The trouble with being in Nigeria is explained in Lola Akande’s Where Are You From? ; Kraftgriots, Kraft Books Ltd, Ibadan; 2018; 306pp

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

It is, indeed, a daring venture for the novelist, Lola Akande to presciently put Nigeria’s fault-lines on the front burner in her novel, Where Are You From? Lola Akande presents a plucky protagonist, Anjola Adeniyi, who dares to engage her beloved country Nigeria in all dimensions.

A sprightly graduate of English from the University of Ilorin in her native Kwara State, Anjola Adeniyi embarks on an eventful National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme in Anambra State. The challenges of the Nigerian ethnic mix of Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo are sucked into the demanding whirlpool of survival in a dire landscape.

Starting from her place of birth, the identity question rankles, given the history of Ilorin, and indeed, Kwara, in the 19^th Century when Afonja “liaised with the Fulanis, who were Jihadists led by Alimi, to help him fight Oyo in revenge for his technical expulsion from the Oyo dynasty.

After killing Afonja, the Jihadists fully established the first administration in Ilorin in 1837 and began to overrun, one by one, all the towns and villages in Kwara.” The young one has to ask the father: “What about us, Father? What and who are we? Fulani? Yoruba? What?”

The identity issue cuts across the Nigerian terrain. People must perforce change their bona-fides to fit into the needs of divergent moments. For instance, Anjola’s boyfriend and eventual husband, Ifeanyi, Ify for short, and his entire family, originally from the Igbo state of Anambra but born and bred in Jos, Plateau, “had to hide their links with Anambra to be approved.

They were educated to believe that they had to renounce their father’s native name and state of origin and acquire Plateau State Citizenship certificates before they could advance their interests. They had also had to discard their Igbo names – at least officially – and adopt Plateau-sounding English or Biblical names.” She thus becomes Mrs. Anjola Jeremiah upon her marriage.

In the hunt for a job in Kaduna, Anjola is made to undergo the problematic process of going to the Kaduna High Court to swear to an affidavit of Change of Name, thus becoming Angela Adnoyi of Zango Kataf in Kaduna instead of Anjola Adeniyi of Kwara!

She discovers that she even needs to go further by claiming to become a Muslim with a hijab to be fully accepted, whence her adoption of the name Hajia Zainab Abubakar! Of course, the move goes awry as her tribal marks easily give her away. She confesses to coming from Kwara State and it is put in her face, thusly: “You are obviously Yoruba by descent.”

She is compassionately not arrested and prosecuted for forgery but gets this advice: “Go o Ibadan. I have it on good authority that Oduduwa International is on a recruitment drive and will hold a selection interview in December.” Getting to Ibadan to vie for the job, she gets this ouster: “This is Oduduwa International. This interview is for applicants from the Western region, not for northerners.” She is dismissed as an alien, only for the outraged Anjola to cry out: “You called me an alien in my country?”

A patriotic Nigerian per excellence, Anjola dares all travails to forge ahead with her inter-ethnic marriage to her Igbo lover, Ify despite the evil machinations of Ify’s elder brother Cajethan. She triumphs in the end as a teacher of the community in the dear “home” of Magaji Njeri in Kaduna State.

The schisms in Nigeria point to the fact that Lola Akande’s Where Are You From? needs to be made recommended reading for students and political leaders alike across board.

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist, and author.

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.