Heroes (1986) I Festus Iyayi

Festus Iyayi (1947-2013) is one of the pioneer of social realism in African novel. Besides Violence (1979), The Contract (1982), Heroes (1986) is his third novel in which he looks into the limbo of civilians caught in crossfire between the Federal Army and the Biafran troops, during the Nigerian Civil war 1967.

Heroes is a war novel as well as political. Themes of brutality, cruelty, lawlessness, and conspiracy, opportunistic tendency and wicked nature of man are examined. The story is about a journalist who went to find his girlfriend, Salome, in the battlefield.  What he saw and learned devastated him.

Osime Iyeri’s main aim is to recruit Third Army who will stop the bloodshed on realizing that the war is unnecessary. The real enemies are not the Nigerian soldiers nor the Biafran troops but the generals, politicians, businessmen and traditional rulers who are benefiting from the war.  But the real tragedy is that people are deeply indoctrinated by the rhetoric of politicians and driven to the streets on rampage, maiming, killing, looting and raping each other.

Osime Iyeri was originally on the side of Nigerian troops. He thought they were good, virtuous, and humane. Ohiali’s coldblooded murder in the hand of Nigerian troops and the maltreatment he himself experienced at the stadium changed his perception.  Mr Ohiali is his landlord and in-law, Ndudi’s father, who got killed emotionlessly when he went to register himself at the army post.  He finds this highly cruel and inhuman and becomes sympathetic with the Biafran troops. But they too he realizes are killing and maiming cruelly.

From both sides, he disapproves of the killing because “so much in thousands of lives, tens of thousands of lives, tens of hundreds of them are disgraced, ridiculed and spat at before being killed” in the name of liberation. 

Both sides are to blame. Nigerian troops were grist and applied disproportionate force. Since it’s clear the Biafran troops are doomed to imminent defeat, there is no use killing a fly with an AK47. On the other hand, Biafran troops refused to surrender despite the looming defeat that stared them in the face. Their troops were teenagers conscripted with no proper training and equipment, merely used as cannon fodder.

He wants the country to be united but he opposes mass killing. He believes that consideration is the best and there are possible alternatives that can save lives. His reason being that “when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffer.” But the politicians would have none of that, what they are seeing is a profit not a war, fighting to keep themselves in power at the cost of human lives.

Civilian population were the worst affected. Iyayi, through Iyere, insists: who are the heroes? The generals who steal the salary and pension of the fallen comrades or those working class who keep the unity of the country with their blood? After the war, the name of soldiers like Otun, Emmanuel, Ikeshi and Yemi will never be mentioned. Generals will write accounts and claim they have singlehandedly fought and won the war while in reality they run away from the battlefield. “The generals take the credit, get the praise, always they are heroes” (P. 86).

This way, he consistently tries to make us see through beyond the façade. Starting from himself, Iyeri initiated a campaign for the Third Army who will conscientize the public from both sides, about the ills of war. Patani, Musa, Obilu, Ituah, people from the warring parties all agree the war is meaningless.

In Heroes, two stories are simultaneously woven: the story of war and the story of love. Omise Iyeri falls in love with Ndudi who is an Igbo lady while he is Midwesterner. His support for Nigerian troops does not prevent their love. He doesn’t have money to pay the dowry, Ndudi’s mother promises to pay and tell her people it is from him. There is warm relationship and affinity and friendliness among the citizens even in war time. Sergeant Audu, one of the Nigerians officers and Omise maintain a good relationship.

There is strong symbolism of unity in terms of human intimacy in the Asaba Bridge massacre where the blood of the Nigerian Army mingled with that of the Biafran troops and flowed into the River Niger. This is to show relationship that exists among different ethnic groups. Iyayi questions the rationale behind the senseless killings. People have married among themselves, were friends, traded and lived harmoniously, but all of a sudden they were told to kill each other. Since the war could not prevent people from loving each other, although from belligerent sections, why couldn’t stop to ask some vital questions. He used this argument as a tool for recruiting people into the Third Army, the people’s army to fight people’ war. It is puzzling people woke up suddenly and started killing each other. The war is an excuse for human vices and wickedness.

Another thing that will factor in is the greed and selfishness of the top army officers and politicians. There are two armies in the war. The officers who issue order from lavishly furnished rooms and the rank and file who are at the fields. Knowing that nothing can bind hand and feet than love, the army officers had somehow persuaded the rank and file that they should kill each other for the unity of the country. The rank and file are fighting to keep the unity of the country whereas the generals are fighting to keep one section of the ruling class in power and another away from power. The Nigerian working class were manipulated as field-soldiers from both sides not knowing that they share more in common with each other than with the rulers.

Corruption has ranked among the military top brass. Relief materials supplied by the humanitarian agencies were hijacked and allocated to the friends of the army generals. Medicine, drugs, milk, blankets and other relief items meant for the victims of war find their way to the markets.

Brigadier Otunshi, in particular, is hypocrite. He sells arms to the Biafran troops and sends his troops to the battle-field ill-equipped. As such, he is merely sending them early to their graves. Brigadier and later General Otunshi, executed 42 soldiers and 5 officers for mutiny by deserting the battlefield while he was away attending a party. They did that because they were sent to the field ill-equipped consequence of the generals’ siphoning of funds meant for the prosecution of the war.

The war opened so many atmospheres for criminal activities. Otunshi camouflages in the cover of the ensuing confusion: after an offensive, he goes to the banks, breaks the safes and steals the cash.

The danger of war is that it creates great uncertainty. You can be alive, just a moment, you are dead. For instance, Ohiali was alive by eleven o’clock, moment later, he was dead. Intense mistrust and suspicion were created among the once trusted neighbors, trauma and horrors devastated the psyche of the individuals and renders life directionless and meaningless. 

In terms of devastation, one month in war is more than a decade in peace. With every killing, for instance, of hundreds of men, the casualties transcend the surface value. From both sides, thousands of children are made orphans, women widow and property destroyed. Prices drastically rise and people have to travel far away to buy commodities. Children are dying of hunger, disease and malnutrition became prevalent.  Yet the politicians who want to increase their power refuse to consider the misery of the citizens. 

All of this made Omise realize it is not the sixty-millions odd Nigerians who are being slaughtered either at the battle front or on their beds that matter but individual rulers. “The same greed, the same hunger for power” (P. 90). On Biafran side, there are only two soldiers at the airport while there are many more standing guard at Governor’s house.  Nigerians troops were blown off into the Asaba Bridge while their commanding officers were in Lagos attending the wedding of the Head of State.

Images feature in the narrative depicting the misery of people in things such as “grass” to show starvation and emaciation, “the river turning red” to create the idea of bloodshed and “sand” and soil at market square mixing with “red,” “vomit” for disgust, “filthy” for squalor and “blood” for stench and violence. The atmosphere is ghastly horrific. Everything carries a message of death to which even birds in the street were silent.

The setting is Southeast, Mid-western Nigeria, Kaduna, Lagos and Kano but largely depicting cities such as Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Benin, Ognaza, Uli the location of the Biafran airport, Enugu, Ihiala, Asaba, etc etc, where the real war is happening.

(@abubakarsula13

Jane’s Career

Title: Jane’s Career

Author: Herbert George de Lisser

ISBN: 435 98540

Published: 1914

Publisher: Heinemann

Though living in similar condition, experience may vary at gender level. H G de Lisser delves into an untilled speck in the landscape of literature of the Caribbean Island, famed exclusively, for decades, by bearing the characteristics of the two comportments of exile and coming of age. As a novel of growth, Jane’s Career is the first of its kind to have come with female Negro as a central character.

H G de Lisser takes a forage into Jamaican society, spinning the narrative around a young Black girl named Jane, with an omniscient voice offering trailing commentary up to her adulthood from her childhood, exploring her condition at individual level, and thousands similar cases in the West Indies, generally. Interestingly, time changed, readers changed, the story remains.

Jane, 16, begins her career when she left her village of Mount Malas for Kingston as a domestic girl to Mason family.  The delight of what her people consider a social advancement is acute. Because Jane is a naïve ‘chile,’ a respected ‘ole’ man of the village lectures her to “keep herself up” because “Kingston is a very big and wicked city…”  

Celestina, having gone to the city herself, told Jane that she would have to need someone to assist her, by which she means a boyfriend, a polite way of referring to prostitution. Jane could not understand. She left determined to keep a virtuous life. Soon after her arrival, she discovered that morally living is “practically impossible.”  This is so because life in Kingston is radically and diametrically different from her rural upbringing.

Jane begins entering into stages of refinement the first day of her arrival. In the world of her own, she has to fend off sexual harassment from Cecil, mamparla, a Jamaican coinage for effeminate, the gentleman of the house, police intimidation and the rigor and hassle of Kingston streets.  

H G de Lisser examines the exploitative nature of peasantry and maid-servant relationship. Jane quickly finds herself in a cruel situation.  For us to understand exactly her condition, Kate, a village friend of Jane who accompanies Jane’s mother, Mrs Burrell, to visit Jane, brings the point home when she wonders loudly why not a single letter from Jane reached the village since she left. Jane replied “I have no time, me love.”

Mrs Mason can easily wear a façade to hide her inner self. A tactics that helps consolidate her atrocities. This manipulative practice forced Jane into mental asylum. The person, her mother, whom she hopes would understand her situation would never believe her. It is obvious to see that Jane is under forces of structural violence from within and without. Terror and fear have been instilled in her mind. Her vulnerability becomes more imminent and palpable when Sarah left.

The society is hemmed in on racial strata. Jane thought Mrs Mason as a White until she discovered later that she is mullato. And Jane wonders inwardly: oh!, she is not even White?  Maltreating me? This of course, subtly, exposes layers of difficulties Blacks have to, and continue, to contend with, in race relationships. Jane’s attitude here shouldn’t be misunderstood as an act of inferiority complex or acceptance of servitude and subservience. Rather a witty attack against racial discrimination.

Yet again, the issue of racism is touched at more profound level. While Jane has never blamed Mason’s race for her cruelty, Mrs Mason indicts Jane’s entire race. Although herself believes Jane is honest, when the girl ran away, her subconscious mind, long trained on stereotype, throws her into “diligent counting over spoons and knives and forks,” inwardly muttering “you ever see such a race of people.”

Economic reality has deprived people of their dignity, and in return empowers exploitation. Mrs Mason believes that despite the beating of her servants, they must be grateful. There are many who can willingly take their place mainly for the food and shelter she provides.

Mrs Mason is mean and intensely suspicious. For her, dishonesty is the general order for an average servant and resorts to setting up the girls against each other. Mrs Mason is simply judging others by her standard. The two girls worked together and defeated her.

Sarah, as a teacher, guides Jane through the process of navigating Mason’s world. Speaking to her on banana errand for the mistress, she tells Jane Mrs Mason is so mean, “she wouldn’t even gie y’u de banana skin, so I teck it myself, an’ I gwine to give y’u a piece. Only now an’ den y’u can get any’ting out of her when y’u go to de shop.” God knows that Sarah is not a thief.

Throughout the novel, Jane hungers for freedom and independence. But she cannot attain these aspirations if she remains under someone’s care and supervision. It is clear to see why she has to be exposed and be stripped and severed of vestiges of nativity and dependence, though Jane is not demanding much from the world. All she asks for is what Kenneth Ramchand calls “comfortable domesticity.”

Sarah left, and had to, despite the fact that her presence protects Jane from Mr Cecil’s amorous advances. Sarah is there mainly to teach her one or two things. Her revolt against Mrs Mason serves as an eye-opener to timid Jane. Her views of Mrs Mason as a cult-figure of awesome formidability and unconquerableness were quickly dispelled when, in her presence, Sarah successfully challenged her.

Sarah aggressively fought for her right and succeeded; but Amanda has lost when she attempted doing so.  Jane did neither. This beggars the question, thus: is it bravery or foolishness to look into the eyes of your employer and challenge them? Jane’s strength lies in her meekness, fighting passively but determinedly, up till the right time arrived, since when we, and not her, recognize that doing so at the moment is foolishness.

The second stage of Jane’s development begins when she deserted Mason family and joined a group of female factory workers who are living life in a purlieu, more or less like brothel. Everyone is struggling economically. It is until now that Jane realizes she really needs a ‘friend’ Celestina has insisted she should get. But the inherent honesty in her will not allow her to “eat the men out” as Sathyra suggested, since they [men] are not coming intent to marry them.

The handling of irony as a trope is strikingly dazzling. The innate shade, double-standing nature of man and the influence of environment on behavior is brought to light. People who maltreated and badmouthed Jane later came to celebrate her. Paradoxically, Jane herself would come to keep a servant whom she calls Mrs Jane. For under servitude the name of the slave is always insignificant, a nothingness in the face the master’s.

Human relation, we understand, is firmly built on the premise of the principle of quid pro quo. Mr Cecil cash assistance to Jane is not without hopes for something in return. Jane and Vincent have to trade off their ideals to be able to get married. At this stage, we have covered the repertoire of Jane growth. The vague sense of regret and trepidation she had when she set out from her village, sets the beginning of her transformation and accomplishment, reinforcing the idea of reward for the brave who trudge into the unknown.

The moving story of Jane would not have been so electrifying without de Lisser’s use of language, which is one considerate to universal readers, artfully stripped of elite pomposity, of what Terry Eagleton would describe as something ‘akin to nuclear physics.’ Characters speak ordinarily, a dialectical English variety domesticated to suit everyday life and local consumption, that ensures readers are not going to encounter no bode[the]ration “at all, at all,” especially for a Nigerian reader. “De trute of de matter” is that the language looks very alike with Nigerian pidgin. The food is yam and sweet potato with boiled salt fish and some rice.

Coloured Ass

“Rahama, I am travelling.”

“Where to? I hope not-”

“No, no not there… Women, you easily get suspicious on everything. Our people in the Horn of Africa, they need help.”

“Which Horn of Africa?”

“Understand this thing. We need to help them. There is a lot of famine and drought.”

“We can go together.”

“There is a war.”

She finally gave in. Quietly, he sighed a big heave. Happiness drenched all over him, like a prisoner pardoned life imprisonment.

He felt under attack all the while she spoke. Every minute felt like in the dock.  He feared she was seeing his mind and quickly wore an air and made to appear as casual as he could. Now and then, he touched his cheek stealthily to confirm his new expression did not go.

The urge to challenge him oppressed her mind. From inside her, a battle broke between trust and suspicion. She gave in, not because she was convinced, but because she trusted him.

Originally, she wished to tell him her hope the travel would not last long. But so popular was the news. He feared she might have already caught wind in town. And acted ahead of possible suspicion.

She moved on with life after he left. But she could not feel at peace with her mind. She slept and woke up, slept and woke up, slept and woke up, but did not succeed in freeing her mind from his strange behaviour.

For greater part of the day, she kept tuning in to news. There was not a single hint of what she wanted to hear. When all effort at the local media failed, she waited agitatedly until BBC Hausa Services came in, in the noon.

The receiver disappointed her. Very old and was unable to catch the frequency clearly. The voice kept fading out and returning briefly before going off again. She hoped she was anywhere in the world where politicians were distributing radio receivers.

Soon, a clean voice came up. By then it was too late. When she looked up to a clock, the news was signing out. She was greatly exasperated.

If she was confused by Shua’ibu’s manner, the late evening news got her more bewildered. She learnt husbands and bachelors in the neighborhood had travelled. Where? She asked herself, one thousand and one question. But each compounded her situation even more.

She picked her phone and started calling friends. Samira told her the same story. Unlike her, Samira sounded unworried. She spoke innocently, with a tinge of enthusiasm in her tones. Her husband had an urgent assignment abroad. Poor girl, she thought inwardly.

She did not go straight when she called Rukayya. She trod her way warily, sounding very casual.

“For too long, we stop hearing from you.”

“Wallahi. Things are too much these days. Children always at one’s heels.”

“How is my brother?” She called Rukayya’s husband my brother since the time Rukayya introduced him before they got married and learnt he was her brother’s namesake.

“You must be taking care of him properly. Else I will help him bring another wife.”

Rukayya laughed casually. “Whoever he marries will end up my servant. I am the queen. Nobody has a place here. You know that.”

“Give him the phone. We need to say hi.”

“He is not around. He travelled this afternoon.”

Everything was confirmed now. But she decided the death of the king would not come first from her mouth.

When she called her sister in Adamawa, she learnt about similar story. Her sister’s husband said he had distant relatives in Eritrea whom he had been meaning to visit. It was just now the time came. If he did not go now, he was not sure if he would ever make the trip, he told her.

In Abuja, on Friday, the Eritrean Embassy was bombarded by thousands. Even though it was weekend, torrential phone calls flooded the office on Saturday and on Sunday. Leaving staff the next day exchanging confused looks.

Shua’ibu had put off announcement on twitter. He wasn’t Abuja resident but travelled there a lot. Of all his visits, he had never given a thought about the embassy’s location. 

Even though he did not give any detail, when the first commenter came, he ran a little faster than himself. “I am there already. Eritrea, beautiful people, beautiful country.”

Oh you have gone already? My people! Shua’ibu mind’s jumped wildly. When first he heard the news, he refused to tell anybody.

He went frantic, struggling to delete the tweet. All the while, muttering words to himself. Rahama would know.

Gossipers would take word back to her. They were very wicked, these people. Poking their noses in other people’ affairs. Everyone should mind their own business.

At Aminu Kano Airport, the boarding queues were seven single files. People pinned their arms by their sides, heads blocked into chess of many others, caged between chests and backs. They heaved forward, veered right and then left, almost collapsing as hard push came from the back. But those in front would put off resistance and push back.

Now and again, a cried kept erupting, soon, the cry would be accompanied by angry calls to stop pushing. 

A few airport officials stood by hopelessly. With each minute, the crowd was getting tighter as more people poured in.

With great strain, Shua’ibu ejected himself out from the queue and went outside to make a phone call. He was contemplating changing airport.

When the phone cracked at the other end, disorderly voices bobbling in heightened his fears.

In Lagos, at the departure lounge, men were shouting rowdily, in angry voices.  Shua’ibu only managed to ask his friend question he already knew its answer.

“How about the situation?”

“Worse, very worse. We are on queue since yesterday. But we are expecting additional ten flights soon. They order more from Ethiopia.”

“Are sure you can arrive on time?”

“We hope so. If I get the seventh or eighth.”

He ended the call and returned inside. As part of him emerged, eyes were already directed expectantly at his side.

“The situation is even worse in Lagos.” The looks in the crowd suddenly changed. He was speaking to his friend, but like was speaking to everybody.  As he moved to get back to his place, someone shouted angrily from the back.

 “This is not good. You people always cheat. We will not allow anybody to jump line.”

The man was shouting because everybody else who was speaking was shouting. He struggled and removed himself from the queue and came forward.

“Haba Mallam, we have been here for a very long time. How can you jump like this? You have just arrived now. Your needs are not more important than anybody’s here.” The temperamental pitch with which he spoke told a lot of his travail.

Scuffle nearly broke out. But the matter was soon settled down when people nearby swore that Shua’ibu was not cheating.

Moment later, Shua’ibu looked up at his screen.

A call from Abuja.

“Man, there is a problem.  As I finished my visa, I just heard the news was hoax.”

He was speechlessly dumb for a while. “Do you think they would refund us?”

Silently, he walked out, and refused to talk to anybody.

Rahama was sitting on a chair, chin in hand, in gloom. She was tapping her feet unconsciously to the floor, in accordance with the humming of trouble in her mind.

Her mind grew too oppressive and tyrannical. She shoved her hand carelessly around and grabbed a phone beside her. Instantly, she went online to read news.

It was just then she discovered.

She was wondering what was there so special that cast a spell on Shua’ibu.  She wanted to find out but each question tightened the noose further.

Voices inside her started up a conversation.

Voice number one. Black men hate black ass.

Voice number two. At a slight opportunity, they would want to identify with something lighter.

If that is the case, voice number three said, it means he is merely tolerating you.

She felt deeply offended. What was there in Eritrean lady I did not have?

She applied herself into his mind to feel what he felt.

Although I could not be White, being married to a Caucasian would be a giant leap closer to the Whites.

Shua’ibu returned at night, speaking in lovely tones and hushed whispers.

“Gimbiya.” There was no answer.

“Sarauniya.” Silence.

Greeted by awful silence and lack of festivities that embraced his arrival, his mind ticked in dread.

She was inside, on her bed, didn’t even bother to come out.

Nervously, he sat near her, on the edge of the bed, afraid to touch her. She felt his eyes acutely on her nape. She turned from the bed, eyes closed but was seeing.

“Which country have you travelled to?” 

“It was a mistake. The journey didn’t even happen.”