ktravula – a travelogue!

Nigeria’s Opioid Crises: Codeine

I first heard about the Nigerian codeine epidemic a couple of months ago, when a viral song by Ọlámìdé titled Science Student was released. Until then, I did not know that a drug epidemic was raging on Nigerian streets and taking lots of young men and women with them. But even then, I had no idea that the drug in question was a prescription cough syrup.

My friend – and Nigerian journalist – Ruona Agbroko-Meyer has now done an important documentary work on this crises, exposing the underground market and individuals that sustain the multimillion naira criminal industry. It is a story that has roots in her own personal story but exposes a national problem through investigative journalism and high stakes reporting.

I strongly recommend it. See below, via the BBC.

 

Nigeria’s Opioid Crises: Codeine was published on May 1st, 2018, with the tags , , , , , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Thoughts on “Freshwater”

I have just finished reading Akwaeke Emezi’s powerful debut, Freshwater. Its premise – a novel-length story of an ọgbanje child and its/her/their* experience of the human and spirit world – was one we had needed for a long time since Chinua Achebe gave us the character Ezinma in Things Fall Apart, described as ọgbanje because she was the first of ten children that did not die at birth. In Yorùbá, they are called àbíkú children, and have been subjects of many works of poetry and fiction. Having such a contemporary story based on the real-life story of someone we know makes it doubly intriguing for a novel, with potentials and pitfalls.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi.

This novel, which takes place this time in the modern era of emails, tennis courts, airplanes, condoms, and surgeries, tells the story of an ọgbanje child called the egg of the python: akwa-eke (also ‘the Ada’ – first girl child; also ‘the child of Ala’), whose life begins to get interesting after a night of trauma releases to her reality many spirits she had carried with her since birth. “Interesting” is a curious word to use to describe what happens, but only because the writing successfully immerses the reader in the trauma of her circumstances while simultaneously offering some measure of distance through a multiplicity of voices, all belonging to different entities through which the spirits that control her body chose to express their personalities. Their primary aim is to destroy the body and pull her spirit back to where they came from, but failing that, settling to ‘protect’ her through a series of attack and defense mechanisms that turn the life of such a carrier into one of wild and tumultuous adventure.

“When we were first placed inside her, with these humans, the odds were that the Ada would survive. It was, in retrospect, a very low bar to set. She did not die, yes, but she was not guarded, she was violated, so far as we were concerned, they failed. This is why we have never regretted stepping in, whether as ourself or the beastself. Show us someone, anyone, who could have saved her better.” (Kindle LOC 2411)

I have never read any other book like it. Not in the way the author introduces us to the many characters that live within one person. Not in the way she carries us along with her on a rollercoaster of spiritual and physical experiences that would have been hard to describe in any other way. Not many novels exist in which there are so many characters, but few people. It is a testament to the author’s gift and talent that we are never confused at each turn.

What makes the book important, however, is not just the fact of its existence, its impressive narrative style which combines Nigerian pidgin lingo, Igbo, and standard English, and the intimate exploration of what being an ọgbanje means in a modern time. A month before the book was released, the author penned a complementary essay in The Cut in which she describes her transition across realities, from woman to “a spirit customizing its vessel to reflect its nature.” She was not just becoming non-woman by removing the body part that reminded her every month of the nature of which body it inhabited, she was also freeing herself from the prison of categorization: a transition that isn’t from one gender to the other, but from body to spirit. Serving as complementary features the way that Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay I am a Homosexual, Mom complements his memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place like a lost final chapter,  Emezi’s essay fits the novel like a necessary coda, bringing an important conversation to the fore about how transitioning and attendant medical procedures aren’t really such an ‘unAfrican’ phenomenon after all, but had only been spoken of in that light because we had suppressed the voices that could otherwise explain to us the things we knew all along.

“The first madness was that we were born, that they stuffed a god into a bag of skin.” Kindle LOC 278

Akwaeke Emezi.
(Photo from http://1888.center)

The novel works on many levels: as a memoir, a coming of age story, a journey to self of a young girl of Igbo and Tamil descent trying to find her way in the world; as a fictional exploration of trauma, mental illness, family issues, and sexual/gender identity; and as an inevitably anthropological material on the study of the ọgbanje phenomenon and its many manifestations, with an intimate portrayal of challenges, heartbreaks, and opportunities. All the earlier works we had read about the phenomenon had treated the issue in a distant mythical way, removed from relatable experiences. While I was in Korea in January, a student of African literature asked whether the ọgbanje/àbíkú experience was ‘real’ and something that still happened. He had read about it from Chinua Achebe. I was glad to refer him to Emezi’s personal essay, and novel, on the subject. With Freshwater, the phenomenon became flesh.

Besides the subject matter, I was also very heartened to read a Nigerian novel in which the Nigerian language words (in this case, Igbo words) are written with appropriate diacritics. Ọgbanje wasn’t written as ogbanje, or with italics, as Chinua Achebe did in 1948. Other Igbo words and expressions like Asụghara, Lẹshi, Nzọpụta, Ịlaghachị, among others, were written with adequate respect for the writing conventions (I have discussed my thought on this pervasive deficiency in contemporary African writing in past essays (see 1, 2, 3), but particularly in this recent talk given in Korea about the subject). If we care enough to put diacritics on French, German, Swedish (etc) names in our English prose, there’s no need why we shouldn’t do them for African languages as well.

“When you name something, it comes into existence – did you know that?” Kindle LOC 816

Emezi has written an important book that is also a delight to read, in spite of (if not also because of) the trauma and challenges that make the writing necessary in the first place. Highly recommended.

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* Note on Pronouns. As those already familiar with Emezi’s work will note, she insists that she’s not a woman, though she answers to both ‘she’/’her’ (as is seen on her web bio), and ‘they’ (as will be seen throughout the novel, and as she’d once mentioned online as a preference). Her bio, for a long time, quotes her as living ‘in liminal spaces’. I believe that she has also not entered the book for any women’s prize for this purpose, which makes sense in light of how she represents herself in public and how she has experienced the world as an ọgbanje. One of the things that intrigued me greatly in the book is how each voice comes across as an authentic self of the character, even when they all live within the same body. So here, using ‘they’ makes enormous sense, and not confusing in a way that it has been when other trans people (especially in the United States) have used it. This is said not to disparage other trans people and the way they represent themselves but to credit this particular work with illuminating the issue in a way that makes it a little more relatable.

 

Thoughts on “Freshwater” was published on April 26th, 2018, with the tags , , , , , , under the Literature, Prose, Review category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Drama at the NLNG

I realized, just last week, that the call for entries for the Drama Category of the annual Nigeria Prize for Literature is out. The Prize, as will be familiar to those following Nigerian literary conversations, carries $100,000 and is awarded annually in four rotating genres. Last year’s winner, Ikeogu Oke, won for poetry (and you can watch my interview with him here, or read a review of his willing entry).

At a lunch invitation in Lagos with interested stakeholders, literary journalists, and selected members of the public, Mr. Tony Okonedo, Manager, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at the Nigeria LNG spoke about the progress of the prize, fielded questions about its shortcomings and public expectations, and announced a number of initiatives being planned for this year’s edition.

One of the attendee inputs that got a favourable response by the organizers is the suggestion that NLNG consider sponsoring a command performance of whichever play that won the prize last. In this case, that will be Iredi War written by Sam Ukala, and which won in 2014 when the Drama Prize was last awarded. I can already imagine such a performance (open to the public, perhaps) helping to draw more attention to the prize, the winning writer, and the genre in particular.

Another suggestion which I particularly like will involve having the NLNG sponsor a type of writing workshop every year either with all the longlisted authors in its prize categories or for selected and/interested writers who are then taken to the Island of Bonny where NLNG makes most of its money through the liquified natural gas. Either that or a type of residency. What I’ve heard of the tranquil nature of that island makes this something of a perfect fit.

According to a press release, the NLNG-sponsored Science Prize will also be accepting entries on Innovations in Electric Power Solutions. The literature prize opened on February 13, 2018 and will close on March 29, 2018. The window for the science prize, on the other hand, opened on February 15, 2018, and will close on May 25, 2018.

Professor Matthew Umukoro will chair the panel of judges for this year’s Literature prize competition. He is a professor of Theatre Arts at University of Ìbàdàn. Other members include Professor Mohammed Inuwa Buratai, a Professor of Theatre and Performing Arts and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU), Zaria; and Dr. Mrs Ngozi Udengwu, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Do people still write plays? Silly question, I know. But are there still many being published every year, a vibrant industry like we have for prose and, sometimes, poetry? I don’t know. Are unpublished plays eligible for this prize even? If not, why not? I know, though, that Sefi Atta published a collection last year, so I look forward to seeing the writers on this year’s long and shortlist. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to interview the shortlisted playwrights as well. Still, about 10 days for you to enter if you qualify. More information here.

Drama at the NLNG was published on March 19th, 2018, under the Drama, Literature, News category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

At the Korean DMZ

Visiting the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ, as it’s commonly called) was, I think, one of the most exhilarating parts of my trip. Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, is as illustrative of tension and hostility between two countries as the DMZ is. It is the world’s only remaining demilitarized zone laid bare in a 250-km long border barrier between what is now known as North Korea and South Korea.

Parts of the DMZ are open to guests, though subject to last-minute cancellations in many instances. On the day of our visit, the Olympic delegation from the North had just passed through the Civilian Control Line, on the way to Seoul on a historic visit. Had we arrived there just a few minutes earlier, we may have been delayed to make way for them.

The parts of the South where visitors can visit have a number of interesting landmarks, including an observatory post from where one can peep into North Korea and see its Propaganda Village and a flag, erected to be taller than anything else near it, placed strategically near the border. There, there is a small museum showing how the Korean conflict started, the many skirmishes between both of them over the years, and other relevant information. Over the years, the North Koreans had plotted to take over the South using many sly tactics. One of them is the use of a tunnel, four of which have been discovered before they did too much damage. Guests to the DMZ can take a look at some of them, and even take a walk in them, since they’ve been preserved for touristic purposes.

A place I thought I was going to visit, but learnt isn’t much open to the public, is Panmunjom with the famous blue house split across two national boundaries, and where most high-level diplomatic meetings between the countries usually take place. From Paju, where the observatory was, Panmunjom was a few miles out of view even of the mounted telescopes.

One thing that was exciting to discover is that, due to the state of war between the two Koreas and the untouched nature of the wilderness in the DMZ, it has grown over the years to become something of a nature park. Exotic birds and animals of diverse natures now live in the four-kilometre-wide minefield that separates the two Koreas. It has been proposed that in the case of future unification, the two countries agree to keep the DMZ as a heritage site of protected flora and fauna.

I can get behind that, as well as the idea of returning to the country after a state of peace has finally returned. Hope is frail but it’s hard to kill, as the saying goes. From the conversations with ordinary Koreans throughout the trip, it appears that I’m not the only one with at least a desire for a better future in that part of the world. May it be soon, and may the cost not be too high for the world to bear.

At the Korean DMZ was published on February 15th, 2018, with the tags , , , , , under the Travelling category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Onward Aké – A Travelogue

by Torinmo Salau

 

I got to Oshodi few minutes past 7am, my plan was to take off from Lagos before 6:30 Am. Rather I found myself panting under the weight of the Khaki travel bag strapped to my back, frantic to get on the next vehicle en route Kuto, Abẹ́òkuta which finally set out few minutes to 8am.

The grey Sienna car was badly dented and its rear windscreen had a slight crack which ran diagonally across its full length. The vehicle moved swiftly, faster than I even envisaged and within 30 minutes, we were approaching the tollgate. With Ma Lo by Twa Savage and Wizkid playing quietly in the car, I tried to go through the Aké Festival program schedule on my Samsung tablet.

“Are you going to Aké too?” the husky voice who sat beside me asked, jolting me out of the thoughts which clouded my mind.

“Yes”. I wondered why he was smiling sheepishly and from the way the words rolled off his tongue, you could guess his name would either be Emeka or Ifeanyi. But I did not guess right, his name was Chike.

After conversing for some minutes, I discover that Chike is a lawyer but he daylights as a freelance writer and editor.

“Shit I forgot my drugs,” he said midway through the conversation, mumbling words I barely understood.

“I forgot my antidepressants, he continued, sounding more distressed with anxiety ripping slowly through his face. His anxiety was palpable as he shifted from left to right in his seat, visibly shaken from the reality which just dawned on him.

“Are you depressed?”

Then I realized that was a dumb question to ask, if he is not suffering from depression, then why is he is shaking like a crinkled leaf which has lost its moist to the parched harmattan wind.

“Yes, I am depressed. But I will be fine without the drugs, he said shrugging his shoulder limply. Then he turned his back towards me, looking out of the window and staring at lush green vegetation which lined the road.

We were way past Mowe-Ibafo and its environs, I knew this because there was no sight of human habitations along the road again, just signposts after signboards and signages which had rusted and were barely legible to read.

“Sorry to hear, you are suffering from depression.”

I said the word ‘Depression’ almost inaudibly, carefully curating every word I spoke like somebody walking on eggshells, eggshells which can crack just by the slightest omission of a letter.

“Please don’t be, Chike said looking away from the window, smiling, I guess he was trying to hide his disappointment.

“I get a little cranky when I miss my medication but I will be fine, it’s just for two days”.

This was the second time he was saying, “I will be fine” within the space of five minutes.

While he sounded fairly reassuring, I still felt worried. Worried by the fall in his countenance and the dark shadow cast over the bubbly persona he exuded at the onset of the journey. Wondering what the resultant effect of missing a pill or two could be, wondering why he had to repeat himself if he would really be fine?

Then the journalist in me kicked in.

“How long have you been feeling depressed?” I asked with my curiosity etched up, hungry to dig down the layers of this story, hoping it is not what I think it is.

“Two years thereabout”.

“Besides antidepressants medication, why didn’t you explore other means of managing this condition?”

“I did. I tried therapy first but it was quite expensive. Then I switched to a psychiatrist, the doctor placed me on drugs which have been more effective than therapy”.

“But contrary to what I am aware of, therapy works best, better than tying your daily existence to a bottle of pills?”

“Yes it does, for some people. But the antidepressants help to balance my moods, keeps me from bouncing from one end to the other.

“Are there any side effects to antidepressants?”

“Yes of course, especially the withdrawal symptoms which varies among individuals, ranging from anxiety, insomnia, nausea, fatigue amongst others. It can either be mild or severe.

Chike turned his back to me again, but this time, he wasn’t looking out of the window. Rather, just staring at the brown threadbare carpet on the floor of the car, which was caked with red sand. By then the song playing in the car was ‘Joromi’ by Simi, with light chatter from fellow passengers, some talking about the Spanish La Liga while others were lamenting the epileptic power supply across the country. But for few seconds, there was a transient suppression of verbal expression. The gulf of space between us was taken up by silence and it stood there for what seemed like an eternity.

Though I pretended to read a book, Chike’s words kept throbbing my mind. His mental health struggles mirrored exactly what I was going through but what I was also denying and the more I looked in, the more I saw a reflection of myself.

On some days, I am just floating through space, watching my life from a distance as my dreams and ambitions vapourize into thin air, without any drive to rescue them.  Though I feel sparks of euphoria and drift to a different time space with my heart clustered with sugary fantasies tickling my taste buds, it is not for too long. Reality always lingers and thoughts of pulling the trigger moonwalk across my mind often. I want to run away, yet I am too scared to die.

I was excited as the car approached the ‘Welcome to Ogun state’ signboard. I could feel its momentum rising to 120KM/H, as the driver drove past the Governor’s Office which was painted in the colours of the national flag, heading into town.

***

While this was my second visit to Abẹ́òkuta, the city of rocky hills within the space of a decade, it was my first time at the Ake Book and Arts Festival, the fifth edition of AKEFEST. An annual literary, art and cultural event which pools authors, creatives, writers, artists, musicians, activists to share their work and ideas. It is no doubt a booklover’s dream as it offers the opportunity to interact with some of the major voices in the contemporary African literary scene.

I found the theme for the 2017 edition of Ake Festival, ‘This F-Word’ really intriguing, this was undeniably a profound time to have this conversation and stanchly confront the issues revolving around it. But the big cherry on the cake was the headliner for the event, Ama Ata Aidoo. Renowned poet, novelist and feminist. My favourite amongst her books is Anowa, a Ghanaian play about a young girl who rejects suitors proposed by her parents and marries a stranger, Kofi Ako. Kofi is angered by Anowa’s attitude of being a modern women and asks her to leave when she could not conceive a child. But Anowa discovers later that her husband had lost his ability to bear children, so the fault was his not hers. This discovery of the truth forces Kofi to shoot himself while Anowa drowns herself.

The trip ended at Kuto, it lasted for about 90 minutes. As luck would have it, the location of the literary festival, Arts, and Cultural centre was situated right beside the bus park, along Ibrahim Babangida Boulevard, Kuto. Chike and I were the last passengers to highlight from the car, I mumbled a short prayer to the heavens, grateful for the miracle of surviving the road.

Though the literary festival was a weeklong event, precisely five days from November 14th – 18th, 2017, I arrived at AkeFest on Day 4, Friday, hoping to still maximize the best of the event within the last two days. Chike and I exchange phone number and parted ways, promising to stay in contact with each other. He wanted to hear Toni Kan speak but I ran off to the current session underway, Book Chat with Alexis Okẹ́owó and Dayọ̀ Ọlọ́pàdé.

Storytelling with Mara Menzies on The illusion of the Truth was an enthralling moment as she told a Kenyan story of how Gikuyu women were not permitted to eat meat. Mara’s undulating body rhythm and the subtle tenor in her voice added more spice to the story. The fork in the road was one woman’s search for the truth and determination to fight the cultural stereotype which beleaguered women in her community. The day ended with a stage play by Yolanda Mercy on Quarter Life Crisis, a monologue which mixes expressions of spoken word and addictive baselines infused with a side dish of comedy. Most individuals go through a quarter-life crisis, but they don’t know it. Just like Alice, the main character in the story, we are swiping from left to right. Young, exuberant yet confused, not knowing what to do with the blank cheque called life, given to us. Though everyone around her thinks they know where they are going in life, the stage play which shows Alice trying to find ways to cheat growing up ends with a hilarious climax. However it doesn’t end without asking the audience with these two questions, ‘What does it mean to be an adult?’ and ‘When do you become one?’

Dusmar Hotel

I retired for the night at Dusmar Hotel, situated next to the Art and Cultural centre which saved me an extra cost of commuting within Abeokuta to the literary event. The hotel’s reception struck me with a major throwback to the mid-90s, refreshing fragments of my memory littered here and there. The furniture and furnishings were quite antique. The windows, still the same old model fitted with louvres reminded me of an incident I did not want to remember and I would rather not talk about it. But I found myself wondering why a hotel bore this type of window fittings even in the year 2017, though mildly nostalgic yet largely traumatizing.

Day 5, Saturday, the event was winding down but more people were still pouring it. As the literary festival teetered towards its climax, everything became fast paced. People frantically buying discounted books and F-Word books from the bookshop. The flashlight of cameras everywhere you turned to, as people tried to seal the memories and friendships formed within the space of five days. There was a book signing spree, authors inking their thoughts on books purchased by readers and their fans which was consummated with the millennials’ trademark autograph, Selfies!

My highlight of the day was the Life and Times session on Ama Ata Aidoo. The renowned author who has been writing for over sixty years spoke liberally about her life, work and feminism. It was an emotionally charged atmosphere for many in the hall as she paid an emotional tribute to Mariama Ba, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and other women pioneers of African writing.

“I hope you will extend the love and appreciation, you have shown me to my sister writers – living and past.” But what stuck with is the last line of one of the poems she read, “A girl’s voice doesn’t break, it gets firmer.”

***

I returned to Lagos on Sunday morning with a belly full of feisty aspirations, determined to change my misconceptions about feminism. Also to commit myself to unlearning and relearning, as the words of Mona Elthaway persistently rings in my ears, ‘Fuck the Patriachary’. Part of the main insights gained from the Ake festival is the universality of our experience as women whether black, white, or queer and why it is critical to challenge the elephant in the room, especially peculiar societal norms and beliefs which have repressed us decades.

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Torinmo Salau’s work has been published online and offline in literary publications, magazines, and anthologies.

Onward Aké – A Travelogue was published on February 14th, 2018, with the tags , , , under the Observations, Travelling category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.