Summary, themes and poetic devices in A GOVERNMENT DRIVER ON HIS RETIREMENT -Chibuike Onu

A GOVERNMENT DRIVER ON HIS RETIREMENT By Chibuike Onu

Many years on wheels 

In faithful service to his fatherland 

Today retires he home 

And a celebration he holds 

Many years has he pummeled his boozy throat 

In obedience to duty rules and regulations 

Today, he'll go home a freeman 

Eligible for his country's services 

"Come, friends, rejoice with me 

I shall booze and zoom myself home 

Away from duty rules Come celebrate my freedom” 

“Early to duty tomorrow holds not, 

Thirty-five years of faithful services 

I’ll' booze to sleep away my sufferings 

Today I've long waited for" 

More joy to send him home 

A brand new car in his name 

An appreciative symbol 

For undented thirty years of service to 

Fatherland 

"Come, friends and rejoice more, 

Joy till no more joy to joy 

Today frees and makes me a king 

My patience rewarded." 

And so, he boozed and boozed 

Celebrating the celebration of his retirement 

From faithful service to fatherland He battled with his bottle booze 

On his way home on wheels, 

Booze boozed his vision and clear judgment 

He boomed his brand new car 

And it sent him home 

Home to rest in peace. 

ABOUT THE POET

Born into the family of Mr and Mrs Albert Rosh Nduanusi Onu, Onu Chibuike Egwuatu Kingsley hails from Umuomi-Uzoagba ( now Ezenomi ), in Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State. He schooled at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he obtained his degree in Bachelors of Arts Education English. He is a rising Nigerian writer and a teacher. He teaches English Language and Literature in one of the secondary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria. Goodnight Africa is his first celebrated anthology.

BACKGROUND TO THE POEM

Onu Kingsley Chibuike’s poem is a commentary on the drudgery of the everyday life of the average Nigerian civil servant. The poetic persona in this particular poem welcomes his retirement from the civil service with celebrations, a mark of freedom from the daily toil of duty. The poet appears to take a different perception of the civil service from an organization that is filled with many redundant staff members to a place of true service and faithfulness to the nation, The poetic persona is said to have rendered many years of meritorious services to his fatherland.

The other important aspect that forms the background to this poem is the drink-and-drive attitude of many Nigerian road users. While one can easily identify with this celebration, the disastrous end of the poetic persona highlights a major cause of road crashes, not only in Nigeria where the writer is from but, also, in many parts of the world. Onu, therefore, gives this poem a universal appeal by using these seemingly unrelated circumstances to beam a light on the narrow gap between celebration and calamity

SETTING OF THE POEM 

The setting of the poem is the post-colonial African country, most likely Nigeria, where the government is one of the major employers of labour. Due to poor capacity to monitor drunk drivers, there are cases of road accidents. In this poem, the poet persona retires from public service, and he is high spirit. Government/ public service is ubiquitous  (found everywhere); so, the setting could also be global (universal). 

The poor or non-existent facilities to check drunk drivers in Nigeria and many African countries also accounts for the frequent car crashes on the roads. However, with the universal appeal of this poem, this poem can really be located anywhere. This is because in many parts of the world, retirement from public service is usually a thing of joy, especially when such service ends meritoriously.

SUMMARY OF THE POEM 

The poem reflects on the totality of the life of a government driver who has put in many years of service to his country and retires without a blemish. The other part of the poem is linked to the disastrous end of the government driver who dies driving as a result of high consumption of alcohol. The poet weaves the incident of celebration into this unfortunate disaster to emphasize the danger of drink-and-drive culture.

The poem talks about a typical government worker, in this case, a driver. In a quest to eke a living, people are engaged either in the private or public sector. The invasion of colonialism also brings along with it, a major paradigm shift In the means of livelihood of many Africans. There Is a general shift from peasant farming and other agricultural activities to paid employment (white collar jobs), especially in the civil service. Many Africans were employed as drivers and clerks for the white Man, the situation which continued, even after independence. 

One of the disappointments associated with civil service Is the meagre salaries. The general servitude usually associated with the life of civil service, especially as it concerns the low-ranking officers like drivers and cooks account for a different perception some hold about such jobs. The highly regulated life (boring bureaucracy) in the civil service is one of the major reasons many employees look forward to their retirement with some sense of excitement. 

Stanzas 1 and 2 - The poem opens with “Many years on wheels”, where the word 'wheels' is used as a synecdoche for a car, to show heis a driver. Also, the repetition of “many years” in the first and second stanzas suggests that the poetic persona, likely spends all his entire working life on this driving job. The poet persona welcomes his retirement from the civil service with celebrations, a mark of freedom from the (drudgery) daily toil of duty. He has worked in obedience to the strict “duty rules and regulations” (bureaucracy) associated with government establishments. His freedom from this monotonous work calls for celebration. 

The poem starts with the description of the persona’s current state. He has served in his country’s civil service as a driver faithfully. It is his last day on the job before he retires. He holds a party to mark the end. This is common among many civil service employees. On their last day, friends, colleagues and family members come around to celebrate with them.

The second stanza, the poet gives to a different perspective to the life of the persona. Here, the persona sees the years of service as imprisonment. You know civil service can be boring. Imagine repeating the same routine or duty every day for many years. It becomes tiring and partly looks like slavery. Within these years, you are bound by some rules and regulations in your office. In the case of the poet’s persona, it is the restriction on the quantity of alcohol he takes that was his problem. Lines 5 & 6, ‘Many years has he pummeled his boozy throat/ In obedience to duty rules and regulations.’

Through his thoughts we are able to see that some people in the civil service are doing something because of the rules and regulations. But these civil servants fail to realize that these rules and regulations are to safe guard their lives and that of others. Civil servants with the mentality of the poet’s persona see laws as imprisonment or slavery. Our persona in this poem declares himself a Freeman on his retirement. ‘Today, he’ll go home a Freeman’ Line 7.

Stanza 3—5 - In these stanzas, he calls his friends and well-wishers to come and celebrate with him. “Come friends, rejoice with me/ Come friends, rejoice more. "Due to his meritorious service, by driving carefully without accidents -“For undented thirty years of service..." he is being given a brand-new car, as a reward. He talks about alcoholic drinks as the major entertaining edible. “I shall booze..."/"I'll booze to sleep away my sufferings.” 

In stanza three, we hear directly from the celebrant. His excitement cannot be measured. The poet’s persona invites friends to come and celebrate his freedom. He is really excited not just of being relieved of early morning duty of driving cars around cities but his freedom to drink alcohol and get drunk.

Indirectly, we infer he has not been happy and satisfied with his job. He has been waiting patiently to retire, and he doesn’t seem to love the job at all.

His words reveal his frustration on the job not being able to cater for all his needs. Can you imagine how much a driver is paid in Civil service? Can it truly solve all his problems? Lines 15 & 16 depict this; ‘I’ll booze to sleep away my suffering/ Today, I’ve long waited for…’ This is a perfect depiction of the persona’s mind. Though he does not like the job, he has to put with it, adhering to those rules and regulations for thirty-five years because he has no option to opt out.

The poem takes a new turn in stanza four. The persona’s joy multiples as he receives a brand new car for his meritorious service. We realize that even with the dissatisfaction with his job, he is a faithful and trustworthy servant judging by the gift given to him. See Line 20 For undented thirty-five years of service to fatherland.

In the next stanza, the persona calls on friends to join his party, to celebrate his long awaited reward. This time, his joy doubles with the gift presented to him.

Stanza 6 - Here in this last stanza, the poetic persona drinks to stupor In the euphoria of his celebration. He risks his life as he engages In drink-and-drive attitude. What follows is calamity (death!)!“He boomed his brand new car/ And it sent him home/ Home to rest in peace.” 

Finally, the last stanza reveals how the persona lost his cool. They say excess of everything is dangerous. Hence, rules and regulations checkmates our excesses. The persona takes his celebration to the extreme. He becomes drunk because he feels the rules and regulations are no longer binding on him. What was the result? The irony of life!

A brand new car which will have been his source of happiness becomes his doom. Drunk, he lost control of his senses, his vision and finally his new wheels. He has been on different wheels for good thirty-five years driving others safely observing road safety measures but just few hours out of the job; few hours of his freedom, to drive himself home, and complete his celebration, he renegades on the principles that have guided him. Then he lost his life.

This depicts that laws are meant to protect us and lives of other citizens. Laws shouldn’t be seen as a limiter or a trap.

THEMES 

The reward for meritorious service - In spite of the persona's employment in a government establishment or the civil service that is filled with many redundant staff members, he is of true service and faithfulness to the nation. The poetic persona is said to have rendered many years of meritorious services to his fatherland. He works in patience; abides by the rules and regulations until he retires. In his diligence and dedication to duty, he has no record of accidents (the car is “undented”). There is no surprise that he is rewarded with a brand new car at the end.

Despite the persona’s grudges about the drudgery of civil service, he remains disciplined till the day of his retirement, as the persona notes in the second stanza that many years has he pummeled his boozy throat/In obedience to duty rules and regulations. The poetic persona restricts himself to the demands of his job. He shuns the temptations of personal pleasure, subjects himself to a thorough self-discipline, thereby focusing strictly on his official duties and working faithfully in service to his fatherland for thirty-five years. As a result of his outstanding performance in his place of work, he is rewarded with a brand new car as ‘an appreciative symbol’ (line 19). The poet, therefore, brings to the fore the need

for diligence in service, with eloquent evidence that such hard work hardly goes unnoticed, not even if one is a driver.

The danger of drink-and-drive attitude -This theme is clear from the poem. The driver, in his celebration gives himself to alcohol. He is tired and emotional (meaning he is drunk), yet he drives himself. The result is death, as he goes to meet his forbears (ancestors). He kicks the bucket. The situational irony here is that, in his over thirty years of service, he never engages in such recklessness; it only happens the day he drives the car he is given at retirement. While many cultures and societies use alcoholic drinks to celebrate periods of achievement, bereavement and festivities, alcohol consumption is also a very dangerous thing that sends people to their early graves, especially when behind wheels. The poet uses the story of the government driver to make the point very clearly. The day the government driver is retiring appears to be one of the happiest moments of his life. In stanza three, for instance he beckons on his friends and well-wishers, ‘come friends, rejoice with me?. This open invitation suggests an unmitigated show of joy and happiness that his day of freedom has come. He thinks that the only way of celebrating his freedom, or any

event for that matter, is through excessive consumption of alcohol. In his unrestrained excitement, he jumps into his new car to drive home after being thoroughly drunk. Unfortunately, this brings about his untimely end. Through this poetic reflection, it is obvious that alcohol makes people have poor vision while driving, thus making them have wrong judgment, as the poem states in lines 29-30, On his way on wheels,/Booze boozed his vision and clear judgment.’ It is obvious that driving requires high concentration, while a wrong sense of judgment while driving can lead to a calamitous end. Therefore, alcohol consumption when driving is very dangerous

Also, the work of driving seems monotonous (doing the same thing every day), and also involves high risk of accidents. Leaving all these behind calls for celebration. 

The need for moderation - It is obvious from the poem that the persona does not exercise restraints as he jubilates for his retirement. He calls his friends to come and drink and rejoice with him, not knowing that some people he calls friends might not be happy with his success. He talks about “Joy till no more joy to joy/ Today frees and makes me a king”. All this euphoria blinds his eyes to any available danger. He loses his guard. The disastrous end of the poetic persona clearly shows that there is just a narrow gap between celebration and calamity (destruction). 

The poem also underscores the joy and sense of fulfilment that comes with one’s retirement from active service. The civil service structure gives the poetic persona a feeling of servitude, hence he sees the day of his retirement as a day of liberation. According the poem, ‘Today, he’ll go home a freeman’ (L. 7). He has endured the highly regulated life in the civil service for a long time and is now ready to celebrate his freedom. He will no longer be subjected to very strict rules and regulations once he retires. He would not need to wake up very early to work, he will have his own time to himself and will manage his time as it suits his convenience. It is as a result of this excitement to celebrate his liberation from the drudgery of civil service that the persona invites friends and well-wishers to come and celebrate

with him.

FIGURES OF SPEECH AND POETIC DEVICES 

Language - The diction used by the poet is not too difficult for an average reader to decipher. 

Mood/Tone - The mood of the poet is a mixture of joy (celebration for retirement and brand-new car) and gloom (accident). The tone is largely that of sarcasm. 

Irony - There are cases of irony in the entire poem: (i) He e drives all through his service without accidents, only to be involved in a fatal accident on his day of retirement. (ii) He dies in his own car in just one day of being given the car, and not inside the government vehicle he drives for over thirty years. (iii) He dies on the very day he celebrates his retirement. 

Imagery -  The imagery  in this poem is simple and vivid. It makes the thematic preoccupation very direct and understandable. The very first line, for instance, gives the picture of the persona’s profession with “many years on wheel’. ‘Boozy throat’ in line five gives an image of taste or what is often referred to as gustatory image, which gives us the picture of the persona’s strong appetite for alcohol. In line thirty- one, we see another image, ‘he boomed his brand new car’. This image is used to vividly describe the disastrous end of the persona and his new car.

Anadiplosis - This is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase used at the end of an expression is repeated as the first word or phrase of the following sentence or expression - “And it sent him home Home to rest in peace.” 

Personification - More joy to send him home/ Today frees and makes me a king/ And it (car) sent him home. All these give human qualities to inanimate objects. 

Apostrophe - The poet persona addresses people as if they were present to listen. “Come friends, rejoice with me/ Come friends, rejoice more.” Hyperbaton/ Inversion = This occurs when the normal order of words or expressions is changed. A poet can do so, when he relies on his poetic licence. Examples — Today retires he home — instead of “He retires home today”. And a celebration he holds — instead of “And he holds a celebration”. 

Hyperbole - Joy till no More joy to joy/ Today frees and makes me a king/ Today, he'll go home a freeman (as if he left prison). The above expressions are overstatements, for the purpose of emphasis. 

Euphemism - I'll booze to sleep away my sufferings/ And it sent him home/ Home to rest in peace. All these expressions present ‘death’ in a pleasant way, instead of in an unpleasant way. Repetition - Words like “booze”, “service to fatherland”, “duty rules”, “Joy till no more joy to joy”all being repeated for the purpose of emphasis. 

Alliteration - This is a poetic device that involves the repetition of an 

initial consonant sound — 

From faithful service to fatherland (“f” alliterates) 

He battled with his bottle booze” (“b’” alliterates) 

Today retires he home (“h’ alliterates) 

And a celebration he holds (“h’ alliterates). 

Assonance - This is a poetic device that involves the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases and sentences —"...duty rules”, “booze and zoom” 

Synecdoche - This uses a part to represent a whole. Examples - 

The poet uses “wheels” to represent motor vehicles, while “boozy throat” is used to represent the driver. 

Onomatopoeia - This is the use of words that suggest their meanings through sounds - “zoom” — the sound associated with movement and take-off of a car; “boom” — the sound associated with an auto crash. 

Pun - This is a poetic device that involves play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word or similar sense or sound of different words. For examples: “Joy till no more joy to joy” (the poet plays with the word ‘joy’) Also, in stanza 1, the poet talks about “home” as a dwelling place (Today retires he home), whereas, in the last stanza, “home” is used to represent death (And it sent him home/ Home to rest in peace.)

Foreshadowing - This is when a writer gives an advance hint on what lies ahead, in a literary work. Although the death of the driver happens in the last stanza, he talks about it earlier (I'll booze to sleep away my sufferings). 

Enjambment - It is when an idea in a line of poetry flows into the next line or lines before a complete thought is achieved. This also known as run-on-line: 

Many years on wheels 

In faithful service to his fatherland 

Today retires he home 

And a celebration he holds 

In the stanza above, line 3 flows into 4. 

Blank Verse/ Free Verse - The poem is written without any regular patterns, rhymes or meters. 

Structure - The poem is written in seven stanzas of unequal lines. Satire - The poem ridicules the act of dipsomania (excessive craving for alcohol), which is one of the human vices, in order to make amends. 

The poem has thirty-three lines, divided into seven stanzas of irregular lengths. The poem is narrative in nature and can be broken down into three major parts. The first stanza introduces the poetic persona as a government driver of so many years who is set to celebrate his retirement. The second stanza gives the background of the persona as someone who keeps the rules and regulations of the establishment where he works. The third stanza gradually introduces us to the significance of and the high expectations for the celebration of his retirement. This is sustained in stanzas four and five. The last two stanzas give account of the catastrophic turn of events as the persona dies in a fatal automobile accident due to his drunkenness.