Tell Magazine

Title: Cruel Passion

Author: Dayo Oladele-Ilori

Pages: 184

Publisher: LearnAfrica

Published: 2011

How many parents would send their 15-year-old daughter to a mixed boarding school in Lagos of today, where they would not be able to supervise her directly? That decision by Ifeoluwa Williams’ parents left a permanent scar on her life as she was raped in boarding school, and out of fear could not report the heinous incident to the school authority. Cruel Passion, Dayo Oladele-Ilori’s first attempt at writing a book, is about the pain, suffering, strong and barely controllable emotions that define Ifeoluwa’s life after the rape incident that saw her losing her womb.

In the fictional work, Dayo Oladele-Ilori uses Ifeoluwa’s reminiscences on a transatlantic flight to tell the story of love, hatred and regret that ultimately leads to revenge. The writer’s strong descriptive power enables her to tell the story in a way that is easy to follow, giving picturesque accounts that make the reader to empathise with various characters in the novel.

The writer employs the use of contrast and dramatic irony to portray certain events in the book. For instance, Bankole, a hemp-smoking bully, rapes Ifeoluwa Williams, a virgin. She becomes pregnant as a result of the rape incident and has a baby named, Ruby. Whereas Ifeoluwa goes on to become chief executive officer, CEO, of three companies, Bankole remains largely unsuccessful.

Ifeoluwa is however a child of two worlds. She attends Randall Girls High School, California, United States, US, but has to return home to Nigeria to enrol at Royal Bells College, Lekki, Lagos, a mixed school, where Bankole rapes her. Bankole is also a child of two worlds. His father, Adeyemi Williams, abandons his mother, Joke, in the US. Joke never forgives Adeyemi Williams and transfers the bitterness to Bankole who has to return to his grandmother in Lagos to be enrolled in school.

While Ifeoluwa is consumed by her desire to extract revenge against Bankole, destiny plays a trick on her, bringing Ruby and Bankole together. Bankole woos Ruby and eventually gets her pregnant. With the help of Deboye, Ifeoluwa’s high school sweetheart, now an accomplished mafia leader in Italy, she unleashes a terror team on Judith, Bankole’s ship, sinking it on the high sea and also burning his house. The news devastates Bankole and leaves him paralysed from waist down and bound to a wheelchair.

Ruby later introduces Bankole to her family in what is the climax of the story. Within minutes, the heinous past of Chief Adeyemi Williams catches up with him. It turns out he is Bankole’s father, the man who abandoned Joke, Bankole’s mother in the US, 40 years ago. The realisation of that fact shatters Chief Williams. Ifeoluwa vents her pent-up anger on Bankole on seeing him, shockingly announcing that he is the one that raped her. Ruby discovers that she is a product of rape and is pregnant for her father, Bankole! The architect of the tragedy, Chief Williams, shoots himself. Ruby loses her pregnancy.

The narrative highlights primordial sentiments and experiences through which the reader learns some cardinal lessons. An example is sex before marriage. Joke’s Christian background prevented her from sleeping with three men she dated even at age 30. There is also the single mother syndrome exemplified by Joke and Ifeoluwa, and then the touchy issue of abortion, whether or not it should be done, and under what circumstances. All through the book, the writer votes against abortion. We also see the reactions of career women like Ifeoluwa and Ruby to certain situations in life. Both women, CEOs of major corporations, show dexterity in business, cutting important deals. The novel also touches some burning national issues, which were topics of school debates: “Nigeria Needs a Woman President” and “Nigeria’s Future Lies in Agriculture Not Oil.”

Indeed, Cruel Passion comes highly recommended to both the young and old, particularly students of literature, for its rich literary depth.

Title: Let the Nations Hear (hard cover)

Author: Peter Adebiyi

Pages: 443

Publisher: The Book Company, Lagos

When the bishops roar on the pulpit, nations are bound to listen. No wonder Bishop Peter Adebiyi’s book, Let the Nations Hear, is a compendium of biting criticisms and lamentations over poor governance, insecurity and corruption pervading the land for so many years

Peter Awelewa Adebiyi, effusive and retiring Anglican Bishop, does not like to choose his words. For four decades, the cleric has pursued his gut feeling and passion with a fearless spine. His strings of commentaries and litanies of admonitions on the state of the country have made the nation his pulpit. A timeless collection of his personal thoughts and warnings, packaged in Let the Nations Hear, is his latest offering to the conscience of the country. His musings about the structure, leadership and politicking in Nigeria is rich in reflection and as a social discourse. As far as the respected elder statesman is concerned, politics in Nigeria has regressed from the realm of service and responsibility to a big industry steeped in the wiles of corruption. He also, amongst other things, questions the ostentatious presidential style of governance adopted in Nigeria, a country where recurrent expenditures at the federal and state levels overwhelm essential services.

Consider his opening chapter, a potpourri of issues surrounding governance and the power imbalance between the North and South. A Yoruba man of the Ekiti stock, Adebiyi cannot understand where the balance lies in the governance of Nigeria, a country with great ethnic diversity and hundreds of languages.  For the clergy, “A country where a regional block appears to politically dominate and manipulate the others as if political governance is its sole birth right may not be able to offer others a true sense of belonging and engender patriotism.”

In his books, patriotism is inspired by equality and fairness, especially when it has to do with who runs the affairs of a heterogeneous country like Nigeria. In page 196, the author declares: “Until every section of this country has implicit faith in its existence and is committed to it and each section is seen to be wanted by other sections, Nigeria may not be able to move in the right direction.”

The author tries to trace the origin of this discord. Adebiyi also rues the off-the-cuff amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates by Lord Lugard in 1914. For the cleric, that political statement, without considering cultural identities of the people involved, may just be the steam in Nigeria’s sail. “One of the outcomes is that the same ethnic groups are found living in more than one country. For example, the Massai people are found in Kenya and Tanzania, the Hutus and Tutsis are in Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, etc. The Fulanis are found in many countries of East and West Africa. The Yorubas are found in Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Caribbean and in South American countries such as Brazil.”

The cleric bares another side of his cosmos in chapter one where he seethes on the perceived invincibility of the Nigerian entity. He warns that unless critical issues relating to the unity of the country are addressed, the fire of discord may consume Nigeria. “No one should fool us about the inviolability of Nigeria. We knew when Bangladesh and Pakistan were parts of India; today, they are separate countries,” he warns. With this challenge, Adebiyi sets the ball rolling on a gamut of aspects of our national lives. He bounced off politics, governance to corruption, religion and the ghost that the agricultural sector has become. His parameters of the living conditions of the average Nigerian, insecurity, moral decadence, economic stalemate serves as barometer in dissecting Nigeria’s 52-year outing as a state.

From his antecedents, the author is not one to bootlick but offers sound advice and reprimand, solicited or not. Exactly what he did when Olusegun Obasanjo, former military ruler, was elected civilian president in 1999. Speaking just before Obasanjo’s inauguration, at the sixth Synod of the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, Diocese of Owo, the cleric gave the president-elect a piece of his discerning mind. “Instead of wining and dancing and unduly celebrating your victory, you must lock yourself up for a spiritual retreat. Ask God to forgive your past, give you the wisdom, the ability, the energy and the grace to cope with the onerous task that lies ahead” was the cleric’s pointed advice. A replay of this scene and the plot from which it unfolded is the meat of chapter seven.

What the author addresses in chapter eight projects him as a prophet who sees ahead of time. Again, it was in year 2000, at the first Synod of the Diocese of Lagos West held at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral, Ikeja, Lagos, where the author foresaw the conflagration playing out in the northern part of the country. “The formation of various youth groups in the West, Delta, East, Middle Belt and even in the northern parts of the country in recent times is an indication that what those of us who are now over 50 years of age accepted over the years would be unacceptable to these young ones. We should look dispassionately into these problems before it is too late, if not, we will have ourselves to blame.”

Adebiyi’s fatalistic streak on Nigeria resurfaces as he submits thus: “If we enter into dialogue with every interest group and are able to reach an agreement to stay together on identified terms, or go our separate ways peacefully, I ask, what is wrong with that? …I will certainly prefer to live in a small country where there is peace and happiness most of the time than in a big and rich country where there is constant oppression and intimidation of the people and where harassment of the citizens and heinous crimes are the order of the day.”

As a cleric, there is no doubt that Adebiyi has mastered his life’s calling. For five decades, he sunk a chunk of his time and energy on the tenets of Christianity, his spiritual persuasion. But the elder statesman has always had his eyes on the fortunes of Nigeria and the kind of leaders that drive her. He has not failed to address what he terms “Spiritual Pollution” in Christianity. The culture of prosperity sermons, instant miracles and immorality in the Church is a source of depression for Adebiyi.  He urges members of primary constituency to “impart discipline in society and teach the people how to be disciplined.”

Adebiyi hasn’t just lumped his opinions and inferences together in prose. He articulated his message, drawn from a collection of messages to various congregations, in crisp, reader friendly prose. Each chapter does not just have a theme, but an apt kicker oiled in the author’s deep psychological and socio cultural experience. Some samples: “The time when the monkey was working and the baboon was eating is over. Both the monkey and the baboon must now work for their living.” Another says, “Sometime ago, I paid an episcopal visit to one of the churches in my diocese and a school attached to it. The children were met sitting on broken cement blocks in the same country and within the same environment (where) a senator earns a whopping sum of N15 million a month.”

But why has Adebiyi bothered to compile his age-long musings as a compact reference for many libraries and minds in Nigeria? The author, who has just retired from active clerical responsibilities, has this to say: “As I move into the last year of my Episcopacy, I felt these messages said only once in a year and to a small audience of my Synod should not be perpetually kept in the archives. I know that these works are still very relevant to our situation in this country today….”

No doubt, Let The Nations Hear offers a prism with which Nigeria’s journey can be assessed. It is no crystal ball, but a mine of information and lamentation that sets the average Nigerian thinking. Perhaps that was the goal of the author.

Book Title: Toast of Freedom

Author: Menankiti Onyekwelu

Pages: 130

Publisher: Macmena & Rose International Limited.

The book opens on a rather dramatic note. Racy, tongue-in-cheek and slightly comical, it seeks to romanticise and glamorise death, a subject mostly viewed in Africa, as a taboo and spoken of usually in hushed tones. It sees death variously as an equaliser who visits both the rich and the poor alike. In the Toast of Freedom, a 130-page book written by Menankiti Onyekwelu, death is also projected as the Robin Hood that defends the rights of the downtrodden by suppressing the dictator who uses raw power to intimidate his subject.

While trying to justify himself, death, who keeps his identity secret until the closing chapters of the prologue pages, where he dramatically reveals himself, practically hits the ground running in the prologue pages with dark humoured and audacious descriptions of his exploits.  On page 4, he takes a morbid delight in his ability to inflict excruciating pains. “When I strike in some places, the grief is excruciating but my formidable and intimidating presence cows people down, so that no one, not even the very powerful has dared to scold me,” he says. At some point, he even feigns bewilderment as to why he is so much dreaded. “I have the largest heart on earth but still most people think I am heartless,” he says.

Interesting as the book is, there are however a few grammatical, typographical errors and tautology in display as we have in the use of the words “but” and “still” which both serve pretty much the same purpose in the same sentence on page 4. Besides that, the prologue pages of the book can get a bit tiresome and boring as it seems that death’s exploits are unending.

Chapter one of the book introduces death’s gruesome ‘first cousin,’ disease. Here, death describes disease as being older and with a lot more experience. Again, death tries to assert his superiority over disease. “He is in fact older than me but despite his seniority of age, I manage to eclipse him in power…I relegated him to an inferior position because he does not command finality…I am the Grand Commander of finality,” death says.

The book is surprisingly detailed and well documented as it gives a concise history of the advent of the various ailments listed under ‘diseases,’ including the likes of Leprosy, which is listed as the oldest of all known infections; Stroke; Malaria; Tuberculosis; Influenza; Tetanus; Hepatitis; Schistosomiasis, which is described as a tropical disease; Meningitis; Cholera and food poisoning.

Although the book starts on a rather juvenile note with its bare-faced and sometimes rather vain self-glorification. Such an appraisal is however proven wrong midway into the book. Especially impressive is the information the book offers on the HIV/AIDs plague on pages 34 to 36. Here, the book gives a detailed history of the incursion of the plague in places like North America, the Caribbeans, Western and Central Europe among others. The author backs this up with figures.

In chapter two, the book focuses on natural disasters like earthquakes, which it discusses at great length and with fervour. In the same chapter, it harps on the menace of floods and fire, which it calls a “useful servant.” In chapter three, the book, through its character, death, continues with the quite revealing and delightful information being continuously dished out albeit satirically. It talks about the nuclear bomb and its awesome power, its superiority over the atomic bomb and gives a brief history of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities in Japan that were completely destroyed in 1945, during the second World War. It also provided vital information about world super powers, the United States and Russia and their possession of more than 15,000 nuclear warheads between them.

Chapter four of the book dwells on vices like smoking and drinking and other such dangerous indulgences. It talks about the World Health Organisation, WHO’s revelation that there are “more than one billion smokers in the world.”

The last sections of the book that start with chapter five are particularly morbidly hilarious. Tagged, ‘My Numerous Goodies,’ death rather tongue-in-cheek, awards itself the dubious title of an employment generator and job creator in the casket making industry, funeral parlour decorating, billboards and other outdoor advertising devices used to announce the death of some dignitaries.

In terms of information about historical happenings, the book is surprisingly precise and up to the minute, while also being philosophical about death, which it sees as serving a good purpose.

Book: Home Away From Home

Author: Olayinka Oyegbile

Pages: 191

Publisher: Target Response Associates, Lagos, 2012

Home Away From Home is a tactful book to write. Olayinka Oyegbile deserves commendation for setting out on a journey fraught with dangers of misinterpretation. He senses that early enough, as he explains that the book was in the works well before Jos, which the book profiles through the eyes of early Ogbomoso settlers, took incendiary dimensions such that everything about it comes under extra interpretation. The author was born and raised in Jos.

In its three parts, the book documents the sojourn of the Ogbomoso in Jos, their contributions in developing the city and surrounding villages and the crisis that has bedevilled Jos, especially since 1994. The first 12 chapters explain the adventurous spirit of the Ogbomoso with the pursuit of commerce as a fuel. The combination of religion and trading saw the active participation of the Ogbomoso in the development of Jos by founding the First Baptist Church in the city, followed by the establishment of Baptist High School, Jos, among others.

Expansion in commercial activities as more Ogbomosos joined their prospering brothers helped in building Jos. Evidence of those enterprises can be seen in the Stores that line Ahmadu Bello Way, Jos’ main commercial centre. The narrative becomes repetitive as almost all the people interviewed tell the same story, with hardly any changes in perspective. This is understandable since most of the people admitted arriving Jos as toddlers and they could be repeating stories older folks told them.

Oyegbile admits that most of the early Ogbomosho settlers did not have the benefit of formal education. The varied perspectives to the story testify to that. Some of the claims in the book are therefore contentious. Pa Moses Akande Onigbinde was possibly the most famous and prosperous Ogbomosho man who lived in Jos. Unlike most of his people who returned to Ogbomosho on retirement, he died in Jos in 2009 at the age of 106. He had lived there for 81 years. Pa Onigbinde told the author that when he started his business in Bukuru, a place outside the city, in 1929, Nathan Okoye, an Igbo trader, converted him to the Faith Tabernacle Congregation of Nigeria (page 56).

On page 87, Oba Jimoh Oladunni Oyewumi asserts, “When I arrived in the town (in 1944) the indigenes were not much in Jos Township at all. Those of us there were mostly Ogbomosho people and we were about 95 per cent of residents. At that time, there were no Igbo people at all.” What about Okoye of 1929?

His contention about Ogbomoshos being among the earliest arrivals in Jos was not established, though much of the book belaboured the point. The author cites a TELL magazine report that quoted an anonymous historian at the University of Jos that Urhobos from the Niger Delta were the first set of settlers in Jos in the 1840s. They engaged in tin mining, probably before the Europeans, whose heightened mining activities brought the Hausa and others to Jos. Yet, the author consistently pushed the case of Ogbomoshos, page after page, without any effort to balance it with the additional information he had. If the Urhobo were in Jos in the 1840s – even if their contributions were modest – how could the Ogbomosho who the book credits with being in Jos from the 1880s be the earliest settlers? Perhaps because the book is about the history of Ogbomoso people in Jos and the author  is proudly an Ogbomoso man.

Another flaw with the book is that part two that consists of the author’s earlier articles and interviews, published in TELL magazine, requires proper introduction. The 74 pages of the 191-page book devoted to those materials create an impression of the book as suddenly veering into a treatise on the Jos crisis rather than a book on the history of hard working Ogbomosho traders who made Jos their home. That notwithstanding, perhaps, a very important inclusion in the book is the reports of two panels on the Jos crises.

Home Away From Home is a seminal attempt to tell the Jos story from another angle. It provides an impetus for others to start chronicling the development of the country and the various linkages that made Nigeria, over 100 years ago, stronger and more united than it is today. Written in narrative form and simplified language, the book comes highly recommended for tourist, historians, lovers of history and anyone interested in understanding the genesis of Jos crisis.

By TEMITOPE ADEOGUN