Louis Chidi Ezema
Prelude
George Chibueze Nnamani, a Judge, is a writer who delivers with a punch. I like to describe him as a moving house of ideas. He is a very successful communicator. He has demonstrated an inimitable ubiquity in the conveyance of ideas, information, entertainment, morals and the stimulation of perception about ideas, values and in character formation. I often wonder on the depth of his endowment, because, in him ,we find a novelist who writes thrillers, romance, espionage, traditional stories, and so on. Multitalented, he is a poet, an editor, a biographer, a cartoonist, a humanitarian worker, a philanthropist, an orator, a jurist, author of some law books and a counsellor.
He has broad shoulders and navigates the challenges of life by playing each role in life to its full stretch. In him, one finds yet again a Jack that works all the time, but who is never dull, neither tired not complaining. Having followed his writings for over one and a half decades, I am beginning to believe that, at the rate he is going, he will surpass many world class writers on the quality and volume of work he is churning out, which are not only bestsellers, but leave their readers with an overwhelming feeling of compunction. Most of his novels and other writings have received rave reviews in top national dailies in Nigeria like The Guardian, The Sun and The Nation. In one of the reviews, Henry Akubuiro of The Sun Newspapers, writing on A Lawyer’s Temptation under the title “Tragedy of a Hungry Lawyer”, burst out: “George Nnamani pens thriller like no other in Nigeria, which is why it is still a wonder he hasn’t got the kind of accolades deserving of his genius.”
George Nnamani, without doubt, is a mighty pen from the continent of Africa. The power of his pen is just as applauded in legal circles. His erudition and language power have caught the attention of renowned legal scholars and jurists who see in him a Justice Chukwudifu Oputa or Niki Tobi in the making. The result is the book Customary Law & Procedure through Selected Judgments of Hon. Justice George Chibueze Nnamani, FCIArb, President, Customary Court of Appeal, Enugu State, edited by Prof. Agu Gab Agu and published in 2017 by ESUT School of Professional & Legal Studies. The book is a showcase of some of His Lordship’s beautiful judgments. Not unexpectedly, these judgments are suffused with idiomatic expressions, imageries and quotable quotes.
Let us take a peek into the literary mind of George Nnamani through the keyhole or crevice of some of his novels.
The Call of the Chief Priest
His first novel, The Call of the Chief Priest, was written in 1999. It was published by Pacific Publishers, Obosi, Anambra State. It is a cerebral writing that evokes laughter. Yet, beneath this line, is a sad compilation of a people’s agony that has no hope of immediate appeasement…tradition seldom allows its victims choice of personal wishes in an environment that has chronically been exposed to moribund morals. In Igbodike land, the fictional setting of the epic novel, a clan is visited with the iniquitous label of slaves and in spite of their very peaceful efforts to be integrated into the Igbodike land, the advocates of the Ohu syndrome are emboldened by their ‘superior’ heritage to hem the victims of the tradition into a permanent gag. In the ensuing fiasco, government intervenes and sends Uroko Ekwekwe, a champion wrestler to jail for calling Jacob Omeke a slave. But little did government know that it has opened the Pandora Box because instead of abating the inflammation in the relationship of the ‘freeborn’ and the Ohus in Igbodike, Uroko returns from jail and starts off a cleaning exercise that spiral into counterattacks leading to loss of many lives and property.
Towards the end of the novel, the chief custodian of the Igbodike culture and tradition, Attama, who has been giving out the marching orders against the Ohus, like St. Paul of the Bible, is compelled by circumstances to have to a change of hearts. He is baptized and becomes one of the vanguards preaching one love, one heritage and equal right. The author in what might be seen as a postmortem did not fail to allude that if the lineages of the so-called freeborn and Ohus are traced far enough into time, the terminus will inexorably be a point where both fuse into blood brotherhood. He is eager to liberalise freedom from restriction and racial prejudice in a scene in his work where he used the animal as a symbol. Iwe the glutton (an Ohu) and another man (a freeborn) were collecting fodder. A squirrel emerges and both men give a chase. In spite of the fact that Iwe caught the animal first, a ‘freeborn’ arbitrator directed that the animal be given to the other person, whereas Iwe who has been holding the animal by the head angrily lets it go, just as the animal bites his opponent, and commences its escape.
Much has been done and said about the need to do away with the ‘Ohu’ cast system in Igbo land by Nnamani and other scholars, but the big question is: How far have they been successful in diffusing this schism? However, Nnamani, using the probability of the same ultimate ancestor allusion, has built a strong hope for total assimilation and equity. Coming from an author of royal lineage, this book is a sure sign that the time of this anachronistic apartheid is truly up.
Wrong Neck in the Noose
This novel was first published in 2003. It is a highly successful novel that has been reprinted several times in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2018. The book, like all other thrillers from the author, has at different times enjoyed readership as an approved text in many Universities in Nigeria like University of Nigeria Nsukka; Enugu State University of Science and Technology; Eha-Amufu College of Education; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka; Federal Polytechnic, Idah, etc., and there is an advanced plan to adopt the work into a movie by some people from Actors Guild of Nigeria. In the book, George Nnamani takes his reader into the murky waters of politics, corruption and justice. These three issues hardly go well together and here lies the burden of the narrative.
Wrong Neck in the Noose ,as appropriately titled, is unequivocal in its alarm over a terrible injustice about to be visited on Alfador soil, where the mighty are always right and determine who would live or die, even as they have infiltrated the poor man’s protector, the law courts, and thwarted the administration of justice. Benita, a young lady is framed up and is about to be hanged for a crime she neither knew about nor committed. Sad man, Donald Jimi, widower of Elena, is a hard-fighting attorney who has since lapsed into a depressive obsession since he lost his beloved wife. Now drawn into the case of Benita, this strange obsession for once becomes doused in twilight, an uncanny feeling overwhelms him that Benita is his late wife, Elena, in disguise as he finds all the attributes of Elena in this condemned prisoner. His legal gusto becomes ignited even as his social antenna and optimism itch to set the captive free. But in the background lies a mortal obstacle as Chief Khaja, a billionaire with a booming career in blackmail, hired assassination and subjugation of state policies, and the brain behind Benita’s travails is positioned like an agitated cobra to eliminate anyone who crosses his path to disrupt his wishes and grandeur in Alfador.
Sustaining and losing an appeal in Benita’s case, Donald Jimi, starts an undercover investigation that triggers off a series of complications. Pa Ojiriji, a blackmailer and informant who is one of the four people who knew that Esther and not Benita committed the offence of theft and murder, is killed while Donald and Hilda are abducted (Hilda is the one who lied against Benita during the trial). Trapped at the Olives, the amazing palace of Chief Khajah, the two soon realize that they are in the danger of being slain along with other captives drawn from Chief Khaja’s cronies by Khajah himself. Esther the real culprit had also been kidnapped to shield the truth.
Pa Ojiriji’s murder with other murders, aimed at dusting the slate, was a bad timing for Chief Khajah, coming at a time the Police was excited and at red alert under the new government of Comrade Troja that is determined to hit back at all scoundrels in Alfador.
At the Olives, while the slashing of throats and tearing of flesh by bullets raged on, Esther the culprit had one motive for struggling hard to escape – to go and confess the truth that she did the stealing and killing at El-dorado so as to free her mind from the burden of guilt that suddenly overpowered her coping mechanism. Only the gallant intervention of Martin, the cop, saved Donald from his own turn of the bullet even as the former lays down his life. Nothing mattered more now to Donald Jimi, than to rush to Stonewall prison to stop Benita’s hanging which was already taking place. With Esther, the culprit, ready to confess to her crime, saving Benita’s life depended on speed…
Justice George Nnamani, a master storyteller, writes inimitably and in this novel, parades a vice-virtue continuum: that in a society where the coefficients carrying vices far outweigh those of virtue and where the latter is permanently seeking for a hiding place, almost everything suffers till an upright leadership emerges. The work entertains its readers with the intricate lives of the blackmailer in Chief Khajah, the crooked ways of gamblers in the likes of Uwakwe Ojiriji, Bariodora Whisky alias London Boy etcetera. The work is highly romantic, evokes humour and creates a lasting impression.
Mission to Alfador
Mission to Alfador, a Hollywood movie material, was published in 2004 and is a continuation of the lives and politics of Alfador Republic and its power relations with the world. It is a classic espionage novel that networks different countries of the world, and through the drive of some inherent psychosocial and political interests, all eyes are focused on the centre of attraction – Alfador.
Comrade Zack Troja’s popular Democratic Government in Alfador is marked out for destruction in a deft move sponsored by an Alfadorian, Chief Edwin Bohama, who engages the services of daredevil mercenaries of Sheikh Hammed Ibn Hammed’s The Lord’s Militia from Bora Island, for one million dollars…..
Jennifer, an international seductress from Bora Island, whose beauty is capable of rubbing out any man’s spiritual security, finds herself in the arms of Zack Troja. An unobtrusive Dick Fernando is the Alfadorian Minister of Information, who provides The Lord’s Militia with logistic supports. With Pastor Gamaliel sensitising people about God’s support for Zack’s corrective regime, Harrison the super cop discovers, rather belatedly, the casualty bound attack in one of the finest democracies in the world, designed to leave Zack and any opposition dead….. told with every bit of a thrilling punch.
One discovers as he reads the novel, the author’s love for the survival of Alfador as a nation. It was not out of his control as a creator, this time, a fictional creator, to make Alfador succumb to the barrages of International sabotage that clasped on the nation’s bare back like a horde of locusts. Rather, at each terminally dicey situation, he had provided an escape for Alfador, to survive for tomorrow. Examples include Zack Troja’s one moment of indiscretion when he walks into the arms of the International seductress, Jennifer, unarmed. Would the Holominas hiding in the orchard be allowed to harm the President? George Nnamani, the creator with benevolent spot for Alfador, conjured a scorpion to sting lady Holomina whose hysterical cry spoils the gang up and saved millions of the people what would have been an International disaster. Again, Harrison the super cop had trailed the fleeing felons to the Forest of Sophia. And through collaboration of the internal saboteur, a ruthless assassin named Scissors was stationed at the only exit route out of Sophia, to snuff out Harry’s life. But the author would not allow this, as he conjured a desert python to wind Scissors up. These few escapes saved the nation from dying. Mission to Alfador is one novel that portrays how prophetic writers can get. Written and published in 2004, it predicted, through fiction, the coming of the insurgency currently plaguing Nigeria and, quite uncannily, the invasion of the nation Alfador was launched from Bora Island and the Forest of Sophia, a somewhat clairvoyant reference to Sambisa Forest! During the public presentation of this great work at Zodiac Hotels, Enugu in 2004, the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Chief Guest of Honour, could not hide his admiration of it. The book, he said, took him into the armoured tanks and trenches once again. What is more, owing to its topicality, political relevance and international flavor, Mission to Alfador stands a fat chance of hitting global recognition through future adaptation for movie by Hollywood. I have it on good authority that during the author’s recent visit to Atlanta Georgia, USA, publishers made overtures for release of the work in America with Hollywood in mind.
The Vincent Nnamani Tales
In 2005, George Nnamani released a collection of short stories in a book entitled The Vincent Nnamani Tales. This book was dedicated to a sage, Chief Vincent Nnamani, who was a great historian and storyteller in his time. Certainly, George must have inherited this trait of profuse storytelling and witticism of communication from this sage, who happened to be his father and the patriarch of the Nnamani royal family of Likke-Iheaka, Igbo-Eze South Local Government Area of Enugu State. A well-prepared recipe, the book was also conceived to be read and appreciated by children. It teaches a great deal of morals and is highly philosophical. It is a satire that used the animals in the jungle, to portray the events in the human world. It features titles such as ‘The Price of Greed’, ‘Who knows tomorrow?’ among others. For the first time in his writing career, George Nnamani paused to devote a page of the book to acknowledge the contributions of friends and well-wishers in the packaging of the book. Today, the book is enjoyed by many institutions of learning, especially the secondary schools, vocational institutions and the general public. The book has been revised to include more stories with a sweet effect.
A Lawyer’s Temptation
By 2007, George Nnamani had released another thriller A Lawyer’s Temptation. Though written with a hilarious orientation, the novel touched a far-reaching ethical misdemeanor of one Barrister Abel Meregini, who was lured into criminality and extrajudicial tendencies, including theft. Abel was a failed lawyer, but did not fail to ogle the show of wealth that gave man his meaning in a capitalist economy like Eden of Alfador. Just when he was most vulnerable, starving Abel was contracted by the billionaire, Hallo-Peters, to defend his only son in a murder case. Hallo-Peters did not fail to let Abel know that the matter was hopeless, and urged Abel not to mind using some ‘crooked’ means. Due to the high pay, Abel fell to and was soon fraternising with dare-devil robbers and assassins. Nnamani spared not the society’s hypocrisy on the issue of love. Soon after Abel hit money, no one bothered to ask how a failed streetwise law officer made it. Instead people, especially girls who abandoned him in the past, all came trooping back to him. His circle of friends increased because he was rich and could afford to transform his frog-eyed secretary Janet, into a ravishing beauty with a regal version of her name, Jane, to go with it. The power of sex was captured in the gullible manner Chief Shagaya, a lead counsel for the prosecution, fell for a seductress called Angela and emerged from the whole saga losing his case file on the prosecution of the Hallo-Peters. All these crimes were orchestrated by Abel using his proxies like Yobo, Fada Fada. But slow-footed law eventually caught up with Abel and his real travails then started…
The reader cannot but show pity for Abel as the book races to a shattering climax on him. He loses out and is apprehended. The novel is highly romantic, humorous, even gossipy. It has a lot of moral lessons to give. George Nnamani tackled professional misconduct head-on even at the risk of being seen as incontinent of professional secrets by colleagues. He has had time to tell me that he has attracted some enemies since 2003 when he wrote Wrong Neck in the Noose following his telling description of Lord Mafford, an old pathologically corrupt Chief Judge who was being sustained in inactive judicial service by a perjurous affidavit. His creation of the fictional character, Lord Mafford, was a shot on target considering the time the book was written. He also talked about some friends in the profession who felt indirectly indicted in the disreputable conduct of Abel Meregini and other charge and bail lawyers in A Lawyer’s Temptation and began keeping their distance from him. I could only tell him, rather comically to get out of the kitchen if he couldn’t take the heat or borrow a leaf from earlier literary legends who hid under pseudonyms like James Hadley Chase, George Orwell or as many believe, William Shakespeare, to thrill the world in their respective times.
Broken Rings
Broken Rings was released in 2008. In the novel, George Nnamani ventured into the creator’s domain when he let a greater part of the action in the book take place in an imaginary podium within the premises of Heaven. The highly skillful manner in which he placed his setting with the spirits of Paul and Gamaliel sitting as a jury, was beyond the ordinary, and the highly successful manner he was able to balance the riddle of the Trinity, a marvel. Invisible God, even though in his own domain, remained invisible in the book, yet His presence was ubiquitous within and beyond this judgment parlance. At the centre of the whole action, were Adaman and Evelyn, an irreconcilable couple who had a road traffic accident on earth and remained in coma.
Their period in coma becomes a time for their souls to travel to the creator where their case was to be determined. During their trial in the spirit world, both trade accusations at each other about each other’s iniquity in an uncanny manner that dissolved a family’s turbulence into a world war between man and woman. Probably for their frankness as a result of their new spiritual form, heaven resolves to give the two another chance on earth by approving that they wake up from death. At that very time, too, Dr. Graham had yielded to the pressure from the Bar Association to transfer the comatose couple overseas. Fake prophet Japheth was prayer for the duo! And both came alive! This ‘miracle’ was bound to have its misinterpretation, but the author leaves his reader to think out the general outcome of the drama.
Roses are Red
This was first published in 2011 as the 7th novel of George Nnamani. The title at first appears to delude anybody against rose, a universally accepted flower that depicts love, conviviality and co-operation. The circumstance that gave vent to this title was invasive and persuasive, too irresistible to argue. And so, we are told that like its red colour, rose portends bloodshed, that rose is a flower full of danger, betrayal and ill-luck. The propagandist of this delusional misrepresentation of rose in the novel is an ingenious, sweet-tongued, compulsive fraudster known as Syracuse who played a dominant role in the novel. Though witty with a calculative mien, his tongue was very powerful in building up contrivances as he pursues his self-centered philosophy with undiluted zeal. Unfortunately, none of his postulations goes in the direction of developing the society or mankind but are mere sophistry that would lead his victims into rebellion against all known order and norms under unobtrusive and iron-cast secret cover. With this survival instinct, he was able to have his own constituency of criminals and roiled in money with ambition to make his career in crime a generational shift.
The protagonist of this novel, Daniel, is determined to survive in life through honest means amidst a great burden in his heart following the execution of his parents, by their gateman and the disappearance of his deviant only sibling and sister, Roseline. Probably for the stoic physique which he acquired through hewing of wood and cutting of stone to eke out a living, fate turns cruel on him as this physique appeals to clandestine groups who need him for dubious reasons. Firstly, ageing Syracuse would want to groom him to take up the leadership of his gang when he is incapacitated by age while the campus terrorist cult FUG needs him as their hit man. All these entreaties appear strange, nay, unacceptable to Daniel, who, despite poverty is doing menial jobs and training himself in the University of Eden in Fine and Applied Arts. To him, that people are deprived in a system is not reasonable enough to opt for robbery, cultism, drug abuse and other social evils when such people can find a way to recognise and develop their potentials, and sublimate their aggressive build-ups into skills that could promote self-worth and society’s peace. His idea might appear true but indeed, it became the most repulsive reply that FUG wanted to hear. He is abducted..
Unfortunately it was just a few days to his planned enlistment into an International Arts competition organized for artists and sculptors. While in the gulag, opportunities whine by on Daniel. However, his choice for rationality in an irrational polity springs a dramatic surprise as he is saved by the police, his art work were eventually submitted on his behalf by Pete, a co-tenant and friend, even as the latter is murdered for attempting to elope to the Whiteman’s land with a married woman. His nostalgia about his only sister, Rose, torments him repeatedly. Unknown to him, she was not dead as he had presumed but indeed was one of the innocent girls lured into prostitution in faraway Italy by Syracuse. His joy at seeing her again appeared to have dwarfed the ignominy of her deportation from Italy and he only prayed that the girl would respond to rehabilitation. Syracuse, old and sick, was dying and although Daniel tries to win his soul to God, he refuses to repent. Daniel’s artwork wins the heart of an emotionally deprived American Ambassador to Eden who was hell-bent on resuscitating the unsung hero in the portrait, President James Garfield. It was shortly after that the veil which Syracuse appeared to have deluded people with began to fall off just as virtue began its unquenchable triumph over evil. For indeed, Roses are beautiful, lovable and honourable creatures…..
The theme, equence and resolution of the book is very good and the narrative sizzling and joyous. The author places the theme of corruption and violent crimes side by side a life of perseverance and hard work, and came out with a strong formula that determined honest citizens of a country could still do well even if the bad eggs in government appears to fail them….
To be continued
Dr. Louis Ezema, a liberal writer and novelist, holds B.A (Hons.), M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, with specialty in Telemedicine and eHealth Communication. He is a lecturer in Nigeria universities, including Godfrey Okoye University, Thinkers’ Corner, Enugu.