Category: Prose

Posted in Prose

A review of “My Father’s Head”, 2014 Caine Prize winner for the short story

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel A. Ihebuzor

What Makes a Winning Work Of Art? – A review of Okwiri Oduor’s “My Father’s Head”.

Okwiri Oduor

I had asked a related question in a tweet earlier today – what “distinguishes” a short story? I asked that question when I read that Oduor had won this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing. I am usually suspicious when winners of such prizes are announced. My mind goes in every direction. Was this story the best? How do you measure best? Is “best” really anything else but another manifestation of foreign cultural imperialism? Had someone written another deprecatory story about Africa in beautiful and tightly woven prose, delighting in painting ugliness and squalor with linguistic elegance and presenting no solutions, no exits and no hopes? This was the mind set with which I set about reading Okwiri Oduor’s winning story, “My Father’s Head”, and after the first five paragraphs, I felt ashamed of myself for ever having tried to put this story in such an ugly strait-jacket!
Okwiri Oduor has written a winning story by any account. The uniting thread for this powerful story of prolonged mourning is filial devotion, but this tale is laced with a generous sprinkling of hallucinations, extra-sensory perceptions, local histories, mischief, naughtiness, biting social commentaries on religion, social services, social care, death and dying. The substance for the story is simple enough – Simbi works in an old people’s home somewhere in Kenya. She loses her father in tragic circumstances – he is run over by a tractor and she is struggling to remember how his head looked like. This story is essentially a search for emotional closure. Okwiri Oduor’s creative genius lies in the ease with which she manages to craft a gripping story out of this search for closure, and how in this journey to closure, she is also able to drag in other socio-cultural issues – religious zeal, relationships, ghost hunting, care of the elderly and more into a finely woven and engaging tapestry. And she does not walk in a straight chronological line in this story she slowly tells largely through the internal recollections and reflections of Simbi – rather she zigzags and shuttles between times and places. As in real life consciousness and recall, “Simbi’s” story does not follow a linear sequential order, rather it hops and steps, either backward or forward, and in spite of all of these temporal and spatial swooshes, Oduor still manages to achieve a great measure of narrative coherence in her tale.
Language is Okwiri Oduor’s tool and ally as her command of the language is deployed to yield a tightly controlled story where the controlled narrative and the narrator move and try to move the reader too with some expressions that are difficult to forget! Just imagine the beauty but sad poignancy in this expression – “unravelling into senility”! Admire the elegance of this one – “I was stringing together images of my father, making his limbs move and his lips spew words, so that in the end, he was a marionette and my memories of him were only scenes in a theatrical display”. And there are many like these that hit you with the same punch of the aroma of well brewed strong coffee!
Most paragraphs stand out. Take paragraph two and the very effective way the human desire for dignity is presented. Take paragraph four and her depiction of rural simplicity, the instant giving of the pensioners, the generosity of the poor priest and the delight of the okada rider who brought Father Ignatius Okello to the old people’s home. Or the single sentence about the maid that gave birth and flushed the baby down the toilet – strong, tragic and difficult to forget. One incident that had me “arrested” was when Oduor presents the possible origins of father-daughter bond – the father chewing groundnut and feeding his daughter with the mush from his mouth, saliva and all. Simbi recalls this manifestation of love, what she describes as “that hot, masticated love, love that did not need to be doctrinated or measured in cough syrup caps”. Her devotion to him and her singular obsession to recall the shape of his head which drive the short story are thus perfectly understandable. Eventually, she succeeds in recalling how his head looks like but this is achieved at the great cost of hallucinating that he was now physically present in her home, dead as she knew that he was. What a gripping tale and what an unusual denouement! Are Simbi’s vision’s real or are we dealing with hallucinations induced by strong emotions? Oduor does not tell us. But such hallucinations are understandable and have been known to happen in real life.
What is not understandable are one or two of the proverbs which sit rather poorly with the flow of the story. Here is one example – Bwibo shook her head. “It is only with a light basket that someone can escape the rain.” It is difficult to understand its role in the narrative or in Simbi’s attempt to visualise the head of her later father. There are also one or two paragraphs that do not fit, paragraphs that read like they were written to display Oduor’s descriptive powers with language but which add little or nothing to the unfolding story. This paragraph is one good example:
“Later, the old people sat in drooping clumps in the yard. Bwibo and I watched from the back steps of the kitchen. In the grass, ants devoured a squirming caterpillar. The dog’s nose, a translucent pink doodled with green veins, twitched. Birds raced each other over the frangipani. One tripped over the power line and smashed its head on the moss–covered electricity pole. Wasps flew low over the grass. A lizard crawled over the lichen that choked a pile of timber. The dog licked the inside of its arm. A troupe of royal butterfly dancers flitted over the row of lilies, their colourful gauze dancing skirts trembling to the rumble of an inaudible drum beat. The dog lay on its side in the grass, smothering the squirming caterpillar and the chewing ants. The dog’s nipples were little pellets of goat shit stuck with spit onto its furry underside”.
Strong in descriptive power, it adds little or nothing to the story except perhaps to let us into Simbi’s troubled mind. But do troubled minds have the leisure for such observational acuity? A number of other paragraphs that follow this one, about six of them, have problems of cohesion with the rest of the narrative. They read like they belong to another story – a story perhaps on exile and reconciliation but not to this one about a lady trying to recall her father’s head.
But these glitches, or perhaps my own mis-readings of the short story, do not in any subtract from a tale wonderfully told, a tale of love and devotion, perhaps of love gone extreme, a story about the present struggling to unveil the past in order to find meaning and stability in an ever evolving present. A story like this certainly is deserving of such a distinguished prize as the 2014 Caine Prize.

Posted in Prose

LET NOT EVIL PREVAIL. A letter from Rome: May 5, 2014

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

 

LET NOT EVIL PREVAIL.

A letter from Rome: May 5, 2014

By +John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja.

 Image

 

We are all familiar with the wise saying that evil thrives where and when good people do nothing and keep quiet. It is also a great lesson of history that you need only a few determined people to bring down a nation. Here the rule of majority does not apply. We do not know how many members Boko Haram has. But they are not that many – and they are causing so much havoc on the entire nation. The situation is serious.

 

I left home on Easter Sunday, when our nation was still reeling under the tragic news of the first Nyanya bomb blast and the abduction of as yet unknown number of girl students in Borno state. Since my arrival here in Rome, we have heard of another Nyanya bomb blast, and the number of girls abducted is now being given at over two hundred. The controversy over the numbers is futile and uncalled for. One missing girl is one too many. Everywhere I go, people are asking me what is happening in our country. There is no more room for explanations, let alone excuses. The view from outside our nation is very negative indeed. At a time like this, one would expect all Nigerians to stand together and face what should be clearly a common danger to us all. But unfortunately, such a common stand is anything but visible.

 

There are ominous signs that if the objective of Boko Haramis to tear Nigeria apart by pitting Christians against Muslims in a fratricidal war, that objective is gradually and systematically being realized. The wanton destruction of lives and property is bad enough. But perhaps worse than that is the gradual destruction and erosion of the hard earned good relations which Nigerian Christians and Muslims have managed to build up over the years. In my 2013 Christmas message, I warned that we should not take our fragile religious peace for granted. I pleaded that we should learn from the experience of other nations where such good relations have evaporated within a short time under poorly managed social and political crisis. The Central African Republic is a case in point.

 

In the midst of our serious security crisis, tribal and religious warlords are beating the drums of war and blowing the trumpets of conflict. I read in the internet that the Jama’atu Nasr Islam has issued a statement accusing the Federal Government of persecuting Muslims under the guise of fighting terrorism. If this is true, it would indeed be most unfortunate and ill-timed under our present circumstances. This is hardly the best way to encourage our security agents to carry out their tough and thankless task. At the other end of the spectrum, one Evangelist Matthew Owojaiye, who is described as the President/Founder of the Old Time Revival Hour, and immediate past chairman of a group called “Northern States Christian and Elders Forum (NOCSEF), an associate of CAN”, issued a passionate statement with a presumed list of 180 missing girls, 165 of which are Christians and the remaining 15 Muslims. It is commendable that a list has appeared with their religious affiliations, and this should be of help to the security agents in tracking the girls. But the document is hardly designed to promote mutual good relations between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria.

 

At times like this, when serious hurt has been inflicted and great injustice perpetrated, it is natural to feel deeply aggrieved and even angry. But the effort still needs to be made to look at things as dispassionately as we can so that we can work towards a just and practical solution. For most Nigerians, I believe that it is highly desirable that we continue as “one nation under God”. But this will not happen unless we are all ready to sincerely identify our common goals and aspirations, despite our non-negligible differences and diversities. It will mean being ready to make more concessions and compromises for the common good of the nation, well beyond the status quo. National unity is beautiful and precious, but it comes with a price which all must be ready to pay, in a fair and equitable manner.

 

If this seems difficult, the alternative of a break-up of the nation along whatever lines would seem to me far more costly, and almost unthinkable. If a war of partition breaks out, where will the battle lines be drawn? It would be wonderful if such partitioning could be by peaceful negotiation. But that would call for nothing less than a miracle, which no one has any right to impose on God. The option to pursue unity therefore ought to be clear and obvious.

 

The menace which Boko Haram represents is hanging on the whole nation. The solution must involve all stake-holders working together. Promoting or allowing polarization of group interests, whether political (PDP against the Opposition) or religious (CAN versus JNI) will not only weaken our common efforts, but even lead to the far greater danger of polarization of our security forces along opposing lines. The red light is clear to anyone who cares to look. It is not an exaggeration to say that the nation is in grave danger. It is not too late to pull back from the brink of chaos. All those who believe in the future of Nigeria can no longer afford the luxury of sitting back, watching and complaining. There is need to speak out and take meaningful action, each at his or her level. As for those who rule the nation, I hope they know that the eyes of the whole world are on them. They should also know that they will answer for all their actions and inactions before their consciences, before history and before God.

 

May God bless Nigeria.

 

Posted in Prose

The Abducted Children of Chibok

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel Ihebuzor

 

The abduction by Boko Haram of children from Chibok is the issue occupying centre stage in politics right now in Nigeria.  Government response to and management of this abduction have not been effective – a large number of the children , we are told, are still with their captors and locating them continues to be a challenge.

Very far away from the scene of this affront to decency and female dignity, especially in Abuja and Lagos, demonstrators and marchers have mobilised under very arresting logos to demand that immediate action be taken to ensure the safe and immediate release of these girls. Dialogues have been held by some of these marchers with government security agencies and a modus operandi for engagement and information sharing was tweeted to have been agreed upon by one of marchers’ spokesperson. But marchers and demonstrators are also using social media to give their cause (and a very legitimate cause for that matter) and themselves considerable visibility. And here they are several steps ahead of government, and whether deliberately or by inadvertence are making government look bad, insensitive and unresponsive.

And this should not and need not be so. Government must join up in these marches and demonstrations, and for two reasons. No wise government should allow itself to be “caught” and cast in adversarial posture to a movement to free children who have been kidnapped by cruel, heartless and scheming persons. So, Government officials, spouses of ministers,  legislators etc should join these marches and protests. Join, ride on the public outrage at this violation of the innocent and channel the outflowing energy to the benefit of your programmes and the peoples. Secondly,  If you are not in a march, your agenda and point of views will hardly ever be recognised nor projected. So Government officials must join up. Strategic considerations suggest joining up.

Joining up will also enable a second and equally important message to be given greater orchestration. “ABDUCTORS, FREE OUR CHIBOK CHILDREN”. This message is just as important as the first which can be summed up as “GOVERNMENT, RESCUE AND FREE OUR CHIBOK CHILDREN”. Whilst the current primary message focuses on the government and therefore presents a good handle for its indictment for its inability to assure the safety and security of persons living within its space, the second opens the way for reaching out to the captors, either directly or indirectly through their community and religious leaders, to free children they have taken captive and hold against their will in violation of all the laws of decent conduct.

Join me in praying for the safe of these children and for purposeful, effective and targeted intervention that would ensure this in the very near future.

Noel

Posted in Prose

Dis Na Naija!

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

Every age deserves a show. For some the show could come packaged as comedy, full of boom, bloom and blossom. For others, it could come served as tragedy overflowing with gloom and doom. Since we are special in Naija, we often get treated to shows in quick successions – and each one, a blend of comedy and tragedy, leaving the watcher bemused but confused.  We have had some very good shows lately, all blending the comic and the tragic, and all portending the coming of more shows.

SLS’s letter and its confutation by the NNPC is a tragi-comedy. How can the governor of the CBN be ignorant of these details if the NNPC’s explanation is indeed true? If the explanation is true, we have a tragedy that arises because arms of government are not talking to one another and a comedy because they choose to come to the public gallery to display such a dysfunction. I simply hope that the NNPC explanation is wrong, since I hold SLS in very high esteem. When technocrats opt to play politics, they should be kind enough to serve the public notice in bold strokes that says “Buyer, beware”.

Tambuwal’s recent corruption song is as comic as it is tragic.. It is comic because he was playing to the gallery and knew he was doing precisely that. It is tragic because he too is a product of that same corruption he talks about and that the House he serves as speaker is not corruption free. What has he done to address that corruption in the House? What has he done to sweep his own stables? The sad truth of life is that the beam in the other fellow’s eye is always larger than the one protrudes from our own eyes. The bathos of Dambuwal’s situation is that he comes away from the speech feeling he has barbed the presidency and forgets to notice how much he has bloodied himself in the effort. The tragedy in pyrrhic victories replays ever so often with presumed victors often overlooking how much they may have sullied themselves in their vain efforts to score cheap victories.

OBJ’s letter is the tragi-comedy of squandered good will and eroded credibility. I have always argued that credibility becomes a depleting asset once its use has been abused three times – the magic number 3! OBJ could be saying correct things about GEJ but nobody takes him seriously any more. I am even distancing myself from “the kettle call pot black” type of reaction that dominated the media since his missive-missile became public. I prefer to focus on the content of some of his accusations and his seeming inability to understand that assertion is not the same thing as proof. Old folks do not waste soup – agadi adighi agwo ofe – the Igbos say.  Thus when respected old men succumb to the temptation of treating with flippancy and levity that which is serious, when respected elder statesmen start making wild accusations without bothering to substantiate them, then you start to wonder what these same old men expect of our 20 million youths. Snipers under training and 1000 persons under surveillance and this said in the most cavalier of manners. In some other climes, Baba would have been invited to explain but this is Naija, a country where it is sometimes difficult to separate the venerable from the venal! How could Baba, in every seriousness, write thus? Has Baba’s mind been influenced by the propensities of one of his famous “oti mpkus” whose reckless excesses are such as even to make the extremes of lunacy look somber and sober?   Even Baba’s attack on GEJ’s second term ambitions are built essentially on claims he is unable to prove convincingly and conclusively, some even bordering on hearsay and thus bringing his entire intentions and emotional state when he wrote the piece into question.  Some of the content were in particular bad taste, his take on the interanl PDP palaver being a good example! Nigerians needed to be spared the long narration on the internal squabbles in the PDP, and it needs a sense of statesmanship and fine sense of judgment to guide OBJ not to tread that path. Not everything that one sees and knows should be inflicted on the public. Not everything an elder sees and knows is discussed in the market place, the Igbos say! Nzu rules supreme!  Statesmen do not come to the public to wash dirty linen and underwear! Knowing what and when to share is an art. It demands an awareness of the nature and needs of the target audience; It demands good judgment of what is relevant.  It demands sensitivity, tact and Nzu, qualities that statesmen are also assumed to possess in abundance. In failing to apply the right level of selectivity in the choice of what he divulged, OBJ may have betrayed a drop in his level of tact and statesmanship. It is this sad drop that explains why he could have inflicted such a narration on us and why he could also do so with the clumsiness one normally associates with a young elephant. In the democracies we aspire to, it is considered to be in extreme bad faith and taste for an ex-president or ex-prime minister to make such disparaging and destructive remarks on the rule of a sitting president or prime minister. It is considered as bad manners and hardly ever happens. But not in our Naija –  Everything goes.

Abati’s response is tragic and comic at the same time. “I am not to reply but yet you reply” – haba, which kine one be dat?  And his reaction was as predictable as his line of attack. Trying to dismiss grave accusations of the type that Baba Iyabo made with emotive language is not always very convincing. When confronted with accusations against my person or against my principal, my attitude has always been to kill my emotions and do a blow by blow clinical response, accepting where I am wrong and using evidence to challenge and refute assertions that derive from either spite, ignorance, greed, ambition, misplaced ideology, immaturity, vacuous knowledge base or an over-inflated ego. I should commend this modus operandi to Reuben Abati, but Dr Abati is a guru and veteran of the media and I, alas, I am nothing but a lay reader.

The dress rehearsal for 2015 has commenced in earnest. Generals, who wrongly believe that this country is theirs to manipulate at will, are watching which way the political wind is blowing and are doing their best to adjust their tattered sails to benefit maximally from it. Self-interest is being packaged and sold as commitment to the nation.  The over-riding intention is power grab! Any and every method is allowed. Decency, truth and common sense will be early victims. Hot air will triumph and lunatics will have their field days – unrestrained, and their unrestraint will be our constraint. Loud mouthed Achilles will visit us with their empty and rumbustious swagger and little men will act out their smallness to its fullest. God save us!

Posted in Prose

Tortoise, famine and the other animals

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel Ihebuzor

Once there was famine in the land of the animals. Animals starved. Every animal was emaciated. Hunger played music on their empty stomachs. Hungry played tricks on their minds. Things got more desperate with each passing day. The tortoise, the wisest and most cunning of all the animals, suggested that each animal kills his/her mother. If they did this, the gods would be struck by the enormity of the sacrifice that the animals were making and perhaps end the famine. Besides, by eliminating their mothers, the heroic animals would be reducing the number of mouths to feed during these hard times, tortoise persuasively argued. Some of the animals – the cock, the dove, the elephant and the bat initially objected but gradually tortoise wore down their objections.  In the end unanimity was reached. Difficult times required difficult decisions; special situations demanded special sacrifices, tortoise had argued and real heroes and nationalists never hold back from making tough decisions and carrying them out. Only cowards and the short-sighted hold back when destiny beckons, tortoise pontificated. The animals all agreed. Fiam, gbam, gbum, kagbum – each animal went home and fell on his/her mum and killed her. Matricide became the sign of courage and belongingness.

Unknown to the other animals, tortoise had hidden his own mum in the skies. He had designated a spot on a hill where his mum would send a rope from the skies to enable him climb up to visit her, chat with and enjoy all the joys of a mother’s love and care. And he would go up in most evenings to send her portions of choice meat from the slaughter below.

One day, the rest of the animals found out what the tortoise had done. A mixture of shame, regret and anger took hold of them and they set off to go and capture the tortoise. On sighting them, tortoise took off and started racing to the spot where his mother would normally let down the rope. As tortoise’s mum sent down the rope for her son to climb up to the skies, the other animals caught unto the rope and the agile ones – the cheetah, the leopard, the chimpanzee – all started climbing up and chasing after the tortoise. Soon they were catching up with him. When tortoise saw this, he shouted to his mum to cut the rope. The mum cut the rope and all of the animals came crashing down to earth, including tortoise. Tortoise broke his back in the fall. He also got a good beating from the rest of the other animals for his deceit. His back had to be patched and stitched together in hundred places as a result of the fall and the beating that he got. This is why the back of the tortoise looks so patched up always.

The morale of the story is that people should always be very suspicious of the person or group of persons who tell you to kill your mum whilst they secretly keep theirs safe, alive and very healthy. As with Tortoise and the animal kingdom, so with contemporary politics, and those politicians who invite you to commit matricide whilst their own mothers are safe and alive.

Posted in Prose

Hastening Prosecutions, Restricting Stay of Proceedings

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

Noel A. Ihebuzor

I was very enthused this morning as I read this article. To learn that the House of Representatives was doing something to hasten prosecution of cases was sweet music to my ears.  I recalled some jottings I made earlier this year in April on this same subject (see here) and decided to share it once again with my readers.

Too many innocent Nigerians suffer the pain and agony of protracted trials. Hastened prosecutions would lessen that suffering.  Also many Nigerians who are walking about free today should be behind bars. The sooner such persons are brought to justice, the better for everyone. Timing is of essence here as a number of these persons who have looted public assets and appropriated public lands are now seeking shelters behind political parties and feverishly parading themselves as saints. As they photo-shop their pasts, they are also perfecting a narrative of victimhood even as evidences of their misdeeds and knavery are there for all to see. The closer the trials and incarcerations of such people are to 2015, the easier it will be for these fast talking persons to sell the public tall tales whose intentions  would be to try to present plain professional prosecutions as politically driven persecutions.

Posted in Prose

Identifying corrupting arguments on corruption

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By

Noel A. Ihebuzor

I shared these thoughts on corruption about a year ago. Recent events in Nigeria and reactions to them on social media prompt me to share them again.

Bad is Bad.  But to selectively focus on the “bad” committed by persons you do not like, hyping it and creating a mass hysteria around it whilst turning a convenient blind eye to the “bad” of other people you like is bad.  Blanketing out news on the “bad” glaringly perpetrated by persons whose causes you champion is bad. Bad is Bad.

Impunity is bad. But to selectively focus on impunity at one level and to remain silent when impunity is generously dished out by other levels of government is bad. It is to allow economics, religion and politics to either condition our perception or to dampen our capacity for impartial judgments and consistent demonstrations of moral outrage. It is to practice a morality based on expediency. Such expediency-driven morality eventually imposes a huge burden of dysfunction in our judgements, a dysfunction with unimaginable opportunity costs and which dysfunction indeed could then have untold deletrious effects on a polity that looks up to us as impartial watchdogs.

Posted in Prose

Review of Kemi Ogunniyi’s “My Wife’s Husband”

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel A. Ihebuzor

Flash fiction as a genre is enjoying an amazing lease of life and burst of energy in Nigeria’s literary space. Kemi Ogunniyi’s “My wife’s husband” is one more manifestation of the blossoming creativity in this genre. A tale that probes relationships and loyalty, it packs a punch which is starkly at variance with its brevity.

The first striking thing about this work of art is its title, a title that sets the mind wondering whether one is engaging a work that deals with polyandry or one that suffers from some deliberate aberration in its title. When the reader emerges from the jolt caused by this provocative title, he/she then encounters a tightly told story of love where the lives of the living are tied up closely with the dead. The story of woman still in love with a dead man and the struggles of the man who loves her in the present to relate to her crisis and support her in the process is heart wrenching.

The story is compact and packed with “virtual” detail which the mind of the reader unpacks as he/she reads along. By exercising very controlled parsimony and brevity, Kemi provides space for her reader to fill out the unsaid and the unspoken – the death of a husband, the remarriage of the widow, the unhealthy love of the dead, the hallucination that comes with such obsessive attachment to the past, the long suffering of the present husband and the tragedy of dreams and lives shattered by sudden death. Kemi’s skill in this micro fiction lies partly in the space she allows us for these legitimate inferences. But beyond this, Kemi serves us a micro fiction at its very best –  a story with single focus but with multiple subterranean subthemes and streams all ambling along and supporting that single focus. The story’s denouement is startling, plausible and touching. The denouement I have referred to is not one of closure since it leaves the reader still asking more questions and wondering why! All of this is achieved in a prose passage of 309 words using a first person narrative voice where the narrator, despite his pains, manages to remain composed and dignified, thereby revealing his own capacity for empathy and love.

This micro fiction is a must read! May our land continue to witness the flourishing of creative skills of the type we have seen displayed by Kemi and ladies of her generation.

Noel Ihebuzor

Posted in Prose

Review of Dressed Like A Prince – DLAP

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

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

Posted in Prose

Discouraging Deserters and Defectors

Posted on by Noel Ihebuzor

By Noel A. Ihebuzor

 

Twitter abounds in twitfights – fights between foes as well fights between former friends who have now parted ways for one reason or the other. When fights are between former friends who now find themselves on different sides of the political divide, the clashes tend to be very mean and vicious. The acrimony betrays the persisting bitterness and hurt that one party or both feel over the parting of ways. It is as if the fighters ignore one basic fact of life which is that some good friends must part someday, and that associations do not all always last forever. In life, friends do often fall out and part ways. This basic truth appears to be lost on quite a number of persons. Such persons hold on to a position which I call the permanence of associations and immutability of views position. Parting of ways or rethinking of positions by the other party are often very strongly resisted to the point where the person who decamps or changes his/her view is often treated as a deserter, a defector and a sell-out.

Positions of the type described above abound in the thriving twitter political party activist community. (I use this term to describe a community of persons who use Twitter mostly to actively promote the cause of a particular party. Members of this group, the political party activist group, must be distinguished from political activists. The former tweet and blog more like political party agents. The latter maintain more objective positions and tweet on governance, political, and accountability issues without favouring any political party. This distinction is important as a lot of unnecessary misunderstanding is caused by a conflation of the two terms).

In this political party activist community, change of positions and perceptions is viewed as a clear indicator of defection and desertion, offenses that are seriously viewed. Such changes are viewed as some form of social “apostasy”. And apostasy is perceived as a grievous sin, a perception that is most accentuated in communities with tendencies to self-ascribed moral righteousness. “Apostates” must be condemned to “social” disgrace and demise. Apostates must be treated as social lepers. They are to be ridiculed and subjected to all forms of social pressures. And all of this because apostates are a danger to the group they left. They possess a Snowden-type risk potential and precisely because of this, their credibility must be seriously eroded and progressively destroyed.

Matters are also not helped by the attitudes of the deserters/defectors, these modern day social apostates, themselves. Like most fresh converts to new faiths and belief systems, these social apostates consistently betray excessive zeal typical of neophytes as they try to settle in to their new camp. Most exhibit a tendency to dwell on and detail the evils of the groups they have left, a tendency that irks that group and one which then further exacerbates the already seething acrimony between the deserter and his/her former associates. Soon, the leaders, gate keepers, enforcers, whips and foot soldiers of that group are up in arms, defending the honour of their group and attacking the deserter. They have recourse to a variety of strategies in doing this.

These strategies include naming, recalling of previous tweets which the attacking group believes are diametrically opposed to the deserter’s current position and shaming the deserter. The deserter’s reasons for leaving are trivialised, ridiculed and made to look pecuniary and materialistic. The tweets and comments of the “apostate” are unearthed and hurled in his/her face just to show how inconsistent and unreliable he/she is. The strategic goal here is to call attention to glaring inconsistencies between present position and previous tweets – the end game is to undermine the credibility of the defector. Taunts abound. Wicked jibes and hurting jabs fly around. A campaign of name calling is unleashed on the deserter, a campaign where no punches are pulled and which may even go as far as in one case to saying that a deserter was so poor that he “used to drink garri” in his undergraduate days. People watch from the sides, either amused or too frightened to wade in as the gladiators engage in bloody, vicious but mutually demeaning bouts and jousts.

The attack on the defector is an eye opener and dampener to those within the circle who may have been contemplating either changing camps or moving to more neutral positions. The message to such persons is clear. This is what you are likely going to get should you ever desert us. The attacks are thus not fortuitous but have a functional intent – to discourage and deter other potential deserters. Successful defection deterring strategies keep members in – once you are in, you cannot leave – a bit akin to what I call the Hotel California syndrome – you can check out anytime you want but you cannot leave!

Most deserters/defectors act as if they cannot understand the flurry and fury of the attacks on them. A little reflection should make any deserter/defector understand why those attacks are necessary and likely to come.

  • First, a defector must realise that his/her defection is a threat to his/her former associates. You know too much. Your former associates are not sure how much you will give away. They will want to put you away socially for good before you can do their group any harm. Basic survival principle, not ideology or any higher order principle, I believe, is what drives the chief whips of your former group as they come after you.
  • Secondly, a defector must also realise that he/she is also a threat to the his/her former associates in the sense that he/she is a reminder to those inside that they too could defect one day.  Now, that must be an uncomfortable feeling because it introduces some gnawing doubts in the minds of persons who cannot afford to have their present beliefs or rightness of their present positions tested/questioned. Remember what George Santanaya said about some group of persons re-doubling their efforts in situations of doubt – well a defection creates one of such a situation.
  • Thirdly, a defector should realise that his/her defection hurts the pride of his/her former associates. And when people are hurt, they hit out, and hitting out on impulse does not subject itself to the controls and norms of rational conduct.

The foregoing should enable the deserter to understand the onslaughts against his person. Desertion is not cost-free. You should expect them to come after you. But you must not fight them each time they come after you. Choose your battles! Don’t go galloping into every battle! One key aspect of successful military strategy is knowing which battles to fight and which ones to walk away from. Walk away, avoid the fight – even if they call you “Coward of the County”. Walk away, “walk on by”. If you do not respond, they are likely to get tired and find other things to spend their energies on.

This write-up would not be complete without a brief mention of what happens in the camp that receives the “decampee”. It is simple. The strategy of attack and damage is reversed:

The new “decampee” is presented as someone who has seen the truth, who has suddenly become aware of the folly and evil in his/her previous ways, one who has seen the sinfulness and greed of former associates and as one who now regrets ever associating with such evil people in such an evil party. The devil, who is a convenient scapegoat, takes a good bashing in this new dance of the converted and the redeemed.

  • The decampee’s conversion narrative is cleverly spun and elevated to achieve about the same dramatic intensity as Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. A blind eye is suddenly developed to everything that the new convert and prized acquisition ever said whilst a member of the opposite side.
  • New spins are put on any comments such a convert may have made on persons, character flaws, fat bank accounts, crimes and indiscretions of members of the group he/she is now joining. Damaging comments on how non-electable some members of the receiving group are get blacked out! An unwritten rule which places an embargo among the “faithful” on ever remembering or writing on these telling social comments, except to excuse them as either slippages or works of the devil immediately comes into effect.
  • A package of rewards and incentives, including mentions and praise, is made available to the new convert to encourage continued membership…and all is rosy and honky-dory until there is a falling out. And then the dogs of war are unleashed and we are back full cycle.

There are some lessons in all of this. And I will summarise these as bullet points

  • Be careful who you associate with on Twitter.
  • Be careful who you dine with
  • If you must dine with the devil, go with a long spoon.
  • You do not have to belong to the “in-crowd” to be relevant.
  • Do not let others be the ones to determine your relevance
  • All that glitters is not gold.
  • Shine your eyes
  • Free your mind
  • Use your mind.

It is good to belong on social media but please do not sell yourself or your soul to belong. You can use social media to grow, to learn, to engage and to share but that same social media can kill your mind and stunt your thinking if you allow yourself to be sucked into unhealthy associations. Engage wisely!