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A Woman in Need is written by an author with intelligent and
an independent mind who manipulates the English Language with such dexterity
that one starts to wonder if he had his training in a British School. There are
lots of moral lessons to be learnt in the novel as the author has cleverly
discussed young women caught in the trap of polygamy just because of filthy
lucre. But Ngozi became an exceptional, kind, hardworking and a moral example
to all, even as she is a lesson in sophistication. The book is therefore very
suitable for all students of literature.
Alhaji Y. A. Kareem Principal,
Senior
Secondary School,
Moslem Comprehensive High School,
Ijebu- Ode,
Nigeria.
February, 2010.
As a youth developer and a dynamic moral teacher, I feel
thrilled reading this book. I recommend that our Ladies read and realize that
all actions and behaviours have contributing effect on adulthood and nature has
a way of dealing with situations.
Dr.Ayokunlemi Oshin- Idowu.
Executive Director Beauty for
Ashes Organization
Ilese-Ijebu. Ogun State.
FOREWORD
A Woman in Need is a masterpiece of simplicity.
Reading through, one perceives it as either an Autobiography or a Biography,
yet the novel is neither. The simple fact of the matter is that this literary
piece is true to life. Every event therein is relevant to the contemporary life
of a typical human being, a Nigerian to be precise.
Whoever cares to read this
book will not regret the action, rather the reader will add to whatever
knowledge he already has, as the novel is full of life experiences. It is in
the book that the loved suddenly becomes the hater and the hated. Loyalty
suddenly becomes betrayal and hope is suddenly dashed.
The man is confused and
is at the crossroads. He loses ALL he has. He is jilted and dumped by his
lover, lost his only child and no job in sight! The novel takes a reader
through journey by various means of transportation; air, rail, and road. It
takes a reader to the various tribes, religions and culture of Nigeria.
Through
the book also, the reader feels the pains of the poor, deprived, oppressed and
humiliated. The reader also feels the gains of the rich, opportunist, affluent,
wanted and influential. The cross becomes a burden too heavy to bear before
fortune provides him with the key…he meets a woman in need. All these, Lateef
Adeola Sanusi tries to blend in this very great work of art.
Though this book
is a novel, (prose) it has elements of drama and poetry which
makes it total literature. This novel is recommended for everybody that has
life and is living it. For the old, especially the Elites, it replays your
youthful days as it brings good memories of the past.
For the middle aged; the
experience of the novel can re- direct your life. For the young, you definitely
need to read this novel, as reading it may equip you with the experiences you
need to cope with the “maddening society”.
For the Youth Corp Members, (NYSC)
this novel is specially recommended for you. Bala, the hero of the novel is
your contemporary, hence you stand to gain a lot from his experience. The novel
is suitable and therefore recommended- For both sexes as both sexes will
apportion blames to Bala or Linda.
There is no gain saying that the author has
painstakingly composed and written a good literary piece. For this I sincerely
congratulate him for a thorough job. To the readers, the taste of the pudding
is in the eating. Please read on!
Alhaji A.M. Olubajo
Principal General,
Teaching service
Commission (TSC),
Ijebu Division. Ogun State,
Nigeria. February, 2010.
PREFACE
Written by Lateef Sanusi, A woman in Need is an
encompassing and experiential novel, seeking to package as much of the feels
and trills of contemporary Nigeria. The life story of the lead character, Bala,
forms the thread that holds together various aspects of the Nigerian life which
the writer takes pains to unravel. The writer introduces Bala, a member of the
national Youth Service Corps, who has returned to Nigeria to fulfill this
service. He is naturally tuned to the life he had lived overseas and uses this
as a basis for assessing the Nigerian society. Bala’s background enables the
writer to make pertinent comments about the Nigerian polity.
Being able to
compare what he finds here to what obtained in the west, makes very strong
statements about the conditions that prevail in Nigerian. Quite often, Bala is
alarmed at situations that the everyday Nigerian would gloss over as normal.
THE STORY
The story
is told around Bala, a returnee Nigerian who had schooled overseas. His roots
are firmly in Nigeria as he has a lover and a daughter, apparently a love
child. He lives with Linda and their daughter in Kano but often has to leave
them to attend to his
assignments in Riagabiu, where he is serving out his
one-year mandatory service to the nation.
Things began to turn out of shape
when he receives a rude shock on a plane. He saw someone he was so sure was
Linda on a flight. Back home, he confirms the sinking feeling in his heart.
Linda had left him, after tricking him into allowing their daughter to go to
join her parents in Abeokuta. Surviving this treachery was still on his mind
when Rashidat, his daughter takes ill. He makes the tortuous journey by rail
and road, for reasons of poor finances, to see her. He is on his way back to
Kano when he is told that Rashidat had died. His life was coming apart right
before his eyes.
Fortune throws him in Ngozi’s path. Ngozi is a wealthy woman who picks
him up and nurtures him to the point he became a part of her vast business
empire. She is eventually to become his wife. She unfortunately dies while
being delivered of a set of twins for Bala. Once more, sorrow dogs him. Between
losing Linda and meeting Ngozi, Bala makes desperate efforts to solve what he
sees as the unusually circumstances of his life. He goes through a maze of
experiences including a haunting adventure into the supernatural with a certain
spiritualist who makes all manners of summation on who Bala is and would
become.
Things happen like a blur and another twist brings the same
Linda back into his life. Linda, against all expectations and to the chagrin of
many, would again become the love of his life and inherit with him all that
Ngozi had lived and built up with Bala. The story, in spite of the multitude of
sorrows that litter its pages, ends well for Bala. He is undeniably happy to be
reunited with Linda where the world would have relished a dramatic retaliation
of Linda’s bare-faced treachery that left him severely devastated.
CRITICAL OPINIONS Critical opinions already exist, mainly
from critics who have read the draft and have evaluated the issues that emanate
from the work.
A number of critics have come down harshly on the character
of Bala who appears unwilling to do anything for himself. Becoming so used to
having people do the dirty work for him, he frequents the corridors of the
rich. Having a child out of wedlock and living with a woman unmarried do not
help his case.
This in fact underlies why some do not see Linda’s behavior as
unforgivable especially since she is not much different from Bala, wanting to
enjoy the finished product. His adventure into the realm of the spiritual
attracts knocks as well. Whereas he sees himself as deep in problems, the only
thing that can be established is that he has not found a job, weeks to
completing the national service.
This is a predicament that
cannot be considered abnormal and should not necessitate seeking spiritual
help. The death of his daughter Rashidat certainly shook him but the path he
toes is not the ones critics would recommend for everyone in the same shoes.
Yet other critics doubt the dedication Bala gave Ngozi going by the reason of
his immediate acceptance of Linda back into the affections she scorned.
Although it is hard to establish, there are suggestions that he only used Ngozi
to tide over difficult period and was glad to get his life back on the track.
This opinion has been highly debated. It is in fact seen as a commendation to
the writer for not following what would have been the most expected path of
actions. It would have been more expected and accepted course of action would
have been to outrightly reject her after making her rue her actions. Even if
she would be taken back, she would have been made to go through some grueling
process that would authenticate the new profession of love. However, these do
not happen. It is purely in recognition that human nature is not plotted on a
graph and human actions can defy logic and permutations.
THE SYTLE There is no debating that it is full novel
complete with all the trappings of a fully told tale. The writer
spreads the events in the story through the country and
takes the pains to include a number of extras that add to the full color of the
story. The story is told from the first person point of view, which allows the
writer to express his convictions. His economic and political convictions lead
the way as he reacts to the traffic situation, to the Nigerian market, to the
cost of living, to electricity challenges, to transportation and to health.
Social welfare and class segregation also find good mention in the novel. Bala
attends a party where he sees Linda, but where he would not dare move near
where her caliber (or the caliber of her escort) sat.
THE WRITER Lateef Sanusi satisfies a deep-seated desire to
strike out in the literary world. Barely finding time in his automobile company
job. He resorts to using the brief time-off coming from the short periods of
inventory-taking in the company to address his novel. The outcome is not only
satisfying for Sanusi, it is my opinion that it is an exciting work that
everyone should read.
Udoaka, Lucky Ezekiel (MNIM)
Lecturer, Lagos City
Polytechnic,
Ikeja.
Nigeria. January, 2010.
CHAPTER ONE
Getting up from siesta, I felt like I had been on my back
for two weeks. Indeed, it was owing to the Saturday all-night party I attended.
I had dined and wined like I had never done before. I went into the bathroom,
had a nice shower, and prepared myself for the journey back to Rigabiu - a
small town of about two hundred kilometres from Kano, the centre of industrial
and commercial activities in the northern part of Nigeria.
Whenever I came back
from Rigabiu to my lovely Linda to spend the weekend with her, I hated going
back to that locality. It had none of the city's pulchritude and western or
modern frolicsomeness that I had been used to while I was a secondary school
student in Lagos, and for all my close to seven years sojourn in Britain.
Moreover, to leave Linda for five days in a week was to me, like eternity.
Rigabiu is the headquarters of a local government.
Our company was carrying on
a construction project in this area, – the construction of a road that would
link Hadejia to Kano, bypassing Rigabiu. Consequently, after the day’s job, we
always pass the night at Rigabiu. We still had about three more weeks before we moved to another location where we
could pass the nights if things went on as planned.
I was about to call Linda
to give me some food when as if she knew what I have been contemplating, she
appeared and said, ‘’Bala, I think you will like to have something?’’ Truly, I
needed food more than anything else. I was just recovering from the adverse
effect of drinks. I had taken too much drink. Therefore, I needed a nice meal
before my peregrination to Rigabiu that was now a weekly ritual. This was my
routine and was bound to remain that way for the rest of my one-year national
service.
After I had eaten, I dressed up and was about to leave. In fact, Linda
and I had all along been staying together for about three years and it was only
in recent months that circumstance had compelled us to stay with each other for
only two days in a week. And two months gone, it remained only ten months which
were not much although to me, it seemed like perpetuity before I would be done
with my service year so we could live together once more and to part no more
with my lovely Linda. We had planned to have our wedding not long after I might
have finished my national service. We were unmarried and we were great lovers.
Between us, we had a baby girl from the relationship. She was two years old.
Each time I was leaving for my station, Linda would hug and
cling to me, and kiss me several times. I would feel her heartbeats like the
hammer of a blacksmith doing justice to stubborn steel. ‘Darling, how I wish you were never posted to
that construction firm for your primary assignment. Without you, life is too
boring in Kano,’ she murmured. After reassuring her, I would tell her that
there was no sacrifice that was too much for one’s nation.
I would grope for
words to explain that this would only be for one year, after which we would be
able to stay together as before till death did us part. Watching me as I packed
a few things into my bag, she started playing with my beards and planted a kiss
on my right cheek. Whenever she did this to me, I always felt on top of the
Himalayas. Linda was gorgeous and very beautiful. She was the type of woman
every man would like to introduce as his wife. I admired her long legs, good
set of teeth that glittered like diamonds.
Her silky hair reminded me of Amina
who was my secondary school mate. Amina was the first girl with whom I had
fallen in love. Those were my secondary school days when every one admired my
spirit of sportsmanship. She was the daughter of one of the most efficacious
political cum intellectual elites in the country who was then a commissioner
and who had many a time represented Nigeria and led Nigerian delegations to international deliberations.
He was unreserved in his
faithfulness and service to the nation, and would never condone any act that
violated the entrusted commitment to the society from any of his comrades or
political associates. And it is an effulgent aristocratic brilliance indeed! It
was during the inter-house sports, which was a yearly event in our school. I
represented my schoolhouse in four events: relay race, hundred-meter dash,
high-jump and slow- cycle race.
I came second in the first three events but
came first in the cycle race. It was only when I finished the cycle race that I
realized that Amina and I have been silent lovers. The slow cycle race was the
toughest of all the events that I had participated in. It lasted for thirty
minutes and the fellow who came second lost his balance a few minutes before
the race ended. Excellence in the sport required concentration, energy, and a
good bicycle.
Each participant was confined to a track about two feet wide. The
winner could be the last participant to reach the tape if he is the only one
that never went beyond the two-foot wide sidelines of the track and never
touched the earth with either of his feet until the end of the race. Going by
the rules, the contestant who kept all the rules, even if he arrived the tape
last, would be declared winner. I actually beat my former record which stood at
twenty two minutes, forty seconds.
Therefore, when at the end of the race my foot touched the
earth, it was a thunderous cheer that greeted me from the spectators.
All the
students from my schoolhouse came to congratulate me and share the moment with
me and the house in particular. Students from my schoolhouse shook hands with
me and when it was Amina’s turn, she gave me a firm kiss on the cheek. ‘You are
great Bala,” she intoned. ‘’I knew you
would make it and give the house a good representation for I have always
watched you during practice with keen interest, she added as she offered me
some glucose drink to take as it was glaring to everybody that I was exhausted.
Since then, Amina and I became an appetizing two-of-a-kind in the school. We
did things in common and those who did not know us well believed us to be
twins. Every one in the school acknowledged Amina’s beauty, her gaiety, poise,
and chocolate complexion as a rare combination. When she spoke the English
language, one needed no telling that she had a foreign orientation. She had
finished her elementary school in England. The blue blood that runs in her
veins had made her burglar-proof from many prying eyes in the school.
The only
unhappy and apprehensive moment for me in the school was when her father
withdrew her to continue her education in the United States of America. I soon
got over it since I was preparing for my final examination and would in a few months say good-bye
to secondary school life. I have often wondered what would have become of us if
her father had allowed her to remain in Nigeria. Perhaps we would have become
something more to each other or perhaps we would have broken up. Secondary
school love was not something as binding as the kind of relationship that had developed
with Linda across the years.
Linda was everything I would have wanted in a
woman. I was perfectly satisfied with what I had in Linda. Eventually, I left
the room and bid my lovely Linda goodbye. When I boarded the taxi-cab, she
stood still and would not move until the cab was out of her sight. I reached
Rigabiu at about seven in the evening.
What time it was did not matter to me
since I knew there was nothing to occupy me but to be in bed for the rest of
the night. As I was about leaving the motor park, I ran into Bello. Bello was
the field engineer in the company where I served and I was directly responsible
to him. Bello had gained a good reputation from the management owing to his
diligence, faithfulness and hardwork. Moreover, there was never a time he had
betrayed the confidence reposed on him. He had just completed his sixth year in
the company at the time I was posted there. I was posted to the company for my
one-year national service from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)
secretariat in Kano.
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