Lola Akande releases second novel

Four years after her debut novel, ‘In Our Place’, was published, Dr. Lola Akande of the Department of English, University of Lagos has released a new work that exposes the intrigues and politics that characterise degree-awarding processes in Nigeria’s ivory towers.

Entitled ‘What it Takes’, the novel shows the unfortunate entrenchment of cyclical wickedness in Nigerian universities, where anyone who acquires a PhD and becomes a university lecturer believes they must punish students because they have gone through a similar experience. The central character’s ivory tower experiences mimic the larger Nigerian experience, where excellence is murdered and mediocrity is celebrated under the guise of tribalism, entitlement mentality, unbridled sexual demands, greed and avarices and sheer wickedness.

Realising that intelligence, diligence, hard work and commitment are not necessarily What It Takes to earn a PhD in a Nigerian university, the heroine seeks the intervention of marabouts in a desperate attempt to achieve her goal, thereby underscoring the potential danger some varsity teachers unwittingly expose their lives to through acts of wickedness.