Let Omohan Ebhodaghe introduce you to his book...
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About the Author: Omohan Ebhodaghe
was born in
Lagos, Nigeria.
He attended the universities of
Benin
and
Lagos. He
co-edited an anthology of poems and stories entitled
Twenty Nigerian Writers: Portraits; and the author of
Hightower. A former teacher, he was the
1993-4 publicity secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors,
Lagos State Chapter. He
lives and works in
London, courtesy of a British Council,
Lagos office assistance.
Focus: In terms of sheer size and quality, Spain has her own Don Quixote De La Mancha novel via Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; Russia has her own War and Peace novel through Count Leo Tolstoy; India has her own A Suitable Boy novel as authored by Vikram Seth; and, now behold Nigeria with his own novel IN THE MIDST OF LOAFERS. And the upcoming PHOTOCOPIES & ORIGINAL.
SYNOPSIS: SUBJECT MATTERS
The 945 page
literary novel IN THE MIDST OF LOAFERS (
Published by Chipmunka Publishing, UK, 2011) is bifocal. With eight books of varied
chapters in each, its first page opens In Medias Res “ Yet, you’re not one of
our showbusiness pastors of the expressway church fame as Esiri want us to
believe but alas an American-styled adjutant professor in bloom if you don’t
know, “ page 30 UK edition, and thereafter the first four chapters centred attention,
in flashbacks, on a group of religious and non-religious people who behave as each
does and within or outside of the academic life of some of them on an imaginary
university campus or so-called the Metropolitan University of Benin with
campuses at Ekehuan and Ugbowo or the acronym MUB.
Written in a
cinematic epic format, it uses the holistic approach in presenting the various
issues raised in the novel and that included selfish human desires. Thus, it
mixes dramatic actions with pragmatic realism with poetic wisdom as undertone.
It also explores the historical development of a city, somewhere in West Africa from its early beginnings and speculates
about the socio-political and aesthetic future of MUB and the state within the
comity of nations.
The main storyline
therefore runs through the main themes of madness and endurance and the main
character Okoekpen Okonofua Junior, and what other characters gained from him
or that they each lost to him.
Okoekpen Okonofua
Junior, an undergraduate student at MUB is put against formidable obstacles in
the home, at school, at the religious premises and the ordinarily perceived
playgrounds of old Bendel state of Nigeria. At home he must face
Omoakhuana. At school is Amadasun. Mo Debe Edegbe is for the church. And the
playgrounds have to do with Ojame as a friend’s older cousin with a wounded
ego. They claimed Okonofua was mad. Here also, we saw the exploration of his
riotous relationship with the extroverted Ekaette.
Hence, Okonofua
has to pass through these forces not only for his survival but also for his
growth towards adulthood. Each character therefore wants what he Okoekpen
already had initially as in Ekaette or would want to have as in formal
education and or money. As a consequence, each became vicious, scheming and
using willing folks to achieve their stated aims as in the unwittingly use of Mr
Okonofua Senior by Omoakhuana at the home front and at the public arena Dr Okoroafor
Agbamien by Amadasun among others.
The outcome in
such incendiary activities is the conflicts not only of willpower but also of
morality. Whoever is socially successful still has to contend with the seared
conscience. Therefore Amadasun acquired his degree and lectureship; Edegbe gets
the family properties and Ekaette as wife; Ojame gets the government parastatal
job and social status; and, of course, his stepmother Omoakhuana secured her
husband’s favour and the family wealth in trust for herself and offspring. Okonofua
Junior, on the other hand, had the good life of a practical ethicist with
poetic wisdom in a contemporary Benin
city of chaos and corruption, as it were.
In conclusion,
Okoekpen got what others lost and lost what others got. He lost Ekaette to
Edegbe, family wealth to his stepmother, university lectureship to Amadasun and
social status to Ojame. The others lost peace of mind, that is, the poignancy and
wisdom to live a better, healthier life as only the person enjoying it can feel
within himself or herself behind closed doors and this with a name that both
preceded him and lasted.
THEMES
The thematic thrust of the 945 page novel is
madness as in pages 658, 661, 691, 718 and 762 of the literary fiction. It is
bifocal, as in being particular and general. The primary readers are taught and
research Ph D students or postdoctoral fellows; then those with a BA or BSc and
MA or MSc and are intelligent; and, then, those with vocational qualifications
who are naturally intellectuals as would other keen and discerning students at
the formal university level. As a short term usage, it is especially useful to
tourists, secondary school and college students as well as the general adult
readers as a literary enthusiast.
The particular aspect of the bifocal
overview of the literary novel is the quest of the lyrical personal or hero or
protagonist Okoekpen Okonofua Junior that used the In Medias Res format in its
first four chapters. Okoekpen in the Esan language of the people of Edo state
in Nigeria
means the child of peace. Okonofua is a white child, with connotative effects
vis-à-vis the cosmology, aestheticism, moral philosophies, academic prowess, the
anthropological and touristic possibilities of the Idunwele villagers of Ewu in
Edo state of the older Bendel state. Set in a
fictional university campus called the Metropolitan University of Benin or MUB,
with names of other real universities placed side by side to create the effect
of verisimilitude, other themes that engaged the author include literary,
lesbianism, paedophilia, feminism, corruption, historical development of
Edoland, linguistics, love, revenge, domestic family squabbles, self-reliance,
spirituality, entrepreneurial efforts, deficiency in public infrastructure or
utilities like water supplies, good roads, lack of housing estates, electricity
power supply, serenity of Idunwele village life and social chaos.
If, when the novel IN THE MIDST OF LOAFERS is
ready or published eventually, and you climbed up the descriptive or rather
analytical passages from page one to one hundred that are the mountain Everest
of the work, then, when at the summit, so as to come face to face with the
eagle on mountain Everest, as it were, then you could relax and savour the
juices that are the dialogues and characterization and this up to the end of
the epic novel that is written in a cinematic form.
CHARACTERIZATION.
- OKOEKPEN OKONOFUA
JUNIOR, the lead character is a first son of Okonofua
Senior as recreated in flashbacks and In Medias Res in the first four chapter
format. 23 years old, he enters the Metropolitan university of Benin
on his own effort. In a Benin
society of a survivalist nature, rank and file individuals cheat in one form or
another and yet lay flip flop accusations on others and wait for personal material
progress or publicly acknowledged happiness that never arises. The facts from
Omoakhuana or Ojame or Edegbe or Dr Agbamien he realised were utterly opposite
to the truth that their actual negative actions inflicted on him. At the end,
he experiences a final escape from the broad road, streets, avenues or
footpaths of mankind with their confused layered claims to public goodness yet tread
for that narrow road of eternal bliss reserved for one or two folks from each
generation with a true sense of righteousness.
- AMADASUN
OGOMUDIA, 25 years, is the typical Edo
opportunist who fought real and imaginary enemies in order to be featured in
the media, for first positions in class, playgrounds or workplace, to be the
person to secure the available plum jobs or monetary favours from foreign
donors. A spy for his lecturers, he used everybody to achieve his goals.
- MO DEBE EDEGBE. Mo is Moses. A 36 years old junior civil servant of the old school
of fawning and perpetual mental and social servitude to colonial ideals and who
was on a four years leave to acquire a qualification necessary for social
mobility in a corrupt Benin city civil service system, he is equally a church
elder of the sect of the local Jehovah’s Witnesses whose brutality if crossed
knew no equal.
- AGBOGIDI OJAME
EGUA, 32 years, is the inherently unqualified civil or
public servant whose survival rested on using others qualifications, positions
or name to feather his own nest. Thus, he is easily able to ruin any person who
threatened his future.
- OMOAKHUANA
OKONOFUA SENIOR, nee AFEGBUA, is a 42 years old second
wife who at the office or marketplace came across more as a 28 years old waistline
rolling, rumbling, wobbling or undulating akpoleyeke or a psychedelic Bini
damsel in outlook. Her raunchy talk of explicit sexual nature does not deprive
her from killing if possible her stepson in order to get the family wealth
- EKAETTE UDO. Also known as Akaette, the 24 years old. She is the face of the
emerging Nigeria who aimed
for the politically democratised freedom of north America
while desperate to hold onto the traditional sense of respectability accorded
women with formal academic qualifications, in top positions or wedded to public
figures and elected figures. Yet, unlike in north America where a female has a
choice to do good or refrain, in Benin city that human rights is unattainable
when faced with satanic intents of men behind closed doors at homes, offices or
hotels; a malignant social malaise amongst those with visible affluence and
higher education and in which some women are willing participants as Ekaette
wedded Mo Debe Edegbe or play leading roles in. Hence Ekaette’s double
standards in her adopted Bendel state even as a medical student.
- DR FIDELIS OKOROAFOR AIGBAMIEN, 45 years
old, is a metaphor of the morally subhuman African elite with a doctorate who
thrives only where social infrastructure were put in place by bricklayers,
plumbers, electricians, roadside mechanics, seamstress as better role models of
practical values that he loathed. With a former classmate and friend like Osime
his return to the USA
is a parasitic way of paradoxically reaping where he did not sow.
- OMOGBAI AFUZE is that 28 years old personality with otherwise serious intents whilst
in bed but who acted out as a joker who does the dirty biddings of other socially and
economically better placed people in public without shame.
OTHERS:
UNCLE
OKILO, 37, lean, stoic with a dopey-face kind of a book
lover, he is that good-natured man like Jumobi or Adiza who is a churchgoer but with a
private lifestyle that is of a better quality as an Ezon pragmatist, with a
silent and reserved countenance to match. He entered MUB as an experienced
adult.
OBASOGIE ANSOWAN, a 41 years old male with a respectable traditional wife and three birth
children back home, he is a bout of jokes with teenage undergraduates with foreign
airs of make-belief sophistication yet he finds joy in rubbing minds with the
same teenagers or young adults as domestic life contrasted sharply with the university
air of freedom, liberty, material acquisition, cafes, staff clubs, glamour or
student restaurants catering for wealthy and pretenders alike if the price is right.
OGHENETEGA OTERI,
the plain-looking 26 years old pharmacy student, in order to get friends or a
semblance of it, fights other people’s wars while her domestic problems remain.
A member of a religious sect, she plays the holier than thou role of a typical
Isoko woman with a morally rotten past that she blames on parents and society
solely.
ONOLENLEN IKPOBA-HILLS, 38 years, is a senior staff nurse whose office boss is ten times
treated better than a legal husband of hers back home. With a desire to uphold
a lifestyle of drugs, parties or sexual escapades begun in junior secondary
school, she finds a soul mate in Omoakhuana and other schoolteachers as crude
feminists.
OKPOME MALAIKA OHUAN-SHOKPEKA is a 19 and half years old who grew up in the wild wild west suburb
of Idumota in Lagos
and so hardened for life. Once a squatter with Ekaette, Mo
Debe Edegbe used her as an informant whose corrupting ways within their
Pentecostal church would then be condone if she does the bidding of her male
elders as equally wicked bosses.
UDEME ANICHEBE, is the 17 years old otherwise clever lass who
is overworked and underpaid housemaid, also called UD by mates or Ude by her
madam’s children. She was given out as a purchased property by Igbo parents who
were originally from Ngbidi in the old Anambra state and with already 14
offspring the father cannot feed, house or clothe at his relative age of 39
with primary school qualification, an office messenger job with petty farming
on government lands and an illiterate fulltime housewife of 36 years.
OKONOFUA SENIOR, 52
years old, is wholly self-effacing, although easily used by his second wife
Omoakhuana to get at his first son Okonofua Junior. A man of remorse at the
end, his wife still prevailed over his assisting his son.
OKUMAGBA
WADO ODUMAGBA is the 25 years old primary school mate of Okoekpen whose
house became his second home as his upper class taste did not find a
corresponding ally at the GRA and more so when his spirit sought the lower and
working middle class folks as friends especially.
OKEKE UGBOKWE is the 34 years old shrewd Igbo man
and a former trader who did a bachelor’s degree in health science at the university of Ife
in the western region of Nigeria
before relocating to MUB also as a local church elder for an MBBS degree in medicine. Class
conscious he loathed Okonofua whom he rejected for Debe as a better choice for
his medical student counterpart Ekaette.
MODUPU OWOBU, a 42 years old, is the supple Benin woman of an unconditional and so
a hundred percent surrender sort of mentality once in love and as she was
imbued in a vast knowledge of a conjugal nature of raw animals and a soul who has
travelled far and wide with scores of boyfriends, lovers and other male hangers-on,
especially church elders who took advantage of her financially and
sexually.
OROME AFE, a portable figure, trim, dark and posh, she is 19 and able to hold
her own amongst males who could be thrice her age and this she did in matters
of coitus, social partying or academic matters as she has links with Great
Britain where her father schooled at.
JUMOBI EJIROGHENE, is the huge, lanky and super-shy 32 years old of lady with genuine self-respect
who preaches regularly. She is unlucky in love even with Okonofua but a gentle
giant in physique and this despite her good deeds that she easily offers people
and as enshrined in her Pentecostal religious doctrines.
NWAKAEGO UGBO, is the 17 years old Imaguero college
junior secondary school dropout as a result of diverse reasons and who ended up
at a hotel to ply her trade as a commercial sex worker who laughed at the
so-called good society of Benin city
and indeed the world to scorn. Her use of language she claims emanated from
several encounters with top flight businessmen in Benin society as her sexual
customers.
UNIBEN and MUB lecturers also make up a large proportion of her
clients. Besides, she is also self-educated via the media outlets of newspaper
readings, listening to radio stations especially the BBC World service, Radio
France International and the VOA Africa programmes.
JAFARU IGEDU EMOATA, 24
years old, is the Imobighe the silent one at the backside of the Oyiya church
place of worship but who became agitated and tried to challenge his body of
elders at their regional headquarters at Igieduma where he died on his way via
a motor accident.
ELDER AMUTA AMIEGBE-AFIEGBE,
49, is the worldly-wise insurance agent and banker who
doubled as the new presiding officer or overseer of Oyiya congregation that
Okonofua, Ekaette and Edegbe also attended.
ELDER OLIHA OGIDA, 68, is
the older and former presiding officer and the de facto pleaser. Also a
weakling, with a wife and children to cater for, he used his position to get
financial rewards from the socially privileged Ekaette and dealt injustice to
Okonofua whom he took as poor and a church rat or floor member to be used and got rid of as practised widely
in Benin city.
COLONEL ETIM INYANG, 45, is a
semi-illiterate man with brutal ways but courted royalty, class and wealth as a
lover of front seats at social functions could as well do.
GARY OSIME PHILLIPS, 42
years old, a former course mate and friend of Dr Agbamien, is the symbolic
unfriendly, unloving banker, corporate company executive, city trader or stock
exchange broker who married wealth and so used mainly college and junior university
students as mere playthings who came to him for financial favours. His speeches
are loaded with sexual innuendoes common with buddies in men’s gatherings or wholly
men’s only clubs.
ADIZA
OMOSENOBULA, 21 years old, she emerged the best
all-round student in her class, the department and challenges her lecturers who
found her as one of the fewer benefits of enduring as a teacher who gets his or
her brain stimulated once in a while. Yet, she is that one whom her cruel society
relegated to substandard jobs and lower pay while her former course mates as
dullards become Nollywood A-list celebrities, executive state governors and
high-flying military officers with billionaire, fleets of cars, palatial
estates to show for it.
There are other
characters well over 350 that represent in number only the tribes in Nigeria.
