Widows’ Tears About Continuous Injustice

Title: Lonely Days
Author: Bayo Adebowale
Publisher: Spectrum Books Limited, Ibadan, Nigeria
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

Bayo Adebowale, succinctly dissects in Lonely Days

, the challenges and maltreatment many widows go through in life after the death of their beloved husbands, such as suspicion of being responsible for their husbands’ deaths, rejection by some diehard traditional beliefs adherents, loneliness and rejection by several archaic communities’ members, amongst others.

The Fourteen-chapter novel spans 141 pages based on the experiences of a widow known as Yaremi, who lost her husband, Ajumobi, who was an acclaimed hunter. The setting of the novel is Kufi, an imaginary or real village in the south-western part of Nigeria. How some widows are able to hold their shoulders high without bending to the whims and caprices of ancient and obnoxious tradition to marry their late husbands’ younger/older brothers or male relatives seems to be the central focus of the novel.

The very pathetic plot is written with poetic electricity in prosaic structure, as widows like Dedewe, Fayoyin and Radeke are made to pass through various abominable rituals and forced to remarry their husbands’ relatives or friends. Yaremi is painted as a heroine who dares to turn down some age-long traditional practices of being inherited by another man as she rejects the three caps of three men (Ayanwale, Olonade and Lanwa) who had personally showed interest to marry her after her husband’s death.

The author, Bayo in his satirical condemnation of such Stone Age practice still existing in many African societies, makes caricature of the boastful remarks by the interested suitors, who presume that every widow could be swayed by such sweet-nothings.

Collective antagonism by members of a community against any widow who refuses to marry another man also comes to the fore in the story line, as Yaremi is avoided by nearly everybody in Kufi village as a result of her resolve to weather the storm without getting married to another man at her old age, since she already had three grown up children for her late husband. Two of her daughters are also already married while her only son lives in Ibadan city. Her eldest daughter has a son, Woye, who lives with Yaremi.

Through Woye, the plot showcases how some grandmothers relate with their grandchildren. While there is a school of thought that thinks that grannies always over pamper and get their grand children spoilt, Yaremi’s training of Woye disproves such philosophy as she trains her grandson to become very hardworking and self confident. Folkloric ingredients of childhood and granny stories during moonlit nights are replete in the novel. This reminds the reader about his childhood days with his maternal grandmother too. The author, through insightful poetic expressions paint a canvass of how some widows ruminate in solitary spendour, while watching the childish imaginations of their grandchildren innocent minds in the midst of surrounding storms of life.

Recalling how his granny has been very nice to him when his mother, Segi comes at last to take him away to start elementary school at Olode village, Woye says “Granny has been very nice to me. She tells me interesting stories of her childhood days at Adeyipo, and tales of animals who walked like human beings…” This brings to the reader’s mind, Chari Adannaya Onwu-otuyelu’s book titled Ada Marries A Palm Tree And Other Stories, where a granny also tells her grand children folk tales. It underscores the important role grandchildren play in the life of lonely grandparents as they help to keep them lively and happy.

Though the book is well written with several commendable logical reasoning, coupled with the predominant use of similitude in terms of simile as a figure speech, which helps to pinpoint similarity between the characters of two distinct things, the text contains some shortcomings such as several typographical errors. The publisher need to effect correction on such areas during reprint.

It is a book every women rights organization members should read. Men should also read it too, to have an idea of how their beloved wives and children may be badly treated by their own (husbands) relatives or community members when they (husbands) are dead. Hence, the jeremiad ends with Yaremi about to be banished from Kufi with cataclysmic suspense.

Reckless Driving: Two Persons Escape Death

Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

The rough driving of some Lagos drivers almost caused the death of a pedestrian and one passenger between Ile-ile and Iyana School Bus stops, Ketu, Lagos, on Thursday afternoon.
Eye witnesses informed that the driver of a Honda car and a Lagos commercial bus (danfo) driver were engaged in a somewhat supremacy contest on the ever busy Ikorodu road, which led to the accident.
The Honda car swerved off its lane and knocked down a woman, while a man who was said to be seated in the front seat of the commercial bus fell out of the bus due to the force with which the vehicle swerved and the passenger’s side front door opened unexpectedly. One of the man's legs got broken and he was unable to stand. Sympathizers were giving crude first aid treatment to the injured victims as at the time of filing this report.

Aftermaths Of Fear, Racial Discrimination, Hate

Title: Native Son
Author: Richard Wright
Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publications, U.S.A
Pages: 460
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

Native Son, by Richard Wright, tells the story of endless crimes some racially blind white folks in the western world have been committing for over two and half centuries to the present day against black people, and the consequences.

The setting of the novel is South Side, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, saturated by racial prejudice of the 1930s. Bigger Thomas, a twenty-year-old black lad is the protagonist, who sees white people as generally overwhelming with force over the black people of America. Through his experiences from childhood to adulthood, negative images of how majority white people exploit and dictate how black people should live in wretched environment, what to do and how to work embeds his mind.

He dislikes the discriminatory, oppressive and hypocritical tendencies of many white folks. This boils down to the volcanic fear and hate he has been nurturing on the whites, and culminates in his murder of a twenty-three-year old white heiress, Mary Dalton, the only child of a multimillionaire estate business magnate, Mr. Henry Dalton and his blind wife, Mrs. Dalton. The author portray Mr/Mrs Dalton as hypocrites who over-exploit black people and give them irrelevant aid in order to be seen as well meaning philanthropists- a common practice by the western world against African countries from time immemorial.

Bigger also kills his own girlfriend, a black lady known as Bessie Mears, as he is afraid that she might reveal his crime against the Daltons, after forcing her to write a kidnap note with intent to collect 10,000 USD from them by creating an impression that their daughter is still alive, before curious journalists discover Mary’s bones in her parents’ house furnace.

The role media play in society comes to the fore as newspapers report Mary’s death. How some media houses create hatred and prejudicial propaganda in some societies are also the hallmarks of the novel. Instead of using the media to encourage love, friendship, interracial unity, and condemn injustice, some practitioners use it to fan embers of hatred and warfare. This is a sharp contrast to one of the ethics of journalism that calls for balance and fairness in reporting. For instance, in Faceless by Amma Darko, the media is projected as playing traditional surveillance and investigative roles for social peace, while Native Son showcases the unethical character of some journalists causing chaos and hatred among races and ethnic groups worldwide.

One commendable lesson among several other ones in the plot is ‘Individual Differences Theory’ that the author highlights despite the seeming general oppressive nature of white people against black folks. The equal right philosophies of some white characters such as Jan Erlone, a member of the Communist Party (Red), who is also Mary’s boyfriend; and Boris Max, a Jewish lawyer, working with the Labor Defenders in alliance with Communist Party, are pointers to the fact that- not all white people are racists. Mary’s inclination to know how black people live also portrays her willingness to associate with black people before her unfortunate death.

Incontrovertibly, Mr. Buckley, the incumbent attorney cum politician of Illinois State and some white mob can be described as the major antagonists in the story line, whose acidic hatred for black people leads to the final sentence a white judge pass on Bigger.

The challenges of raising stubborn male children by a single-mother and over-patronizing religious beliefs are other focal points in the novel, as Bigger refuse to be obedient in view of his mother’s extraordinary believe in western religion of the cross and Reverend Hammond prayer.

Nonetheless, inspite of the glaring discrimination and oppression of blacks by some racially mad white folks in the western world, it is not advisable to use murder to settle scores like Bigger, as he ends up with indictment for murder under case number 666-983 at a Court, which according to Illinois state laws sentence him to die through electrocution on chair, on or before midnight of Friday, March of the unstated particular year he commits the crime. Racial discrimination, fear and hate are therefore the keynotes of the story line.

In peroration, the portrayal of legal fires between the State Attorney and Max during Bigger’s trial is highly insightful and commendable, but the author’s excessive reliance on palilogy throughout the plot and subplots could discourage an impatient reader from digesting the nitty-gritty of the entire novel. Yet, it is a great work of art that vividly tells the story of the persistent racial crises still bedeviling many blacks in America.

BOOK REVIEW: Are Marriages, Procreation Truly Marks Of Responsibility?

Title: Faceless
Author: Amma Darko
Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers, Accra
Pages: 200
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

The average mentality of many Africans both educated and illiterates, that God will cater for the children they breed without proper arrangement and means for their upkeep, the resultant effects of abandonment, incest, superstition, street children and the role some genuine Non-Governmental Organisations play in the African society, amongst others are the focus of Amma Darko’s novel titled Faceless.

The 25-chapter novel deals with what can be described as the ‘stupidity of some women getting married to any man to breed children like rats.’ This phenomenon is well dissected by the author, Darko, in an entertaining, informative and educative style that makes the reader giggle and sorrowfully shed silent tears simultaneously from time to time as events in the story line unfolds.

The setting of the novel is Accra, the capital city of Ghana. A young man known as Kwei who is not yet capable to independently cater for himself as he is still relying on his own mother whom he lives with, impregnates a lady called Maa Tsuru. She subsequently gives birth to two sons who become elder brothers to their younger sisters named Baby-T and Fofo.

Maa Tsuru and her two daughters are the central characters of the story. Baby-T is the older, and Fofo is her little sister. Kwei later leaves them and their mother to suffer as he could not carry out his duty for their proper upkeep and education. The quatrain turns out to be street children to make ends meet as their mother finds it impossible to solely take care of their needs.

As if the misfortune of dating parasitic men is Maa Tsuru’s god of destiny, she falls into the hand of another good for nothing man, Kpakpo. However, Baby-T is later raped at the age of twelve by her uncle simply identified as Onko. This triggers her removal from her mother’s family house.

Kpakpo, takes Baby-T to one middle-aged prostitute, Mama Abijan, who had plied her trade in Ivory Coast and Agege in Lagos, Nigeria. She thereafter transfers her to another middle aged prostitute, known as Maami Broni. While Maa Tsuru thinks that her daughter is being taken care of as a house-help where she lives with a woman she does not know, she did not know her child is being used as sex-slave to service randy men who patronize brothels. The money paid by them to Maami Broni meant for onward delivery to Maa Tsuru, is cornered by Kpakpo her jobless and dubious lover until the bubble burst. Surprisingly, after some time, Fofo is also asked by her mother to leave the house to join street rascals too because she feels Fofo’s presence is a sort of disturbance to her relationship with the homeless Kpakpo.

Meanwhile, Kpapkpo had also made her two-supporting grown up sons abandon her due to the unbearable shrieking of their mother’s bed and her sexual moans, the very first time he stepped into their cubicle to make love with her in the name of keeping her warm, before the subsequent final exit of her two aforementioned daughters.

Maa Tsuru’s behaviour represents the shamelessness of some ladies who satisfies their inordinate sexual desire at the detriment of the peace and harmony of their children because of their lovers’ interest. She later gives birth to two wretched-looking little boys for Kpakpo, while the one that would have been the third child resulted to still birth due to abject poverty.

After a while,

catalogue of calamities starts befalling Maa Tsuru as Kpakpo dumps her, coupled with the death of Baby-T, whose dead body is discovered behind a kiosk in an area called Sodom and Gomorrah. Her killer(s) had mutilated her face beyond recognition to conceal her true identity, which brings about the novel’s title, Faceless.

The roles of investigative journalism and the cooperation of Non-Governmental Organisations in helping to unravel criminal activities in any society comes to the fore when Sylv Po, a radio journalist and a group of ladies namely- Dina, Kabria, Vickie and Aggie working with an NGO known as MUTE, swing into action to unearth the killer of Baby-T, after Fofo had an encounter with Kabria in a market and builds familiarity from then. Kabria represents the good image of a responsible married woman in the plot, as she takes good care of her very demanding children, husband, and performs her official duty at MUTE ala an original hardworking average African woman orientation.

From the foregoing, the question that comes to mind is; does proper marriage or just mating outside wedlock to bear children make anybody responsible? If yes, why are there many problems in the global society today caused by crimes committed at both high and low places of public and private corporations perpetrated by some supposedly responsible married men and women whose so-called marital responsibility status is as worthless as tissue paper comparable to Kwei and Kpakpo’s misdemeanour in the novel, if being married or merely breeding children is a yardstick for measuring responsibility?

Someone’s responsibility is a personal decision whether one is married or not as Dina, a single lady who heads MUTE show her commendable level of responsibility, that one does not necessarily need to be married before you could behave responsibly. Your personal character determines how responsible you are whether you are married or have given birth to children or not, just as Maa Tsuru, Kwei, Kpakpo, Onko, and other parents in the story line rubbish the archaic philosophy that sees all married people or those who have given birth to children as responsible beings. No wonder many rogues also get married or give birth to children in order to be counted by a depraved society as responsible. In this vein, the novel tends to portray that anybody who thinks he/she needs to get married in order to be counted as responsible needs to go for psychiatric examination. You cannot give what you don’t have. If you have not been responsibly single, getting married is not a guarantee that you will be responsibly married, as cases of many irresponsible married couples are commonplace. Even, some couples have been selling their cherished African children these days. How logical then, is the responsibility status of being married and the value attached to bearing many children in this jet age, while hoping that God will help to take care of them?

The author, in her stylistics reliance on humour, various figures of speech and sarcasm, systematically punch holes in the age-long myopic African mentality that regards philandering men and women either properly married or breeding children out of wedlock as responsible because they decided to have sexual union and breed children while committing crimes one way or the other to cater for them even inadequately.

This occurrence somehow throws up another question such as, isn’t it time to put into the trash can, the conferral of ‘responsibility status’ on every person on the basis of just mating and bearing children whom many of their parents have been embezzling both public and private funds at the expense of the masses, to cater for? Hence, from the look of things, the major philosophical, biological and technological advancement and achievement an average African could easily boast about is the breeding of children like soldier ants because mating is the cheapest thing that can happen between the opposite sexes, while children are seen by many as the immortal angels that would keep their names hanging in the sun whether they were well brought up or not, as Maa Tsuru, Kwei and Kpakpo represents parents with such shallow brain reasoning. Isn’t this a Stone Age dementia still seriously embraced by many modern day Africans?

Furthermore, other issues raised in the story line include inadequate equipping of various African countries police with Ghana as a case study, sex education, African philosophical belief that the male child is superior to the female, rape, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV/AIDS, environmental sanitation and appearance of apparition to those who are accomplices to murder, amongst others. Solutions to some of these societal challenges are also proffered by the author through various characters.

However, there are many twists and turns in the plot. It is surprising that Onko, Baby-T’s uncle who had defiled her and led to her removal from her family house, is the same person responsible for her death too, as findings later reveal that he traced her to Maami Broni’s prostitution room in the inner part of Accra to make love with her again and collect her pubic hair for a ritual to resuscitate his dwindling welding business, based on the recommendation of a juju-man. Whereas one notorious street gang and prostitution ring leader named Poison, has been the major suspect for her death.

In conclusion, the very ridiculous philosophy of some Africans always giving birth to children even when they can barely take good care of themselves, while expecting God to come down to cater for the wrongly-timed born children, seems to be the author’s satirical focus. Also showcasing along this ill-fated ideology, is the monomaniacal tendency of some ladies who would rather maintain some unworthy men in their life than to be seen as women without men, vis a vis some men who maintain some unworthy women than to be seen as men without women in their life.