BOOK OF THE WEEK

Light Seekers by Femi Kayode, Raven, £8.99

When three students are brutally beaten and burned alive in the streets of the fictional community of Okriki, Nigeria, their murder is broadcast to the masses via social media.

The perpetrators are the residents of Okriki itself, in what appears to be a ruthless, but straightforward act of revenge for stealing from the community.

Our protagonist, psychologist Philip Taiwo, an expert in group behaviour and violence, is recently returned to his home country from America. He learns of his father’s connection to the father of one of the “Okriki Three”, who implores Philip to take on the case and find out what really happened to his son that day. Philip cautiously accepts, but when he arrives in the university city of Port Harcourt, he finds there is more to this case than mob mentality.

It is hard to comprehend that the violent premise of this novel is inspired by a real lynching of four students (the Aluu Four) in Port Harcourt.

The novel’s Nigerian-born author, Femi Kayode, acknowledges that footage of this event haunts him to this day. Like his protagonist, Kayode studied clinical psychology, and here brings together his knowledge of the human psyche and the socio-political landscape of Nigeria, to offer an understanding, if not an explanation, for such a chilling crime.

A theme throughout is the influence of university fraternities, more often referred to as “cults”. When Philip finds out this own father was a founding member of one of these confraternities in the 1950s, he struggles to reconcile the experience his father shares with him, with how these groups evolved over time. During the Nigerian Civil War and subsequent military dictatorships, confraternities took on a role in upholding order on campuses through violent suppression of student activists, but continued to devolve into inter-cult rivalries and organised crime.

The impact of the Civil War is tangible here. Even as a Lagos native, Philip finds himself a foreigner to the customs and corruptions in Port Harcourt. He learns the scars of colonisation run deep, going some way to understand why the Okriki residents felt so compelled to protect their own. This plays out in the modern day online, and Kayode explores how old tensions can be exploited to radicalise everyday people.

Kayode’s writing is compelling throughout, crafting an overarching sense of unease that will haunt the reader even long after the story ends.