₦airaland Forum

Larry-Sun:
Is' Down the Village' an African novel?

No, Down the Village street is a Foreign novel with an American village setting.

Down The Village Street by Peter Douglas is the funniest novel I have ever read. Hilarious from the first to the last page!

He was a long way from home and he knew it. He was up to his eyeballs in this mess and it will take a miracle to come out smelling like a rose. He lived an adventurous life and attracted controversy the way flies are drawn to shit. Life is indeed not fair, he mused. He wondered why some people could be so heartless as to spend a whole lifetime in pursuit of activities bound to make others really miserable. He has always been an easy going fellow who had other peoples interests at heart and harbored no form of ill feelings for anyone. He wondered if it was wrong of him to pursue his dreams objectively. No matter how hard he tried to be nice, some people still find it very difficult to breath the same air as him. So many things flew through his thoughts as he drove carefully in the ever busy Lagos Monday evening traffic, he reflected on his past; growing up in grandma’s house with his siblings was fun and very interesting and brought happy tears to his eyes. Grandma was a retired school head mistress straight from the old school and well trained in the art of spanking. Thoughts of mama brought a burning sensation to his left ear as he remembered mama’s favorite form of discipline; the ear clip! All the kids knew better than to stand close to grandma when she was angry. Mama was loving to a fault but believed strongly in wielding the koboko! It all seemed like yesterday. Thoughts of his primary and secondary school days lit up his face, especially when he remembered his Favorite school teacher – madam Ebute.

Born in Lagos in the early eighties, he started elementary school in Enugu and finished in Kaduna. Dad worked for the government and was always been transferred across state lines and at the age of seven they’ve lived in five states! No wonder his life was far from normal and tempestuous. Grandma got tired of visiting back and forth in keeping tabs on her precious grand kids and decided it was best for them to stay with her. Mum and dad were relieved. His four cute little sisters looked up to him for protection and guidance and he loved them with a passion and also got into a lot of trouble in his attempt to protect them from bullies… he was their hero and still bore scares from his scrapes as the defender of the weak. He winced when he remembered how he was almost killed by the primary school bully – big, strong, dark and far from handsome; Napoleon was the king of all bullies and even the teachers dreaded him. The fear of Napoleon was the beginning of wisdom. It’s been a very long time since then and he couldn’t remember exactly what happened but they both ended up in the hospital! He smiled, after their return from the hospital, Napoleon never bothered anyone when he was close by. He had always been older than his age-mates possibly because he had great responsibility thrust on his young shoulders at a very tender age. Hmm…funny how time flies.

As a young shy lad it was still easy to tell that he had balls. He was curious and asked a lot of questions and at the age of three could read Cyprain Ekwensi. He loved books and read everything he could lay eyes on. His favorite subject was English language and standing in front of the class to read was never an issue for him. He enjoyed reading stories like “Mister Sada is a farmer, he lives in Sapele…”, “Edet lived in Calabar…” and “Agbo Malaika lived in the town of Lagun…” Smart and good-looking he enjoyed the attention of females and that tender age folks could tell that this was a future heartbreaker. Being a kid was really fun but growing up wasn’t as much fun as he had anticipated.

College for him was however a different ball game. Apart from the endless campus shows and free babes everything else was trouble. From one trouble to another. Aside from been a very popular guy, he was blamed for most of the happenings on campus. He was passionate about politics and student’s unionism provided the platform on which to launch his dreams. He believed in the equality of people, the protection of human rights, the eradication of victimization and the elimination of all forms of oppression. He believed that Ceaser should be given his dues… He was loved by the student majority and admired by the academic staff but some of the students who fronted for the school management hated him with a passion and did whatever they could to derail him. The price he had to pay was sometimes too steep and downright outrageous but he was the proverbial cat with nine lives and always survived all the booby traps hurled at him…so it seemed.

Back to reality. Politics as they say, is a dirty game but the mud fight always very exhilarating and like a moth is drawn to a flame he found himself consistently in the thick of things. The students union leadership was at stake and he decided to take the driver’s seat after due consultations with the student populace. Now here he was caught up between the devil and the deep blue sea. On one side of the divide was a rich and powerful politician in the locality who had an axe to grind with the VC and desired to entrench a robot student’s leadership to champion his private agenda; on the other hand was the Vice Chancellor of the school who had zero tolerance for all kinds of opposition and needed to put in place a student’s union leadership that he was fully in control of. Nothing was going to stand in the way of these two strong enemies and here he was with limited resources, a dream, a wish, a manifesto, students who could be bought and so help-me-God. Charismatic, popular, charming and with a history of always standing up for the underdog; his opponents knew he was the candidate to beat and plotted to take him out of the equation. At first, effort was made to buy him off but he refused and before long, the threats starting flowing in, at first subtle but with elections drawing closer the threats intensified, the nights became longer and the bed space had to be abandoned for the safer comfort of the classroom. His roommate and childhood pal was terrified and tearfully appealed to his stubborn friend to step down and let the devil have his way. He was indeed in for the fight of his life…this is bound to get ugly and this just the beginning!