One of the African writers that shaped my childhood was Buchi Emecheta (of blessed memory). Her Joys of Motherhood was the first African novel that opened my eyes to the dichotomy between genders in the African community.
Buchi constantly explores the critical subject of female Independence and freedom in her books. In Second-class citizens, She goes above and beyond in the auto-biographical representation of her life. Buchi narrates the story of Adah, a young Nigerian woman, and her travails in pursuit of formal education. Adah finds that achieving her dreams is difficult being a female child, and even beyond the shores of Nigeria, Adah is still considered a second-class citizen.
It's disheartening how Adah's propensity towards formal education and thirst for knowledge prematurely killed and how meeting her husband changed the trajectory of her life. The tragicness of Adah's situation didn't dawn on me until the author mentioned towards the end, as if to make a point, that she was just 21years.
Following as a spirited young girl — who went through highs and lows to be in the four walls of a classroom — transforms into a young mother of four kids with a loony partner, faced with racism, domestic violence, and constant relegation in a foreign country, I'm still quite stunned at how Adah remains resilient in the face of all these.
Despite Adah's situation, I found myself laughing in between tears. Adah is chaotically dramatic. Her thoughts are comically exaggerated to match the overall tone of the book. I patiently waited for an ending where the author would announce, "Adah's life was all a dream; she wakes up with a sigh of relief that her toxic, absurd marriage never happened. On the subject of Adah's husband, I'll console myself with the fact that he's a fictional character.
It's sad that there was a time when the norm was treating daughters like second-class citizens. It's even more disheartening that this was not long ago, and in recent times, many people still hold the notion that a female child is less than a male child. In a way, Adah's story is theatrical, but Buchi effectively conveyed her message of intersectionality, a concept that still baffles me.
Second-class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta is a momentous book, disheartening yet effervescence. Although, I found the ending unsatisfactory as it dishonours Adah's character build-up at the beginning. I'd like to think, in today's age, societal norms would not have let down Adah. She would have confidently furthered her education without the interjections of her family members or the limitation of needing a male figure to validate her. I'd like to think that in today's age, Adah wouldn't be relegated to a second-class citizen.
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