Fresh Efo Riro: A Review of DianaAbasi’s Story Collection by Olumide Olaniyan

Source: Instagram

Short story collection
Reviewer's rating: 4 on a scale of 5

Efo Riro & other stories by Iquo DianaAbasi is a potpourri of everything in today’s world. The author engages you right from the cover page with the book’s title, Efo Riro & other stories, its illustration, which is a conglomeration of issues narrated in the work in diagrammatic format. The cover page depicts issues of love, lust, betrayal, modernisation, obsolescence, assertiveness, violence, gender, equity, struggle, and so on, as represented with mammary glands, Cupid’s arrow stabbing a heart, a bottle of poison, a TV set, a hut, a microphone and several other icons telling you the stories in this book, even before you open the first page. If there is one book that its cover page tells its story, it is Efo Riro & other stories. Iquo DianaAbasi book says no to the stance that you cannot judge a book by its cover. Its cover is good, so also are its bough and viscera. 

Iquo DianaAbasi started on a strong note with the first story, Efo Riro, written in pidgin English with a Yoruba title (pages 1-3). She narrates the story of a driver who lost his boss’s car to a swindler because he was carried away with enjoyment that awaited him at the Chop & Quench Buka. The story, which was set in Lagos, warns readers not to be foolish because of (an expected) pleasure. As Lagosians are wont to say, “If someone lives in Lagos and he/she is unwise, even if he/she goes to Western Germany, he would still be unwise.” The story in its hilarity also reminds one of Peter Enahoro’s hilarious book: How to be a Nigerian. Efo Riro tori sweet die, may we not chop and quench in life o. Iquo DianaAbasi is saying you should not only say amen, you should also be wise.

This book, published by Parresia Publishers Ltd, Lagos, has a total of nineteen short stories. The stories are short, issue-focused, captivating, easy to read; each telling a distinct story. 

You cannot but notice the story entitled That Place, That Night. A sad tale of what young girls go through with unwanted pregnancy. Iquo DianaAbasi started this story with a girl attempting to dispose of a dead foetus. ‘It is risky evacuating a twenty-two-week old foetus, especially for a womb that has been evacuated three times in the last eight months.’ (p.27). This statement by the doctor [in the story] says it all. Furthermore, he (the doctor) was also surprised that the young lady (Joyce) had conceived again so quickly despite having ‘… one of her fallopian tubes … blocked.’, (p.27). Joyce finally lost her womb after repeated abortions. Tom, her boyfriend was murdered. Like Joyce and Tom, several young people are being destroyed around the world today, because no one is guiding them on issues of sexuality and challenges of adolescence. 

Kissed by the Tarmac is another story that shows what girls go through carrying the burden of their family. Emem’s father had disappeared. He never returned from work. She and her mother struggled to make ends meet. She was harassed by a village teacher, who wanted to marry her at seventeen. This story depicts family struggle, girl-child molestation, widowhood, pain and tears of mothers. ‘Relax! I won’t hurt you, my sweet princess’ (p.157). Etim, the village teacher told Emem. How many girls have been so deceived by those lines, because of their struggle to achieve their dream?

DianaAbasi puts on the front burner, today’s challenges that must be addressed. She confidently and freely uses Nigerian colloquial expressions. She prepares her Efo Riro & other stories with locust beans (iru, ogiri, dawadawa) rather than using imported curry and thyme; she isn’t interested in appeasement. Like most postmodernists, she believes that one’s voice should count in creativity, and that, that itself, is creativity. 

 Efo Riro & Other Stories is available at Page Book Connossieurs and other bookstores across Nigeria.

About Reviewer

Olumide Olaniyan is a poet, satirist, historian and thinker. His book debut was a collection of poems, Lucidity of Absurdity, published in March 2017. His poem, Behind Closed Doors, won the maiden edition of Communicators League Creative Writing Contest 2017. Several of his poems, including, Déjà vu and Dire Silence have been adapted into community dramas. Another poem, One Sojourn of the Moon received an honorary mention in the Mandela Day Poetry Competition 2016.

Setting the Stage: A Review of Max Siollun’s 'Nigeria's Soldiers of Fortune' by Rotji Joseph

 Reviewer's rating: 4.5 on a scale of 5

Genre: Historical nonfiction

At the dawn of independence in 1960, everything seemed possible for Africa's most populous and arguably, most powerful nation. Oil wells promised an endless flow of wealth, fertile land produced enough to feed its people, coupled with the fact that Nigeria single-handedly held half the entire manpower of West Africa.

As was common across post-independence Africa, the army strongmen who seized power six years later were seen by many as defenders of this vision of prosperity. Thus, Nigerians of this era recall the first decade of military rule with rose-tinted nostalgia. These were golden years of press freedom, rivalling that of western countries. In contrast to today's bloated and venal civil service, public workers kept the country running efficiently. But by the time the civilian government ascended in 1979, they were grappling with the legacy of three disastrous years of civil war and the beginnings of a downward slide into corruption. It was during this era that "government ministry buildings would mysteriously burst into flames just before audits, making it impossible to discover written evidence of corruption" writes historian Max Siollun, which charts the history of the middle decade of nearly 30 years of uninterrupted rule by ‘the gun’ in Nigeria.

After four years of disorderly civilian government, the population gladly welcomed the military in 1983, the uniformed squad that saw itself as "an emergency rescue team that could be called out to depose the civilian government any time the public got fed up with its policies."

Nigeria’s Soldiers of Fortune: The Abacha and Obasanjo Years looks at the regime of two men who steered the country for the next decade, setting it on a path it is still treading today. In lucid prose, Siollun shows how "the military doctor became infected by the ills it came to cure," plunging Nigeria into virtual anarchy.

The book argues that understanding modern Nigeria's apparently default state of being on the brink cannot be understood without going back to this critical junction of military politics. Ethnic politics that plague the civilian population crept into a military swollen more than 20-fold on the back of the Biafra civil war. As it continues to do today, the vast oil wealth pumping in would seduce and corrupt the new strongmen.

By the time General Muhammadu Buhari and General Ibrahim Babangida had between them ruled for a decade, corruption reached levels Siollun calls "spectacular." But it shows the path Nigeria could have followed. One of the defining elements of Buhari's regime was its anti-corruption stance. Indeed, the harsh sentences meted out to politicians and drug traffickers cost the regime popular support. But Babangida, who usurped him, unleashed a tide of corruption that continues to swamp Nigeria today, elevating "settlement" – the use of state funds to manipulate and compromise – into state policy.

Military rule eventually reached its nadir with the infamous General Sani Abacha, the diminutive dictator with a Viagra habit, whose death while cavorting with Indian prostitutes in 1998 sparked days of jubilation.

Nigeria’s Soldiers of Fortune holds a much-needed mirror to Nigeria's history, and the reflection is not pretty. The press and ordinary folk are accomplices in the country's downward trajectory by "welcoming news of a military coup d'etat and the overthrow of a government they elected with characteristic jubilation."

For those less familiar with the country's past, Siollun's meticulous research provides juicy inside details of pivotal moments. How, for example, did Israeli intelligence officers from Mossad end up sending an agent disguised as a TV producer in an attempt to snare an ex-regime leader exiled in London? Why did ex-military ruler and continental heavy-weight Olusegun Obasanjo refuse to take part in another coup?

While personal memoirs of Nigerian military history abound, a removal from the crises enables Siollun to dismantle the military machine that has ruled Nigeria with more objectivity than these other tomes. Even to seasoned readers familiar with the story, the scholarly attention to detail makes for a refreshing read. It provides a timely insight into the same military rulers still wielding power today, either now wearing civilian garb or from behind the scenes.

About Reviewer 

Rotji Joseph is Chief Librarian at Jenta Reads Community, Jos, Plateau State.

Read These? We Need Darn Honest Reviews

Apply for Fountain Essay Contest, Win $1,000

By Editor

The Fountain Essay Contest, open to writers worldwide, seeks essays between 1,500 and 2,500, on life’s challenges. 

According to the Fountain Magazine, “We at The Fountain believe that every voice should be heard, and that every challenge should be respected and can offer insight into our own lives.

“We all face new challenges in our lives. They can be massive undertakings, such as moving across a country and beginning a new school. Or sometimes the more routine tasks, such as getting out of the bed in the morning while undergoing depression, can themselves be massive challenges.

“We want to hear about your challenges and how you mentally, physically, and/or spiritually prepare for them.

“How do you find strength when you feel it does not exist? And what have you learned, or are learning, from your challenges?”

Deadline for submissions is March 1, 2020. Winners will be announced on May 31, 2020.

Cash prizes:

• 1st Place - $1,000
• 2nd Place - $500
• 3rd Place - $300
• Two Honorable Mentions - $150 each