Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga 
Title: The Blood Sample
Author: Yemi Adebiyi
Publisher: Free Communications Limited, Lagos
Pages: 128
Year of publication: 2009
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga
‘The Blood Sample’, is another thrilling novel by Yemi Adebiyi, among the pool of recent interesting romantic and political works being churned out by several Nigerian creative writers in the committee of global best sellers.
The 128-page book is a political fast paced thriller from a master story teller, who is also the author of Goodbye Teacher, Metamorphosis and The Pastor’s Prostitute, three novels full of intrigues, selfless love and triumph.
The central character in ‘The Blood Sample’ is President Mark Okuta, of an imaginary country known as Zowambia.
With very intriguing different subplots well woven together, the author tells a very captivating story of political tussle between rival politicians vying for power under the same party umbrella on one hand, and a desperate president’s wife who tried all she could to have a heir apparent for her husband in order to secure her marriage according to African tradition of male-child-monomania demands, on the other hand.
The desperation of Okuta’s wife, Mrs. Maggy Okuta, to have a baby boy after giving birth to three girls in succession led her to become a victim of HIV infection at the hands of the President’s family doctor, Dr. Bibilari. Laced with poetic language, idioms and mesmerizing figures of speech, the novel engages the reader with no dull moment from its beginning to the end.
It is not just the issue of political power play alone the thriller throws up; spices of romanticism are used to entertain the reader with reminiscence of secret love affairs that happens between some public office holders and their female special assistants like what transpired between President Okuta and Mrs. Labake, his media officer and special personal assistant in the novel. It reminds the reader vividly about the celebrated love affair between the former United States of America’s President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
Romantic idioms and conversations like the following are replete in the novel: “Stop talking and get the gun corked to discharge its bullet.” Labake walked into his open hands.
A few minutes after sharing a long preparatory kiss, the two bodies started melting into one . . .
From the foregoing, the statement made by Labake to President Okuta in the novel, the gun she asked to cork is not the fatal weapon for killing, but his manhood to make love to her.
Power tussle between President Okuta and his Vice, Vice President Ahmed to occupy the presidential seat in the race of Zowambia National Party to rule the country for a second term also reminds the reader about the personality clash that happened between Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and his Vice, former Vice President Abubakar Atiku of the People’s Democratic Party between 2003 and 2007.
The zeal to hold onto power that makes many politicians ready to do and undo many things to achieve their dreams, comes to the fore in the skirmishes that ensued between the incumbent President Okuta and Vice President Ahmed, based on good health criteria to qualify to represent the party, when the President’s wife’s HIV-positive status became a yardstick of assessing his re-election bid.
Doctor Bibilari’s effort at pleasing the wife of his former schoolmate now the incumbent President of Zowambia, to have a son for her husband landed him in trouble when he unknowingly infected the President’s wife with the stigma-generating HIV, which later made him kill the President’s wife in an attempt to cover his unethical medical practices.
The scene where the medical doctor got the President’s wife shot with a gun, and the female security aide to the President’s wife intervention by shooting Bibilari is well delivered by the author in a Western movie-like manner like James Hardly Chase’s style of writing crime report.
Another point of note the novel brings to the fore is the over-zealousness of some government officials to please their bosses in the seat of power. They do certain things without their bosses’ knowledge which could later jeopardize their career and dent their image.
This type of attitude is glaring in Doctor Bibilari’s manner of implanting his own HIV-positive sperm through artificial insemination into the President’s wife’s womb without informing her and the President.
In a bid to cover his illicit act after the President’s wife had discovered the source of her HIV contact, he shot her dead in his own office. Series of political and moral intrigues that followed the killing of the First Lady made HIV and AIDS the main election issue in the oil-rich West African country of Zowambia.
The unrepentant desperation of First Lady Maggy Okuta to have a son for her husband did not only put his re-election in jeopardy, but also led to the death of innocent people like doctors Fred and Ivy Douglas and two other medical personnel who had knowledge of Maggy’s HIV positive blood sample status.
Doctor Bibilari killed them through an arranged accident and poisoning at different occasions in a bid to conceal the First Lady’s HIV-positive status condition, in order to secure the reelection chances of President Okuta.
This also reminds the reader about the over-zealous attitude of some past Nigerian military leaders’ aides who maimed or killed some perceived opponents or critics of their bosses during the military eras of terrorism, voodooism, ‘radioculopathy’ and letter bombs jingoisms.
Though small in size, the novel is very explosive with revealing details comparable with Wale Okediran’s Tenants of the House on various evil political machinations
