By Samson Akindoyo
Edward Adigwe, The Outcast Heir, West Africa Book Publishers, 2010, pp. 56
The Outcast Heir traces the tortuous but inspiring path of a kingdom with palatably strong tropical African flavour. This work, a mix-grill of the serious and the lighthearted, identifies the perennial struggle between the powerful and the weak, truth and falsehood, human virtues and foibles here and there. You would decipher something of the past, the present and indeed the future.
Choosing an acceptable person to ascend the throne in Umuachala Kingdom turns out to be difficult as the late king had no male child to succeed him. After much wrangling, the chiefs conclude to inquire from Amadioha, the god of justice, who speaks through thunder and strikes with lightning. And Amadioha spoke, through the priest, a devout of the shrine who shouldered the responsibility of thwarting the impeding wrath of the aggrieved gods, a position that invariably put him in conflict with the gods and men, rashness and decorum, despair and hope.
The priest notes that the answer to the chiefs’ quest lay in a mad woman who should not be judged by her tribe or condition as a commoner. Contrary to this, Umuachala kingdom will know no peace.
Instead of putting things right, two of the chiefs find pleasure in throwing a pebble into the pond with ripples here and there. They said, “We are men, not just because we have a pendulum bob dangling in-between our legs, we are men because we can think!” Eventually, a rich indigene of the land is imposed, in flagrant violation of customs and the oracles’ warning, an aberration of sorts. This paved the way for destruction, diseases and deaths in droves. This plot typifies the bane of our age and the root cause of the agonies brought by the politics and the governance of our society and indeed of most developing world; the lust to impose selfish desire, the mad desire to win at all costs and grab all the ‘goodies’ to the detriment of others.
The undertone of Adigwe’s play is about how people’s lives are governed by cultural norms and the acceptance of handed-down rules that encourage no questioning for either logic or relevance in a modern society. After all, were these not the same rules that ensured continuity from one generation to the next as far as the memory of the Africans can recollect?
Adigwe creates a story that aches for the past but is unapologetic about the characters and their perceived roles in the given society. He develops the characters well and draws the reader’s attention to pivotal individuals who represent the collective of the village.
The oracles are to be obeyed and convention demands that, without exception, everyone must heed what they say about the present as well as the future. The gods drawn into the story are enforcers of convention, which simply shows that they themselves provide validation for what can become acceptable and what mortal beings can and cannot do. The fact that the gods can cause prophesies to be fulfilled, ridicule a man, and bring havoc to an entire society for an abomination is a strong case in point, serving as a reminder that African idols are not as servile as presumed.