Red Fuse Trip: The Making

By: Deji Yesufu

Azeezat Okunola and I both write for mouthpiece.com.ng. When Azeezat put her book, Red Fuse Trip, on Okadabooks, I had purchased a copy but for reasons that I cannot tell I did not read the book then. Maybe because it was soft copy. Last week, Azeezat and I met at the University of Ibadan, where she is a 300 level students of the Department of Classic and she gave me a hard copy of the book. I promised to read it and maybe write a review on it. When I began to read the book, I couldn’t drop it. Although I was tired from the day’s work and there was no power, I got the rechargeable lamp placed in a strategic position on my reading table and ensured I finished the book in one sitting. The fact is that if one were able to get past the first chapter of the book, you would not be able to drop it.

I am not an emotional person. Perhaps that is one of the characteristics of being a man and it is doubly so when you are a Nigerian man. But while reading Azeezat’s book, tears welled up in my eyes no less than two times. There was something gripping about the book; it was like a movie. But nothing like the Nigerian type of movie. Or perhaps one could liken it to a Hollywood script; only that this time, the characters in the scenes where Nigerians. I do sincerely hope that someone can lay a hand on this book and make it into a motion picture. It would clearly be a low budget film but a very interesting one.

I think what gripped me the most about Red Fuse Trip was that it was written by Azeezat when she was 16 years old. Azeezat Okunola attended Emilio Piazza Secondary School in Portharcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Her school principal was Mr. Peter Ighofowe Amarasa. Mr. Peter has a class he holds with all the arms of the school. He calls it “Life Course”. In this class, he grooms the students on life issues; training them on moral philosophy, career choices, chastity and sundry other matters. As a motivational speaker, Mr. Peter felt he could inculcate a spirit of can-do in these young people. So he would hold these two-hour course with each class on different days of each week.

Azeezat found Mr. Peter approachable and so she would go to his office and borrow books off his library. She also used the time there to get more life coaching. One day, while visiting Mr. Peter, he explained to her that while he was recuperating from an illness, the frame of a story came to his mind. He relayed the story to Azeezat and asked her if she could add flesh to it and make it into a book. Azeezat felt she could do it but there was a challenge. Azeezat’s final exams, the Senior Secondary School Examinations, where just around the corner. In spite of this, she was convinced she could still write the book.

So Azeezat returns to her room and juts out the framework of this story Mr. Peter had told her. Then she began to write. She would take time off her studies and write a few lines. When I asked if she used a computer to write her story, she said that was not possible; she wrote the whole story out practically on sheets of papers! When she was done, Azeezat took the book to Mr. Peter. By this time, exams were over. After her mates had returned home, she stayed behind in school to work on the book. Mr. Peter and two other teachers worked with her on the editing and tweaking of the story line. Eventually the book was ready. It was Mr. Peter who suggested that the name “Red Fuse Trip” be given to the book. But the most part of the work was done by Azeezat.

Red Fuse Trip is the story of Kate, as she has to surmount the uneasy life of violence and growing up in an orphanage without the direct care of her parent. But Kate discovers how fortune could smile at her through her deep misfortune. The book is better read than told, so I would not spoil the taste for you. Azeezat’s target audience are young people; particularly those in secondary school, who are in the formative years when lasting habits are developed and where critical decisions and actions are made that can affect their future. This book will give young people a perspective to life that would help shield against mistakes that could destroy one’s life.

I asked Azeezat how she was able to relay romantic dialogue in her book despite her age when she wrote the book. She explained that she began to read very early in life and that as a voracious reader, she consumed a lot of information. All of these helped her to put plots to her story line. She is also very thankful to her supporting parents; particularly her mother, whom she cannot do without mentioning in her conversations.

For me, the book Red Fuse Trip is a picture of Nigeria of the future. Whether Nigeria likes it or not, there is a generation of young people who will come forward to redefine this country. Not everyone will leave Nigeria. Some would remain and bring forth good from this tragedy our fathers have succeeded on bestowing on this nations. This is the story of Red Fuse Trip: good can come out of evil, mistakes and misfortune.

Source: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2409427579133438&id=1505609702848568