Eating by the Flesh (1995) presents a vivid account of governance during the successive military regimes in Nigeria. It is a graphic reflection of activities that characterised military adventures in Nigeria‘s body polity. In a nation bedeviled with escalating economic and socio-political misdemeanour, the military seize power for personal aggrandizement, corrupt enrichment and lust for power. The ruling military officers amazed ill-gotten wealth while the masses only make do with available crumb from their tables. Although military officers enjoy their loot and the attendant paraphernalia of office, officers and men of the Armed Forces suffer
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deprivation in silence. Little wonder post-independent Nigeria‘s history is replete with the adventures of military officers in the nation‘s political landscape, all in a bid to have a share in the proverbial national cake.
Military incursion in Nigeria‘s politics has never been for altruistic intention. Although successive military regimes in the nation flaunt their revolutionary credentials, hardly had they settled down in power when they began to manifest their oppressive and totalitarian tendencies.
Military personnel are fond of treating civilians with contempt, hence the negative reactions they receive from the generality of the people. Majority of them are so unpatriotic that they engage in dastardly act like smuggling, drug trafficking and corrupt practices in flagrant violation of their professional ethics.
Mowah‘s Eating by the Flesh depicts military incursion in politics as an aberration which further exposes the nation to gloom and despair. Although the Head of State, Colonel Moses Azuga, is determined to salvage the nation from her economic and socio-political travails, his revolutionary fervor brings him on collision course with his fellow ‗comrades‘ and colleagues in the Army. His bosom friends, Colonel Sale and Brigadier Danladi, plot against him and eventually succeed in overthrowing his government in a palace coup de‟tat. However the peril which awaits the nation is underscored by the inability of the coupists to understand the real intention for taken over. Mowah‘s treatise, according to Aliu (2000), depicts the ―upper echelon‖ of the military as intellectually nạve and ideologically up-start:
He dramatizes the situation effectively by focusing on its upper echelon. Pre-eminently, the fearless novelist reaches the disturbing conclusion that the Nigerian Military in particular, is intellectually hollow and bereft of worthy ideas save those of mischief, intrigue, mutual distrust, blind and arrogant penchant for self projection and political positions
(41).
How better can we describe a cabal who merely takes over the mantle of leadership without a well-articulated blue-print for economic growth and political re-awakening?
Heavily bank-rolled by foreign elements and local collaborators, Brigadier Danladi emerges as the new Head of State without a clear-cut vision for national development. Ironically, a
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true patriot is lost in Colonel Azuga while a corrupt, morally bankrupt and intellectually inept Brigadier Danladi takes over. Expectedly, the nation continues to retrogress in an unprecedented scale as hardship and stagnation remain:
Why would anyone in his right mind want a messiah, a selfless leader like Azuga out of the way? Well, life is like that. Messiahs have never been known to last long… Well, life is like that. Life will return to normal, it will return to its normal swing of hardship and tiredness. We are used to hardship, we are used to struggling on our own without the guidance of self-proclaimed leaders (119).
This has been the lot of the nation since the first military coup de‟tat on the 15th January, 1966.
More importantly, an assessment of the inaugural proclamation of successive military regimes in Nigeria becomes expedient. Having capitalised on the mis-rule, corruption and ineptitude of civilian governments, the military take over only to soon betray the real intention of their adventure in politics. In no time, oppression, brutality, corruption, self-perpetuation in office, and professional misconduct become a past time in the land. Recent examples of such regimes are that of General Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida and General Sani Abacha. While General Buhari came to power on the heel of public outcry over corruption and mal-administration associated with the administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Babangida seized power with a self-proclaimed resolution to alleviate oppression and brutality associated with the regime of his predecessor, General Muhammed Buhari. In the same vein, General Abacha claimed his government is ―a child of necessity‖ occasioned by the annulment of June 12 Presidential Election and the judicial declaration of the ill-fated Chief Shonekan‘s interim government as illegal. He therefore promised to stay in power for a ―very brief‖ period. Ironically, hardly had he settled down in office that he began to manifest a self-succession ploy! Like these three ‗reluctant‘
leaders, Brigadier Dankoso Danladi ‗reluctantly‘ accepts to lead the nation after the death and arrest of Colonels Azuga and Sale:
My dear compatriots, as you have already been told, the heavy mantle of leadership of this country has fallen on my reluctant head. I shall do my best with divine guidance and direction. A new Armed Forces Revolutionary Council has been formed. We shall continue with the policies of our
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fallen hero, we shall try to follow the footsteps of Col.
Azuga (118).
Unfortunately, he lacks the administrative acumen to effect quality legislation and purposeful leadership. As if this absurdity is not enough, Tamund, who had earlier been indicted for cocaine trafficking under the regime of Colonel Azuga, assumes a new role as economic adviser to the president and commander-in-chief! Only God knows the quality of advice such a character would offer.
Colonel Sale is a study in treachery, perfidy, opportunism and betrayal. He is equally an ingrate who epitomises corruption and insatiable lust for power, women and even food! He desires power for personal aggrandizement and not for public good. He despises the poor and ignores their yearnings. He seeks Wura‘s wife lustfully and has to set up his compatriots, Brigadier Danladi, who beats him to her. His morbid obsession for food and beer is legendary as he ‗devours‘ large quantity of food and beer voraciously. Besides conniving with Tamund in the drug deal, he solicits and gets the support of foreign agents and the powerful Kaduna Mafia to overthrown his bosom friend. His co-conspirators include Alhaji Dankerifi (a traditional ruler), Dr. Mafiri (Chairman, Association of Commerce), Mr. Philip (a drug baron) and Major Markson (Military Attache to American Embassy). Ironically, he recognises Colonel Azuga‘s high sense of devotion and selfless service to mankind. Although he is also aware of his own limitation and ability, yet he wants power. On a second thought before the coup de‟tat, he wonders why he wants Colonel Azuga‘s populist regime toppled:
Why do I conspire against Azuga, my mentor and benefactor? He wondered. What do I stand to gain? Nothing, nothing, for whosoever aspires to rule Nigeria gains nothing whatsoever. In my own case, it is pure inordinate ambition, a meaningless lust for power, for futility. Futility because now, as the second in command, I am as powerful as ever can be. I am even the most feared man in the country and not Azuga. So, what am I up to? (102-103).
Therefore if Colonel Sale knows that Colonel Azuga‘s regime, not his, would benefit the nation more, yet goes ahead to participate actively in the coup de‟tat, then we can conclude that he deserves his fate after the military putsch. Despite Azuga‘s humane role of given him opportunity to survive after his parents abandoned him to alms-begging in the cold northern harmattan, despite
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being raised and nurtured by Azuga‘s parents, despite knowing Azuga‘s revolutionary potentials from their time at Sandhurst in England, he still goes ahead to stab him at the back!
Also, Birgadier Danladi is presented as an opportunist who hides under the pretext of advocating for general wellbeing of the masses to cut corners. He mingles with the people, buys them food but has ulterior motive of wooing Wura‘s wife. He sneaks back to meet the woman only to be injured by a trap. His limping after his misadventure with Wura‘s wife is a metaphor for his resolve to inflict the nation with corruption and bad governance, such that everyone would suffer and ‗limp‘. He plots with Colonel Sale to overthrow Colonel Azuga‘s regime, only to have Colonel Sale arrested and accused of killing Colonel Azuga. As his government ‗spreads‘ poverty, armed-robbery, infrastructural decay and promiscuity, violent uprising becomes inevitable. His cabinet is made up of social misfit like Tamund who had hitherto been indicted for drug peddling.
He however mows the masses into silence! Although he recalls the fond memory of Colonel Azuga, he goes ahead to suspend his decrees, replacing them with more dictatorial ones. His sexual inadequacy which leads to unholy alliance between him and his uncle, Awodu Dauda, makes him to despise every man and woman. He sets out from the outset of his regime to malign and oppress people, the real reason why he enlists in the army. He once instructs his minister of culture to humiliate people through a macabre dance, ―something fascinating enough to give me a hard on and a place in history‖. Chandu views his regime with contempt:
My laughter hung in the air of my room like a stench of fear.
This fear which was gripping the entire land was the fear of yet another uncertain beginning. A beginning built on lies and straw…But, gradually, I started hearing this slow mournful music of pain and hopelessness, the much which started since that morning when Brigadier Danladi presented the nation a rhetorics of lies (120).
Chandu is prophetic as Brigadier Danladi is determined to inflict pain and confusion on the nation.
Nigerian creative writers have had occasions to reflect on the nuances of the military in power. Unfortunately, such reflections have depicted the adventures of the military in a repulsive manner. In the genre of poetry, none of Clark-Bekederemo‘s ―The Cleaner‖, Odia Ofeimum‘s
―The Messiahs‖, and Niyi Osundare‘s ―Siren‖ depicts the military in glowing terms. They all come to agreement that military intervention in the polity is an aberration full of deceit, corruption,
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insensitivity and mal-administration. In the same vein, Soyinka‘s Madmen and the Specialist, A Play of Giant, and The Beatification of Area Boys reveal military misrule and retrogressive leadership style in the genre of drama. Osofisan‘s Aringindin and the Night Watchmen is equally a study in treachery and perfidy that are inherent features of military rule. In prose fiction, Achebe‘s Anthills of the Savannah readily comes to mind. Therefore, it can be deduced that creative writers of Nigeria‘s extraction have always view the military with disdain, scorn and resentment.
Although military officers often betray their unpreparedness for political offices, Colonel Moses Azuga is an exception. From his youthful days, he has always comported himself as humane, selfless and revolutionary-minded personality. As a youth, he saves Sale from the neglect of his parents whose poverty-stricken livelihood almost costs him is life. His determination to redirect the nation from the path of perfidy encouraged him to seize power from the ―long-capped, heavily-embroidered agbadaed men who had built a conduit pipe between the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Dumping Vaults of Switzerland‖, politicians who mastermind the looting of the nation in an unprecedented manner. He does not ‗remove‘ himself from the reality of the nation hence he disguises and drives out alone at night, sometimes to his village, Atuma-Gaskiya. He does not allow traditional sentiment to becloud his sense of reasoning hence he debunks the assertion that his wife, Agnes, is a witch. He elicits his sincerity of purpose right from his days as a trainee in the military. He orders Tamund to be placed on surveillance so as to have first-hand information on his narcotic dealings. He does his best to promote a patriotic Toubi and other loyal officers such that even if he dies in the coup de‟tat, the revolutionary spirit would not abate.
Unfortunately, he is overthrown in a bloody coup de‟tat. Despite his shorthcomings, his character is worthy of celebrating.
Colonel Azuga is not alone in the struggle for economic growth and political rejuvenation.
He has an ally in Toubi, a journalist. Expectedly the two of them suffer the same fate from a society which abhors the truth. Toubi is poisoned by his estranged wife, Fani, who now works for the coupists! He actually sets out to unravel the truth surrounding the history of Nigeria and Tamund‘s ignominious role in it. His death arising from this perilous adventure makes a statement about the professional hazard a journalist faces in the discharge of his duty. Besides the death of Kris Imoudibe of The Guardian and Tayo Awotusin of Champion Newspaper in war-torn Liberia,
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Dele Giwa was killed with a parcel-bomb during Babangida regime. Others have had their freedom curtailed while practicing their profession.
Besides the interrogation of theme of perfidy in a military regime which forecloses the so-called corrective tendencies of the military class, Mowah tells his story in Eating by the Flesh in a quintessentially postmodern fashion. In place of the traditional chronological plot structure, the story is told in a loosely disjointed narrative style without recourse to order. The exploration of this postmodern fragmented narrative technique further enriches textual aesthetics so much that Garuba (1996:137) praises Mowah‘s ―remarkable grasp of craft and technique‖ in the creation of what Aliu (2000: 43) describes as ―a multi-layered universe‖. Employing the symbol of treachery to a great effect, the novel presents Colonel Sale and Brigadier Danladi, two high-ranking military officers, who pretend to be friends but stab each other at the back. As Brigadier Danladi beats his colleague to the adulterous game over Wura‘s wife, the turn of events in the course of the story begins to unfold. The pyrrhic victory of Brigadier Danladi symbolises his impending triumph over Colonel Sale in their treacherous ploy to overthrow Colonel Azuga.
After the ‗prologue‘, the story line digresses to and fro, beginning from Colonel Azuga‘s determined resolve to salvage the nation. This is achieved with the employment of ―diegesis‖, in postmodern parlance. Without a word on his ascension into office, it shifts to the witch-doctor, Dambe, who enjoins Colonel Azuga to act fast before he is overthrown by his military colleagues:
My duty is to warn you...However, if you can trust your friend so much, then you are a greater fool than I imagined.
You are simply a sitting duck for martyrdom…I am thus telling you for the last time, Sale is a vulture (22-23).
Also from Dambe‘s admonition, the story moves to the botched meeting of the Ruling Military Council. It is on this note that it presents Colonel Sale as a sex pervert whose lust for pleasure and power knows no bound. His actions bring to the fore the morally repulsive role he is to play as the masterminder of the impending coup de‟tat. Another ―diegesis‖ occurs without notice as Colonel Azuga ‗sneaks‘ out at night, only to be assaulted by armed-robbers!
Meanwhile the character of the ubiquitous Chandu is note-worthy in driving home the import of Mowah‘s stylistic thrust in Eating by the Flesh. In his dual role as the narrator and active player in the unfolding events in Nigeria, Chandu alludes to events in a futuristic manner, presenting the doom and pestilence that herald Brigadier Danladi‘s government, even when the
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narration has not presented the fall of Colonel Azuga. This flexible narrative structure violates the traditional sequential ordering of events in a narration. Aliu (2000) puts it succinctly:
This is rather per-emptive of events that are to occur later in text…By this narrating and drawing conclusions from events that are yet imperceptible to the reader, Chandu‘s narrative approximates to a direct reversion of the traditional narrative order which prioritizes a sequential patterning of plot (48).
This ‗disharmony‘ marks a decisive postmodern turn in the narrative. Furthermore, as Colonel Azuga hallucinates on getting to his village, the metaphor of banality, the myth surrounding the near ‗earthquake‘ in his village, the ‗vision‘ of Gogo, Nana and Tashi, as well as a retrospective revelation of Lily‘s miscarriage all underscore the doom which awaits the nation. Also, the discovery of the corpse of Colonel Saluhu portends danger, hence, Ejembe admonishes Colonel Azuga to be wary of friends. The forward and backward narrative device employed in the text ensures that the narration is told devoid of structural harmony. As the epilogue re-opens the narrative, when ordinarily it should end it, the logical arrangement of a text from the beginning, through the middle, to the ending is undermined and outrightly subverted. Aliu (2000) submits that the ―structural discord‖ embedded in Mowah‘s Eating by the Flesh stands it out as a postmodern text ―with claim to fame‘‘:
The fame derives from the fact that the text cannot be read in an organicist fashion. The reader arrives at the end of its story only through sewing up the bits and scraps of metanarratives (56).
This non-conformist stylistic posture marks Mowah‘s Eating by the Flesh out as a credible addition to the long list of postmodern African texts. Its preferred style is in line with the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique.
A deconstrutive interpretation of thematic and stylistic preoccupations of Mowah‘s Eating by the Flesh interrogate some events and characters as textualised by the author. Colonel Azuga is fictionalized as a revolutionary-minded character that sets out from his earlier days to secure power for public goods. He is a dedicated and patriotic Nigerian unlike some of his colleagues and adversaries. He is so passionate about effecting positive change in the nation so much that all his actions, and inactions, are tailored towards the betterment of the nation and her people. He despises the corrupt nature of the politicians who had amazed ill-gotten wealth which they stashed
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away in foreign banks. He is so transparent that nobody, not even Colonel Sale and Brigadier Danladi, ever doubts his commitment to national development and his resolve to rid the nation of corruption, inept leadership, administrative lapses, infrastructural decay and moral laxity. This attitude presents him as a credible alternative for leadership role in a nation bedeviled with evil machination of corruption. However, a discerning mind is not unaware that Nigeria has never been known to produce such a patriotic military leader. Successive military regimes in the nations had always come to power in a messianic fashion, eager to flaunt their development-seeking revolutionary credentials. A gullible nation, overtly desiring progressive development, a virtue which the politicians lack, is often ready to encourage and welcome them into power.
Unfortunately, hardly had they settled down in office when they begin to betray their unpreparedness for political offices. As they compel obedience and uncritical reverence for public offices, retrogressive and reactionary governance come to the fore. Political leaders are hounded into detention or forced to go underground. Press freedom is undermined in the name of national security. Self-perpetuation in office becomes a ‗national agenda‘. According to Adeoti (2003:9), sooner than expected, ―the erstwhile saviours‖ transform ―into the realm of vampires, and whose total exist from power became mandatory if the country was to make progress‖. A few examples would suffice. Besides Generals Obasanjo and Abubakar who handed over power to
‗democratically elected‘ civilian presidents, others have curiously developed cold feet whenever they are to leave public offices. General Ironsi was killed in office; General Gowon was overthrown; General Buhari lost power in a palace coup de‟tat; General Babangida had to ―step aside‖ when danger loomed; while a deus ex machina prevented General Abacha from transmuting to a civilian president! If Colonel Azuga is not toppled in a palace coup, who knows if he would seek to perpetuate himself in office under the pretext of completing his revolutionary agenda! If he does, he would have justified Fawole‘s (2001:61) position that the military has ―a predatory mechanism for plunder‖ because they are ―generally contemptuous of people‘s rights and freedoms, and consequently have elevated sheer lawlessness and banditry to a norm‖. Besides, evidences in the text have it that people like Agnes, Pa Itogha, Ejembe, Colonel Saluhu and Colonel Dembe have warned him on a number of occasions to beware of Colonel Sale and Brigadier Danladi. His inability to take a proactive measure to prevent the coup d‟état exposes him to danger. Also, he is expected to have taken decisive action on Tamund who had been indicted for