50 pages • 1 hour read
Helon HabilaOil on Water
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3
Chapter 1 Summary
Rufus and Zaq are traveling down the Niger River in search of a white woman who has been kidnapped by militants. An old man and his sons, Tamuno and Michael, guide them. As they travel, they come to various villages that have been decimated and abandoned. Finally, they come to a village where the old man has a friend named Karibi. They are hoping to stay overnight there so that they may rest and Zaq can recover somewhat from his fever, which he has been suffering from for days.
After consulting with other men in the village, Karibi tells the old man that the travelers must leave because the military is coming. Rufus and Zaq ask why, and it turns out that Karibi is accused of helping the militants. The military shows up in speed boats and attacks the village, causing chaos, firing shots into the air, and hurting people. Rufus is knocked down by a fleeing woman, which inadvertently saves him from being trampled or assaulted by the soldiers. The soldiers grab Karibi while a woman villager calls out to God for help.
Chapter 2 Summary
Karibi is taken away by speedboat, probably to Port Harcourt, which is the closest major city. The old man, Tamuno, tells Zaq and Rufus that he will take them to his village and that even though it is out of their way, it is safe. By nightfall, they arrive at the village and climb a ladder up a steep cliff to the home of Tamuno’s brother, Chief Ibiram. Chief Ibiram welcomes them to the village. A young girl comes in with a lamp to light the room and brings them food and drink. They are finally able to get some rest. Zaq struggles with his fever.
Rufus has a dream about losing his sister to the water and then finding her again in the middle of the sea on a small bar of land. When he wakes, he finds that the men of the village have gone off for the day, most likely fishing and gathering resources. Rufus thinks about the time he first met Zaq, when he was graduating from journalism school. Zaq had been the guest of honor at the graduation; Rufus and two other students, Linda and Tolu, were invited to have a meal with him. The faculty present were Ms. Ronke and Mr. Malik, and the party became bawdy, with both Ronke and Malik groping each other under the table. Zaq proceeded to get very drunk, and while both Linda and Tolu were trying to gain his favor and attention, Rufus ended up helping the drunken Zaq exit the party at the end of the night. They walked together, with Rufus holding Zaq up for miles, finally ending up on a beach and spending the night sleeping on the sand. In the morning, Zaq gave Rufus his card and told Rufus that he had the patience to make a great reporter someday.
Rufus updates his reporter’s notebook and then gets up, looking for food. He comes upon a group of children surrounding an old woman, who seems to be telling them a story. He then finds the kitchen but is unsure what to do. The old woman enters. She helps him by giving him some corn porridge. Later that evening, the men of the village return. Zaq is irate, seething at the old man for not telling them that they would be spending the whole day stuck in the village. They agree to depart the next morning.
Chapter 3 Summary
Zaq tells Rufus the story of how he ended up on this assignment in the first place. James, an oil company man, had come to the newspaper with his handler, Simon. James was an avid reader of Zaq’s columns, so he knew the history and style of Zaq’s investigative journalism. Zaq’s editor, Beke Johnson, was very excited about the idea that two white men who obviously held some social and economic power would want their help with something, but Zaq was a bit skeptical. James told them how his wife, Isabel, had gone off on her own and been kidnapped by a militia group. Her driver, Salomon, had not been seen since the kidnapping and might have had something to do with it.
At first, Zaq refused the job, saying that he was ill-prepared for such an adventure: “I’m just a desk journalist. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your situation, but I can’t help” (33). Disappointed, the British men began to leave, thanking the journalists for their time, but to Zaq’s ears, they sounded almost as though they were challenging him:
Zaq said it was the tone of the man’s voice that made him look up. The voice was dismissive, almost derisive. And he felt what he hadn’t felt in a long time: pride, vanity—two things he had always tried to avoid because they had no place in a reporter’s life (34).
He decided to take the job.
Before they leave the following morning, Rufus asks the old man if they need to pay Chief Ibiram for the board but is waved off. Unfortunately, the chief is also unable to give them any information about the white woman, Isabel, who has been kidnapped: “Communities like this had borne the brunt of the oil wars, caught between the militants and the military. The only way they could avoid being crushed out of existence was to pretend to be deaf and dumb and blind” (37).
The old man asks Zaq and Rufus if they will take the boy, Michael, back to the city with them when they are finished. There are no possibilities for Michael in these small villages with the looming devastation of the oil industry hanging over them. At first, they refuse, but the boy starts crying, and the old man begs until Zaq says that he will find a way to take the boy. Rufus asks about the conversation between the chief and Zaq on their first night in the village, when Zaq asked if the people were happy there. The chief told the story of how many people had sold their land to the oil companies for things like cars, televisions, and video players. Most of the people tried to hold out, but the oil companies had pressure on them with the help of government forces and hired guns. Eventually, everyone caved except for 10 families, who moved away, eventually ending up in their current place. It has been very difficult for them, as the fishing waters are polluted and the land is slowly eaten up by the oil companies.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The first few chapters establish the setting of the Niger Delta and reveal the war, suffering, and uncertain futures faced by the people there. The story begins in the middle of the action, with the two journalists, Rufus and Zaq, traveling down the river in search of Isabel Floode and already having found their guides, Tamuno and his son, Michael. The choice to begin in media res creates an atmosphere of disorientation that heightens the uncanniness of the scenes the reporters encounter: The evidence of devastation, death, and abandonment are on full display, as they find almost no people until they come to a village where Tamuno’s friend lives.
However, if Rufus and Zaq are Searching for Order Amid Chaos, they do not find it in the village, where safety proves fleeting. The military, representing one side of the conflict that will define the story to come, shows up. They bring with them more chaos, firing guns into the air, beating people up, and kidnapping Karibi as someone who is accused of helping the militants. The journalists have to move on, which is something that occurs throughout the book. Speed and movement are important; any time that any character stays too long in one place, they are in danger of being killed or taken by one side or the other. This constant movement is in itself destabilizing, underscoring the broader disruptions of the war.
Rufus and Zaq end up at Chief Ibiram’s village, which provides a moment of safety. This will not last long, again suggesting that safety is relative and short-lived in this war-torn and chaotic place. That being knocked over saves Rufus’s life in the first chapter illustrates how little control individuals have over their own fate. Near the end of Chapter 3, Zaq is talking to the chief about whether his people are happy where they are, and Ibiram talks about their history of having to move because of the violent environment the oil industry brings. Like the reporters, they are in constant motion, the shape of their lives determined by outside forces.
Chapter 3 makes the nature of those forces clear, establishing the theme of The Environmental and Social Effects of Neocolonialism. While Nigerians experience the brunt of the chaos in the Delta, white interlopers are the ultimate cause. The story of how Rufus and Zaq landed this assignment illustrates this dynamic. Floode’s visit to the reporters feels manipulative to both Rufus and Zaq, but Zaq’s ego pulls him into the British men’s plans. This echoes the postcolonial power structures that give rise to a neocolonial present era: Much like the governments that strike corrupt bargains with Western oil companies at the expense of their own populations, Zaq cannot resist the rewards of proximity to neocolonial power. The book’s river journey mirrors Heart of Darkness, in which a white explorer travels along a river, deeper and deeper into the native “other” to recover a white colonizer who has “gone native.” This too speaks to the nature of neocolonial power structures, as Floode has enlisted Nigerians to do his work for him.
These chapters also feature important background information on Rufus and Zaq’s relationship: The two met when Rufus was young, and Zaq is something of a hero figure for Rufus. However, Zaq’s history of alcohol addiction hints at The Fallibility of Mentors, complicating what might otherwise seem like a straightforward student-teacher dynamic. Nevertheless, his observation that patience makes a good journalist, and that Rufus has plenty of it, ties the men together and eventually leads to their fates along the river.
