| SUMMARY |
|---|
| Title: Taduno’s song |
| Genre: Fiction |
| Author: ODAFE ATOGUN |
| Publisher: Ouida Books/CanonGate |
| Year of Publication: 2017 |
| Number of Pages: 218 |
| ISBN: |
| Reviewer: Testimony Akinkunmi |
Suppose you are a treasonist given a chance to start life again. Would you persist in fighting for freedom, or would you try another path to justice?
Taduno, a popular musician everyone has forgotten about, had that chance to exist without his treasonous past life clinging to him.
Most people that mattered in his life told him to move on, sing for the government, save his fiancé and live, but TK, the music manager that discovered him, said;
The government wants you to support it with your music. They will use you, then they will silence you. But I tell you that you are as good as dead if you do that.
So he returned to the battlefield, armed with his guitar and once angelic voice.
That decision would spell doom for everyone about him. The sergeant who helped him with the information will die. TK, who advised him to keep on, would disappear, and his fiancé, the love of his life whose threatening letters wanted him to keep fighting the faith, would be lost forever.
Hope would flee.
Lagos truly had fallen. The protesters refused to return to the streets. Too many of their own had died in battle. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have taken up arms against the government,’ they wailed. In anguish, they realized that the dictator had them exactly where he wanted.
Yet, the nation still wanted a miracle.
Something isn’t right about Taduno’s voice. It lacks the passion that used to inspire joy in us. What is happening to him? What is happening to us?’ She left the questions hanging and added: ‘We still love him dearly. We still want his voice to lead us. The whole nation is waiting.’
From the onset, the story’s didactic nature strikes a chord of reminiscing in the Nigerian man about a time that hasn’t yet left.
The ghost of Anikulapo Fela Kuti, represented by Taduno, reminds us of what is at stake in our democracy and country.
The story ends with Taduno singing. A song that loves and betrays.
About the Author
Odafe Atogun was born in Nigeria, in the town of Lokoja, on the confluence of the rivers Niger and Benue. He is now a full-time writer, married, and lives in Abuja.
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