Title: Juju Eyes
Author: Sam Omatseye
Publisher: Sunshort Associates,
Nigeria
Year: 2025
Pagination: 2025
Reviewer: Henry Akubuiro
Faction, in literature, is a mesh of fact and fiction, using real life characters and events as a foundation for a fictional narrative. More often than not, it explores political, historical and social currents, and offers alternative perspectives with speculative accounts of a life once lived and era gone by, recreating some of the players who shaped the past with a lesson for the present. Sam Omatseye’s Juju Eyes fits into a literary faction in how he melds facts with fiction, using politics, romance and culture as a basis for a robust conversation with bibliophiles. The flirtations of Oluseyi, better known as Shay, the major character in the novel, is a parody of Nigerian politics, with politicians who gravitate towards the kitchen where bread is buttered. But the tenor in the love story is absorbing.
Of course, Omatseye has a way with mysterious female protagonists. Crocodile Girl, his first novel, written over a decade ago, depicts a femme fatale with mystical powers, whose male acquaintances are given to kissing the dust. Shay, in Juju Eyes, is a variation of the water maid Dedicated to a goddess in a forest at four by her mother, Maami, to avoid a devastating wrath, Shay shows superior powers by destroying the goddess in a blink of an eye and disappointing those who think an apocalypse has come, leading a carefree life afterwards. The goddess she destroys is “a white sculpture” and bathed “in a riot of lights and silhouettes from the candles, the erect vision took on a surreal appearance. The idol is dressed in a sparkling dress.”
Omatseye’s protagonist has a disturbing childhood, having been raped by her benevolent uncle, ID, who ought to be her watchman. That incident turns her world upside down, making her see every man as a potential casualty. Omatseye reminds us: “She said her life since university as a glamour girl was her own version of paying for the loss of her womanhood at school.” It is surprising her mum never berates her excesses. As an adult, “Shay is a chocolate belle. She had the walk, carriage, the slim waist, the eyes of a cat, the delicate cheekbones and the leg power. She was also great at elocution and brilliant in current affairs. Her poise and haughty air undermined her poor background.” She emerges a beauty queen – Miss Unical – in the university and goes ahead to win Miss NYSC during her youth service. The world and his wife bow whenever she is involved. With her charms, men are lured into a vortex in which they become the sole loser. Yet they keep acting like ferreting hunters after her melons and derriere.
In Juju Eyes, Omatseye tells a vibrant Nigerian romance with emotional ebbs and flows. The protagonist lives on a diet of lies in her relationship with men and varies the emphasis as she comes in contact with each of them. Who has the juju eyes? Originally a metaphor for a particular female adored by his Romeo in Port Harcourt, it gives off a racist tonality when a white lover, Nigel, madly in love with the protagonist, borrows it to describe Shay. But there is no denying the fact that Shay has got the juju eyes, taking into account her previous exploits in the village, steeped in mystery, and the snare in her eyes as she grows up and spins webs.
A major twist in the novel is that Shay beds and exploits men at will in Nigerian only to find what looks like true love with a Caucasian British, who can sing Fela’ songs word for word and has taken acculturation to a fine art. Even when he is kidnapped, Shay takes the risk to show up in the kidnappers’ den with ransome. Omatseye’s Juju Eyes illustrates the elevation of money to a god in which men and women salaam with desperation in our society. It also echoes the glorification of sex and lies. The political strand of the narrative is based on a real-life event of an Ibadan politician, who parts ways with a political godfather when he demands a huge sum of money and demands a big amount of money to assist him get by, making the latter dismiss him as unserious. In the novel, a politician loses election and becomes sober, taking into account his huge investments gone with the wind.
Also, Omatseye uses Juju Eyes to interrogate Nigerian politics and how the idealists fall by the wayside like detritus. Osa Osamede is a young, ambitious young man in love with Shay, who, however, doesn’t have a commensurate amount of love for him, and she eventually dumps him. Osa used to be a student union activist and wants to be a contemporary politician. He soon makes mind boggling discoveries about Nigerian politics. It is full of deceit and extravagant expenditures, which go to the drain once you lose. Shay’s mother may be a peripheral figure in the narrative, but she is symptomatic of Nigerian leadership and how the strings are pulled from the margin.
In Juju Eyes, Omatseye cooks a fictional broth that teems with socio-political strands: from the familial to the abuse of love by men of influence, as well as the problem associated with money in the Nigerian love story. The coming of Nigel into Shay’s life midway into the narrative is used by Omatseye to show the other side of Shay and the possibility of atonement for a bad girl. Who would have thought Shay would live a normal family life? Never write off a bad girl, then. The dialogues in this novel are witty and illuminating. In Shay’s friends, Amina and Esther, we see colleagues who are guided by different principles and, at a point in time, alter egos.
From Nigeria to the UK and London, the author swells our knowledge of geography and how environments alter perceptions of reality. The puzzle over whose child Shay bears at the end of the narrative leaves a question mark on the true nature of a chameleon. This indeterminate ending will keep you ruminating for minutes. Omatseye writes with a brilliance that makes it hard for the reader to choose between a lollipop and a titillating prose. Read this novel.