Leke Giwa examines Omoseye Bolaji’s People of the Townships

It is now ten years since the publication of the first edition of Omoseye Bolaji’s People of the Townships which in its own way broke new ground as regards authentic representations of black people resident in the so-called “townships” or locations. It is a book which has been fairly well received over the years.

Many writers and critics posit that genuine writers must have a wide vista of life and must never be condescending or look down on their poorer brethren. Else how will they get most of their material or convince with their characterization? We recall for example that American writers like John Steinbeck and Erskine Caldwell were very sympathetic in their depiction of poverty in their works. Even the rather beleaguered Joseph Conrad was able to depict the horrors in the erstwhile Congo in his own classic, Heart of Darkness. As regards Bolaji’s People of the Townships, I must confess though that few critics or reviewers seem to have focused on the underpinning poverty, the excruciating impoverishment that partially produced and influenced the protagonist John Lefuo and his eventual fate. Lefuo is a fine example of a typical poor black man from the townships who has his own cross to carry as it were. Incidentally many of Africa’s finest writers have depicted poverty in their respective environments – like east Africa’s Meja Mwangi for example. Read a few of his books and one is in touch with what we might call grinding poverty in certain cases.

In Ayi Kwei Armah’s classic The beautyful ones are not yet born, published over 40 years ago we see glimpses of extraordinary poverty in Ghana. As we follow the travails and illuminations of “the man” we realize this is a man being rocked with poverty – the “toilets” in his house for example are so bad that the modern reader can not even begin to decipher what is going on. We might also mention Peter Abrahams the South African writer was probably the first black writer to show the world the excruciating effects of apartheid – and resultant disheartening poverty for blacks – in his early novels like Mine Boy.

Now back to Bolaji’s People of the Townships the fact that John Lefuo is poor, very poor is evident throughout the narrative – the book is written in the present tense for one thing. Lefuo’s vicissitudes mainly spring from this background; as he tells us from early in the work: "What can I do? I live in the same house as my sisters' and I must admit with some embarassment that I depend on the family for survival...actually I know their (his sisters') main grouse against me (is) the fact that I'm painfully poor," As the book unfolds we can see that Lefuo is very much the man with the grassroots touch, as it were. As he traverses his kasi he meets – in the main – “ordinary” people like himself; the so-called salt of the earth. Apparently from the narrative Lefuo does not know any comfortable or “rich” people, or perhaps he just does not care about them. We can see he is fairly well read and even when he refers to one of Charles Dickens works, Great Expectations, we can see it is the depiction of poor people here (cleaning, scrubbing) that really interests him. We can also deduce that John’s poverty contributes to his frustrations with the mother of his child, Alice Memela. It is difficult to imagine that if John was comfortable and could easily take care of Alice’s needs, she would be living such a “promiscuous” life. Hence the fiction here mirrors reality – is it not a fact that many women stuck with very poor male partners “stray outside” in a bid to garner a better lifestyle for themselves and offspring? This is only one aspect of what Bolaji delineates in his People of the Townships. What surprised me is that even after a fresh reading, the book still has a haunting, poignant essence. And the convincing depiction of the protagonist’s poverty contributes to its success.