Dissecting Fine Boys entails examining activities and riotous living typical of the impressionable age of young adults
By Lechi Eke
Fine Boys is a young adults/campus gist written for Nigerian readers. Written mostly in Nigerian English, the novel is made up of 30 chapters in 340 pages set in three parts.
It was published as an eBook in 2011 and printed in 2012. Lots of characters, activities and riotous living typical of the impressionable age of young adults gave the novel a loose plot.
The slow-to-pick-up paced novel boasts of two physical settings of Warri and Benin City. The language is apt, very typical of the flippant young: fast, colloquial, and gutter, and sometimes confusing to adults.
The story is about Ewaen (so it seems on the surface) who lives in Warri with his quarrelling parents and two siblings, a boy and a girl twins. In Part One, Ewaen, while waiting for the universities to reopen, works in his father’s bank as a purchasing clerk and doubles as the unofficial family driver who does the school runs taking and bringing home his two siblings, Osaze and Eniye.
Also, he keeps up his friendship with his guys from primary and the two secondary schools he attended. They hang out often to gist and play cards, football, and video games.
Ewaen’s parents often quarrel and often separate with his mother going to stay with her mother in the same city, Warri, or her sister in Lagos. Later we find out that his mother’s tongue is too sharp and his dad’s temper is too short so, he uses his fists on her despite being a London-trained engineer with extra-curricular activities in ballroom dancing and etiquette. So, Ewaen cannot wait to get out of his house to university.
READ ALSO:
Setting, Structure and Meaning in Jude Idada’s award-winning Boom Boom
Eventually, he leaves for the University of Benin to study medicine with his retinue of friends, except for Kpobo whose JAMB result is cancelled and he has to join the following year. Wilhelm, his closest pal is half Nigerian, half German. He also goes to UniBen to study medicine, but while Ewaen and others (eleven other JAMBites in one room) live in the hostel, Wilhelm lives in the BQ of a university don, friend of his family.
So, Part One examines life as JAMBites in a Nigerian public university. Ewaen and friends laze about, drinking, smoking, chasing girls and playing truancy. But there’s lurking danger. Confraternity boys prowl about looking for “fine boys” to lure into their cults. The process of joining these cults is called blending.
Ewaen and his friends consistently rebuff them with the excuses of “My father will kill me if he finds out, or I’m a Pastor’s child.” However, Ewaen who’s the narrator is quick to point out that the real reason they don’t want to “blend” is because they feel superior to cult members. Many cult members are bush boys from poor homes, only the Mafia confra seems to field refined young men from good homes.
Part One is introductory. The author presents how university hopefuls spend idle time, some doing odd jobs, some idling about, etc., before going to school. We get a glimpse of the hopefuls’ family situations: Ewaen’s parents fight often; half-caste Wilhelm, his parents are financially struggling with pretences to being middle class, Ejiro’s parents are pastors. Brenda, Ewaen’s seatmate in class at his second secondary school, THS, has rich parents and so does Ewaen; only these parents are stingy. For example, Kpobo’s dad who promised him when he doesn’t make JAMB that he’ll go to the UK ends up not fulfilling his promise leaving Kpobo to join his friends in UniBen in their second year.
Also readers are introduced to the dangerous off-campus residences, the domains of cultists, such as Ekosodin, Osasogie and BDPA – dreadful places all.
Soon their laze-about world filled with fun and little or no lectures is hit with serious campus ordeal.
A robbery in their room, A109, thrusts the boys into the world of the confraternity. One night, some masked and armed boys came into their room and robbed them. Some of them are absent during the robbery incident like Ewaen and Tambo. Tambo who claims he’s very unhappy about the theft says he can help recover their stolen items; he knows some confra boys who can help.
In the bid to recover their stolen items, Ewaen and his friend, Ejiro, meet the cult boys, these ones from a mafia confraternity known as the La Cosa Nostra. While Tambo and two of them go to “buy back” the stolen items, the don of the mafia group toasts Ejiro and Ewan to join them. In the course of this conversation, Ewaen and TJ, the don, find out that they share a common relation. Ewaen’s cousin, Justin, the son of his mother’s elder sister who attends UniLag and lives in Lagos, lives on the same street with TJ and they are fast friends. In fact, Justin told Ewaen about his good friend, Toju, whom he should contact to take care of him if Ewaen suffers confra harassments. It turns out that the supposed potential protector is a predator!
TJ begs Ewaen not to tell his cousin, his own friend, of his involvement in UniBen’s confraternity and in return he will look after him. So, stolen items are recovered and Ewaen is friends with a confra don.
Not long after, Ewaen and his friend, Wilhelm, who hold these cult boys in disdain, are invited to an exclusive party that promises lots of girls, only to discover that as the night wears on, the party that promises that they will “party until mama comes knocking”, turns into a confra-blending party. Tambo (real name, Clement), one of Ewaen’s roommates who has already blended meets him at the party and helps him to sneak out after telling him what kind of party it is.
Ewaen leaves pleading with Tambo to help get Wilhelm out, but Tambo cannot and Wilhelm is almost initiated. Ewaen frantically reaches out to the mafia don, TJ, and he halts Wilhelm’s complete initiation.
Wilhelm returns from captivity fuming that they took his thick glasses and stripped him naked humiliating him, and that he would get revenge. Yibril, his cousin in the campus, is a confra boy of the fraternity of Black Axe. In the process, Wilhelm blends Black Axe.
So, now, Ewaen has two friends who are confra boys in different groups, plus some “Ju-men” as those not in the cults are called, as friends. He still holds out, refusing to blend.
Year one ends with first year exams (Ewaen and his friends pass poorly and he has a carryover). Odegua who’s studying history has 20 carryovers (an exaggeration, I believe)! A brief quelled riot after a party in the school Main Auditorium almost ends in a cult fracas. As the school closes, Ewaen has a girlfriend (Tseye), a church girl of the Agape Addiction; a Pentecostal. Or, so he supposes.
Part Two opens in their Year Two. Ewaen is 18. He and all his friends move to off-campus residence, including the half-caste, Wilhelm, who lived in a Prof’s BQ in year one.
Ewaen throws a party for his 18th birthday in his new off-campus accommodation where he shares a room with a stingy student named Efe. He finds out that his maternal grandma is very sick and booked for a heart surgery.
Year Two medical students don’t write exams so he plays more than he studies, he and his pals. He often hangs out with Harry, an engineering student he offered science courses with in year one whom he introduced to Brenda. Currently, Brenda, his former secondary school classmate and seatmate, dates Harry. Harry doesn’t attend classes at all. Ewaen will visit him and they will gist from morning till evening except it is Ewaen’s anatomy class day which he loves. He prefers photocopying notes.
In this second part of the book, things begin to get out of hand. The verdict of the judgement of a list of students who previously were invited to face the senate and their fellow students for different misconducts, are published. Some 15 boys are rusticated and some expelled.
TJ, the mafia don, a final year agric econs student in year five, is expelled for cult activities! Amongst them, a medical student in year five is rusticated, given five years to resume school again!
Part Two wanders into different aspects of the Nigerian nation dealing with the Economy – prices of things are rising – pure water is now fifty kobo; a bottle of Fanta and cigarette have climbed from five naira to seven naira!
On the political scene, one of Nigeria’s most credible elections has been annulled. The government of the day clamps down any insurrection voices and sends mobile policemen to man university campuses. Around this period, policemen beat up innocent students returning late at night from an outside campus party.
Students go on protest led by students’ union leaders who brandish the blown up pictures of the students whose civil rights have been trampled upon by the mobile police. Ewaen and his laze-about friends marched with the protesters. Police disperse them with teargas, but school is not closed. Students are told to prepare for exams. Ewaen and fellow medical students use this period to play more as second year medical students don’t write exams.
Tambo travels to Bulgaria with fake visa. He’s arrested and detained while swearing that he’s from Rwanda and needs asylum, speaking Bini. In the camp, he meets a fellow Rwandan who greets him in Bini language but none of these helps him as he gets repatriated to Nigeria.
Students afraid of the approaching June 12, leave school for home fearing riots and government reaction. Ewaen travels home to help his twin siblings write JAMB, he and his friend, Tuoyo who promises to help the twins buy “expo” with money the twin boy “‘withdrew’ from his dad’s trousers pocket!”
Students return to school. The World Cup is on. News leaks that MKO Abiola, winner of the most credible election in Nigeria, has been arrested. Harry, Brenda’s boyfriend’s flat is robbed. Harry’s sister, Phoebe, and Brenda miss being raped because NEPA brought light. They suspect confra boys. Students engage in riot and school is closed.
School is closed. Nene dies. Friends accompany some of Nene’s grandchildren like Justin and Ewaen to her burial. TJ accompanies Justin from Lagos. It’s discovered that Justin is also a confra boy in UniLag despite advising his cousin, Ewaen, not to join. Conversation during the burial, around boys, swirls around how not to join cults, any cults at all. All the confra boys from not only different universities, but from opposing confraternities, are united in their advice that non-confra students shouldn’t blend at all!
Ewaen hears from Tuoyo who stayed back after school is shut down, how they found out who robbed Harry’s flat. It is Black Axe boys. Yibril, Wilhelm’s cousin or village neighbour (a Black Axe hit man), as he later explains, played cards with Lorenchi (one of TJ’s mafia bodyguard) who beats him until he borrows money from him to play and loses again. Yibril asks Lorenchi to go with him to his pad to get his money. Lorenchi goes and recognises Harry’s stolen items like his stereo, and returns and tells their new don, Frank (after TJ has been expelled). Frank tells Harry (his secondary school son) and they report to the police who arrests Yibril and he cools his heels in a police cell for three weeks.
When he comes out, he swears he will retaliate.
Public university education in Nigeria being epileptic, Ewaen and his friends keep suffering strikes that delay their education. In 200 level second semester, medical students write their assessment tests and Ewaen and others barely escape with average results.
Meanwhile, confraternity situation in the school escalates with armed robberies, threats and cult fights. With the ousting of TJ, the mafia confraternity (Cosa Nostra) has a new don who’s not as diplomatic and suave as TJ. Things begin to look really bad between the cults. Lorenchi is robbed and beaten up (maybe as revenge for “fingering Harry’s Black Axe thief), and he ends up in the hospital. And his cult group, of course, will revenge. Everyone knows that there’s going to be a clash sooner or later.
In their ever-increasing friendships, new sleeping partners are made and old ones are dropped and loose-living continues. On the one hand, students are in tune with current affairs and what the government of the day’s doing and being unhappy about many things. On the other hand, students sent to school by hard-working parents are whiling away time, missing lectures, idling about, drinking, smoking and chasing girls.
Spontaneous riot breaks in school as a result of anger against the government of the day. Government vehicles, houses, rich men’s shops and things are broken and looted. Amide, Ewaen’s new girlfriend, is beaten by soldiers, but not raped. She ends up in the hospital. School is shut down.
Part Three
After six months at home, school resumes. Osaze, Ewaen’s brother, joins him in UniBen. He settles into an off campus residence with his cousin, Edosa. Ewaen leaves Efe’s flat and regroups in another flat, another house, with new flatmates including best friends, Wilhelm, Tuoyo, and a guy named Mesiri, who helped, during the riot, take Amide to the hospital. Tambo who’s repatriated from Bulgaria returns to school and becomes a part of the new flatmates.
Robbery incidents although not rife, is neither rare. One day, Ewaen’s roommate loses his cash. Tied in a black nylon bag; someone during a party in the flat has stolen the money.
The money belongs to a new friend, and fellow medical student, Mesiri. Another friend, Tuouyo, demands that Tambo takes them to a particular native doctor who helped them catch a thief sometime in the past. Tambo takes them to another whom he cajoles into blaming some twins who attended the party. He later succumbs to pressure and takes them to the right man. And Tambo is the thief!
Frank, the new Cosa Nostra don, lives in Ekosodin (a Black Axe domain) permanently because he’s been disowned by his parents. Two weeks before resumption of school, Frank is robbed, his clothes and properties stolen. Embarrassed, the mafia cult keeps it close. But they found out Yibril of Black Axe is the culprit.
Students, including Ewaen, continue to play truancy, idling about smoking, drinking and chasing girls. Ewaen and his friends are invited to another party. Harry, Brenda’s now ex-boyfriend’s sister’s party (a girl named Phoebe). Brenda is now dating mafia hit man, Lorenchi. Ewaen and some of his friends cannot go because of medical exams which they take when others are not writing exams.
An opposing gang led by Black Axe hit man, Yibril (who has been dealt with by being knifed in the buttocks by mafia boys and has spent time in UBTH), appears and disrupts the party, shooting sporadically and causing mafia members to flee and spend the night in the bush.
The mafia say they will retaliate. Frank steps down as Cosa Nostra don. Tommy, the worst of the mafia cult members, takes over as don. He orders his members to hit at sight any Black Axe member found in Osasogie off-campus residential area which is their domain since they don’t feel safe again in Ekosodion, a Black Axe domain.
Meanwhile, Wilhelm lives with his pals in Osasogie, and has gone to a tertiary institution in Abraka on a cult mission, according to him, to broker peace between three feuding cults, including his fraternity, Black Axe. Ewaen is angry with him for suddenly being immersed in the confraternity business. Wilhelm confides in him that he cannot wait for the wahala to be over so he can rest from defending “confra brothers”.
News filters in that a student is killed there (a foreign student killed him – meaning one not of Abraka institute). Wilhelm returns in haste to Benin in the early hours of the following day. He’s warned of their rival gang’s (Cosa Nostra) oath to hit back at his own gang, Black Axe, because of disrupting Phoebe’s party.
Wilhelm is warned by his friend and flatmate, Tambo, who is in the Cosa Nostra, not to spend the night in their shared flat. Tambo tells the others to warn Wilhelm whom he misses when he returns home from the disrupted party, and runs away to town. But Willy believes that his confraternity has started a peace move and he continues to delay leaving their shared flat. While he’s busy doing this and that, or is it nemesis (?) – the rival gang comes upon him. He goes out to meet them.
He’s knifed at the back and runs back into the flat with the deep-sunken knife. His ignorant roommates pull out the long knife, call for help, and take him to the hospital with the help of the police. Wilhelm dies on the road and ends up in the morgue. This is the climax.
The denouement sets in. Wilhelm’s friends including Ewaen and Wilhelm’s girlfriend, Weyinmi, are interrogated by the police. At the end, Wilhelm’s girl is detained for two weeks. Lorenchi, Brenda’s current boyfriend and a mafia hit man is shot in his Law classroom by Black Axe hit men; he dies in Brenda’s arms. His killers are caught.
The school becomes too hot for confra boys and those in the know. Some confra boys run from the campus, some go abroad, some run home and Ewaen’s daddy agrees to send him and his brother Osaze to the UK to study…
Meanwhile, for those who came to study, school continues as if nothing happened with two students killed, fifteen either expelled or rusticated; some students running away, leaving school, moving to the UK. Life goes on as usual. Story ends.
NB – The concluding part of “Dissecting Fine Boys” will focus on Literary Appreciation
