You cannot walk away from “Nowhere to Run” without being influenced by the following facts and concepts presented by the book as well as the questions raised.

*The village in question is a place where people show solidarity and fellowship. No one suffers in isolation and individual success is celebrated by all and sundry. Unfortunately, everybody minds everybody else’s business and no one is immune from gossips and invasion of privacy.

*Age is a huge factor in the land. Age comes with privileges and people have a tendency to manipulate and cheat their way into an older age group.

*No matter how esteemed, honored or highly-placed you are on the socio-political ladder, any member of your age grade can always poke jokes at you, tell you any painful but honest truth about yourself, and even insult you without fear of retribution.

*The People have an ingrained habit of altering, re-designing and magnifying every story in the land before spreading it around and they speak with authority on issues they are not even familiar with.

*A person who uses his or her profession to damage others or hurt those they are supposed to protect may get away with their actions most of the time but will one day fall into the same hole they had dug for others.

*Every name given to a child has a special meaning and a person’s lifestyle and behavior tend to harmonize with the name given to him or her at birth. Should parents be careful with the type of names they give their children at birth?

*A child will hand over his first ever salary from work to his father and ask for his blessings. The father will accept the gift, give his blessings and give back the salary to his son after removing a tiny fraction of it.   

*Omugwo is special visit by a woman whose daughter or daughter-in-in-law has just given birth to a baby. During the visit, the woman kills so many birds with one stone to the benefit of all.

*Marriage is taken so seriously by the tribe that it is preceded by a comprehensive, time consuming fact-finding period. The focus is not entirely on the couple but also on good family background that dates back to previous generations. A marriage goes beyond the couple to unite families and communities.

*Women gossip and engage in rascality as much as men do especially when they come together as a group. A suitor should never be fooled by a young woman’s excellent morals and behavior during the time of courtship. Her true character may not be manifested until after until after she is married and settled as a legitimate wife.

*Among the tribe, there have been increasingly-different reactions to death over the years.  As burial expenses keep rising, the very poor can no longer bury their dead without occasionally selling their only-remaining parcel of land. The super-rich, on the other hand, use the occasion to flaunt their affluence and incorporate dramatic competitive rituals into the ceremony. Strange acts such as tossing the casket up and down begin to emerge as part of the burial ceremony.

*A young woman’s beauty, attractiveness and allure do not last forever. If a pretty young girl arrogantly demeans and chases away the flock of eligible suitors seeking her hand in marriage at the prime of your life, she may end up an old maid in her father’s house. 

*A happy home is not defined by huge mansions. It is not unusual to find peace and happiness in a mud house shared by poor family members as opposed to the chaos and disorder prevalent in a rich man’s castle.

*When your parents are well-to-do, you tend to selfishly care and worry more about yourself than for them and when they are poor, you tend to care and worry more about them than yourself.

*Poverty and need can become catalysts for self-determination and good behavior in children and may inspire them to outperform children from rich families.

*Polygamy solves manpower needs as well as gives permanent homes and stable marital relationships to lots of women that would otherwise be left out in the cold. Yet, it brings conflicts and unhealthy competition between co-wives and children of the same father.

*Circumcision of young girls is no longer practiced in the land. Male boys are still circumcised on the 8th day of life according to tradition immemorial.  

*The village tavern may look like a run-down place. Yet, it a place where lives and fortunes are both built and destroyed. It is an ideal place for one to disseminate falsehood, gossips and news like wild fire.

*The “mad man” or “mad woman” often acts and speaks more logically than “normal people”; the same way the “illiterate” often reasons better and achieves greater results than his “literate” counterpart.

*As hard as parents try to hide ugly family events from their children, the little ones know everything that goes on in the family even as they act like they don’t.

*The gratification and euphoria of the newly-arrived in a coveted foreign land will eventually dissipate and often get reversed when reality sets in. The newcomer is always more tolerant and grateful for all the things that other people value less and take for granted.

*Life is like a rotating wheel and those on top may find themselves at the bottom of the wheel at some point in time; and vice versa. Those on top should be wise not to abuse those at the bottom. Today’s good may become tomorrow’s bad; and vice versa.

*Pregnancy complications are rampart and there is high infant and maternal mortality in the land.

“Nowhere to Run” is the story of an overly-ambitious young man who left his humble village and went to the chaotic city in search of quick wealth, greatness and popularity. He found what he was looking for and came back to the village to flaunt his wealth and newly-found stardom. He became so popular that people fell in love with the city and started flocking there to replicate his success. Suddenly, all roads led to the city. Except for a small minority of individuals that remained steadfast in their negative views of the young man and the city, everybody else wanted to be like him. They could never get enough of the young man. They believed in him and sang his praises. He was so overtly blessed and envied that if anyone could feel happy and fulfilled, it had to be him. As it turned out; that was not the case. Instead, contrary to popular belief and expectations, he was a very sad and troubled man, haunted by some inescapable forces; both visible and hidden. In his near-retirement age, the man was led to discover the type of wisdom that was more valuable than the wealth, popularity and stardom he had pursued all his life. That discovery turned out to be the best gift anyone could ever have given him. Contrary to common sense expectations, the one that led him to the wisest discovery of his life turned out to be the same individual who could have rightfully decided to remain an unforgiving enemy for life. Initially, he mistook the eye-opening gesture for a deadly trap coming from a bitter enemy. When he finally realized the authenticity of the saving gesture, he began to wish he had acquired his wisdom much earlier while he was still young and vibrant and not when he was already at the departure lounge of life. He began to wish he could turn the clock backward and start living differently. He knew he couldn’t do that. The best thing he could do was utilize his priceless experience to the benefit of those that might see wisdom through him. His ardent critics and perceived enemies suddenly became his most valued friends and partners in life. As much as he would want his horde of admirers to embrace his newly-found wisdom, he was not waiting for them to alter their lifestyle. That would be equivalent to firing a gun and chasing after the bullet. For a man at the departure lounge of life, he had little time to waste trying to force others to change their way of life. Even though it details the haunted life of the celebrity in question, the book is actually a metaphor for the people’s way of life of a particular tribe somewhere in Africa.

Are you interested in understanding their marriage customs, traditions and ceremonies, their amazing use of parables in communication, their burial functions, their belief in the re-incarnation of the departed, their fight over age seniority and other aspects of their daily living? If so; this is the book you are looking for. Are there any checks and balances to ensure fruitful, long-lasting and happily married life in this particular African culture? What processes do couples go through to get married? How do the people mourn their dead and why?  What are the favorite gossip topics for men and women? How and why do parents and grand-parents pick certain names for their children and do those names affect individual behavior patterns? What are their children’s naming ceremonies like? What are the purposes and implications of the Omugwo? What are the problems and advantages of polygamy? How do individuals in a bad relationship develop coping mechanisms? Are there occasional or even deep-rooted clashes between the past and present, the old and new; the rich and poor? The book is more than an expose of a haunted celebrity. It is a synopsis of a particular African people’s way of life. 

(The book had previously been published without the current changes as “Trapped in Broad-day Light").

Important people, concepts and places depicted in The book  “Nowhere to Run”

*Umunta Village

The village is a very unique place to grow up and be raised; a close-knit community where individualism gives way to a communal spirit and no one operates as an island. People know each other by name and when one person fails, the entire community is assumed to have failed as well and one person’s success brings joy and happiness to all. Gossips abound and it’s not always easy to distinguish truth from falsehood. With time, gossips have a tendency to develop branches and wings and turn into folklore.

*Keke versus Korie:

The two kinsmen happen to be the most prominent characters in the book “Nowhere to Run”. Keke is a surviving twin; Korie is a singleton. Keke’s mother went through a rapid labor to deliver him two minutes before midnight on Eke market day; Korie’s mother went through a prolonged labor to deliver him two minutes after midnight on Orie market day. Keke won a fight to survive in-utero before coming into the world in excellent health while Korie started a seemingly-healthy life after an uneventful intrauterine growth and maturity only to encounter a potentially-deadly viral infection at birth. Korie is a tall, handsome and meaty individual with a kind harmless face and a soft smile. His calm demeanor and friendly expressions are enough to make a total stranger feel at ease. Keke, on the other hand, is a short arrogant man with a lean-muscled stomach and a rather disrespecting outlook. He will go out of his way to make others feel inferior to him even when the odds are stacked up against him. His smile is like a threatening frown that lasts but a few seconds. When he walks, he shrugs his both shoulders in a show of indifference and power and he walks right into your face like you are an empty space. Their opposing or rather contradicting personalities cannot allow Keke and Korie to get along. They were born four minutes apart on different market days, different months and different calendar years. In the village, age grade is a status symbol that separates seniors from juniors and it’s not unusual for individuals to cheat their way into a higher age grade to become older. Based on the traditional age grading system, Keke and Korie who were born in different years cannot belong to the same age grade even though they were born only four minutes apart. Thus, the hostilities between them are inadvertently exacerbated by the culture of the land.

*Ada

She is the highly-educated first woman married by Keke, a woman with intellectual and moral levels are beyond the reach of her detractors. She scares away a multitude of most-eligible suitors by rejecting, abusing and insulting them and ends up marrying Keke when no one else will come to ask for her hand in marriage. Because her husband treats her badly and marries other wives, she has to develop coping mechanisms to survive the situation she finds herself in. For better or for worse, she remains the academic and social pillar that sustains Keke’s troubled life as she transforms her married life into a triumph.

*The Widow in Purple

This widow rises from an apparent obscurity to play a very dominant role in the book “Nowhere to Run”. She plays a dominant center role in shaping the intrigues and the eventual outcome of the story. In musical terms, she would be described as someone who rose from a decrescendo to a climactic crescendo in the story of the book. 

*Nana and Marina

Women are often referred to as “coconuts” that break other people’s heads (especially those of their husbands). Nana and marina are the two extra “coconuts” brought into his house by Keke who is following in his father’s footsteps by marrying many wives. As Keke’s younger wives, they team up against Ada, the head wife, even as they scheme to dislodge each other. Marina is often voted the best nurse by her peers and superiors, yet she is there for money with total disregard for the humanistic philosophy of nursing. Nana is an opportunistic, selfish and self-absorbed twin who has no regard for decency or other people’s feelings and views on any matter. The two women are like the proverbial “coconuts” brought into the house by Keke and they live up to their natural instincts and upbringing. Incidentally, they are not able   hide their iniquities forever.

*Polygamy

Polygamy in Umunta village is the logical way of life. Women outnumber men by a wide margin and someone needs to marry them and a man with sprawling acres of land needs lots of hands to cultivate the land. Some people even see polygamy as an obligation for men. Without polygamy, who will marry all the women in the land? Other people see polygamy as a lesser evil where a man is tied down to legitimate wives instead of running after several faceless dangerous women. Some of the characters in the book come from a polygamous family where there is always a fierce competition for everything and an open-minded individual is often turned into a vindictive personality.

*Re-incarnation

The people believe in re-incarnation and that belief has an interesting twist to it. Unlike the first time a person comes into the world as a human being, during re-incarnation, the same person can decide whether he or she wants to come back to life or not and where he or she wants to go. The deceased can decide to skip the beloved ones and go to a total stranger at the time of re-incarnation. There are instances where someone who is still alive will declare his or her intentions of coming back to life to be with a particular person and it may not be unusual for the dead to come back to life with the exact same personality traits or birthmark that he or she had in the previous life. In Umunta village, when a child is born and if the family wants to know the identity of the newborn, they will go to the fortune-teller to find out who is the person that has come back to life. From what her parents told her, Ada is a reincarnation of her late maternal grandmother; a woman who died long before she was born and of whom she had heard so many good things. For that reason, Ada’s mother is fond of calling her ‘Mama’ (mother).

*The Omugwo

This is a special visit made by a woman whose daughter has just had a baby. Omugwo, as designed, is meant to achieve multiple objectives. Both mother and child have very specific but unique needs to keep them healthy and functional and the woman going for the Omugwo, who herself had experienced the effects of pre-natal, intra-partum and post-partum forces of pregnancy, has the experience to address those specific needs. She also creates an environment for the new mother to get the badly-needed rest and serves as a special teacher who guides the new mother through the delicate tricks of taking care of her newborn child. The Omugwo also initiates a special bonding of the newborn with his or her greater family.

*Naming Ceremony

In Umunta village, a child is recognized as an authentic indigene; a ‘son of the soil’ or ‘daughter of the land’ by going through the naming ceremony as stipulated by the laws and customs of the land. It is a major public event that legitimizes a person’s identity. It is a ceremony that must be undertaken by every child of the village even if that child is born beyond the borders of the homeland. During the naming ceremony, certain protocols must be adhered to as stipulated by the traditions of the land.

*Burial Ceremony

Burial ceremony in Umunta village is a ritual that seems to have gone through transformational changes. It used to signify a strictly-mourning process during which the dead is laid to rest in a somber ceremony and the bereaved is comforted by commiserating relatives and members of the public. With time, the ceremony seems to widen the gap between the rich and poor. The rich compete to outdo each other in splashing their wealth on people’s faces while the poor are reduced to further penury in an attempt to fulfil the customary obligations required of them before they can even bury their dead. The poor will struggle through life and die in poverty and when they die; their burial becomes a nightmare for those they left behind.

*The Old Man

The concept of the old man is not necessarily defined by old age but by seniority and wisdom. A fifty-year-old man in the midst of thirty-year-old guys could be seen as ‘the old man’. Certain traits are expected to be personified by the old man; such as wisdom, honesty, integrity, impartiality, and a wealth of experience. When an old man speaks, his words should not be ignored or discarded. People scheme their way into an older age grade and feel superior in the midst of younger ones.

*The Madman

In Umunta village, there is someone called a ‘madman’ or ‘madwoman’. This is a person who traditionally roams about the street and turns the market square into his or her home. In psychiatric terms, he or she has a mental disorder. Interestingly, the madman (or madwoman) behaves and speaks in ways that make people wonder “if they are actually smarter and wiser than the rest of us”. They have the type of immunity that eludes the “normal” people. For example, they can speak their mind and criticize or denigrate anyone without fear of retribution and they are not inhibited by other people’s opinions and criticisms.

*a young man’s first ever salary from work. 

A young man is expected to give to his father, his first ever salary from work and ask for his blessings. This is as an expression of gratitude and appreciation for all the sacrifices the father has made to bring him up. The father accepts the salary and generously blesses the young man. As expected of him, the father takes only a tiny fraction of the paycheck and gives back the rest of the money to the young man who needs it to get established on his own. If the father has more money of his own, he will even give it to the son to help out.