“There is a greater dependency on religion because the nation is desperate. When a nation is desperate, it turns to the supernatural.
“Religion has always been with us. These days, however, you can’t walk one yard without stumbling on religion. Religion is today one of the fastest-growing businesses in the nation,”
- Prof. Wole Soyinka, the first black Nobel laureate in Literature at the book launch of his third novel, "Chronicles of The Happiest People on Earth" on Monday, December 7, 2020, at Terra Kulture on Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.
His earlier novels were The Interpreters, 1964 and Season of Anomy, 1972.
Accomplished Nigerian actor and writer, Richard Mofe-Damijo and Somtom Asibelibua, who read in English, French and Spanish were among the guests who read excerpts from the sociopolitical novel published by Bookcraft Africa .
The dignitaries at the event included Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi Chibuike Amaechi, Federal Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN (represented by the CEO, Temple Management Company, Mr. Idris Olorunnibe), the US Consulate’s Public Affairs Officer Stephen Ibelli, Prof. Ebun Clark (the wife of the recently transited playwright and poet, Prof. John Pepper Clark), the environmental activist and art patron, Dr. Newton Jibunoh, TheNEWS’ Executive Editor, Mr. Kunle Ajibade, The Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Nation Newspapers, Mr. Sam Oritsetimeyin Omatseye and Dr. Wiebe Boer, @WiebeB_Africa, the CEO of @allonenergy.
It was also launched in Ibadan on Wednesday, December 9 and yesterday in Abuja.
Excepts from the novel:
Adjusting to a new culture was his main concern, but not an insurmountable culture shock. Badagry, after all, albeit closely intertwined with Lagos, was still Badagry. Pitan-Payne was on hand, though keeping a frenetic pace to wind up his affairs and proceed to his UN assignment on schedule. The engineer seemed to thrive on interlocking calendars, and in any case, he now had Menka to pick up the loose ends for him in his absence….
The timing could not have been more thoughtfully ordained. The unexpected and the planned seemed to dovetail neatly, like the finely adjusted sprockets or his mechanical prototypes. And while Lagos/Badagry lacked the excitement of receiving sudden cartloads of human debris from Boko Haram’s latest efforts to out-Allah Allah in their own image, one could count on gratuitous equivalents from multiple directions. Such as the near daily explosion of a petroleum tanker on the expressway or city centre. Or a roofless lorry bulging with cattle and humans tipping over on a bridge and dropping several feet onto an obliging rock outcrop in the midst of the river. Sometimes, more parsimoniously, a victim of military amour propre – in uniform or mufti, it made no difference. That class seemed to believe in safety in numbers, and all it took was that even a low-ranking sergeant should take offence at another motorist, who perhaps refused to give way to his car, a mere ‘bloody civilian’, never mind that the latter had the right of way. An on-the-spot educational measure was mandated. Guns bristling, his accompanying detail, trained to obey even the command of a mere twitch of the lip, leapt out of their escort vehicle, dragged out the hapless driver, unbuckled their studded belts, whipped him senseless, threw him in the car boot or on the floor of the escort van and took him to their barracks for further instruction. However, the wretch sometimes created a problem by suffocating en route – which left society to develop structures for neutralizing such inconvenience.
The contradicting, ironic sequence occurred to Menka only for the first time – yes, come to think of it, the military hardly ever recorded a fatality – once or twice, maybe even three times in a month — yes, the accident of excess did happen, but mostly such terminal disposal was left to the police, whose favourite execution site was a road block, legal or moonlighting. Perhaps a recalcitrant commuter, or passenger bus driver had refused to collaborate in providing a bribe on demand, or insulted the rank of the demanding officer with a derisive sum. And it did not have to be the original offender but some too-know grammar spouting public defender who had intervened on behalf of the potential source of extortion. The outcome was predictable – victim or good Samaritan advocate instantly joined the statistics of the fallen from ‘accidental discharge’. The expression was still current, but often it was anything but. Accidents had become infrequent and unfashionable. Oftener to be expected was that the frustrated, froth-lipped police pointed the gun, calmly, deliberately, at the head of the unbelieving statistic and, pulled the trigger. Again, the inconvenience of body disposal.
But then, the community of victims themselves – what a specialized breed of the species! The roles, it constantly appeared, had become gleefully, compulsively interchangeable. Allowing him only a few days to ‘catch your breath and get your bearings’, Pitan-Payne lost no time in taking Menka to inspect the land designated for the Gumchi Rehabilitation Centre, for victims of Boko Haram, ISWAP and other redeemers – nothing like striking while the iron was hot! On their way, the familiar sight of crowd agitation – how would the day justify itself without some kind of street eruption somewhere, wherever! Trapped in the chug-stop-chug of traffic, the favourite commuter distraction was to attempt to guess what was the cause, and even place bets on propositions. That morning, Menka’s first in nearly a year down south did not disappoint. But for the milling blockage by intervening viewers, they could have claimed the privilege of ringside seats. Compensating for that obstructed viewing however was the sight of men and women trotting gaily, anticipation all over their faces, towards the surrounded spot of attraction. From every direction they came, some vaulting over car bonnets, squishing their legs against the fenders, squeezing through earlier arrived bodies or simply scrabbling for discovered vantage viewing points. They climbed on parked vehicles and the raised concrete median. Commuter buses slowed down and stopped, keke napep — the motor-cycle taxis — pulled aside, drivers and passengers alike rubber necking on both sides of, or in the direction of a wide gutter that sank into a culvert. The lights changed to green and Pitan-Payne drove on, their last shared image a pair of muscular arms raised above the bobbing heads, clutching an outsize stone, slamming that object downwards into the gutter. Very likely a snake, Pitan suggested. With the rainy season, quite a few sneaked through the marshes into culverts and slithered their way into parking lots and even offices.
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