An Ogadinma for Every Woman
March is International Women’s Month. One would hope, however distrustfully, that violence and targeted harassment against women will wane. Still, a day before #IWD2022, Nigerian Twitter was agog with invective posts targeted at a working mother whose baby died in a creche. Then, Ayanwole Oluwabamishe became a victim of kidnap and (ritual) killing in Lagos, Nigeria. Glaringly, women’s vulnerability remains constant in Nigeria and the world over. It is this victimhood that Ukamaka Olisakwe represents with a twist in Ogadinma. She leverages on fine writing and the feminist principle of choice to drive home an already familiar story.
“Nnu Ego walked so Ogadi could fly…” — @dogba_
Ukamaka Olisakwe’s Ogadinma is prose work that follows the story of seventeen-year-old Ogadinma. Wanting to get into the University of Nsukka even after being denied an admission (and upon her father’s advice), she visits Barrister Chima’s office to solicit his help. Seeing her desperation and naivete, Barrister Chima has sex with Ogadinma repeatedly with no plans whatsoever of helping her. Ogadinma winds up pregnant, desolate, recognizing the deceit and with just enough cash for an abortion. She aborts the child but her father finds out. She is then beaten severely and ‘shipped’ to Lagos to start a new life where her ‘disgrace’ will be hidden.
Coming from a closely-knit relationship with her father in Kano, Ogadimma is the model child in her uncle’s home in Lagos. Since she cooks, cleans and never questions authority, her uncle’s wife finds her to be perfect wife-material for her thirty-four-year-old brother, Tobe. In military-led Nigeria, Tobe is an affluent contractor and immediately sweeps innocent Ogadinma off her feet. Forceful matchmaking and cajoling, gifts, constantly spending time in her space, showing her off like a doll, Ogadinma believes she is at her best with Tobe and agrees to marry him. She however believes wrongly. Although she makes her father proud and fulfils the whims and wishes of her in-law, Ogadinma marries a narcissistic and attention-seeking Tobe when she is only eighteen. The situation degenerates to physical and verbal abuse when Tobe loses his business fortune to the autocratic military government of the 1950s. He turns wife-beater, physically and verbally abusing Ogadinma, causing her during her pregnancy, to birth her son prematurely. One time, Ogadinma is subjected to deliverance for being the cause of her husband’s failures. She is denied food, correspondence, dignity and is even raped repeatedly by the seer. This story’s twist happens when Ogadinma decides to flee her marriage and child. She seeks a new life learning a new skill and making her own life choices; however derogatory others may find it.
This very familiar story of abuse that tows the same narrative with stories by Buchi Emecheta, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and other Nigerian writers is surprisingly unique and earns its tag as “modern feministic classic” for three reasons. Firstly, its protagonist is faceless. As the reader of Ogadinma begins to notice, the narration is told from the omniscient point of view. Usually, this narrative technique affords the writer the opportunity to create an image of its protagonist by description. Ukamaka Olisakwe, however, leaves this detail to the imagination. Although other characters are seen and described, Ogadinma has no facial features or even body type. All that is known about her is her age and experiences. This is brilliant as it allows the reader to blindly imagine Ogadinma as any woman at all. Therefore, the (sexual, physical and emotional) abuse, witch-branding, manipulative control of her choices and economic power (which are challenges faced by all kinds of women universally) are not permissible because of her body type or looks. They are simply the evils of patriarchy and society’s negative wiring against women.
Second and quite important is the novel’s classic twist. From page 1 to 260, the reader of Ogadinma finds a naïve Ogadinma grow into a woman willing to flex her right to choose. One can say then that the story is radically feministic as much as it is a bildungsroman. Postpartum, Ogadinma seeks out Kelechi, an old friend of her husband, because she needs to survive. She sleeps with him and gets enough money to start a new life alone. Ogadinma leaving her son is unthinkable to society, but sleeping with a married man is immoral on all levels. Ogadinma who should “crawl back to Tobe” to save her marriage wears the tag of prostitute for as long as she chooses. She moves on, proving to Kelechi her autonomy of person. Again, Ogadinma takes to learning makeup professionally after being denied freedom to get a university education. She meets Karim who she shares her narrative with unashamedly. She flexes, as we see, her power of choice. This is what makes this story so new. As in typical bildungsromans, Ogadinma is matured by her experiences, her friendship with the hot-headed Ejiro, her retrospections and finally, her will to live. Sisterhood in the women she meets, choice in the life-altering decisions she makes and a will to be more than she’s allowed by abuse, trauma and family sets this story apart.
Finally, the issue of women’s vulnerability in Ogadinma remains nuanced. Ukamaka Olisakwe focuses very well on the place of grooming, manipulation, gaslighting and cultural norms as drivers of violence against women more than brutal physical abuse. By emphasizing these issues, she raises critical questions on how much focus is given to how much emotional abuse gives way to physical abuse and how little of this we think in thinking of physical abuse. The first instance in which this shows is with Ogadinma’s mother. Even as a secondary school student, Ogadinma is very aware that her mother left home. The pervading yet unspoken fear that she may turn out like her prostituting mother remains with her and influences her father’s reaction to her pregnancy and her being abused. Again, with Barrister Chima, one notices that his raping Ogadinma is devoid of physical force. What he does not do brutally, he does by wielding power over her- the power to give her a slot in the university. He dangles the hope of a university admission, cajoling this minor and raping her consistently. Ogadinma lives with the stigma and then believes it is her responsibility to save her image and that of her father. Little wonder when her in-law grooms her for Tobe, making excuses for his tantrums and manipulating her into believing she wants to be married at 18, Ogadinma tows that pattern. Ogadinma’s choices as we come to see are always never hers but she is made to think otherwise. Finally, the cultural norm of shaming divorced women keeps Ogadinma in an abusive marriage until her life and mental health is threatened. Fearing that her father will ask her to return again to her husband, she has nowhere to go. Even when she leaves and seeks a new life, the shame of being named divorced keeps her silent about her identity. Once again, in the liberating style of this feminist classic, Ogadinma drops shame on her own terms.
Ukamaka Olisakwe creates in Ogadinma an eponymous and faceless feminist character whose ordeals many women the world over can relate to, because of universal patriarchal patterns. Still, she challenges her readers to introspect and challenge the norms by choosing to choose themselves.
