Book Review
Oseloka Obaze*
Saturday, June 24, 2006
WSPD - Weapon of Single Person Destruction
Uche Nwakudu
(ISBN: 1-4259-22319-9; AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN; 2006, pp 342; Price, $19.72)
Available at: www.authorhouse.com
“WSPD is an enchantingly retrospective nostalgic drama,
cobbled with intense imaginative aplomb.”
In writing WSPD- Weapon of Single Person Destruction, Uche Nwakudu ventures audaciously into the ideological, theological and historical realm, but doing so very innovatively and creatively. Picking on two controversial issues, WSPD, a weapon far deadlier than WMDs, and the defunct Republic of Biafra, he pools together a slate of unlikely actors, in a game of high stakes international geopolitics and befuddling human deception.
With contemporary Nigeria, and all its prevailing clichés, human foibles and political vagaries as the backdrop, WSPD, a political historical narrative of judgment and interpretations unfolds in onion-like layers, through a critical perspective based on solid knowledge of facts and research and an ingenious story-telling ability.
Heretically, the book opens with the tongue-in-cheek proclamation: “GOD IS A BIAFRAN!” This proclamation alone is enough to cause a modern day furor, talk less when that declaration becomes a matter of national interest to the United States, the Russians, the Chinese and the EU team, led by the United Kingdom. The confusion and political intrigue that ensues is compounded by two facts: the protagonist is a Biafran, held in neighboring Nigeria and the key players trusted no one, not even their own shadows. But what makes this book compellingly interesting, is the author’s historical license, by which he recreates defunct Biafra, making it a viable and highly respected and developed nation in good standing.
Thumbing through this book, one finds a novel trend of writing form. As if intended to create a new genre, a slew of philosophical treatises is embedded throughout the entire book. In this regard, Nwakudu, while thrilling the reader with his well-honed prose and narrative style, attempts both directly and surreptitiously, to indoctrinate the reader into his ways of thinking. Several critical and contentious issues, from the existence of God, to marriage, the value of dictatorship, and why people prefer democracy, even if it is not best suited for them are addressed.
Though a work of fiction, the reawakening of Biafra as a stable, powerful and rich state will be troubling to many, especially Nigerians. But what is more troubling, is that Biafra might posses through one of its citizen, the ultimate weapon that would allow any leader, indeed any man, to play God and thus control the fate of the world, the super and great powers included. Indeed, the man, Professor Obidodo, an ideology-driven physicist has thrown the contemporary international system into frenzy by declaring himself GOD in 2006.
In the post September 11, terrorist-dominated 21st Century, Professor Obidodo has managed to trump the era of weapons of mass destruction by creating a revolutionary and logic-defying weapon, which he dubbed, Weapon of Single Person Destruction or WSPD. After initial skepticisms, the knowledge that anyone who possessed the weapon or the know-how would rule the world, and could indeed play God, sets off a new kind of hot war.
Although the “mad” scientist is a Biafran, he is in the custody of the Nigerians, but in desperate demand in many key capitals, especially Beijing, Washington and Moscow. So, understandably, the scramble by the major super powers to secure control of this weapon begins, with Professor Obidodo, the creator of the WSPD, none-the-wiser. Aside from Nigeria and Biafra, the key players area the great powers and their intelligence agencies, plus Al Qaida. The only common denominator – they were all equal participants on a level playing field who were committed to thinking and staying ahead of their adversaries at all costs.
WSPD is tsunami-like. If those who had heard of the WSPD had initially been doubtful of its existence and its annihilative capacity to wreak extreme havoc, the words of Prof. Obidodo and his demonstration convinced them otherwise. For a mere mortal to pronounce himself God, was to ask to be certified or ridiculed, but to do so and back it up with a verifiable demonstration, was a bone-chilling reality that translated to the unprecedented ability of one man or a nation to singularly remake the world. In a stressed environment marked by justifiable fear that weapons of mass destruction if unchecked, might fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists, the WSPD posed far more greater danger than could ever be imagined.
Hence there was cause for worry when a video surfaced, in which Prof Obidodo made the following declarations:
People of the world, …I am now GOD or even better. You have foolishly believed that there is somebody out there, some supreme being with the power to do and undo. You call him omniscient and you say he is omnipresent but I call him ignorant and comatose. Now I have created a chance to remake the world, to play GOD. To do the things that were he to exist he would have had the sense to do to check the excesses of man. I have built the ultimate weapon and with it, I can determine how things should be in the world. Two months ago, I perfected a device with which when the time comes I shall begin the simple task of changing things in the world. While the world is busy fretting over nuclear armament and weapons of mass destruction, I have developed what I aptly call a weapon of single-person destruction, WSPD. With just a push of a button, I can end the life of any man anywhere in the world.
As if the shock and awe of his omnipotent claims were insufficient, Professor Obidodo proceeded to conclude his remarks by drawing on an example that he surely knew would draw the full ire and wishful thinking from different quarters and audiences and for different self-serving reasons.
I could for instance take out the president of the United States of America and insist that his replacement should be Saddam Hussein so that at least the US can get a taste of what it means to impose its own idea of leadership on a nation. In short, I can replace any nation’s leader and install a person of my choosing. Imagine that I am a bad person and then imagine the endless possibilities. However, my intentions are good. It is because of bad individuals that the world is a bad place. It is the decisions of a few individuals that have turned our world into a nightmare. The ordinary folks have nothing to fear. I am GOD and I will ensure that the world is purged of bad politicians and bad governments ( p.9 ).
With these words, Professor Obidodo demonstrated his calms beyond doubt by zapping out of existence a laboratory cow. Soon enough, there is incontrovertible evidence that several human beings in far-flung countries had similarly been zapped. This triggers the unfolding drama, which the author refers to as “two stories, one set in the past and the other set in contemporary times... interwoven in this saga of human resilience and international double-dealing”.
WSPD traces and juxtaposes the romantic but politically compelling beginnings of Biafra to its initial demise, eventual rebirth and fairytale actualization. Whereas the main side of the book is historical, its philosophical bent is most acute. Hence, philosophical dictates pervade the book. Conformably, WSPD’s niche and true value may indeed lie with its novelty; that being without a doubt, it’s philosophical cadence and grappling with certain societal norms on which there is no consensus about their utility. Marriage, for instance, as a concept and reality is delved into with the trite observation that “people marry because they are scared of loneliness in old age” (p.164).
Also explored is the time-honored issue of existentialism relating in essence, to the theological, dogmatic and philosophical debate about the belief in the existence of God. The concept of God is explored from the prism of man’s relation to his fellow man. The summary is that, he who controls life also controls power and can therefore play God. Then, there is the issue of dictatorship, which seems to go even beyond the notion of a “benevolent dictatorship”. Nwakudu suggests that “'a dictatorship can be positive” (p.208) and goes on to cite wise King Solomon as the atypical dictator. Turning to the numbing issue of poverty, the plight and blight it creates and its nexus to bad governance, Nwakudu employs the comparison of the concept of egalitarianism and democracy. He notes that desirable as it may be, democracy could be deviant and may not always be the preferred form of government, since it works more efficiently only when and where the leadership is committed to accountability and forthrightness (p.213).
WSPD serves well as a synoptic guide to the Nigerian-Biafran civil war, albeit as told strictly from the Biafran perspective. For a reader unschooled about Nigeria’s political history, the book in its subjectivity offers a slanted perspective. The doctrine of audi alteram paterm – the right to hear or present both sides of a story – is absolutely absent and perhaps, intentionally so. But WSPD does present a glossary of issues that almost tore Nigeria apart and the dreams and idealism that fueled Biafra, but also the parallel dreams that in actuality died with its demise.
In WSPD Nwakudu manages to successfully resurrects ideas and issues buried along with Biafra, including the scientific and developmental potentials which now peak out intermittently in present day Nigeria’s arrested development, but continues to elude her in reality. This makes WSPD a social critic’s diary, which those conversant with the thralldom of Nigerian politics and everyday life will readily identify with. This book is as much a dirge for Nigeria’s unfulfilled potentials, as it is a requiem for Biafra’s unrealized utopic aspirations of vibrant statehood. Nwakudu, however, through literary license, has contributed his share of keeping the Biafran dream on life support, while ensuring in literary form its mutation into a viable state.
The temptation to reveal the plot line and eventual outcome of this saga, which begins with a daring rescue of Professor Obidodo from his cell in the gulag of Aso Rock, the seat of the Nigerian presidency is attractively overwhelming. But that would be a spoiler of the joy of reading this binding and bewitching thriller. All that needs to be said, is that nations would do the most audacious and asinine things in their national interest. In this context, the key players were ready and did pay billions of dollars to anyone who could deliver Professor Obidodo and the thoughts in his head to them. The intrigues and web of deception that follows is a classic, which would merely by their intertwining intricacies make a laser light show classless and unattractive. As it turns out, with the goings-on in the boondocks of Abuja, the sneeze by a few powerful but dubious and ambitiously insensate individuals was creating shivers in Moscow, Washington, Brussels and elsewhere. Adding Al Qaida to the mix of CIA, M-I6, FSB, and other intelligence agencies naturally brings the drama to its boiling point. Truly, as the closing line of the book states, “God is ready to remake the world.”
WSPD is an enchantingly retrospective nostalgic drama, cobbled with intense imaginative aplomb. Nwakudu’s mastery of weaving a global arms race into the Nigerian-Biafra saga and how the scary reality of this doomsday plot is eventually resolved makes this book a compelling read. Go read and enjoy it!
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*Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005 he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004.
He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.