Chigozie Obioma's The Road to the Country: The Most Intriguing Novel on the Biafra-Nigeria War
Chigozie Obioma’s novel The Road to the Country (2024) has to be the most intriguing work of fiction on the Biafra-Nigeria war by an author of the postwar generation. One could argue that Uwem Akpan’s New York, My Village (2021) is on a par with Obioma’s novel, mainly because both works successfully advance a unique perspective that digresses from the predictable and often veiled ethnocentric account of the war that has been the purview of some so-called expert scholars, writers and historians. With respect to comprehensive information about the war, however, Obioma’s novel is beyond compare. Even across generations, his ingenuity boasts an extraordinary creative quality.
The Road to the Country is structured on a captivating narrative style that merges the corporeal with the otherworldly. The invisible worldview of its characters is intimately tied to the sweeping aura of destruction, rebirth, hope, death, fear, resilience, camaraderie and strength that we encounter, ultimately blurring the lines between the living and the dead. To prepare his readers for this unique perspective, Obioma cites an Igbo proverb in the front matter of his novel: “The story of a war can only be fully and truly told by both the living and the dead” (xi). ?
Beyond the voices of the living and the dead, the yet unborn are also summoned to participate in the narrative. In fact, even as the plot is developed, the story is yet to happen. It is 1947 and a Seer is witnessing the future existence of Adekunle (Kunle) Aromire, a twenty-year-old university student whose impending convoluted odyssey will capture detailed and salient episodes of the Biafra-Nigeria war out of which the genocidal Biafra experience is foregrounded. Clairvoyance is not unfamiliar to the Yoruba cosmic world from which Igbala Oludamisi, the Seer, operates. Neither is it unfamiliar to divine practices common to other ethnic nationalities like the Edo, Igbo, Efik, Urhobo, Ijaw and Ibibio people among many others. While, therefore, some critics and readers may view this paranormal presence as a fantasy embellishment purely for aesthetic and symbolic effect, it is fundamentally real and not at all fantastical. Obioma’s incorporation of a Seer who foresees a war that takes place twenty years later is not a whimsical imaginary addition to his brilliant novel; it is not only plausible but reinforces the significance of the spiritual to the evolving narrative and the impacted communities. All we see is cast in the future; it is a unique take on the war that aligns with the pervasive religio-philosophical belief that the future has already been supernaturally designed. The events that unfold are simultaneously happening but not happening while the characters and their spaces are simultaneously existent but non-existent. They are real and unreal. There is no strict separation between the tangible and intangible, the mysterious and the natural; they incorporate one another; they exist within and outside one another.??
The Seer straddles each phase of the history. Although his premonitions begin as early as 1947, in 1960 his presence is intensely felt in Akure, Kunle’s hometown, when he publicly announces the impending gruesome war. He would continue to see and appraise the expanding history in its future and present form, even as Kunle is increasingly integrated into the narrative as central character and the conduit through which the events play out. They remain connected in their different but closely related roles and spaces and Kunle is conscious of the strange eyes that watch him throughout his mental and physical journey, eyes that belong to the Seer, Baba Igbala.
Kunle therefore becomes the key navigator in the novel’s curious and exploratory journey through the geographical, ethereal and emotional landscapes from which he functions as a panoramic witness to the war. His journey doesn’t only contend with survival strategies but also unravels constant individual and collective efforts at being human despite persistent threats posed by weapons, military strategies, uncertainty, sickness, confusion and distrust. Amid the turmoil, the people, civilians and soldiers alike, constantly remind us of their humanness. They hunger, thirst, eat, fall sick, defecate, urinate, sleep, fall in love, make love, heal, get married and give birth. The war that consumes them is therefore an aberration to who they really are or who they strive to be. By choosing Kunle to play this role, Obioma departs from the archetypal focus of many narratives, fiction and nonfiction alike, which have increasingly narrowed down the history to a tragic episode in the life of the people of former Eastern Nigeria (which later became Biafra), with an emphasis on the Igbos. This approach by Obioma significantly expands how the history is often delineated, to the extent that he also portrays key roles played by non-Igbos, women, mercenaries and other foreign elements during the crisis. Obioma is especially audacious in his decision to represent an unusual but authentic angle by making the yet-to-be-born Kunle his protagonist, a young Yoruba man from the Western Region whose ethnic group was overwhelmingly against the breakaway nation of Biafra and subsequently provided some of the most formidable forces that were instrumental in its eventual defeat.
At the onset of the war, Kunle’s trip to the Eastern Region, now Biafra, is triggered by a series of events. During the Easter of 1965, his family’s Igbo neighbors in Akure, the Agbanis, had invited his disabled brother, Tunde, to be a guest in their village, Nkpa. Tunde is still in Nkpa in 1967 when the war breaks out and Kunle, afraid for his brother’s safety, decides to travel to Nkpa to locate and bring him back to Akure. From this point in the novel, the significance of the title is variously portrayed through the different destinations that are critical in Kunle’s search for his brother. What constitutes “the road” and what epitomizes his journey’s end, “the country,” which should be a conduit for resolution and security? Or are there several “roads” and several “countries,” each denoting the many geographical and sacred places and barriers that must be crisscrossed and confronted in the desperate effort to make sense of and survive the horrors of the war?
Almost from the start Kunle’s decision to search for his brother meets with difficulties and risks. He is, after all, a Yoruba man on a mission that will take him to Biafra, now enemy territory.? On arrival in Biafra, he soon runs into Biafran soldiers who conscript him into an army that is desperately in need of fighters. It is an option that also safeguards Kunle’s life; otherwise, the fact that he is Yoruba (though his mother is Igbo) is enough grounds to have him executed. He must discard his name and assumes a new Igbo name and identity, Peter Nwaigbo. Nwaigbo translates into “a child of Igbo people,” perhaps to underscore the importance of this illusory identity transformation in securing Kunle’s safety. Now reborn with an Igbo identity, he begins to learn the Igbo language.
Kunle’s forced recruitment into the Biafran army thrusts him into a privileged bird’s-eye position from which he can simultaneously observe and participate in the hostilities. He is an outsider and an enemy-turned-ally, a phenomenon that wasn’t unusual during the war. Although Biafra and Nigeria were demarcated along ethnic lines, unlikely ethnic allies served on both sides of the conflict. This happened when trust was earned, making ethnicity a nonissue. Kunle’s role, even if marred by uncertainty, is therefore thematically vital. He is neither absolute friend nor foe to Nigeria or Biafra and therefore functions as the ideal objective channel through which the inhumane horrors of the war are re-experienced. As he rambles through Biafra’s ethnic, military and social terrain, it is as if he carries a bright inextinguishable lamp that permits the reader to see and experience along with him the confusions and convolutions that define Biafra’s attempt at self-defense and survival. The lamp is animated by the Seer who journeys along with Kunle and becomes a constant reminder of the mystical interconnection between the hostilities and the manner in which they are assessed from a realm that is both enigmatic and familiar.
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Despite the camaraderie he develops with fellow Biafran soldiers, it is Kunle’s romantic encounter with a female soldier and nurse, Agnes, that is most critical to his maturity as soldier and man. If being a Biafran soldier provokes Kunle’s savage, though unwilling, rite of passage into manhood, the loss of his virginity to Agnes results in his rite of passage into compassionate manhood. He is not only compelled to express love in the midst of so much cruelty; the relationship will propel him into a postwar role of fatherhood. Though eventually killed in battle, Agnes continues to live through their daughter; both mother and daughter reinforce the continued intimate link between the living and the dead, a constant motif throughout the novel. The child also represents the transgenerational continuity of the impact of the war. She will always be linked to the anguish brought on by the war, unable to detach herself from the mental and physical ordeal that defined her mother’s Biafra experience.
By merging supernatural and natural realms, it becomes clear that Chigozie is not limiting his story to accounts told by the living; the dead are also given a voice. A fundamental reference is therefore made to the numerous stories the dead possess, notwithstanding their inability to recount them. Accessible or inaccessible, these stories are just as significant as the ones delivered by the living. Their absence implies a lack of completion within stories told about the Biafra-Nigeria war.
Evidently, the road is not just the geographical, emotional and violent road that Kunle traverses in his search for his brother, which initially brings him to Biafra. It is not just the road that leads to the hills where the Seer’s divinations make incursions into the unseen “country” that is yet to exist. The road is also the road to the habitations and “country” of the unliving where, until accessibility is attained, the stories of destruction and sorrow will be permanently withheld by its inhabitants. It is the road to Biafra, the road back to Akure (for Tunde) and the road to uncertainty, which constitutes a major part of Kunle’s quest.
As the war comes to an end, Kunle finally locates his crippled younger brother, Tunde, at the Agbani family compound in Nkpa and arranges for his return to Akure. The story ends without having taken place. It is 1947 and Kunle has just been born. There is a simultaneous existence of the present and the future since we have already witnessed the meaningless war and the carnage that it unleashes.
Besides his fascinating narrative technique, Chigozie Obioma deserves commendation for his exhaustive delineation of the war, particularly the Biafra experience. Clearly, he did extensive research and has served us with a text that is as thought-provoking as it is historically informative. This is evident in all the salient and thematic references he makes, including but not limited to:
Obioma’s The Road to the Country is a must read for anyone interested in the Biafra-Nigeria war, Nigerian history, African history, war in general, genocide and the indomitable human survival spirit.
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing Professor.
NRF C3-Rated Associate Professor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology
2 周Wow! This is an outstanding narration of the epic events that occurred during the Biafran war using fiction. Hope the book is available on Amazon.