"Violence" (a novel by Festus Iyayi).

The novel discusses how the rich oppress the poor and force them to pay
violence with violence. There are several cases of oppression in the novel.

Idemudia and his wife ,Adisa , live in a mud house in Benin City, Edo
State, Nigeria. They often have to go hungry and she feels he is not trying
hard enough. Idemudia has had a rough childhood with a polygamous father
who couldn't pay his school fees (making him drop out of secondary school)
and eventually chased Idemudia's mother out with all her children. He can't
find a profitable job in the city. Married 5 years earlier, he has left his
and Adisa's 3-year-old only child (Ogbodu) behind in the village for his
mother to feed.

Idemudia is wondering where to go one day when a Mercedes Benz car runs
into the gutter in front of his house. He helps the wealthy owners (Obofun
and his wife, Queen) get the car out. Queen requests for people who can
help her offload 1 500 bags of cement from 3 trailers, and Idemudia and his
friends jump at the offer. At the end of the day, he gets 5 naira.

Soon the effects of the strenuous work begin to tell on him : he becomes
very ill. There aren't enough beds at the University Hospital so they are
referred to the Ogbe Hospital. Adisa is wondering how to get food and drugs
for her husband when Obofun walks in and alleges that Idemudia has stolen
some bags of cement. After Obofun discovers the truth, he tries to have an
affair with Adisa. She refuses at first but gives in when she can't pay
Idemudia's hospital bills. Unknown to them, Queen sees them and decides to
have her own back.

Adisa later realises she needn't have sold herself ; Idemudia's friends
have contributed the money. She tells her husband that she got the money
(given her by Obofun) from her aunt, Salome (also called Yasha).

Later, Idemudia and his colleagues demand better pay from Queen. Idemudia
is chosen as their foreman. When he goes to Queen's house to negotiate with
her, she tries to bribe him with her body. (That's her usual business
style, her way of getting free supplies for her supermarket,etc from Iriso
and others. Obofun pretends not to know but sleeps with other men's wives
in revenge. Having stashed all his resources, gained from bribery and
corruption, into Queen's account, he can't afford to divorce her. Their
children too are morally corrupt; Lilian is "raped" in her parents' house
by 3 schoolboys without anyone hearing her scream. She only starts
screaming on her mother's arrival). When he refuses, she tells him about
Adisa's affair with Obofun (to hurt him).

As Idemudia returns home, he decides to kill his wife. Adisa doesn't deny
(but weeps in silence)when he confronts her with his discovery. Then he
realises that she has probably done this to pay his hospital bills ( just
as he regularly sells his blood at hospitals to feed both of them). So the
woman is forgiven and the matter forgotten.

OTHER CASES OF OPPRESSION IN THE NOVEL

1. At the Freedom Motel (owned by Obofun), delicious leftover food (which
includes meat, jollof rice, beans and dòdò) are given to pigs and dogs
while human beings like Idemudia go hungry (pages 18-20).

2. Queen and many other employers of labour are reluctant to pay their
labourers or increase their wages but are eager to increase their workload.
Dissenters are often sacked. (pages 17, 35-38, 153, 234-248, 250-251).

3. "Government concentrated on building hotels instead of hospitals in the
midst of so much disease"(page 55). Two accident victims are referred from
the University Hospital to the Ogbe Hospital (where they die the same day)
because the man who brought them there has disappeared (pages 58-59). Many
patients share beds or sleep on the floor, if they are lucky not to be
turned back from the hospital.

4. Adisa's ignorance makes her cover up feverish Idemudia (page 41),
instead of cooling his body with water and buying food with the 5 naira.
Maybe he would have recovered without having to go to the hospital to incur
a 23-naira debt.

5. Idemudia's bedmate (who is from Asaba) at Ogbe Hospital has a terrible
cough and shouts "Anuoha" after each cough (pages 59-60,76-78). Before he
dies (as an "old" man of 45!), he tells Idemudia how his wife Ifeanya was
gang-raped to death, his daughter Itetah kidnapped and his son Anuoha shot
dead, leading to his loneliness and ill health. His supposed journalist
relative, Mr Iyokoh, refuses to identify or claim his dead body or pay his
hospital bills (pages 141-148).

6. While people like Idemudia suffered in the city, village life was also
very rough. Though village people had enough food to eat (from their farms)
and lived in their own houses, farm work often aged them quickly and
shortened their life expectancies (pages 71-72, 283-284).

7. Idemudia and Adisa (at Govt Class 4 and Secondary Modern 2 respectively)
are more formally educated than Obofun and Queen (at Standard 4 and Primary
School respectively) (pages 71-72,283). Queen educated herself informally
afterwards (page 88). Yet, the latter couple are wealthier due to his
father's money (page 72) and the money he got from fraud while serving in
various Ministries (page 29).

8. Papa Jimoh (Idemudia's neighbour) is arrested for an offence committed
by his colleague, a fellow driver. He is locked up for 2 days and 3 nights
with 39 other people in a 12-by-10-feet police cell which has only a
double-decker bed. They all urinate on the floor, pass faeces into a
general bucket and take turns to sit on the bed. The company doesn't
compensate him after his innocence has been proved (pages 79-84).

 9.
One Christmas, Adisa "had bought and prepared a chicken that had died
from an illness...because there had been no money" (page 67).

10.  A play (also called "Violence") ,written by a former patient and
shown at Ogbe Hospital's 25th anniversary, shows how suffering pushes
people into crime. A 38-year-old labourer with 3 kids who gets 14
naira pay per month is charged to court for robbery with violence. So
are a schoolteacher (whose 2 former students embezzled money as
eminent personalities and were retired with full benefits) and a
jobless man (who graduated from secondary school 16 years earlier and
gets 3 naira per day when he is lucky to get menial jobs). The Defence
Counsel in the play said," acts of violence are committed when a man
is denied the opportunity of being educated, of getting a job, of
feeding himself and his family properly, of getting medical attention
cheaply, quickly and promptly. ... When such men of poor and limited
opportunities react,they are only (in a certain measure ) answering
violence with violence"(page 185). See also page 243, where violence
is defined as consisting "not of physical , brutal assault but of a
slow and gradual debasement of himself, his pride as a man". The
judgmental judge's death sentence on all the accused persons is
rendered null and void by the news of his earlier dismissal from
service for bribery and corruption.

................................MINOR CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL................

1. MR PAPIROS CLERIDES = the thin Greek site engineer employed by
Queen against her own labourers.

2. LILIAN = one of Queen's 3 daughters.

3. ESIE = Queen's 2nd son.

4. AUNTY YASHA (SALOME) is Adisa's aunt, who is separated from her
husband (who used to beat her up after being drunk, neglected her and
her children and even borrowed money in her name). She fends for
herself and her children from the proceeds of prostitution. As a
result of her bitter experience, she often encourages Adisa to leave
Idemudia and rent a room outside like her, until she learns that he
often sells his blood to feed her (pages 46-48, 154-157,254).

5 - 10 . PATRICK , OMOIFO , BERNARD, OSARO, ANYAM, IFEANYI =
Idemudia's friends and fellow labourers. Please don't confuse IFEANYI
with IFEANYA (Anuoha's mother).

11.  RICHARD = Queen's houseboy.

12-13.  PAPA & MAMA JIMOH =  Idemudia's and Adisa's neighbours at Owode Street.

14.  ALUIYA  =  Queen's driver.

15.  IRISO = a Ministry of Agriculture official who gives Queen free
eggs, milk, fish and meat for her hotel in return for sex .

16. DALA = Iriso's friend.

17. MR ERNEST IYOKOH = a journalist mentioned by Anuoha's father as
his relative.

18. THE "OLD" MAN = Anuoha's father and Idemudia's bedmate at Ogbe Hospital.

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