Letter To My Country By Pious Emiala: A Review

Nigeria as a country has been going through the epoch of violence and political savagery, coupled with mind-bending and overwhelming social vices which have been webbing the nation through the decades of incessant pandemonium, hullabaloo  and socio-religious turbulence often propelled by regional crises and political egocentrism of some politicians and office-bearers.  With this peculiar and continuous disarray which has been maiming the faces of many Nigerians abroad and been relegating Nigeria to the background within the terrain of African enclave, literature as a window to life and a platform through which the world can be subjected to scrutiny and criticisms has assumed the social responsibility of beseeching the reasons why countries like Nigeria have turned an abode through which political projectiles can  be shot from the darkness into effulgence in the name of service to humanity, and thereby arisen the consciousness in writers to challenge the political menace and imbalance of their society. And as a result of this, contemporary African writers like Pious Emiala respond to this clarion call by portraying the kind of society they find themselves on the crying pages of their reactionary diaries so that positive changes can be revived back via writing as the watch-dogging fourth estate of transformation.

 Pious Emiala’s Letter to My Country is a dramatic text that calls for unity within Nigeria. The book, having portrayed the societal discrepancy cum ethno-political violence that has turned the nation to home of Grendel, also cries for sense of mindfulness within the ambit of leadership and followership which is melting down like ice in the sun.  Just like Richard Ali’s city of memory, the book resurges the memory of those whose lives have got truncated like fishes disavowed of stream by the politically backboned callousness and atrocities of the religious-coated fanatics in the some regions of this country.  It tries to date back the incident of last general election in which many serving corps members were gruesomely massacred during the clarion call for service of their fatherland while some were kidnapped and later strangled to death when the demands for ransom could not be reached; and how many Nigerians who flaunted their antagonism and grievances to these inhuman mediocrities  of the so called “Ogas at the top”  later succumbed to fate and later buried themselves in rhythmical silence when those who seemed to be the custodians of justice and fundamental human right activists turned to be wolves of the jungles waiting for marauding and jay-walking innocent fowls to devour all in the name of unity and peace.

In close respect to the storylines of the text, Alfred, Tunde, Ike, Basil, Albert, Isabella, and Vanessa are corps members who find themselves in the drudgery of national service after their university education. As other members would have got joyfully overwhelmed when it is time to reap their sowings as ones who have already passed through the toiling and lethargies of university as students and enjoy the pride of being called corps members, they are determined to render their service within the range of their capacity but these pledges vanish at the beneath of their stomachs when they are being subjected to intimidation and untimely death  by the do-or-die readiness of some power-thirsty political cankerworms who see the seats of power as the inheritance of their family lineage.  These people have some masterminds who help ensure that every vote counted is theirs through the hijacking of the ballot boxes from the innocent electoral agents in which corps members are not excluded.  This can be blatantly seen in Ike’s statement when he says:

        “Good! Was it not at the pool within the state

          of our federation they all meet their                           

          fate? You are deceiving yourself in the name of working

          for the federal government while some 

          people are at every corner aiming their

          arrow at the innocent ones to rig the election . . .”

Correspondently, the book hammers on the needs to curb the concurrent issue of kidnapping which has become the order of the day in Nigeria. Considering the vicinity of this nation, the emergence of terrorist militancy, coupled with insurgence of religious extremist, Boko-haram have made abduction of innocent individuals gain upper hand which undoubtedly is sponsored by those paddling the ship of government of this nation.  Many a time, the issue of kidnapping has been reported by the family and relatives of missing individuals to those in security sector but to their surprise nothing has been done to it.  Looking at the downy pages of the dailies, there are always reports that people who leave their home hale and healthy could not find their feet striding the corridors of their doorsteps again. Many secondary and primary students are reported to have been missing; many passengers have got landed into dungeon of death after boarding buses from the one-chance cohorts of Fiend who are shielding themselves as “Agbero guys” at various motor parks within the country.   These puzzling and bizarre experiences are what the book pictures with the portrayal of a well-known sophisticated and influential politician popularly called Honourable Honsman who kidnaps innocent school pupils for his own political sacrifice to the devil that makes him prosper in his political pursuit.    

 I commend the book for vividly looking at the circumventing theme of political corruption and incompetence webbing the security sector of Nigeria and leaving the downtrodden hoi-polloi in the smearing blur of insecurity.  Security arm is vested with the power of protecting the human right but when it seems otherwise, it symbolises that the door of new dawn is about to be locked and the arrival of nightfall is certain. The fact that the book points accused fingers on the matter of venality and degeneracy of the security sector calls for quick panacea.  Imagine policemen at the juncture of road threatening drivers because of ordinary twenty-naira but leaving the men of the underworld found with illegal drugs, or ‘human part’ to go scot-free  because they are sent by ‘Oga at the top’  who they think can render them unemployed if they voice out or dare arrest these men of gangland. This is portrayed in a conversation when policemen catch the messengers of Honsman with fresh head of just massacred school pupil:

Inspector: wonderful! (He steps back) human head? Sargent, bring handcuff! . . .

1^st Girl:  no matter how strong or a man is, he can never challenge his gods. Don’t ever dare it

Inspector: who are the gods you are talking about?

1^st Girl: knowing them is of no use, but it may please you that we are not alone. Even at this place, there are secret eyes that guide us.

Inspectors: secret eyes?

1^st Girl: secret eyes of the important personality. . .

Sgt: Inspector, this is not the first time I have met with this kinds of human beings. As you can see, they are on special assignment. Oh yes, there are brains behind their mission. You need to revisit the level of their boldness. Upon all the threats, they were not moved . . . these kinds of girls belong to men that matter in our country; however no man can stop them. If you make nay peril, it is at your peril. Day by day they are sent for ritual killing.

However I have some problems with the text despite its immense and vast look of socio-political dire in Nigeria where the book has its source.  Although the book tries to create conflict between hope and despair through its characters, its awful presentation of people of the North where uproar and upheaval coupled with misery which many Northerners are made to face is very biased and revolved by tribal sentiment.  Had it been the book considers the generality of socio-political turbulence in the country in the statement of Vanessa when she says: ‘they are known all over as the rebellious tribe as far as this country is concerned’ in page sixteen, it wouldn’t have used the pronoun ‘they’ signifying the writer’s emotion towards a targeted set of people.

Similarly, the assign of role to the characters is very puzzled.  Toward the end of the text, Patriot, the narrator of the text is seen playing the role of character which is not so at the beginning of the text. Though sometimes it happens especially in prose, I wonder how the original trend of the storyline gets broken and characters like the four corps members introduced at the beginning of the play could not maintain their role till the end of the text. And besides, the death of Omela signifies no hope for the toiling masses who find themselves in the same situation.

Finally, the language of the text is poor. The language of modern African writers is very subtle and sublime compared to the language of the text. The language, being simple and non-advanced makes it more boring. Also, the universal subject matter discussed in the text is something which requires broad consideration with sophisticated creativity and uniqueness. The book should have made the circumventing subject matter more complex.