The Nation Newspaper

Category: Olukorede Yishau

  • To Sylvester Ekanem

    To Sylvester Ekanem

    Dead people don’t read tributes. Or do they? I may not be able to be categorical since I have never been on the other side. Whatever the truth is, situations demand tributes. 

    So, I write a tribute to a star dimmed before his first major outing is published. 

    It is disheartening that in a world with millions of burnt-out souls, such souls hardly interest death. In their place, death chooses to take the ones still in their prime, the one who has shown promise, the ones with the vibes, the ones who make us salivate for more. 

    I once again came to those conclusions some days back after my excitement about a star was prematurely dimmed, after my prediction about what the future had in stock for this star turned out an exercise in futility. 

    I had seen a review of ‘Blood Vessel’, a Netflix Original, on Instagram and decided to check it out. A line in the review referred to someone as late but it would be hours later before that line would make sense to me. 

    When I started seeing this beautiful work directed by Moses Inwang, one of the characters that stood out for me was Tekena. His given name was Sylvester Ekanem. He and his brother, Olotu, wanted to stow away to Europe on a vessel with the help of Mr P. Their journey coincided with the uprising in Nembe after a soldier was set alight. They found themselves in the company of the ones who set the soldier on fire and two lovers intent on being together against all odds. They all got on the vessel and eventually only Tekena and Abbey, the lead who is another character after my heart, made it back home. The rest were killed. And gruesomely too. 

    The only girl on the vessel was Oyinbrakemi who was pregnant. She and her lover, Abbey, a star worth looking out for, got on the vessel trying to ensure her father didn’t send her to Warri to get the pregnancy aborted and also separate them for life. Her father lied to the military that Abbey was the leader of the militants who set the soldier alight. He thus became marked and his mother urged him to disappear. 

    Oyinbrakemi’s father’s action wasn’t unrelated to the fact that she was born after her mother visited the sea goddess and betrothed her to the goddess after she was born. The implication is that she would never get married lest she would return to the sea. 

    Tekena gave me the vibe of a star and I looked forward to seeing his acting career blossom, but my hope was dashed while the end credit of the movie was being run. The one who survived in the movie didn’t make it in real life. I found this out because the movie is dedicated to Sylvester Ekanem, who was Tekena, and the prefix ‘late’ was written in front of his name. He died after the movie was premiered and he died with his prowess. Death took a star, one who sparkled and sparkled like a diamond in the sky.

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    In this movie made largely in Ijaw and Pidgin English, and a sprinkling of English language, Ekanem was everywhere and anywhere. I particularly don’t like action movies but Inwang succeeded in making me enjoy the over two-hour movie with the right dosage of suspense, believable storyline and fantastic actors, including the great Ekanem, now an ancestor. His character in the movie was ready to fight his elder brother to death just to live, but brotherly love saw him rise above this selfish mindset. 

    The death of promising minds such as Ekanem is one of the riddles of life I doubt I will ever understand. Will death ever leave our stars and take the burnt-out souls? Will death stop choosing to take the ones still in their prime, the one who has shown promise, the ones with the vibes, the ones who make us salivate for more? From what I have learnt from experience, death isn’t about to stop its havoc. The burnt-out souls’ reprieve isn’t about to end, and the attacks on the stars aren’t stopping!

    Rest well, Sylvester Ekanem. Though you are no more, ‘Blood Vessel’ will forever keep you in our memories. You are immortalised already. 

    I am consoled by the fact that the like of (David Ezekiel) Abbey, my major star of the movie, and Adaobi Dibor are still with us. Ezekiel is a star to watch out for. May his light not dim any time soon. 

    I also hope one day we will see an end to the practice where soldiers act as though the life of one of them is equal to the lives and properties of an entire community. Setting an entire community into commotion because a soldier is killed is senseless and it will forever be.

    Oil giants need find a way around spillage so that fishes don’t become contaminated and thus poisonous to the people in oil-bearing areas. Spillage and other associated challenges were behind the protest in the movie, which, unfortunately, led to the killing of the soldier, one of those in Nembe to protect the interest of an oil giant. 

    Since the discovery of oil in commercial quantity in Oloibiri, in present-day Bayelsa State in 1956, the region has been embroiled in controversies, agitation and protests over the attendant oil spills, devastating pollution of fishing zones and sources of potable water and ecological degradation.

    Over the years, the people have lived in conditions that are intolerable. From time to time, gross neglect and under-development snowball into pockets of protests and agitation for resource control because successive administrations at the centre and in some states glossed over sustainable development of the region.

    My final take: The vessel this young men and woman got aboard is one of those milking our nation and giving nothing to replenish it. Therefore, I hope that one day the powerful people in government who protect sea pirates masquerading as businessmen will meet their waterloo and our common resources will no longer be stolen in a manner that further pauperise our people and our nation. 

  • 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. 

  • My Nigerian books of the year

    My Nigerian books of the year

    Busier schedule has robbed me of much of the time I used to enjoy in the company of fictional and real-life characters captured in books. So, as 2023 begins to pack its luggage, I have read less than forty books. I used to read over 60 books in a year. A chunk of my 2023 reads are by Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora. 

    In the year, UK-based Oyin Olugbile’s ‘Sanya’ is a revelation for me. Though the book was published in 2022, I only read it this year. Oyin is a discovery, a force, a star, a master, a storyteller of immense talent. 

    Her 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. It is powerful, magnificent, page-turning, epic, fascinating, brilliant and unforgettable. These are words that aptly capture Olugbile’s achievement with this joy of a read. 

    She is one writer to look out for and the sky is certainly infinitesimal for her to soar.

    How can I forget ‘When We Were Fireflies’, the sophomore novel of a star of no mean standing, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim? Brilliance shines through every single paragraph of this remarkable tale about a man who, before his current life, had lived two previous lives and was on each occasion killed for love. Memories of those eras invade his privacy after a visit to a train station, and he decides to go after those who murdered him. In the process, he meets the one who loved and still loves him. A portion of this book is an audio book on Amazon Original and I love it so much I have lost count of the number of times I have listened to it.

    Abubakar, who is a recipient of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, dazzles with this work. If ‘When We Were Fireflies’ were a house, it is one painstakingly built, one brick at a time, the right concrete mix, appropriate pillars, well-fit furniture and ultimately habitable and cosy. If it were a cake, it is one well-baked, not too much icing, or sugar or flour, just the right mix. And if it were akara, it is one well-seasoned, well-mixed, well-fried and meant to be savoured bite by bite. For his precise and elegant voice, Ibrahim deserves to be read worldwide.

    I will for long admire the Nigeria Prize for Literature winner and professor, Chika Unigwe, for her fifth novel, ‘The Middle Daughter’. This book took my peace away and didn’t return it until I finished reading it. 

    This novel is written in standard English Language but there are parts of it that are Nigerian English and the beauty can truly be appreciated by a Nigerian. She sought, like Achebe, to do with English what the oyinbos didn’t think it was capable of.

    The family at the heart of the novel is Igbo and the author transcribed their world without altering their Igboness. She stretched and forced English to do her will to achieve this.

    Relief washed over me when I got to the end, relief that the author righted the wrong in the Hades-Persephone myth, relief for Nani, and relief for myself because we went through the storm together and we deserved the calmness.

    And from the Chinua Achebe Prize for Literature winner and the Nigeria Prize for Literature finalist, Obinna Udenwe, came a collection of long-form stories, ‘The Widow Who Died With Flowers in Her Mouth’. This book from this unabashed Haruki Murakami disciple is deep, surreal and magical. 

    The appeal of Ukamaka Olisakwe’s first young adult fiction, ‘Don’t Answer When They Call Your Name’, goes beyond its target audience. With this book, the Isele magazine founder secured a special slot in my heart. 

    The story at the heart of Olisakwe’s book is one that was told and told and told and told to the point that the possibility of there being another side to it was not given a chance. All that stopped when a girl, unaware of her powers, met the woman they had been told was responsible for their woes.  

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    I can also not easily forget I.O. Echeruo’s ‘Experts In All Styles’, a collection of amazing short stories.

     Echeruo’s collection of short stories has characters that are well-drawn. His stories are explorations on power, political power, domestic power, religious power and the good and bad to which power is put.  

    Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode’s ‘The Stolen Daughters of Chibok’ made a great impression on me. It is a fantastic collaboration between Muhammed-Oyebode and ace photojournalist Akintunde Akinleye. The book features interviews with 152 of the over 200 Chibok families affected by the April 14, 2014 schoolgirls’ abduction. It captures their lives before and after the abduction. 

    The book has contributions from ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, and ‘Fine Boys’ author Eghosa Imasuen. The book also has essays by Helon Habila and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, two award-winning writers who have written books on the Chibok girls. There are other interesting contributions that examine germane angles.  

    Michael Afenfia also gave me a great time with his latest novel, ‘Leave My Bones in Saskatoon’. It 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 but the uncertainty about the state of things in Nigeria convinces them that the decision to ‘japa’ was one of the best things ever.

    Lola Akinmade’s ‘Everything is not Enough’ has remained with me and is not about to leave me. The work touches on the evil of conflicts, conflicts that displace people and force them to seek refuge in places where even when they spend decades, they will never fully be accepted but just tolerated. The author opens the sore that conflicts represent. We feel the senselessness in wars and conflicts of any kind.

    The author creates so much crises that one may worry about how she is going to resolve them. This is one of the aspects that a reader is likely to give her flowers because not only are all the seemingly scattered threads brought together, they are merged with panache and grace and the outcome is a fitting climax to an exhilarating ride!

    Ayobami Adebayo’s Booker Prize-nominated ‘A Spell of Good Things’ cast a spell on me and I’m yet to see a pastor who will free me from the affliction. 

    This heavily political novel is built around Eniola and Wuraola. It is the story of the modern Nigeria, where the rich keep getting richer, and the poor poorer; where politicians play politics for pecuniary gains, where the life of an average citizen isn’t worth much, where infrastructure is at ground zero, where values are debased, where potentials aren’t fully utilised, where leaders are dealers, and where the political class sees nothing wrong in shedding some blood to attain political power. It is a warning about the dangers of classism in our nation with deep economic fissures, underfunded health service and challenges numerous to recount. 

    Adebayo’s super star writer spouse, Emmanuel Iduma, released a non-fiction book, ‘I Am Still With You’ and its imprints have stayed with me. The pacing of this non-fiction has the marks of fiction. It recreates the Biafran experience from a personal angle. And brilliance runs through! The book portrays Iduma as keen-eyed. There is a rhythmic stance to his prose that makes reading easy. The book also does us the favour of letting us know that the past is not really gone. It remains with us so long as it still dictates some of our actions and even inactions.

    Sefi Atta’s ‘The Bad Immigrant’, though not published this year but read during the year, unveils an America that is a bully, a country that values comformity 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, and a nation which runs away from race issues yet confronts it every day.

    Another 2022 novel that I read this year is the brilliant TJ Benson’s ‘People Live Here’. The novel is like nothing the author had ever published. ‘Madhouse’ is a tale of a strange family steeped in dreams, politics and history. He tells the story with accustomed dexterity, poetry and drama. His language is sophisticated, his sentences are a mixture of simple, compound and compound-complex structures, and the story structure is complex and non-linear. The non-linear nature of the story aids suspense. Benson understands characterisation and develops all the principal characters to a point where if seen on the road they can be identified.

    Lastly, I will add Bisi Adjapon’s ‘Daughter in Exile’ because I want Ghananians to quarrel with me as though this were another jollof debate. She is Bisi and that makes her Yoruba. Adjapon has told a compelling story that challenges decades of alternative truths about what womanhood should be. She weaves love, race, relationships, and humanity into this book and the result is a striking portrait of a woman intent on defeating a system designed to wear her down and consign her to peripheral living. 

    My final take: Books deliver both joy and pain. They deliver knowledge, wisdom and take us to places we may never visit. We all should read books because we will benefit from them. 

  • Afro-democracy

    Afro-democracy

    Only two men have had the luck of ruling Nigeria as military Head of State and President: Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari. Their junior, Ibrahim Babangida, attempted but didn’t even get the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nomination. Obasanjo and Buhari made the headlines recently: Buhari for admitting a cabal could have hijacked his government, and Obasanjo for saying liberal democracy was forced on Africa. Now, we need Afro-democracy, which is fashioned with our needs in mind, the ex-President said. 

    I sincerely don’t believe liberal or western democracy is our problem. I believe we are our problem. Both our leaders and the led aren’t holding our ends of the bargain very well. 

    Let’s take Obasanjo as a leader, for instance, who behaves as if the end always justifies the means and to hell with the rule of law. 

    Obasanjo carried out a privatisation programme. The idea was for government-owned businesses to be sold to the private sector so they would be well-run. We are all witnesses to how bad that turned out. He also invested chunk of money in the power sector and, till today, we are in need of light to determine where the funds went.

    Under his watch, the education sector didn’t witness any major turnaround. Under his watch, the health sector didn’t get the lift it deserved. Under his watch, housing was not improved significantly. Under his watch, respect for the rule of law was near zero. He seized the funds meant for local governments in Lagos and ignored the law. Under his watch, the National Assembly was unstable because he kept getting the leaders impeached because of his disagreement with them. 

    Under his watch, fewer roads got the attention they deserved. Under his watch, we crawled when we were supposed to be running a marathon.

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    In the twilight of his administration, he tried to elongate his tenure. He can deny it from now till tomorrow, but we are no fools. Those who played one role or the other in it have spoken. He also harassed rich individuals and state governors into donating billions for the construction of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library. The library is complete with a standard hotel and other money-spinning facilities, including a cinema. 

    At the height of their quarrel, former Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose asked him to return Ekiti’s donation to the library. For me, there is no justification for him as a sitting president to raise money the way he did for a private project. For want of a better word, it is gross abuse of office. 

    Many of us too only condemn bad doings in our nation when we aren’t benefiting from the corridors of power. We become tribal warlords when our tribesmen misbehave and we defend their bigotry and nepotism. And, in the end, our nation is the loser.

    My final take: Our problem is not the system of government we practise, but the men and women who should make the institutions strong, and those of us who enable strong men instead of strong institutions capable of checking excesses. 

  • New York, New York 

    New York, New York 

    The streets of New York are not paved with gold; neither are the walls smoothened with diamond. But, so thrilled by New York, a Nigerian poet once wrote: “New York, New York, so nice, they call you twice.”

    For me, New York is a tale of mixed fortunes. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying New York is bad or that I hate New York. But, I am saying New York has its crazy sides. Ugly sides, if you like. I saw a man who, judging from the way he kept shouting and talking to no one in particular, was insane. I saw a man bearing a card with the inscription: “Please help, I am homeless. Nothing is too small.” I saw men sleeping on the streets. I saw streets artists on Times Square, who eke their living begging to do quick portraits of tourists. I saw a three-man street dancer who performed after reminding you that you should not forget to drop some money in a used paint container. I saw a guitar man who performed on the streets for peanuts.

    Walking the streets of New York, I saw many who know no other homes but the streets. I saw small girls, old men and women smoke their lives away despite the fact that smoking is banned in open places. I saw a boy who wanted me to spare some minutes to get educated about gay rights. I saw open advertisement asking people to come watch private porn sessions. I saw babies who have made babies dragging their toddlers in trolleys across the walkways.

    New York, in a lot of sense, belongs to the rich and powerful, especially the Manhattan axis. It is home to the United Nations, the Madison Square, the famous Times Square, and the world’s most expensive hotels where world leaders find homes when they come to New York. It also owns Sofitel, the hotel where former IMF boss, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, met his waterloo in the form of a pretty African immigrant maid.

    It also hosts amazing departmental stores such as Macy’s, which occupies some ten-floors around Broadway, where the popular ‘Fela’ was staged. The statue of liberty finds in New York a befitting home. Thousands troop there daily to identify with this symbol of freedom.

    Its famous Times Square hosts hustlers and tourists regularly such that traffic becomes clogged.

    In New York, few storey-buildings are rarities. Skyscrapers upon skyscrapers occupy the landscape. New York’s streets glitter with Starbucks and plasma screens, which find spaces on the high-rise buildings.

    Car parks are usually in-built, such that one may wonder if no space is left for parking before discovering that basements and ground floors of many of the high-rise serve as parking lots. There are also many pay-as-you-park garages around. Many of the roads also have designated parking areas.

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    New Yorkers encourage you to walk and they tell you ‘it is not far’ only for you to discover it is a 20 or 30 minutes’ walk. They say: “New York is better seen on foot.” And thanks to the fact that the streets of New York are largely crime free, people walk into the wee hours and feel little or no sense of fear. There are even stores that operate 24 hours.

    New York has succeeded in selling itself as a tourist playground where you can see the best. It boasts of a rail system which is said to make over two and a half billion trips per year through its network of more than 700 train and subway stations.

    Taxi drivers in New York are bound by law to carry passengers to wherever they want to go. But, like a Ghananian who works as a cab driver told a friend and I, the rule is not obeyed. Cab drivers, especially of Asian origin, avoid black passengers. I actually flagged one who refused to stop. The Ghananian cab driver said this was because blacks were fond of asking to be taken to far-flung parts of the city such as Brooklyn or Staten Island only to run away in order to avoid paying.

    The best time to visit New York is during summer. This is the time when you will feel like you are on the streets of Lagos. No need for thick sweater or jacket. Maybe light sweater for the evenings. It is also the time when, on the streets, New York babes decide to flaunt what their mamas gave them: their thighs and breasts. After all, there is no cold to fear. At this time of the year, they hide everything under chunky jackets. 

  • Small doses of happiness

    Small doses of happiness

    Twenty years ago Muyiwa Ademola’s life took a new turn, a turn for good. At the time, Ademola had produced ‘Ogo Osupa’ but’ Ori’ changed his trajectory. It was as if his ori ordained the film. Since that movie, he has been on the rise and remains one of the A-list actors in the Nigerian film industry. 

    ‘Ori’, in direct translation, means head, but in the context of the movie, it means one’s personal god, the guidance spirit who sees dangers ahead and saves one using means that can be difficult to decipher. The lead character in Ademola’s movie, Bisade, for instance, queries his ori’s technique but eventually accepts it.  

    In the movie, an undergraduate and daughter of a rich man, Temilade, discovers she is pregnant for her boyfriend, Bosun, a fresh graduate on the verge of leaving for the one-year mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme. On the day she invites Bosun to her home for a formal introduction to her parents, her angry father, Adekogbe, chases him and his friend, Bisade, away with a gunshot. A return visit after the father becomes calm shows the father’s disdain for Islam and its adherents. Bosun happens to be a Muslim. Because of Adekogbe’s position, Bisade, a Christian, is presented as the expected baby’s father. 

    Things take a dizzying pace after this: Adekogbe hands over a chunk of his wealth to the pretend boyfriend; he changes his will and makes Bisade a major beneficiary; the real boyfriend accuses his friend of sleeping with his girlfriend; abortion is carried out; she dies; her father dies; and Bisade is detained and on release from detention runs mad and begins a road trip from Ibadan to a hilly town in Ekiti, where he is accommodated by an elderly man, Awosanmi. 

    The abortion and the death of Temi leave the Adekogbe family with just its matriarch. Temi’s younger sister is nowhere to be found after being snatched years earlier. 

    The climax of the movie shows us that Bisade and Awosanmi’s guidance spirits are intertwined. They have a deal that will change their fortune forever. Bisade’s personal god is said to have inflicted him with madness to save him from danger and his presence in Awosanmi’s home is also orchestrated because in his cure lies the source of the elderly man’s wealth.

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    To mark the twentieth anniversary of the movie that turned his career around, Ademola uploaded it on his YouTube channel for viewers to watch it for free. Some sort of remake is also in post-production. 

    As human beings, we pass through stuff we don’t understand; we experience tribulations that make us question God; we go through heartbreaks that are beyond our comprehension; and we’ve to carry our cross while hoping for a glorious future. So, is our ori at work in times like these? Do our ori truly put us through hell on earth? Are we passing through these trying times so as to escape worse scenarios? Are our lives premeditated? Do we have control over what happens to us? Is there anything like destiny? Are our destinies in our hands? Are their worlds beyond this one we can see? Are there metaphysical forces? These are posers the buzz around ‘Ori’, a movie I saw many a time between 2003 and 2006, have brought to my mind. I really have no way of confirming the case pushed in the movie, which also inspired a song, Egbeje F’ori by Sola Allyson. But, what I have seen are people bouncing back, really better, after a season of adversities that comes with or without small doses of happiness. 

    My final take: As we await the star-studded ‘Ori Rebirth’, we need to remind ourselves that we need to hang in there no matter the adversities we are facing. Most times, it is brighter on the other side. And during the waiting period, do the best you can. 

  • On Chibok’s stolen daughters

    On Chibok’s stolen daughters

    A fantastic collaboration between Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode and ace photojournalist Akintunde Akinleye has birthed a unique book, ‘The Stolen Daughters of Chibok’. The book features interviews with 152 of the over 200 Chibok families affected by the April 14, 2014 schoolgirls’ abduction. It captures their lives before and after the abduction. 

    The book has contributions from ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, and ‘Fine Boys’ author Eghosa Imasuen. The book also has essays by Helon Habila and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, two award-winning writers who have written books on the Chibok girls. There are other interesting contributions that examine germane angles.  

    In his foreword to the book, Obasanjo captures the permanent nature of the pain of the abduction. 

    “I had suggested that Nigerians and the world needed to come to terms with the reality that these lives had been irretrievably cut short. That we would never see these young women, these girls, in the way we remembered them. That in the years following this tragedy, they would trickle out of the forest with the scars, both metaphorical and physical, of their time in captivity. I was vilified for my bluntness,” the ex-president writes. 

    Mohammadu Sanusi II, one-time emir of Kano, in his contribution to the book, argues that the anger towards Boko Haram over the Chibok abduction should also apply to the condition of the Northern Nigerian Muslim girls. 

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    According to Muhammed-Oyebode, nearly all 107 freed girls are enrolled in a special programme at the American University in Yola. Four of the earlier fifty-seven escapees, who she now serves as their guardian, are attending a special programme in America. One returnee, Deborah Jafaru, Muhammed-Oyebode notes, declined a university education offer and is back in Chibok to be with the husband she married two weeks before she went to the school to resit her West African School Certificate exams and got kidnapped.

    Imasuen’s interview with Bukar Zannah Mustapha of the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation focuses on his role as an arbiter in the negotiations for the release of the girls. It offers poignant insights into the mediation that freed 103 girls.   

    The contributions of two psychiatrists, Femi Oyebode and Aishatu Armiya’u, focus on the mental health of the girls. They contend that adjusting back to the real world after days and years in hostage can be as difficult as leaving it.

    Bishop Kukah’s contribution to this remarkable book ends with a plea to the girls and their families to forgive their captors and see their scars as trophies.

  • The angel with wings

    The angel with wings

    ‘Life is a journey; for some, it is long, for others, it is short. Whichever way, it will always come to an end. There are no ways of short-circuiting it’

    One is the nation of his birth, the other is the one he has adopted and called home for some time now: Nigeria and America. Sola Osofisan chose these two home-countries as the settings for his most recent book, a collection of a dozen short stories titled ‘The Simple Joys of Her Last Days’. 

    In the collection, we see grief, we see betrayal, we see racism, we see discrimination, we see racial suspicions and a number of other challenges the human race faces daily.

     It is a potpourri of sort with the bulk of the stories in third person point of view. 

    The title story is about a son, Banji, his mother and his fiancee, Catalina. The son and mother are Nigerians and the fiancée is American. The story takes off when Catalina answers the phone when Banji’s mother calls from Nigeria. Before the call, Banji’s mother has been informed of Catalina and she sees no sense in her son’s involvement with her. So, when she answers the phone, Banji’s mother is unfair to her and she storms out of the house. By the time Banji comes to the phone, mother and son duel. It really is a tale with so much to take away. 

    An average reader is bound to be soaked in by the suspense and the grief in the story titled ‘Drought Out of Season’. In it, a mother arrives at an airport in the United States and is not met by her son-in-law who is supposed to pick her up. To compound her woe, she is unable to reach her daughter. She eventually reaches the son-in-law but he sounds drunk and nothing like the pleasant young man who prostrate for her when he came to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage. Instead of coming to pick her, he advises her to take a cab. As she journeys to the house, we see imageries that tell us all is not well and, when she gets to the house, the son-in-law she meets is drunk and in a messy environment and unable to tell her where her daughter is or if she has been delivered of the baby. It turns out her daughter is by the gate of a cemetery and has refused entreaties to leave and also refuses to go inside the cemetery because of a Yoruba belief. The scene at the cemetery between mother and daughter are the best bit of this very powerful story. 

    The mother in that amazing story, Abigail, features in another story titled ‘Scatter’. On Abigail’s return trip to Nigeria, she sits with a mother and her two children. In a tote bag carried by the mother of these kids are the ashes of her Nigerian late husband. They planned the trip together but death took him before the trip so she and the children decide to still travel with him with the intention of spreading his remains in his country of birth. The older mother and the younger mother are united by grief, one just lost a grandchild, the other a husband. 

    Injustice is x-rayed in the story titled ‘ A Woman In The Corner’. In it, a new Divisional Police Officer (DPO) arrives at her station and sees a woman in a corner and her subordinates have no genuine explanation for why she was arrested. She has a bundle in her hand and when she opens up to the DPO, it turns out that bundle is a dead baby. She reveals shocking details to the DPO, and this breathes oxygen into the story’s nostrils. 

    And, in ‘New Every Morning’, we meet a promiscuous medical doctor always sexually exploiting his nurses. He soon meets a new nurse who is not dancing to his tunes. He finds his way to her house by the Atan Cemetery in Yaba, Lagos. She tries persuading him to leave but he refuses and starts threatening her job. In no time, we see him in a bedroom naked without the nurse anywhere in sight. He becomes scared as he searches for her and when he discovers her coming from the cemetery with a wedding band in her hand, his world caves in. What follows are the strengths of this tale from a tested writer. 

    Read Also: I’ve never taken alcohol, smoke cigarettes- Akpabio

    Have you read a story that only makes sense when you get to the last line? That is what Osofisan achieves with ‘Rag Doll’ about a girl named Bolu and a seemingly madman. Bolu keeps going to this forsaken man and fears not the possibility of being a recipient of violence from a sick soil. She even queries his description as a madman. What we find out at the end of the story after her mother comes to take her back home is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Her statement to the man explains so many things about their encounters and solves the mystery. 

    Temptation comes in different ways and many times they have nothing to do with sex. That is one takeaway from ‘Mysterious Ways’. Zara is facing in-law challenges and her husband is unable to save her. Then one day she goes shopping and a man offers to help her with her loads. He also offers much more: To help her kill anyone troubling her for a little amount. This story, which is the opening of the collection, is a trickish tale with an ending that will keep debates going on and on. 

    In ‘Disorderly Person’, we see the extent a father can go to atone for his past neglect of his children.  Set in the United States, we meet a man, his children and an aggrieved American wife. Two of his three children are from his first marriage in Nigeria. He gets to America, and marries a citizen in order to cement his stay. His Nigerian wife dies and he is compelled to move the children to America, a development which infuriates the American wife. The children’s discovery of their father’s American family also causes chaos. With time, the man finds himself in the prison for a reason the son finds difficult to understand but which the father’s lawyer breaks down for him in a simple-complex manner. 

    Politics and the desperation that go hand in hand with it find expression in ‘It Is What It Is’, a story about a president who is facing serious opposition to his second term ambition. His godfather, who made his election a walk-over, is dead and the opposition is bent on seeing him out of the Presidential Villa. His desperation takes him to a seer in the dead of the night. There he faces the humiliation of being kept waiting outside the gate and when he is eventually let in, his first encounter is unpresidential. He comes with bags of dollars and is willing to give more to the seer recommended by his wife to silence his opposition but, while still there, a phone call shatters everything beyond his imagination and his tomorrow becomes unclear. 

    Other stories, such as ‘Immortal’, ‘A Hereditary Disease’, and ‘Credible Threat’ show Osofisan’s dexterity and his exceptional ability to paint vivid pictures with words. In them, we meet a struggling immigrant whose inability to prove his legal status in America stands against him and the big money he won in a random draw. To claim his winnings, he only has to prove his identity. We also meet a postman starting on a new route and faces serious hostility on the streets of America.

    My final take: One fact resonates very well with me in this book: Life is a journey; for some, it is long, for others, it is short. Whichever way, it will always come to an end. There are no ways of short-circuiting it. Like Abigail noted: “Death isn’t something you can outrun. How far can you run when that angel’s got wings?” For the baby in ‘Drought Out of Season’, death came before life began. For the husband in ‘Scatter’, it came midlife. Different strokes for different folks. 

    Osofisan’s book is worthy to be praised!

  • Paternity fraud

    Paternity fraud

    I was close to tears, so close I wondered what was wrong with me. I just couldn’t stomach the bean being spilled. The journey to my teary state started early Sunday when clips of Kokoro Alate, a programme by ace Ibadan -based broadcast journalist and Agidigbo FM proprietor, Oriyomi Hamzat, hit the social media. In it, a man, Kola, has just discovered the four children he thought he fathered aren’t his. DNA tests revealed his wife, Toyin, committed paternity fraud. 

    To get the whole perspectives, I sought the complete video and watched it. In it, Toyin faults the DNA tests because she wasn’t there when the samples were taken. Kola’s tears keep cascading down his cheeks and the presenter keeps urging him to stop crying. 

    The video reminds me of a short story in my book ‘Vaults of Secrets’. The story titled ‘Open Wound’ is narrated by the conscience of a woman at the centre of a paternity fraud, who is intent on keeping the secret forever.

    The woman, Dazini, was married to Colonel Edward Dibiana. His first marriage had failed, but he had three kids to show for it. That was enough assurance for Dazini that he was a man. They married a little over a year later.

    One year after they got married, she was yet to become pregnant and she became worried. They had sex as time permitted, but it just did not result in what she wanted.

    ‘I am worried about your inability to get pregnant,’ her husband complained one day.

    Dazini was taken aback.

    ‘What do you mean by that?’ 

    Before he could say anything further, she added: ‘Are you not the one who is supposed to get me pregnant? Be a man and do your duty.’

    One week after this quarrel, Dazini decided to go and see a gynaecologist. She had planned to go with her husband, but he turned her down. His reason: It was her problem and she should solve it. He pointed at the fact that he had kids from his previous marriage to back his belief that the problem could not have been from him.

     Dr. Adeola Akinremi, who attended to her at the Warri Specialist Hospital, was very polite. He asked questions nobody else would have asked, and she answered them all. When he asked her if she had been pregnant before, she was glad her husband was not there to hear her answer the question truthfully. He was worried about where she did the evacuation and asked her to run some tests.

    The hospital had a fantastic laboratory, so she did not have to go out for the tests. She returned to see the doctor one week after and the cheerful way he received her told her there was no cause for alarm.

    ‘I have gone through the tests’ results and there is absolutely no reason why you should not conceive once you are having sex with a virile man,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see your husband to run some tests on him too.’

    Dazini’s heart was heavy because she felt the tests must have gotten something wrong. Her husband, for all she cared, had proved himself by having children from his previous marriage. Not one. Not two. But three. ‘The problem must be with me,’ she concluded. 

    At home, Dazini briefed her husband about what the doctor said. When she asked him if he would see the doctor, he flared up and accused her of wanting to subject him to ridicule. For the first time since she married him, she queried his literacy. What educated man would see running a fertility test as ridicule?

    Dazini cried for days but managed to appear like an iron lady at work. Her subordinates both loved and revered her and she did not want them to see her as a weakling.

    For weeks, their home experienced a cold war. She returned to the hospital to brief Dr Akinremi. Even though he did not expressly say it, she had a feeling he was disappointed that her husband could take such a stand.

    Read Also: Cynthia Morgan doubtful of paternity, demands DNA test

    That night after leaving the hospital, she began to wonder if all was well with her husband, but his children from his previous marriage were evidence to the contrary. It also occurred to her that the problem could have arisen without him knowing years after having those kids. Dazini was confused and kept to herself. Even though they slept on the same bed, they were strangers. He had a big ego and he would not allow it to be touched. She saw him as a selfish man, who would not mind her just warming his bed because he already had kids from another woman.

    Dazini began to loathe him. But she also wanted a child, so she continued sleeping with him. One day he saw her praying for a child and he joined her. Another time, he saw her watching a televangelist asking women looking for the fruit of the womb to touch their tummy and pray fervently, he joined in and she loved him for it.

    It did not take time before Dazini put behind her any thought of him having any medical challenge. Somehow, the loathing disappeared. They got their groove back, travelled the world together and lived without care. He pampered her and played more than the role of a husband. He was also like her father and she was glad for this and it made her love him the more. 

    The paradise Dazini thought she had created with her husband collapsed when she ran into Moses, whom she had not seen for years. He was a politician in Cross River State and was at that time exploring the possibility of becoming a local government chairman. He insisted that they had dinner. Since her husband was not in town, she felt there was nothing wrong with having dinner with an old friend. They agreed to meet at the Presidential Hotel at 7pm.

    By 7pm, Dazini met him waiting for her at the reception of the hotel.

    ‘Gentleman,’ she said on seeing him already waiting for her.

    ‘You don’t keep a lady waiting,’ he said and led her to the Chinese restaurant.

    They had an excellent dinner, dotted with animated conversations, spurts of laughter and too much red wine. When the dinner was over, Moses would not allow her to leave. He pleaded that she should follow him to his room upstairs.

    ‘What do you want to tell me upstairs that you cannot tell me here?’ she asked him. She was already a bit tipsy. 

    As he tried to raise his hand to plead his case further, his hand mistakenly touched her left breast and she simply died. She could feel a familiar but strange sensation all over her body. In that instant, memories of the past came flooding. She tried to block them out, reminding herself that she was now married and should allow such memories to die.

    Signs that Moses was going to be a permanent feature in her life started emerging when she discovered she was pregnant a month after their steamy session. Even though she was not sure who was responsible at that time, she was glad to have a baby to call her own. She told herself that the baby was her husband’s. Didn’t they make love three days after her session with Moses? When Dazini informed her husband that she was pregnant, the man was excited. I am a man, he said over and over, punching the air.

    When the baby came, he was over the moon as though he had never seen a baby before. He looks just like me; he said—my carbon copy.

    Before Dazini knew it, Toni was six years old and still no other child. It was around this time she started to get seriously worried. It was also around this time that she ran into Moses again. 

    Dazini ran into Moses when she was part of a delegation sent by her company, Scodies Oil, to the Cross River State Government House. Moses was there in his capacity as Special Adviser to the Governor on Commerce. He maintained his composure throughout the meeting, while a storm raged in Dazini. When they broke for lunch, he sent an aide to give her his card with a short note that said ‘Please call’. 

    They met again. Not long after, she discovered she was pregnant. Dazini was convinced that Moses was the father of Toni and the one in her womb. She also knew that it was a truth that she would never share. It was a secret she would carry to the grave.

    My final take: Toyin should be given the benefit of doubt. Repeat DNA tests should be conducted with the samples taken in her presence. If confirmed that all the four children aren’t Kola’s, she should face some music. We need to have laws against paternity fraud. It is unfair for a man to raise kids only for him to discover years later that they aren’t his. Many cases are coming up these days. Thanks to DNA they are being unearthed.