Sometimes when you embark on a journey or a task, you cannot help but ask your self:

“Na Who send me?”

Who asked me to attempt to review a 646-page book?  It is not even a novel but a collection of articles written by a grammar-loving journalist Eddy Odivwri- Someone who believes that “adherence to mechanical accuracy in grammar is essential to communicators and that communicators must endeavor to pass their messages in the finest tradition of flawlessness or near flawlessness!”. Who mandated me?

No one!  Not even the author! All he did was give me an autographed copy of his book.” THE PAINS of a COUNTRY”.  Maybe I felt that if he can write it, why can’t I read it and if I can read it, why not review it in my usual layman’s style.

Beyond the volume, there is another reason why I wouldn’t normally read a book with the title: “The PAINS of a COUNTRY”. Why would I want to read about the pains of a country when these pains are real and worse now???! While the title of the book prepares one for a tedious read, the content would make a good course material for the study of Nigerian Politics, Governance and Leadership. For a compilation of articles by Eddy Odivwri written over an 8-year period and published in 2014, it appears almost prophetic and very real, as if they were written today!

With articles bearing titles like:

“Do you know your Reps?”

“With such Honourables.. !”

“Mark: The lawmaker or lawbreaker?”

Would you not think I was talking about today’s members of the National Assembly? or when you see…

“WANTED: A Work Minister that works!” (Doesn’t a Super Minister come to mind?)

As darkness hovered over the face of the country, the people joined the author to cry out:…

”Let there be light!” (instead what they got was increased electricity tariff)

”Do these Governors ever learn?”

”Ekiti and the Crisis Toga!”

”Corruption and the Judiciary!”

Are these not today’s issues? Do they not sound familiar?

“As the Nation bleeds!” !The nation is indeed bleeding! The blood they were previously “sharing” in Borno alone is now being shed all over the Country. Isn’t Nigeria now “A nation on the edge”?

“Who will save the poor?”: he asks.

I wonder if it will be the “politrickians”, the lawbreakers or “the civil or evil servants?”

When he wrote:” “Spare us these half-plaited lies” Did he foresee the coming of L.a.i?

“Is the Economy broke or Not?” (and She answered:” Technically”!)

In “Who will tell the president?” the author writes: “We are in the …month of this administration and it looks like morning still on creation day…Every other thing is denominated in future tense:” We will, we shall, we…”…. See if you can tell Mr. President, tell him to make life worth living, by doing tangible things we can measure and see.” (and to think he wrote this on January 12, 2008).

What has changed?

However, it is not all doom and gloom!

And as the Publisher, O’Femi Kolawole points out: “But much more than a book of lamentations, Pains of a Country is also a book of hope”. In Eddy Odivwri’s own words:” In writing The PAINS of a COUNTRY therefore, there is an underlying desire to crow about the things and policies that hurt us as a people. There is the need to retell our stories, the stories of subdued greatness, the stories of our cropped potential, the stories of envisioned triumph”

“Will there be a new dawn?:he asks.  To which he himself answers in “A new Nigeria is Possible”!

But how long will the Nigerian citizens bear the pains of this country? Maybe I will find the answer when I finish reading the book. A huge task no doubt but if Eddy Odivwri can bear the pain of writing a 646-page book, I should find pleasure in reading it! They say it is easier to read than to write, so as i sip a cup of coffee on this cold rainy night and settle down to read ‘The PAINS of a COUNTRY’, I wonder how far I can go! Who cares! It took my friend and former classmate Eddy Odivwri eight years to write these articles, would he or anyone expect me to finish reading them in one night? Whenever I get tired, I will put it down jaare! After all….

Who send Me?!!!!

And this is the end of my layman’s review of Eddy Odivwri’s “THE PAINS of a COUNTRY”