Running On The Spot [Hardcover]

Running on the Spot is a narrative on poverty, illiteracy and lack of opportunities. From Mbente to Eniong, Ebiet Asibong to Ine Ekpenyong, Atakpa to Fernando Po, poverty looms large. Yet the human spirit is irrepressible, making the story to also be about love and betrayals. Edem Ikon, the central character, abandons his wife and his village, hoping to better his lot elsewhere. He returns, unexpectedly, after forty years of sojourning in various places, a spent man in his seventies carrying a sack on his head which makes the elders question his sanity, a walking symbol of failure though an unprecedented welcome party is spontaneously held for him. According to Elder Isang, Asibong, Edem's father, was a weakling who incurred the wrath of the gods by bringing into their community a woman from Adiabo who had had a twin in an earlier marriage. Edem is the product of that unholy union. He is a symbol of desecration and abomination. Nothing good can come out of him. Is Edem's failure, therefore, fatalistically determined? Through a crushing irony, the author casts doubt on this line of reasoning. Isang has led the Mbente army for a decade and he is considered to be a lion. However when the Inokon invaders come on a reprisal attack, he is killed like a chicken in his own backyard and the enemies evaporate without even a rustle of the leaves. As a cult leader, he has compromised his office. The curse on Edem and his pedigree who he despises falls on him instead. The lion falls in place of the weakling. As the book of Ecclesiastes tells us, a living dog is better than a dead lion. Edem's adventure in Eniong and later Atakpa, where he serves as both the oracle and the herbalist enables him to deconstruct the gods. The author deploys series of anecdotes through him to whittle down the efficacy of the fatalistic streak in the narrative. Effanga, his uncle, does everything possible to set up Edem Ikon in Eniong. He gives him free accommodation, land, seed yams, labourers,lÃØ