Publisher: Evans Brothers, Nigeria PLC
Pagination: 244 pages
Date of Publication: 2020
About a century and half ago, John Lylywrote, “All is Fair in Love and War.” A keen reader would refute that statement upon engaging with the first page of Madagali.
Set in the North East of contemporary Nigeria, Madagalipays a fundamental attention to the pathetic nature of Nigeria’s prolonged fight against Boko Haram insurgency, and it follows a complex dilemma of love. Thismakes the story of the protagonist, Lance Corporal BukarSalisu,one that should not be missed.
Away from the buzzing of shellfire, the whizzing of bullets, the spattering of blood and mud,andthe tearing down of bodies,the24-year-oldBukarSalisu, a Nigerian-Liberian is caught between twoyoung damsels. The first is Safiya, the craftydaughter of a ‘repentant’Boko Haram leader. She works with one of the Non-Governmental Organizations offering palliatives to the Internally Displaced Persons.The second is the curly haired Liberian Nurse-in-Training, Jewel, whomBukar meets in Monrovia while there to spend his sick leave with his maternal family. Both will come to find out that Bukar is a rafto─an impotent man, due to an injury he sustained from a .45 Caliber(4).
Before this crossroad,a top ranking military officer, Lt. Col. Bala Humus, frames up Bukar. In a hasty tribunal, the young Lance Corporal is sentenced to death for wanting to supply lethal military hardware to the Boko Haram insurgents─the initial plan of Lt. Col. Bala.Bukar’s predicament juxtaposed with the in-house killing of Colonel Yusuf, a battle savvy officer who was successfully leading a tank campaign against the insurgents (50), suggests some horrible things about the architecture of the insurgency.
Since the onset of the Boko Haram insurgency, more than thirty thousand civilian lives have been lost. Many more have been bludgeoned into disillusionment and hopelessness because the likes of Lt. Col. Bala Humus continue to adulterate the Nigerian military. Numerous scandals involving the military have put a great strain on the nation’s potential to conquer the insurgency. Thus, the fight has become a lucrative investment.
In this light,the book lays bare a fetid military system where bosses sit on the meagre allowances and morals of soldiers; where soldiers who should ordinarily protect IDP sharass and intimidate them; where there are suspicious withdrawals of military presence just before terrorist attacks(51), and so on. There are macabre depictions of gallant soldiers fighting with mostly worn-out weapons and rationed ammunitions, dropping like flies in the heat of enemy firepower. A private is forced to write in protest to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces: “Your Excellency, we are treated like animals. Most of us are afraid to talk because of the consequences of voicing out our grievances (93).”The author does not spare shifty humanitarian organizations at the periphery of things. He dices into the narrative their bad behaviours.
The vivid imagery of the book is reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway’s World War I novel, Farewell to Arms, especially in its fecund recreation of the immense cataclysm the fight between the Federal troops and the insurgents has manifested. Hence, the author captures the most precise conditions of people rarely heard about: those smacked directly by the insurgency. We visit their camp at Kaya. It is crammed with “lost children crying for their parents… wailing and disheveled women, wounded men covered with dried blood and filthy dressings (72)”. We feel their pain, hunger, and hopelessness.
One remarkable edge of the book is its poignant and accessible language, often flavoured with areliable tone of knowledge. Another is its explorationof the friendship, stoicism, and solidarity between soldiers braving rugged times.
Now, back to love or something like that. While the devoted Jewel is keeping her fingers crossed in Liberia, the seductive Safiya links Bukar with an almost immediate trado-medical cure for his impotency. And just when his penis is resurrected, Safiya puts in a grave demand: Bukar, a disciplined soldier, must leak classified information for a ‘purely humanitarian operation’ that will see to the welfare of starving Boko Haram insurgents or else it’s goodbye to his erection (240).
One of the most daring works in the history of contemporary African writing, Madagali is poised to throw punches wherever truth on the fight against Boko Haram is marginalized.
TegaOghenechovwen has an MA in Literary Studies from the University of Jos, Nigeria. He is interested in psycho-trauma, human liberty and the battle between innocence and experience. He has published works with the Rumpus Magazine, LitroMagazine, Black Sun Lit, Aké Review, AFREADA and elsewhere. He tweets @tega_chovwen.