Review of Dressed Like A Prince – DLAP

By Noel A. Ihebuzor

The word count is 295, that is when you include the title;  less than a page of typed text but “Dressed like a Prince” (DLAP) is a great story. Brevity does not deny it depth and breadth.  Rather, brevity is used cleverly to accentuate depth and to increase the poignancy of the tragedy it narrates. DLAP is a story that stirs, that sears your body and soul and one which overwhelms you in the end by its delicately handled pathos, a pathos that has none of the antics of pity porn that tear streamer tales usually resort to. The start of the story is abrupt but innocuous enough, children desiring new clothes on the occasion of  Nigeria’s Independence day celebration. Narration is through a third person. We meet the vocally talented and light-hearted Godspower and his aspirations to a career in music, ambition in sharp contrast to the reality of the extreme poverty he lives in with his sister. Their poverty is aptly and economically conveyed through their tattered clothes. Close by to them in a neighbourhood called “America”, are signs of opulence. Living in such close proximity to affluence only accentuates their and the reader’s senses of social inequities in our society. Two sub-themes flow like quiet streams shaping the story and increasing our empathy for these two children trapped in an exceptionally difficult situation. These themes are the possible deaths of their parents in Yobe (victims of religious violence?) and the failure of our child protection systems to pick up these children and provide them some protective care. (Grandma headed households in urban settings are usually very deprived, so we can imagine the daily existence of Godspwer and his sister).

We learn that urban demolition is on-going in “America”. The two children are drawn to the scene where they rummage in the rubble and find a bag half-filled with clothes. They grab this and run. And the noose of tragedy suddenly tightens around the necks of these already traumatised lives. Urban jungle justice is swift and savage.  And it is only in death that Godspower eventually gets the decent dressing he had so longed for in life but never got. Where were these kind neighbours who contributed to buy the suit in these children’s moments of need, we ask silently as we read? The story prompts other questions too – questions on indifference, the collapse of our social safety nets and human savagery!

DLAP is a slap on our faces and our consciences. It is many things – an indictment of the failure of our child protection systems and a sad commentary on the inadequacy of social provisions in our societies. It is also a reminder of the savage that lurks in each one of us, the savage that accounted for the tragedy in #Aluu 4. StNaija has written a very moving story, a story of poverty and death, the death of a child and by implication of the underlying progressive death of social institutions that should ensure that the deprived and underprivileged have life. By locating the death on the day that our country was born, St Naija also sends a very strong message to us all. Should a child die in the midst of plenty on the day of birth of our country? We can only wonder why. We can also wonder on the anonymity of the location and with that the anonymity, the implied message that sad events similar to those in DLAP could be repeating right next door to us, in our very town, in our own very neighbourhood. What are we doing? St Naija has written a troubling story about our troubled land. Her skills in micro fiction come out very beautifully as she effectively exploits a number of literary techniques to tell her story and jolt us. The mastery of the skills in writing flash fiction displayed by the author, the theme as well as the handling of theme commend this piece of art that says so much with so few words.

Good things are happening in our land and one of them is this flowering of fresh talents in literary creativity as evidenced in the works of ladies like Kemi Ogunniyi, Ego Okoro and N. Bassey

Noel Ihebuzor