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.