The Abyssinian Book

I recently read the book The Abyssinian Boy (TAB) by Onyeka Nwelue.  It was a special experience. First, I read an autographed copy of the book…fresh, well bound, beautiful copy, which makes me want to begin by giving some kudos to Dada Book (the publisher) for such a wonderful outing.

The second reason why reading TAB was a special experience is the same reason why I read the 256 paged book for almost two weeks; The story was free flowing, Sexily crafted, Filled with exaggerations which all combined to make it an entrapping work of Fiction. When I like a book, I don’t rush it, I take each page at a time…I go back to re-read some pages, I read a page and imagine the scene. That’s why it took me nearly two weeks.

The Abyssinian Boy is about a South Indian essayist and his East Nigerian Christian wife Eunice Onwubiko and the hallucination their nine year-old child faces. The book lays bare the many paradoxes of culture clash with thought provoking and often amusing ironies.

At the center of the tapestry is David the Nine year old son of Rajaswamy Rajagopalan who dies on the way back to Nigeria after a visit by the Indian based family to Nigeria. David’s death which is a consequence of some age old breech of tradition (it self a product of the early church-tradition friction in Nigerian villages) that happened many years before David was conceived coincided with the decision of the Nigerian Government by a law of the senate to Send all Indians away from the country.

The first chapter of the book did it for me. It flows, reveals and keeps the reader turning the pages. It introduces the reader to a typical Indian setting; Indian Names, Indian households, Indian dressing, names of Indian towns and Indian streets. The reader finds him/her self in New Delhi or inside one of the many popular Bollywood movies. The writer (who wrote the first draft of the book in India) shows a keen mastery of India. The conversations and expressions are unmistakably Indian. It’s refreshing to read so young a Nigerian writer leaving the comfort zone of writing about Nigeria-the corruption and the fuel queues and attempting a cross-continental novel. I would say without contradiction that this was a good attempt.

However it is pertinent to observe that the language of the book is however overtly childish. Perhaps this could be linked to the age of the writer (Bon in 1988). Adult readers interst might be hard to sustain. There are some unnecessary details with a lot of telling as against showing. Some issues were simply exaggerated for example; I can’t still come to terms with David’s overwhelming intelligence as seen in his expressions when he was only nine.

Still on David. The writer showed us in the earlier parts of the book that he had problems with his written English. It is shocking how his letters in pages 196-198 were so flawless.  It leaves a question mark. How come?

An interesting  character;  “Dada Felicia” was shown to have mother tongue interference in her spoken English. Good! But the writer slightly over did it. Quite ok, Igbos can have problems pronouncing rice (lice), bread (blead), but not words like “sure”, “your” or “are”. Having the character pronounce ‘sure’ in her speech as “sule” (a popular northern name) didn’t read well at all. More so, there was no consistency  in the presentation of the characters speech problems. In pg 211 for example  there was an out burst from Dada Felicia (3^rd paragraph from bottom) and all here pronunciations were ok including words like “responsible” which should have been a good example of mispronounced words due to language interference.  Just after that in pg 212 (last line) we see words like sule (sure) and youl (your).  This is either an oversight on the part of the writer and his editors or simply a typographic error.

I have no problems with the introduction of sex, seduction, lesbianism or homosexuality in literature. If anything, I promote it. But in TAB, there was simply too much of it in my opinion. Accepted, we have gays/lesbians, but their activity is not yet as rampant as portrayed in TAB and the persons (i.e the gays/lesbians) are not yet as confident as the characters in TAB were in expressing their sexual orientation. Well, I guess we can condone this, as after all the work is FICTION! Fiction writers don’t owe anyone the duty of presenting issues as it is in reality.

That said and taking nothing away from this beautiful piece of creativity, I wish to state that for a debut novel, TAB sure made a loud statement and the writer has earned himself a battalion of fans waiting to eat up the next meal he serve. I am one such fan and I think you should pick a copy too.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

The Fraud called Abuja

Many Nigerians (and foreigners alike) especially those who visit Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city periodically often come off with the impression –which they also express gaily- that Abuja is a beautiful, model city- one of Africa’s best.

One can not blame them for their rather myopic and false impression. What they see for the period of their stay, usually from the comfort of their air conditioned taxis leaves them with no better knowledge. From the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, the airport express way (which is now being expanded), the sprawling main bowl of the National stadium, to the massive heaps of concrete and granite in the form of buildings all over the city, it sounds logical that yeah, this is a model city.

But from someone who resides here and who in fact was born here, Abuja is one big fraud and one of the most successful attempts by our leaders to –as they are known to always do- cover up the real situation and give away the impression that we were a great nation and of course with a beautiful capital city.

Abuja is not a model city. Its does not in my estimate meet the primary requirements of being referred to as a model city. It has paved streets. Some of the roads have royal palms. El-rufai tried to salvage some green areas. There are many bridges. Julius Berger’s presence is felt at every turn. It has gigantic electronic billboards. Our mighty rich own houses here. Aso Rock is in the neighbourhood.  But Abuja is not a model city. Not at the least.

Abuja is fake. It is a tale of overwhelming poverty covered up by amazing (mostly stolen) wealth.  Abuja lacks the most basic of amenities that should qualify it as a model city. Recently, NEXT newspapers reported the dearth of ambulances in the city’s General hospitals while Aso Rock had almost an Ambulance showroom. The absence of ambulance is a mirror of the state of health care delivery in the city.  In some of the hospitals, to see a doctor, you must set forth at dawn (apologies to Soyinka) and endure a long wait in a queue made up of persons that had set forth before dawn.

Abuja has perhaps one of worst Basic Education systems in the country. Sometime last year while I was still on National youth service, I sauntered into a primary school (In the Municipal Area Council) and was shocked to find pupils taking classes from the bare floor. That informed my decision to carry out a Personal Community Development Service effort, by providing the school with furniture and very basic materials such as a school bell which they shockingly lacked.  It made me wonder what the Governments Basic Education Noise was all about. If Abuja had it so bad, what situation did one expect in remote arid areas of Zamfara or the creeks of Bayelsa?

A while later, the new minister of the FCT, Adamu Aliero was reported to have come close to shedding tears after visiting a primary school and finding that the pupils lacked chairs. What has happened since then? Perhaps the sad school would have gotten some intervention. What of the rest?  This same minister just recently asked the senate to divert funds meant for education and health into road construction.  This is shocking as majority of Public schools in Abuja are in states that can be best described as shameful and far from model.

Perhaps the money earmarked for it has been embezzled or the developers of Abuja master plan were just plain dumb. The city has a very frustrating transport system.  Which model city In the world exists with a rail system? If you have any official business to conduct in any office in the city, it would be stupid of you to get their earlier than 10.00am as you will definitely not meet anybody in the office. Workers in Abuja go through hell to get to work in a city that was built from scratch and had all the opportunity for a properly designed transport system. The traffic on the Nyanaya  and the Kubwa roads in the mornings are now legendary. The same scenario repeats itself in the evenings. It’s not only in Lagos that a trip of fifteen minutes takes three hours. It also happens in our model city; Abuja.

El-rufai’s administration saw to the expansion of the urban mass transit system (Some thing similar to Fashola’s BRT). Till this date the system which was initially said to be an electronic ticketing system has not evolved beyond the scratch. In fact, the buses have now so degenerated that they are now an eye sore. It’s not unusual to see some spoilt and abandoned along the road. The buses have also not increased in number. So we have the typical picture of 99 standing, 49 sitting. In what model city on earth do you have such a situation; people camped up in public buses as though they were inanimate?

Time was when we could boast that Abuja was clean. Today refuse dump sites greet us on Abuja streets. The Abuja Environmental Protection Board seems only very successful at seizing hawkers and their wares. Grasses get bushy before they are cut. Just the other day Sen. Grace Bent almost shouted her head off in expression of extreme disappointment when she and her colleagues visited what was supposed to be the Abuja waste dump site. She summoned three ministers (FCT, Health & Environment) to appear before her committee. Recently also the monthly sanitation was re-introduced. Today was one of such sanitation days and for most parts of Abuja, it was business as usual.

Not too many parts of Abuja have constant (24 hour) tap water supply. Save for Kubwa and the wuse and Garki districts, must of the other districts in the city center and the satellite towns do not have water. Gwagwalada taps run twice in a week and for few hours. You will be surprised to know that highbrow areas of Maitama and the large expanse of Gwarinpa do not enjoy any city water supply. The water that flows from the taps in such areas is an effort of landlords to provide boreholes.

No need talking about power. The so called capital city is not spared. The situation here is as bad as it is in my village. Ever visited any of the major markets in Wuse or Garki ? Your ear drums would continue to vibrate hours after you must left in rhythm with the many tiny generators that power each shop. I need not say more.

No other city would boast of the number of land and property hawkers as Abuja does. In this model city, agents and fraudsters hold the key to land and property purchases. You see a sea of them-able bodies men- in front of the FCDA complex and The Municipal Area Council secretariat just milling around white papers (land documents) in hand. The direct consequence of their activities is that land and property in Abuja goes for double their actual value.  Should this be the norm in a model city?

And yes, Abuja they say was designed to have satellite towns where most of the persons who work in the city center are supposed to reside in. These satellite towns are supposed to have all the basic amenities. In fact there is a Satellite Towns Development Agency to that effect, yet virtually all the satellite towns are near slums. A visit to places like Mpape (which is just behind the popular Asokoro) and you will marvel at the perfect symbiotic co-habitation between man and filth. Not to mention the unplanned development and complete absence of amenities.

Given, other cities of the world have slums as well as their own inadequacies but that which exists in Abuja, well hidden and tucked away from the sight of a visitor is one to be ashamed of. Next time you visit this ‘beautiful’ city, how about sparing some time to branch off into any of the settlements you see along the airport road. What you see will redefine your impression of this city forever.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

And Dora Re-branded her Daughter.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

While Ghanaians welcomed and celebrated the presence of Barack Obama in their country and most television cameras all over the continent were beaming the proceedings live, our African Independent Television AIT was beaming live what I would describe as the most successful outing of the re-brand Nigeria campaign till date.

The event was the solemnization of Holy matrimony between Njideka (the daughter of Prof Dora Akunyili our Minister of Information and Communication and the Face of the Re-brand Nigeria campaign) and Justin Crosby an American citizen.

Like you would expect, every one who should be there was there. It was a roll call of who is who. From the Vice President Dr Goodluck Jonathan, his wife, Former Head of State Yakubu Gowon, Former senate Presidents Nnamani and Anyim. Ministers,  Legislators, Top Government functionaries, Diplomats, Royal fathers, Priests and religious. Orji Uzor kalu took one of the intercessory prayers.

Apart from the disappointment I felt that AIT wasn’t beaming the events in Ghana as they had earlier advertised, I also felt this sense of irritation watching the wedding on television. It was in many ways a reminder for me that these people up there have it going for them and are daily devising new ways of preserving and advancing their course.

There is nothing wrong with the daughter of a minister and indeed anybody wedding. Getting married to an American wasn’t also an issue. What was an issue for me was the information that the couple had met at college somewhere in the United States.

This reminded me of the fact that our universities had been grounded for a while now by the strike action and that Government doesn’t seem worried about it because most of the children of the top Government functionaries had all their children schooling abroad. In addition to obtaining superior education and superior degrees, they now also get to meet and marry Americans.

Why then should they be bothered about the rest of us. We spend five-six years to get a four year degree; we walk the streets to find a job. We are victims of the worst conditions on earth. We don’t get to meet and marry Americans. When we wed we don’t have a bishop presiding over the wedding. Our weddings are not live on television. We remain of this brand. A distasteful brand. While ‘they’ continue to re-brand themselves.

I have nothing personal against the new couples. If anything I am happy for them. Akunyili’s are my kinsmen. We draw from the same gene pool. But I have everything against a system that has made some people very much ahead of the others. A system that continues to allow a few ahead of the lot. A system controlled by this few who have continued to look the other way because the status quo favours them. A system they say they are re-branding.

All I see is our leaders rebranding themselves. Today Prof Dora Akunyili succeeded in re-branding her daughter. She is now Njideka Crosby. Now she becomes a citizen of the free world. Never again will she worry about our bad roads and our death trap hospitals. Our dry tapes and our dark nights. Our unemployment and our failed universities. She is free. She’s been re-branded.

I wish the Crosby’s a happy matrimonial experience as the rest of us continue to wait for when our own re-branding miracle will happen.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo