Searching for men’s deep heart

“The Quest for Nina” is a fascinating work of fiction which takes the reader through the unending search for the truth—the truth here meaning reality—as the lead character, Biko Maiyaki, several years after the death of his wife, Nina, is still haunted by her love and can’t bring himself to love other women. So, he […]

“The Quest for Nina” is a fascinating work of fiction which takes the reader through the unending search for the truth—the truth here meaning reality—as the lead character, Biko Maiyaki, several years after the death of his wife, Nina, is still haunted by her love and can’t bring himself to love other women. So, he decides to look into her diary. The diary in question was written in codes and that forms the suspense in the novel, because there were many things Biko didn’t know about her, such as her background and her parents. He met her in Jos, Plateau State and married her against the wish of his mother and relatives. He discovered that she, in fact, sought him out and married him for vengeance of an offence he didn’t know.

The novel is interesting and memorable, particularly as it has a unique and unusual way of retaining the interest of the reader, which is the coded diary. And Biko has to enlist the help of his friend, Shehu, who is in the military to get the key to decode Nina’s diary.

The book starts with this entry:

They will taste my wrath

And  it is shall rout them

I shall spare none

Not a single one.

They will beg for mercy

And I shall scorn them

I will rip out their hearts

And hang them upon the branches

Of the cursed tree

Under the scorching sun

Nothing will change their fates.

However, decoding it does not make it easier to understand the intrigues behind the diary, which makes Biko all the more unhappy, confused and almost demented.

The book touches on Nigeria’s socio-cultural problems as it relates to three friends; Biko, Shehu and Friday.

Biko is  the son of an Army General, and the society  looks at these Generals as demi-gods with all the wealth and social status conferred on them during the military rule in Nigeria.

With Shehu, one gets the hope that poverty is not an excuse for idleness and hopelessness or even engaging in crime. This is a boy who wants to go to school against the wish of everybody in his family, because they couldn’t afford his education. But due to his friendship with Biko, Biko’s father, General Victor Maiyaki, sponsors his education and he becomes a top military officer, while Biko becomes an accountant.

However, in  Friday, born into poverty, whose father, a mason, died in an accident in  Jos, it is a different story. His mother conveys the corpse to the village and she is made to drink the water used to wash the corpse to prove her innocence. That she didn’t kill him. The late husband’s brother inherits her. He beats her and her children. One day, Friday, still in his teens, comes home from the farm and meets his uncle beating his mother. He strikes  him with a club and the uncle dies, then he flees.

He returns  to Jos and gets involved in petty crimes, but despite Biko’s and Shehu’s efforts to support him financially, he becomes an armed robber after being imprisoned, having met hardened criminals.

Where the society blames a woman for childlessness in marriage regardless of where the problem lies is portrayed in Shehu’s  case. They couldn’t have a child six years after marriage, and his mother, brothers and uncles accuse his wife, Hadiza of bareness and of bewitching him not to marry a second wife in order for him to have children. Meanwhile, Shehu has a medical problem called varicocele and  he would need a corrective surgery for him to be able to father children.

But he couldn’t tell his parents that  he has a fertility problem, because it  would be unmanly to admit that you couldn’t father a child, and a military one to boot, and in the process, allow them to blame and abuse his wife. Though he later told his relatives, it almost cost him his marriage.

The decaying or lack of infrastructure in  Nigeria such as bad roads, lack of electricity and potable water are interwoven in the book as everyday experiences in the country.

The book also exposes how people glorify wealth even if its source is suspect , because of greed  and poverty, seeing wealthy people as having escaped poverty. For example, one day, Friday goes to visit his old neighbourhood where he used to terrorise the people. But this time around, he comes as a successful businessman, driving a jeep, and distributes money to people such as the ‘ Maiunguwa’,his ward head. The elders organise a party for him and a pastor praises his conduct and prays for him!

However, nothing describes the dishonesty and hypocrisy of some so-called leaders than in General Victor Maiyaki. This is a man loved and respected both within and outside the military. Not knowing that this is a man who enjoys defiling young girls, as young as his own daughters.

And where one of such girls resists, he rapes her repeatedly in a hotel in Kaduna where she worked part time to help her family. He later killed her father and his aide de camp(ADC) killed her brother, Daniel, when they challenged him .This shows the might of the military(and the police, and other security agencies who bear arms). The community rises up in protest and razes down General Maiyaki’s car, and part of the hotel. But the people are dispersed, beaten by soldiers with belts and horsewhips and some taken to the barracks for more torture.

The fifteen year old   girl who is raped by General Maiyaki is Nina and she sets out to destroy his family as a revenge for herself, and the death of her father and brother. But she falls in love with her husband, Biko and couldn’t carry out her nefarious act. She wrote in her diary:

Forgive me father, I have failed again

I have fallen in love with our enemy’s son

I have tried, Daniel, I have

But I cannot do this

It is beyond me now.

Another entry reads:

I cried on his shoulder and I felt better

I love the sun but it sounds like a sin

Though I feel bad for all the pains I have

Wanted to cause him

For all the evil plans I had hatched

But why should I say I am sorry

When the innocents, hacked down unjustly

Have not been avenged?

It was a war and there must be casualties

But in this war

Love wins!

Biko eventually discovers everything and, when his late father is going to be honoured by the military, he feels betrayed and tainted by his father whom he respected and tried to live by his high standards. He feels he doesn’t deserve such an outstanding honour. His father was a rapist and a murderer.

The book has a sad and anti climax end where Maiyaki confronts his father’s ADC, fondly called ‘Brigadier’ about the rape in his father’s house, where a memorial party is taking place ,prior to the grand occasion. There are some shootings and  Brigadier dies, while Biko is injured, but another tragedy occurs when Dakim, Biko’s elder brother,  also a top military officer, commits suicide in the aftermath, muttering to the portrait of his  late father, “The evil that men do…lives after them,” before he put the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Even though the book has brought out the pains and trauma of rape, it is too graphic, which people would understand without too much details.

After reading the book, the reader is bound to pause and think of  Nigeria’s numerous problems that hinder its development despite its human and natural resources. But the question mark is on the glorification of wealth and prestige, which may not be as they seem. They may habour criminals of the highest order, such as rapists, armed robbers and murderers.

The “Quest for Nina” in fact, calls for everyone of us to take up a mission in life and do whatever to improve it .At the end, it shows the power of love over hatred, as Nina couldn’t carry out her revenge because of the love she has for Biko. With love we can conquer the devil in our hearts and live peacefully with one another.