Ejiro Umukoro’s ‘Distortion’: When victims of society’s stigmatisation hold minors hostage

By Anote Ajeluorou

VICTIMHOOD is a terrible place to be. When that sense of victimhood is induced by forces beyond the control of the victim, it becomes doubly worse. And when such victim or victims manage to secure a foothold and decide to pay society back with its own dirty coin, its consequences are usually ugly, and play out the Chinese proverb that enjoins those on revenge mission to dig two graves: one for their victim, one for themselves. This aptly illustrates the multi-layered themes Ejiro Umukoro’s Distortion, a novel that explores the themes of stigma, ostracisation and pariah, on one hand, and society being complicit in child neglect and slavery, on another. Ultimately, society is complicit in enabling certain evils that plague its soul, with the vulnerable ones suffering unimaginable consequences.

Two characters – Abu and Mama G – are at the epicentre of the novel, as they grapple with society that is keen to keep them at the margins for no fault of theirs. It is an incredible irony that in spite of the inherent good of the two characters, society is unforgiving of their nameless ‘sin’, as their unravelling starts even by being a good man and a good woman. Abu as a trained pharmacist, now reduced to a chemist in his local Umu-Oti community, is keenly interested in alleviating the medical conditions of his ignorant and illiterate patrons, and is willing to dispense drugs at cheap rates or even for free. He does not crave uncommon love, but a sense of belonging in his own community. However, a stigma hangs over his neck. Abu’s paternal ancestor and medicine man had had a dispute with another man with such expertise in ages past, and somehow manipulated the situation against his illustrious ancestor. And more than four generations later, Umu-Oti community is unforgiving as it continues to hang that ancient stigma on Abu and his mother, who would succumb to depression and dying in the process. As a result, no maiden in Umu-Oti wants Abu’s hand in marriage, but are eager to collect his money anyway if he merely showed interest in them.

To sate his lust, Abu has to patronise brothels, but even this doesn’t end well. Until he develops the ugly strategy of drugging fruit and food hawkers in his shop to sate his ragging passion. But there’s a certain woman watching and waiting for Abu to slip…

Mama G’s marriage does not produce a child before she loses her husband, and she’s made to undergo the most humiliating widowhood rites ever conjured by man: drinking water used in washing her husband’s dead body to prove her innocence in his untimely death. What is worse, Mama G does not have a trade or business to fall back on and falls into dire penury. Hunger pangs reduce her to rags until she meets a ‘man of god’ and finds a devious way out of her poverty. But like Umu-Oti, Mama G does not forget or forgive either; a stone would sit where her heart once sat to pave the way for her eventual metamorphosis into a vengeful prey…

Now, the stage is set for Abu, the pariah, and Mama G the pariah-turned-predator to meet again after an initial purposeless dalliance, and this meeting would alter the lives of the vulnerable young girls Mama G has taken into her sham charity centre that’s actually a baby factory. Inside Mama G’s baby factory is unimaginable horrors that young girls experience, young girls spewed out onto the streets by otherwise respectable members of society – runaway domestic hands who can’t bear the hardships of their lives under the roofs of those who should protect them but who have turned demons instead; parents who can’t provide for an army of children no one forced them to give birth to; uncles and aunts who take children under their care supposedly to nurture and educate, but who turn them into objects of slavery, malnourishment and maltreatment. How do these supposedly respectable members of society look at themselves in the mirror every morning and not wince at their own inhumanity to these minors under their charge? Umukoro has obviously provided a serious matter for psychological analysts to ponder over.

And when Akpobrume misfires at his news desk and is sent to remote Umu-Oti to serve out his journalistic indiscretion, it’s just about the moment of the unravelling of Abu and Mama G’s phoney orphanage home. A certain teenager Mena has newly arrived the hideous centre, and it’s her turn to tickle the perverse fantasy of Dr. Inseminator Abu whose duty it is to get the maidens pregnant. But he miscalculates in his indulgence, as he forces his turgid member into Mena’s mouth, to which she gives vice-like canine death grip, and her aggressor lets loose a howling wail. Angry Umu-Oti youths have just discovered the body of Mena in a shallow grave and are on a vengeful mission to Mama G’s centre..

Umukoro’s Distortion enjoins an introspection among African societies on some of their practices that are founded on ignorance, superstition based on unexamined ancient practices that still mould modern social consciousness and ultimately harm vulnerable members of that same society. Abu and Mama G certainly do not deserve the stigma and ostracisation treatment they get from their respective societies. These are what set the two on collision course with society, to avenge their victimhood status. But is revenge a wise course of action to take?

How society treats its minors and vulnerable members is at the heart of Distortion, a society distorted by its own victimisation practices. Mama G is a victim of society that is unforgiving of women who cannot bear children, just as Abu is a victim of society plagued by unjust stigma. A failure of society towards its vulnerable young ones is palpable in Umukoro’s Distortion. Children who are denied education and so forced to hawk sundry items in the scorching sun all day are bound to fall sexual victims, especially girls, to dubious characters who can offer them food or money. Mena escapes her uncle’s home to the streets, an uncle who promised to send her to school but reneges on his promise, with his wife turning the young girl into a domestic slave; she ends in the waiting but evil arms of Mama G. It’s an endless, vicious circle of neglect and victimisation.

Umukoro’s Distortion, which has been adopted for schools by the Ministry of Education of Delta State Government, is a call for immediate action to save society from itself. Society’s vulnerable ones are also its future. Subjecting them to all manner of horrors is certainly in bad taste and serves society no good.

In Distortion, Umukoro brings her investigative journalism work to bear in making a strong case for social reforms. Indeed, Distortion is a product of Umukoro’s journalism investigative work from which she has fictionalised her experience. What she has given us is a rich though sour meal of narrative power in using creative fiction for advocacy. Journalism is recording history in a hurry; the next day’s headlines easily trump today’s riveting ones, but fiction is far more enduring, and something to go back to as often as possible. Umukoro has tapped deeply into this enduring value of fiction to rework her journalism to continuously prick our consciences. Her work urges us to rise and stand up against certain abuses and practices that subject some members of society to needless pariah status and protect them. Damaging ancient practices like osu caste system, wicked widowhood rites, and child neglect deserve scrutiny with a view to abolishing them altogether. All these practices must be outlawed without exception, so characters like Mama G and Abu don’t emerge to taint society.