Safiya Ismaila Yero, Naja

Summary

A marked feature of Nigerian literature since its inception is its resolved inclination towards interrogating aspects of the society that strike inimically at the collective social advancement of the Nigerian people and the world at large. Nigerian literature not only mirrors but also reflects on the society revealing unbridled chains of civil oppression, class inequality and gender imbalance at all levels of human existence. Although much espoused in several works of earlier and contemporary Nigerian authors, the issue of gender oppression seems to still resonate in different parts of the country, forming the core of the socio-cultural life of such areas.

Looking at Northern Nigeria, Safiya Ismaila Yero's Naja reveals the struggles of women and their quest for agency in typical patriarchal African societies. It chronicles the story of a sixteen-year-old teenager, Naja’ atu, who is married off to a much older man, Mallam Ilu, against her will. Tailing her fights against various shades of patriarchy in her community, Wase, the novel unfolds in episodes with each chapter x-raying and calling into account a major aspect of female subjugation in an epitomic Islamic state. These include problems of child marriage, denial of access to formal education, domestic violence, rape and maternal mortality.

As the novel begins, Naja is discontent with her forced marriage to Mallam Ilu. Defiant to the tripartite pressure of family, religion and community, she asserts her displeasure by denying Mallam Ilu consummation of their marriage. She convinces him to allow her to run an Islamic study group within their compound. This group revolutionalizes the plot of the narrative angling out forms of domestic abuse being suffered by women who remain hushed within the rusty confines of organized cultural inhibitions. Naja uses her teachings to challenge hegemonic indoctrinations that deny women agency in Wase, inspiring her students to speak out against such conventions.

The intimating texture of Safiya's narrative voice would, doubtlessly, compel any reader into realizing that she, perhaps, must have been a victim of this oppressive system, and accounts for the desperate precision and palpable realism with which she details the events of the novel. This ardent social commitment and seeming intolerance for needless flowery description nearly jeopardizes the craft of the work for she ends up leaving the reader with a little more than a creative memoir.