Book Review | The Torn Petal: Mourning A Nation's Death!
Book Title: The Torn Petal
Author: Teresa Oyibo Ameh
Publisher: AMAB Books and
Publishing
Pages: 31
Year of publication: 2017
Reviewer: Paul Liam
Teresa Oyibo Ameh is a
famed children literature author with several titles to her name. The Torn
Petal, her newest offering in that peculiar genre is a fictionalization of
the dilemma of a nation at war with itself and the hopelessness of her children caught in the theatrics of
chaos, terrorism and the politics of survival.
The story is set in
Adamawa,North East Nigeria, the heart of Boko Haram terrorists activities.
Hussaina, the sixteen years old narrator introduces us to her family at the
beginning of the narration, highlighting the beauty of interfaith coexistence
exemplified by her parents' marriage; her father is a dedicated
christian-preacher and her mother is a devoted muslim and their family is a
very happy one fuelled by love and mutual respect for humanity. Hussaina
recounts her memories of the peace and harmony which existed in the North East
before the advent of the prophets of doom propagating extremist views and
jihad:
In
my part of the North East,
Mixed
marriage was normal.
Be
it religious or tribal.
Christians
and Muslims co-existed peacefully,
Without
strife or rancor. (4)
Through the young
narrator, Ameh paints a mosaic picture of the gory tales of the war torn
region. The dearth of humanity and empathy even amongst a people distraught by
communal grief is the heart of this poetically induced narrative. The narrator
relays the decadence in human dignity thus;
I
even heard them whisper that some girls were raped! Others threw themselves at
camp officials, To get relief items that would sustain their families.
The
women also said that in the midst of so much poverty
Big
people came with so much money from Abuja.
And
threw lavish wedding parties; for their children who flew into the area in
their private jets.
The crux of this story
of pain and loss aside the insightful commentaries on the condition of life in
the North East, is the story of Hussaina's family caught unaware by the waves
of unrest. Her twin brother is murdered during a terrorist raid at his boarding
school, then their village is attacked and anarchy is unleashed upon her family
as everyone runs for their lives in disarray."The love in my closely knit
family died. Our laughter ceased!" narrates Hussaina. At that instant of
commotion she loses sight of her parents, becomes stranded in the bush and is
later found and taken to a refugee camp by hunters.
She narrates her odious
condition at the camp and how she employs her survivalist instincts to stay
alive. She narrates her experiences thus;
Life
in the camp was tough!
We
saw lorries of relief materials
Being
brought to the camp
Yet
we were always starving.
I
did all sorts of things to survive
Especially
sleeping with officials for favours.(21)
Hussaina reconnects
with her eldest sister Uwani who is married and comes in search of her and
together they return home. But what would have marked the start of a fresh
beginning actually ushers in a new phase of psychological trauma. Returning
home, she meets an empty compound bereft of her parents. Her father is dead and
her mother suffers mental illness.
I
feel used and dirty
I
am no longer a beautiful flower
I
am a torn petal
Left
at the mercy of those
Who
should protect me.(27)
The plight of the
narrator in this elegiac story is a symbolic representation of the fate
suffered by countless helpless and hopeless children forsaken by their
motherland. She becomes pregnant after the series of sexual encounters she
endured to survive at the refugee camp. Hussaina, is just a metaphor of the
dehumanization that afflicts Nigeria today. Children are abused and their
ambitions shattered by those who should protect them. If girls suffering from
the consequences of the inactivity of their leaders are forced to have sex with
camp official for relief materials provided by NGOs then who is there that will
protect them? Children today are worst hit by the act of terrorism in the
country; their future and academic dreams have been murdered, and their
innocence stolen from them. A country that has refused to be united by her
pains is shamelessly united by her politics of greed, corruption and avarice as
reflected in the story.
Ameh, through the eyes
of a teenager mourns the death of a nation through the murder of her sons and
daughters, fathers and wives. For it is only a dead nation that will allow her
future to die. Although this story is supposedly for young readers, its morals
are more befitting for adult readers especially since the children have no
direct involvement in the actions that leads to the destruction of their lives
and those of their families. This is entirely an adult affair that only shows
the attendant negative effects it has on children. They are only but innocent
children. Therefore, teenage readers might find it a bit challenging discerning
the imports of this rather technical story.
The narration prides
itself in the adoption of prose-poetry. It is a story written in verse form and
it bears the characteristics of poetry such that the sentences are in stanza
form, rhyme, exclamation marks, metaphors, rhetorical questions etc, also the
book does not have chapters and enjoys a rich colour illustration that will be
especially interesting to children readers. The book is simply an extended
poem.
Finally, there are
incongruous issues ranging from editorial oversight and technical defects in
the book. For example, "Maman" is sometimes spelt as
"Mamman" and one wonders if the word means the same thing as
"Mama" a generic word for mother as is the case with "Baba"
in the work. "She looked like Mamman". (01) There is also
inconsistency in the narrative pattern of the story; Hussaina in describing her
father's elegant qualities quips "He was an ideal husband." For a
teenager describing her father to her fellow teenage readers the ideal
description should be that "He is an ideal father" instead of
husband.
The production of the
book is relatively poor as the pages easily pull off thereby disintegrating the
book. For a book to be owned by children who could be careless in handling
things, the book could be easily destroyed because of the pages pulling off
completely.
Above all, the work is a fresh contribution to the emerging
discourse on the terrorism going on in the North East, and its negative
implications for the children of the region; an unfortunate situation which
Ameh has invariably drawn society's attention to through this representation.
This book should be in school libraries all over the country and other children
need to understand the ugly conditions under which their peers elsewhere have
found themselves.
Paul Liam is a poet and
critic. He lives in Minna, Niger state.
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