Abandon All hope, Ye Who Enter Here (A Review of David Hundeyin’s Breaking Point)

“𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘻𝘢, 𝘷𝘰𝘪 𝘤𝘩’𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦.”

The above line from Dante’s 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘰 kept flashing in my head as chapters of David Hundeyin’s Breaking Point took me on a rollercoaster of anger, disbelief and head-shaking despair.

I imagined that instead of the ‘Welcome’ signs around our international airports, translated into Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa, we used Dante’s line above to warn everyone they were stepping into Satan’s ghetto: ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here.’

𝘩𝘢𝘱ụ 𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘢 𝘯𝘪𝘪𝘭𝘦, 𝘨ị 𝘰𝘯𝘺𝘦 𝘯𝘢-𝘢𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘦 𝘦𝘣𝘦 𝘢’.
‘𝘧𝘪 𝘨𝘣𝘰𝘨𝘣𝘰 𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘪 𝘴𝘪𝘭ẹ 𝘪𝘸ọ 𝘵𝘪 𝘰 𝘸ọ𝘭𝘦 𝘴’𝘪𝘣𝘪’.
‘𝘥𝘶𝘬 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘢 𝘯𝘢, 𝘴𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘳 𝘬𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘪 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘶 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘺𝘢.’

Anyone picking up the book with some knowledge of Hundeyin from his bullish online persona would be expecting chest-thumping accounts of fighting the good fight against corrupt Nigerian elites, institutional rottenness and the plethora of murderous political enemies made from his daring investigative exposes. They would be expecting over 500 pages of an exiled voice railing a wilderness cry.

Well, they wouldn’t be wrong. Hundeyin puts names (and faces) to the enemies of the country (and some of his personal enemies too). He takes time to fill their mugshots with dates, their crimes and —sometimes in annoyingly barely legible fonts— show us evidence pointing to the bodies and the monies. There are mails showing Amnesty International’s Nigerian director, Osai Ojigho was working with the Nigerian state to stifle reports of Nigeria’s security agencies murdering citizens.

There were the mind-bending exposes in Cornflakes for Jihad which changed how most of the country viewed the Boko Haram insurgency, there were the Flutterwave paper trails; WhatsApp screenshots and court documents which exposed the average Nigerian startup as an unethical, poorly regulated Yahoo enterprise, there was the disappointment and disgust going through the Itunu and the Sokoloan fiascos, and the impotent rage as both investigations culminate into yet more examples of Nigeria failing her people.

There was the sponsored attacks during his Cambridge fellowship which his Oxford-based publisher Onyeka Nwelue, bore the brunt of.

But that’s not all 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 is about.

The book also tells the story of a hurried marriage in exile to a beautiful woman with severe mental health issues. It tells how the self-styled enfant terrible of Nigerian journalism became, behind closed doors, a victim of multiple layers of domestic violence. It shows pictures of smashed laptops, a bite mark, a wedding day broken nose. Suffering and smiling.

What gives credibility to 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 is Hundeyin doesn’t attempt to please. The book is powered by the matter-of-fact. This is how it is, Hundeyin tells us, and this is how I see it. It isn’t even his meticulous attempts at journalistic accuracy that make the book credible, it is, instead, his willingness towards holding himself to the same light he beams on others that gives 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 its authenticity. David Hundeyin doesn’t hide his personal demons, failings or biases.

Attempts have been made by his enemies to demystify the man, but in the book, Hundeyin demystifies himself. He is no less human, flawed and vulnerable as the next person. For fans of his work who might have elevated him to a Pentecostal anointed status, David Hundeyin is just as fearful, manipulatable and careless as anyone else. He’s just as petty, naive and needy as any human being. He’s capable of the same moral failings, physical limitations and vices (wetin be ‘𝘴𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬?’ Oga, na cheat you bin dey cheat jare).

He’s also just as capable of the redeeming qualities resident in the best of us. The man with the bulldog teeth grip during personal and professional battles and a taste for the offers of Lagos and Accra’s red light districts is also the man who put himself at great risk to help a Nigerian woman rotting away in Ivorian jail; who was willing to give an abusive marriage 99 chances at redemption before reaching the breaking point.

David Hundeyin is no god. And, even if sometimes you get the feeling he thinks he is, he is no journalistic messiah sent to liberate the people from the shackles of the Nigerian condition. No, the rot is bigger than him and the darkness is deeper than he can afford to go. Many who tried never came back, or they end up becoming the darkness themselves. But that’s fine. He has gone deep enough to rattle the establishment, deep enough to understand the darkness, to hold it in front of our eyes and say, “Look at your lives now, look at your lives…”

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Hymar Idibie

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