I came to met Ijeoma as soon as I swiped open the page of the PDF of the book Under the Udala tree.
A promising young girl born into affluence, affluence of those years, affluence jeopardized by Biafran war, by folks who sits in their offices and ripped others of their possessions using war as a tool, the clash between Yakubu Gowon( fictitious character in the book) and Odumegu Ojukwu (Fictitious character in the book).
All through the war, I can clearly see and unprepared militia in combat with fortified military, it seems to me like the head of the militia - Ojukwu - is using these promising young men industrious well had not been tapped to pursue his own selfish aim, dangling a well garnished fictitious future in front of them whilst they pledge solidarity, blinded by the fictitious future perishing of their own accord blinded by their gullibility, they pride in the strength of their leader's vain word, and how thirsty towards this unreal future they were that they forgot they aren't fortified like their opponent.
The Nigerian government taking advantage of the war, embarked on a mission to wipe out the entire igbo race, how else can one possibly explain the jet fighters and bombs released on the soil of innocent biafrans? The plane hovering over the biafran lands in searching of any moving creature, they'll release the bomb even if they spot a shaky leaf.
The rage between Biafra and Nigeria claimed the life of Ijeoma's papa, his death to me was suicidal, one of a tired frustrated soul, suicide carried out by others. I know Papa was frustrated, seeing the biafrans fade by the day and the land horribly harrased and fastly erased, in his frustration he'd chosen to rather leave than stay and watch his people and their property wipe out by ruthless men, he sees no reason why he should run away, he sees no reason why he should scurry along like chickens when what is to live for is being taken. I know Papa will not survive as he sat on his favorite seat asking mama and Ijeoma to hurry to the bunker. Long story short after the last sound of the bomb blast, they came out to meet him DEAD!
Mama's afterwards reaction is one that will proceed from anyone, anyone whose loved one saw death and embraced it feeling like they are all alone, batting their eyelid to the fate of those they are leaving behind. Papa's stubbornness, Papa's memories and Papa's corpse had a kind of bitter-bliss effect. The pain was more than the bliss, the memories of the bliss caused her more pain, her husband, the man she was very fond, who tickled her fancy and ticked all her box, chooses to let his frustration lead instead of the love they shared. He allowed his 'man' dominate him instead of his family. The voices from his radio brought that memories that hurts so deep, she do not want to see anything about him, or hear of him either. One thing about emotional trauma is it takes it toll on you whilst you are still waiting to be appeased, so mama faded to a shadow of herself. Her loving self she lost to pain, a pain that she possibly cannot avoid each time she remembers her man who had chosen death over her.
Mama's decision to send Ijeoma away to teacher was for me the best decision, even though a part of me thinks it's the worst, it's not because of the continual shortage of food but the continual increase of her frustration that was now telling on Ije. Somehow, she began transferring papa's aggression to the innocent lad, forgetting that she also was as hurt as herself, she failed in her duty as a mother that period, she was to bring comfort to transfer pain, but then I don't blame her, her pain has eaten deep into her than her mind can possibly think of the impact of her action on the child. So sending ijeoma away was the best decision, she cannot handle herself how much more her, she lack emotional stability to do so, she cannot handle the pain of Papa's death and the excesses of Ijeoma. And here I felt, she was a good mother. It was a hard decision yeah, but then it is the only choice decision until her emotions settles down to continue her motherly duties.
Coupled with the pain of her father's death and the neglect of mama, Ijeoma's inner crave to be with someone, to talk to someone, to lean on someone, to receive those warmth and comfort a child deserve that mama was too unstable to give neither was teacher nor his wife were sensitive to, played out in a wrong way when she met Amina, the Hausa girl on the street, who had followed her home even though she had never known her.
Mr and Mrs Teacher gave Ijeoma her own room, and made her do house chores, and all that, it's not a bad thing, but I felt it isn't right for a child who just lost her dad and is neglected by her mom, so the cold night always will remind her of her mama, and the day of her papa. Her loneliness increased her inward craving to be held and loved and comforted, this she found in Amina.
I should state it here, the society is insensitive to feeling but don't know that the reason why the world holds or break is feeling related. There's no action that isn't feeling based whether positive, negative, hyper or hypo it is feeling based, yet they try hard to teach people to do right, but provide no attention to the feelings of the people. Psychology seems to be one of the most insignificant element of the society, I think before there's an institution there should be a large space for psychology, psychologist too.
Psychological provision should be provided for the poor and the rich, just the way the government provides free health care. Nigeria seems to know how to man emotions, but the level of depression this country is greater than all the recorded cases of sickness and crime. Until we look here, we are no way close to making the nation work no matter how hard we try providing whatever we want to provide.
So there's prison for criminals, hospital for the sick, and psychiatric hospital for the insane - those who had completely lost it - but no institution for those who are to others not insane but are torn apart inside.
Ijeoma's venture into same sex affection to me was circumstantial than choice, her emotions was tearing, she is expected to understand, to understand mama, to understand the world, to understand what she cannot understand what her mind cannot understand, what her feelings are too distorted to understand. A listening ear to this young girl and a hand around her shoulder from mama or any other would have gone a long way to save her from the wrong path she walked into. Neglected when she needed affection the most, yelled at when she needed encouragement the most, hushed when she needed to speak out her pain. Too much for one person to carry. The Nigerian society does not see this though, they see 'what had happened had happened, move on!' this should at all bring no problem except that our emotions cannot be trampled on too long and still pretend its fine like we try to do.
So Ijeoma finally found a talk mate, a friend to play with, someone she could lean on, and even though Teacher felt unease about her tribe, Ijeoma was least concerned.
The night touching and smooching are only an extreme outburst of locked up emotions, emotions released forcefully with no correction whatsoever. Emotions that won't have stayed so long if mama did her job well.
An emotional borne issue received a physical solving approach, it will not work! It won't! As long as the feeling of depression is still in the heart of someone, suicide isn't far away, if you like provide all the fun in the world for the person. Emotional issues are to receive treatments targeted at restoring the damaged emotion instead of a physical approach target at bottling and forgetting the emotion.
Maybe my delving into psychology is too much, and how I love to study humans. As an environmentalist in training, humans are the core of my study, why do we study geography if not because of how the humans will relate better to this Geo-space?
Teacher responded like any will do, any who finds their ward doing 'bad' thing, and it's a good thing he administered physical correction and not subject Ijeoma to the gruel death the easterners gives to those caught in such act.
After the beating what next?
That's all the failure in mama's part and teacher's part. They already failed to understand an emotional deficiency, how can they fix the problem? Ijeoma found warmth with another woman, the warmth nobody would give her tired soul, and then you think a one day beating and long hours of humiliation with the Holy book will cause her to snipe away from it? The truth is, if Ijeoma had found this same warmth at this same time with a man, she would have not ventured into lesbianism! That's why I said her venture into this 'abnormality' was more circumstantial than a choice.
Mama began at the wrong side, and ended at the right side wrongly, she finally gave up the humiliation and pressure and accepted Ijeoma after she left Chibundu her husband, a kind of 'I give up, do what you want' This should have been first, if she had accepted the fact that Ijeoma had picked up the wrong signal but well, she's still mine, let's see how to help her out, she would have channeled her energy into doing the right thing rightly, and tired out!
But no, like it is home to this part of the world, we cannot accept that the dent must be in our family even though it is, we value our reputation than being their for those who will carry on the good name of the family. We claim to love, but it's fickle. The love that wanes ones you no longer are the person of their imagination. We'll fight homosexuality with love for our family members because they are our family members, not by fighting our own family members overtaken in a fault!
We think of homosexuality as something deeper than what it is really, if we change our drunk family members, heady family members, smoking family members, we can change our gay family members by loving them and doing the same thing we do to our family members that are drunk. As long as we keep fighting people instead of epidermy we will lose out in the fight, love changes anything, it changes the hardened criminal, and I beg to disagree, homosexuality is no demonic influenced attitude, that's why we still cannot hold it from its roots and pluck it away because we transfer responsibility to demons. Do you say your family member is possessed when they are addicted to nicotine and alcohol? Do you know this are more destroying to the human system as anal penetration? You see, we easily can triumph over these because we don't attach or transfer blame to spirit and we don't fight them, we fight smoking.
Why can't it be so for this one? We use the Holy book to assault these people, making them form a strong cartel to accept their demon and love themselves, a feat that had more of deepen their acceptance of the abnormality. They feel they are alone, they feel they need to survive, some have resigned to die, they are resolved to not go to heaven. They feel God is not for them, they feel something is wrong with them, something the whole universe don't want. And atlas they agree to build their world, fight anyone who tries to touch anything that had to do with what they have through rigorous neglect build. This is ijeoma's case.
Mama's you must change, Adam and Eve harassment scatters the whole thing, what if she had adopted restoring her relationship with her long lost daughter? What if she had begun by bringing back the memories past and rectifying it. What if she had began talking to Ijeoma like they use to? She would have effortlessly held the tweak and change it, it may take time but it will happen!
Coercing Ijeoma to get married, to fit into a world her mind had not envisioned yet is the greatest failure, harassing her with the Bible raised her inquisitiveness and made her ask the wrong question, wonder the wrong way, and accepted the wrong stuff. Ijeoma would have been helped!
To think that Aba could despite the raging war kill of their own is ridiculous, Aba had not successfully curb homosexuality and cannot, brutality is not the way, but will they ever think?
People you have been setting ablaze since 1960 till now had not refrained and you are still setting them ablaze? What are you more concerned about? Killing your own or curbing the epidemic?
Ukparanta did her best in highlighting the failure of Nigerians in curbing LGBTQ, and as long as Nigerians are still like Ijeoma's mama, they will end up doing what Ijeoma's mama did at the end of the end of the fighting, killing, maiming, lynching and burning.
Two thousand seven hundred words already. I have to stop here.
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