Celebrating Cyprian Ekwensi’s ‘The Drummer Boy’ @65
Ekwensi crowned ‘King of the Novella in Nigeria’
By Lizi Ben-Iheanacho
THIS year marks the 65th publication anniversary of two of Cyprian Ekwensi’s books: The Drummer Boy and The Passport of Mallam Ilia. Ekwensi was so prolific in his chosen genre that he often published two titles in a year. He had in his creative repertoire another twin publications: An African Night Entertainment and Burning Grass, both published in 1962.
This article is a celebration of The Drummer Boy whose publication date is January 3, but the exact date for Passport of Mallam Ilia is not available. Further, while An African Night Entertainment might be Ekwensi’s most famous children’s book, The Drummer Boy is the most beloved. A recent Google search revealed a 99% like among readers of the book, and a 4/5 rating by Goodreads. It is most fascinating to note that Goodreads paired Damilare Kuku’s Nearly All The Men in Lagos Are Mad with The Drummer Boy as similar books. Thus, confirming the timelessness and trans-generational resonance of the book.
Said to be the fictionalized life story of Benjamin Kokoro Aderounmu, a blind minstrel on the streets of post-colonial Lagos, Kokoro went about giving joy to the high society of newly independent Nigeria flush on oil wealth and slush, through his music. Ekwensi’s The Drummer Boy tells the story of a talented blind drummer boy and itinerant entertainer with an undisclosed unhappiness and longing beyond the surface of his street entertainment. Set in cosmopolitan Lagos, the city renowned for its 24/7 hustle and bustle with never-ending entertainment and celebrity steeze, the novella explored the foibles behind the glitz and glamour, the melancholy that is the lot of Lagosians behind the throbbing drums that never cease.
Some of the themes of the book are as relevant today as six decades and a half ago. Here are some of those topical insights spiced with contemporary commentary: The wandering, homeless, and poverty-stricken urchins typified by Akin, the drummer boy, are still very much with us; the almajari of the cities of the North being the current face of the menace of ostentatious performance of charity. Street thugs are bolder, rule over designated territories, and levy taxes on citizens with impunity. Ghetto kings are eulogized and hyped as saviors while law enforcement is seemingly overwhelmed. The Drummer Boy remains a cry against lack of parental care, street begging, and the absence of social safety net for abandoned children. There is still room for tales of national healing and rehabilitation of these socially misaligned individuals to enlarge the repertoire of Nigeria’s literary corpus.
The treatment of the physically disabled in the Nigerian society has not changed much beyond a change in nomenclature to people living with disabilities. Public infrastructure planning hardly takes them into account, neither does social attitude which encourages a pro-poverty mindset where the pauperized depend on a benefactor/philanthropist for hand outs. This system sanctifies engagement with the disabled from the prism of piety, pity, and charity. The handicapped have limited opportunities for self-actualization in such circumstances. The Drummer Boy remains a call for constructive engagement with disabilities and social transformation. Though the number of vocational centres across the country have increased, access to formal education for the blind is hindered by the none availability of texts in Braille.
The undisclosed unhappiness in Akin’s eyes is mirrored in the designer glasses covering eyes of most contemporary Lagos ‘yeyebrities.’ The facade of glam, glitz, and jamz hides so much sleaze behind the steeze. Hence the never-ending merry-go-round to hide the truth they fear to confront at moments of introspection.
Lagos, the setting of the book, is a country; as Funke Awodiya would opine. Therefore, it is the national headquarters of street intrigues where survival is coded and dependent on how much the master of counter-intrigues one is. Hence, the naive fall mugu to the street smart just as Akin did to Herbert and his three criminal associates. Street survival in Lagos has an energy of its own, celebrated by Broda Shaggi, and folksy grass-to-grace encounters with kind hearted, magical defining moments such as Obi Cubana’s offer of scholarship and employment to Jeremiah Ekunna, the pure water hawker who went viral for giving money from his meager profits to inmates in a Nigerian Correctional Service bus at Ajah. A similar surreal scene was the bread-hawking Olajumoke Orisanuga catapulted to international catwalk elevation, and photobombed her way to a modeling career. For Akin, his fairy godmother is Madam Bisi and a network of supporters. The lesson here being that: crazy as life in Lagos is, there are still good people on the streets of Lagos, changing lives for the better as easily as waving the magic wand.
Music remains the universal language of mankind. Even when we do not understand the lyrics, the rhythm rules. However, it is also a truism that the highway to stardom is paved with the artists’ susceptibility to manipulation and wrong-end-of-stick deals. Tales out of artists repertoire in their rise to celebrity status are replete with the exploitation of their talents and creativity by fraudulent managers. Artist and manager relationship is often a high wire, toxicity prone entanglement. Predatory producers and talent twitters litter the streets and highways of creativity management. Hence, Ekwensi celebrates individuals genuinely committed to Akin the artist’s growth. Such as Madam Bisi, Nurse Joe, Fletcher and Ayike. The flip side is the condemnation of Herbert and his crooked associates for luring budding artists into unholy alliances for stardom.
Sixty five years on, The Drummer Boy remains a constant text on schools reading list. However, in recent times it has been subjected to brazen piracy and horrendous quality reprints. These are boldly hawked on the streets of Abuja where I live, by unconcerned itinerant book peddlers with an eye quick on the Naira and humongous disdain for Intellectual Property issues and the niceties of book production.
Ekwensi has earned his stripes as the ‘King of the Novella in Nigeria’. He remains the master of the craft renowned for brevity of form, pithy perception, and racy presentation. It is in acknowledgement of his enduring legacy that the T. Y Buratai Literary Initiative in November 2024, conferred on him the Forerunner Award in the development of Young Adult Literature in Nigeria.
* Dr. Ben-Iheanacho is a writer and literary critic
