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Literary Review: Foreign Gods, Inc. – Okey Ndibe

About the Author:

Okechukwu Ndibe, better known as Okey Ndibe, (born 1960) is a novelist, political columnist, and essayist. Of Igbo ethnicity, Ndibe was born in Yola, Nigeria. He is the author of Arrows of Rain and Foreign Gods, Inc., two critically acclaimed novels published in 2000 and 2014 respectively. Ndibe is one of the foremost respected and admired contributors to the social and political essence of Nigeria.

Book Synopsis:

Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc. sits at the centre of a very important discussion of culture, race and the dilemma of an African searching the American business space for a spot and not finding one as a result of how he looks and talks. We are shown the struggles of Ikechukwu (referred to as Ike), our protagonist, who has an Amherst degree cum laude in Economics but cannot get a job because of his accent and the fact that he is African.

Ike, whose name is correctly pronounced EE-kay, works as a cabby with customers who call him “Eekay”, which means “buttocks” in Igbo. This is the author’s own way of portraying the level of moral and humane degradation that the protagonist suffers trying to survive in a society where he is not accepted and cannot be accepted as a result of his racial status, irrespective of his educational qualification. He had suffered a bad marriage to a woman who walked off with his savings and debts now threaten to drown him.

The protagonist suffers a number of insulting moments at the hands of people who regard him in the same racially motivated tone with which one would regard someone from an exotic tribe or culture. His accent is regarded as ‘cute’ time and again and he is rejected from jobs that he is very well qualified for.

This book mirrors the presence of racism, irrespective of modernism in the American society, and how it affects the victims psychologically, forcing them against walls that they’d otherwise not come close to.

When Ike is pushed to the proverbial wall, he reiterates and makes a decision to go to his village and bring the god of war of his people to America so that it can punish them and while his idea is still in infancy, Ike’s friend presents him with a pamphlet that informs him of an artefact dealer, Mark Gruels, owner of a deity pawn shop, Foreign Gods, Inc. Ike meets with Mark Gruels and promises to return with the head of Ngene, the war deity of his people.

The planned theft makes perfect sense on a continent where diamonds, coltan and oil are routinely extracted and shipped away, with no real concern for the local custodians of the land. One almost hopes Ike will succeed – if the big men are “eating”, perhaps it is his turn now. Curiously, even though he is welcomed by his uncle and grandmother, and could, if he tried, make a place for himself in the village, Ike never seems to consider staying.

It is to Ndibe’s credit that he makes it clear that Ike is not a victim; these are the choices he makes. Here is an antihero who, whatever the circumstances that made him, is dissolute, weak-willed and entirely selfish. There should be no redemption for this man. Yet, with subtle hints at moral turmoil, a gift for dark humour, and characterisation that is perceptive and neatly observed, Ndibe manages to persuade the reader to root for Ike, even as his haphazard plans begin to unravel. After all, who hasn’t, at some point, wished for the succour of divine intervention?

It would be interesting to study Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc. side by side with Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah and reconcile their perspectives on race, America and relationships. The books do complement each other in the interesting conversations on African-American and African relationships. The marriage of convenience (for the coveted green card) between Ike and Bernita, the African American was the War of the Roses with lots of sex and drinking in the numerous intermissions. Like Americanah, Foreign Gods, Inc. is about class; touching is the class difference between Ike and Bernita, the marriage is a perverse symbiotic relationship, each in the marriage for different reasons. Like Americanah, Foreign Gods, Inc. also examines the tensions between Nigerians in the Diaspora and Nigerians at home.

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