The sun after rain

E no mata the condition

Believe in your heart

And you go dey alright

No forget say after rain fall

And after the dark

The sun go shine   – Johnny Drille

You can tell that it’s a blessing in disguise I didn’t win the scholarship in 2020, the year of the Coronavirus international lockdown, until 2021. Those who went to the US on the scholarship that year had to leave.

I had gotten the offer but didn’t tell anybody yet, except one person who kept track through the whole application process. I had legitimate concerns for doing so, though a few people came to know about it later. I slept every day with the enormity of the news in my chest. I brimmed and struggled with excitement, trying to keep the news from spilling out.   

Things continued to move on slowly. Communications went on with the embassy, the IIE and folk at the UW-Madison. I received my contract letter, signed and sent it back to indicate I accepted the offer. The sponsoring agency, the embassy, and the host institution continued to do their collaborative work as each unit has an aspect of the program to administer.

Few days later, after sending back the contract form, I received a call from my alma mater, seeking to know if I was willing to work in one of their agencies. I was almost put in a conundrum. I had been looking for this job, any job, so why now?

ABU is one of the places I was dying to work in, one. Two, the job is permanent, and there was this girl I had been looking from one corner of my eyes. Third, there was underground talk in the family about a certain job, which I didn’t like. What can be worse than declining a job offer from your benefactor? In a country where you don’t have much choices? That’s unthinkable!

This ABU job would save me a lot of headaches: it was a chance for me to avoid a scene with my benefactor, to get money to marry that lady, and to work in the university community I love, a nostalgia from the assorted dreams of my undergraduate days. But I had already signed the Fulbright contract. Well, I told them the truth, which I believed was the best decision for many reasons.

All my life, I wanted to bring something huge independently to my family, be it a job or something, to prove my ability and to counter the contemptuous folk and let everyone see that the useless books I read are not useless after-all. But I was doubtful these days if it would ever happen. I somehow began to trust what folk say. I started seeing myself like the other people: a fool.

I see how God was doing it to my friends. Everyone was settling down on something. I was always thinking I was not doing enough, or maybe God was planning to pay me in arrears with something big. Otherwise, I did not deserve this torment except that in the logic of the world bad things happen to good people.

I felt ashamed my family had to get involved to help me get a job. I was boastful back then in university, too much of myself. Was I not the guy who, because of my ability, played with my grade? The outside world presents different reality. You will earn money, yes, but small money, and there are times that you needed peace and stability. I was tired of all the gig economy stuff.

I was now mellowed down and walked the world with trepidation and caution. I finally surrendered to my mother’s plead and started visiting folk in position to help. It really was something I hated!

Now you can understand why the Fulbright stuff came as the shining sun after rain.

 

Madison, WI

Waiting for so long...

As promised, I would be telling my story about the Fulbright experience beginning with this post, which would be coming on, hopefully, Sundays as events happen worth narrating.

 

Let the rain come down and wash away my tears

Let it fill my soul and drown my fears

Let it shatter the walls for a new, new sun

A new day has… Come  - Celine Dion

 

I don’t know where to start, but first of all, let me begin from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where everything started. Like most young ambitious Nigerian scholars, we want to taste the abroad experience, but finding the correct information and guidance to do that is tricky. And of course, the cumbersome logistics and patience. As for the former, luckily ABU is a right place. 

I first met one Dr Edward Abah when I arrived at ABU, a lecturer, father figure and mentor in the English Department. He teaches African American Literature, but not wholly what he teaches that attracted me to him. Excellent teaching without warmth is nothing. You know, you can rate people based on their humane treatment of others, especially their inferiors. 

Dr Edward has a gracious attitude, which combined with his teaching method to make him awesomely amazing. So, we hit it up with Dr Edward. I guess he likes me because of my avid reading. Dr could bet his last buck that I read the book that most students would be hearing from him for the first time. It was just so easy to hold a conversation and become friends. 

We had been getting along with Dr Edward right from the start that some people assumed I was a graduate student. But soon, towards the end of our program, it seemed our days were numbered. 

Dr Edward suggested I should look for a scholarship. But I was a bit timid with his suggestion. I had been playing with my grades, reading novels for pleasure, spending countless hours on school Wi-Fi, instead of on my primary texts. Since these were books that I could hardly find outside the ABU libraries, and since data and internet connection weren’t as cheap and easy back in Kano, why not enjoy them while they lasted? 

In the final year, I worked hard to graduate with at least Second Class Upper. Not being downhearted by my fate, I followed online conversations around education, politics, creative writing and African studies and engaged in community services. In sum, plus the number of books I read and the writing skills I have, I was like the kind of guy who was not accurately represented by grades. 

Then one day, the American Embassy came to the campus for the Black History Month celebration. Naturally, they seize such moments to advertise the various offerings of the US Education opportunities. I picked up one of the flyers and saw something about the Fulbright program.

When Dr Edward suggested scholarships to me, I connected the dots with what I read. But maybe he was thinking broadly about the various categories of Fulbright scholarship because he linked me up with his friend professor Raymond Bako of the Education Department, the then immediate past president of the Nigeria Fulbright Alumni group. If it was FLTA he was thinking, I was sure he would have linked me up with someone who had participated in this particular program.  

I got an appointment with professor Bako. I went to his office with my computer. He asked me to search a page on the internet and read and follow the instructions.  The information was overwhelming. It was pretty stressful and unhelpful. I left it there feeling terrible, hopeless even, guessing there had to be a way he was not showing me. I am sure most of us think the same way. We just feel that the person helping us should have to give you a form to fill, collect it and send an email to the people in the institute for you. But the thing about foreign scholarships is that you have to do it yourself. 

I ran a few searches on social media. Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún’s name popped up. I chatted him up on Twitter. Before contacting him, even when I found the right Fulbright category for me, I was still doing some hustling on other sides with Dr Muhsin, looking for some graduate programs. 

However, the instructions about the Fulbright program still looked terrifying.  Then Kọ́lá set me up with a contact at the Embassy. I told the guy I was interested in the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program. 

This was 2018, some months after graduation, during my NYSC year. The Embassy guy asked me preliminary questions, but told me the application had closed. Should I be still interested, I could be ready for next year.

Right away, I started preparing. Finally, Kọ́lá agreed to assist me. I went to work, using my free time, researching and compiling the requirements one step at a time. I opened a desk for that, with me in charge, ticking away the checklist for each requirement I had met. 

A journey of a thousand miles in our time begins with a passport.  With it, you have already maximized your chances. I had been intentional all the way although without a clear direction of where to go, but I just knew I had to go. I had gotten a passport immediately after university, thanks to my friend Baffa who lent me money when we just got out of university broke. 

Past the passport issue, which is the first and primary condition for most foreign scholarships, I had almost four months ahead before application start date. When it opened, I was already done with the basic requirements. But I still didn’t know what the application procedures looked like until it opened, and I saw there was more work to do—writing original essays that required research. I was still doing my service. I used that free time to do the research. I saved the NYSC money and bought a computer and used it for that. 

A few months after I returned to Kano the computer broke down barely months after I bought it. But there was a Mazhun Idris who needed a guy to work with. I was the guy, but I didn’t have a computer. He gave me the one he was no longer using. (I still don’t know if it’s free or something). 

I continued my application. I sent each essay I wrote to Kọ́lá, who would look at it and make recommendations. At this stage, I was determined. I effectively controlled my time and social media presence. (My timelines from 2018 upward will show that). 

I sat myself down and chastised me: Habu, what are you doing there? Are you a consumer or contributor of content? What gains do you have spending time on social media anyhow? I have been a shadow figure in anonymity. I like being a private person, sure, but it feels good to have all the likes and comments under your post. But what the likes and the comments will in the end translate to? 

I realized most of the Nigerian scholars you look up to use social media space in some way to advance their career. Most people you sent an email looking for help would only write back to you tonight, when they were done with their business. There was a man who gave me a 3:00am email appointment. 

I redirected my energy. I went underground, quiet but relentless, substantially ignoring the glamorous social media world. 8:00pm-12:00pm were dedicated to researching and writing applications.  12:00pm-01:00am were for sending applications. I was firm and strict on myself. That was how I nearly got a UN communication position!

Regarding my FLTA, I had talked to a few people about what I was up to, the professors who would write my reference letters. I also talked to Muhsin Ibrahim. After what we had done with Kọ́lá, I would again send the essays to Muhsin. There was something I wanted to do. 

I didn’t doubt what Kọ́lá did, himself an FLTA alum. Being from the same culture Muhsin would have some intrinsic understanding of what I was trying to do with my teaching culture essay. Aside from that, we had been working on other applications. 

Muhsin has been incredibly generous with his time and resources. The words he said were personally encouraging and added up considerably to the strengths of my application. Muhsin it was who looked at my final FLTA application. I believe Muhsin is a minimalist; where I put too much wordings, he would tweak them to an adequate few, and offer valuable suggestions until I felt that nothing could stop us. If what they were looking for was an effective, robust application, we had gotten it there. I sent the application and hoped for the best. 

But days after days of silence followed. The thing sat on my mind and refused to go. Then one day, in 2019, I received an email around September about my application interview. I showed it to my friend Musa. The interview lasted just a few minutes, no more than three at most. 

We were now past the ember months into the early 2020. I was anxious, I could no longer wait. I called one of the embassy staffers to know about my application status. He was polite and diplomatic. I didn’t fail, he suggested, but since I had reached January and nobody called me, could I please send in another application? Sure, I said. 

Well, sure and not sure. I was smarting from the pain of failure. I felt bad, bad that I let my people down. How could I mobilize all these people and resources and then fail? I should be ashamed. The logistics it took to get them to write on my behalf, the stiff curve of getting to the interview stage, how could that happen all over again? I couldn’t talk to them.

But Muhsin regularly checked on me. He asked about my well-being and my professional life. I told him what happened with my application. He smiled sagely and said I should not worry; I should feel free to approach my professors again. They would understand. It’s normal in academic circles. 

The thing was that this time I didn’t have to write my application all over again or reapply for my transcripts. I went back to work easily, updated my application and sent it back again. The failure certainly wouldn’t be about the strength of my application in the first instance. So, indeed, where did I go wrong?

I traced my steps. Something was missing the last time. Although I did everything, I suddenly realized I didn’t research about the Fulbright interview. I searched the internet and collected information ahead of the 2021 interview. 

Armed with this new knowledge I knew I had won it this time right from the start.

But that was not the end. 

You have to be selected first by a US host institution before everything could proceed. Months of deepening silence followed. Nobody could tell what the Fulbright people were up to. In the interview they said that I would hear from them within a week if I was selected. But here we were into three months. It was already late May 2021; so, I gave up. 1 June was the closing date for the new application submission. I dusted off my application, intent to submit again for the third time.

Because of the number of rejection letters I received I didn’t even have to open an email to know what it was for. I know the pattern. So, I ignored this email that was sitting in my Promotion folder for three days. By now I formed the habit of checking in social media and my email before going to bed. This time my heart said Okay, go see what this email was for. I opened the message and there it was, a congratulatory message!   

 

Madison, WI

Book Review: Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World

Abubakar Sulaiman

Elif Shafak’s work is one that would never tire you!

10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World is a story of Leila, a lady from traditional Turkish family – a rebel – and her struggle in a personal secular world. When she was found dead, she was buried in a cemetery reserved for the outcast. Her friends showed loyalty and exhumed the body, honored her and put the body to the sea for the fish to swallow.

The book chronicles Leila’s life in reverse order, told through the receding consciousness of the dead, events unfolding by the minutes of her death in successive burst of flash back, from the 10 minutes of her death to the 38 seconds, beginning with her body found in a waste bin at a street corner near a brothel, her birth and the story of her mother’s marriage, her growing up and upbringing, etc.

The daughter of Bannaz, Leila grew up in a closely knit family. An only daughter, she was loved and indulged by her father. His first wife was barren and was possessed with a strong desire to have a child. He got a second wife, Bannaz, Leila’s mother, who gave birth to a child. As a consolation, Leila was handed over to the first wife to bring her up. This was left a secret in the household. Tired of insults and dark innuendoes, Bannaz decided to reveal the secret to her daughter, her own daughter, who didn’t believe her because nobody took her seriously in the house as she was branded mentally ill.

Two things in Leila’s life stood out for me as repugnant and unacceptable, that she is a sex worker and sufferer!

All through more than half the book I was wondering why Leila should go into sex work. This is someone I love. According to my northern sensibilities, I really wouldn’t like to see someone I love in such condition but Leila kept moving from one bad, harsh condition to another.

If Elif sees sex outside traditional marriage as a tool for challenging convention, this harsh, repugnant way that she cast Leila in is unfit and unjustifiable. What did she do to deserve this? Even when I found why, my sense of justice wouldn’t accept it.

Challenging convention, Shafak could do that without being that extreme. Take Zeliha for instance, in The Bastard of Istanbul, wild and rebellious and assertive under fer family roof. Like Zeliha, she can also be rebellious, have sexual freedom and a great life without being suffered.

But with her rebellious writing, there is no way you cannot love Elif. She says of Leila:

Her body had been changing fast. Hair under her arms, dark patch between her legs, new skin, new smells, new emotions. Her breasts had turned into strangers, a pair of snobs, holding the tipis of their noses in the air. Every day she checked her face in the mirror with a curiosity that made her uneasy, as though half expecting to see someone else staring back. She applied make-up at every opportunity, kept her hair unbound instead of in neat braids, wore tight skirts whenever she could, and had recently, secretly, taken up smoking, stealing from Mother’s tobacco pouches.

This is really a Hausa girl, Hausa girl(s) at the start of her puberty: wild, rebellious, bubbling with assertive energy to draw attention to themselves and announce their coming, even thinking, at this point, they are the same with their mothers.

Reading Elif Shafak and Orhan Pamuk brings me to a seeming familiarity with Turkish culture; I know which side of the street is dangerous, which family does what for trade, from which side of the street to get what. Buried inside these books, I can inhale the smell of Bosphorus and the air of Taksim Square.

As a result of these show of small small social and Islamic cultures, I sometimes feel more connected to Turkish or Senegalese novel than to a Southern Nigerian story which I can end up being dumb at for events taking place in closed and intimate spaces, places like the church and the inner family setting where I have no direct experience with.

Leila, the continuation of Zeliha from the Bastard of Instanbul, is what appears to be Elif herself. Bold, rebellious, female characters who disgrace their family. Elif has a way of casting her characters to represent the society she desires. She has the habit of neatly scooping culture and religion off their feet, keeps them upended in the air and then slides them to the ground headfirst!

Leila and Zeliha have incest in the family. Leila was violated by her uncle during a family vacation, and years later, when the novel reached its height, she broke the news to the family. For the first time she is bold and unafraid, no longer hiding things or scared to speak out. But when she opened up, the dreaded thing happened: her family belied her and believed her uncle, which allowed him to walk off the case.

Elif relied on irony, opposition and contradiction to spice up the story. Leila is hugely ideologically different from her parents. The parents are so similar yet markedly different from each other as they struggle with their own inner contradictions. For instance, they wanted to indulge their daughter but they were pulled by the need to keep traditions. Deep within, they believe their daughter’s story but who wants to disgrace their family? Instead, they tried to set her up for an arranged marriage with a relative.

Leila ran to the city. There she fell into the hand of an unassuming criminal, who, along with his business partner, sold her to another hand to another hand, on and on, ending up in prostitution and sexual slavery. She didn’t deserve this! What did she do to warrant this travail? Leila deserved good life that she never had.

Along the way, we have come to know the stories of five people whose paths crossed with Leila’s. Osman, the trans person; Sinan, the son of a Lady Pharmacist; Jameelah, the African prostitute and bead-maker; Zainab122, the short Arab and fortune-teller; Humeyra, one of the five, the ballad singer who escaped terrible marriage from her border town village.

There is D/Ali the itinerant, the revolutionary who later married Leila. Meeting him is one of the best moments of her life, albeit very short-lived experience. D/Ali was killed in the revolutionary march, making her return to prostitution. This time, as a pricy, classy service provider, sought out by a rich man to teach and cure his gay son ahead of his wedding day.

The 38 Seconds remainder revealed the scene of Leila’s body in the morgue and her burial. For me part two of the story is somewhat trash. The story died with Leyla! Explaining the mystery of her death and the story of the rich man’s right-hand man are all but killjoy and a spoiler. I understand Elif is just trying to tell us “Researchers at various world-renowned institutions had observed persistent brain activity in people who had just died; in some cases this had lasted for only a few minutes. In others, for as much as ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds.”

Elif is dead bent on normalizing the abnormal, showing the middle finger to the traditional Turkish society by bringing deviant characters to challenge the established norms. By so doing, she sets up Leila for rebuke and reprove of the traditional society.

What is more, when she died, these characters come to the morgue to receive her body, with a different sense of respect and honor to the dead, smoking cigarettes, flinging insults and aggression.

The doomed cemetery, the cemetery of the companionless, where Leila was taken, is the house of gays and trans women, prostitutes, AIDS victims, crack addicts, pimps, poets, singers and strippers…all sorts of outcast and cultural lepers, as Elif would like to say, rebel with treacherous words and contentious beliefs. But does it matter? No, they are going nowhere. They would be eaten by organisms, absorbed into plants and eaten by humans, on and on into the endless life cycle. 

 

Madison, WI

 

 

The Lord of Airbag

Friday morning was the day after Eid. Breakfast food is usually scarce during Sallah. Everyone is around so there is a rush for eating. You have to be up early or else you can go on empty stomach till lunch.  

I wasn’t up early that day. I missed the soccer game that our area friends organized though it was largely out of laziness. I woke up and bathed, donned my Sallah clothing and went and bought gurasa. I proceeded to my neighbor’s, my go-to woman for tea, certain that she kept some for me. Her tea was finished. People not originally on her list materialized.

I went round the neighborhood to get tea. I returned without, because I am choosey with my tea taste. My tea has na’ana’a flavor and uses strictly sugar, not saccharin, which some tea-sellers use.  

Tea and gurasa form a solid foundation for me to begin the day with. But the logistic of undertaking making tea at that hour in our home was impossibly daunting. I ruled out that and phoned my friend to know if they had tea in their home. I normally do that whenever I couldn’t find tea in my side.

The tea at my friend’s too had finished, but he would ask his mother to brew some for us, which was what I secretly hoped for. Indulgent and pampered, not an early riser himself on holidays, my guy hadn’t yet eaten breakfast and I knew his mama wouldn’t let her kids down.

I arrived the house with my gurasa and small change in my pocket. Before going there, my mother asked me to pay her the money I owed her. My life would depend on this change for the next two days. So I told her no money.  

My friend was still in bed, albeit not asleep, phone in hand and chatting on social media. He received a phone call; what I gathered it was his woman. She knew me by name. He was telling her my arrival. He had informed her about my coming after the first call.

As old buddies, we delved into the usual talk that would never end. The tea arrived shortly. We gulped down the thing through the talk. When it was time for me to go, I left him preparing to go bathe for market.

I was back at home, face-to-face with my mother, who asked me again to give her her money. This time I changed my mind. She was determined for the constitutional amendment to say that her monies are no longer freebies.

I slipped a hand into my pocket. I checked again and again, to no avail. I had lost the money somewhere between visiting my friend. The woman who took me to the court sympathized with me. She prayed for me and uttered some encouraging words. What did Hausa people say when you lose your camel? I checked my pocket again even as I was certain the money wasn’t there!

I was so sad and angry. The money I had been trying to maintain through two days disappeared in a blink.  God why me of all people?

Sorrowful and despondent, I called my friend and asked him to please check his room for me. He was out already, on his way to the market, but promised to check when he was back later tonight.

The money loss carried a chair and sat in my mind. I tried to forget it and focus on the next engagement. The POS guy at Bakin Ƙofa our sitting joint had an accident a week ago. Three of us who didn’t visit him would proceed to do so from the mosque after Jumaat prayer.

The emergency room was a gory scene of people with various degrees of injuries and severities that immediately made me grateful for the gift of health.  

A man was lying on the bed next to our POS guy’s. His right leg was removed. The man’s condition was so pitiable our POS guy forgot his own and launched into telling story of the man. The severity of this man’s condition made his own a child’s play. As if that was not enough, the second leg would be amputated later that Friday evening.

Tears brimmed in my eyes. I turned my head sideway cleverly and dubbed my eyes. I pitied the POS guy. The POS guy pitied his neighbor. These were men that would give all they have to be like me. All the while my mind was thinking of mercy-killing. Nothing left in that man’s condition except wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But he was resilient and beginning to learn to live with his new condition. He had seen it all and survived. His boss, the driver of their truck, died instantly at the accident scene. That seemed to explain what made him seemed grateful and resilient.

What I consider a misfortune against me was actually nothing. I was downhearted and humbled.

But that was not the end of it. Real misfortune nearly caught up with me two days later.  I would prefer losing all the material things I ever have to remain what I am.

Our family has a tradition of holding family meeting two days after every Eid day. The day for this meeting was Sunday. Out of the crowd of kids in my family I picked only two to go with. Hassana, my sister, and Ummi, my little niece, who was here along with her siblings for Sallah celebration.

I went to Ƴankura to get a bus. Cars quickly get filled there as a major station for travelers to surrounding towns and suburbs. We arrived Ƴankura, just as we crossed the road and entered the makeshift motor park under the bridge, we met one of our female relatives going to Ɓagwai with her kids. You can hardly go there for the trip around this time without meeting a relative or someone you know. 

The car got full after a while. We set out towards the outskirt of the city, maneuvering our way through Kurna traffic up until through the end. At Dawanau town, a little past Kwanar Dawaki, a Toyota Corolla suddenly halted in front of us. We were speeding. We saw it coming, an Adai-diata Sahu rider brushed the car’s side. The Toyota driver stopped to check the damage. In the middle of the highway.  The next thing we knew was a hit. We hit the car from behind. Clouds of dust filled the inside of our car. Chaos ensued. Pandemonium followed. The door to my side wouldn’t open. I didn’t lose a complete presence of mind but I was not calm. I struggled with the knob until I pushed open the door.

Crowd gathered immediately. A policeman on duty shuffled on.

Hassana was on my lap, directly in front of me, Ummi by my side, in the middle between the driver and me. Both the girls were asleep when the accident happened. Hassana was the most affected. Her head hit the dashboard. Dear God, our future architect had been severely damaged. How would she live in the future?

I removed the girls from the car and guided them to one side. Ummi was crying. Hassana was not. She was disoriented and was struggling to make sense of the situation. I checked her body to find out the damage. No visible injury, but for someone asleep, she was rudely physically and emotionally shaken.

She hadn’t noticed that blood was coming from her mouth until I brought sachet water and asked her to open her mouth. She noticed the blood and started crying. Shaken from the impact, I expected all of her teeth would come down.

I quickly felt her teeth. They were intact thankfully; just the tremor from the impact had caused the bleeding.

We crossed to a safer side. My elder sister entered into a shop’s pavilion and sat down. She assessed her body and found a swelling in her shin.

I moved back and forth across the accident scene, hearing comments flying around. The Toyota driver was claiming damage. Our driver was unruffled. Police were on their way from the station. But as a Nigerian you can tell police will put their mouth where money is.

It was taking longer for the police to arrive. No reconciliation in sight. I flagged a bus to take us for the onward journey.

While driving in the next bus I began to contemplate how we survived. We should have hit the windshield and shot out of the car headlong. The airbag pushed us back. I looked at its busted compartment. Our lives were saved by this piece of technology. Who invented it? What is its history? How does it work? I went to Google and searched.

Air bag inflates and deflates to push the vehicle’s occupants back during a crash. The vehicle’s crash sensors provide crucial information to the airbag control unit. On receiving the information, the airbag ECU will determine if the crash meets the criteria for deployment and triggers various firing circuits to deploy airbag module, all of which happens in less than 30 milliseconds. I was marveled at the working of Air Cushion Restraint System. I was thankful to the Lord of Airbag and the Lord of Heaven!

Ps

Few days later news came of the death of the POS guy’s sister from childbirth in the hospital. The grief is very huge for the family. They’re in “Why me God?” position rightly. May her soul rest in peace!

Love from a perspective: advice to a friend

I am a very private person, a very reserved one who hardly jumps into people’s affairs even if they are my friends. A friend of mine is at a crossroad with a very important life decision.  He had decided to marry his girlfriend. He sent me her picture and accompanying text in sympathetic tone: I will accept her.

Knowing what I know, this came as a surprise, that the economy is doing like this, doing like this… Beside the economic side, marriage is not all the roses that we think it is. In my own judgement he is making a very bad move.

I read the message and congratulated him. Since it is in reference to her mother’s death, I condoled him one more time and told him that I did so already at the time of her death. What he said kept ringing in my head. He had now settled. He made up his mind. But is that a sober decision?  Is that a choice from an independent point? What informed this final decision? I couldn’t shake off the questions swirling in my head.

Since he is my personal person, an ashratul-mubashshirina fil-jannat who cannot be ignored, I went back to WhatsApp two hours later to find answers to these questions. I can’t change anything, but I needed to be sure he is aware of what he is doing.

“Are you sure this is what you want or are you taking decision based on emotions? I have been doing a lot of thinking and decided to talk to you one more time on this.”

The rational me kicked in. I calculate everything. I do a quick cost-benefit analysis even in choosing a road to follow. I am so rational my life is boring and monotonous. No major risk takings nor huge outcome. Often, I look at myself and look at others: holy shit! No bizarre coincidences or unpredictable zigzagging.

Rational people are not being pessimists or doomsayers when they tend to look at the worst case scenario. They are just practical. I want him to be like me in a positive way and believe in cause and effect and human agency. That’s why God created Laws of the Universe aka Laws of Physics. 9 out of 10, human actions play significant role in the outcome of things. Miracle works only in few occasions. When you go to sleep and wake up, it is God in charge because there is nothing that you can do about.

So, I believe that we shouldn’t make important life decisions based on emotions. Well, I know. I know we will be denuded of our humanity if we remove emotions from human spaces. We will be robotic, calculating, transactional, and cold, lacking in sense of community. Which is bad, granted, but in trying to preserve our humanity we shouldn’t be irrational to a fault.

 “Do you really love her or are you pitying her because her mother died? Remember, if you are pitying her note that you are not guilty nor responsible for her mother’s death. Even if you truly love her and want to marry her, are things happening in the natural course of things or are you altering and rushing things for her own sake?”

I am not trying to stop him from doing a charitable work but he sounds like a martyr than a genuine love. I am considering his mental health and material well-being in the long term. You make one jump into the ditch, it takes several to get out of. But time heals everything. You shouldn’t embark on this guilt tripping and harm yourself in the process. She has a boyfriend with financial capabilities. If you are thinking about her love for you, time will heal everything. She will get married and everything will be alright. You may get what Allah plans for you. Allah’s plan, in this case, is to allow things take their natural course. If Allah wishes you to marry her, then he will eventually give you something better soonest.

“I suggest you leave things take their natural course even if you truly love her. If you go with this decision believing you are righteously doing a good work, that you can be patient, that you can bear the pain, then there will be time when all of these feelings will fade. By then you are already neck-deep in hole.”

I want him to see things from this perspective.

Book review: Fatima Salihu's Sketches

With mathematical imprecision, Fatima Salihu’s debut collection of poems touches issues on death, love, nature and illogicality of life. The collection offers a middle ground of gentle read and rough ride, supple and tough, coded and open, sadness and joy. You feel powerless and helpless reading these poems very aware of the reality of the world we live in.

The first poem sets the tone. It is about lost love, violence and danger. Closely followed is a poem on sins and injustices, where, ironically, those who are to protect destroy.  The powerful rule and the downtrodden are crushed beneath the jackboots.

We struggle through life, fighting many battles, winning some and losing others. In the middle of this we pause and turn to nature for its healing power.

Poems in the collection recognize the humanity in us as being fallible and imperfect even as we are urged to not to lose sight to the next nasty experience. There is a sense of resignation as we come face to face with the reality of existence. We can never be perfect since there is no time for that in life. 

For he who still breathes, is never complete

We all wait to become perfect

When we dissolve (p.6).

Man should claim his place in the Cosmo as fluid and flexible in a positive way. You are more than just an element in the scheme of things. “You can be happy and More…” in fact, “You are happiness itself” (p.9).

Fatima’s poems are not open confessional; they are a bit coded to appear like a secret in plain view. We can only follow the sketches and piece up the dots. Even as she tries to make a cover under metaphor we can detect how the poet/persona was once duped in love. She had toiled through building a relationship only for the love to be stolen away.

I was once the chief

happy with all I built

but a lucky thief

stole the tree (p.21).

Duped II is a continuation poem that shows a grown persona who no longer acts on emotion. She seems cold and wary and learns to trust her instinct. The place that was once fertile is now barren.

Death theme has appeared several times in the collection. We are presented with the vivid picture of how the inevitable steals the attention of a mother and takes away the child. And therefore, as the poet experiences deaths, she affirms to the reader that poets also grieve in their own way:

Who say poets do not grieve

When they knit pains into words

And spread them on the sentience of vision…Without paying homage to tears (p.12)

The anguish of death comes up in Tayaza poems, tender feeling and emotions on the brink of death.

Our Devils is about duality of self, the inner struggle we experience from our different personalities and competing voices. What is more, after the grind and the hassle of day the night offers the moment needed for the interrogation of self. You take a journey into this abyss where you touch base with the real you “Until you either become dark with silence/Or silently dark” (p.49).

Salihu depicts the world inside out, where we ignore some signs and dismiss them erroneously. We have got to learn to interrogate, to ransack our inherited values and our everyday life. When it is too normal and things are not breaking, it’s not normal. “Normalcy is a travesty/in their normal sense and/in an abnormal sense.” It is not all the time that we must make sense out of things. As a mathematician Fatima discards her scientific and logical self.

A feminist, Salihu walks the world in fluidity that allows the freedom of the individual. Many think feminist ideology is in head-on collision with motherhood. This is not the case with Fatima. She shows herself, in a series of questions, asking if she could ever be a good mother that she wishes, imagining herself through childrearing of her kid from infanthood to when a boy becomes a man. At this point she expresses doubt, nay misgivings, as to whether the child can pay back.

She closes the work asserting the place of women, depicting them as, not weaklings, but nation builders which, ultimately, requires more than just a muscle. Mathematician and poet Fatima exemplifies that women are not merely reducible to the kitchen and the other room.

I have a mixed feeling for this book. I love the content but hate the design and what appears to me a shoddy editing as in page 5, 14, 19, 32, 38, 39 & 55. It oozes garish vulgarity and lacks the artistic social graces and tastes. I pray the publishers will bump up their publishing standards and eliminate avoidable errors next time.

 

A Journey to Niger Republic

“No, it is not possible,” my mother said, believing I was hiding something from her. For the life of her she could not understandsomeone going to a trip for nothing at all. In cases like this she would bring up a pathetic story, for which failure to meet its demand will result in shame. So, instead of wasting the money she tabled a motion: “Give me the money. I am travelling this week. Aisha had delivered a child. I didn’t attend Murja’s wedding. Hauwa is marrying off her daughter.”

Mother is one of them people for whom if you don’t tell a lie they would not accept the truth. I was at quarrels with myself. My life had contained no bizarre coincidence or unpredictable zigzagging. And now she was saying no to what could be an adventure. I needed to do anything that would break this and confirm my independence, small sins, like offending her without offending God. So yes, I am going to Niger Republic for a business trip.

A week ago I made arrangement with one of our former teachers at makarantar allo, a Nigeriene now coming to Nigeria every week to buy stock. I had never been to Niger Republic. I would follow him and spend the week and get back the next week he would be returning. We rarely met for years and this time we had a chance to chat for almost an hour. Knowing I didn’t, he asked me jokingly if I had married. I left in the end with his number on the understanding that our journey would take place in a fortnight. I was so excited and talked about it to everyone.

Two weeks passed like twinkling of an eye. I contacted him on a Monday night to put the final touches. Would the trip be in the morning or in the evening?

“Really, what do you want to go to do? Nothing is happening. Why can’t you leave it till something important is happening?” he said. Anyone in my position would naturally feel the man had seen me as a burden. But I wanted to follow him only as a guide since he has the knowledge of the two countries. I tried politely to reason with him, to no avail.

I felt very terrible. How could I face the world and tell them the journey was cancelled? The odds were against me; as though by conspiracy everyone I met was asking,“When is your trip Abu, tomorrow?” I assured them yes it was. So, I had to make the trip by any means to save my face. ButI didn’t know now where to go.

I strapped a bag the next day and went to the bus station, fearful and nervous in Adai-daita Sahu. I refused to tell anyone what was happening. I didn’t want any counseling to upset the trip. By that time I had resolved against any external assistance, like someone linking me up with someone they know in Niger Republic. Lost in thought, I was jolted with a start at the sudden halt of our vehicle at the station.

Which town should I go? The question banged again at my mind, so loudly I thought the person next to me could hear. There and then I decided to go to the first town that NURTW people would mention.

“Yes Maradi,” I said to the man who approached me. I followed him to the bus. I picked out some few naira notes and changed them to Franc. The car crawled out of the station after 4pm. Everything was new to me, the new currency; the motion of the car felt differentfrom the car traveling within Nigeria for another town.

The driver negotiated his way, very smooth and effective. It was a wonder that out of thousand cars the security men would only selectively flag a car.Without hassle or argument the driver would extend a hand and make a contactso swift &effective youwould think nothing has happened. All you saw were regular cars on the road with security men at work. I later learnt from the cars’ looks the security men knew every driver that plies to Niger Republic.

It was a torturous journey all the way. Bodies were jammed, sandwiched against each other. What the women did at Niger-Nigeria border flew me back to the olden days when the mothers in my family were returning home from a trip. They would buy bread to bring home for us kids as a gift. This reverie was cut short with another little bad news.The driver announced border was closed. I thought in my mind: “Driver, you know border is closed and you still take us?” But a miracle happened soon after.

For every check-point at Niger-Nigeria border within Nigeria 200 naira is the solution per individual passenger. But the situation changed once you crossed the border. The car would stop at every security point and the driver would announce for everyone to go to report to the authorities, sitting and waiting in their offices. Some went, but the women stayed behind. I didn’t budge either. No, actually no. Niger, after-all, is just like Nigeria. I didn’t need permission to visit the country I believe to have kinship with. When the driver announced that the border was closed I had expected to see walls and gate but there was none. From this I just realized that land is a vast spread gift from God which humans should enjoy and move freely that the modern concept of border wishes to deny.

But even Nigerien officers were lax at some points. Our driver put one guy without papers on a vehicle to bypass security point. Some officers saw this and didn’t lift a finger. This laxity was born out of concern, I supposed, because strict observance of the law would put too much difficulty on people.

We couldn’t get done with the various security points on the road until almost 10pm. Bushes continued to fly by and by 11pm we were glimpsing the city’s street lights. We entered the town and the car pulled in to a station to unload a passenger who was going further to the capital Niamey. The station was alive with activities, buses pulling out for various West Africa destinations. The body language in Niger Republic encouraged mobility. Parents here could easily throw independence at your feet. It was just so easy here to leave without the family worrying.

As we pulled out, I began thinking a place to sleep. The driver and the rest of the passengers conversed casually, arguing over where to halt. They obviously make this weekly journey. I was the only stranger. The driver asked where I was alighting. Ah, driver, I am a stranger! Carry me where you are going and give me a place to rest. The driver suggested a major bus station a mile farther. On reaching there I alighted and walked in.

I was pointed to the farthest end of the station for an inn. I went there and negotiated a deal, came back and bought a tea with my changed money from Nigeria. The weather was ten times colder than in Nigeria.

I went out in the morning and explored the town. The people and language are the same with that of Nigeria. But somehow everything felt different. I didn’t feel I was learning any new thing. The whole thing had started to bore me until I discovered a shop where young men in the area populated. I went there and joined the locals and stayed there till around 10pm when I went back to my room. I didn’t carry the key on me as it was left with the room owner. I feared about my personal effects, especially the computer. Every time I went to bathroom and left the door open I couldn’t help thinking about the computer, only to come back and find everything intact.

I tried to make the trip as memorable as possible. The next day I planned to visit some other places. At the town’s emir’s place a group of dancers were singing. A wedding was taking place. I walked past through the first gate, into a wide corridor and then into a yard. A man and two young boys were sitting on a wooden bench beneath a shade. I introduced myself as a stranger from Kano. I expected a happy smile.

“A stranger, get out! A stranger and you entered up into his highness’s wives’ purdah?” I felt embarrassed and quietly moved out before my head was chopped off.  The man was literally carrying a cutlass running after me shouting Allahu Akbar.

I am used to aggressiveness and loudness of the Nigerian life. Unlike back home, trust here is very much alive. But life is a bit expensive since I was buying things with the naira exchange in my mind.

Tonight I wanted to buy noodle. One of the locals warned me that since I was used to buying noodles in Nigeria I’d find this too expensive. One pack with two fried eggs sold for 600 naira which I normally buy witihn the range of 200 naira in Nigeria. A roasted chicken costs 1800 to 2000. Within two days I had burned money over little things.

Life is a bit expensive, true, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that in every town there is the urge to fleece strangers.I didn’t understand the exchange rate. So, whatever I bought I spread the money on my palm and asked the sellers to pick their money. They were at liberty to do what they wanted and I suspected some did. But I could see even when an acaba rider was called by a kind person to take me to a radio station a short distance away the price was too expensive.

I would sit with the locals in the morning out front of a shop to watch the world go by, shop owners opening their stores and loaded camels trudging the dusty streets. The dusty wind spells out the importance of turban to the tuareg.

I would be going home Friday, the next day, but I couldn’t stay any longer. The people at the shop said there was no club around. The football field was far. It was not festive season so nothing was happening. On that day after visiting two radio stations I boarded a car for the return journey to Nigeria.

At the border back in Nigeria the immigration officers were doing their work. We slowed down for the routine inspection, which was very casual. I was in the cab, in the middle between the driver and one other man.

“Sannu dai, Nigerian or Nigerien Baba?”The officer peeked through the window and talked to the elderly man. Baba is a Nigerien attendinga wedding in Kano.

“And you,” it was my turn. “Are you a Nigerian?”  I burst into laughter.

“Park,” he barked at the driver. The senior officer was sitting on a bench at a small distance. “Oga,” he spoke to the senior,“we are asking him, he is laughing. Go and laugh. You will have to stay here and laugh.”

My laugh was well-meaning laugh. Of all the places on earth it was in Nigeria that I would be interrogated over my Nigerianness. Sure as hell from the mere look they knew I am a Nigerian. I nudged at my pocket to confirm my papers.

“So, where are you from?” The senior officer asked. Telling truth made me feel naked. Between harmless lie and useless truth I’d rather go for the former.

“Jibiya,” the officer knew I lied. He was amused by that. By now our driver had parked the car and arrived at the scene.

“Driver, where are you from?”

“Maradi,” the reply shot out like a bullet and hit me. Earth, open and swallow me.

“Now you see,” the officer said, gesturing his arms dismissively. “Why do you lie? We know where you are from. We know every driver here.” Apparently, years on the job made them know all the tricks. They have many ways to kill a rat. “I can ask you to give me the number of the person you said you visited.”

He continued. “Let me see, what is in your pocket?” I brought out the contents of my pocket. A green passport. National ID card. Old WAEC ID card and a paper containing the phone number of one of the men I visited in the radio stations. I just realized the odds were against me. The officer looked at the paper and looked at me back, his eyes saying, “See now. See now!”

“What have you got to do with this paper?” he finally asked.

“I am a journalist.”

“A journalist?!” he gasped. That’s it. I went to Niger illegally to collaborate with foreign elements and destroy the government.

“Which radio station do you work with?” I told him. “Which program?” I told him. I was candid and honest. He sensed I was telling the truth. His attitude changed; from that of menacing Oga to a friendly demeanor, not so much by the fear of the press than by the proper papers he saw on me. Seeing this, my confidence rose. He examined the rest of the documents. A shocked look appeared on his face. By now he looked at my passport.

If all the previous evidence were not strong enough against me this one had nailed it all. “So, as a journalist, you entered the country illegally? You have a passport and refuse to use it?”

No sir, my passport is for serious business. For the countries like the UK and Canada. Not for Niger Republic that I can enter with or without papers.  I wished he had known that.

“Where is your bag?”

Inside the car.

“What is inside?”

My clothes and computer.

“What did you go to do in Niger?”

“Nothing,” this had either aroused his suspicion or had just struck him as a great surprise. It took him some seconds to process the consequence of a journalist crossing the border to do nothing in Niger Republic. Sensing his reaction, just in moment I stepped up a defense to wash away his suspicion.

“Just for sightseeing. I don’t know anybody. I just went. Officer, it is the end of the year so I went for a holiday.” Several people couldn’t believe that, including my mother. We moved.