The Simple Life of Uncertainties

In Ilamina My Sister, Life is simple, yet unpredictable

Reviewed by Iniobong Umoh. April, 2024

Ilamina My Sister is a play in 16 Acts set in a fictional rustic community, Tumbila, in the oil-rich Niger Delta region synonymous with rabid dispossession, environmental degradation, rampant unemployment, disillusionment and neglect by political stakeholders and oil multinationals. Divided into three sections: Prologue, Scenes of the play and Epilogue, Ilamina My Sister features everyday and relatable characters navigating their day-to-day filled with uncertainties and few glimmers of hope. Although gloom and doom are pervasive in the work, Fran Ayansi’s interest is in the rays of light, the pockets of joy and brilliance that prevail in the toxic wasteland of the Niger Delta.

The two prominent characters in Ilamina My Sister are Tarri and Dokugbo, who attempt to capture the reader’s attention as human interest stories. These two best friends aspire to live a better life, a hopeful life, despite the bleak state of their milieu. Despite their wishes and hopes, the reality of the community’s abandonment by its leaders – reminiscent of the Niger Delta region’s abandonment by the Nigerian state – throws a wrench into their not-so-well-laid plans. Tarri laments:

“Dokugbo, when will all these our problems end? They say we have oil, but I don’t see the benefit of the oil. I don’t even see the oil! Or do you? The only oil I see from time to time is the crude oil that has spilled from burst pipes onto the rivers. The kerosene we buy here is twice as expensive in our village as it is in Port Harcourt and Yenagoa. Even ‘pure water’ costs twice as much here as it costs in Port Harcourt. I’m still living in a thatched house that I inherited from my father. This thatched house which I fix ever so often” (13).

The characters in this play are simple folks who have resigned to their fate. Amid this despondency, human attributes such as love, friendship and family bonds make life bearable. The beautiful Ilamina is courted by prominent men in the community, but the hardworking Dokugbo who lives in a mud house wins her heart and becomes her husband. One might argue that a simple life in a rustic village filled with corrupt leaders, alcohol addicts and idlers leaves the young maiden with few choices, or Cupid’s arrow simply has a mind of its own. Although the future seemingly looks bright with their upcoming nuptials, the interplay of deprivation, dispossession and underdevelopment results in tragedy for the couple.

Ilamina My Sister interrogates the theme of destructive extraction, environmental degradation and economic migration in oil-producing communities. Young men and women eagerly migrate to Odi and Port Harcourt – An oil metropolis – to find viable job opportunities. Sadly, this exodus comes with the attendant effect of breaking family ties, as most economic migrants never return to their aged parents in Tumbila. the theme of friendship is explored through the friendship of Dokugbo and Tarri – their friendship is a strong point of the play as the author shows how two childhood friends live interwoven lives, equally sharing each other’s tragedy and happiness.

The use of dialogue and soliloquy as dramatic devices aids in the progression of the play and the music, chorus and dance are critical elements that convey the emotions of joy and sorrow in the play. The play’s narrative is sometimes too good to be true, and the characters, in my view, can act naïvely, such as Ilamina, who chooses to marry a poor man and settle for life in a village instead of setting her sights on men in the city. 

The devastating effect of oil pollution manifests as community members die in quick succession from the consumption of polluted water, and the reader is trapped in their sorrow and helplessness. Ilamina’s death during childbirth points to the lack of basic amenities in the community, like accessible road networks, public health facilities and trained maternal health service providers. In this drama text, oil is the catalyst for pain, agony and trauma in the region and leads to the Dokugbo’s eventual suicide. An interesting work, Ilamina My Sister, reads like the dramatist was hurrying to meet a deadline. I would recommend a re-editing of the book as there is a mix of tenses in the descriptions of action in some scenes. The impact of underdevelopment amidst the presence of liquid gold could have been better interrogated with a focus on other characters in the play aside from the two major ones. Anyansi tells the story of life in a Niger Delta village steeped in poverty, underdevelopment and environmental degradation with a twist.

Genre – Drama.
Author: Fran Ify Anyansi
No of Pages: 81
Publisher: Page Publishing Conneaut Lake, PA