Old traditions and new realities meet in Ifeoma Chinwuba’s ‘Sons of the East’
By Mike Ekunno
TRYING to put a finger on what should be the theme of Sons of the East by Ifeoma Chinwuba (Griots Lounge Publishing, Canada; 2023) would be like the proverbial seven blind men trying to make sense of the elephant’s physiology. But this is not for lack of a narrative arc that knits together the disparate sub-plots and sub-themes which garnish the central story of the Igbo mercantile class with the internecine family disputes that is the bane of Eastern Nigeria. This central stream is fed by tributaries that spur far afield to the quest for the male child as heir, Igba Boi apprentice Igbo heritage, patriarchy and its oppressive manifestations, primogeniture of love children, Igbo privations in the Nigerian polity and half a dozen others.
In its central story, the work portrays Jasper, a tragic hero and middle sibling of Zona and Rapu, the elder first son and last born respectively. Jasper has been ‘freed’ from apprenticeship in the auto-parts trade and ‘settled’ by his master. He sets up shop in Lagos, marries Amata, a graduate from a wealthy family and is blessed with twin boys at first try. Zona, the first son and elder brother is a mogul in the same trade but fights insecurity because of his litter of daughters without a son. Rapu is just starting out in a suburb of Abuja but is already jealous of Jasper’s good fortune with marrying up and from a wealthy family. The seething sibling rivalry is not helped by inheritance customs that foist two love children of the late Agbisi Okonkwo to share in his assets to Zona’s chagrin and Jasper’s acquiescence. These all play out against the backdrop of Opaku community’s age-old custom of ‘Ikwuchi’ whereby a widow is inherited by any of the late husband’s relatives so chosen.
Jasper is sensitive to his brothers’ feelings and had to give up riding the brand-new Toyota Prado SUV gift from his father-in-law just so that he wouldn’t trigger their jealousy. He also tries to be conciliatory even when denied his legit share of inheritance. But does he succeed at the end? This brings to mind the real-life version of a late newspaper publisher who wants to buy himself a Rolls Royce as a young man. Broaching the matter with his eldest brother, he is asked how the four other brothers would feel seeing him riding a Rolls. He leaves the meeting in pensive mood. Next comes a line-up of five gleaming Rolls Royce cars – one for each of his brothers – to assuage the embers of jealousy. As with our fictional tragic hero, the question to ponder is whether that masterstroke is sufficient to appease the entitled brethren of our astute publisher who has litigated his legacy after his death.
Sons of the East would not be the first work that explores its various themes and sub-themes. Before it, there has been the prize-winning The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe that beams the light on the cultural fixation with the male child. The fact that authors and Nollywood directors on this theme have been mainly Ndi-Igbo should not lull anybody’s senses to its generic presentation across Africa if not worldwide. Regarding the Igba Boi apprentice system, again there has been a renascence of both literary and cinematic interests in the subject. While Genevieve Nnaji’s Lionheart gives the Igbo trader story its first major treatment on the big screen, Afamefuna: Nwa Boi Story takes the apprenticeship tale a further notch up. These are apart from scores of academic papers and NGO studies on the practice.
Sons of the East as a worthy addition to fiction set in Igboland stands on the iconic shoulders of its precursors going back to Achebe and Things Fall Apart. However, it ups the ante in this niche by the breadth of its thematic sweep and the contemporariness of its subject matters. The work parades an elevated diction which delightfully carries the author’s keen sense of observation. While zeroing in on sex trade, the author posits: “A woman carried currency between her legs… which she used to acquire any object she liked, from a certificate to a car, to a house.” There’re many teachable moments delivered through pithy remarks. On p.195, Jasper is chatting with his wife, Amata, and dismisses the prospect of becoming apprentice after marriage as serving two masters. “‘Who is the second?’ asks his wife. ‘A man’s wife is his master, Amata, whether he likes it or not,’ he laughed.”
Part of what irresistibly recommends the novel is its rootedness in social consciousness. Thus we see the author through the agency of the characters taking subtle social commentary digs at a variety of subjects ranging from anti-female cultural norms to injustice against the Igbo. These social commentary riffs are expertly woven as not to be in-your-face advocacy writing. They constitute the selah moments to pause and consider. In one instance, a daughter-in-law, Charity, takes up her mother-in-law on why the elder woman is so docile in stomaching her husband’s extra-marital affairs in the guise of obeying a cultural dictate: “You elders did not advocate the cause of future generations of women. You took shit. Now we must accept as much; otherwise, the men will condemn us…”
In Sons of the East, Chinwuba deftly captures the showy materialism that drives the Igbo mercantilist class and the erosion of values that has entailed for the larger tribe. The greater tragedy lies in how the lifestyle of this errant part has been inducted as a metonym for the whole by the larger Nigerian society. This has offset a complex web of reactions that harks back to the perceived privations of the Igbo in the Nigerian polity. For example, in a community where the police are bribed heavily to oppress a kinsman, the same outfit soon learns it can set up shop for the highest bidder and extorts the eastern highways thereby. Meanwhile, in other regions of the country, it still manages to maintain a modicum of integrity unlike in Igboland.
* Ekunno, winner of the inaugural Harambee Literary Prize, freelance book editor and speechwriter, is the author of thort story collection, Soul Lounge
