The Nation Newspaper

Category: Olukorede Yishau

  • Biden and his pathway to citizenship

    Biden and his pathway to citizenship

    He made the promise with all sense of responsibility. And it won him fans.

    Joe Biden. That is the man of promise who made promises; promises of a better tomorrow on his journey to becoming the oldest man to lead America, the country my dear Nigeria is said to have patterned its democracy after once it dumped the bequeathed parliamentary system.

    In a pouch in the hefty bag of promises Biden was laden with was a plan to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants in God’s own country.

    “Joe Biden will work with Congress to pass legislation that creates a roadmap to citizenship for the nearly 11 million people who have been living in and strengthening our country for years,” his campaign promised.

    The immigration challenge is a long-standing one which Biden looked “forward to working with leaders in the House and Senate to address”.

    Now, the possibility of this promise ever being fulfilled is endangered. This is sad news for immigrants who lapped his words and looked forward to the day they will receive their passports and citizenship certificates.

    While making the promise, Biden banked on the support of the legislature, whose composition he was not sure of at the time. Republicans now control the House of Representatives.

    The president of a democratic nation in America’s mold cannot get any major reform, especially on immigration, security and others, done without majority of the members of the House of Representatives and Senate backing him. The president is as good as the support he has in the Congress. The little Biden has been able to accomplish via the Executive Order route is to stop the forceful removal of anyone who had been in the U.S. before he ascended power. As good as that is, the icing on the cake, which the affected migrants are waiting for, is the now elusive pathway to citizenship. They were excited that the illegal in their status would be removed. Now, Biden has started the race for a second term and there is no sign he will get the backing to fulfill this campaign promise. Will he renew the promise during this round of campaign?

    It is not for want of trying that he has not been able to put smiles on the faces of the affected. He has tried. On his first day in office, he proposed the U.S. Citizenship Act 2021. This was to provide a citizenship path for farmworkers and immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children, and for beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status. Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced the bill in February 2021, but it was stillbirth. Democrats in the Senate tried to get it passed as a budgetary bill because bills of this nature do not require a 60-vote majority. They were optimistic of getting it into the fiscal year 2022 spending bill. The majority didn’t allow them to include it in the budget reconciliation process. They tried two more times, but immigration reform didn’t make it into the bill. So, when the president assented to the bill, it was with mixed feelings.

    Last November’s midterm election appeared to open another window to try again. Once the elections were over, Senators John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, and Kyrsten Sinema, an Independent from Arizona, introduced an immigration bill that was to play a dual role: strengthen border security and provide a path to citizenship for some immigrants. Sadly, it didn’t get to the Senate floor. It remains a proposal, as useless as the paper it is typed on. The two senators this January said they would push the bill again, but hardly can anything come out of it because Democrats no longer control the House section of the Congress. Republicans want illegal immigrants to face fire. Democrats want paths to citizenship for them. With the two working at cross purpose, nothing can be achieved. Each is holding on to their rigid position. Compromise is the victim.

    Negotiations have to be done to get the needed concessions. Without this, neither of the parties can get enough votes to either get the immigrants out or give them citizenship. So, illegal immigrants will continue to find ingenious ways of beating the system.

    If Biden has had his way with the U.S. Citizenship Act 2021, some farmworkers, immigrants who arrived the U.S. illegally when they were kids and beneficiaries of a Temporary Protected Status designation would have been offered an expedited three-year path to citizenship. Beneficiaries would have included spouses and minor children of the eligible immigrants. About 3.3 million people, according to the Migration Policy Institute, are qualified for this. The second leg of the plan was aimed at immigrants without legal authorisation to be in the country. An eight-year path to citizenship was provided for them on the condition that they must pay taxes and have clean background checks.

    My final take: Democracy is miles apart from military dictatorship where one man can decree things into existence in the twinkling of an eye. In a democracy, the legislature can make or mar the executive arm of government. It can make it fail spectacularly. It can make it succeed beyond imagination. So, the executive arm of government needs to consider the make-or-mar powers of the legislature before raising the people’s hope with promises of a glorious tomorrow.

  • Khalifa’s love for love

    Khalifa’s love for love

    The smell of roach was the sign that something huge was in the offing, something unprecedented, unpredictable, unfathomable and scary. It turned out to be a young man, younger than her son, but she fell for him, flat. And the centre couldn’t hold when word got out that she orgasmed at her old age. 

    In another situation, two lovers felt the only way to be together was to run away via a train leaving for the sunny city of Lagos from the chilly city of Jos. They chose to elope through a train beaming with people afraid of the consequences of the muscle being flexed by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and Jack Yakubu Gowon. And the heavens came down.

    These two scenarios are the tragic love stories that provide tonic for the two novels of Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, also known as Khalifa. The first novel won for Ibrahim the 2016 Nigeria Prize for Literature with ‘Season of Crimson Blossoms’.

    The second scenario is the heart of his new book, ‘When We Were Fireflies’, the home for the tale from which an Audible Original audio short story, ‘A Love Like This’, was plucked. The scene at the Gidan Makama Museum in Kano is surreal. 

    The new work examines reincarnation from a more curious look. It leans on love stories to look at the other world, the margins, most of us will forever query its existence. It is a magical work rooted in realism. 

    Set predominantly in Abuja, Kafanchan, Kano and Jos, this novel is largely about Yarima Lalo, an artist who, during a visit to a train station, begins to recall that his present life is neither his first nor his second. Memories of how he had been killed more than once in the past start to unsettle him and make him seem to be losing his mind.

    At the train station, he meets Aziza, a single mother who will play more than a passing role in his efforts to piece together the past so as to make sense of the present. This layered work is home to children who aren’t children, creatures who look ten years old but talk and act like ancestors. It also has those called ‘absonders’ and the ‘unblind’. 

    Yarima’s journals, which he writes about his early years in his attempt to understand the memories tearing him apart, open new vistas as we follow Aziza’s reading of the entries. Aside the journals, aptly called Chronicles, he also paints out his memories on canvas. Reading the journals and looking at the art works make Aziza first think he is insane. 

    With the help of his memories and help from Aziza, he goes in search of people in his previous lives and his findings are mindblowing. 

    Aziza’s parallel story is a major plot driver. Her travail with the family of her vanished ex-husband help build suspense and keep the reader turning the next page. She is one character feminists are bound to hail for the way she exercises her agency, even in the face of stiff opposition and palpable violence. Her strong nature strengthens Yarima Lalo’s equally strong personality. 

    As serious as the thematic concerns of the novel is, there are dark humours that ignite smiles. One of such is where Yarima Lalo describes himself as ‘stupid idiot’ for following the instructions of a child to come to the popular Berger Roundabout in Abuja to see ‘fireflies collectors’ releasing souls of the dead. 

    Ibrahim 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. It will set you thinking, make you ask questions, question what you know and imagine new possibilities. The insistent questions will be around reincarnation, not just its possibility, but also the number of times one person can die and return to this world.

    There will also be questions about the possibility of creatures we can’t see (except we are unblind) co-existing with us. And then there can also be posers on being able to recall previous lives.

    The Khalifa’s love for love extends to one of the foundations of the book, Omm Sety’s magical tale of love, which ended tragically in her first coming. Omm Sety was born Dorothy Eady in the London suburb of Blackhearth in 1904. When she arrived in Egypt, she said she felt she had been there before, perhaps thousands of years earlier. Her 1931 marriage to the Egyptian Eman Abdel Meguid was how she ended up in the country she once called home. 

    While Yarima’s memories are brought back by his presence at a train station, Dorothy’s was rekindled by an accident at a young age. 

    Like Yarima, her claims were disputed but she stuck with her truth. One of her claims was being lover to an ancient Egyptian king. 

    Her parents were said to have taken her to the British Museum where she saw the picture of the ancient king and it triggered memories of her time with him. She identified the monuments and other artifacts in the rooms of the Egyptian collection. According to historical accounts, she kissed the feet of the statues, and later decided to study ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

    Dreams also played a role in her recollection. Like Yarima Lalo, who found out he was Babayo in his first life, Dorothy also discovered her ancient Egyptian name – Bentreshyt meaning ‘Harp of Joy’. Unlike Yarima Lalo, who was murdered, she committed suicide in her early coming. Well, Babayo can also be said to have committed suicide by not heeding Indo’s plea to run for his dear life. 

    All in all, ‘When We Were Fireflies’ is a work that will endure. 

    My final take: No one is promised a second or third coming. So, make the best of your current life. Give your best so that thousands of years after you are gone, your deeds can still be recalled.

  • Reading TJ Benson

    Reading TJ Benson

    When TJ Benson was young, so young telling his left from his right was a stride, death sneaked into his family. It didn’t take just one person. It took two: his father and mother, the forces that shepherded him to mother earth and planted his roots in Abuja, Nigeria’s ever changing Federal Capital Territory. These deaths uprooted TJ Benson from Abuja. He romanticised the city while he was away. By the time he returned to it, he was already an adult, steeped in the ways of the world and perhaps crooning about adulthood being a scam.

    The Abuja he met on return had changed and he felt a compulsion to document the moment he was in at the time. It was the era of the subsidy removal protests. He wanted to capture the sights and sounds before they would change again.

    He chose to write a novel to document this change in two ways: setting and language or voice. The novel, ‘People Live Here’, didn’t come as his first book, neither did it come as his second. It came as his third book but his second novel. ‘The Madhouse’, which he wrote after ‘People Live Here’, got published as his first novel and second book. It was predated by ‘We Won’t Fade Into Darkness’, a slim collection of short stories.

    “If The Madhouse is a love letter to Nigerian millennials, then ‘People Live Here’ is a love letter to an Abuja that is long gone,” TJ Benson says.

    ‘People Live Here’, is built around a nurse whose ‘sanity’ takes a vacation. But, in between the lines, we see an Abuja long gone, a Nigeria in need of help and a world that can do with more peaceful nations. We also see senselessness where we should see sense, and we see madness where a perfect mental state is desirable.

    When TJ Benson started work on it in 2013, mental health was not as popular in Nigeria.

    “It was relegated for the wealthy or an evil spirit you let a spiritual leader cast out of you. So it was important to me for everyday people to read the book and realise it could happen to anyone.”

    The nurse, Lia, witnesses horror in Yemen and a place known as Daku, a supposed new local government area in Nigeria which borders an unnamed country. Bombs. Blood. Tears and deaths. Lia sees it all. And her mind snaps.

    TJ Benson, who also writes short stories and is a visual artist, says mental health was like a taboo when he wrote the novel a decade ago.

    As sad and disturbing as the experiences of the characters are, they are delivered with such elevated craft that will make a reader joyous. The novel is grounded in earth-shattering travails rendered in vivid and poignant light.

    The author says the book was inspired by three major things: “The need to set a novel in Abuja because I felt too many contemporary novels at the time I wrote it (2013) were focused on South East and South West Nigeria; the need to create a character as different from me as possible (an independent young, single mother) and therefore challenge myself creatively and, lastly, a news report I heard about some foreign doctors who were slain in Potiskum, northern Nigeria.”

    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.

    Unlike ‘Madhouse’, ‘People Live Here’ is more linear in structure and involves a lot of traveling. This novel is narrated in the way an average person speaks English in Nigeria, especially Abuja, where the narrator calls home. It is not Pidgin English, but Nigerian English may be a safer way to describe it. It is also not the voice of an illiterate as Abi Dare used in ‘The Girl With The Louding Voice’.

    It is also a book about an outcast who doesn’t belong in a family. Benson tries a couple of narrative tricks here and there, in fact, there is a trick in the first line that a reader will only decipher in the section narrated by her son, and there is another that will be revealed in the section her son’s father narrated.

    “Some readers have (understood the tricks) and I have earned their respect for trusting them,” Benson says.

    After Lia’s mind caves in, she is made to see a therapist who encourages her to keep journals to narrate everything she has been through. She chooses to tell her story to a friend named Tafar Yasir, who we are told is a friend she meets in Yemen and Daku but a later revelation suggests something else.

    Lia’s journey to her present situation began in the hospital where she worked in Abuja. There she heard of Angels of Mercy, an organisation that hires nurses and doctors for jobs in troubled nations with medical emergencies. She was employed for a mission in Yemen and she hoped to make so much money that would help her get over the poverty plaguing her.

    Lia’s backstory is intriguing. She was born by parents who wore Christianity like badges. She chose to fall in love with a boy whose parents’ Islamic affiliation was legendary. And to complicate things further, she chose to become a mother at a young age. And to ruffle feathers the more, she decided to leave home for Abuja with her son to start a new life. In a bus, she made a friend who helped her navigate the Abuja waters. She became a nurse but didn’t find fulfillment at the general hospital. Her search for fulfillment took her to Yemen. She got more than she bargained for.

    Without setting out to, the author preaches peace with his picturesque exposition of the perils of war and crisis. No war ends on the battlefield. It is always settled at the round-table. Yet lives and resources are wasted fighting unnecessary wars and fanning senseless crises. Lia’s experiences in Yemen and Daku strip bare wars and crises.

    In some sense, the novel is a love letter to Abuja. Aside from the ‘Abuja English’ Lia narrates the story in, the book tells us a lot about the Federal Capital Territory. We see it, we breathe it in and we breathe it out.

    This is a book that will drop posers in the minds of the readers. But for the author, the people are free to make of it what they like.

    “The ‘tricks’ you mentioned have also given room for multiple interpretations. But ‘People Live Here’ belongs to the people now, so I must respect their experience of the work,” he says.

    My final take: TJ Benson has written a work that will endure, a work that will be studied long after his time on earth. It is a legacy that will endure. Enduring legacy is something we all should strive for. In everything we do, we should remember posterity and how it will remember us.

  • America’s support for Nigerian art

    America’s support for Nigerian art

    Dr James Allen Anderson leads the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra, an 80-plus member group made up of the finest undergraduate and graduate music majors, and gifted non-majors from other departments in the university. 

    Anderson and his team breathed soulful music into ‘Cordelia’, Tunde Kelani’s latest movie, which debuted on Amazon Prime some days ago. 

    The American support for this project is not just in the music, the Delaware Division of the Art also provided grant. The novella written decades ago by Femi Osofisan, under the pen name Okinba Launko, has now transited from text to screen. This will further ensure that footprints of the highly-revered Prof. Osofisan will never be erased from the sands of time. The University of Ibadan, where he retired, and the world of playwriting have no choice but to defer to him, forever on account of his enormous intellectual contributions. 

    The end credit lends credence to how much effort the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and the University of Delaware Music School put into creating the right mood for almost all the scenes in this work, where love meets politics, politics of the men in military fatigue with all its attendant dangers. 

    It takes off on a crisis-filled note. A lecturer in a university, Dr Adekunle, is disturbed about the state of his marriage with Remi. His once-sweet wife has become the devil’s envoy. In the opening of the movie, we see clear evidence of the lecturer’s state of mind, including his inability to teach his students. One of them later lovingly confronts him in his office about his shoddy lecture. Like a typical man, he sees no reason to discuss such a matter, especially with his student. The student in question is accompanied to the lecturer’s office by another student named Cordelia. Unknown to the lecturer, she is about to be at the centre of a major riot in the institution. Cordelia’s father is a minister in the military government. Minutes after the two students leave Adekunle’s office, a colleague alerts him to martial music on the radio. This sort of music in Nigeria is associated with a military coup. It turns out there has been a coup and the leader is seemingly none other than Cordelia’s father.

    Before the implications of what has just happened hit the lecturer, Cordelia’s friend rushes back to him, panting. Protesting students are about to lynch Cordelia for her father’s role in removing a government seen as benevolent. This seems to be referring to the Murtala Mohammed administration. 

    A drama, however, ensues while Cordelia’s friend is still trying to convince Dr Adekunle to help save her from the mob – his wife comes into the office and accuses him of having an affair with his student. No explanation is acceptable to her. He eventually locks her in the office to go and save the girl in danger. He returns to find out that his aggrieved wife has turned his office upside down. She even tears his research papers and sets him back many years. 

    More drama is to come. Information gets to the military that Cordelia is with him. His house is invaded. It turns out the invader is Cordelia’s in-law to be. She is relieved seeing him and he takes her away. She thinks she is his father’s emissary. How wrong she is. Not long after, another set of military men invades his house and it dawns on him that the men who have Cordelia are keeping her for reasons far from noble. 

    Call ‘Cordelia’ drama upon drama and I doubt if anyone will fault you. ’Cordelia’ is suspense-filled. Each scene ends with a cliff hanger and thus lures a viewer to wait for the next scene and, in the process, gets hooked like a hard drug user. 

    This movie is the second of Osofisan’s novellas that Kelani has turned into a movie. He first made ‘Ma’ami’, about the extent a mother can go to get her child his needs. It is also about poverty and how some see occultism as a way out. ‘Ma’ami’ also vividly paints the extent people can go to make money. Imagine a father sacrificing his son for money-making ritual! It also tells the corruption of government officials who allow extraneous factors in deciding who has a space in the market and who does not. It also shows the importance of a father-figure in a child’s life. Despite all Ma’ami does for her ‘Termogene’ of a son, all it takes to test his loyalty is the sight of his father and the evidence of his filthy lucre. 

    The two novellas, which are now movies, are two of the three novellas BookCraft Books published as ‘The Best of Times’. The third is ‘Kolera Kolej’, a satire set in a country where cholera breaks out in its university leading to deaths. The leader of this country, which has the same mannerisms with Nigerian leaders, abdicates his responsibility by granting guided autonomy to the university. Intrigues ensue in picking the pioneer leader for the new republic and all kinds of factors, except merit, come into play. Blackmail is not in short supply in the new republic. In the end, not much is achieved because favouritism, egotism, and many anti-development sentiments dictate the pace. The ridiculousness of the decisions taken by the leaders of the college and the country displays the lack of foresight and patriotism that many a Nigerian leader is famous for. It, someday, maybe, joins ‘Cordelia’ and ‘Ma’ami’ on the big screen. Perhaps with an America’s support. 

    My final take: Seeing ‘Cordelia’ on a global streaming network brings memories of the evil of military rules, where men easily sold their conscience. Our democracy isn’t perfect. None is perfect anywhere in the world. Jealously, we must guard our democracy by allowing the institutions to work. We need strong institutions to tame the strong men and women piloting our affairs. 

  • Saworoide 2 at a time like this 

    Saworoide 2 at a time like this 

    In the second week of April, ace cinematographer and movie director Tunde Kelani announced that his late 90s movie, Saworoide, a collaboration with Professor Akinwunmi Isola (now late), is set to get a sequel. The announcement confused me because another movie of his titled ‘Agogo Ewo’ was a follow-up to ‘Saworoide’, though with a different title. 

    Now, I guess Kelani is capitalising on the fact that the follow-up bore a different title to make another socially-relevant film. 

    With Isola gone, I look forward to seeing who Kelani will work with to make Saworoide 2.

    The first ‘Saworoide’ is about a town called Jogbo, which has so much in common with Nigeria to the extent that one will not be wrong to see it as the country Frederick Lugard hurriedly cobbled together. 

    In Jogbo of the past, the king was required to enter a pact to be faithful to the community. Breaking this pact was met with death upon the activation of the ritual of ‘ade ide’ and saworoide. Latter kings, however, resisted the pact and corruption took over the land.

    ‘Agogo Ewo’ is about political reforms and the extent political actors will go to resist them, including consulting babalawos and pastors. 

    Kelani, in later years, made another deeply political work, ‘Arugba’. The movie is built around the Osun Osogbo festival, which was in the news recently over the Osun government’s warning against drinking water from the Osun River because of contamination. The river is believed to have healing power because it hosts the Osun goddess. If the last scene of the movie involving Adetutu, who is the arugba, and her boyfriend is all you see, you will be tempted to see the movie as a love story, and if your knowledge about the festival is all you rely on, you are bound to see it as a movie on the Osun deity, but ‘Arugba’ is more than those. It is a very political work, which remains relevant to this day.

    This work is like allegorical works of art such as ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Glory’. Without being versed in the background to the works, you will read them like ordinary stories and a great deal will be lost in the process.

    Throughout the movie, you will never hear the names of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Bola Ige, the late Sunday Afolabi, President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the late MKO Abiola and other figures who have been involved in the post-1999 political era. But, for any viewer who understands the country, it becomes clearly evident that Kelani hid behind the Osun Osogbo festival to deliver a political drama about our troubled nation.

    In the movie, there is a Kabiyesi, the traditional ruler of a town, who likes calling everyone else thief when his hands are not entirely clean. This Oba has a chief called Onikoyi, this chief is always at a loggerhead with him and there are clear allusions in the movie that depict the area controlled by this chief as Lagos, the Lagos presided over by Tinubu between 1999 and 2007. Obasanjo and Tinubu had so many disagreements, the major one being over the creation of local governments. Obasanjo seized the funds for the councils. Tinubu stood his grounds and found ways to keep the local governments afloat. A number of these disagreements can be gleaned from the movie, including the governor’s open defiance of the President.

    There is also Aare Alasa, who is the king’s friend despite their personal disagreements. When he decides to leave the government, another chief berates him for his action despite being invited to “come and eat”. This is a clear allusion to Chief Afolabi who berated Ige for an action perceived to be against Obasanjo despite the fact that Obasanjo invited him, an opposition party member, to “come and eat” in a Peoples Democratic Party government. Ige had then replied that he was in government to serve and not to “eat”. Afolabi was Minister of Internal Affairs.

    Read Also: Democracy, ideology and loyalty

    A former Osun State Governor and Ige’s protégé, Chief Bisi Akande, said his mentor intended to resign from the government before he was killed on December 23, 2001.

    Akande, in his book, ‘My Participations’, recalled that the late Ige confided in him his plan to leave as the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

    There is a scene where the Kabiyesi is challenged by one of his oloris for not investigating the cause of the death of his brother, Adewale. He responds by saying if one person’s own does not spoil, another will not benefit. When a gathering being addressed by the brother is shown, he is wearing the popular MKO Abiola cap and he stutters like the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and throws proverbs here and there. Abiola and Obasanjo have Abeokuta as their town. This perhaps was why they were called brothers in the movie. 

    There is also a scene where someone faults the Kabiyesi for declaring hastily that one of his chiefs was killed by armed robbers when no investigation had been carried out. Obasanjo did this when Ige was murdered in his bedroom while serving in the PDP government.

    Kelani gave an inkling of what to expect in his new baby. From the snippet, the work will dwell on challenges Nigeria has found difficult to surmount. We will see corruption, abuse of power and favoritism. We will see how cash donated by donors is mismanaged. We will see the Oba trying to manipulate the electoral process, and we will see instances of corrupt men labeling others corrupt, as is common in Nigeria. We may also see how men of power don’t care about the people.

    These sort of messages are relevant for a time like this when our next set of leaders are warming up to take offices.

    My final take: Like I once wrote on this space, our next leaders should enter a pact with Nigerians with a modern version of ‘saworoide’ and ‘ade ide’. They should be bound to us via the ‘agogo eewo’. If they renege on the pact, they should pay for breaking the pact. 

  • International Chimeka Garricks 

    International Chimeka Garricks 

    The first time I heard the name Chimeka Garricks was in 2018, a couple of years after he published his first novel, ‘Tomorrow Died Yesterday’. It was Richard Ali, novelist, poet, publisher, lawyer and entrepreneur, who recommended the novel on Twitter. I was vacationing in Houston, Texas at the time. I checked it out on Amazon and bought a copy. It blessed my soul, spirit and body. 

    For years, Garricks experienced a writing slump after the novel and music eventually saved him from it. What came out was not another novel, but a collection of short stories inspired by songs, titled ‘A Broken People’s Playlist’. It was one of the first set of books published by Masobe Books and it helped set the young firm apart as the source of quality African literature. 

    Towards the end of March, book publishing giant Harper Collins did a big favour to lovers of short stories in America and the United Kingdom with the release of the international edition of the book. 

    The titles of the twelve stories are the songs which inspired them. 

    The use of first-person, second-person and third-person narrative techniques makes room for varieties. It tackles themes such as extra-judicial killings, the literal and metaphorical darkness, the corruption, and other ills in Nigeria. It boasts of many unforgettable characters, whose flaws would have made us slap, and almost beat to coma, if only we could meet them; its prose has the power to make you savour it like palm wine fresh from the tree; and pacing and focus do not suffer from unnecessary swerving in this smooth-singing, hard-hitting collection.

    In the book, we meet Sira and Kaodini. They had known each other since childhood. They played together, smiled together, cried together and together they pitied people who assumed they were lovers. Sira, a lawyer, moved to Lagos and became a partner in a law firm. Kaodini stayed back in Port Harcourt and rebuilt his life by starting a farm after his father’s wealth went dry like a cursed river. Each of them had relationships at different points but, with time, it occurred to them that they should be together, but there was a snag: One was in Lagos; the other in Port Harcourt. Kaodini offered to relocate to Lagos, where Sira had a thriving career. She kicked against him abandoning his farm, his dream. He eventually found someone to run the farm and the countdown to his relocating to Lagos to join Sira began, but what she heard from his mother shortly before he was to join her was: “Sira. My baby, our baby. He is dead.”

     Port Harcourt, Garricks’ beloved city, has light shone on its battle with soot. In the story that alludes to the soot challenge, we meet Godson. All Godson, a resident of this city’s waterside settlement, wanted was a job to support himself and his mother. Corporal Enenche, on the other hand, was looking forward to quitting the police and joining a private firm. He had three weeks to go. On one of his last assignments, he and his team, led by Shehu, who was always pronouncing ‘pay’ as ‘fay’, arrested Godson and minutes after arresting him, he fitted into the description of an armed robber who struck earlier in the day. Before giving him jungle justice, Shehu stole his phone on the excuse that he had gay porn on it only to end up later that night masturbating to the porn. Enenche made away with his white sneakers. 

    We also meet a man who knew he was dying and chose to witness his own funeral service dressed in designer wears, sunglasses and matching shoes. He wanted his estranged wife at the service but she ignored him and only came after he had been cremated. She had wished to spit on his grave for all the domestic violence she experienced while married to him and the sexually transmitted diseases he gave her. But he had no grave because he was cremated. 

    The story, ’In The City’, a crime thriller, is filled with puzzles you have to piece together. It can get heart racing and make you wonder: What are they going to do to him? It is a story rendered in moving language.

    Some of the stories are linked. Two of such are titled ‘I Put a Curse on You’ and ‘I’d Die Without You’. Dr. Tonse features in both tales. The narrator in ‘Music’ also features in another story where he was drunk-calling his ex-wife. ‘Love is Divine’ also has a link with ‘Hurt’.

    Garricks’ dexterous management of suspense makes it practically impossible for a reader to guess right. There are good twists to the tales. I like Garricks’ sentencing; he was unpretentious. 

    The stories also have the right dosage of humour that will keep you turning the pages. The collection shows that literature is a reflection of society. The major themes include domestic violence, extra-judicial killings, extra-marital affairs, love, hatred and family. There is a recurring motif of searching for meaning and redemption in this laudable collection. 

    Garricks’ handling of his characters guarantees us a damn good collection that will be remembered long after closing the last page. Dami, a very good bad guy, is, for instance, just difficult to forget. Prof. and some other flawed characters are likely to be with an average reader for a long time.

     ‘A Broken People’s Playlist’ has a vital message, which the world has been echoing in the last few days through protests in major capitals of the world: Black Lives Matter. This sentence appears on page 191 of the Masobe edition. It is the inscription on a character’s T-shirt. Since a Minneapolis policeman ignored George Floyd several ‘I can’t breathe’ chants and killed him, the need for racism to be strangulated has come back to the front burner. 

    My final take: Harper Collins needs to do readers in the United States and the United Kingdom one more favour: It needs to acquire Garricks’ first novel, ‘Tomorrow died Yesterday’, which remains a talking point a decade after it was published and is bound to be so long after Garricks’ time on earth. The novel, which is told in multiple first person Point of View, is a testament to the fact that Nigeria has so much talents and the world has seen, heard and read of just a tiny fraction of them. A deliberate effort is needed to boost these talents globally. 

  • Between America’s institutions and Trump

    Between America’s institutions and Trump

    Many men of God said there would be a way where there seemed to be no way. We thought their spiritual binoculars could see what we could not see, and we were on the edges of our seats waiting for the miracle of miracles.

    We were hoping their Father in heaven is different from ours and would shock us. But, we were disappointed. Donald J. Trump lost as American president. His administration dawned at dawn on January 20, 2021. His era ended, and Joe Biden’s began. Trump has known no real peace since then. A Jury indicted him in the midst of his plot to return to power. He was arraigned on Tuesday in New York.

    Trump faces several counts related to business fraud. The indictment is from a Manhattan grand jury. It is the first time in US history that a former president is set to face criminal charges. The ex-president described his travail as “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history”.

    The indictment is not unconnected to Trump’s alleged role in a secret money payment scheme and cover-up involving a sex film star, Stormy Daniels, during the 2016 presidential campaign.

    Before his arraignment,  the spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, said Trump’s attorney was contacted to “coordinate his surrender” for arraignment on “a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal”.

    “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected,” he added.

    The payment relates to a $130,000 payment made by Michael Cohen, Trump’s then-personal attorney, to Daniels, days before the 2016 presidential election, to stop her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump a decade earlier. Trump continues to deny the affair. The Trump Organisation is said to have reimbursed Cohen.

    Court filings in Cohen’s federal prosecution shows that the Trump Organisation authorised payments of $420,000 to the lawyer to cover his $130,000 payment, tax liabilities and a bonus. Defiant Trump has said he “wouldn’t even think about leaving” the 2024 race despite the imminent trial.

    Cohen admitted to paying $130,000 to Daniels. He also admitted helping to arrange a $150,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Karen McDougal to kill her story of a 10-month affair with Trump. The ex-president also denies an affair with McDougal. Cohen was sentenced to three years in jail. Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, has agreed to be a witness. In a book in 2018, she described the alleged affair in graphic details.

    Trump’s travail speaks to the strength of the American institutions. They follow the facts. Party affiliations or any other affiliations matter not. It is mostly about what the law says.

    A Trump supporter, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, sees the indictment as “legal voodoo”.

    “This is literally legal voodoo, this is political persecution, this is a combination of political hatred and selective prosecution on steroids,” Graham told Fox News.

    The Senator used the interview session to seek donation to Trump’s campaign. Trump sent an email to donors after news of his indictment broke.

    “You need to help this man, Donald J. Trump. They’re trying to drain him dry. He spent more money on lawyers than most people spend on campaigns. They’re trying to bleed him dry. Donaldjtrump.com, go tonight,” Graham said.

    “We’re not going to give in. How does this end, Sean? Trump wins in court and he wins the election. That’s how this ends,” Graham said. “They’re trying to destroy Donald Trump because they fear him at the ballot box.”

    Mike Pence, who was Vice President in the Trump administration, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “I really do believe that this decision today is a great disservice to the country and the idea that for the first time in American history a former president would be indicted on a campaign finance issue to me, just smacks of political prosecution, and I think the overwhelming majority of the American people will see it that way.”

    The Trump years were of more troublemaking and less troubleshooting. He made troubles with almost everyone. His friends were mainly white supremacists and those who benefitted from his policies. African-Americans felt left at the back. Europe didn’t get along with him. He treated Africa as a shit hole and dealt with the Chinese like lepers. Immigrants were objects of misgiving and mimicry. Mexicans were treated with disdain and he began walling them off. He also separated children from their mothers in an inhuman immigration policy. Over 500 kids, according to a report in The New York Times, were as at when he was leaving office, yet to be reunited with their parents because officials who separated them have no records of where their parents were deported.

    The rule was: Cross Trump and get tongue-lashed. Reporters had their fill. News conferences were avenues for the immediate past president to thrash the media for a perceived wrong. CNN, to him, meant fake news. New York Times, Washington Post, and others were despicable. Even Fox News that started as an ally ended as a traitor. For Trump, there were no permanent friends. The only thing that was permanent was his interests and once you were against his interests, you automatically switched camp and were dressed down in the worst language possible.

    Even Pence can testify as he was quickly re-christened a weakling for not working against the greater good. He eroded core alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, provoked traditional partners and pampered autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Never had America seen such an era and it could take some time for such a mistake to be made again. Some say the mistake can never happen again. But with democracy, never say never. Even ‘fools’ at times appeal to the majority and get the coveted crown.

    White supremacists had a field day. So free were they that they threatened fire and brimstone if their man was not re-elected, and taking over the Capitol was the height of their madness. They wanted the head of Pence and Speaker Pelosi, and others they considered traitors. They broke glasses and desecrated the hallowed chamber. Reports suggest that dozens of law enforcement officers, active-duty military members, and veterans participated in the global giant’s moment of shame. Now, the Capitol has a high wall and the National Guard is out to keep the dogs of war away.

    But Trump was not all bad news. He is credited with overhauling the U.S. judiciary, especially with the appointment of three Supreme Court justices and the fast-tracking of the appointment of more than 200 federal judges. He is also respected in some quarters for pushing through massive tax cuts for corporations, expanding the economy faster than it was under Barack Obama, and crashing unemployment to a record low—before the economic gains were washed away by the Coronavirus.

    He also normalised relations between Israel and four once-antagonistic Arab neighbours, and he condensed U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, but like a commentator noted all these were “dwarfed by what Trump got wrong”.

    My final take: It matters not if Donald Trump is found guilty or not after trial. What matters is that his indictment has shown that for a society to endure, strong institutions must supersede strong men.

  • Follow-up letter to Seyi Makinde

    Follow-up letter to Seyi Makinde

    Your Excellency,

    I start, this time around, on a congratulatory note. Your re-election was one some people thought was impossible largely because you voted for what you have constantly referred to as ‘unity’ in the presidential election. But, this is the least of my concern.

    Sir, during the electioneering period, the Oriyomi Hamzat-owned Agidigbo FM, thanks to Radio App which cut the distance between me and Nigeria, regaled me with details of your achievements. I also saw your interview with Kola Olotu, where you spoke extensively on what you have done. 

    I am happy that you have increased funding to the education sector to improve the quality. Your goal to make Oyo State the hub for education tourism in Nigeria seems set to take off. I will be glad to see that.

    This letter is, however, about what you have not done, which I called your attention to in my January 2000 letter. 

    If this reads like a repeat of that letter, it is because I believe you should do these things and lift the Oke-Ogun belt, which has a lot to offer but, for a myriad of reasons, its goldmine remains untouched. There is a town which I am sure you are aware of known as Ado Awaye. It is about 20 kilometres west of Iseyin in Iseyin Local Government Area. In this tucked-away community lies one of nature’s greatest gifts to man. It is a suspended lake nestled on one of the crests of rocks, which surveyors love to call “sleeping lion”.

    Your Excellency, to get to this Wonder of Oke-Ogun, you have 350 steps to climb from the base. All you need is about an hour. But as you go, there are ‘consolation prizes’ in the forms of historical shrines and others on the way. Once you climb up, Benin Republic border beckons. You have a full view of the border into this neighbouring country and a breath-taking view of a range of hills. Many who have got to a point called “Esekan Iku” (the verge of death) have their names etched permanently on the rock with pieces of stone.

    Sir, the inhabitants rely on the lake for water. The lake does not know the dry or wet season. It retains the same volume of water all year round. The thick vegetation remains evergreen all through the year. Sir, the suspended lake is just one of the many good things about the Oke-Ogun axis of Oyo State, which are waiting to be fully put to profitable use.

    Mr governor, apart from the suspended lake, other tourism potentials include the Royal Forest (Igbo-Oba) in Igboho; Old Oyo National Park; Asabari Hill, Saki; Rock formation (Agbele hill) in Igbeti; Ikere Gorge Dam, Iseyin; Akomare Hill, Igangan; Samuel Ajayi Crowther’s birthplace, Osoogun; and Imofin Hill. Of the state’s 33 local government areas, Oke-Ogun has 10. These 10 local governments boast of land which is suitable for agricultural and agro-allied uses, but 70 per cent of the population is engaged in subsistence farming and related activities.

    Oke-Ogun is not just about land alone; inside the land, nature deposited mineral resources, which unfortunately still lie unused. These minerals have been found in commercial and mineable quantities. I believe you can work with the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development to make the best of the marble and dolomite in abundance in Igbeti, Olorunsogo Local Government and in Alaguntan, in Orile Local Government.

    I understand also that Tourmaline is found in quantum in Budo Are and Komu, Itesiwaju Local Government. They should not be left to artisanal mining. Sir, you can choose to start with tantalite, which I understand is in huge deposit in Olodo, Egbeda Local Government and Seperati in Saki East.

    Also, there are large quantities of feldspar in Atiba Local Government and in Itesiwaju Local Government, quartz is in commercial quantity.

    Other resources include Bismuth in Iwajowa; agate in Iwajowa and Itesiwaju; cassiterite in Saki East; columbite in Itesiwaju and Saki East; talc in Ona-Ara; kaolin in Ado-Awaye in Iseyin Local Government; and coloured Granite in Irawo, Atisbo Local Government.

    From what I know sir, there are no exploitations of these resources on a commercial scale to yield abundant wealth. No value is added to the abundant raw materials to generate jobs and wealth. Farming is still done at the subsistence level, making it impossible for the cycle of poverty to be broken.

    I have, with due respect, pointed your attention to Oke-Ogun because it seems to me that successive administrations have treated other parts of the state with some sort of disdain. Oyo State is not just Ibadan. There are goldmines outside of Ibadan that must be tapped for the good of Oyo State.

    Also, Sir, like many states in the country, Oyo’s healthcare sector does not command respect. So, it will be great if you turn hospitals to “state-of-the-art facilities that provide top-notch services to our people”. The renovation and equipping of the hospitals and primary healthcare centres must be done with dedication. The hospitals should be such that you and members of your family, and members of your executive council, can rely on for treatment when the need arises.

    I usually laugh when a governor claims to have built ultra-modern hospital but jets out of the country to treat the simplest of illness.

    My final take: As you are set to begin your second term, I want to remind you that a man’s true success is in starting well and finishing great. Starting well and messing up along the way always erases the gains of the early days. So, the emphasis should be on being consistent until the end and doing things that will be indellible. Lifting Oke Ogun, among others, are things I want Oyo to remember you for.

  • Let’s talk about Lola Akinmade

    Let’s talk about Lola Akinmade

    She was in a forest of a thousand daemons. Not D.O Fagunwa’s, but a modern one. Now, she has survived and her success story seems so good. But Lola Akinmade Åkerström had it rough. 

    ​When I first wrote about her in April 2021, she had just released her first novel, a novel rejected, rejected, rejected and rejected before it was accepted. That novel is ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’. Its sequel, ‘Everything is not enough’, and another book, known now as ‘Deepest Well’, have got dual deals in the Un​​ited Kingdom and the United States. The U.S. deal is in six figures and the UK one is five figures. Lola’s triumph will only make sense if I recall the struggle to get her first novel published.

    It started this way: Lola, who is a Nigerian-American, is a naturalised Swede on account of her marriage. She didn’t start out writing fiction. Creative non-fiction and travel writing found her first. She wrote and published two non-fiction books— ‘Due North’ and ‘Lagom’.

    The jealous lover called fiction staged a comeback while Lola was on vacation in Portugal’s Algarve region and reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Americanah’. She visualised a novel about three Black women and one influential white man. Right there she pulled out her notebook, outlined scenes, descriptions, characters, traits, features, interactions and quirks.

    By May 2018, as Lola recalled in a July 2020 piece, the first five or so pages were ready and she was so ecstatic. She had a dilemma: “I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go with the book in terms of prose. Whether or not I wanted it to be pure literary fiction, which is what mainstream publishing expects from me as an African writer in the Diaspora. Especially, if I wanted to be taken ‘seriously’ as a literary writer. We needed to keep proving our command of language to primarily white audiences while writing stories mostly rooted in Africa.”

    The war between literary fiction and upmarket fiction was eventually won by the latter after she struggled to get into the second chapter of a literary fiction book. She did not want to write a book that readers will struggle to get into.

    “I didn’t want to hide what I wanted to say behind pretentious literary prose,” she wrote. So, she decided to write a novel that is in between literary fiction and commercial fiction. Lola engaged the keyboard and after months of typing away, a character-driven novel with relatable plots was born. She christened it ‘Afroswede’.

    For a well-known travel photographer and author of Lagom, a book already translated into 18 foreign languages, you will expect Lola’s sojourn thereafter to be bump-free. But, in the forest of a thousand daemons that international publishing is, her road was rough and it only later ended in praise with publishing deals (in the US, UK, Canada and the Commonwealth) sealed for her debut novel now renamed ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’.

    She worked with a writing guru, Leigh Shulman, to get the manuscript ready for submission to a literary agent as required for mainstream publishing, but nothing prepared her for the heart-breaking rejections to come. To get an agent, she participated in a Twitter pitching initiative called #DVPit. Several agents requested her manuscript, but nothing came out of it. Later, in 2019, two-times Booker Prize finalist and Booker Prize judge Chigozie Obioma came to Stockholm, where Lola lives, to promote ‘An Orchestra of Minorities’. Obioma’s agent at the time, Jessica Craig, was also on the trip. Lola’s friend, Yomi Abiola, sent Jessica a brief email introduction. Lola and Jessica met for 30 minutes. Jessica loved the first draft when it was sent to her. 

    Lola and Jessica were so eager and positive that the book would be snapped up in an auction because it was “unique, different, epic, genre-crossing, and boundary-breaking”. But traditional publishers were nervous about it because the book didn’t fit into a clear category.

    In the long run, seventy commissioning editors rejected the book and thirty-five others kept mute. On June 10, 2020, Sourcebooks Landmark came through with a pre-empt book deal to publish it in the US and Canada. On April 8, 2021, a deal for the UK and the Commonwealth was announced. Head of Zeus saw the vision and is running with it. On September 7, 2021, the American and Canada editions came out and the UK edition came out on February 2022. 

    The novel is about Kemi Adeyemi, a marketing executive, who is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, the CEO of Sweden’s largest marketing firm. Kemi’s immediate task is to help fix a PR fiasco about a racially tone-deaf campaign. It is also about Brittany-Rae Johnson who meets Jonny on the plane on his way to the U.S. This chanced meeting ushers the former model-turned-flight-attendant into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege. It is also about a Somali refugee named Muna Saheed, whose day job is cleaning the toilets at Jonny’s office.

    Their ordeals did not end in ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’. One of the two-book deal Lola tweeted into existence, ‘Everything Is Not Enough’, will tell us more about them and Sweden’s discrimination against black women. The book, whose proof copies are out, will be released in October. It has the potential to outdo its predecessor. It is said to contain twice the drama of ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’. 

    Lola tweeted a two-book deal into existence, now I am, on her behalf, writing a TV series into existence. Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO or any other streaming giant needs to option these books on three Black women. The series will open up Sweden like never before seen on global television. 

    My final take: If you are about giving up on your dreams, tarry a while because you never can tell what tomorrow will bring. Lola Akinmade Åkerström’s new two-book deal is sweet music, so sweet it overshadows the 70 rejections ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’ earlier suffered. Now, Lola is having her well-deserved place in the sun. 

  • Words for the next dispensation 

    Words for the next dispensation 

    When Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu takes the oath of office on May 29, he will be inheriting a country where cows no longer moo, cats have stopped meowing, sheep find it hard to bleat, bulls see bellowing as herculean, ducks quack no more, donkeys have long abandoned braying, horses no longer neigh, geese have forgotten how to cackle, chickens can’t cluck again and peacocks no longer fancy screaming. 

    When he is sworn-in on May 29, he is taking over a country where leaders aren’t ashamed we are renowned for businesses shutting down, for brain drain, for power cuts, for miserable public schools, for roads decorated with potholes, for public libraries with ancient books, for government hospitals forsaken by government, for high level insecurity, for rise in inflation, for absence of jobs, for ritual killings, for yahoo-yahoo boys, for authorities stealing more than armed robbers, for mediocrity and for the dearth of forward-looking leaders. 

    The ex-Lagos governor has been chosen to lead a nation also renowned for having the most educated set of people in the United States, for neglecting and underfunding our universities but still regularly establishing new ones, and for having hundreds of doctors plying their trades in the UK, Canada, America, Australia and even Saudi Arabia whose rulers were said to have, in our golden era, received medical treatment here. 

    Tinubu is to lead a land where its leaders are so ashamed of its miserable universities that they take their children abroad for education and flaunt pictures of their graduation ceremonies on social media. The people who have been in charge of our land display obscene wealth, filthy lucre everywhere and anywhere, when millions live below poverty level. We have no business being poor. We have gold, we have crude oil, we have bitumen, we have arable land, we have gum Arabic, we have limestone, we have gemstones, and we have everything, except leaders with the milk of human kindness. Only few of them care and their impact is far and in between. 

    The next dispensation should be when we rewrite our sad stories and give happy endings. Tinubu needs to be a storyteller in authority. 

    In the next dispensation, especially with our precarious situation, our leaders, including Tinubu, need to pause, take a proper look around us and ask where are those who, just some years back, seemingly had it all but are now in graves covered by kilos of sand to prevent their remains from fouling the environment. The depth of their graves and the kilogramme of sand covering them should be enough reason why we should never harm our brothers and sisters, and not be strongmen whose past time is killing, destroying and maiming to show us their might. 

    In the next dispensation, we will be a lot sensitive and sensible if only we have imbibed the fact that we would one day, no matter how long we live, be buried in graves with depth, and our remains will be at the bottom of kilos of sand, our flesh will rot, our bones will brittle and cackle, and our places will become history. In the next dispensation, if only we always remember that no one owns eternity, we will think of the darkness that pervades the tomb after it is closed, and hurting fellow humans will be the last thing on our warped minds. Whether we like it or not, our final resting places will not be air-conditioned, heat will be the order of the day and rains will seep into our remains. These should be enough reasons not to make our neighbours suffer. 

    In the next dispensation, we should be guided by the fact that whether we like it or not, we will one day be abandoned and doors will be shut on us, and no one will care that we are under, buried under kilos of sand and drenched by rains, and attacked by termites, and feasted on by worms. This should be enough reason to enjoy the company of our neighbours, friends and others when we still have the opportunity to. 

    He who has ears let him hear: have all the money in the world, it does not stop death, build all the mansions on planet earth, it doesn’t stop age from catching up with you, enjoy the best of medical treatment, time cannot be arrested, change and recharge your body fluids, end must come, and do and undo, your end is inevitable, yes with time. 

    Our past should not have total control of our future. When our past becomes a stumbling block, we need to find ways to straighten our tomorrow and, in doing this, being our brother’s keeper plays a central role or should play a key role. Many crave the opportunity of being born a second time so they can avoid the pitfalls of the past. But, since being born a second time is a luxury we are not sure of, let’s make the best out of this gift that life is. 

    Vanity is what many of us spend precious time pursuing. This is a time to have a rethink. Spend more time to be humble and civil to people around you. You don’t have to be mean for your subordinates to know you are the boss. Being bossy is not the hallmark of being a boss. It is not. 

    My final take: In the next dispensation, cows must moo, cats must meow, sheep must bleat, bulls must bellow, ducks must quack, donkeys should bray, horses should neigh, geese must cackle, chickens should cluck again and peacocks must fancy screaming.