The Nation Newspaper

Category: Olukorede Yishau

  • Home abroad

    Home abroad

    Since the bell rang for the commencement of the general elections, only few Nigerians in the diaspora had their spirits anywhere else but Nigeria. We followed news about party primaries, choice of candidates, scandals involving standard bearers and more.

    And on the day of the Presidential election, we followed developments on Twitter, TV Apps and other sources. We also called friends and families back home to get information.

    And when the tedious collation process began, we were there without being there! We are abroad but exile has not made us uninterested in a process capable of making our country like the nations we have made homes.

    Like those at home, we were also divided about who we thought was best for our country. We argued, we screamed at one another. We held grudges.

    The presidential race has been called and Nigeria has a President-elect. His name is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. On May 29, he will replace President Muhammadu Buhari. His victory came after a hot battle.

    Like those of us abroad, compatriots back hime were and are still divided. Many lost friends in the process and also gained enemies. Friends attacked one another, enemies re-alligned. Emotions ran riot. A trying time it was. And now that the race is lost and won, this is the time to heal.

    The presidential race amplified the many divides in the country. We saw pastors turning against pastors, Imams followed different routes and traditionalists went for one another’s jugular, all in defence of their preferred candidates.

    The period shows how large our ethnic divides are, how pronounced our religious schism is, and how different our value systems are.

    Interestingly too, we saw God reveal different winners to men who claim to hear from him. It was a period that exposed so many things, the beautiful, the ugly and the downright reprehensible.

    I saw people who refused to declare their preference pilloried, I saw people who publicly campaigned for their candidates called names, and I saw the ambivalent described as the enemies of the people. Many cursed their friends for supporting candidates different from theirs. Someone screamed that any buddie of his who supported a different candidate is his enemy. I saw a cartoon portraying voters from a particular part of the country as blind because of their political choice.

    Our nation was a madhouse at the time and many of us were insane. The state of our economy was enough to make us insane and seek to get who we perceived as the best to get in. Being abroad does not insulate one from the challenges back home with friends and families home who transfer their frustrations.

    We need to heal and the incoming president has a lot to do in the process. He needs to right the wrongs of the past. He needs to make nepotism a thing of the past. He needs to ensure no Nigerian feels left out because of which part of the country he or she comes from.

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

    Tinubu needs to provide enough direction for members of the National Assembly to truly legislate in the interest of the people and not out of any pecuniary interest. He needs to promote federalism. Our Constitution, whose preamble lies that it was put together by ‘we the people’, recognises the governor as the Chief Security Officer of a state. But, in reality, this is one of the many lies in this strange document that guides our life as a nation. The policemen obey no one but the Inspector-General of Police, who takes orders from the President. So, the president is the CSO of each of the 36 states of the federation. The fact that the government of a state like Lagos spends so much money on the police every year means little or nothing. When the chips are down, the police ‘with due respect’ ignore the governors and align with the centre, where their pay comes from. It is a case of he who pays the piper calling the tunes. Tinubu needs to change that.

    The pseudo federalism that Nigeria operates borrows nothing from the advanced world where the government at the centre bothers itself only with issues of national security, international diplomacy and such issues of gargantuan proportion. Instead, our own federalism determines how the natural resources in a state are explored, how the Value Added Tax in a state is shared, how a state is policed, how the local government is administered, how other minute details of a state’s life are worked out and how electricity is generated and distributed.

    Tinubu needs to end a situation where, every month, state governments take turns in Abuja to take their share of the national cake. Our governors regularly go cap in hand to beg the Lords in Abuja for porridge. Also, he must know we don’t need a strong centre. What we need are strong federating units that contribute to the centre, and not a centre that is so powerful that states have to cower before it. What we have now allows a president to determine who enjoys federal largesse and we are witnesses to instances where favours are dispensed along party lines. The country belongs to all irrespective of party affiliations

    The ex-Lagos governor needs to give us a Nigeria where our schools can compete with others in the advanced world. We long for a President who will take Nigeria out of the Third World. What is wrong with being a First World?

    Tinubu needs to deliver a Nigeria where we can reap from medical tourism instead of the current situation where we are the major loser to this trend.

    Our next president must make our economy so robust that we can hold our head high anywhere in the world and our green passport will command respect and not scorn. He must make terrorism history, ensure peace in the Southeast and banish kidnappers prowling expressways and forests in the country.

    Also, he owes us a Nigeria where oil takes the back seat and agriculture and tourism take the front seat and contribute more to our foreign exchange earnings and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He must develop our tourism sector, permanently solve the power challenge, defeat the terrorists and make the country a no-go-area for bandits.

    From the incoming administration, we expect the best medical facilities and not one who will dash to Europe at the slightest approach of headache.

    We also expect a president who realises that looking power in the face helps leaders to be better leaders. We don’t need a president who will see himself as a God with big ego— ego that must be fanned and air-conditioned by sycophancy. 

    My final take: The incoming president has a nation to heal, an economy to revive, and institutions to reform. For us to heal, we don’t need a wasteful president who will blow our resources on frivolities. We need a president who will come in and rise above the decades of trial and error called leadership in our country. Our leaders have been callous in the management of our resources. Past error is no excuse for not changing our fortunes. These are the tasks before Tinubu.

  • The novel our leaders should read

    The novel our leaders should read

    We are set to have a new president, some new members of the National Assembly, some returning National Assembly members, some new governors, some returning governors, some new state lawmakers and some returning state lawmakers. They are going to preside over the affairs of a nation in need.

    Before they start this onerous task, I recommend they read ‘A Spell of Good Things’, the sophomore novel of the author of the phenomenal ‘Stay With Me’, Ayobami Adebayo.

    In the novel, the author never mentions the name of the town the story is set. It looks like Osogbo, it shares semblance with Abeokuta, but, to the discerning, it is undoubtedly set in Ilesha, the same town her first novel was set in. There are so many footprints that give away this fact about this novel whose preoccupation is classism: the rich and the poor.

    This heavily political novel is built around Eniola and Wuraola. 

    In the opening paragraphs, we meet Eniola first through Caro, and later while running errand for his father, and he makes us salivate to the taste of agbalumo, when all he is doing is wish away humiliation and imagining something positive in its place after a vendor spits on him for seeking a newspaper on credit for his job-seeking father. 

    Eniola and Wuraola first cross loosely, but their choices seal their fates. The convergence at the end is devastating. 

    Eniola is a secondary school boy, whose teacher father is out of job because the government of the day deems History and a number of subjects unimportant. So, Eniola’s father and several of his colleagues are shown the exit, a situation which leaves many of them dead ‘after a brief illness’. After losing his job, Eniola’s father apparently becomes depressed and stays most times on his bed and stares at the ceiling from where he one day dashes under the bed when the landlord comes asking for the rent.

    Paying school fees for Eniola and his brilliant sister, Busola, feeding them, clothing them and doing anything that requires money become herculean for Eniola’s father, and his mother is forced to resort to picking recyclables on refuse dump to get cash to support the family. It peaks when Eniola’s mother coerces her kids into street begging, a plan she might have thought of after discovering that a supposedly blind beggar isn’t blind after all.

    EnIola pities his father so much that his “lips grew heavier and heavier whenever he wanted to discuss his school fees with his parents”. So ashamed was Eniola’s father that he “often seemed slightly surprised and disappointed to have woken up”.

    On the other hand, Wuraola, a freshly-minted medical doctor, lives in affluence. Her father, Makinwa, is a successful business owner who indulges his wife’s, Yeye’s, obsession with gold jewelries. Wraola’s mother, Yeye, experienced poverty growing up and sees life as “war, a series of battles with the occasional spell of good things”. This makes her think of a fallback plan for a rainy day. 

    Yeye also believes that in Nigeria “real wealth was intergenerational, and the way Nigeria was set up, your parentage would often matter more than your qualifications.”

    Wuraola becomes engaged to Lakunle, a newscaster, and son of two professors of Medicine. Kunle is controlling and intrusive. 

    Lakunle’s father, Prof Coker, is challenging a member of the House of Representatives for the governorship ticket of their party, a major driving force for the novel’s plot and structure. 

    At Wuraola’s mother’s fiftieth birthday party, the House of Representatives’ member threatens Prof Coker to drop off the race. At that party too, Wuraola’s sister calls Kunle by his name and he feels Wuraola is defending her. Her statement about his not studying Medicine so that her sister could address him as Dr Kunle throws him off balance, and he slaps her with guests feeling the ripples.

    This book of two parallel lives has one father who is able to support his family, and the other castrated by the society and rendered useless to his family. One mother needs not worry about money and the other mother is degraded to the point of begging. The book indicts a political class with little or no concern for our needs, but capitalises on a largely poverty-stricken population to achieve selfish goals. It also calls them out for aiding political factionalism and its resultant violence, which mostly affects the poor on our streets.

    This book is proudly Ijesha, proudly Yoruba and proudly Nigerian, because the author freely uses Ijesha, Yoruba and Nigerian allusions without bothering whose ox is gored! 

    In a way, the novel is homage to some great African novels whose titles serve as the sub-titles for its parts. The first part is named after Sefi Ata’s ‘Everything Good Will Come’, the second part is named after Chika Unigwe’s ‘On Black Sister’s Street’ and the third part is titled ‘Waiting for An Angel’, Helon Habila’s first novel. The fourth part is named after Teju Cole’s ‘Everyday Is for The Thief’ and the last part is named after T.M Aluko’s ‘Foreman’. 

    ‘A Spell of Good Things’ is a tragedy, very tragic that a few tears may be shared because of its climax. The climax is so heart-rending but, as sad as it is, Adébáyò’s language use is bound to make a reader feel there should still be more. 

    One more thing: its treatment of violence in relationships, especially excuses the victims give to continue staying with the abusive one, is really instructive! 

    This massive literary achievement and a worthy and more ambitious successor to ‘Stay With Me’ is my recommendation to our leaders who will be elected tomorrow and thereafter. 

    My final take: Ayobami Adebayo has written 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. 

  • Godfatherism, fuel scarcity and sundry matters (2) 

    Godfatherism, fuel scarcity and sundry matters (2) 

    For those who live in Houston, Texas or are familiar with this oil city, Peter Chika’s story titled “The Pot of Soup” will resonate, if not because of the storyline, but because of its sociology. It is about cultural conflict and seems to scream out loud that one man’s delicacy is another’s waste worthy only of the trash can.

    Buchi and his African-American girlfriend, Shaniqua, dine out most of the time. The author introduces us to the streets of Houston. The popular Bissonnet Street, of course, features and he rightly describes it as Little Nigeria because of the huge population of Nigerians who either live or eke their living there. The sex workers of this popular street, who Buchi wonders include Nigerians, are not forgotten in the sights and sounds.

    Ghanaians may, however, ask for the author’s head for referring to their jolof as imitation and declaring that Nigeria’s has no ‘part two’.

    One day, Shaniqua is out and Buchi hungers for onugbu soup and ignores the stress that comes with it because his palette craves it with fufu.

    Shaniqua, who works as a flight attendant with Southwest, an airline that operates out of Houston’s Hobby Airport, deserves some ‘hot slaps’ over the evil she does at the end of this story. The end of this story built around a pot of soup, again, shows Chika’s talent in spectacular climax.

    In “Martyr”, the author, in multiple first-person point of view, imagines the thinking of suicide bombers and a suicide-bombing planner. The scene is a mosque. Through this story, we see how people are brainwashed to believe they have some special gifts awaiting them in heaven for killing so-called infidels. This story’s climax proves that what goes around comes around.

    With the story titled “The Interview”, Chika, using the setting of a typical American consulate in Lagos, takes a swipe at the bad state of affairs in Nigeria. The story is about Chineze, a 20-year-old, who seeks an American visa. The interview session is unlike the usual with the applicant being rude and deliberately difficult and leaving the interviewer to conclude that she really doesn’t want the visa. The story also examines tricks Nigerians use to get the almighty American visa, including forging documents in Oluwole, the enclave on Lagos Island where any document can be cleverly cloned. It also deals some blows on America and its pretences.

    Chika also has this hilarious-but-serious story titled “A Provocation”. It is about a lawyer, Ekpen Seghale, who specialises in proving cases of provocation. The story starts in a law court where judgment is being given in a case in which a CEO and his subordinate are at loggerheads. The subordinate is accused of assault and other related offences after catching his boss having sex with his wife in his living room. The story brings back memories of the molue and their drivers in Lagos. It also reminds us of the state of courtrooms in Nigeria.

    In “When It Rained”, we meet Iyowuna, a Buguma boy in Port Harcourt who is job hunting. His arrival coincides with an armed robbery operation and he is arrested by the notorious SARS. He is taken to a cell meant for people awaiting extra-judicial killing. While awaiting his fate, he meets the commander of the inmates, a man known for helping politicians foment trouble when it is time for electioneering. Later in the night, his name is read out as one of those to die. By this time, the police record shows that he has been bailed. Meanwhile, the man whose invitation brings him to Port Harcourt is alerted to his situation and he starts searching for him.

    In “Headstrong”, the fear of the truth shakes a Houston-based married man when he opens a copy of The New Yorker and a short story draws his attention. The writer is his Lagos-based side chick and the story she is telling is about their sexcapades. His imprints are all over the story. Though she refrains from naming him, if his art-loving wife reads it the truth could come out. Chika also uses the story to highlight the practice of office holders in Nigeria using fronts to hide stolen wealth.

    One very interesting fact about this story is that it is the other side of a short story titled “Songbird” written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and published in The New Yorker in 2010. The male narrator here is giving his side of the story narrated by Adichie’s narrator as if to avoid the “danger of a single story”.

    The rot in the Nigerian police, once again, is the subject of the story, “Police is your friend”. In it, we meet a fraudster known as Parker Pen Okeke and soon we see his dalliance with the police, and how this relationship ensures he gets away with his crime.

    The last story in the collection, “Today is Today”, reads like a tribute to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart but it is much more. It is about two men fighting over a parcel of land and one turns up dead after succumbing to what appears to be poison. Meanwhile, his rival is from a family renowned for making the most potent poisons in that side of Igboland. It is a matter of the witch cried last night and the child died this morning. Who doesn’t know the witch is responsible for the child’s death? But, in this story, it is not as simple as that.

    The stories in Chika’s collection merit being read for their explorations of different facets of life and the skillful way he ensures each character is brought alive in precise, elegant, and accessible prose.

    With stories about infidelity, rot in the police, land tussle, politics and clash of cultures, Chika has written a book with the potential to be read and read and well-read!

    My final take: Living in a world with issues such as infidelity, rot in the police, land tussle, politics and clash of cultures requires skills, skills that aren’t available in colleges, skills that we have to learn by living through these challenges.

  • Godfatherism, fuel scarcity and sundry matters (1)

    Godfatherism, fuel scarcity and sundry matters (1)

    Peter Chika, a Nigerian based in Houston, Texas, has a collection of short stories titled ‘The Condom and other Stories’. One of the other stories is titled “The Briefcase”. Its beginning is one Nigerians who are receiving the blows of fuel scarcity can easily relate with. The intro of the story is a subtle criticism of the perennial fuel shortage Nigerians experience every December. Towards the end, it also takes a jibe at instances of suspects getting extra-judicial punishment from police officers. But the story proper is about two men fighting over the ownership of a briefcase. One claims that the other stole it from his car while on a queue at a filling station. Neither has the key to the bag. The one who claims it was stolen from his car is allowed to go home to fetch the spare key but he never returns and the other wants to take the bag and go away. The crowd at the station insists on opening the bag, which he says he inherited from his father and only uses on special occasions. When the bag is opened, what it contains leads to instant denial from the man who claims he has just used it for a job interview.

    The book has 14 stories, all of which Nigerians can see themselves in. The stories in this collection take us around Lagos, Port Harcourt, Houston, New York and to other places. Characters speak English, pidgin, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. Street codes and lingo are appropriately deployed.

    The weird Nigerian political scene takes the centre stage in “The List”, in which a university don decides to join politics to escape poverty. The political parties on offer have acronyms such as APC and PDP, but they are not All Progressives Congress or Peoples Democratic Party. Their modus operandi are, however, similar to Nigeria’s two most popular political parties. Osita, the lecturer-turned-politician, chooses to start at the local government level and what his eyes see are more than the Seven Wonders of the World. He discovers that the rot starts from the grassroots and he discovers a lot of bizarre stuff. For instance, his westernised pattern of campaign is resisted. The audience is riled, and replies with the throwing of sachet water. What he considers honesty is seen as a flaw. Chika’s resolution of the conflict of who gets the chairman’s nomination ticket is another of his clever ways of taking the reader to where he or she doesn’t know. In one breath, it looks like this is where he is going and, in another, he takes a different route!

    Chika returns to Nigeria’s political terrain in “Eye for a Tooth”, a story about a President, Aremu Oladipo who, after failing to get a third term, rallies billionaires to bankroll the election of a lackey as his successor. The names of the billionaires sound familiar: Mike Adeniyi Jr, Anthony Eluemuno, Dr Orji Nnamani, and Oba Odubekun. And the biggest of them all is the one identified simply as Alhaji, who used cement to cement his way to the top of the Forbes list. Interestingly, this Alhaji has a nephew-cum-PA named Aliko. Alhaji disagrees with the President over his choice of successor and the battle line is drawn. One eventually bends for the other. Here, power passes power!

    The first story, “The Condom”, is about Ike and his wife, Laura. The couple’s home is under threat all because of an unused condom found in their home. Since the beginning of their relationship they have never used condoms so this discovery engenders a crisis. Ike, who cheats on his wife regularly, is troubled that his last tryst has turned out not well-executed. But, the resolution of this crisis shows that what a man can do a woman can do even better. The twist in this tale told in timelines from the third person perspectives of Ike and Laura is unexpected and offers the impetus to dive further into the pages. The opening story is a fitting welcome to an amazing collection.

    The second story titled “Wager” shows that what you see is not always what you get, that a man’s stern face and no-nonsense demeanour do not always mean he has no soft side. The story is about Professor Okeke, a law teacher who is feared by his students. It is also about Yvonne Oki, who unveils the Professor’s bowel for his students to see the warped content.

    Humour wrestles humour in “Scent of a Child”. This hilarious tale is kicked off with a wife’s reminisce of her mother-in-law’s constant harassment over her ‘refusal’ to give her a grandchild. Medically, she is certified okay. Her egoistic husband certifies himself fit enough to impregnate a woman and frowns at the suggestion that he should put a scientific seal on his claim. Along the line, Ada is advised to see a smelly baba who ‘manufactures’ babies in a face-me-I-face-you apartment and charges in dollars for this service. The end of this story is another of the crazy twists in this collection.

    The story titled “The General” is also political in nature but, this time, military politics. It is about a general who has just taken over government. His name is Ibrahim and he chooses to be addressed as President rather than Head of State like his predecessors. Nigerians are sure familiar with this development, but trust Chika to take a detour that makes you wonder if art has not initially been imitating life.

    The story titled “The Offering” is not just the story of Uduak, a man who just got a car after a lot of savings and stress, but also of his pastor. It is a scathing criticism of Pentecostal Christendom, especially the gimmicks some pastors use to get members to give up their prized possessions. This story laced with the right dosage of humour is a delight to read. It clearly demonstrates that as Christians, God gave us brains for a reason, and the reason is to think to avoid taking everything spewed from the pulpits hook, line and sinker. God knows that many who call His name are doing so in deceit.

  • Like COVID-19, like Grey

    Like COVID-19, like Grey

    Umar Turaki’s novel, ‘Such A Beautiful Thing To Behold’, reminds me so much of those early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, those days when farmers couldn’t farm, those days drivers couldn’t drive, those days friends couldn’t hug, those days Mecca was closed to pilgrimage, those days the world went on holiday. The novel will amaze and excite you in equal measures.

    Unlike the COVID-19, what afflicted the people Turaki wrote about is called Grey, and it is an epidemic because it affects a town. Grey holds it by the jugular and is draining the blood of its inhabitants.

    Nothing warned the people of Pilam that a strange sickness was about to unfurl across their lives with impunity. They were a happy people until Grey put things asunder, fell things apart and compelled the centre not to hold.

    The sickness has no seeming cause, or remedy. It makes it difficult seeing colour again. It makes everything drab and leaden, like black-and-white films. It makes people kill themselves with knives, ropes, just anything capable of taking life. Wrists are slashed, rat poison is consumed and so on.

    Corpses litter forests and birds and the weather makes faces indistinguishable.

    Men are forced to form groups to sneak across the barricade in search of food for their families.

    Some go looking for missing loved ones only to get missing too. Fathers and mothers go in search of each other and fail to return. Only children are immune from the disease.

    Neighboring communities are scared and frown against people from Pilam escaping.

    When the residents realise that their village is the sole site of the epidemic, many try to leave but they meet a wall of soldiers sent by the government. Those who dare to ignore the commanding officer’s instructions to turn back are massacred.

    Borders are fortified to keep them enclosed. But since water always finds its level, three siblings, Dunka, Panmun and Panshak find their way out of death’s enclave. Their youngest sister, Rit, however, refuses to flee. The plague has killed their parents and their fates hang in the balance. Running, they believe, will save them. 

    When Panshak flees, he finds himself in an orphanage run by a woman with so many myths woven around her life. One day she is killed by a boy she took like her own. The boy assumes leadership of the home, allows the children to eat whatever they want and roam. While out one day, they attack a vehicle conveying a man and a lady. The lady is Panmun, the man is Zumji, her lover whose child she is carrying. They escape the bows, arrows, rocks and other weapons aimed at them. Panshak, though a part of the mob, is only its leader’s reluctant photographer.

    Dunka’s first move on escaping is to try a woman he is told could have a cure for Grey, but he meets a brick wall.

    Away from home, the siblings face challenges. Their sister who remains home is seized by the fear that she will die of hunger since the food reserves are getting depleted. Dunka is turned into a prisoner in the home of the family he thought a cure lies. Panshak incurs the wrath of the new boss of the orphanage who never tires of threatening to kill him among many other challenges. Panmun, though in the company of the love of her life, is not having things easy. For all of them, leaving home seems not to have brought the succour they expect and they long for one another. But turning back is a decision beyond them. So, they soldier on for as long as possible.

    The tale assumes a jungle mien in many respects with outright murder becoming survival tactics.

    The story is rendered in third person narration but from multiple points of view. There are instances where the narration is presented from the perspectives of more than one character. This gives the sides to unfolding events without being unnecessarily repetitive.

    Turaki has a way with words, as though they are jets he is using to fly his audience to a new world. See this superb descriptive writing: “Dunka retrieved an old, faded wrapper from Nana Ritdirnen’s room and covered her with it. He laid her in the hole and filled it with the hard, caked earth. Then he sat in their living room, tired all the way through, and waited for Panmun to come in. If there was going to be any righting of things, if they were all going to learn to live together as a household, then he needed her.”

    And here is another juicy description that sings harmonious tones: “After the massacre, the people had become even more determined. They tried back roads and mountain passes; they tried the expanse of wilderness that stretched on and on to the setting sun. At every turn, they found a well-guarded military installation. They sneaked and fought and snarled and raged, until at last, it dawned on them that there was no escape from the quarantine. Defeated and exhausted, their spirits broken, the people of Pilam resigned themselves to apathy. Eventually, the major roads that led into Pilam were permanently blocked. Leadership groups of neighboring settlements took over from the military and erected obscene boundary fences, further hemming in Pilam and its inexplicable pestilence.”

    The landscape is rhythmically presented such that we are dazzled in scene after scene.

    With a prose style that hums repeatedly, Turaki has given us an important book, one which makes us reconsider our humanity, one which makes us wonder why governments sometimes turn against the people, one which shows us unbreakable siblings’ bond and offers us deep insights into human nature. It also offers lessons in survival and resilience.

    The characters’ courage, tenderness and vulnerability allow the author to succeed in making a tale so grim both beautiful and stunning.

    My final take: In any situation, unity and love have a way of bringing out the best in humanity. Hatred and disunity, on the other hand, bring out the worst in humanity. The choice is ours. 

  • Lessons in grief (2)

    Lessons in grief (2)

    In Onyi Nwabineli’s ‘Someday, Maybe’, we are treated to a heartbreaking rendering of a mind shattered by grief and which spins efforts to make it whole again.

    The novel comes at a time when more and more people are choosing to leave instead of living, once overwhelmed by life. It portrays a closely-knit Nigerian-Igbo family in London and their rooted-ness in their culture despite being far away from home.

    The sights, sound and smells of the United Kingdom dance from one page to the next.

    The first person you’ll be introduced to in this novel is Eve, a British-Nigerian whose parents are experts in different areas of medicine. When we meet Eve, her life seems built on these words of Washington Irving: “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”

    Eve, who is also the narrator, will introduce you to the love of her life. her introduction goes thus: “Around the time my husband was dying, I was chipping ice from the freezer in search of the ice cube tray wedged in the back. But only because I was taking a break from filling his voice mail with recriminations about his failure to communicate his whereabouts. The memory of this, along with countless other things, would weave together the tapestry of blame I laid upon myself in the days and weeks after his death.”

    In the spirit of continued honesty, she also says of him: “He was the great love of her life despite his penchant for going incommunicado, he was, as far as she and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy; yet, on New Year’s Eve, does something unimaginable. From then on, the pages are enveloped by grief.

    When the duo first met, Eve was unprepared for Quentin. She was nineteen. She had taken a place at King’s College to study English and Digital Media. Until Quentin came into her life, university was more about evenings spent reading Dostoyevsky by lamplight because she thought it romantic. She was shy, self-conscious of what she looked like from behind, and had an expansive vocabulary and access to cheap shots at the student union. Quentin made a new person out of her. So, she just couldn’t understand it when he did what he did without even leaving a note to say why he did it. Efforts to make her grieve less is met with reactions seemingly screaming: All losses are not equal.

    Her search for the reason for his action is a major driving force of this novel. Her unending duel with Quentin’s Caucasian mother (Aspen) also pushes the narrative and her discovery of a pregnancy he wasn’t aware of provides another tool to deliver a rousing tale.

    The author also puts to good use Eve’s family members and small circle of friends. Her siblings are understanding, at first, but it gets to a stage they feel she is taking it too far and wondering whether Quentin deserved what became of him.

    Aside its main theme, which is grief, this novel explores interracial marriage and its many complications. She also examines familial love and how a man handles his love for his wife and his mother, who hates his wife. It also explores the role of therapy in grief management.

    Nwabineli’s book, as a meditation on grief, cuts like a well-sharpened knife and raises posers: Are we to cheer on Eve as she refuses to be consoled? Are we to agree with her quest for an answer to a clearly rhetorical question? Or are we to just leave her to grieve it all out on her own? And what are we supposed to make of Aspen’s approach to Quentin’s absence? There are so many posers each reader will resolve according to personal experience.

    This is one of those books that ring so true and make you wonder if there is a true story beneath this story. One more thing you will probably love about this book is its descriptive power. Descriptions scream out loud in this novel. Sampler: “I had clumsy sex for the first time with a boy named Dane, who had large hands and pawed at my chest.” And another one: “I give Quentin to the wind, then I take our daughter home.”

    Though the tale is not a palatable one, Nwabineli renders it with so much candor and leaves you with no choice but to relish page after page.

    The instructive end of the novel is a lesson on how individual differences play significant role in how we look for closure. It is never the same. Some do so by doing away with things related to what they are running from and others by keeping those things close.

    Nwabineli has offered us a delicacy worth relishing like a well-cooked egusi soup garnished with ponmo, fish and prawns.

    My final take: Grief is a poison, a slow poison. But, despite its potency, time, most times, sets its victims free from captivity. It has, however, consumed many, leaving them only when they are six feet below.

  • Lessons in grief (1)

    Lessons in grief (1)

    I have seen people grieve and I have read about grieving and I have had reasons to grieve too. I wish no one has to grieve. But it seems we are alive to grief, ultimately. Late last year, I read two novels about grief, one about a mother grieving a daughter who committed suicide, and the other about a husband who committed suicide. Both of them left no note to explain their fatal decision. 

    My take away from both books and real-life experiences is that grief is not beautiful. It is a monster, hydra-headed and scary. It creates holes in its victims and direct their actions in ways they have absolutely no control of. It makes its preys feel like they are alone. It destroys them bit by bit and it is non-linear, highly unpredictable. 

    The first novel is Yewande Omotoso’s third work of fiction titled ‘An Unusual Grief’, and the second is Onyi Nwabineli’s ‘Someday, Maybe’. 

    Omotoso’s book begins when Mojisola arrives Johannesburg from Cape Town. By then, Yinka—her daughter who left home after catching her professor father pants down with his young assistant—is dead and buried. 

    Yinka was an unhappy child. Right from her teens she had shown signs of depression. Mojisola’s Johannesburg trip is to get to know a daughter long gone. She feels she can find answers in her daughter’s space in the crowded block of flats with a crazy landlady called Zelda. 

    Mojisola sure finds answers -some shocking, some otherworldly and others surreal. One of the shocking answers she gets is the identity of the person Yinka argued with on the phone before she ends it all. 

    The day she gets to the building, she meets a landlady eager to rent out the flat and start earning revenue. She pays for it to have the chance to get the answers she is looking for. Soon she finds out her daughter was into weed, and Zelda is not just a dealer, but also getting high on her own supply. They start an unexpected dalliance. 

    She does crazy things in search of answers. In some instances, Mojisola disguises as her daughter to meet people she interacted with before breathing her last, one of them turns out to be a lover of BDSM ready to try his skills out on the older woman who is desperate to retrieve her daughter’s drawings in his possession. The drawings give insight into Yinka’s perceptions of her parents. It reveals much more.

    Following a revelation from Zelda, Mojisola organises a memorial for her daughter, drawing the guests list from the last set of people she called. Her intention is to see if any of them plays any role in her death so she treats all the attendees as suspects by asking questions capable of exposing them. She ends up in most cases making them wonder if she knew her daughter at all, an awkward situation which leaves her explaining her knowledge gap. Emotions run high at the event, which ultimately turns out not a waste. It provides some missing details and yields a notebook Yinka kept. The notebook is emotional. It seems to be the best bit of this amazing novel. 

    On the surface, ‘An Unusual Grief’ is about a mother and her dead daughter, but it is much more; it is also about a wife and a husband with a marriage on the brink. The book traces their early days in Ife, the arrival of their child, when things begin to go south and other minute details that flesh up this bittersweet rendition. 

    While the big picture is grief, this book explores modern dating and its risks, a parent’s unfaithfulness and a child’s disappointment, depression and its side effects, feline companionship, unusual friendships and breaking free from labels.

    Secrets is a ‘hidden’ theme in this book. Omotoso, without being judgmental, explores the things people do out of public glare, especially in their sex lives. In the end, she shows that life is in cycles and what you see is not always what you get. There is more to people than even people close to them will ever find out. 

    Also, people have the capacity to surprise themselves, as is clear in the things Mojisola does after moving into Yinka’s apartment. It is initially about finding answers but she later realises it is also about her cravings, about letting loose after decades of suppressing herself. 

    Set in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Ife, the book brings alive these environs in such a way that they do not distract the storyline. The flora of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, find breathing space on many pages of this novel. 

    Aside from Mojisola, her daughter, and Zelda, the novel has other memorable characters such as Jide and Titus, Mojisola’s husband. Jide is one hell of a character, his choices are the kinds that will engender debates—debates that in the long run will be unending. And Titus comes across as the typical chauvinistic man who finds it difficult to say sorry when he has committed a grave act. Innana, Yinka’s cat, also is a character worth recalling and P Machaivelli, also known as PM, may strike a chord in some readers. Then there is Wicus, aka the Woodsman. His connection to Yinka is one reason he sure will linger in minds. 

    The characters are well-chosen and developed, a development which gives this meditation on loss its identity, colour and panache. 

    The last bit of the book, Titus’ journal, is gritty. It unveils loopholes in the unfolding drama, it fills empty spaces and brings clarity to a number of things. It also raises posers, among which is whether depression is hereditary or not. The journal is like light at the end of the tunnel that painfully delights. 

    Omotoso’s prose is simple but certainly not simplistic. She appears to deploy words with empathy, perhaps because of the subject matter of grief. 

    Rendered in the third person, except the notebook segment and Titus’ journal, ‘An Unusual Grief’ excites, shocks and illuminates. It puts light on the contradiction that love of any kind, be it between parents and children or husbands and wives, can sometimes be. 

    With this remarkable and intimate novel, Yewande Omotoso evokes a rich mosaic of broken peoples’ experiences. And through her characters’ interconnecting fates, she recreates the extraordinary routes grief can force us to take. 

    This novel shows Omotoso as an author who can think and write! 

  • One day, this country will be great again

    One day, this country will be great again

    The last stretch is here

    Closer than we think

    Deals are being sealed

    Deals that will affect your life and mine

    Deals that will make or mar us

    In striking the deals

    The ultimate is getting the keys to the Villa

    Values, principles and whatnot take backseat

    Your interest

    My interest

    Are on the back row

    So, I plead with you, my compatriots

    Do not lose your friends for politicians

    You are not that important to them

    You are not.

    Till this day, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo denies working for a third term in office. His denial is taken with a pinch of salt by many who witnessed the events of the era.

    A memoir by Femi Oluwole, former Editor of New Treasure, offers insights into the saga. Oluwole’s book disputes Obasanjo’s denial and he gives details of the roles his ex-boss, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, and many others played to return Obasanjo to Ota after his second term as president.

    On chapter 10, he writes: “On the day the idea of tenure elongation for Obasanjo was thrown into the dustbin, I saw some statistical figures that gave me hope that one day, this country will be great again, because even in the face of the massive underhand dealings and allegations of bribery that went on, some senators still looked at the president straight in the face, eyeball to eyeball, and said NO to his demand.”

    Afikuyomi, who Oluwole worked with, was very popular in the Lagos politics of 1999-2007 era. In those eight years, he represented two different senatorial districts of the state at the National Assembly and was one of the right hand men of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who was Lagos governor in those eight years.

    His popularity then didn’t prepare many for the fact that he would, a decade and some years later, become a footnote in the politics of Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan state. His star began to dim when his quest to become Tinubu’s successor didn’t materialise and he settled for the role of a Returning Officer, and later Commissionership, in the first term of Babatunde Fashola.

    Oluwole’s years of service to the son-in-law of Prince Bola Ajibola gave him front row access to the seat of legislative power. The book also provides a window into how Lagos was able to survive Obasanjo’s onslaught over the creation of new local governments. Obasanjo seized the entire allocation for the state and the Tinubu administration had to improvise for the local governments not to go under.

    Oluwole also details how Tinubu was able to survive the move by Obasanjo to take over the Southwest for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    In telling this tale, Oluwole shows bravery by naming names.

    He also recalls his encounters with human rights activists, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, MKO Abiola’s physician, Dr Ore Falomo; and the controversial National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) boss, Saka Saula, among others. The book also contains interesting details of the exploits of Femi Akintunde Johnson’s Treasure magazine, including editions that shook the Pentecostal churches in Nigeria.

    It also refreshes the memories of those days when seers were popular for publishing books of prophecies. Oluwole was involved in editing some of these publications. The book also contains Oluwole’s personal stories, including his years at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), his years growing up in Iyana-Ipaja, his father’s long battle with diabetes and how the old man has lived four more decades after doctors predicted his last days were nigh.

    This book equally deals with a problem Nigeria has been unable to resolve: indigeneship. He uses his personal experience to hammer on why this problem must be resolved once and for all. He recalls a bill, which could have solved the problem but which unfortunately was stillborn.

    In Nigeria, the severity of the ‘where-are-you-from’ challenge has seen politicians returning to their states of origin to seek elective offices only to be reminded by home-based politicians that they are ‘imported’. They are not accepted where they reside and pay taxes and seen as lepers by people in their hometowns.

    Except for states such as Lagos, Kaduna and a few others, indigenes of other states have no place in their civil service. Whether you were born and bred in those states means nothing. You are from where your father comes from. Your mother’s state is irrelevant. Some people will not even agree to sell landed property to non-indigenes. The most ridiculous thing is when love affairs are put asunder because parents will not allow their son or daughter marry from outside their state or ethnicity.

    Another variant of this problem is the one that involves even people within the same ethnic group, say the Yoruba, for instance. Among the Yoruba are the Ijebu, Egba, Ekiti, Ondo, Oyo and so on. Some people, though Yoruba, will not allow their children to marry from the Ijebu stock. The myth is that the Ijebu are “fetish” and can do anything for money. So for this ridiculous reason, love is sacrificed.

    There is also the myth that Egba women are quick to abandon their husbands when things are tough. As a result of this, an Egba woman is no go area for some Yoruba. In the Southeast, some parts believe that they are the ‘superior’ Igbo.

    From Oluwole’s experience, he obviously looks forward to an era when, like in the United States, two brothers can be governors in two different states because their country’s constitution allows them to be indigenes of a place once they have stayed there for an acceptable number of years.

    Written in simple and free-flowing prose, Oluwole has written an important book that will deepen debates about politics, health issues, citizenship and whether or not some happenings in life are The Acts of Men or of God.

    My final take: As Oluwole said, one day, this country will be great again. The task of ensuring that is in the hands of Nigerians. They can start doing that by voting the right president in next month.

  • And Saint Obasanjo speaks

    And Saint Obasanjo speaks

    The timing is perfect. New Year’s day, new year’s message. The messanger: Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, ex-soldier, ex-military Head of State, ex-President, letterman and public speaker.

    His message as I see it: I believe Mr Peter Obi has the capacity to make Nigeria great like I did.

    I have absolutely no problem with his choice of Mr Peter Obi. It is within his right to make a choice.

    What I have problem with is the second leg of his message, the self-praise and the vanity of it all.

    Mr Obasanjo is one of the lucckiest human beings on earth. Born of a very humbling background, his decision to join the Army changed his story.

    Opportunities just usually find a way to perch at his doors.

    If in doubt of my assertion, consider his role in the civil war, his ascension to the seat of Head of State, and his return to power after years in prison where the late General Sani Abacha dumped him.

    Even when it is not his will, he has gotten power without breaking much sweat.
    Each time I listen to this erudite former President talk about leadership, I am always marveled.

    He comes across as an activist, a fire-spitting one for that matter. Femi Falana and others seem like his colleagues.

    But, I have repeatedly told myself: Wait a minute, this man is no activist. He is part of what he is complaining about.

    From Nigeria to Europe to America and Asia, anytime he is given the opportunity to talk, he talks as though he is not an African leader who has contributed immensely to the challenges of the continent; he talks like a Messiah who is waiting for the opportunity to change the world; and he talks like an analyst with the best of intentions.

    But he is not. We all know he is not. Except we want to deceive ourselves.

    Last year, I saw a video of his in a church and he was complaining about the leadership the country has had.

    He spoke about security challenges and his fears that churches might soon become dangerous to attend because kidnappers could just walk in and abduct congregants. He sounded convincing like an average activist.

    The truth is: He is not far from the truth but my problem is that he talks as though he is not part of the problem.

    And in his new year message, he kept hammering on his era as though we didn’t witness it.

    He ruled us for some years as military Head of State after General Murtala Mohammed was killed, and he came back as civilian president in 1999.

    After his first term in 2003, he secured a second term and led us till 2007 before foisting ailing Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on us.

    As President, Obasanjo carried out a privatisation programme.

    The idea was for government-owned businesses to be sold to the private sector so that they would be well-run. We are all witnesses to how bad that turned out.

    He also invested chunk of money on 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.

    Ask All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Candidate Bola Tinubu about how 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.

    This same activist, in the twilight of his administration, 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.

    This great activist 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. As I write, it is also his home haven left the sprawling mansion he retired to after his tenure.

    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.

    Yet, he speaks against this when others do it. He is unable to remove the speck in his eyes but he is seeing the one in others. What a wonderful man!

    The race to pick a successor for outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari has reawakened the activist in Obasanjo and he has been pontificating.

    The other day he said one of the mistakes he made was choosing Atiku Abubakar as his deputy.

    He said this not long after Atiku became the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party that made Obasanjo president, but whose membership card he obscenely displayed its public destruction.

    Obasanjo cannot divorce himself from the leadership problem Nigeria has. As a matter of fact, he is an integral part of it.

    So, he should spare us the pontificating about our leadership deficiency.

    He is part and parcel of why we don’t have electricity, good roads, good schools, standard hospitals and many other good things of life.

    I must add that this intervention does not imply that Obasanjo is a failure or has nothing to show for his years in office.

    It is just to say he is not a saint and he should stop dressing as one.

  • How to help Nigeria in 2023

    How to help Nigeria in 2023

    In two days, the curtain will fall on 2022 and we will welcome 2023 with all our hearts. For some, dreams have been realised. For others, dreams have been dashed and all hope is on the New Year. 

    For Nigeria, the fast-approaching year is not ordinary. It is the year we choose a new president to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari. We have been presented with multitude of choices, many of them jokers who know they can’t win even their polling units. The frontrunners are no secret to the discerning. 

    As we approach the election year and month, we are all clear on one thing: Our country really needs a leader who will both inspire hope and deliver results. I doubt if there is anyone who honestly can say he or she is not troubled by the state of our nation. To the best of my knowledge, there is discontentment in the land. Some have even predicted a bleaker future if something drastic is not done. The economy is struggling, and security challenges are refusing to give way.

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

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

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

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

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

    The way to help Nigeria this year is to work towards getting a President who can right the wrongs of the past, a President who will make nepotism a thing of the past, a President who will ensure no Nigerian feels left out because of which part of the country he or she comes from, and a President who will end this era of epileptic supply of electricity. I will be glad that day when our electricity generating sets will only be useful for picnics at beaches and such places where temporary source of power is required.

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

    We should work for a President who will give us a Nigeria where our schools can compete with others in the advanced world. We should elect a President who will take Nigeria out of the Third World. What is wrong with being a First World?

    We should elect a President who will deliver a Nigeria where we can reap from medical tourism instead of the current situation where we are the major loser to this trend.

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

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

    We are overripe for a president who will develop our tourism sector, permanently solve the power challenge, defeat the terrorists and make the country a no-go-area for bandits.

    My final take: As we vote in February, it should be for a President who will give us new songs, not songs of sorrow, not songs of despair, but songs of joy, songs of a country which experiences orgasm at old age and hold on to it forever! That is the way to love Nigeria. 

    Happy New Year 

    To you for following me all through 2022, thank you. Let’s do it again in 2023. May God bless you and cause His favours to rain on you. Have fun this season!