Searching for Umaisha’s Hoodlums

The book opens with little Tene and her friends playing in the open field, and a sudden explosion that shatters the peaceful atmosphere. This is an everyday happening in the country today as the issue of bomb blast has over the past two years become the order of the day. The book was written at […]

The book opens with little Tene and her friends playing in the open field, and a sudden explosion that shatters the peaceful atmosphere. This is an everyday happening in the country today as the issue of bomb blast has over the past two years become the order of the day. The book was written at a time of ethnic and political unrest in every corner of the country and it has succeeded in giving us a typical scenario of the activities of the hoodlums. They do not care who their likely victims are. The author, however, leaves his reader to tell who the real hoodlums are.

Psychological trauma in the aftermath of a riot is becoming all too common as we read in the behaviour of Zabi who goes mad in his quest to find his family. He is so confused he cannot even differentiate between colours, and between persons; he mistakes a man in black safari for his wife in a red dress. He speaks to himself: “Of course, I did not expect to find you among the dead. I had done nothing to warrant such a calamity. How could they visit such a tragedy on me when I did not know what the fight was all about?” (Pg.14). The character of Zabi is not different from what we see of victims of many such violence in the country.

‘The Seat of Power’ is a powerful depiction of the hunger for leadership; politicians who are intoxicated by power do not see life from the perspective of the masses, rather they feel everyone is as comfortable as they are. This is the case of the king who alienated himself from God because of materialism; the earth is like a paradise to him but his friend knows better, hence, speaks for the poor masses.

Obata, the mayor, has no idea that the evil that men do lives after them; he forgets that he is not supposed to bite the finger that fed him. He remains the servant of the godfather in the face of the prevailing reality and any attempt to change that fact means trouble. This is a story of the dirty politics we play in Nigeria.

Hoodlums is a book of didactic stories. It holds the reader spellbound. It is also rich in suspense from the beginning to the very end. Readers would want to know if little Tene’s mother survived the incident or if she actually got blown up by the blast. Others would want to know if her father eventually returned after the riot. It further gives the reader the opportunity to ask who actually a hoodlum is.

The collection equally makes a statement on the reality that those who are deceitful in nature at times do not know how far they are involved in heinous crimes, as it is in the case of Obata and the godfather. This is similar to the case of Abubakar Gimba’s central character in the novel Witnesses to Tears. Hoodlums explores what is hidden as well as that which is open.

Umaisha’s main thematic preoccupation in this collection is crisis. Ilema suffers emotional crisis just as little Tene suffers physical and psychological trauma as she helplessly watches death claim her mother. Obata suffers the fear of the evil done by his quest to ascend the throne as a mayor. His fear further snowballs into a serious crisis between him and his opponent as the godfather himself blackmails him to pay a huge sum of money or play to his tune.

There is also the theme of failure. The fear of failure leads to most of the tragedies we see in the stories. Ben, who is well known as a fearless journalist and fondly called Mr. Scoop, fears he might not capture the whole story if he does not take risks; he wouldn’t listen to the plea of his fiancé, hence, he meets a tragic end. Zabi fears he has failed in his responsibility as a father and a husband; he walks about half-naked searching for his family. His fear must have further heightened when the fellow who resembles his wife turns out to be a man in black cloth.

Indeed, Hoodlums is a veritable statement on the socio-political, economic and religious realities in the Nigerian society. And reading it is like searching for the hoodlums… and finding them in every corner.