(3): A Weird Hope (Synopsis)

A Weird Hope is my novel, published by Century Research and Publishing Limited, Kano-Nigeria, 2012.

STUDIOUS freshman Abubakar has a romantic notion that love and studies can be taken along simultaneously. In contrast, his urbane confidant, Salim, regards doing so as an aberration and a threat to their future and lives. He defiantly flouts the admonishment. This eventually coincides with the time his consanguineous relationship with his ravishing cousin, Maryam Bako, develops into a full-pledged love relationship.

Bako, Maryam’s conservative, avaricious father, forbids her to attend any school beyond the college, which she could only finish because of Abubakar’s help. She’s finally lured and vanquished into marriage with one rich, miscreant, Alhaji Usman alias Maisunan. The union has been arranged—typical practice among some traditional Hausa/Fulani communities—since she was a baby. Maryam’s father was indebted to what Maisunan’s father did to him when he was helpless. Unluckily for him and luckily for her, the loveless marriage is short-lived. A few months into it, the tycoon got arrested for his shady, snooty businesses and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Abubakar has already gotten a new girlfriend, a better one, as he believes she will be a path for him to the El-Dorado—to the US. Shahada Bukhari, a witty, go-getter daughter of the newly appointed Nigerian Ambassador to the US, is brought to her grandparents in Kano to learn her native language and to get married. Against all odds, she rebuffs her parent’s proposed man because of Abubakar. However, they are to return soon, and the father vows that his daughter must get a husband in

Nigeria

. The parents pressurize her chosen one to come aboard for their marriage or else…

The divorced Maryam appears volte face before Abubakar, and their love is rekindled. Yet he feels unable to desert Shahada for her. Amidst this qualm, their semester result comes out; he’s eventually withdrawn from the university. He was lovesick—due to Maryam’s marriage—during the exam. Things exacerbate to the extent he can’t withstand the pressure. He has a mental crisis. Hearing what befalls her old lover, Maryam, who has months-old pregnancy, instantly falls severely sick.

Would Maryam and Abubakar recover? Would Shahada get married in Nigeria? To whom? What about Abubakar’s education? Readers will find answers to these questions and more in the text.

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