Book title: Revenge of the Lamb
Author: Inya Richard
Publisher: CIDJAP Press, Ebonyi, Nigeria
Year published: 2010
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga
“Revenge of the Lamb” is a very interesting novella that keeps the reader either smiling or laughing from the beginning because of the humorous style of the author, until it gets to a point where sadness takes over the reader’s thoughts to shed tears to the end.
The setting of the 86 -page novella is Malite, an imaginary community in South – Eastern Nigeria where the author hails from. Its central character is Obi Amanze, a very pious Christian. He can be described as a religious fanatic with the way he blindly accuse his two undergraduate children of being wayward, just because they did not report the indecent dressing of their pastor’s daughter, Chinelo, on campus, to him (Obi) or their mother (Nneoma, his wife).
The author seems to ridicule some Christians who have similar traits of always thinking that they are holier than the Pope because of the way they dress, or think their church is better than other christian denomination of worship centres. They feel they are the true born again while others are not. This is a very common assumption by some Christians. By behaving so, they tend to condemn other fellow Christians attending what could be termed “Sinful churches.”
However, though there are some sub-themes such as family cohesion, pride of some law – students or lawyers in society, bribery and corruption in the Nigeria police organisation etc, the main thrust of the storyline is that of political tussle for power over the next person to be enthroned as the Eze (traditional king) in Malite town.
The battle line is drawn between Obi Amanze whom the folks prefer to be enthroned as a man of integrity, despite his fanatical style of Christianity, while one Chief Onuma who is a famous dubious and rich man prefers another man known as Nze lbe as his candidate. Onuma prefer Ibe whom he could easily influence to collect a large chunk of the town’s revenue allocation from when enthroned as the next Eze.
By and by, Obi gets murdered by hired assassins sent to his house. He is shot several times and dies in the presence of his wife, Nneoma, and his two children – Anyi and Uju.
Anyi suspects that Chief Onuma is responsible for the dastardly act. This makes him contact a notorious cultist, Olodo, to burn Onuma’s house, which leads to the Chief’s death in the inferno.
Thereafter, one of the assassins is later caught and confesses that it was Nze Ibe’s son that sent him with his gang to kill Obi.
Meanwhile, Anyi has been a long time friend of one Samuel Okafor, the brother of Chinelo whose father is the pastor of the church where the entire Obis family members had been worshipping before his untimely death courtesy of the assassins. From this point, though there are some other minor twists and turns in the storyline, the major twist is the point which disclose that Chief Onuma is Samuel’s uncle. Samuel gets volcanically angry when he hears that Anyi made Olodo kill his (Samuel’s) uncle based on his suspicion that he was the person who sent the assassins that killed his own father. Samuel angrily leaves the Obis family house after hearing the cause of Onuma’s death, and this put everyone present in suspense, as to what might be up his sleeve against Anyi and other members of the Obis family.
The beauty of the story therefore lies in the jokes, suspense, twists and turns that jolts the reader here and there, till the story ends with an “Open plot.”
However, few typos, grammatical errors and mechanical noise were noticed in two pages of the copy read by the reviewer. The font size used for the novella’s blurb is too small, and makes it difficult to read. The size should be increased to either 12 or 13 before reprint, as there is a lot of space underutilized in the back cover side. These notwithstanding, it is a noteworthy literary work that brings to the fore, the negative sides of struggle for power, fame, position and money among many politicians in Nigeria, Africa and the global community.
The author, is a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Ebonyi State chapter.
