TOADS FOR SUPPER: A GOLDEN MILESTONE
The activities marking Toad for Super golden jubilee started at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka with drama, music and prose presentation at the Princess AlexandraAuditorium. On May 14, LearnAfrica held a Jubilee Book Programme in his honour at the Nigerian International Book Fair, held at the University of Lagos. The opportunity was used to celebrate his outstanding contribution to the Global Cultural Unity and diversity.
The span of half of a century is a significant time lapse in life. It is no surprise that attaining 50 years in existence as a person, institution or phenomenon, is usually described as a Golden Jubilee. It is truly golden, special and celebration-worthy. It is a coming of age in life and living. By the age of 50, for instance, it is expected that a man would have become a full-fledged man, with solid achievements in personal and family life. For many Nigerians, that significant golden age attainment is always an opportunity they never miss to celebrate with the typical Nigerian lavish pomp, because as they say, many waters have passed under the bridge.
Now, how about celebrating not a person, but a book that is 50 years old? It is not just a book, but a fine work of art, a creative masterpiece and a literary showpiece that can be likened to a firstborn for a parent. For indeed, Toads for Supper qualifies to be called a significant firstborn if one were to count books as children. The novel is the first among many masterpieces authored by Chukwuemeka Ike, one of Nigeria’s foremost living literary legends, a retired professor, a former university administrator, a renowned educationist and now His Royal Majesty, Ikelionwu of Ndikelionwu, anAro Kingdom Diaspora community inAnambra State.
Published in 1965, Toads for Supper clocks exactly 50 years this year. It was the decisive novel that first launched Chukwuemeka Ike into the sunshine of literary firmament after which he followed up with other classics that garnered global acclaim.
For lovers of excellent literary works and readers of Ike, Toads for Supper’s landmark “birthday” this year is worth celebrating as a way of paying tribute to its debutant significance, its entertaining, insightful and yet relevant tale and of course, its exceptional author. This celebratory review is also a way of fanning the flame of literary creativity in Nigeria. In fact, those who have read Toads for Supper many years ago would recall and relish its unique offering as one of those iconic novels representing the golden age of Nigerian Literature in a colonial Nigeria era.And it bears recalling that Chukwuemeka Ike belongs in the ChinuaAchebe generation of classical Nigerian writers.
Toads for Supper is an engaging, unforgettable novel set in a university and it deals with the theme of love and the inherent problems which lovers or couples from different ethnic backgrounds in Nigeria usually encounter. In a way, Toads for Supper is a comedy of a typical Nigerian university life and village life, a mixed run of rich humour, social dynamics and relationship tragedy. In the novel, the university setting is called the University of Southern Nigeria. It might as well be the familiar University of Ibadan which the author himself graduated from and worked at.
Without much ado, the novel’s plot is woven around such principal characters asAmadi,Aduke, Chima, Sweetie and Nwakaego. First, the protagonist isAmadi Chukwuka, a freshman History student of University of Southern Nigeria, who hails from Ezinkwo, a rustic community in the Eastern part of Nigeria. Next, we have MissAduke Olowu, also an undergraduate of the same university, who comes from Ilesha in the Western part of Nigeria.
Chima, another Igbo boy likeAmadi, is a second year History student. He is alsoAmadi’s campus friend who is ever cynical and opportunistic.And then there is Sweetie M.Akpore who is portrayed as a somehow-educated Lagos street girl. To complete the key characters cast of Toads for Supper is Miss Nwakaego Ikwuaju,Amadi’s fiancée based in his village.
Now, the plot begins to develop asAmadi strives to blend social life with academic pursuit in the usual adventurous Nigerian undergraduate manner. The love-hungry, ambitious and schemingAmadi’s obsession seems to be to win a girl’s love by all means. Aduke, a Yoruba girl, turns out to be the butterfly of his attraction in spite of the prevailing tribal prejudices on campus as always cynically hinted by Chima.
Toads, in a metaphorical sense, seem to be leaping up in the air asAmadi goes for broke to wooAduke for marriage at all costs. But there is a twist in the tale: Amadi already has a ‘beautiful and unspoilt’ girl (Nwakaego) betrothed to him from childhood in his village of Ezinkwo! It is a classical case of love dilemma asAmadi is rather attracted toAduke and won’t let go. “Down with tradition!” seems to be his war cry because he prefers to win a girl’s hand in marriage by himself – considered by him a more dignifying manly act that inspires a “feeling of achievement” – instead of being culturally “married” to a girl from childhood.
But the melodrama ofAmadi’s life is certainly destined to get more complicated down the line. His being the first Ezinkwo undergraduate in the university, in the first place, is by the grace of communal sponsorship through the Ezinkwo Improvement League efforts. But despite that increasing weight of indebtedness to his community and the worsening betrothal complication, Amadi is still devising all means to wooAduke. His ever mischievous friend, Chima, tells him that as a freshman who is already betrothed, all thatAmadi needs is “an occasional fling” which he could easily get without the stress of wooing a campus girl likeAduke. It is one of such “occasional flings” suggested by Chima that brings the Lagos street girl, Sweetie, into the story.
Before we know it,Amadi is accused of impregnating Sweetie! Trouble! The consequences of this are damning. He would suffer strained relationships with his parents, his betrothed Nwakaego and his much-sought-afterAduke.And he also faces the consequences of rustication from the university as well as the loss of the chance of becoming theAssistant District Officer at home after graduation.As it happens, Amadi is rusticated from the university.
He goes on to spend the rustication period teaching History in Uwhuvbe Grammar School, Benin Province. But when he is done with rustication and comes back,Amadi does not show remorse. The intensity of his advances towardsAduke only increases the more.At least, he is able to convince her with, among other things, two letters of exoneration from Chima and Sweetie. There seems to be some sense of relief for Amadi. So, by the next holiday, he alone undertakes a journey to Ilesha to ask for the hands ofAduke in marriage from her people. What audacity! How could an Igbo boy, being sponsored in school by his community and already engaged to an Igbo girl in his village, dare go solicit a Yoruba lady’s hands for marriage without his parental and communal consent?
WhenAmadi comes back from the Ilesha trip, he is summoned to Ezinkwo immediately. There, he is told that, whether he likes it or not, Nwakaego is still betrothed to him and not waiting for another man.Amadi is deeply confounded and troubled by the news, because his engagement ring is already onAduke’s finger! In the midst of all the tension and confusion, his father dies. He then writes a letter toAduke on the whole issue of betrothal mess. Naturally, the implications of the letter dawn on the poor girl as she loses her mind. Next, she is dispatched toAbeokuta Mental Hospital. What a sad end to an interesting romantic, comic story.
For a novel that was written and first published 50 years ago and set in the colonial era, the thematic conflict in Toads for Supper still rings true to a contemporary Nigeria experience. The haunting challenge of inter-ethnic relationships and marriages is still prevalent in our society. Mutual tribal distrust still runs deep. Today, many parents may no longer betroth their infant daughters to future husbands but some still draw the tribal lines which their mature children dare not cross for love and marriage. In fact, Chima’s outburst toAmadi as in the novel succinctly captures this Nigerian conundrum on cross-ethnic relationships:
“Is that the girl who, I hear, is giving you sleepless nights?
My friend this is the University of Southern Nigeria and you are a freshman. Like a chicken transported to a strange environment, you should stand on one leg till you are sure of your ground…. Let me cut the matter neatly like a scarf.
That girl is Yoruba, you are Ibo. The twain cannot meet. (pg 9)
The probing question now is, if this ethnicinduced romantic liaison embargo persists in our society, how then do we sound convinced by calling for national unity in Nigeria?And if there is no unity and harmony among all Nigerians irrespective of tribe, how do we make progress as a nation? Besides, as the times are changing, our grown-up children are better left to decide for themselves whom they choose to love and marry, from anywhere they choose. Interestingly, the author of Toads for Supper himself, HRM Chukwuemeka Ike, was able to overcome the inter-tribal marriage challenge for real as he has been married to his Yoruba wife for over 55 years.
The way the story in Toads for Supper tragically ends certainly leaves many subliminal issues unresolved and gnawing questions unanswered. Aperceptive reader of the novel might go away drawing the conclusion that the author supports inter-ethnic marriage prohibition. His personal marital life contradicts that assumption. Even at that, the author went ahead to address the unresolved issues in Toads for Supper with a sequel titled Toads Forever, published in 2008.
Speaking on the sequel, the author throws more light on its imperative essence in an interview he granted The Sentinel Literary Quarterly of October 2008:
“You will find that the end is different. In the novel I tried to stress the fact that ethnicity should not be allowed to ruin this country. There is nothing wrong with an Igbo person befriending a Hausa person or even marry each other, in case of male-female relationship. That is the main message in the novel.”
Indeed, as a first-outing literary product of 50 years in existence, Toads for Supper still remains a very excellent reader’s delight and provides quite a heavy dose of humour even with its sublime seriousness. It is a novel that proves that a serious message can be passed in a humorous style and witty use of popular language. The reader is indeed generously entertained while romping through the novel. Take for instance the following mischievous banter by Obafemi, one ofAmadi’s friends while cajoling him to attend a campus party: “Then what’s your headache! There’ll be girls in super-abundance – a contingent from the Nursing School, two busloads from Mount Sinai, many free-lancers from the night clubs and the Latin-quarters wanting partners.And of course Miss Olowu and your Oliaku Hall friends. It won’t cost you more than a bottle of Fanta for the whole night if you pick your partner well.” (pg 32).
No doubt, Chukwuemeka Ike’s ‘firstborn’ novel still makes him an all-time relevant, enjoyable writer. And it calls out yet to today’s generation of Nigerian undergraduates, youths and all readers to read and savour its sweet wine of humour-filled, insightladen story-telling. Even those who have read the novel before will enjoy reading it all over again. Toads for Supper is a timeless classic. Cheers to Eze Prof Chukwuemeka Ike, OFR,NNOM,UgwuAro.