| Many evils of child
trafficking
By THERESA ONWUGHALU
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
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Bisi Ojediran
PHOTO: THE SUN PUBLISHING
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Product of Africa by Bisi Ojediran, Quince Books Ltd, London,
2006, pages 484.
When slave trade was abolished many years ago, the world
rejoiced but the joy was shortlived as the book, Product of Africa written by
Bisi Ojediran explains the evil trade. The author’s concern rests on how
girls are sold into sex trade. The innocence of these girls is lost amid the streams
of customers- men who are always eager to gratify themselves with these beautiful
creatures.
Presented in 30 chapters and written in simple English, the
story of the 484-page book opens with the murder of Tunde Picketts, an investigative
journalist withThe Zodiac Newspapers over the story he was investigating on child’s
trafficking. His two ears are severed and packaged and sent to his wife, Lola.
Abel feels that the message of the packaged ears is not only meant for Mrs. Picketts
but for him or whoever that might pick up Tunde’s cause. He states; This
could happen to you too. The message is clear, “hear no evil and if you
do, don’t write about it.”
Determined to track down the evil
men involved in this ungodly act, Abel works hard until Tunde’s killers
were arrested. Just as that happens, Alice comes into scene. She is a girl of
15years whose father, Mr. Winston Udor plungs into prostitution. He first of all
slept with her as many times as he could and wanted after which he decided to
sell her out.
Although he is set to resign his appointment and start a
business out of pity, he decides to unravel the mystery of Tunde’s by-line,
which reads ‘Visa, Serpent and God’ , a lead to child’s trafficking.
Abel feels he owe Tunde, Lola, his company and now Alice and mother, Mrs. Mary
Udor the honour of bringing the culprits to book.
Some of the experiences
Abel goes through in finding and recovering Alice are deadly. He is monitored,
set-up, beaten, rough handed, shot at, fought with and has to disguise most of
the time to fit into the identity he assumes on different occaasions. He also
goes by different names as occasion demands in order not disclose his true identity.
Examples of these are; “Rudy struck the barrel of his gun into Abel’s
ear. Abel figured what was the ballgame. He was dead. At that moment, an ear-piercing
siren blasted through the air.” Startled, Rudy jumped back and asked what
the hell that was. That was Abel’s saving grace as he used the opportunity
to challenge his opponents.
Before then, Abel feels sick, weak and confused
having no alternative plan at that moment; “It wasn’t much of a plan,
he had to admit, but he couldn’t think of a better one. And besides, he
was eager to get back on dry land. He was feeling queasy already.”
Alice
had suffered and it is impossible for her to return to a state of innocence but
at least, she is free from the control of narcotics, the sex trade and the brutality
of the syndicate. She is put through detoxification exercise and a full term rehabilitation.
On
recovery, she aspires to become a nurse. According to her, she has watched the
way the nurses behave in the hospital, and that, “The nurses here inspired
me, I have watched what they do and the way they handle their duties. They help
so many people. I would like to do that. I think I would be an excellent nurse.
I understand people. I know what it is to fall sick and not have control of your
fate. I think I could make a bit difference in people’s lives.”
On
arrival in Nigeria, she reunites with her mother. The event takes a different
turn when Alice kills her father and justifies her action by disowning the little
baby. The climax comes when Alice faces the dilemma of either life imprisonment
or death.
Somehow, her story gets to the whole world through the Zodiac
publication by Abel Peter. Other media including CNN also report it such that
human rights organizations, international political figures and concerned world
citizens publicly demand that she should be exonerated.
Although the novel
is a fiction, it presents the true picture of the characters as natural as possible.
The descriptive technique used by the author to narrate the characters’
outward appearances, also highlights their roles at different locations including
Lagos, Nigeria, London, Canada, Canaries, Bamako, Mali among many other places.
Ojediran
tries successfully to differentiate the characters through their use of English
language. He also uses figures of speech to embellish some of the speeches. While
some speeches are raw, others are refined depending on each character. Imagery
is also employed in the narration to depict the various situations.
Product
of Africa is a comment on child trafficking, illegal migration, sex trade and
advanced slavery. It is also about moral decadence and weilding of power by a
few evil men. From the title of the book, African continent is x-rayed and Nigeria
in particularly is highlighted. In the words of Robert, a Liberian and character
in the novel, “Nigeria helped us during our civil war. Most of the migrants
here are from Nigeria. And over 60 per cent of the prostitutes in Italy are Nigerians.
Your country must really find out the underlying causes of this migration and
do something.”
In this book, sex is regulated by money and performed
in specific increments of time. While money is the major attraction, sex is simply
a means to an end. Underaged girls are deceived into prostitution, promised better
offer and sold out of the country. Once they are into it, they cant imagine any
other option. This is explained in the dialogue between Dupe and Abel concerning
Alice. “Yes, of course the asshole was supposed to take all of us. We were
happy thinking of going and earn big money. But in the end, the bastard took Alice
out…And you all knew you were going into prostitution? He said, we’d
have a better life.
What? You think Alice didn’t know? She knew
and was all for it. Her father sold her.”
Also, it serves as a piece
of advice to ambitious journalists; that they should be more diplomatic in presenting
their stories so that it won’t attract ill-feelings from the people concerned.
The novel establishes the fact that many young girls leave Africa for
prostitution in Europe and that the situation wouldn’t have occurred “If
Africa had more responsible leadership. If people had been less greedy. If people
are properly educated about the risks on the route.”
Bisi Ojediran
is a trained teacher but his love for writing attracted him to journalism. He
has been a business editor of two Nigeria’s most influential newspapers;
The Guardian and This Day. Although Product of Africa is his first novel to be
published in the UK, he has written several novels, eight plays and text books.
The Governor’s wife which exposes corruption at the highest level will soon
be released abroad.
Currently, Ojediran lives in Lagos, where he works
for Shell Nigeria as Corporate Communications Manager. |
