Okafor paints with words the romance between everyday Nigerians and poverty. He captures perfectly well, in this small space that is this story, our shameful reality, the vices, societal ills, the economic crunch, the failure of our government and the vomit it leaves on us all. He is able to do the magic, and in there somehow, we are made to see the turbulence.
The characters in this story that reads more like a poem in free verse, is a cross section of people, everybody. Everybody, irrespective of tribe or religion or beliefs that has been pushed to the wall by life, by our collective failure as human beings and the empty promises from the government, most times meant to placate the rich.
The young men and women abandon their villages and families for the big cities, with the hope of making their well-crafted dreams a reality, are disappointed. Though they are surrounded by so much wealth, high rise buildings, beautiful malls; their conditions don’t change, as they plunge further into a disastrous kind of poverty. Propelled by lack and ailing dreams, the ladies take to the streets, and the hustle is one that must pay. The men become gigolos, thieves and with the arrival of the internet, a new avenue opens up. They become internet fraudsters, they pretend to be women and profess undying love to vulnerable men. They profess love to women old enough to be their grandmothers, they apply all the skills they know to get their victims to part with a lot of cash. And they live their dreams temporarily; they throw parties, send money home and have their families celebrate their new found wealth.
Their joy is short-lived, as the police come after them, even as they discover a strange kind of love (men doing it to men). They device various means to leave the city, for other countries where their dreams could come through. Some are lucky to get out, others are unlucky and they remain trapped.
One cannot help but swing along with this artist, who knows just how to connect the labyrinths of the past, with that of the present and even the future.
Tochukwu OKafor is a Nigerian writer, his short story “All Our Lives,” was shortlisted for the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing.
