The plot of Igho Goes to Farm is strong rising from a believable human motivation or cause with believable human responses.
By Lechi Eke
About the Story
Igho Goes to Farm is reminiscent of Eze Goes to School, African Night Entertainment, Souza Souza, etc. These are Nigerian children adventure stories.
So, we encounter 11 years old Igho in tears as the story opens. He has performed poorly in his JSS One exams and doesn’t seem to figure out why. All he knows is that such poor performance in exams as coming 15th in a class of 22 students will attract severe punishment at home.
Igho fears his mother more. His father, he knows, is lenient, but his mother will not let such act of incompetence go unpunished.
After supper that evening, his mother pronounces the punishment. Igho will travel to their village to help his grandparents in the farm while his siblings and parents will fly to America, to Orlando and visit Disneyland to enjoy their long holidays.
At this point, Igho remembers in his grieving that he brought this punishment on himself – he has overused his 11th birthday gift of a GSM phone which his father gifted him. Instead of reading his books, he has surfed the internet using his phone to visit and chat on Facebook and makes friends he doesn’t know, chats on Wechat, Palmchat, WhatsApp, etc.
Igho braces himself for the worst holidays ever. Spending the long holidays in the village where there is no electricity or DSTV is not something he’s looking forward to.
His maternal uncle receives him at the Izoro airport in Warri with his daughter, Onome, and from there they proceed to Ozoro first to see another uncle named Nigeria before going to Ibedeni, his mum’s village.
The journey to Ibedeni is gloomy as the roads are filled with potholes and dangerous gullies. Long stretches of bushes, farmlands, Army checkpoints at short intervals and old schools their parents attended along the way provide no fun to the young holidaymakers.
But soon things begin to look up as Igho and his cousin, Onome, sight the Ase Creek enroute his grandparents’ house. From here, the excitement begins. On reaching his grandparents’ compound, they encounter orchards which thrill them further. In the morning they are woken up by rural time keepers (cockerels that crow at dawn). And the adventures begin. First, they learn how to make starch (the staple food of the Niger Delta people) for swallow.
Then they go with Ufuoma, the help of their grandparents, to harvest cassava tubers across the Ase Creek for grandma and yam tubers for grandpa, riding inside dug-out canoes as Ufuoma paddles the wooden vehicle. He and Onome help in the harvesting as well as learning the names of different yam tubers.
Also, Igho and Onome have fun swimming in the open river which is unlike a swimming pool because of the river’s currents as Onome’s father and Igho’s uncle explained to them on their way to Ibedeni. Ufuoma lets them swim a little in the Ase Creek warning them of the current. And when they return home Ufuoma roasts some beetles they took from the yam tubers they harvested and they enjoy the delicious snack.
Igho and Onome who are city children, experience nightfall in an Isoko village, hear a folktale and learn how villagers repel mosquitoes and combat darkness with bonfires in the centre of their compound.
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The fun continues for the young holidaymakers as they learn how to play akoto game and catapult hunt fromEsemowho (their grandparents’ neighbour’s 15-year-old) and his friend, Eneruvie.
It is non-stop fun for the holidaymakers as they go from visiting Ibedeni fish market on Nkwo market day (the biggest fish market around the area) to the boys: Ufuoma and Igho, sneaking out early in the morning to go game hunting, to paddling and fishing on Ase Creek. Although the expedition meets with a boat mishap and all the fishes are lost, these are some of the grand fun activities the city holidaymakers embark on in their long holidays.
The adventure comes to an end when Uncle Utomudo, Onome’s father, arrives at the end of the long holidays to pick the two youngsters and drives them back to Warri where Onome lives with her parents and from where Igho catches a flight back to Lagos.
Of course, Igho has more fun than his siblings who visited Disneyland, and he is already planning how to invite them to Ibedeni next long holidays.
The Plot
The plot of Igho Goes to Farm is strong rising from a believable human motivation or cause with believable human responses. The conflicts are real and believable. An 11-year-old performs poorly in his promotional exams because he overly occupied his time with the phone his father bought him for his 11th birthday. For this, his parents punish him. He will spend his long holidays in the village with his grandparents. So, while his siblings are having fun at Disneyland, USA, he will be helping his grandparents in their farms in the village.
This sounds cruel, but it is the kind of setup adventures are made of. So, instead of punishment, a whole new world of adventures opens to Igho and his cousin, Onome.
These two city children, Igho and Onome, experience the kind of fun and adventures even children who live in Orlando would give an arm to experience!
So, we see in the plan (plot) of the story, a human motivation, or cause (a child performs poorly in an important examination because of the excessive use of his “toy”). This brings him punishment (this is the conflict which rises from cause and effect), and from here, the story develops with various adventures. The conflict is resolved when instead of feeling pain and sorrow, the punished child experiences fun and happiness.
The Structure
The form or building or construction of the story is the structure. It is the way the plot is placed in the story. It can start from when Igho turned 11 and receives a GSM phone gift and moves on to when he can hardly keep his hands or his mind off the phone, and how he begins to use the phone excessively, down to when he receives his JSS3 result and discovers that he has failed or has not passed very well.
But the structure is planned to open when Igho does not perform well in his exams. As the story unfolds, we find out why – Igho abandons his studies and overuses his phone and so performs poorly in his exams. Then, the punishment for performing poorly follows.
Because it is a children’s book of adventure, the punishment turns into a blessing for Igho. This is because, the aim of the author is to inform his readers that fun and adventure are not located in Lagos and overseas only. Children can find adventure and fun even in rural areas too.
Its physical structure or form boasts of 56 pages in 10 chapters. The author employs more short sentences than long ones and very short chapters to encourage young readers.
The Setting
The story is set in two places: Lagos and Ibedeni (this means the events in the story happen in these two places). Ibedeni is an Isoko village in Delta state, south south, Nigeria. Of course, we know that setting in a story is not limited to places or areas but includes time, weather, objects, moods, etc.
The author chooses these locations to show that a village can offer children many fun things too. So, children can have fun without DSTV, television, electricity, swimming pool, visiting amusement parks, eateries or fast-food joints, etc.
The Theme
The story tackles multiple themes. Theme is the message of the story, the treatment of an idea in a story. And this idea must pervade, or run through the story for it to be called a major theme.
On the surface, we have the theme of misplaced priorities. Because Igho receives a GSM phone on his 11th birthday, he abandons his books and pays too much attention to the gadget. When exams come around, Igho performs poorly and gets punished by his parents.
So, the message the author wants to pass in this minor theme is, children should not be allowed to spend too much time with their toys.
Also, there’s the subtheme of, the disadvantages of parents overindulging little children. For example, by buying them a phone with internet.
Igho’s dad represents parents who overindulge their children while his mum represents disciplined or balanced parents. She objected to Igho’s dad buying him a GSM phone for his 11th birthday, and when eventually, her fears are confirmed, she takes decisive actions to correct her son through discipline and will not allow her husband who is lax on child-upbring to have a say on the issue.
On the other hand, there’s the theme of city life versus rural life. This theme tries to expose how rural life is as exciting, if not more, as city life. So, the main theme of this story can be found in what Uncle Utomudo says to Igho on page 16, “Well, you need to know that there’s more to life than living in Lagos or going to Disneyland in America.” The main theme therefore is, fun is not in a particular location only. So, fun or adventure can be found in different locations. This theme pervades the story.
Then there is another theme of the merits of parental discipline. Because Igho’s parents are courageous enough to discipline Igho for his lack of self-control in sharing his time between reading his books and playing, Igho is able to see his fault and turn a new leaf.
Point of View (POV)
The story is told in the third-person (limited) point of view. This means that the narrator is not in the story but tells the story through the major character’s actions, thoughts and experiences, showing us what he does, says, hears, thinks. So, it is this character’s story told by another.
Characterisation
The characters in this children’s book are: the main character, Igho, his three siblings: a boy and two girls, his parents, his uncle, his cousin, Onome, his grandparents, and some other unimportant characters.
Because it is a children’s book, the characters are children and adults who help shape their behaviours in order to raise them better adults.
So, we see some character development in the major character, Igho. He starts off unhappy because he believes that fun can be found only at Disneyland in America, but at the end of the story, he has had more fun than he has ever had in his life and is already planning a repeat performance next holiday with his siblings in tow. So, Igho is a round character because he experiences change or development in the story while the other characters are stock or flat.
The Style
Igho Goes to Farm is written in simple English language using words suitable for senior primary school pupils and junior secondary school students.
Anote Ajeluonuo uses concrete nouns, active verbs and specific words in the narration. At the beginning of the story, we see words like: 15th place in a class of 22, clouded with tears, black sheep of the family, predicted, overruled, announcement, banished, 11th birthday, tears stung his eyes, GSM phone, etc.
Later in the story, when things begin to look up for Igho, we see words that depict joy such as: delicious meal, crunchy taste of the roasted beetles, bath in the open river, Onome and Igho were thrilled, biggest canoe, steersman, he just felt thrilled at swimming in the open river, pebble placed in the leather band flies off and hits the target, caught a squirrel once, and many other birds, to show them his skill in using the catapult, he aimed at a bird flying by and let off his catapult’s sling. He hit the bird and Onome and Igho rushed to where the little bird lay breathing hard and fluttering its wings too weak to fly away, and many other such vivid words. He uses active verbs that are quite descriptive. His choice of words makes his narration vivid.
Reviewer’s note
The evils of killing wild animals
The author touches on the evils of hunting and shooting wild animals in rural areas. Killing wild animals make animals migrate to other areas or become extinct. By the author pointing out how there are few uririe birds left now and how lions have migrated from Isoko villages to other areas because of the activities of hunters, show it is bad to kill and eat wild animals. In Chapter 7, Ufuma returns home with an antelope slung over his shoulders showing how rural dwellers continue to harm wild life.
Errors
On page 31, we see Mommy, instead of Mummy (authors should stick to a particular type of English when they write). We have American English which spells Mommy, and we have British English that spells Mummy. Both are correct, but we must stick to one in order not to confuse young readers. In Nigeria, we use British English.
Page 32 carries a sentence that reads, “But Omoka, the smallest and smartest of the two birds…” What makes this expression wrong are the comparative adjectives ‘smallest’ and ‘smartest.’ They should be used when three items are being compared as in smart, smarter, smartest. So, since two birds are being compared, it should read, “But Omoka, the smaller and smarter of the two birds…”
Still on Page 32, we see, “As the days of the fast got on…” Which should read, “As the days of the fast went on…” because the author is writing British English.
