Dear X,

I always return to Teju Cole’s Eight Letters to a Young Writer, not just to remind myself of the rudiments of the craft, but also to recall who I was ten years ago when I first encountered those words. Naive, starry-eyed, high on the immense possibilities of my writing. Just like you, I thrifted books with an unmatched obsession. My friends and I traded illegal PDF files of novels we couldn’t find or afford. Far into the night, I read those books with care, dissecting and imitating the text, searching for the keys to the “Literary Kingdom”. But it was in reading Cole’s letters that I was sneaked to the backend of literature, where the essential tools were laid at my feet.

The sixth letter, “Home”, makes a poignant observation about the widespread preoccupation to leave Nigeria, steady on the minds of many young people, including writers, who believed moving continents was their next step to literary acclaim. “I hope you haven’t fallen prey to such thoughts,” Cole warns. The literary establishments and resources are in the West, he agrees, “but what is here are the stories.”

I took those words seriously. I pledged to stay and mine the stories at home. I believed I could achieve remarkable feats from my corner of the world. I also believed I was a more authentic Nigerian writer since I was closer to the stories. I didn’t view my rigid stance as a fool’s errand. I held a purist lens over my work and was bent on doing it for the love of arts and for country. I prided myself on writing well without bowing to the institutions that be. None of them will anoint my head with oil.

In 2019, a mail arrived from Yaddo, the prestigious artists’ residency, affirming my ambition. With less than a 12% acceptance rate, I got in. Goals. My vision was aligning. I was gaining access to high places solely on the basis of my portfolio. At the residency, I met creative writing professors who had applied for years without luck, and there I was, with no fancy pedigree.

My writing was the only ticket I needed.

At Yaddo, in the space of weeks, I built the scaffolding of a novel, writing thousands of words a day. And for the first time, I experienced what it meant to create with ease, to write without worrying about the battery life of my computer, without the distractions of daily existence. No boss sending me to search for the best gbegiri in Lagos, no long commute from Ketu to Ikoyi. My productivity alarmed me and slowly, I realized how much time is stolen from your craft when basic amenities, such as constant power supply, are absent. I was in a controlled environment designed to make work seamless and I saw the stark difference between creating from a hard place versus creating from a place of ease.

Home was hard.

After two months, I returned to Nigeria jobless. In my former life, I had been a banker who quit her job in Nsukka and moved to Lagos to get closer to the literary world. But job after job, Lagos proved an impossible place to live with dignity. My dedication to writing was threatened each day. To save me the indignity of scrounging for urgent 2k, I moved back to my family house in Umuahia. Gratefully, a Nollywood producer, Ozioma B. Nwughala, took me under her wing and we wrote screenplays together. Yet, I wanted to write prose. I wondered where in the world was the possibility of living a life of letters without pledging allegiance to poverty. No writer is promised wealth, but there were those who had found ways to put a decent roof over their heads.

I wanted that decency, even a slice of it. In my newfound desire, my fealty to Nigeria began to yield.

To write solely for love, while living in a hard place, required a level of altruism I was not sure I had the bandwidth for. I was young, I was talented, why hold myself back? The professors and writers I met at the residency urged me to apply to MFA programs. Like you, I started considering it.

On Twitter, the anti-japa and anti-MFA rhetoric were loud. The umpires of these discourses almost demanded martyrdom from writers, forbidding the mingling of the pursuit of arts with the pursuit of comfort. Their absoluteness did not make sense. Most of them were no longer writing, most of them were past their prime and had grown disillusioned with the art. Despite their dictates, they had made havens for themselves but demanded from other writers a loyalty they could not muster.

Some Nigerian writers who found reasonable acclaim without the MFA had privileges of global access and were mostly dual-passport holders who did not need to queue for an F-1 or a tourist visa. Same as you, I don’t come from a family with the means to travel the world. Most of my education happened in inept Nigerian public schools. My final consideration: the current pulse of global literature. If I was serious about this “writing-thing”, as one boyfriend called it, I needed to position myself and my work accordingly. It would hurt to look back and say I didn’t give this my best shot, that I refused to take up space with my work, that I played it small.

The MFA was my best option. So I grabbed it.

In my preparation to leave, I began to think of myself first as an individual writer before a part of a collective — Nigerian writers. The local literary community was growing tepid by the day. Conglomerates that supported literature were withdrawing their endowments yearly. If I needed to step away from home to gain a bigger perspective on life and craft, so be it.

No one was promising me automatic acclaim once my feet touch Western soil, but what’s the harm in trying?

The consequence of this individualistic approach to writing is the feeling of a dwindling literary community in Nigeria. I noticed a reduced fervour for local events: the festivals that brought together writers from all over the continent, the gatherings at Freedom Park. I am careful in my nostalgia for those heydays because, in their insularity, the Nigerian literary scene was a perfect breeding ground for all manner of abuse, a shelter for men on the prowl for eager writers who wanted to be the next Adichie. Blame it on our respectability culture. Blame it on scant opportunities that made writers scramble for crumbs. If an MFA was a ticket to bypass all that nonsense, how diabolical it would be to begrudge any writer this escape.

I arrived at my MFA program with a healthy portfolio. At that point, I had written extensively for close to a decade. My expectations from the program were minimal. I already knew no one was going to wave a magic wand and transform me into a stellar act. I was looking to become a better writer, but above all, I had come to position myself in the Big C literary community.

I also arrived suspicious. MFAs do not have the best PRs. You are aware of what creative writing programs are rumoured to do to writers, especially we writers of colour. You’ve heard stories of workshops as dress rehearsals for the pages of the New Yorker, workshops as preening for the white gaze. I was alert to an attempt to tweak the flavour of my voice until it accommodated Western palates. My antennae stayed high.

Junot Diaz’s “MFA vs. POC” confirmed for me the reality of writers of colour in most programs. You, writing from the margins. You, sitting in class with people who may know Nigeria only through the lens of CNN reporting. You, taught by professors who swear by dead white male authors. You, fighting impostor syndrome, wrestling the voice that says you are only here to add some colour to a puddle of whiteness.

You, a foreign thing.

Gratefully, the MFA vs. POC wasn’t a battle I needed to start. Other writers of colour had fought and won some ground for writers like me. Some programs were adopting books such as The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How To Decolonize the Creative Classroom. Some programs were confronting institutional racism.

My promise to myself remained to write what I’d be proud of, not what Nigerians wanted me to write in the name of Nigerian literature, nor what the West demanded of me. I wanted to write my own stories. I was bent on protecting my voice and my work at all costs. I freed myself from the pressures of ‘Nigerian exceptionality’, the temptation we often fall into in the bid to prove we are better than our peers. I shed the exoskeleton of haughtiness and embraced not knowing certain things without shame.

Here’s an honest review: I have become a more confident writer since enrolling. I don’t know when it happened. I think the great distance between here and home, how much I gave up to be here, spurred me to work hard. Perhaps it is the library and the unbridled access to books. It could be the classes, sitting with writers from different parts of the world, exchanging knowledge and craft secrets.

A writing program is a buffet. You make it what you want. You choose what serves you and walk away from what doesn’t benefit you. Hopefully, you find professors that get you and your work and study with them. An independent study I took two semesters ago was the highlight of my education. Our focus was “Nigerian Books with Global Appeal”. I and the professor read Chimamanda Adichie, Lesley Nneka Arimah, E. C. Osondu and Eloghosa Osunde. It is hard to forget how animated we were when we read Vagabonds! We marvelled at the audacity of language, the deliciousness of the prose and how brazen a writer could be to create such work.

I also enjoy teaching. Most programs require that from you. I didn’t know I was capable of this until I was thrown into a classroom of twenty students and commanded to instruct them. Teaching gives me a chance to play dress up but most especially, I love that I am responsible for the education of others.

Some days, I enjoy workshops. Some days, the feedbacks aren’t quite helpful. But in all, I am learning how to talk about the works of others, and I love how the workshop mandates you to write more. Most importantly, I love that a book-length creative thesis is expected of me upon graduation.

But I’d be remiss to whitewash America for you. A well-structured place can also be oppressive. The honeymoon stage ends quickly when you’re paying bills, when you are adjusting to a new culture. Always, there’s a constant tug-of-war happening to you even outside the classroom, where you have to gauge how much acculturation you should permit yourself. Soon the glitz dissolves and you realise you are in a racialized country and Black people are at the bottom of the racial food chain. You are black and black bodies in America are more prone to all forms of violence. I enrolled in a literature class centring on contemporary Black authors to understand better what it means to be Black in America. The class cured whatever separatist mentality I arrived in America with, especially as a Nigerian who is tempted to think I am a different kind of Black person, a good Black person.

Racism sneaks up on you. I recall someone saying I was getting more published than my peers in the program because I am Black and Black stories are in vogue. In that casual statement, my talent was dismissed, my hard work and how I push past a myriad of rejections on Submittable — all waved away and attributed to race. Such things can make a writer create less and less or even drop out.

You may also wonder why some writers leave social media when they migrate. Reasons vary. The need to silence the constant chatter online. Book-length projects. An escape from the heightened scrutiny from family members. Growth.

You can weigh the risks and make a decision based on your own reality. After all, the MFA is not a guaranteed path to a successful career. Many quit writing afterwards and find jobs at places like Meta or Spotify. You can create your own workshop experience outside of a writing program. Find friends who are passionate about writing, meet often and swap works with each other. Set deadlines. Enter for prizes together. For me, beyond the doors an MFA degree can open, what I remain certain of is my craft.

However, if you decide to apply, there is something you should know. Leaving home is a spiritual journey. It is reckless to fling yourself to any part of the world without asking hard questions and making investigations. But even when you ask all the questions, how would you really know the answers until you arrive? Upon acceptance into a program, so many things occupy your mind as you prepare to leave home. Visa documents, flight fare, settling scores with your al mater, hoping they release your previous academic records in peace. So many issues and distractions and so little time to solve them.

In my case, I prayed. I abstained from food for days to gain clarity. I didn’t want to land myself in the belly of the beast. I didn’t want to experience what could break my spirit. I prayed for safety, I prayed for community, I prayed my path would not be lined with monsters.

So far, my prayers have been answered.

I have also found my people. I found them in church, I found them with my classmates, I found them in the African Student Association. I get at least three hugs a day. Loneliness would have driven me crazy and every day, I am grateful it doesn’t know me by name. I whet the edge of my craft each passing day, testing new doors it could open. I’m good. I’m glad I’m here.

In those days, in the shanty parts of the small town where we grew up, it was considered brazen for women to wear trousers and the ridicule that came with donning a pair was almost inevitable. Men who sat on low fences and on street pavements, passing lazy afternoons in the languor of card and board games, suddenly lit up when they saw a woman walk by. They basked in the fond habit of pestering, touting and following women, (it was worse if they were dressed in trousers) until their victims were terrified into offering a response, acquiescing to their touch or fleeing the perilous scene.

(Link to the rest)

I was seventeen and despondent when I first found God. I had wanted to go to the university but impossible hinderances stood in my way.

A suspicious fee my parents could not afford needed to be paid. So I stayed home and languished for an entire year.

That year, I needed to believe in something, because the major belief I was told to imbibe- work hard in school and you would excel- failed me. I had passed all necessary exams, why was I still denied the opportunity?

So I sought God on my own and I found him. He taught me how to write away the pain, and till date, I write.

My home was not religious, I wasn’t even dedicated in church. Sundays were often for rest. Church was a new habit that I fought my parents many times to sustain. But I needed hope because I was suddenly aware that I was born in a peculiar country with an unjust system. I wanted to hear that ‘All things worked together for my good,’ ‘That the thoughts God had for me were grand and superior in spite of.’ I wanted to hear words to keep me from crying…

My parents worried for me because they knew what religion did to people. That fear of probing, the fear of asking questions when a sermon beats commonsense. And in a culture rooted in respectability, asking questions was deemed insolent. But faith and commonsense many times conflicted. However, Christianity as correctly depicted in the Bible, encourages searching, seeking answers, probing doctrines and holding them in the light of love and truth.

For a people living in a place steeped in corruption, Nigerians are religious to the point of delirium. But what else do they have working for them? For instance, in the time of this pandemic where washing of hands was repeated as necessary practice, how many homes have running water? Many still ferry water from across the streets and ration it as a scarce commodity.

The events of these days remind me of my teenage self. I have always desired and longed for moments like this where all I have is God; where everything else fails and I am left bereft with nothing to lean on but faith.

I look at my clothes and my shoes and air tickets for travel and I shake my head at how much my plans this year have been halted to a screeching ridicule. Everything I have hoped in has failed.

This has been a period of pruning and boy! it does not feel good. But I know the benefits abound. This time spent alone has afforded me the chance to map out a comparison: On one hand I placed the moments I schemed and plotted and connived for things to happen, and on the other hand I placed the moments I felt the tangible hand of God directing my affairs. I discovered that the times I willed things over to God had events occurring organically, and the times I steered my own affairs were much more cumbersome.

I have never prayed like I’ve done this period. I am almost the begotten heir of Paul and Silas in jail. I pray because everything else has lost its meaning. How do we explain the death toll, the loss of jobs, the grieving souls, the money in the bank holding scant value, the hearts of men blanketed with fear?

Only the divine can staple our sundered world together; and I know that the world would will not repeal for the higher love that watches over us even in this critical hour.

I have faith in God. I bask in the grand hopes of eternity even when now seems meaningless; in the hopes of seeing my father again when all of this is done, and in the hope of a place far better and loftier than the collective beauties of this world.

But we will survive the second time when the one we love morphs into a thing, some creature our soul ceases to recognize and we will wonder how something so lovely and tangible sublimates to emptiness. Then, when the second breakup comes to pass, we’d desire nothing but to wring the foolishness of love and all its vulnerability out of the length of our beings, to dry away the evidence of this ruse we fall for time and again. But wait for the third one; it would happen in your hour of evolving, in a time you presume no turn of events would ever have you tittering out of your orbits. Wait for it.

Even in the midst of an amiable separation, when the promises are made and we agree to rid yourselves of animosity and stay ‘friends’, something in us will be moved, shaken, perhaps relieved, but shaken still.

We have heard of some brave people who gather friends, throw parties after a separation; but isn’t there something unconvincing about a joy that strives to elaborate itself? Parse through all the emotions in the wake of a final goodbye and you’d see disappointment lurking, wishing to be named. Disappointment at the promises made which failed to blossom; disappointment at oneself for not rescuing one’s heart faster, for not living up to one’s own expectations, disappointment for all the times we failed, and the times we were failed. If only we guarded our hearts with all diligence, if only we heeded our guts. But who wants a lover who holds her love like a last breath, who refuses to lower her defenses to risk pleasure, to risk pain? Isn’t the beauty of love its ability to loose our loins and unsheathe us?

Few breakups are rosy, and the chief of all things lost, which cannot be gained back is time. Time, that flimsy, wary commodity. I have watched people beat their chest in pain in the manner of Queen Uberta of The Swan Princess crying, “All these years of planning… Wasted! Wasted!” But what does it really mean to say someone wasted our time? They dangled hope like bone before our eyes and left us tantalizing? They ruined our chances of being with someone else? Maybe. But by the way of consolation, why don’t we think on the goals achieved within the given period, the other feats we accomplished in the time being?

There is a love for every season. Some love crosses over to the other side of the sea with us. Some remain by the banks bidding us Godspeed as we wade through the waters alone. Some pluck us from quagmire and set us afoot once more. And some, like scaffoldings, must come away after we’ve found our feet. But pain comes when we coax what was made for noontime to stay for dinner, when a love no longer feeds our soul with longing, and only leaves in its wake an anxiety that prods us awake every night asking, why?

Why does intimacy end and people change? Because love is not immune to sundering and we, its acolytes, are as fallible as they come. Love ends because some embraces are destined to hold brief warmth. Love ends because a more agreeable person shows up. Because people grow, needs evolve, enthusiasm ebbs, distance happens, trust shrivels like an unwatered garden, tenacities no longer share the same stamina.

Love is not a one man sprint; it is a relay of identical keenness. But when it ends, we often dread what lies on the other side of leaving because we ask, what if this is all the love we’d ever have? Who else will gaze upon us in wonder and delight? Whose kinds words and firm belief will put spine to our feeble dreams? Who will welcome us home? And for fear we hold on to a thing in comatose because the memory of its heydays fills us with hope. But take this to any bank: There will always be more love. There will always be something better.

So may the day you find the courage to tell your soul the truth come; that though it is safe to exist in the presence of the familiar, you never know what joy awaits you in the arms of a new embrace.

You toil away with furrowed brows, with an attention that does not waver in rain and in shine. A dutiful gardener glories in the flourishing of her plants; she stands aside with pride and observes the lush greenery and says to herself, look what my hands have made; my labour of love was not in vain.

This also holds true for every woman who has donned the garb of motherhood; just as a gardener, she is judged harshly or kindly by how well the fruits of her womb fare in a world so contrary. But you need not fear, for even when we leave your presence, your words keep tending us. It is your voice we hear behind our ears urging us to pull ourselves up when the weight of the world has toppled our weary frame. It is your words that steer our feet away from that which would mar eventually, though it entices for a moment.

Yesterday I overheard my neighbour rebuke her teenage daughter after she, the daughter, had broken the nth tumbler in a week. What would I do with you? She said. Is this how you will break all the things in your husband’s house? Though I chuckled at the familiarity of those words, it stirred a debate in my mind. My neighbour’s rebuke sounded like your favourite maxim: Men want assets not liabilities. You said this to me by way of correction when I showed slackness in my ways or moments when I wanted to eschew work and get things done through a shorter route. Men want assets not liabilities, you’d say tugging at your earlobe. You are not the only one I hear this from. I hear it from the preachers’ pulpit at the delivery of an impassioned sermon, I hear it from the motivational speakers’ podium when an audience is urged to up its ante, I hear it from kitchen gossips of aunties, I hear it when I am at play with my friends. It is also there in the movies, when the wealthy prince picks the industrious banana hawker over the slay queen with acrylic nails, and some passersby on their way to the stream, deliver the didactic punchline: men want assets not liabilities.

All maxims such as this hold an underlying truth, but only with a side eye squint do you see how flawed and tilted its notion is. Have you noticed that most rebuke and chastisement given to daughters end with how the mishap would augur ill with men? “Do not do that; no man wants it. Do not be untidy, make your bed; men do not like scruffy women. Learn to cook better; men like good cooks. Go to school get a job; men like educated, hardworking women.” And in this way a daughter is raised with a chorus of what men like, what men want, what men prefer. It’s similar to what Margaret Atwood called fulfilling the male fantasy.

Wouldn’t it be better you showed me how my decision would better me or negate me without constantly holding it up under the light of male approval? I too, as much as you dream, want to be an asset. I want to contribute meaningfully to life, to say this thing became better because I was involved, to look at someone and know that a decision or an action of mine would light the path for him. But when my actions are viewed through the lens of the male gaze, I am raised to forget that there is no one else to give account for than myself; I am raised to hinge my life on societal approval, a thing too ephemeral and shaky to build one’s life on.

In your days men preferred the fleshy woman to the slim woman. That explained the existence of fattening rooms. Girls went into those rooms skinny and came out plump. No one wanted a bonga fish for a wife. Fast forward to 2001 when Agbani Darego became most beautiful girl in the world and a preference for slimmer women became de rigueur, somewhat ending the reign of the fleshy woman. There was also a time housewives were preferred to working women; men wanted women who minded the home solely without the encumbrances of a day job. But since the recent economic crunch, a working woman is much more eligible than one who holds no job. Gainfully employed women would augment and aid in financial responsibilities at home.

But with each revised preference, what have your daughters become? clowns miming to the whims of society under the guise of living up to the male gaze? objects constantly adjusting their positions to fit into the vision of society? Wouldn’t it be better if we went to school because education gave us the advantage? worked good jobs because we ought to make a living? What if we were raised to exist fully without the constant ring of living up to a man’s gaze?

Every wise person is drawn to assets, people who would add value to their ventures. Every employer wants a remarkable employee who would bring something of worth to the table. This is a given. Even the loafer is not left out; he wants an asset in a woman form. Stories abound of industrious women shagging it up with very prodigal men. All of the world hungers for valuable people.

But I’d rather I live the highest version of myself with nobler intentions beyond eligibility, without bothering to lower my value or become who I am not just because I seek to sit well with men, society, anyone.

Your daughter

Because it is not a fanfare.
Because my village is very far. Because it is an event best suited for those who knew him personally.
Because I will cry when they lay him to his grave, when the last gravel is tossed on his coffin... and I do not want you to see me in that state.
Because it is not a reunion of old friends neither is it a yardstick to gauge who loves me or not.
Because, sometimes, grief is a private affair.

I hate funerals. I despise the atmosphere of mourning and the long faces and the pats on grieving shoulders. I have only been to three funerals all my life and they were for very young people and I felt my presence useless. In one of those funerals, I was offered food and I ate because we had journeyed a long way with a school bus. I still remember the faint stirrings of guilt inside me. How dare I eat, tending my hunger, in the face of such tragedy?

“Accept my condolences”
This is another hard one. What does it even mean to say these words? When I say this to the bereaved, I often mean:
1. I identify with you in this trying moment;
2. It is a pity that this person is dead;
3. I feel sorry that you will not see your loved one again; or
4. I am reaching out to you now because I don’t want you to say I’m insensitive to your grief.

Tributes
I use to be very judgmental of that common practise of sanitising the memory of the dead, as if death comes bearing with him a bottle of sterilizers that make the living blight out certain memories of the deceased. My sense of judgment may have come from not having been bereaved all my life. My siblings are well and living—glory to God. My mother is still in her heydays. But when my father passed away, I found myself less weary of people who make saints of their loved ones, people who erase poor character and bad choices while feting out the dead with honour as if they were not every bit as human as we are. If sainthood was allotted by deeds, each of us would be wanting even in death.
But after his demise, I understood that people had a right to their memory—selective or collective. They had a right to how they wished to eulogize a loved one.

This is how I choose to remember my father

My father was soft and most times easily given to tears. He wept for the mundane, the joyous, and the bitter moments of life. When Lucky Dube died, he wept. He was an ardent fan and owned many of his records and each moment he played “I’ve got you babe” in the car on our way to the village, he whistled along. Abba and Agabe Love Band were a few of his favourite and we introduced him to Westlife; but none of these could sway Lucky Dube’s place. He remained a constant. That fateful morning, when BCA radio announced that the famed South African Reggae artiste had been shot dead as he did school runs, my father cried.

My father wept when my elder sister put to bed. My niece was his first grandchild and they formed a bond so sweet to behold. He would return home some days, bearing beautiful dresses for his little one. He couldn’t wait to take her to school and bring her back. But when she turned two and was ready for school, my father was too ill to take her. And he wept.
My father wept when he told us he had cancer. He made the announcement in morning devotion, in the early months of 2014. I had taken a job in the church while I waited for any major employment and I remember getting to work and crying. Four years later, news of his demise came with much relief.

How I heard the news
It was my mother who made the announcement. She came to my room around four in the morning and said, Ucheoma, Daddy gi anwula. It was that kind of news that you have been expecting to hear but do not know what to make of it when it finally comes. Because we had seen cancer pick his flesh apart from his bones and the best gift he needed was rest. Most times, death is a blessing and a peaceful death is a gift from God. Especially when you have seen lustre wane from the eyes of your loved one; when food—even Ofe ukazi—loses its taste from the palate. The sickness was hard bent on taking away from him everything that mattered: his joie de vivre, his jest. And nothing else rattles the mind more than when you see the man who was the pillar and terror of your youth slowly unbecoming himself.

Memories
This is how I choose to remember my father. He was present, often too present for comfort. To put it in the parlance of youth, He was all up in our business.
My father was such a proper person. Pen and pocket-squares in place. A dash of cologne, spit-polished shoes (he made us polish his shoes), his igwe red cap. He wasn’t dandy but he dressed carefully. But most times, when he put himself together too hastily, my mother would stop him and ask, Where are you going to dressed like that?

There were late night mathematics lessons in my secondary school days where we wrangled simultaneous equation until my ears rang. How I despised those days! I just wanted him to leave me alone. But I was lagging behind and he was worried. My father was such a worrier.

He played a huge role in domesticating all his children: from teaching us how to peel achara, to showing us how to pluck chicken—he was never satisfied with how we dissected the meat. Said we were too wasteful, we never sliced against the grain. Did we think we were cooking for hotel people? He was allergic to waste. He rarely threw out things. He was also allergic to tardiness. I can’t remember how many Sunday mornings he was cross with my mum for titivating too long and making him miss a part of Sunday service. Not that I would describe him as overtly religious; he picked apart sermons and took home with him what he thought was wise saying. But when he wanted to go to church, he went early.

He knew to tend his ailing children. I remember in JS3--those were my very sickly days. I came home with Hepatitis and he made all my meals without oil as the doctors commanded him. He was there on visiting days more than he was not, bearing provisions and words of counsel. I know these are basic paternal stuff but I am glad I did not have to experience them vicariously. He was present for every major event in my life. He drove me to the airport when I attended the Zenith Bank job interview. He and mom took me to Peace Park when I was asked to resume in Nsukka branch. For innumerable doctors’ appointments, he sat there at the waiting room, cuing when we whimpered about the nurses’ injection. My daddy was present.

When he was good, he doted on us. But some days, he was arbitrary, just like many African dads, given to fashioning the destinies of their children. But half of the time, he meant well.

Being a dad is not a fancy job; good intentions are often met with rebellion and an abundance of sulking. But he did a pretty good job. His memories will forever be nestled in my bones for it was his seed that gave me life. His blood runs in my veins, literally. Legend has that when I was two and anaemic, his blood revived my drooping soul. And because of this, in the middle our many tiffs, he would brag angrily, If not for my blood, would you be alive?

Funeral culture
I have seen the importance of a man measured by the intensity of the crowd thronging at his funeral. Such that you will hear people say in awe, ‘That burial pulled a crowed.” This is more applicable to the funerals of the aged and the wealthy. But a huge percentage of the fanfare at funerals aren’t heartfelt. There is also a practise of laying a man to rest later than appropriate because families and committees of friends are checking various weathers, especially their financial weather, succumbing to the pressure to give a befitting burial. Kill goats, kill cows, kill chickens. Rent canopies, sew uniform, buy big coffin with gold handles, buy bags and bags of rice. And the drag that these plotting creates does not make the healing process easy for the bereaved, especially if it a painful exit. I ask myself, Do the dead really care for a fanfare, for ceremonies made out of their funerals? Do they care? Do they really care?

Sneak peek and word around social media already had us anticipating a wickedly handsome Satan, but no one has yet captured in review how uber-talented Austine Onuoha is, and the vastness of his theatrical forte. In Satan, A dark Comedy, a play written and directed by Joy Isi Bewaji (her directorial debut), Onuoha sizzles and brings to three-dimension man’s most loathed enemy, the one who bears the brunt of our darkest cravings and secret sins.

The biggest concern many writers endure is entrusting their work in the hands of interpreters of art, that is, the actors and directors, and wishing they get it right. This time, Bewaji spared herself the mercy of misinterpretation and I must commend that taking the directorial seat is something she has to consider repeating.

The brilliant cast bristled in their roles and we empathized with them each time they fell again and again for Satan’s wiles. A man who quivers in lust for his wife’s bestfriend, waiting for a little nudge to live out his lecherous imagination. A woman starved of promotion who decides—with the suggestion of Satan of course—to blight out the existence of those standing her way. But save for a scorned wife and an honest waitress, Satan remains ever triumphant. However, even in his subsequent defeat, he remained a sight for sore eyes. I and some ladies in the audience could not take our eyes away from the mounds of his muscular chest when Satan began his dance sans a covering for his torso.

The opening monologue and dialogues were at once crisp and relatable, showing that nothing, not even a great cast, can take the place of great writing—on screen or stage. This is a play where a writer sets no restraint to her imagination and allows her creativity room to soar.

Bewaji has written for screen and theatre but her first attempt at directing has her Midas touch sprinkled all over it and I look forward to more output from her oeuvre of ideas.

BOOK REVIEW: THE GATHERING OF THE TRIBES BY EVANS UFELI

The Gathering Of The Tribes is the second work of fiction of writer and legal practitioner, Evans Ufeli, who rightly belongs to the school of writers like John Grisham; writers who hold deftly their legal practise and also excel in their literary bent. Ufeli is well renowned in his social causes and fight for justice, never shying away from taking on the cases of the under-represented and downtrodden.

It is apparent that Nigeria’s state of political mediocrity thugs heavy in the author’s heart which he wilfully expresses in this work of fiction which is worthy to be added in school curriculums. I would liken Anieze to Nigeria: its milieu and clime share a striking resemblance to present day Nigeria. Anieze is beset with very corrupt leaders who siphon the communal wealth for their private gain. Every Nigerian would recognise Chief Onyeonu: smooth-talking, pimped politician, endowed with ample wit to sway gullible members of his electorate. For every land like Anieze, laden with rich mineral resources, there is an “Expandol”—a foreign company—ready to mine its wealth on the condition that they perform their social responsibility for the community. Men like Onyeonu are inevitably the middle men for such transactions but they are many times ignoble and end up dribbling their people and curving this wealth to their selves.

But then again, not everyone is bewitched by the sugar-coated tongue of Onyeonu. There is Ike, the son of the soil and returnee from England who is the chairman of the development committee, and there is Puze, a personal victim of Onyeonu’s crooked ways. Together, these middle-aged men and a group of others form an alliance to dethrone Onyeonu and put an end to his highly corrupt ways. They form a gathering and are bent on restoring the glory of their land. This leads them to take an oath and swear themselves to secrecy. But here is their deadlock: youth and time are hardly on their side.

But as the adage goes, when a goat chews ion a blade of grass, his kids watch him. Nze, Ike’s son, who is a spitting image of his father in purpose, shadows these elderly men on their way to the shrine to take the oath and begins to fashion ways to run with his father’s vision.

Nze quickly gathers his own committee of vibrant and driven men who will overtake the quest to save Anieze. Though some of the other youths are caught in the pomp of Ukwata festival (which is similar to today’s pop-culture?), Nze and his cohorts stay back and plan the progress of their land.

And so does the twist and turns of The Gathering of The Tribes begin. All the characters are given a mission to accomplish, whether good or evil and in this way, the author excels in character development. The reader finds herself rooting for Nze and Ike and wants to see the end of the bottomless corruption in Anieze. But victor is no feat for the faint of heart. The faithful patriots of Anieze and enticed with bribes but they remain undaunted even in the face of oppositions and police harassments. They will know no peace till they have restored the glory of Anieze. These they do all to the shame and chagrin of leaders like Onyeanyu and his sycophant cheerers.

At first while reading, I was a bit unsettled about the blend of native situational setting with technology. Anieze is not alien to cars, telephones and other devices common in urban areas but I came to realise that even Wakanda, filled with rich cultural heritages, was also a town rich in technological advancements; so why not Anieze?

It would be false to assume that the book is all laden with political upheavals and the subsequent victory. There are love interests and beautiful women who dance to the delight and lust of male spectators but the author is careful to avoid being explicit and this I believe makes The Gathering of The Tribes worthy to be read in schools.

A christian priest is killed in the middle of fracas between masquerades and the land is flung into turmoil. The question of the existence of the native culture of a people and encroachment of western influences come to bear. The people of Anieze hold dear their traditional values and mores but are they willing to accept and accommodate those who choose western ways?

Another theme to note in this book is the power of youth in changing the narrative of a land. The young people are not afraid to question their leaders. They realise that they cannot recline passively, tanning their butts in the sun and expect change to fall from the sky. They put their hands to the ploughshare and enact the change they seek.

Evans Ufeli has written an influential book which would make a shift in the minds of young readers and help steer their vision into participating in governance. If Anieze found its salvation, then we too can.

A cord of three strands

A man

A wife

A Mistress

A MAN

When a man picks a mistress, he seeks an escape. He seeks a slice of enchantment to awaken a part of him that yearns for the carnal. He doesn’t seek warmth; warmth is in the bosom of the wife of his youth. Warmth is on the cheek of his sleeping child lain on his chest. Warmth is served in casserole dishes by the old handmaid of his household, the same maid who watched his infant head many years ago. When a man picks a mistress, he seeks heat. A flash of ecstasy. Evenings embroiled in passion. A tongue that licks like fire. A body unconcerned with propriety. A mouth that professes profanities like a second tongue. Knees that kneel in worship before his naked frame. Eyes that do not see him as wobbling and old and pot-bellied. One old man, I heard, makes his mistress kiss his arse…literally because it’s been his dream to live out this cuss phrase.

When a man seeks a mistress…he seeks power.

WIFE

Nollywood hasn’t done you justice in a while. Look how they lazily describe you as dull of wit and beauty, lacking in passion, plain and ordinary. A passable face with a passable figure. They say you neglect to groom; you do not know where to get a bikini wax. You fail to shave your legs. You fail! Is that not reason why he followed the slender secretary? Now you have to pray and fast for seven days and nights, and on the seventh day, that witch will run mad or, better still, your husband will purge in the middle of a rendezvous. They are always, always blaming you for a roving eye that isn’t even yours. But I know you in person, balancing work and family like Lady Justice. Why do people world-over fail to realize that there are no grand excuses for some choices? A man wakes up one morning and craves the taste of another cunt on his lips; and this craving, this appetite is so overwhelmingly strong it consumes him like fire. Why do we believe that it is your fault? Why? When will the world come to terms with the fact that shit happens? And most times, it is not your fault.

MISTRESS

This is the mind of the mistress:

Because of me, he desecrates his marital bed. Just for the pleasure of those moments with me, he violates his vow. He values me more than the sanctity of his pledges. Look how much he risks just to be with me…. Just look.

WIFE

You are not perfect and to hell with anyone who is even asking you to be. Every perfect woman is a walking irony. A tragedy waiting to implode on itself. Be proud even though you may not have it all together. So this was never about you. It’s him. And his demons. Now you sit in bed holding that evidence in your hands and you are torn between confrontation and letting go. You are held back when you remember that story of a woman who bursted her man and though he was shamed to compunction, it took awhile before his body recognised hers. She had bruised his ego and for many, many nights, like an insubordinate sergeant, his body refused to stand ramrod stiff in salutation whenever she willed it.

A TALENT FOR AFFAIRS

No one is privy to negotiate with nature on the gifts she chooses to bestow. But some people? Some people have a natural talent for affairs. They were born with it. Just like the child who has an uncanny dribbling skill on the football field or the baker who lights up at the sights of mixers and a white hill of flour, these people come alive at the mention of trysts and scandals. It is their joy that they can hold that which is forbidden, own it even if it were for fleeting seconds.

Offer these special people the stability of an exclusive relationship and watch them wither and dry up in their bones. It is like tempting an Eskimo with ice. No, I’m good. But can you bring me heat? they’d ask. Bring me heat.

A MISTRESS’S GRUDGE

You are angry because Daddy is distant. The last time you were with him he did not look at you. His eyes were fixed on the silver wallpaper of the guestroom in his tasteful home. No, it was not in his matrimonial room because I respect my wife, he would say. And while he rode fast, he kept asking, whoisyourdaddy? whoisyourdaddy? whoisyourdaddy?

But here is the reason for your anger: he did not look at you, did not see you. He did not even lift your breast to his mouth. You were even the one that took of your own clothes. When you arrived at the door, he was already sporting an erection and before you could work up a proper good morning, you were carted to the room. But all the while, he did not see you. Not in the way of acknowledging the presence of another. He simply did not see you.

Now here is even the worst part, when he was finished, he asked you to dress hurriedly because the plumber was coming to fix something, and these handyman had mouth diarrhoea. You had to leave through the backdoor because the neighbour was outside hanging laundry. As you sneaked out, your heard the neighbor’s song; it was your favorite worship song.

A PALLETTE OF MANY COLOURS

So one evening after work, in those clubs 9-to-5-ers come to milk the last drop of fun from another dreary day spent behind computers, his friends asked him, But guy, really, why do you do this? He smiled and told them.

In secondary school in a Fine Arts class, we were asked to paint the sky. When I finished, I showed my painting to my teacher. She tilted her head and looked at my that piece of cardboard. She said to me, Child, why paint your sky cerulean when you could have a rainbow?