Outside the Gold Circle

By Emmanuel Okom

Expectations from home run high for Lucky. All the extended family resources have been spent on his university education, with the hope that he will take over the family responsibilities when he gets a good job. But a good job in the Peoples Republic is a pipe dream for graduates from many families like Luckys, who have nobody in government. He is outside the gold circle. He must penetrate it or forever be a failure.

I marvel at the authors brilliant power of succinct articulation and enticing narration. I can see an Achebe in the making. It is a handy recipe for deliberate scholarship.
Alh. Muhammad Saba

A beautiful painting in words of the dismal job situation in the country . . . .
The author has succeeded in making a case for the many Luckys out there who are outside the gold circle, with the hope that the authorities will do something about it.
Theresa Ohaegbulem

A revelation of the damages done to millions of families in this country due to unfairness in the job selection process. The author surely deserves an award for this wonderful work!
Emmanuel Ishiekwen

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Apr 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482806861

Emmanuel Okom

Emmanuel Okom hails from Nyanya-Ulim in Bekwarra Local Government of Cross River State. He is a philosopher, novelist, playwright and poet with a passion for holding the pen to paper. His other works are the following: Safer Godless? (2012), Spectacles of Poverty (2013), Police on Strike (2013), and God on Trial (2013). He currently teaches in Louisville Girls Secondary School, Old Kutunku, Gwagwalada, Abuja. He is a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Abuja.

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Copyright © 2015 by Emmanuel Okom.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The names of people and places in this novel are purely a work of fiction. The author is not to be held responsible for any insinuations the reader makes about real people and places.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Notes

Test Questions

For my loving mother, Margaret Okom,

And my late loving grandmother, Onyashi Oteh,

Under the strains of an unjust Republic

But how could they penetrate the gold circle when they were prevented from all corners? Perhaps they had to climb the walls into this circle like thieves. Perhaps too, they had to bribe their way into it. And, perhaps too, the unseen hands of providence had to catapult them into it. Whichever, they were outside it and itching to enter into it. They must enter it, or their generation would pass away again into failure, and their families would wait for another set of messiahs for another generation to come.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am ever grateful to God who said to me, Surely, Emmanuel, my son, I gave you a talent to write for the benefit of your generation. What are you doing, trying to hide this talent? Rise, pick up your pen and write! To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

I thank the Vincentians for their training and support while I was in the seminary. I do not think my history of success will be complete without them.

I am grateful to Alh. Muhammad Saba and Mrs. Theresa Ohaegbulem who read through the manuscript with dogged scrutiny and made some corrections and suggestions. May God continue to give you the strength to encourage the young ones.

I am grateful to Partridge Africa for giving my book the quality and outlook it deserves.

There are those friends of mine who have encouraged me to continue writing, in spite of the poor reading culture in the country. They are Dr. Mark Omu, Mr. Emmanuel Ishiekwen, Mr. Emmanuel Eta, Mr. Michael Angiating, to mention but a few. I thank you all, even though your names may not be mentioned here. God bless you.

I am grateful to the Sisters of St. Louis for giving me the opportunity to fan to flame my talent, especially Sr. Josephine Tiav, ssl, who was there at the very beginning when I nursed my teething aches as a new writer coming on board.

I thank the rest of you out there for your patronage. God bless you all!

CHAPTER ONE

Ukaani* Irikwom wheeled his Raleigh bicycle out of the long dirt road that led to his large compound and came onto the kerb of the New Road that ran through their village and snaked away either side to his left and to his right. He waited long enough for a crazy lorry driver, who seemed to have been told that death was waiting ahead to give him a permanent handshake, to speed dangerously past. Then he swore at the driver, saying, No abomination has ever blinded the eyes. If you have seen the day of your death, I pray you don’t take along with you those unwilling to die yet. He spoke aloud at the mighty wind that swept past him and trailed the speeding lorry, as if he hoped the driver would hear him. Ever since the New Road was finished, it seemed drivers had gone out of their mind, considering the breakneck speed with which they plied the road. He did not blame them! If it were the Old Road, he did not think they would speed like this; they would have the potholes and the rather twisted, narrow road to contend with.

The Old Road avoided Inibosinbo village by going round it from the North and continuing on its journey southwards through Igeli town and beyond it.

When the government of the People’s Republic was planning to construct the New Road right across the village, the public opinion of the villagers had gone against it. Those along its path would lose their homes. Moreover, its passing through the middle of the village would expose its inhabitants to the danger of being run over by motorcars. The mouth, they say, spoke and the head agreed, so the saying goes. The road had only been constructed and the village had already lost five of its members to it.

So Inibosinbo village lay panting at the mouth of death, because the proceeds of development and civilization were tempting baits of the People’s Republic. And Inibosinbo village was one of the many fractions that made up the Republic. When the government of the People’s Republic sealed the lips of the king of Inibosinbo with a handsome bribe and likewise gave money to those who would suffer losses and displacement due to the road construction, they agreed that the road should pass through their village.

Ukaani Irikwom was neither affected by the displacement nor was he one of those parents who had lost a child or relative to the New Road, but he blanched at the thought that he had to leave his compound all the time with his bicycle and come face to face with the road. Even now as he waited to mount his bicycle and ride to Uchaga Market, he felt a sick sensation at the thought of plying the New Road all by himself.

When the crazy lorry driver swept past, he attempted to mount his bicycle and cross the road, partitioned at the centre by long, white rectangles that followed one another in succession, but an equally crazy bus driver going northwards whistled past him like a messenger of death late for his unholy assignment. Then he heaved a sigh of relief when he looked left, right and left again and saw that the road was clear. He quickly placed his left foot on the pedal and pushed forward, his right foot making short, quick, forward steps on the tarred road that gave the bicycle velocity. Then, when he satisfied himself that the bicycle had gathered enough momentum to give him balance, he took his weight off the ground and threw his right foot over the bicycle and mounted it.

Popu-popuu! his bicycle horn sounded like the last trumpet of the Second Coming. He had specifically removed the follow-come metal bell which rather shrieked like a child’s toy and replaced it with this ear-piercing, rubber-butted horn. You simply forked the neck of the horn with two fingers and your thumb pushed in the rubber butt, to give you the desired effect. He replaced the follow-come bell when he realised that pedestrians no longer seemed to hear him in order to leave the road at his approaching. He thought that the new generation was becoming deafer and deafer, with its change towards sophistication. He thought that if it were possible, the church missionary bell was a rather most suitable option for his bicycle. Even with this popu popuu, pedestrians still found it difficult to leave the road.

Right now as he cycled along, some villagers who were either trekking to their homes or going to Uchaga Market called out to him in greeting and he simply waved his reply, looking every now and then behind him to make sure that he was in no danger of being hit by a car coming behind him. He was not ready to take chances on this wide road which opened up to you like the yawning mouth of the sky, or, rather, like the mouth of a cobra ready to swallow its prey.

l-Papa l-Lucky, are you well? a pedestrian called out to him, and he simply lifted his right hand into the air and waved without a single word. He thought that if he were sick he would not be riding a bicycle. But that was the cultural way his people greeted; they asked you whether you were well, as if you were in the hospital. And it was the cultural foible of his people to add the /i/ (sound) to names beginning with consonants

His first son’s name was Lucky. He had been a graduate for five years now and was out in the Capital looking for a good job which was proving very difficult to get.

"Irikwom does not fear the harbinger of death," another pedestrian, an age grade member of his, greeted in a peculiar way. He simply showed his right palm in the air, to show that he acknowledged the greeting. His name, Irikwom, meaning a corpse, served as a jovial spice to his personal relationship with his peers. Were he not cycling, he would simply reply: No, a corpse does not die twice. They would, by any chance, meet in Uchaga Market anyway.

Then, as he cycled along, very conscious of overtaking motorcars and motorcycles, he heard the voice of someone who was shouting in a compound close to the right side of the road. The voice was saying, "A child who asks for palm kernel should not cry of stomach ache. No one dares fire for the sake of pleasure. Any child who looks for my trouble will find it. I will give the child ululu*, then let his parents come and ask me." It was Inanobi speaking. He was Ukaani Irikwom’s in-law. Children were in the habit of taunting him and calling him names.

Right now, he was complaining against a little boy who called him "Inanobi, o nar’iye min*." The boy had already run into his mother’s bedroom and was crouching in safety under her bed.

Inanobi wore some ragged attire with a dirty raffia bag to go with it. The bag hung down from his left shoulder to his right. His drinking cup which he used to beg drinks from various donors peeped out of his raffia bag. He held big stones in both hands. He was a good marksman with the stones. Children who knew him had to maintain safe distances before they taunted him or called him names. Children who were ignorant of how exact he was when stoning his targets, who were too carelessly close to him while calling, always went home with ululu.

Ukaani Irikwom only smiled a kind of dry, flavourless smile that did not reach his heart, as he cycled along. He knew that Inanobi was a funny village character who added colour and flavour to the rustic life. He equally knew that Inanobi was guilty as accused, having raped his mother in the past. And, painful enough, he knew that Inanobi was his in-law. It is the ant that causes earth to climb a tree, he swore softly under his breath. When you bear children, they’ll lead you to places you’d rather not go, he said to himself. It was his son, Ofinhe, who caused him to be an in-law to a person like Inanobi. The knowledge of these ugly matters gave him lesser pain than the immediate burden on his heart. His heart was heavy, like a camel burdened with a heavy, suffocating load.

Lucky, his first son, was his problem. He had done all he could to give him a university education, with the hope that he would take over from him and in turn train his brothers to the same level of education that he had received. But all this seemed a pipe dream, considering how difficult it took those of them who had nobody in government to get jobs. Was it easy giving him a university education? he questioned himself as he progressed towards Uchaga Market. No, he almost answered aloud. I had to plead with my first and second daughters who are his half-sisters to help every semester. And they did. I always told them to remember that Lucky would get a good job and take care of their own brothers, and even their children. But for five years now he is still searching for a job. It is not normal! Look now, Ofinhe and Idoko, his half-brothers, are a real village nuisance because there is no money to send them to school. He shifted on his bicycle seat as if he were sitting on a chair, and the bicycle went left, further into the road, and then right, away from it. Then a Dangote trailer whipped past and the force of the breeze almost threw him into a nearby bush. Then he came out of his world of woe and righted the bicycle on its course.

Uchaga Market was about a kilometre away from his home. It was when he was right into the market that he realised that he had reached his destination. He did not even know when he rode past the police station on his left, which was located a short distance away from the market. The New Road suddenly opened up on either side onto a large expanse of land, peopled with trees and human beings either buying or selling, or sitting and drinking palm wine or irimi*. Many shades, made of wood and thatch, were scattered here and there in the market. These were mostly owned by individuals. Other shades, made of iron poles and corrugated iron sheets, were also scattered here and there among these others. They were owned not by individuals but by the various age grades in Inibosinbo.

As Ukaani Irikwom alighted from the bicycle, he wheeled it to a safe corner, secured the bicycle lock and made for Unye* l-Power’s palm wine shade. It was here that he always had his pastime in the evenings before he retired home to his family.

The drinking of palm wine and irimi was a pastime in Inibosinbo village. And Unye l-Power lived up to this need by proving to be the best palm wine seller in the trade. She never diluted her palm wine with water, like other sellers did for selfish gain. She had trusted suppliers who sold her very good palm wine which she mixed up in two large, black rubber containers, each capable of holding about twenty gallons of palm wine. After the palm wine from various trees were mixed together, they produced salubrious bubbles capable of expelling mild malaria or a little eye problem from your system. But the problem with it was when you took more than your body system could carry.

The story was told of Inanobi who mellowed in his drinking habit ever since he drank from various donors who drank at Unye I-Power’s. It was said that for three days he neither saw the sun nor the moon. He had taken more than his body system could carry, and it was said that he nearly vomited his gut out. When he recovered several days later from the effect of the overdose, the men of Inibosinbo always taunted him thereafter by repeating what he always said to children when they taunted him or called him names. Each time he showed signs of over-drinking a man would say to him, A child who does not wait for the right age to take snuff should not cry when he begins to sneeze like a demented monkey. Then he would reply with a jovial face, A full-fledged man should also remember to take his snuff with caution, lest it should cause his eyes to water.

CHAPTER TWO

Perhaps, without drinking as a pastime in Inibosinbo village, life would have been drab and irksome for the married men, widowers and widows, and for the singles who had tasted the public drinking life. Of course, no reasonable married woman came openly to drink in Uchaga Market like these others. If any married woman ever dared, she stood the risk of being thrown out of her marital home by her husband.

In the evenings after their farming activities and their other businesses, some of the married men, widowers, widows and singles converged on Uchaga Market and passed the time while they chatted on different