Book review: Of enemies within, around and among us

A review of Adebayo Abidemi Zainab’s ‘The Sting of Passion,’ By Moshood Folorunsho

FOES are always within, around and among us. Most times, they parade themselves as friends or admirers or lovers. They use their talents to promote the downfall of others. Their actions are always deeply rooted in irrational thinking. Sometimes the actions or inactions of the good people do invite foes to their lives. A foe within can also be the devil in us crippling our growth and development. A foe around us can be a blood relation or a family member secretly acting like a parasite and gradually turning our happiness to sadness. 

Adebayo Abidemi’s ‘The Sting of Passion’, is a collection of three short stories published by OAK Initiative, an arm of OAK Foundation, a charity organisation aimed at supporting indigent students, widows and the fatherless in Africa. 

All the stories have settings full of foes who fit into the descriptions above. Each story is not only very short but also has a single mood. 

Each story can only take a maximum of 30 minutes to be read. The book, which is a 2022 work of fiction, explores the themes of fraud, impatience, family support, unethical business practice, corruption, bullying, jealousy, vengeance, seduction and promiscuity. All the themes are weaved around protagonists who later suffer the consequences of their misdeeds in the hands of their foes.  

The three stories in this collection are, ‘A Family Affair’, ‘The Sting of Passion’ and ‘What Goes Round.’ The first story, written in second person narrative, is divided into eight chapters. This story resonates well with a popular Yoruba proverb that says, ‘Ti a ba so oko s’oja, o le ba ara ile eni’ (If we throw a stone into the market, it may hit a member of one’s household). The protagonist, Tolu, is hit by a scammer’s stone. 

She loses her N100,000 to a scammer through a method that is common in Nigeria – her ATM card is compromised through her action with an unknown caller, a scammer. She willingly gives all the particulars of her ATM card to the scammer. She subsequently receives five alerts on her mobile phone that clears all the money in her Zenith Bank account. She quickly calls her bank to seek redress, and she is being advised to get a police report on the fraudulent act before the bank can take any action. Being a widow and mother of two children, Tolu intends to pay her long overdue house rent with that amount of money. 

To write a statement and for a police officer to act on it take a sum of N10,000 out of Tolu’s pocket. When the landlord’s threat is gradually becoming real, Tolu decides to inform her elder brother Olalekan about her situation. Olalekan offers her a room space in his big house at Lekki, which she hurriedly accepts. A month after, when she has properly settled down in her brother’s house, some policemen barge into the house and arrest her nephew, Ade, who is accused of committing several cyber-crimes ,including duping one Mrs Tolu Obalade of her N100,000. 

The second story that gives the anthology its title explores the popular saying, ‘Using what you have to get what you need.’

Written in second person narrative and divided into four brief chapters, it deals with the theme of promiscuity, seduction, unethical business practice and shortlived glory. 

The protagonist, Ayomide, a staff of Rovers Company that specialises in selling of medical equipment, uses what she has to win the company a deal with Green Health Hospital. With her beauty, she seduces the Chief Medical Director of Green Health Hospitals, Dr. Ajani, and subsequently jerks hips with him. Ayomide’s selling skills imbued by her sexual prowess, which is praised to high heavens by his boss and co-workers, later backfires as a result of an unnecessary delay in signing the deal by the Green Health Hospitals. Unfortunately, Ayomide becomes pregnant for Dr. Ajani, who offers her a huge sum of money to terminate the pregnancy. Ayomide declines insisting she cannot kill her baby. At the end, the deal becomes messy and Ayomide is relieved of her employment with Rovers Company. 

The third story has its setting in a secondary school among senior secondary school students. 

The protagonist, Gbolahan is the senior prefect of the school. He is very brilliant and diligent but he is surrounded by many foes both in junior and senior classes. His main offensive character is bullying. He is being accused of bullying the junior students and lacking respect for his colleagues. He is arrogant and pompous as the senior prefect. A trap is eventually set for him which catches him napping. A sum of N5,000 belonging to the mathematics teacher, Mr. Olusola is stolen in the class. Every student becomes a suspect. The stolen money is eventually found inside Gbolahan’s locker. Bayo, a staunch foe of Gbolahan, sets the trap. The senior prefect is stripped of his status and eventually suspended from the school for a term. 

The stories in this anthology are lucidly written and straightforward – no ambiguity. The author creates characters who suffer the consequences of their actions and inactions in the hands of their foes in order to teach the reader some lessons. The weakness point in this collection is also its strongest point – it is very brief and direct. This is a good collection to be read by all and sundry to kill boredom at once.