We’re so happy to have “A Brief History of a Mad Country” as one of the science fiction stories for this month. Can you tell us about what inspired you to write this story?

Thank you. I couldn’t have found a better home for this story. This story came about from the confluence of two ideas. The first is determinism—a philosophical concept I’ve always been fascinated by—which posits that every individual is apportioned a certain future, one which regardless of whatever measures we might employ to shirk or bring it to pass, will nonetheless be made manifest. An ancient concept—you can see it in Grecian tragedies and mythologies. I have also to an extent tackled it in my Guardian of the Gods duology. A question I like to ask my friends is: “If you have the opportunity to learn definitively about your future, would you take it?” It always sparks lively debate, but I suppose none of us can really know the choice we would make until the opportunity to know truly presents itself. (Although I suppose if your life has been one of constant strife and unhappiness, you might want to know if you are doomed to such a life or if there’s a light somewhere at the end of the tunnel). The second thing is my frustration with my country Nigeria. It has the potential to be a truly great nation but is saddled with a political class composed equally of bloviating fools and shrewd thieves after their own interests and united in their robust contempt of the general populace. Without shame or self-awareness, they very clearly ask us to discard the evidence of our eyes and go with whatever they come up with. I mean, the more ludicrous pronouncement in the story (regarding the missing national inheritance) has been lifted wholesale from actual events that occurred in Nigeria! Can you imagine? To claim that funds were swallowed by a snake? That’s something straight out of satirical fiction (pun intended). I share the frustrations of many of my generation, and when many marched in 2020 to demand accountability of the political class, it was met with crushing violence, not unlike the kind the colonel visits on the fictional Nigerians with such glee.

Have you ever visited an oracle or fortune teller?

I have not. Although in college one of my professors (I forget which discipline) was also an amateur astrologist and once, totally unprompted, read my birth chart, to my great amusement.

This story explores the cyclical nature of violence. How do you feel this ties in with the cyclical nature of human history?

I am glad you caught that. Looking at the story, the colonel first overthrows his predecessor General Pangolo in a violent coup, he then goes on to become that which he overthrew, and at the end, Ayinla visits him with violent retribution. Cyclical violence, right? I suppose this is also a question that has been rattling around in my mind for quite some time: Are we, as humans, doomed to a never-ending cycle of violence? I don’t know. But so far, the story of humankind has been the story of never-ending violence. And unfortunately, violence begets violence. Every war, in the eye of the warmaker, is always justified. Be it in answer to some slight, some offence, for king and country—whatever pretext spurs a people to war, it always leads to loss of lives, which is the great tragedy of our existence. This is not to say there are no righteous causes. But the thing is, the earth will keep turning, the world will move on, and all the agitations and ills and slights that seemed so all-encompassing will fade into history. This tract of land for which a million people perished will in due time pass onto strangers who do not know your name, or your fears or worries or loves, or what you lost or how much you bled to gain it. This imaginary line that marks the borders of a country will move and move over centuries, and then what? I mean if you look at human history and consider the sheer number of violent acts committed in the name of some cause, that is to us abstract or even lost to the sands of time, it begs the question: Was it worth it? Or could there have been another way to settle disputes that did not resort to violence? I don’t know. Again, this is not to say there are no righteous causes, and I believe nothing short of violence will cause an oppressor to remove his boot from your neck. But if the oppressor decides to fight back, that is more violence, and more violence, and more violence.

New technology is supposed to improve our daily lives, but as illustrated here, that isn’t always the case. Do you believe that embracing untested technology (like AI, for example) is inherently dangerous? Why or why not?

Thanks to regulation, which is there to protect the general populace, before a new medication is unleashed it goes through years and years of clinical trials. And even after it gets approved and is in use, it is still constantly being reworked for the benefit of the populace. If we don’t embrace untested medication, why should we embrace untested technology? Anything that is untested, whose parameters and function have not been thoroughly understood and made known to the public, is dangerous. In the rosy days of the Information Age, new technology was genuinely made to improve our daily lives (let’s hear it for the advent of the dishwasher, the washer-dryer, the vacuum cleaner, the personal computer!) Frankly, we’ve long moved past that altruistic aim. The purpose of technology today is to enrich the pockets of the technocracy and to bring to life the nightmare state of Orwell’s 1984. In my story, the Oracle might be read as a chaos agent, but it functions as it was designed (if at all it was designed) to. AI (the consumer variant designed to upset and disrupt industries) is functioning exactly as it was designed to. We know that the tech companies have deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive. Addiction is dangerous.

Is there a project you are currently working on? And if not are there any themes, objects, or news that might be tickling your fingers?

I hate to be one of those writers, but I am neck deep in several projects which I cannot speak of just yet. I will say I have just completed the main fiction storyline to accompany the release of a new set for a card game company, to be out next year. I’m excited about that. I have also completed a novel I’ve been toiling at for some time. It’s out with my agent at the moment and will hopefully be on bookshelves in the nearest future. Gosh, if I had an oracle of my own!