ADVERTISEMENT
The Sun Nigeria
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun
No Result
View All Result
The Sun Nigeria
No Result
View All Result
Home Literary Review

Joy and tears in army barracks

24th August 2018
in Literary Review
0
BARRACKS
0
SHARES
357
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The barracks residential area is made up of the officer’s quarters, the sergeants’ quarters and the corporals’ quarters, the first being the elite part…

Barrack Boy

Yanor Kukwa, 2018

Henry Akubuiro

BILDUNGSROMAN takes us back in time, when life was like a roller-coaster ride, full of thrills and frills, for the young. Barrack Boy is a new coming-of-age novel by Yanor Nyigbem Kukwa where the psychological and moral growth of the boy, Terna, is told as he grows up in military barracks.

Kukwa’s novel offers a refreshing tale, considering its setting, a world people by soldiers and their families. Interestingly, the stern face often presented by soldiers at battlefields and in the streets isn’t what you see in the barracks. Their families, like others in the society, also undergo vagaries of life. Everybody smiles and freaks, and life isn’t regimented.

READ ALSO: Your sacrifices won’t be in vain, Burutai tells wounded soldiers

Kukwa’s novel attempts to make us understand what life is like in the barracks, especially how children of army officers grow up and relate with one another bereft of tense atmosphere. Spontaneous quarrels, adventures, fisticuffs, pranks, games are all workaday realities here.

In the novel, the reader, who isn’t Tiv, has a chance to learn new Tiv words and, above all, the culture of the people. The author infuses folktales into the narrative, and there are myths that beggars belief sometimes, hence, reinforcing the African oral tradition. So, besides life in the barracks, the novel advances cultural motifs. Remember the Tse-Kucha, the market day.

The coming-of-age story begins with kill-and-go. Get it off your mind –this isn’t about bloodletting but the last day of the term when schoolboys settle old scores at Army Day Children School, Makurdi.

READ ALSO: Frog-Jump Tragedy: Untold Story Of Pupil Who Died In Army School

Here, we are introduced to Terna, a ten-year-old who took the first position in Form 5A, who equally trips Akpa the bully to the ground, to complete a happy day.

As the story unfurls, Terna’s father, Samuel Lanshima Agwadam, has been in the army for twenty years. But this story isn’t about him, though the author tells us a little about him, how he moves from the Third Mechanised Brigade, Bukavu Barracks, Kano, to 72 Airborne Brigade, Makurdi. His wife has seven children, of which Terna is the third.

The author tries as much as possible to make us aware of how the barracks look like. The barracks residential area is made up of the officer’s quarters, the sergeants’ quarters and the corporals’ quarters, the first being the elite part of the barracks occupied by beautiful houses and serene atmosphere.

Mammy Market can also be found in the barracks, which is open to members of the public. Hawking, we are told, is a pleasant pastime of the barracks kids. When Terna gets the opportunity to travel home to the village, Mbaataiwa, for holidays, he finds a paradise. Going to the farm, for one, fascinates him, as well as going to the village stream, Aungwa, to swim. Hunting tops the fun chart for him.

If you don’t eat rats, you are missing, maybe. The adventurous villagers of Mbaataiwa don’t joke with the yongough. Soup can be prepared with them, and they can also be eaten as snacks. Talk of one man’s eat and another man’s poison!

The novel has a loose plot, so the narrative is episodic. We read about yabbing contests, which take hours; but they are more of empty gabfests. We also see the kids swimming in a stagnant pond. Anything can be fun as long as it doesn’t fan the embers of hatred.

Often times, the kids are left to their own devices on Saturdays during the weekly sanitation exercise. To “go mango” means to steal from a distant mango orchard. Get caught, and you are the fall guy. Mango’s fall from the treetop ends on a sorry note: death.

READ ALSO: Diarrhoea: Kebbi govt. re-introduces sanitation exercise

Children emulate adults, and in the barracks; young Terna and his friends learn how to smoke cigarettes while on an errand to the Mammy Market. If they had the chance, they would have tried burukutu. We are told that, every day, one or two of the kids’ fathers would be send to the guardroom for erring.

Match past triumph, acting mock films and academic advancements continue for Terna, as the story continues. At the end of the narrative, his father is discharged from the army after twenty-five years of soldiering, and he has to relocate his family to Gboko to begin a new life.

Life in the barracks is well depicted by the author, and full of fun, no doubt. However, Barack Boy lacks a defined conflict and resolution characteristic of a novel. This leaves the reader guessing whether the author set out to write a biography recollected in fits and starts than a novel with all the highs and lows of plotting.

Click Here>>>>>>7 Natural Herbs to Finally End Premature Ejaculation and Weak Erection<<<<<<

Click Here>>>>>>Anti-kidnap and anti-theft device for tracking and listening<<<<<<

Tags: barrack boybook reviewlife in the barracksmilitary barracksnigerian armysoldiers
David

David

Sun News Online team

Related Posts

Lenrie Aina: How Botswana changed my life
Literary Review

Lenrie Aina: How Botswana changed my life

16th January 2021
Travails of childless women
Literary Review

Travails of childless women

16th January 2021
Facade: Bruce Onobrakpeya’s magic  enchants Eko Hotels
Arts

Facade: Bruce Onobrakpeya’s magic  enchants Eko Hotels

15th January 2021
Next Post
RAS

Tears As Family And Friends Bid Ras Kimono Farewell At Lying-in-state In Lagos

BUHARI

Buhari taking 'bullets' for protecting the poor - Keyamo

ADEVA AND TEGAN

Adeva and Tegan: Harnessing talents in music, dance, drama

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Highlights

COVID-19: NCDC records 1,617 new infections, 14 more deaths in Nigeria

Former Ambassador, Bolere Ketebu Okehie is dead, Buhari mourns

Ahmed Musa cries: Yahoo Boys after me!!

Ighalo wants Eagles return

Pushing back Youth unemployment post-COVID-19

2020: How strikes, COVID-19, govt wrecked education

Trending

Kano LG polls: Chairman-elect dies 36 hours after winning election
Politics

Kano LG polls: Chairman-elect dies 36 hours after winning election

19th January 2021
0

From Desmond Mgboh, Kano A newly elected chairman, under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC)...

kano

COVID-19: Kano bans viewing, event centres

19th January 2021
Kaduna University ready to reopen Jan. 25 – VC

Kaduna University ready to reopen Jan. 25 – VC

19th January 2021
Ghana records over 19,000 COVID-19 cases

COVID-19: NCDC records 1,617 new infections, 14 more deaths in Nigeria

19th January 2021
Former Ambassador, Bolere Ketebu Okehie is dead, Buhari mourns

Former Ambassador, Bolere Ketebu Okehie is dead, Buhari mourns

19th January 2021
ADVERTISEMENT

Follow us on social media:

Categories

  • Abuja Metro
  • Arts
  • Broken Tongues
  • Business
  • Business Week
  • Cartoons
  • Citizen Joe
  • Columns
  • Cover
  • Culture
  • Duro Onabule
  • Editorial
  • Education Review
  • Effect
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Events
  • Features
  • Femi Adesina
  • Food & Drinks
  • Frank Talk
  • Funke Egbemode
  • Gallery
  • Global Square by Kenneth Okonkwo
  • Health
  • Insights
  • Kalu Leadership Series
  • Kunle Solaja
  • Kunle Solaja
  • Letters
  • Lifeline
  • Lifestyle
  • Literary Review
  • Marketing Matters
  • Muiz Banire
  • National
  • News
  • Offside Musings
  • Opinion
  • oriental news
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • PressClips
  • Public Sphere
  • Ralph Egbu
  • Shola Oshunkeye
  • Sideview
  • South-west Magazine
  • Sponsored Post
  • Sporting Sun
  • Sports
  • Sun Girl
  • Tea Time
  • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
  • The Sun Awards Live
  • The Sun TV
  • Thoughts & Talks
  • Time Out
  • Today's cover
  • Tola Adeniyi
  • Travel
  • Travel & Tourism
  • Trending
  • TSWeekend
  • Turf Game
  • Uncategorized
  • Updates
  • Views from Abroad
  • Voices
  • World
  • World News
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Paper Ad Rate
  • Online Ad Rate
  • The Team
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

© 2019 The Sun Nigeria - Managed by Netsera.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • National
  • Columns
    • Broken Tongues
    • Capital Matters
    • Diabetes Corner
    • Duro Onabule
    • Femi Adesina
    • Frank Talk
    • Funke Egbemode
    • Insights
    • Kalu Leadership Series
    • Kunle Solaja
    • Offside Musings
    • PressClips
    • Public Sphere
    • Ralph Egbu
    • Shola Oshunkeye
    • Sideview
    • The Flipside – Eric Osagie
    • Tola Adeniyi
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Entertainment
  • The Sun TV
  • Sporting Sun

© 2019 The Sun Nigeria - Managed by Netsera.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist