Review of "Vagabonds" by Eloghosa Osunde
This is a novel that makes the bold attempt to
be a literary manifesto of sorts for Nigeria’s LGBTQ community. The
introductory pages of the book make that clear. The opening pages have the
following notices from the author: “There are simple and good and
straightforward and well-behaved people, I’m sure. But this is
not a book about them.” The author also defines the word “Vagabond” as a
Nigerian noun (used) “In the states of Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano,
Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara,” to refer to “any male person who
dresses or is attired in the fashion of a woman in a public place or who practices
sodomy as a means of livelihood or as a profession.” In the author’s definition
for the female vagabond, the word covers “any female person who dresses or is
attired in the fashion of a man in a public place.”
The novel is also an ode to Lagos, exploring
some of the myths and fascinations that the city holds for both the dwellers
and outsiders looking into that complex city. “There is an eye following you
and you know. Everywhere you go, e dey look you. The eye is made up of people.
The eye does not blink, talk less of sleep. The eye is us, curious. The eye is
a city; this eye na Lagos.”
The novel starts off quite well, exploring a popular
Nigerian urban legend: the football match between India and Nigeria, which
every one knows Nigeria lost 100 to 0, even though no video or formal of the
match exists in FIFA’s archives. We meet Thomas who makes the mistake of
standing at the market place, bending and staring between his knees at the
market, on Christmas eve. The reader also meets Johnny, who leaves Uyo to join
his cousin, Clement, in Lagos to become a driver to a very powerful unscrupulous
man, Mr H, with a terrible source of income that demands silence: “State that
your tongue in your mouth does not move, whether your oga is there or not,”
Johnny is told when he arrives at his new boss’s Lagos home. To complicate the
already warped situation, Johnny gets into an “entanglement” with Mr H’s
personal assistant, Livinus, whose mouth can’t keep shut and causes trouble. The
reader also gets the shapeshifting “Hoverer” Toju, who is also bisexual, who
moves from body to body, slips in and out of them, appears to fall in love with
men, and then abandons them — spiritual one night stands and flings, if you
will. There is also the most memorable character for this writer — Wura
Blackson, who “started out by making dresses for herself and her best friends,
after all; all of them from families whose fathers were corrupt leaders who’d
robbed the country insane…Wura’s work stood out because her creativity was
bottomless.” There are several other characters, which allows room for a
weakness that can engender — the room for exploring them is very limited, thus
limiting how interesting and memorable they can be, or be made to be by an
author.
There are several references to the Same-Sex
Marriage (Prohibition) Bill signed into law in Nigeria on January 7, 2014,
which stipulates long jail terms for those who enter into same-sex marriage
contract or civil union (14 years in prison), any individuals or groups,
including religious leaders who “witness, abet, and aid the solemnization of a
same-sex marriage or union,” (10 years in prison). Those who “directly or
indirectly make [a] public show of [a] same-sex amorous relationship” and
anyone who “registers, operates, or participates in gay clubs, societies, and
organizations,” are also subject to, upon conviction serve 10 years in prison. “Where
were you on the thirteenth of January 2014, when that law was passed?” asks “Tatafo”,
a narrator (or whatever they may be). The latter half of the novel explores the
difficulties faced by Nigeria’s LGBTQ community. “God hates boys who love
boys,” says a Sunday school teacher, which makes fourteen-year-old Junior, one
of the characters, wonder, “Or did God make me on a day when He was too tired,
when He was taking a break from being God?” “And besides, he’s learned that
people keep their sins to themselves as a matter of etiquette,” Junior notices.
The novel has more adult characters falling in and out of same sex
relationships, most of them concealing the relationships so as not to cause
embarrassment to family. Of course, the hypocrisy of some religious houses
courting members of the LGBTQ community, and paying them to pretend to be
healed of the spirit of homosexuality is explored.
Eloghosa Osunde is a wonderful wordsmith. She
puts the words together in an impressive manner, blending the King’s English
effortlessly with Pidgin English and current Nigerian slang reflective of the
day. This unashamed pride in the street talk of Nigeria is wonderful to observe.
One could not help but be awed by it
all. The first half of the novel was fascinating to read. However, the novel
became a drag midway. The last chapter “Tatafo (Water No Get Enemy!” was a
great struggle to read, for me; its incoherence was a marvel. One of those
things you have to complete because you know you have to get it done to get
what the point of the novel is.
“If anybody deserves to live…it is us. It is
us, after all this dying we have done,” goes the final line of the novel.
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