Ubara Obaro is a Nigerian writer and a compere, and in this interview with BENJAMIN UMUTEME, Obaro talks about his yet to be published book ‘Burnt Lips’ and how its succinctly captures the struggles in the life of an everyday Nigerian. Excerpts!
Tell us, who is Ubara Obaro and what inspired your book?
Ubara Obaro is a bag of potentials framed into one body and soul. I’m creative writer, MC, Comedian, event planner and English teacher. I’m very cool, calm and charismatic young man. My book BURNT LIPS was inspired by the nagging need to be a positive role model to the young generation, and also to plant my literary legacy in the sand of time.
Burnt lips! Many are wondering what a strange title for a book?
The title BURNT LIPS is an intentional title to inject curiosity into the blood of my readers before they open the book. They will be amazed at whose lips got burnt by the end of the story.
Your book talked about culture, crime, survival, and salvation. Let us into the world of the main character?
The book talks about culture, crime, survival and salvation because BURNT LIPS is a collection of 12 creative stories written with intentional themes. Some of the themes have been captured above.
Why crime and survival especially in a society like ours?
It must be about crime and survival because those are some of the major themes that hit the mind when you picture the Nigerian society. Through the length and breadth of our geographical entity majority of young boys and girls go into crime all in a bid to survive. If there were better provisions, our young people wouldn’t have been seduced by the wiles of crime as it is in our present society. A lot of our young people are only trying to survive in a society that has buried their destinies before they were born because of the thoughtlessness of most of our leaders.
Why salvation. Many would instantly say it’s a Christian book, why would I read a born again book?
We all need salvation, but the salvation I’m referring to here is not necessarily religious, it more of social, economic and psychological salvation. BURNT LIPS is a must read because of its flourishing literary aesthetics: wit, humour, pun, verisimilitude and intellectual depth.
What is the message for the Nigeria youth in this book?
The message for the Nigerian youth is that , they should cultivate patience in all they do. And they shouldn’t bend the process, rather follow the process. They should be ready to be processed like Gold. Before Crude oil turns into Gold, it undergoes a lot of processes. So it is for great men. No one jumps up to stay up. We can only grow up to stay up. Again, they should believe in God and themselves in all their pursuits.
Survival as a theme; what are some of the memorable quotes that would capture the reader’s imagination?
The character of Big Abugo in BURNT LIPS is very interesting. The evolvement of the character is legendary. Onome is another interesting character. She symbolizes moral poverty. Readers would also find out other interesting and intriguing characters as they link up with the main characters.
Give the readers some lines in BURNT LIPS?
Although his father’s words sounded very convincing to Zino, yet a part of him was unwilling to walk into matrimony very early because he believed wise men marry late while fools jump into the matrimonial mountain pretty too early.
He finally made up his mind when his mother teamed up with his father concerning the marriage crusades. It was really hard for him to choose between the two girls he was dating then.
Before he entered the University of Benin, he was in a serious relationship with Elona: a very caring Isoko girl with organic beauty from a humble family whose body and character were molded for matrimony, although she lacked the compelling elegance needed for social show-off.
Clara on the other hand was a dangerously charming Benin babe with a killer shape. She was not facially beautiful, but her brilliant blend of intelligence and classy worldliness got Zino in his campus days. Fate brought them together in one of the GST classes in the university.
Clara was in the department of mass-communication: a department many referred to as Mass-fornicators because of the footloose nature of most of the girls in the department. Most of their voices were twisted in rehearsed foreignness, a lot of them had what can be described as follow-come elegance and their confidence with guys on campus was on a satanic level.
Zino was in the department of History. That day, in the lecture hall, students were sardined in their seats because of the usual large turnout for GST classes. Zino had already seated when she came in. She walked in with the confidence of those who are used to the intimidating arrows of many eyes for she burnt her shyness garment many years ago.
“Please shift for me,” she said to Zino, a worldly smile dancing gallantly in the road of her lips.
Zino was immediately seduced by her charming confidence, but he merely shifted, sold her a spare space, and faked a focusedness that can defeat the focusedness of Asian monks. As the lecture progressed, he stole a glance at her handwriting which slept beautifully in her note book despite the distressed space she occupied. The final embrace of seduction that got Zino was when the GST lecturer, a small troublesome woman, who had been jailed in the bars of poverty in her younger years but broke free through the hammar of academic excellence, threw a question to the class.
She must have noticed her peppering confidence when she walked into the class. With nobody willing to answer the question, she decided to pour a bag of shame on Clara by directing the question to her:
“Yes Madam, what is malapropism?” she asked Clara, shooting her a look that carried a dagger of humiliation. All eyes raced to the altar of Clara’s face as she stood up, adjusted her Turkish top which sat sophisticated on her slaying body, and began with a polished voice that carried plenty firewood of confidence.
“Malapropism is commonly confused words. The confusion arises from the fact that although such words have certain things in common such as spelling and pronunciation, their meanings are usually different” she paused, looked directly at the lecturer’s eyes and continued: “consequently, the confusion arises when a word occurs in the context that is meant for either a similarly sounding word or identically spelt one . The term is derived from Mrs. Malaprop, a character in Sheridan’s play, THE RIVALS” she finished with a victorious smile.
