Kaine Agary’s Yellow Yellow
Kaine Agary claimed that he was inspired by Saro-Wiwa's book entitled A Month and a Day in writing the novel. Yellow-Yellow was the first novel of Kaine Agary, who grew up in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The honour was to reflect the relevance of the book on how literatures have been used to illuminate the Niger Delta question. Kaine was in the United States of America for a while before relocating to Lagos. Yellow- Yellow was all about a young biracial girl, Zilayefa, who was born of a Nigerian mother and a Greek sailor, who left her rustic existence and the protective grip of her mother in the village in search of a better life in the city of Port Harcourt.
With a recommendation from her pastor, Zilayefa, the main character in the book, took in and was cared for by an elderly biracial woman, Sisi, and her friend, Lolo. She was thrust into the bustling city of Port Harcourt, unprepared for the pitfalls awaiting a young girl so unsure of herself and also in desperate need of direction. She was confronted by prejudices against her racial identity. Zilayefa joined the fast Port Harcourt life, coloured by the presence of expatriates in the oil sector and declining societal values during a military regime.
She struggled with accepting the void left by not knowing her father and tried to fill that void with the attention of an older lover. Through her budding sexuality experiences, Zilayefa grew to a higher level of knowledge and understanding. Yellow-Yellow portrayed life and culture in the Niger Delta through the eyes of Zilayefa when she struggled with development of her identity. It revealed a portrait of beauty and social destruction of the Nigerian Niger Delta, giving a picture and a human face to the hardships of the people.
At the early chapters of the book, the author reflected the menace of oil spillage on hectares of farmland that was supposed to be cultivated for food production. The villagers constituted a pressure group to fight against oppression especially from the foreigners, who were operators of the oil companies that laid their oil pipes in the village. They reported the case to the village head for immediate rescue. Some were crying, others were agitating for compensation. The crude oil, as reported by the author, spread out and covered more land and drowned small animals in its path. The air was polluted with bad smell from crude oil and decaying animals. Men and women were covered knee-deep in the crude oil.
The oil company rejected the accusation, declaring a suspect sabotage of the youth in the village. They insisted on not paying any compensation for all the destruction the burst pipes had caused. Many people lost their main source of sustenance to the spillage including the author's mother. Women rowed their canoes farther away to find land for farming. Every year, it was hard to catch fish. It was contrary to the early days of the author's mother when every husband was expected to give his new wife a dugout canoe he had carved out and crafted himself. The wife would use the canoe to fish, earn a living and help to feed the family. The big boys carved out decorative paddles that carried the legends of the Ijaws in every curve.
Sisi, who took care of Zilayefa, stopped schooling at primary six level. She was exposed to all influences that converged on Port Harcourt before Nigeria's Independence from the British. She used the exposure to get contracts for construction and food supply in government hospitals. She was good with creative ideas for projects she was selling to the procurement officers of the establishment. She was involved in the supply of toilet papers and leasing of pick-up trucks. She was the only woman who got contracts from oil companies. At the concluding chapters of the book, the author reviewed how young girls, who wanted to escape poverty, were looking up to white men to rescue them. Girls were trooping into hotel lobbies at Warri and Bonny, looking for how to attach themselves with the white men. There were people on contract, linking up good looking young girls with prospective white men. On one of such night cruises, Zilayefa met Sergio, his former jilted lover whom she thought was one of those hanging out for young girls.
There have been different reactions over the quality of artworks compiled in Yellow-Yellow by its author, which made it to gain such befitting recognition at a first trial. Yellow-Yellow takes us on an amazing journey through the Delta region of Nigeria: our guide is a young woman trying to find herself seeking her fortune in a big city, a city hungry to swallow her soul and spit out her jaded hollow shell. It is a truly authentic narrative of a region, the burden of its incredible wealth and a young woman's determination to carry it. This literary gem is a must read.
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