Stoking fire in Soji Cole’s ‘Embers’

Title: Embers Author: Soji Cole Publisher: Emotion Press Pages: 101 Reviewer: Nathaniel Bivan Last year, before the winner of the 2018 Nigeria Prize for Literature (Drama category) sponsored by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company was announced, I had never heard of the playwright Soji Cole. So, when news broke that he had won […]

Title: Embers
Author: Soji Cole
Publisher: Emotion Press
Pages: 101
Reviewer: Nathaniel Bivan

Last year, before the winner of the 2018 Nigeria Prize for Literature (Drama category) sponsored by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company was announced, I had never heard of the playwright Soji Cole. So, when news broke that he had won the whooping $100,000 award money, I did a quick research. I learned that he’s a Playwriting and Theatre Sociology instructor at the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Also, that he won the Association of Nigerian Authors’ (ANA) Playwriting Prize, and was longlisted for the BBC World Radio Play Competition and the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature. Soon after, I had the pleasure of meeting him in Lagos during the ANA convention, where his book sold out massively, but not before I got my own copy. It’s 2019 now, and it took me just a few hours in two days to read ‘Embers’.

‘Embers’ is an appealing title. A quick Cambridge Dictionary search reveals it means a piece of wood or coal, that continues to burn after a fire has no more flames. This perfectly discribes the story. However, up till this moment, it’s hard to relate with the book’s rather abstract cover design, but it remains intriguing enough to make any reader plunge through the story. Set in an Internally Displaced Persons Camp (IDP) in northern Nigeria, the play, described as “a drama of metaphor,” begins with an elderly woman, Talatu, admonishing some young girls. She advises them to live their dreams and not to make the same mistake women of her generation have made. This goes back and forth as the girls ask inquisitive questions and equally make inquisitive responses. This ‘discussion’ forms a large part of what the entire story is all about. The girls are attentive and look up to Talatu, but soon skeletons would be pulled out of their closets. They all are not what they seem to be and have ulterior motives for being in the IDP camp.

Through the voices of Talatu, and the girls, Memunah, Atai, and Idayat, we learn about the atrocities committed by those saddled with the responsibility of protecting the people, rather than those committed by the terrorists. Here, we learn that the girls dread the soldiers more than they do the terrorists who once abducted them. Attai narrates how she fled from captivity only to find herself in greater captivity in the hands of the army. She says in page 58:

“The horrors that I saw in five days were more frightful than the fiercest things I saw in Sambisa forest. The soldiers slaughtered any man that passed by the village. They didn’t even wait to ask questions. Some men who escaped the destruction of the Boko boys were returning to Gali to see what can be salvaged. They were all killed by the soldiers. Even when I told them that I knew a man they captured, they threatened to kill me too.”

In the end, a soldier takes her to safety and advises her to report his colleagues to the relevant authorities. This sounds the gong that there are still ‘good’ ones among the ‘bad eggs’. So, they compare their lives under the terrorists with what they endure in the hands of the military at the camp. Even the foodstuff donated by international donor organisations are taken away and they are left hungry and vulnerable.

In a 2017/2018 report, Amnesty International said the military arbitrarily arrested and held thousands of young men, women and children in detention centres around the country. That by April, the military detention facility at Giwa barracks, Maiduguri, held more than 4,900 people in extremely overcrowded cells. Disease, dehydration and starvation were rife and at least 340 detainees died. At least 200 children, as young as four, were detained in an overcrowded and unhygienic children’s cell. Some children were born in detention.

Also, the military detained hundreds of women unlawfully, without charge, some because they were believed to be related to Boko Haram members. Among them were women and girls who said they had been victims of Boko Haram. Women reported inhuman detention conditions, including a lack of health care for those giving birth in cells.

In ‘Embers’ the soldiers at the camp entered the army for different reasons, Bayero, for example, after watching ‘Commando’, an old American movie. Another joined because he needed a job, any job, while another was passionate about it. Their present state of mind, however, mirrors the general disillusionment that floods the country due to underdevelopment and corruption. At the end of the day, everyone thinks the only way to survive is to partake in the corruption spree.

In page 25, Soldier 3 says:

“If I had a choice after leaving the Polytechnic, I won’t be here. I had to join the Army out of no choice. There was no job around. My girlfriend was behaving funny. I knew I had to make a choice, even if it appeared like a desperate choice.”

‘Embers’ seems to remind that while the fight against corruption and insurgency continues, every Nigerian must look inward, or else we end up losing the ‘little good’ we have left. This ‘little good’ could be those who have been traumatised by the Boko Haram experience and need to be rehabilitated accordingly. It could also mean, giving military personnel sufficient ammunition and motivation to carry out their duties. Finally, it may mean creating an enabling environment for today’s youth to thrive, without discrimination, so criminality is reduced to its barest minimum.