same people who said I was doing boy-boy for the military and that I was a friend of killers. They said the army people were using me to do this and that. What did they not say about me? Guess what happened when I started a newspaper? All those hungry journalists that use to write rubbish about the military, all of them were coming to beg me for job. They had forgotten where the money came from. You know why?

    “Hunger! The thing pushes you to do something that you did not imagine you could do before. Because this thing that Yinka has brought you people for is not for people that are not hungry.”

    Ifedigbo’s skillful management of suspense sweetens my belly with the revealation that  the Otunba whose ‘magnanimity’ is to see them leave Nigeria is the publisher whose nonchalant attitude to staff welfare led to Donatus’ resignation. It is a very good twist to the tale, which is practically impossible for a reader to guess. Good job! Then, there is the aspect where Ifedigbo reveals the identity of the strange man at Haruna’s mother’s eighth day fiddau. This revelation brought smile to my face because somehow I knew there was more to the stranger and really looked forward to finding out and it was nothing I imagined. Wao! The stories the man tell mark Ifedigbo out as a good story teller.

    I like Ifedigbo’s sentencing. One of my favourite sentences in the book is “Weeding someone else’s farm.” There are many nice similes, such as “like an old man with scoliosis”, and “like a medieval castle in a movie”. You will also encounter nice lines, such as “emerging stomach subdued by daily treadmills sessions”.

    The novel also has the right dosage of humour that keeps you turning the pages. The sex is equally of the right dosage and you are allowed to complete the process in your mind.

    The book shows that literature is a reflection of the society. Aside the major theme of the young generation, which feels disillusioned and wants to check out of the country at all costs, there are sub-themes, such as police randomly picking up innocent people at scenes of crime and only releasing them after bribe is paid;  the problem with the medical sector in the country; and how a dutiful wife becomes a slut all because her husband can no longer pick the bills.

    Ifedigbo’s handling of Otunba’s character shows us that many of the rich people around are agents of filthy lucre gathered through the sweat and blood of the poor, the desperate and the greedy.

    I dare say My Mind is No Longer Here is a damn good novel with characters you will remember long after closing page 312. Yinka, for instance, is just difficult to forget. He is a very good bad guy one needs to watch out for and avoid at all cost.

    The resolution of the conflicts leaves me with the impression that this book will serve as a good campaign material for the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

    My final take: The main message in this book is: “There is no place like home.”  This particular line also rings loud: “When your home cannot offer you a bed to sleep peacefully on, a neigbour’s home becomes appealing.”

    Are Donatus, Chidi, Haruna and Osahon abroad now? For the answer, please go grab a copy of this highly recommended work of art! You will be glad!