A READER'S FARAD

Book Title: Farad

Author: Emmanuel Iduma

Publisher: Parresia books

Pages: 207

There are eight distinct stories in Farad and each story introduces the major players in a church drama that climaxed in the penultimate story. "Farad” is a child of many disciples and it is obvious that its writer is a connoisseur of books. Through his characters, Iduma reels out book titles, quotes, and flaunts his healthy reading appetite. He takes us through Literature, philosophy, psychology. There is a fusion of these disciplines as he relates them to the thoughts of his characters, sometimes random, sometimes crucial.

UNIVERSITY BLUES: DAY DEAN DANCED

In his veins bubbled fury,

From his face trickled sweat,

Up above a persistent din,

There boomed a furious dean,

"What’s this awful rumpus,

On my part of this campus?"

"You filthy hooligans,

Is this bloody ruction,

That higher education,

Your whorish mama took a loan

To send you here for?

Your asses back to their classes,

Dumbass freakish donkeys!"

Who knew the portly dean,

Babariga dancing in the wind,

Corpulent buttocks jiving

To a macabre drum of feet,

The din chasing at long last,

Could scamper so damn fast?

Written by: The one whose name adorns the fucking masthead.

C'MON, GOD DOESN'T REALLY EXIST

DEAR GOD...

Does God exist? Does He not exist? Is Santa God minus the divine swag? Is He Santa’s bigger, more powerful, better dressed, and more successful twin brother? Is He a collection of ideas on a supreme and divine authority? To answer this question, I went several better than the guy who wrote this famous article (the comments are gold): I shaved my head (my scalp is really ugly), bought a few Mosaic robes (and a pair of sandals that resembles that which Moses had to take off in that burning grass story), left Lagos and went to my hometown. Now, in my town, there’s a hill called the Olosunta. In the dry season, morningly mists hang thick over the land, North-Easterly Harmattan winds blow a chill across the land, untended lips split in half, epidermises left to their own devices gain an ugly whitish hue and Olosunta scrapes the clouds. This was where I went to be near Nature, the driving force behind life. I ate nothing but wild berries and the raw meat of

A SUDDEN MUSHROOM CLOUD

No one knew when and how it crept upon the populace, but as at Ocober 2012, almost everyone that was anyone was referred to with a three-letter shrinking of their actual names. Perhaps it was a reflection of a society more in haste than ever. Perhaps it was a reflection of how social media and its restriction of space for the written word were beginning to constrict the robustness of speech. Perhaps society has never been lazier than it is now. Perhaps names are just too long nowadays. Therefore, the Tottenham Hotspurs coach is simply known as AVB; one-time minister and current religious crackpot as FFK; the Chelsea FC coach as RDM; one-time Nigerian military ruler as GMB and current Nigerian president as GEJ. But all these men are not relevant in the unfolding events. Only one is, and his sobriquet is BRF.

In 2011, BRF, otherwise known as Babatunde Raji Fashola, won a second term as governor of Nigeria’s most important state – Lagos. To a foreigner or one who has only merely heard the word “Lagos” from a distance and never been in it, the election would appear keenly contested as the candidates campaigned. But to Lagos itself, BRF was the undisputed choice, given the turn-around Lagos had undergone in the previous four years. Now, on an October day when Nature was snivelly in most parts of Lagos, BRF sat at the head of a long table, the only long table in the Governor’s Situation Room. This room, except for where Asiwaju was concerned, is where all the decisions that the Lagos State Government make is arrived at. Where Asiwaju is concerned, BRF is simply summoned to Asiwaju Lodge in Ikoyi, one of Asiwaju’s many homes around the world, and after a few hours of sometimes frantic jaw-jawing, Asiwaju’s word became law. Asiwaju was not involved today, and the decision-making had been left entirely to the State Executive Committee. The State Executive Committee consisted of BRF himself, as Governor, Madam Kuforiji Williams, as Deputy Governor, and all the commissioners in charge of ministries in the state. Of those 23, men and women, only six, all seated facing one another in front of the governor, three on each side of the table, were here today. Five Commissioners – the

A SHORT CANTER TO FREEDOM | A Short Story

I flick my tail, once, twice, thrice. I’m preparing for action. I should have done this long ago, but I’m here, nonetheless, at this verge. I begin to move my considerable limbs, on one spot, like I’m an athlete limbering, on the verge of glory. Yes, I’ve once spied a television. Rasheed notices my sudden activity. He pulls at the bit. This time, I don’t respond in the way he’s used to. I don’t snap into submission, ready to obey the master’s will, ready to let some hapless, cowardly beach-goer, who can’t bear to stay on me without help for a mere thirty seconds mount me, like the white men mount the dirty sluts of Taqwa Bay, as he poses for pictures. Instead, as Rasheed pulls lightly on the bit, I shake my head vigorously, my diminished brown mane fluttering in the cool ocean breeze. Rasheed wasn’t holding on to the bit tight enough.