‘Aviara,’ metaphor for a nation in need of a saviour

Title: Aviara, Who will Remember You Author: Othuke Ominiabohs Publisher: Masobe Books Pages: 327 Reviewer: Nathaniel Bivan

Home means different things to different people. In ‘Aviara: Who Will Remember You,’ its Anthony Mukoro’s home town, Aviara, where his parents returned to after a long absence.

But Anthony, the main character, doesn’t return because he misses his family, or simply for a visit like most children do during the year. When he alights from a motorcycle and pays off the rider, when he senses the unusual quietness that envelops his beloved Aviara, he already knows it may be the last time he will inhale its clean air and enjoy its serenity, and most of all, the very last time he will spend time with his family.

Once, Aviara was all he knew and all he loved. Then everything changed when his brother died a mysterious death. The entire family was swallowed by grief, but Anthony’s runs deep because there are details from the past, some of which he has either forgotten or remains too troubled to acknowledge. So, when he comes home, he seeks answers from questions provoked by one man’s disappearance - the town’s famous preacher. And while these answers are hard to find, he battles to stay alive due to the kidney disease that slowly eats him up and drives him into the arms of Zara, a girl who has loved him from childhood.

Together with Zara and his parents, Anthony struggles to stay alive while still being tortured by his brother’s passing and the gnawing guilt that he was at the centre of it all, and perhaps, the preacher too.

When Anthony is in some sought of dreamscape before surgery, the writer uses this opportunity to ex-ray the subject of faith in a subtle and unjudgmental manner. This is, however, likely to make readers sober or uncertain whether that part has real purpose in driving the plot forward. But one thing is certain, people have had near- death experiences and travelled to the unknown while in a coma, and many testimonies have proven this kind of experience to be accurate, thus in some way validating Ominiabohs’s direction.

This novel is two books in one, which makes it even more fascinating, and maybe a little bit unsettling because you wonder why the author didn’t snatch the opportunity of publishing two separate works that would have done well apart. The first focuses on unravelling the mystery of Anthony’s younger brother’s death, while the second takes readers into the mystical and dreamy world of the main character as he holds on to life far away in India. But whether he survives the kidney transplant or not is an entirely different matter.

This novel reads like a ghost tale. All the while, there’s the nagging feeling that something tragic lurks on the edge of each page, and this is evident from the first lines of chapter one:

“I arrive after a heavy downpour to find the town in complete darkness. No candlelight leaks from the doorways we pass, no faces peer at the road from behind curtained windows. The night is cold and unnervingly still.”

Then there’s the resolution. Some hold the view that many writers tend to rush at this point, but this author doesn’t. The suspense is annoyingly brutal and you’re left at the mercy of each word and every line. And because this is actually two books in one, a plus for readers, there are two resolutions, and the author pulls both nicely, maybe even smugly. The pacing is slow, deliberate and near heartstopping. Will Anthony die or will he live? Will his disease and the cloaked enemies of his dear town win? This will likely be the same question every reader will ask, and the answers are only found, of course, in the ending.

In a Daily Trust report of February 17, 2020, the Nigerian Association of Nephrology (NAN) said 20

Once, Aviara was all he knew and all he loved. Then everything changed when his brother died a mysterious death. The entire family was swallowed by grief, but Anthony’s runs deep because there are details from the past, some of which he has either forgotten or remains too troubled to acknowledge

million Nigerians have kidney disease. The President of the association, Prof. Ifeoma Ulasi, noted that there are multiple factors that cause kidney disease, apart from genetics, and Nigeria’s health insurance needs to be reviewed to cater for people with the disease. This is exactly what Ominiabohs’s story does: it draws attention to the country’s failed healthcare system and points an accusing finger at medical tourism, which unfortunately, the nation’s leaders, including its presidents, both past and present, are guilty of. In a few words, it’s a wake up call.

Finally, if you have read ‘Odufa: A Lovers’ Tale,’ Ominiaboh’s debut novel, you will quickly recall that Anthony’s love for a girl, Odufa, was at the centre of that story, yet one absolutely doesn’t need to read it to connect with ‘Aviara,’ the name of an Isoko town in Delta State and a metaphor for an underdeveloped Nigeria still grappling with the lack of basic social amenities like electricity, healthcare and much more.