A LITERATURE REVIEW OF SEFI ATTA'S EVERYTHING GOOD WILL COME

Everything Good Will Come is a story about a young Nigerian girl (Enitan Taiwo) and her friend (Sheri) growing up in Nigeria. A Bildungsroman, the period of writing spans between 1971 and 1995, when the military regime was in power. The book details Enitan growing up in Lagos-Nigeria while coping with the demands of the patriarchy all around her. Enitan’s parents are always at loggerheads. Her mother is a sadistic religious fanatic who took solace in religion after her son died of sickle cell. Her father is a manipulative lawyer and political commentator. The book records the various useless arguments between both parents and the strict demands they have of Enitan, particularly her mother. Her father stands in the way of his wife domesticating Enitan, resulting in her  loving her father and despising her mother. Enitan rebelliously becomes a friend to her next-door neighbour, Sheri, against her mother’s instruction. In certain instances, they catch Enitan befriending Sheri. Sheri is a light-skinned half-caste, and they call her “yellow” or “oyinbo pepper,” these are terms used to describe people with lighter skin. Her mom, British, is presumably dead, according to what her Yoruba-Nigerian father tells her. She later discovers it is a lie, but she does not care to find her mother because ‘who abandons their only child, anyway?’ Sheri is first raised by her grandmother, Alhaja, in suburban Lagos, where she learns the rudiment of being a tough Lagosian. Her grandmother’s death later causes her transfer to her father’s polygamous family, and the carefree, happy-go-lucky attitude of her stepmothers, Mama Gani and Mama Kudi, reflects in hers. Enitan’s and Sheri’s friendship is unusual. Sheri is rude, loud, sassy and as well rebellious, while Enitan is quiet. Sheri craves male attention, while Enitan loathes it. Rather, Enitan thinks that her being ugly is a blessing. Sheri is a Moslem, while Enitan is a Christian.

Sadly, some young boys, one of whom is Enitan’s crush, rape Sheri on a Sunday evening when Enitan and Sheri sneak out to go to a park. Enitan witnesses the rape, and it devastates her, and as she grows up, she finds it tough to trust men. She also partly blames Sheri for getting raped because “only wayward girls get raped.” Sheri becomes pregnant and almost kills herself while trying to get rid of the child growing in her. She is successful in getting rid of the baby, as no one talks of the child anymore. News travels fast, and Enitan’s parents find out too. Until her death, Enitan’s mother describes Sheri with the abortion and never with her name. Rather she calls her “The girl who had an abortion.”

Enitan and Sheri get separated at first by secondary school boarding house, and later by Enitan travelling to Europe to get “Better Quality Education,” according to her father. Her father, an educated lawyer, hopes she will take over his firm after her overseas studies.

In Europe, Enitan narrates losing her virginity to an awkward white boyfriend, subtle racism, friendships and love. She appears to not want to talk much about this phase of her life.

After her studies in Europe, Enitan travels back home, and her parents are separated. She moves in with her father and still has a papery relationship with her mother. She resumes full-time work at her father’s law firm, and he gifts her an old-model car. At the firm, she discovers anomalies about her father’s practice such as the poor pay of his workers, and the political activist her father works for. His name is Peter Mukoro. She also finds out that the house her father gave her mother after the separation was not in her mother’s name. She makes it a point of duty to ensure he changes the property to her mother’s name, which he fiercely resists.

Enitan describes aptly the characters of each staff of her father’s firm, and you can almost visualise yourself in the firm. On one of those days at work, she goes to the market and reunites with Sheri. Sheri is now dating a Major General who has three wives. He rents her an apartment and provides a mild form of luxury for Sheri, but never gives her money. Enitan believes it is the Major’s tool of control over Sheri.

Enitan works for her father for three years and then goes for the one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). NYSC comes with a compulsory three weeks of camping. There she meets Mike Obi, a struggling artist. Mike brings all the emotions that imitate genuine love, and Enitan is giddy with this new love. Eventually, she has a big fight with her father over his disapproval of Mike, the resentment from him not signing the property in her mother’s name and finding out that her father has a son with another woman in the same town. This son is about Enitan’s age. She moves out of the house angrily, and she goes straight to Mike’s. Unfortunately, Enitan finds another woman there. She destroys Mike’s most prided artwork and breaks up with him. She then moves in with Sheri, who she convinces to start a catering business. Enitan’s mother is struggling with mid-age illnesses at this period, and their relationship improves.

Enitan gradually becomes closer with a man called Niyi Franco, who is separated from his only child, who was taken away by his ex-wife when she moved to Britain. This relationship evolves into a marriage in a short time. Enitan finds comfort and safety in Niyi’s arms initially, but their relationship gets wavy when she refuses to submit to his patriarchal ways and views, and she struggles to conceive and carry a child. She loathes how Niyi, his four brothers and their father all treat their mother (her mother-in-law), who noticeably shrinks herself to massage the ego of her family men. After a series of fertility treatment, Enitan becomes pregnant. Besides the stress from her failing marriage, her father’s political outspokenness and subsequent arrest force her into activism that lands her in jail one night. She describes her encounter with the various inmates in prison, many wrongfully jailed. After they release her from jail, Enitan joins a group of women in the fight against the government for women’s rights during her pregnancy. Niyi frowns at her activism and drive for change, and he wants her to stay at home and take on “women-like” tasks. Enitan continues to stand up for what she believes: wanting women to choose if they prefer to be submissive or not.

Opinion Piece.

Sefi Atta has beautifully interwoven Enitan’s formative years in the political atmosphere of Nigeria over twenty years ago. If Wikipedia did not show that this was a Bildungsroman, I would still have sworn that it is non-fiction rather than fiction. Sefi has never publicly clarified if her own life directly inspired this beautiful work of art. However, I would always argue that the Author’s experiences mostly inspire every written work of art, fiction and nonfiction. Of course, there are exceptions.

Of Nigeria, it is astounding that in 2021, these very socio-political issues Sefi highlighted in her novel are the exact social issues Nigeria currently faces. This ranges from Nepotism to the ever rowdy, dirty Lagos state, the Economic woes, the clamour for secession by various groups, fuel scarcity, etc. I truly wonder if things ever really get better.

In recent years, I see the fight of Nigerian women for equality, and one day, it appears as though there is progress, and the next day, it is like ten steps behind. Enitan (I am tempted to say Sefi) details the fight for equal rights for women and her voice of equality appears to be as a tiny drop in a bellowing ocean. She couples feminism with activism and it lands her in jail. Her experience in jail where she meets other wrongfully detained women is gory, and it makes me wonder how many wrongfully detained individuals are in prison as I type. Social media was not so prominent then, and I wonder if social media had been what it is now, would it have been helpful? Late last year, Nigerian youths, tired of police brutality that has been indirectly (I say “indirectly” to put it mildly) fuelled by the bunch of rotten individuals in power, staged a nationwide protest and Twitter was very influential. Although the end of the protest left bile in the guts of the protestants, social media has aided the preservation of the events that happened.

The highlight of this book is Enitan and Sheri’s beautiful friendship. It was never a rosy one, but theirs defined true, uncompromised friendship through their socio-cultural and religious differences and distance. If Sheri truly exists, I am curious about what their friendship is like today. Time has its way of severing adult friendships, and friendships that survive the drifts are such rare gifts.

Sefi weaves in my Mother-tongue, the Yoruba Language articulately in the book, and the various instances she describes people’s emotions and mannerisms in the language had me leaping with delight. She also talks about some cultural practices such as the act of moulding newborn babies’ heads to give them a good shape, kneeling to greet elderly ones, not giving out items with your left hand. After her mother’s death, Enitan put to bed a baby girl, and they expected she would name her daughter “Yetunde,” meaning “Mother has come.” Enitan refuses to encumber her newborn with the burdens of her mother’s name. A good number of these socio-cultural practices are still around.

Throughout the story, Enitan possesses a child-like attitude, and it so resonated with me, I find it a sane way to navigate the hustle and bustle of life.

On the other side of the coin, I think Sefi left a few uncompleted scenes in the reader’s (in this case, my) mind. For example, the way I cannot exactly tell what happened to the baby Sheri tried to get rid of. There are some sketchy details here, but since the baby is no longer mentioned, I can conclude the abortion was successful. A clearer picture would have been helpful.

Finally, while I cannot be the Judge of another’s experiences, I undoubtedly opine that Sefi has done justice to conveying this story succinctly to her readers.