Facebook was testing ground for my writing – Ozili Baba Anieto

Bookshelf: What inspired the birth of, ‘Third Side of a Coin?’ Ozili Baba Anieto: It was mainly inspired by my view of two worlds, the East, specifically Onitsha and Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. I grew up in the former before i came to Abuja and saw the wide margin between them. Onitsha is quite different from […]

Bookshelf: What inspired the birth of, ‘Third Side of a Coin?’
Ozili Baba Anieto: It was mainly inspired by my view of two worlds, the East, specifically Onitsha and Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. I grew up in the former before i came to Abuja and saw the wide margin between them. Onitsha is quite different from Abuja, like two different cultures. So i looked at what it will be like for the same woman that lived in Onitsha to also live in a city like Abuja. That’s why I put the major character, Flora, in Abuja and later took her back to Onitsha so that readers can see what life in both places is like through her.

Bookshelf: So you wanted to compare the two cities using the experiences of your main character?
Anieto: Yes

Bookshelf: When you started the story, it was Obigwe telling the story of Flora before he himself surfaced. What informed your writing style?
Anieto: I learned one thing from Abuja Literary Society, that when you are writing a story from a first person narrative, it always flows because it puts the narrator in the story and then it becomes a challenge to create characters and allow them to play. Now, Flora, who is the main character in my book, is not the person telling the story. However, from the first to the last chapter, she was there, yet Obigwe was telling the story and yet was not always in it. One may mistake Obigwe for the main character, but he is not.
I wanted to talk about a woman and let a man report so that people would see things from his perspective. I wanted to take up the challenge and know what it’s like creating a first person, taking that person away and creating another.

Bookshelf: Have you seen that done somewhere before doing it?
Anieto: No, i haven’t

Bookshelf: What’s your writing background like?
Anieto: I was a sociable person during my school days and made people laugh. So i tried to bring that comic aspect into my work also. If another person and i watch a movie, at the end i will still be talking about it with that same person. So when i saw that i could replicate the same thing in writing, i started writing short stories on Facebook. People encouraged me. I wake up every morning, drop an episode and get reactions. I started getting more friend requests. I was getting over sixty likes and shares. It even led to debates amongst my friends and they would wait to see the next day’s episode. I initially called the story ‘Why You Cannot Survive in Abuja’. I was trying to use the life of Flora to tell people that it is not easy surviving in Abuja by putting her through the rigours and when i saw that i had gotten down some words, i decided to put it all together.

Bookshelf: Did any aspect of the story come from your personal experience?
Anieto: I can’t take that away a hundred per cent, but it’s not from a particular person, rather different individuals with some other additions. Experiences were just flowing in and i was using those I have heard about. For example, where Flora and a friend went to a wine shop and met with a man, I know a friend that has done that and told the story, and another with a different experience.

Bookshelf: People actually talk about how some women turn to prostitution while trying to get a job in Abuja. Did you have direct contact with any such person?
Anieto: I had a friend who was so optimistic when she was coming to stay with friends in Abuja. When she stayed for a period of time and couldn’t get a job, those she was staying with (friends from University days) started putting pressure on her to contribute in paying the house bills. But she didn’t have a job, was frustrated and left the city for Edo State.

Bookshelf: But she did not get as far as almost sleeping with a man for money like Flora?
Anieto: No. But i was looking at the larger picture. She could have found herself in that situation too.

Bookshelf: What about the aspect of faith? You portrayed Flora as one who had the tendency to be promiscuous and yet display some kind of spirituality or sense of guilt. What led you to paint that picture?
Anieto: When I posted on Facebook, the reaction i got was more from males and they were all concurring that women have this ability to combine spirituality with carnality. Men stick to one, but you can see a woman you tag as wayward crying in the church and it’s not that she’s pretending, but communicating with her maker. But sometimes when you see a man that smokes marijuana, he disconnects himself totally from God. A girl on the other hand will still attend church and even clean the premises. Between her and her creator, she’s being sincere. Now that’s the angle i wanted to bring out.
Most times i try to see women as stronger, although they are emotional and dramatize a little when trying to express themselves, unlike the men. A careful look at what transpired reveals in the end of the story that the loser was Obigwe.

Bookshelf: As a whole, what do you hope to achieve with ‘Third Side of a Coin’?
Anieto: This is my first work and i want to be bold, say things the way they are and tell ladies out there that a failed relationship is not the end-that if they love a man and things do not work out they can move on. And the lesson for the men is that sometimes what they go out there to look for can never be like what they have at home. In Abuja for example, you see a ‘big man’ with a beautiful wife being interested in ‘small girls’. This can cause a problem in such a man’s family and when that problem comes he would realise that he cannot go back to the girl. It may have been pleasurable from the beginning but it doesn’t last.