New Book: “I No De Give Shi-Shi” …The Promise of a New Era

Book Title: THE PROMISE OF A NEW ERA

Author: Chuks Iloegbunam

Publishers:  Eminent Biographies.

Pages: 192

Reviewer: Emeaba Onuma Emeaba

 “The Promise of a New Era” is one of those literary incongruities which refuse to be type-cast. The writer, Chuks (short for, Chukwu-kweleze) Iloegbunam could not make up his mind where to class the book. With its eight chapters, the book defies genre typology. Drawing on his near encyclopedic knowledge of written sources, Iloegbunam’s panoramic style graciously intermingles elements from many genres. He is able to put together what comes across like a no-be-juju-be-that-type concoction made with ingredients marinated in biography, history, autobiographic reflections eloquent of his close contact with the subject, motivational spiel, political commentary, slap-stick anecdotes, and episodic jeremiads. All this, in a breezy journalese that is a delight to read.

The book, upfront is unambiguously submitting, that it is endorsing Peter Obi, the Labour Party flagbearer for Nigerian president, “since the APC and PDP had bankrupted their threadbare political credits and deserve to step aside for a breath of fresh air to resuscitate an entity close to asphyxiation.”

The book and the author, Chuks Iloegbunam.

Peter Gregory Onwubuasi Obi was born into the family of Mr. Josephat and Mrs. Agnes Obi from Agulu in Anaocha LGA of Anambra State. He grew up in a two-storey building that doubled as a residence and the businesses of a supermarket, and a restaurant. Born in Onitsha a city also known as Market, and in a home where life revolved around the church, the school, and the shop Obi had no choice but to imbibe them all.

Obi disregards logic and side-lines the usual apprenticeship and petty-trading route that is the wont of the people of his neighbourhood, and goes to school. In short order, he finishes high school, and enrolls at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.  Even as a student he still dabbles in trading—a trait that could not be ignored for the Anambra man. Obi becomes Chairman of Fidelity Bank at 43 years. Then, other bank chairmanships follow before he decides to play at politics. It turns out, all along, he was made for the combination of education, trading, and governance. The rest, they say, is history.

Iloegbunam seems to be dabbling in wizardry as he engages in this grand sleight of hand of combining an eerie brilliance at reasoned thought with a considerable measure of psychological analyses of the topic at hand. Haply, Iloegbunam is a journalist, a profession which equips him with impressive, often snide anecdotes—anecdotes which, in displaying an insiders’ familiarity, and intimacy with the subject, take the edge off the polemical passion a reader might expect from the book.

And with a theme as captivating, significant, and concerning as this, one is willing to put up with the author’s vacuum cleaner approach where he simply sucks up beaucoups of insightful and even minor facts and dumps them at the reader like an accusation. Some of his excerpts, from newspaper articles, social media trolls, and participant observations, are presented unembellished and in an elaborate prose put together in the Iloegbunamesque rare propensity for incorporating details into a comprehensive picture. The story is so good, and Iloegbunam organizes the reading pace in such a way that readers are carried along spell-bound.

“The Promise of a new Era” is a kind of gusty allegory of Nigeria’s political musical chair, as the country searches for a snake-oil type leader to guide her out of what had ailed her for years. One needs to have a certain panache—a talent touched by nothing short of an abracadabra to perform this tricky balancing act, but Iloegbunam who spent time as Peter Obi’s chief of staff, pulls it off. He manages to rewrite the story of Obi’s life in such a way that no one will ever be able to boil it down to a sentence. To give it a try: the book is of a man who has been touched by the gods—the story of Peter Obi’s journey from a trader, to bank chair, to governor, and to vice presidential candidate.

Aimed specifically at the electorate, “who are the hewers of wood and drawers of water” that will decide Nigeria’s future in the next election, the book discusses the internal politics of three of the main political parties, the All Progressive Congress (APC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP). It concludes that the APC and the PDP parties are nothing but a pair of one, the Devil, and the other, The Deep Blue Sea, any one of which “spells nothing other than ruination to Nigeria” as the choices facing the electorates. The Labour Party—the Third Force which Professor Utomi describes as “the option for national salvation and an unambiguous thumbs down for the political status quo”—is the party to beat.

Drawing from recent contemporary events, and even Obi’s personal experiences, the book tells of what makes Peter Obi tic.  Obi had concluded that the other parties were engaged in a comical parade of monetarism where political power is ceded to the one with deep pockets. Obi hates this and said so. That gave birth to the famous “I no de give shishi” a metonymy for which Obi represents.

Again, described as two of a kind, Obi picks, as his running mate, another high achiever Dr. Yusuf Baba-Ahmed who holds a verifiable first degree from the University of Maiduguri, an MBA from Cardiff in Wales and a Ph.D. from the university of Westminster in U.K; and at the age of 34 was already elected to the house of Representative for Zaria, and thereafter, into the Senate representing Kaduna North. At 42 Dr. Baba-Ahmed had set up the Baze University in Abuja. Their achievements underscore Obi’s quote: “If a man has not created wealth, he cannot manage wealth.” Even as the other presidential candidates, particularly Atiku, Tinubu and Kwankwaso, his co competitors, “have remained shadowy figures, defined, if at all, by hearsay and propaganda,” Obi and Dr Baba-Ahmed, with their Labour Party, have become part of the national debate and popular culture—important players in Nigeria and Nigerian youths’ economic and political life.

The book concludes that this clear combo of untainted achievement is what the Labour Party has presented to the electorate and so, uses a series of thumbnail sketches of famous political writings by trusty, name brand, Nigerian journalists to point to the same thing—Peter Obi is it.

Elsewhere, Peter Obi, the presidential flagbearer of the Labour Party, has become a hero to many Nigerian Youths who have come to dub themselves the “Obidients,” and a demon to many of status quo politicians who have manipulated the electoral process where the richest could buy the nominations of the various parties. As it stands, he is one of the most important figures in modern Nigerian history and currently the only candidate that seems to encapsulate the answer to the worry of the Nigerian youth.   But, whatever he is, politically—whether he will someday occupy Aso Rock—or whether he will be relegated to the defeated ranks of political zealots who failed to end money bag politics in Nigeria—one thing about him is certain: Iloegbunam is a gifted writer who, if he were not a Nigerian, could easily make a living as an author, of fiction or fact.

Truth be the told, the book is a very decent try at an immensely difficult subject, encompassing an enormous amount of material. Iloegbunam goes through the sources with commendable zeal. He also writes well, which is remarkable, given that he has spent much time writing memo and speeches with government register, a real killer to style.

In truth, there won’t be another book ever that grapples more determinedly and convincingly with the big picture of the Nigerian class—or which fluctuates so maddeningly between Peter Obi as a presidential candidate and the failures of the other candidates in its scrutiny. The problem is that for all his extraordinary writing, creative syntheses and moral beliefs, Iloegbunam’s “The Promise of a new Era” is awe-inspiring. This review does not purport to do justice to Mr. Iloegbunam’s message, for he has written a very important discourse on how to save Nigeria from itself.  What is especially effective about the book’s argument is its unrelenting realism.

The book is available by sending an email to the author: chuks.iloegbunam@gmail.com

Emeaba, the author of “A Dictionary of Literature,” writes dime novels a la Onitsha Market Literature sub-genre.