Vaults of Secrets (Parresia, 2020), is a collection of short stories authored by Olukorede Yishau, an Associate Editor with The Nation Newspaper, and multiple award winning writer. It is a collection of 10 short stories spanning 116 pages, each story served with the author’s intricate collection of punchy words and creative panache.
In the opening story of the book is a tragic story of a woman whose life trajectory is laced with bitter experiences of domestic violence, alcoholism, sex slavery and death.
In the story: “Till we Meet to Part no More,” Oluwakemi is on death row and she shares her story with Elizabeth, a cellmate. We read of her sojourn in the United states of America, how she meets and falls in love with a male nurse with whom she works in a care home in the US. Then the husband changes and becomes abusive, habitually beating his wife on the claim that she is the cause of his misfortune. Oluwakemi fights back one night, but she ends up in jail for murder.
The story of Kemi, her journey to America at 14, and her sale into sex slavery in the hands culminates with the exposure of the heinous atrocities that the prison officials also mete out to inmates. For instance, the work exposes the fact that male warders rape female inmates, sex is used as barter for food, to access medication that family members bring, to get better living conditions.
In this book, we read about Emmanuel, a journalist who has a special gift of stumbling upon shocking events in the lives of people around him, and indeed having a big vault for keeping these secrets. In the story: “The Special Gift,” the author employs the first person point of view to tell us about Emmanuel’s penchant for unsavoury discoveries, basically walking into situations where he will chance upon secrets of friends, family and neighbours. Thus in the story, Emmanuel sees smoke coming out of his neighbour’s apartment, goes in to quench the fire only to catch Idato the house maid riding Mr Essien in a sex romp. He goes to see a brother and chances upon him having a come-back affair with his ex-wife. And ultimately, he catches his best friend’s wife in a secret threesome with his own boss Nonso.
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In a rather tragic story of incest between a father and a daughter, we read the story of a boy who chanced on a sad revelation that his depraved grandfather was also his father. This is presented in the book’s third story, “My Mother’s Father is my Father.” The narrator gives the reader a peep into the circumstances of his birth, a secret that has been long protected from the public because the key actors are no more. He learns one day that his grandfather is his father, as his mother is his sister. The mother, an only child, had been abused at 19 by her own father, and the product of that long kept secret is him. His father-grandfather, grandmother, and sister-mother are all dead, but his father-grandfather perpetually appears to him in his dreams begging for forgiveness.
In this book, the author also writes about an ex-governor in the story: “Letters from the Basement.” It is an account of an ex-governor who is convicted of treason for sponsoring terrorists against the government. We read about his travails and the letters he and his wife exchanged in the course of his wife’s attempt to get her life and that of her children back.
In this book, Olukorede Yishau deploys his mastery of the art of storytelling. He does so effortlessly, and with a deep meshing of arts and journalism too. So he treats the reader to an unusual deployment of the second person narrative technique. This is glimpsed in the story: “This thing called Love.” Here, the author narrates the mysterious nature of love in the life of the Akarue family. We read about their father’s disappearance and how he is taken for dead and how one of his daughters finds him alive in the United States of America. She gets to know that his disappearance is actually an elopement to America with his Secretary, Rose. We read that Rose, after spending childless years with him, also jilts him, taking all his money with her, and leaving him empty. The irony of it all is that Mr Akarue is described as being in love with his wife, to the extent that his family alleged that she had given him a love portion. He would not take any decision without her. In fact, her decision is always his command. Theirs is a love story sealed with unbreakable cords, until the cords broke.
In this book, we read the story of campus cultism and the mayhem that fraternity members unleash on both staff and fellow students. We read that even after graduation from university, cult members converge under other names and groups to vent their anger on members of the larger society, and they get away with grave atrocities that will make even the devil cringe.
In Vaults of Secrets, we read about the sexual escapades of a married woman with men whenever her husband is away on his many travels across the country. In the story: “Otapiapia,” we see the consequence of multiple sexual partners and some collusion between Aunty Rebecca and Idera to keep the secret of Aunty Rebecca’s illicit affairs from Uncle Solagbade, her husband.
As an African, the author brings to us a bite of one of the concepts in Yoruba cosmology, which believes that people can die and reappear in another location. The “Akudaya” phenomenon is given expression in the story: “When Truth Dies.”
Here is the story of a woman who finds her husband driving around in a community, after having died three months ago. She is sure he is the one, but she keeps hearing that he is not the one, until the day she is supposed to meet him, and he is said to have died in an automobile accident. For the woman, she will never know the truth. The truth is dead.
In this book, the author opens his eclectic mind to treat a vast number of social, ethical and moral issues. So, the author creatively addresses grave themes like rape, infidelity, domestic violence, mental health issues, corruption, human trafficking, drug trafficking, sex slavery, institutional decay, labour issues, among others.
The author equally and gleefully shows to the reader that he has the ability to blend historical and geographical realities with fiction in a seamless manner. So you find in the book, references to actual history and places in Nigeria, United States of America, United Kingdom and Ghana, all cast into the stories, an evidence of the author’s wide study. Thus the stories are relatable and couched with punchy imagery, and laced with advocacy and preachment on diverse social ills.
With Vaults of Secrets, the author has indeed distinguished himself as a creative writer with an eye for social re-engineering.
. Olatunbosun is a broadcast journalist, fact-checker and book reviewer at Splash FM 105.5, Ibadan. He can be reached via molatunbosun@splashfm1055.com, and on X and Instagram @miketunbosun.
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