By HENRY AKUBUIRO
THE Sixth Finger, a novel by Nigerian novelist, Chux Onyenyeonwu, is the new bride of American film industry, Hollywood, after it has been restructured for screen adaptation. Rated by Hollywood as Historical/Drama with setting in Africa, U.K., U.S., and Latin America, from 1700s to the present, the 531- page novel has been recommended as ideal for Hollywood film production.
According to Hollywood, the Best Medium for Adaptation include: Studio Feature Film, Independent Feature Film, Animation – Feature Film, Documentary, Alternative/reality TV series, Animation – TV series (adult), Drama/ Comedy TV series, Children’s TV series, and Webseries.
According to the Logline, the trans-Atlantic slave trade has divided an African family, but the presence of The Sixth Finger ultimately reconnects them to their histories and loved ones.
In the plot, an African man from the collection of villages known as Ohafia has a six-fingered child called Aka. Aka grows into a strong and self-assured young man, and he eventually marries and has three boys nicknamed Obele, Chukwuma and Chuka. Obele and Chukwuma become victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade; Obele ends up in Cuba and Chukwuma receives “forty acres and a mule” in the southern United States. Chukwuma befriends teacher and orator Booker T.
Washington achieves much and lives until the ripe old age of one-hundred-and-five. Greatly inspired by his great-grandfather, Chuck IV (called Chuck BTW) tries to help his fellow man through his work in the Coast Guard and the DEA. He ends up defending the honour of Miss Cosmos 1990, a Nigerian woman wrongfully accused of drug trafficking. Through his association with the Nigerian woman, he and those connected with the case learn of their linked histories.
Synopsis
In early November of the year 1990, ninety-eight-year-old Londoner Sir Benjamin Towerman, a relative of the man who designed the bell tower of Big Ben, has a negative premonition. For decades, he has kept Big Ben in operation, even receiving a knighthood for his service to the landmark. Now as he hears the chime of the bell in the distance, he informs his assistant James Masson that he knows something terrible is about to occur. He tells James that people’s lives are helpless against the forces of “an unseen hand that effectively creates and weaves time to give an accurate account of them.” He adds that – although people see only five fingers on their hands – there is an invisible sixth finger directing the affairs of the other five.
Hollywood’s storyline
Before Towerman can go into greater depth, he dies. Meanwhile, at the Royal Albert Hall, the Miss Cosmos Beauty Contest takes place. CRAIG David Stephenson, CNN talk show host and the contest’s master of ceremonies, is aware that the media is abuzz about his impending seventh divorce. He is forty-eight years old and still quite the ladies’ man; the regulars of various gambling houses place bets on the identity of the eighth Mrs. Stephenson. As Stephenson hosts the contest, Prime Minister Margareth Thatcher watches the event on her television set.
Her goddaughter, pianist and graduate of an architectural master’s programme Jane Margareth Hilda Daniel-Aka, is the daughter of Nigeria’s highest commissioner to the Court of St. James, Ambassador Daniel Aka. A beauty as well as a brain, Jane is one of the contest’s finalists. As Thatcher watches the show, she muses that both of Jane Margaret’s parents were born with a sixth finger on their hands.
Chuck Booker Freeborn IV, deputy director for Europe and Asia in the Drug Equalisation Agency (DEA), watches the televised beauty contest with Cuban-American X-squad member Fabrice Deleon. At the same time, Nigerian-born Brit Oscar Utomi –executive director of South African diamond sellers Twinkle & Twinkle, a primary sponsor of the pageant – regrets that he has missed attending the show because he has had to stay in Asia.
He now has the “shipment” – a dangerous package worth hundreds of millions of pounds that he has transported from Singapore – in his UK home. He learns from the broadcast that Miss Nigeria is the winner of the beauty contest. Soon afterward, he receives a phone call from a drug lord representing the Medellin Cartel. DEA agents listen in on the call and overhear the exchange between the men.
Centuries earlier, in the African village of Amaeke-Ohafia, a man called Onyeobia/Ofobike worries about his wife Ihuoma, who is in the midst of delivering their first child. They met in their native village of Umuaku, and Onyeobia’s family declared that the two of them could not marry because they were distantly related. In order to secure their union, they create a pregnancy and run away together. Ihuoma suffers a miscarriage, and her misfortune garners the sympathies of the women in Amaeke- Ohafia, making the act of fitting into the new community easier for Ihuoma and Onyeobia.
Eventually Ihuoma gives birth to a six-fingered son called Aka Chukwu/Aka. Onyeobia knows that his son is special, but Ihuoma wants to hide Aka’s sixth finger because various townspeople believe the extra digit to be a bad omen. Ihuoma is especially protective of Aka after she learns that she cannot have any more children. She and Onyeobia take great pride in their son’s many abilities, which include hunting, farming and wrestling. As Aka grows up, he becomes more and more handsome, as well as increasingly formidable at most of his activities. Despite his many accolades and admirers, Aka stays grounded, and his best friend Nwoye, a talented musician and hunter, helps him stay this way.
One afternoon, they talk about choosing wives and bearing children, the “mouthpiece of the gods”. Agbala confronts Aka and Nwoye. Astonishingly, she knows that they have been considering sisters Uju and Ifeanyi– daughters of Mazi Osita – for wives, and confirms that the sisters will make wonderful mates. She hints that Onyeobia has perished, and soon AKA and Nwoye discover that Onyeobia died earlier that day. After the burial, Aka has a vivid dream about his future. In the dream, he and Nwoye marry Uju and Ifeanyi, and Nwoye fathers three girls and Aka fathers three six-fingered boys.
One day, malicious birds capture and fly away with Nwoye and two of Aka’s sons. Aka receives a vision of his late father, who tells him that he will never see his best friend again, but that the boys –guided by the sixth finger – will return to him. Aka awakens and is relieved that the events were a dream. He marries Uju and they move in with the widowed Ihuoma, who quickly thinks of Uju as her daughter. Ihuoma forbids Uju to perform household tasks while she is pregnant, so Uju studies and creates herbal medicines.
About three months after the birth of her son Obeleagu/Obele, Uju learns that Ifeanyi’s young daughter Awele has been bitten by a deadly snake. Uju sucks out the venom and uses herbal remedies to heal the child. Afterwards, many of the villagers come to Uju for medical help, and her techniques and supplements prove miraculously effective. She refuses payment but many patients provide her with goods or services in thanks. As Obele and his younger brothers Chukwumaechi/Chukwuma and grow up, they learn about herbal medicine from their mother. Aka feels very blessed but worries that Nwoye and his wife have had three daughters; events in his and Nwoye’s lives are echoing the incidents in Aka’s unsettling dream.
Aka attempts to put the fears about his dream to rest. He watches his sons grow into young men and – much like their father – excel at everything to which they put their minds. Aka’s sons are self-possessed enough to challenge the bullying statements of Obiligbo, a former nemesis of Aka’s who has returned to the village after years of estrangement. Obiligbo’s fearsome return so rattles Ogbu-isi Obidi – longtime mentor of Aka and Nwoye – that the elderly man dies. Aka mourns this death, and continues his mourning process when Nwoye disappears one day in his search for flute-constructing wood. It seems as though Aka’s dream is coming true: his loved ones are vanishing. Aka names Ifeanyi’s first son ONOCHI, which means “replacement.”
At what point will Aka’s sons be taken from him? Aka’s existential worries are eased somewhat by a startling event: his sons Obele and Chukwuma release an errant arrow that ends up embedded in Ogiligbo’s head, and he drops dead. The death is witnessed by over two hundred people in broad daylight and appears to be an accident. Therefore, Aka and Uju are dismayed when they learn that Ogiligbo’s brother Uchechi Ndiagha has insisted they visit Ibini Ukpabi, a godly figure capable of determining their intentions and motives.
Although initially cocky about their obvious innocence, Obele and Chukwuma come to the sickening realisation that they may never see their parents, sibling and village again. They wind up on a five-week journey to Cuba, stuck in the hold of the slave ship run by Captain BRIAN Luckbone. Separated from his brother on the massive ship, Chukwuma bids his time by ruminating on the fraud that is the Ibini Ukpabi oracle. Chukwuma eventually ends up in Savannah, Georgia, recovering well after the leg wound caused by his chains gets infected and leads to a grave illness. He is heartbroken by the separation from his brother, but he’s relieved that his leg has been saved. The locals dub him “Chuck Freeborn.”
Slowly, Chukwuma grows accustomed to his new surroundings and increasingly familiar with the language and customs. He is shocked when he spots his father’s old friend Nwoye playing a familiar tune on his flute. The two men talk through their tears, greatly enjoying their reunion…