In The Benue, Gbotemi interrogates love, culture, widowhood

Published by Accessible Publishers Limited, formerly Rasmed Publications Limited, Winsala Gbotemi’s The Benue is one novel that you are definitely not going to regret reading.

Written in fine prose and lucid language, the novel is straightforward, and suspenseful and explores the liminal spaces between aspiration and disappointment, culture and barbarism. The author uses concrete imagery that lingers in the mind after the book has been closed

From the opening lines to the final lines, the reader is exposed to a novel dropping in a succinct narrative. He opens the narrative in a manner that is encouraging and impressive. It is a telescreen opening. In 80 words, he summarises the book.

“Makurdi, the capital city of Benue State in Nigeria, is located in Central Nigeria along the Benue River, a major tributary of the Niger River. The food basket of the nation. Benue is the home of the Tiv, Idoma, Igede, Etulo, Abakwa, Jukun, Hausa, Igbo, Igala, Akweya and Nyifon people. It is a place I will never forget in my lifetime.”

The author continues “this is an account of the tribulations I went through during my sojourn in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

From there, the author takes a jazzy journey across two continents: Africa and America. “I was a lead vocalist for an upcoming jazz band in Stanislaus County, California. I also played the bass guitar. I was very young, happy and full of life in my early 20s in the good old days. My band travelled a lot, performing at various gigs. I loved my life. I thought my life was perfect and there was no need for an element of change until my band got a night gig to perform at Henry’s Steakhouse Bar and Grill, the most sought-after restaurant in the whole of Stanislaus back then.”

This begins the harrowing story of an American woman in Makurdi, who struggled to strike a balance between her own wants and what Nigeria society and its culture want for her.

Set majorly in Makurdi, the capital of Benue State, the novel, The Benue, takes the reader through a culture that is barbaric and undignifying: A saga of mixed feelings.

The author uses the first-person narrative to tell the story. As the eye of the camera, she sees all the actions that play out in the novel, this very likeable character with strong opinion is turned upside down as a result of marrying a young and charming Nigerian after deciding to come home to Nigeria for the holiday with her husband (Honesty). The tragedy that leads to the death of her husband makes her go through the clutches of widowhood in The Benue.

It starts with the ‘oyinbo’ woman, as she calls herself, wearing her husband out with blackmail, sexual blackmail, so to say, on the need to visit Africa and her husband’s people. Like the woman who wanted justice in the Bible, having become tired, he agrees. His decision opens up the tragedy that the author tells in 143 pages.

She gets to Benue to discover that her husband’s younger brother, Innocent, has to sleep with her to preserve the life of her husband. Much as this sounded unethical in the ears of Honesty, the whole town insists that it is the culture and he has to do it.

Beyond the tales of Honesty and his wife, the novel cuts deep into the cultural fabric of a fictitious Benue community: their marriage, rotten and lackadaisical lifestyle. The fictitious community is culturally backward and in the dark ages. The community and continues to swing sorrowfully in barbarism.

Against the backdrop of a challenged landscape, the novel illuminates how Nigerian culture dictates for women. In the novel, a young woman loses her value and humanity – or most of it – without warning. Suddenly, she becomes the open sore — The tragic heroine in Gbotemi’s interrogation of love, sex, rape, cultural barbarism, widowhood and Levirate marriage.

“My journey was an unending road. It binds me with all its hurdles and trials.” However, her encounter with Faith changed everything. She killed innocent, which aided their escape from sexual bondage.

But where does it happen that you have to sleep with your brother’s wife to protect him from death? Where does it happen that a woman mourning becomes a sexual object of a family that is as satanic as the culture it is trying to protect?

These and many more issues are cramped into the novel, which makes it a good read.

If there’s anything you will not forget in a hurry in Winsala’s narrative is his style. It is suspenseful. With the use of first-person narrative, the author creates dialogues and scenes that are filled with concrete imageries. He moves the story in such a manner that scanty information about the lady’s identity is provided. The only thing you know about her is that she is a musician: a soul singer with no family, no religion and sexually active.

With Honesty and Innocent, his younger brother, she keeps a long vigil of sex, as dances the ritual of life and eventual widowhood.

Much as rituals are performed for Honesty to break bond with the earth, and for his wife to live life anew, it still cannot happen because people like Innocent, his mother and father will continue to battle the ghost of a culture that is evil, and ethically wrong.

Gbotemi’s The Benue is eye opening to other evils that lurk in the society all buried in the fabric of culture.