Lightseekers by Femi Kayode: A Review

 

A fascinating thriller with a unique perspective on Nigerian crime fiction. Dr Phillip Taiwo, Nigerian-born investigative psychologist, and former employee of the San Francisco Police Department, has gone against the popular trend. He has returned to Nigeria from the United States of America, with his family, Professor Folake Taiwo, his wife (“the youngest professor at the University of Lagos”), and their teenage children.

Phillip is contracted by Emeka Nwamadi, owner of National Bank, “one of Nigeria’s three largest banks” to unravel the circumstances leading to the murder his son, Kevin Nwamadi, law student of the State University in Okriki, Rivers State, Nigeria. Kevin was murdered along with two other male students in a mob action, after they were accused of being armed robbers — the type Nigerians popularly call “jungle justice”.

The novel has the typical twists and turns worthy of a good thriller. There were thought-provoking observations on the Nigerian condition, which I recognized, having to live this reality. Dr Phillip Taiwo is often puzzled, like I am, by “This immediate violent reaction to everything in Nigeria.” There are also insightful takes on the nature of mob action/justice (“Many people walk away from such an experience horrified by their role in it. They’ve been known to repress selected memories or embellish them either to exonerate themselves or justify their role.”) There is also the frustration of the justice-deprived Nigerian who justifies “jungle justice”: “Jungle justice is better than no justice,” declares Chief Kinikanwo Omeriji, paramount chief of Okrikri town, who defends his people’s mob murder of the three university students. The powerless of the rich even in the face of Nigeria’s malfunction is also observed with simplicity; as Phillip observes, “Emeka’s frustration that despite his wealth, he was unable to save his son and powerless to force a proper investigation into his death permeates all of my interactions with him.” I was amused that one of the characters is named Godwin Emefele, whose name bears a striking resemblance to Godwin Emefiele, the former governor of Nigeria's Central Bank of Nigeria, who is currently in bad odour with Nigeria's security agencies.

The factual inaccuracies were the downers in my experience of the novel. Chief Omeriji’s recollections of the Nigerian Civil War suggests that the conflict lasted for 6 years; a terrible fallacy that is risky when one considers that many of Nigeria’s (young) readers may be unfamiliar with the story of the war. “For six years, we could hear bombs and explosions as close as Warri. Dying soldiers came. Hungry children and women walked miles to get here,” Chief Omeriji recalled.

In his acknowledgements, the author thanks a lawyer for his legal advice; the lawyer somehow managed not to inform the author about the fallacy of this statement, “The fact that murder is a capital offence could have easily made this a federal case.” In Nigeria, murder cases are tried by the states. Nigeria’s 36 states each have a Director of Public Prosecutions, in the Attorney–General' s office of each of those states who prosecute grievous offences such as murder, armed robber and state governors are responsible for signing the death warrants of individuals convicted of capital offences. The author is probably more familiar with the judicial system, and assumed the same applies in Nigeria.

And it's the Nigeria Police Force, not the Nigerian Police Force, as stated in Lightseekers.

Which leads to my second criticism; there are several unrealistic dialogues filled with Americanisms that are uncommon in the cadence of daily Nigerian conversation. I read some of the conversations and cringed, because the Americanisms were out of place.

It's a novel worth the read.