CHRONICLES OF THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH
There is a thunder of words robed with sarcasm, invective, parody and the likes about to be unleashed. Who has such boldness to hold acerbic dialogue with the state? No other than Kongi himself, described by the Evil Genius (IBB) as the barometer for the Nigerian society. His last novel, You Must Set Forth At Dawn is a memoir with biting political stings of events, happenings around himself, some friends and the powers that be. Before this, was the Season of Anomie, although, I am yet to read it. Before this too was The Interpreters. In fact, don't let me go there! A copy of the book lies in my library like a belle waiting to be wooed. I have no boldness to get caught in the cross-fire of W S just yet.
That said, we await the new bomb that is to explode from Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth. That title itself is oxymoronic. If Nigerians are the happiest people on earth, perhaps, that was some decades ago. The present sociopolitical reality in the country is causing even the saner people among us to have a mixture of madness and lucid interval. That label Happiness is soon to crumble in the book.
A lot has happened between when his last book was published and now. We have the uprising of the disgruntled youth on the quest to upturn the wheel of police brutality which is fitly captured is hashtag EndSars(#EndSars) peaceful protests. No thanks to the soldiers, stooges in the hands of the government for the shooting leading to the untimely death of some of the brave protesters. May their souls rest in perfect peace. Opportunists have however hijacked the peaceful protest and are on rampage against the police, their station, burgling and burning both private and public properties with a mission to loot. These times too have revealed the warehouses for the 'safe keeping' of covid-19 palliatives which the masses can no longer wait for. They have gone to forcefully take what was theirs in the first place because it is taking the state government an eternity to have them distributed!
I think too that this new book will dismantle the concept of happiness that Nigerians have. Laying bare the stark reality that you don't call a people happy when they are still chained with tribalism, nepotism, religious hypocrisy, suffering under political robberies in both high and low places.
Let the reader beware! Wole Soyinka is a hard man! His words are canons too hard for the faint at heart to endure. As a word of caution, get yourself an updated dictionary of English, a handbook of Latin and Greek words as cover for the missiles you will be faced with when the book finally make itself available before the end of the year in the Nigerian bookstores. Get ready! Save money if you can to get yourself a copy! Don't say I didn't warn you!
Goodbye for now. I am yours truly,
Julius Topohozin.
