Food for Masquerades

Tafa, a young Nigerian university revolutionary, causes concern when he opposes a corrupt government. He uses his position as president of the fictitious University of Messamba to foment further trouble. A renegade student in the chemistry department sympathetic to Tafa’s cause makes a bomb and causes damage to university buildings. The government becomes irate and orders the dreaded and elite anti-riot police, the Korofos, to storm the university. Their leader, a retired Nigerian Colonel and veteran of the Nigerian Civil War (Biafra), Colonel Begi, orders his men to shoot to kill! Tafa escapes into a remote Yoruba village and hides. His appearance at the village disrupts the villagers’ sleepy village routine. Meanwhile, a very powerful government official, and also a member of His Excellency’s inner circle, Chief Dele Da Roca desires Tafa’s girl friend - Eyinju. Eyinju, a stunning beauty and a television newscaster wants the Chief to mediate between Tafa, and the government. Through her association with the Chief, she gets more than she bargains for and helps to reinforce the central metaphor of the novel.