Queen Amina: Soldier On Horseback – Book Review
.jpg)
"Queen Amina: Soldier on Horseback," Kola King
Language relevance.
It hits you like a thunderbolt as you open the novel: “Amina is an oddball.” You know “odd,” which the dictionary defines as “being without a corresponding mate.” Good, but when does a ball become “odd”? Welcome, Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback; welcome, your teacher in the English language. Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has complained so painfully of the fallen standard of spoken and written English among Nigerian youths. Graduates of universities cannot put words together to form a coherent sentence. What English Soyinka reads on social media is very worrisome and must be corrected. The cause is a poor reading culture. That must change; teachers must read and influence pupils too. This is where Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback, finds usefulness. How did Soyinka and Chinua Achebe attain their enviable heights in literature? They devoured books and were well educated. Let this generation also rise and read and read and read. Let the teachers read and recommend the books they read to their students; let the parents buy books for their wards and not aso-ebi. Let libraries spring up again in every corner. A reading nation is a great nation.
This is a smart generation. Your smartphone is good and useful, but it can distract you and make you lazy. Yet it is still a useful companion in your reading, especially as it can help you acquire vocabulary. AI is a good companion. The dictionary must be a good companion again; don’t let it go out of fashion. Gemini AI says this of oddball: an oddball is essentially a lovable misfit. It’s someone whose behavior, ideas, or appearance don’t quite fit the standard mold, but in a way, usually interesting or harmless rather than scary. Quite an overload, but you find that in the character of Amina. She was a change agent who wanted her society to change. She’s not old-fashioned; she’s new school, as Gen Z says. “Oddball” prepares you to see that the novel in your hand will help you to acquire new words and enrich your vocabulary. From page to page, you come across words, expressions, and metaphors you may be seeing for the first time. Let’s run through some pages. Page 6, oddball, puberty, agile, exotic, surfeit, suitors, tenets, old wives’ tales, and rough and tumble of the open field. Page 7, steely exterior, heart of gold, splendour of sunshine, outcast, pariah, ‘’Zamanda’‘ as the “personification of the supremacy, power, and glorious history of the Zaburshe.” Page 8: first among equals, pastoralists, enamoured, scatter into the winds, put down their roots, slink away and fortuitous. And on page 215, rogue king, keen and fierce, fate and circumstance throw her up; walked where men feared to tread and benevolent. The novel has thousands of these words, expressions, and phrases in its 217 pages spread across 31 chapters. It is a minefield for those who want to learn the English language and those who want to appreciate the beauty of the language. The AI in your phone will give the meaning of those words and many more.
Gender Parity Relevance.
Again the novel takes up the sad issue of gender inequality in Africa. The continent is arguably the only continent where women are still groveling under the yoke of oppression and inequality and where the desire for freedom is being fought by some women with very great zeal. Amina, the central character of the novel, typifies this fight. We are not told that it was her education that prepared Amina for the role, other than that she grew an inborn stubbornness against male superiority, and that probably guided her choice of that role. She is a character set among Muslims, where the suppression of the womenfolk is most severe. Women virtually have no voice in Africa and especially in Islam. They are to give birth to and raise children; they are to be married off without their consent. They don’t have to have affection for the suitor; he just has to be the choice of the parents. A husband can even beat his wife in Islam as a discipline. In the case of Amina, she was the design of the father, Usman, to seal his friendship with Suleiman, whom he met while they were trading. Aisha, the mother of Amina, will be regarded as a failure if her daughter Amina does not agree to the marriage. Amina went into spirited debate with her mother on why marriage to a man she never had affection for should be forced on her. When the mother would not stop weeping, Amina caved in to save the mother from societal mockery, but she refused to loosen up to the ‘husband,’ Suleiman, even months after the marriage. Suleiman’s much persuasion with gifts could not win Amina over, and he eventually had to return Amina to her father’s house. Amina’s father had thought that, like most girls who eventually overcome their initial rejection of such a forced marriage, his daughter would get over it. But Amina was an oddball; she never yielded. Does that speak to Africa and especially Muslim Northern Nigeria, where underage girls are married off to men who could be their fathers or where women are not sent to school for an education because society has cast out a role for them only in the kitchen and in the maternity ward? Definitely yes, because there are stories of many girls who are running off with men of their choice and many such forced marriages that are ending in death for the unaccepted husbands by the wives. Society will undoubtedly yield to the recalcitrance of these oddballs. Can a woman rule in Africa? Fictional Amina reigned and ruled in fictional Zamanda. But there are women, a few of them ruling in some African countries. Amina’s choice by the kingmakers has some divine touch, the novel telling us God is not happy with Africa for putting women on the backburner in political affairs. But women are certain to rebel against that attitude, and many are rebelling now. Amina fired back so angrily at the suggestion of Daud, a prince of Zamanda whose turn it was to be king but who was not chosen by the kingmakers, who rather chose Amina by divine will, that “a woman cannot rule where you have princes”: “I have no idea about the selection process. And I was as surprised as anyone else when I was pronounced the queen by the kingmakers. Besides, I would gain nothing by supplanting the Hamajah dynasty. By the way, where did you get the wrong notion that a woman cannot rule over men.” Amina rejected the idea of her stepping down for Daud, who had gone to persuade her to. At 13 years of age, Amina would rather keep company with cattle rearers and roam the wild, and at age 15, she flatly rejected a forced husband, Suleiman. She did not marry eventually, but she went on to become a great queen who not only ruled over men, but also developed her kingdom greatly and proved the idea that women cannot rule over men wrong. In Nigeria and in Africa, the Amazons will definitely overcome.
Bitter Power Struggle
This is how beautifully the novel opens the discussion of power contests and struggle among princes that typifies the instability that has become the bane of African governments since all of them became independent of their colonizers yet still appear as if they cannot govern themselves, as variously alleged by these ex-colonizers.
“The king’s court is like the wild. It is appropriate to say it is akin to the Serengeti, where all manners of animals roam in the wild and with each of them seeking a turf for dominance, power, and dominance.”
Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback, typifies government as likened to animals that roam in the wild. In the Serengeti, these animals are court jesters, talebearers, spies, hangers-on, and all manner of counselors. In today’s government structure they will be presidents, vice presidents, secretaries to governments, chiefs of staff, senate presidents, deputy senate presidents, committee chairmen, speakers of the house of representatives/assemblies, ministers, commissioners, legislators, civil servants, heads of parastatals, etc. Each of them struggles to capture the attention of the king or the president or the prime minister. They want dominance for power and control. Their inordinate ambition sparks bitter contests for power. After the king has emerged, the next stage of the power struggle is to capture the king himself. This struggle sparks off instability in Africa which the ex-colonizers seize to keep African nations permanently exploited and underdeveloped. In Nigeria, the 1966 Igbo coup was woven around an Igbo design to capture power, and the countercoup of 1966 was designed to return power to the North, the North being a euphemism for the Fulanis who lost power when their leader Sir Ahmadu Bello was killed in the 1966 coup. The civil war and the end of it and the restoration of a semblance of peace in the hands of General Yakubu Gowon with General Murtala Mohammed, who planned the revenge coup, becoming unruly and uncontrollable and eventually upstaging Gowon, installing himself as the head of state who will not consult anybody, as he alleged Gowon not to have done. Gowon was removed, and Obasanjo, the unwilling Yoruba man, became the head of state until he gave power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in civilian garb. Shagari was removed in the intrigues of generals led by Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Tunde Idiagbon. Another palace intrigue that produced Babangida, who also, as alleged, was almost removed by his friend General Maman Vatsa in a planned but unexecuted coup, and until now President Bola Tinubu, who told the whole nation it was his turn in the power struggle to be president because it was the turn of his Yoruba ethnicity. Of course, he won through intrigues and a bitter power struggle. As it was for the bitter power struggle in Nigeria and all nations, so it was for Amina in Zamanda. The kingmakers chose Amina, who was accepted by popular acclaim but rejected by ambitious princes who would not accept a woman to rule over men. Amina, being a woman, could not lead prayers over men, and it was the king that must lead because he is both the natural and the spiritual leader. Amina ran away to Ashara, a nearby kingdom, to escape the plan of Daud, a prince who must be king by all means, to kill her.
Convinced of a divine will for her choice as the queen and persuaded that society needs to change in its jaundiced view of women, Amina never gave up on her vision but ran to a foreign land where she resided for some years. Meanwhile, Daud, the very inordinately ambitious, rough, and tough would-be king, seized power by force, coercing all the kingmakers to make him king by force. After he became king by force, Daud was still not satisfied; he had his eyes on the fertile land of Nganga, which he went to fight for, despite the advice of his army general. He led the war personally, against the professional advice of his army. He got killed. This paved the way for the return of Amina from her land of exile in the Asara kingdom to Zamanda, her nativity.
Ethical relevance
Most people the world over think ethics must be foreign to human government. They would rather quote Niccolò Machiavelli to dictate or explain attitudes in government rather than the ethics of the religious books. The end justifies the means. Notable political scientists are reported to be behind the horrendous choices of prominent powers, especially the United States of America. For example, the renowned U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was reportedly behind America’s foreign policy of sacrificing human lives for America’s expediency. Thus, many leaders and citizens of foreign nations were killed to achieve America’s objective. This is unethical, and it has bred more conflict in the world, even leading to general hatred for Americans everywhere. Sultan Daud, who forcibly snatched power in Zamanda, exemplified this unethical governance in the world. He was a wife snatcher; a land grabber; covetous; a cattle rustler, which he did through the herdsmen agents; impious and self-indulgent; mean-spirited and with insatiable desires, eyes that can never be satisfied, and an uncontrollable appetite for women. Amina, who replaced Daud after he was killed in a war, was a direct opposite of Daud. She was a patient woman who would wait for as long as it took to get what was due to her; she was loving and gentle, contented and bold, and courageous. If Africa is to turn around in her unstable governance, Amina must be a model.
Economic development and nation-building relevance
It is amazing that a novel situated in a background that looks very much like the north of Nigeria and among Muslims, where irresponsible and poor leadership has grounded the citizenry, will throw up a woman in a male-dominated system who will be such a wonderful model in economic development as Amina. The North is the sick child of Nigeria, dragging the nation down, but in Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback, we read the possibility of greatness for the sick North if she will unshackle her womenfolk. Amina is proof that attendance at Harvard University or any of the other great institutions of the world is not a requirement for good leadership that transforms society. A good heart, a perceptive spirit, a determination to transform society in social justice, a humble and peaceful heart, and a courageous heart are the requirements. Thus, Amina relaxed the tense atmosphere that had been encouraged by the vicious rule of her predecessor, reduced heavy tax burdens, gave people their land back, set the blacksmiths free from burdensome taxes, and sent people to foreign nations to learn new technologies; removed all shackles from the feet of women and thus released the boundless energies of this segment of society that is more than half of the population, who had been rendered non- contributory to the economy; and ensured justice by first warning the corrupt judges and subsequently removing them when they will not change because they were set in their ways. Queen Amina built a new palace using local materials and architecture. She also beautifies the kingdom.
Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback is a treasure trove, but it is fiction that ends like a true story. This may have to be expunged in the next reprint of the novel.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
is published by Verity Publishers, South Africa is available in both paperback and e-book edition
April 4, 2026
By Tunde Akande
Amina is a Muslim name. One ruled in Zazzau in Northern Nigeria about 400 years ago. But the Amina in this novel is fictional and tells the story of the possibility and desire of women in Africa to be liberated from the oppression of their menfolk. Africans think of women only as child bearers and nurturers.
The novel tells its story in five societal relevance.
By Tunde Akande
Amina is a Muslim name. One ruled in Zazzau in Northern Nigeria about 400 years ago. But the Amina in this novel is fictional and tells the story of the possibility and desire of women in Africa to be liberated from the oppression of their menfolk. Africans think of women only as child bearers and nurturers.
The novel tells its story in five societal relevance.
Language relevance.
It hits you like a thunderbolt as you open the novel: “Amina is an oddball.” You know “odd,” which the dictionary defines as “being without a corresponding mate.” Good, but when does a ball become “odd”? Welcome, Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback; welcome, your teacher in the English language. Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate, has complained so painfully of the fallen standard of spoken and written English among Nigerian youths. Graduates of universities cannot put words together to form a coherent sentence. What English Soyinka reads on social media is very worrisome and must be corrected. The cause is a poor reading culture. That must change; teachers must read and influence pupils too. This is where Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback, finds usefulness. How did Soyinka and Chinua Achebe attain their enviable heights in literature? They devoured books and were well educated. Let this generation also rise and read and read and read. Let the teachers read and recommend the books they read to their students; let the parents buy books for their wards and not aso-ebi. Let libraries spring up again in every corner. A reading nation is a great nation.
This is a smart generation. Your smartphone is good and useful, but it can distract you and make you lazy. Yet it is still a useful companion in your reading, especially as it can help you acquire vocabulary. AI is a good companion. The dictionary must be a good companion again; don’t let it go out of fashion. Gemini AI says this of oddball: an oddball is essentially a lovable misfit. It’s someone whose behavior, ideas, or appearance don’t quite fit the standard mold, but in a way, usually interesting or harmless rather than scary. Quite an overload, but you find that in the character of Amina. She was a change agent who wanted her society to change. She’s not old-fashioned; she’s new school, as Gen Z says. “Oddball” prepares you to see that the novel in your hand will help you to acquire new words and enrich your vocabulary. From page to page, you come across words, expressions, and metaphors you may be seeing for the first time. Let’s run through some pages. Page 6, oddball, puberty, agile, exotic, surfeit, suitors, tenets, old wives’ tales, and rough and tumble of the open field. Page 7, steely exterior, heart of gold, splendour of sunshine, outcast, pariah, ‘’Zamanda’‘ as the “personification of the supremacy, power, and glorious history of the Zaburshe.” Page 8: first among equals, pastoralists, enamoured, scatter into the winds, put down their roots, slink away and fortuitous. And on page 215, rogue king, keen and fierce, fate and circumstance throw her up; walked where men feared to tread and benevolent. The novel has thousands of these words, expressions, and phrases in its 217 pages spread across 31 chapters. It is a minefield for those who want to learn the English language and those who want to appreciate the beauty of the language. The AI in your phone will give the meaning of those words and many more.
Gender Parity Relevance.
Again the novel takes up the sad issue of gender inequality in Africa. The continent is arguably the only continent where women are still groveling under the yoke of oppression and inequality and where the desire for freedom is being fought by some women with very great zeal. Amina, the central character of the novel, typifies this fight. We are not told that it was her education that prepared Amina for the role, other than that she grew an inborn stubbornness against male superiority, and that probably guided her choice of that role. She is a character set among Muslims, where the suppression of the womenfolk is most severe. Women virtually have no voice in Africa and especially in Islam. They are to give birth to and raise children; they are to be married off without their consent. They don’t have to have affection for the suitor; he just has to be the choice of the parents. A husband can even beat his wife in Islam as a discipline. In the case of Amina, she was the design of the father, Usman, to seal his friendship with Suleiman, whom he met while they were trading. Aisha, the mother of Amina, will be regarded as a failure if her daughter Amina does not agree to the marriage. Amina went into spirited debate with her mother on why marriage to a man she never had affection for should be forced on her. When the mother would not stop weeping, Amina caved in to save the mother from societal mockery, but she refused to loosen up to the ‘husband,’ Suleiman, even months after the marriage. Suleiman’s much persuasion with gifts could not win Amina over, and he eventually had to return Amina to her father’s house. Amina’s father had thought that, like most girls who eventually overcome their initial rejection of such a forced marriage, his daughter would get over it. But Amina was an oddball; she never yielded. Does that speak to Africa and especially Muslim Northern Nigeria, where underage girls are married off to men who could be their fathers or where women are not sent to school for an education because society has cast out a role for them only in the kitchen and in the maternity ward? Definitely yes, because there are stories of many girls who are running off with men of their choice and many such forced marriages that are ending in death for the unaccepted husbands by the wives. Society will undoubtedly yield to the recalcitrance of these oddballs. Can a woman rule in Africa? Fictional Amina reigned and ruled in fictional Zamanda. But there are women, a few of them ruling in some African countries. Amina’s choice by the kingmakers has some divine touch, the novel telling us God is not happy with Africa for putting women on the backburner in political affairs. But women are certain to rebel against that attitude, and many are rebelling now. Amina fired back so angrily at the suggestion of Daud, a prince of Zamanda whose turn it was to be king but who was not chosen by the kingmakers, who rather chose Amina by divine will, that “a woman cannot rule where you have princes”: “I have no idea about the selection process. And I was as surprised as anyone else when I was pronounced the queen by the kingmakers. Besides, I would gain nothing by supplanting the Hamajah dynasty. By the way, where did you get the wrong notion that a woman cannot rule over men.” Amina rejected the idea of her stepping down for Daud, who had gone to persuade her to. At 13 years of age, Amina would rather keep company with cattle rearers and roam the wild, and at age 15, she flatly rejected a forced husband, Suleiman. She did not marry eventually, but she went on to become a great queen who not only ruled over men, but also developed her kingdom greatly and proved the idea that women cannot rule over men wrong. In Nigeria and in Africa, the Amazons will definitely overcome.
Bitter Power Struggle
This is how beautifully the novel opens the discussion of power contests and struggle among princes that typifies the instability that has become the bane of African governments since all of them became independent of their colonizers yet still appear as if they cannot govern themselves, as variously alleged by these ex-colonizers.
“The king’s court is like the wild. It is appropriate to say it is akin to the Serengeti, where all manners of animals roam in the wild and with each of them seeking a turf for dominance, power, and dominance.”
Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback, typifies government as likened to animals that roam in the wild. In the Serengeti, these animals are court jesters, talebearers, spies, hangers-on, and all manner of counselors. In today’s government structure they will be presidents, vice presidents, secretaries to governments, chiefs of staff, senate presidents, deputy senate presidents, committee chairmen, speakers of the house of representatives/assemblies, ministers, commissioners, legislators, civil servants, heads of parastatals, etc. Each of them struggles to capture the attention of the king or the president or the prime minister. They want dominance for power and control. Their inordinate ambition sparks bitter contests for power. After the king has emerged, the next stage of the power struggle is to capture the king himself. This struggle sparks off instability in Africa which the ex-colonizers seize to keep African nations permanently exploited and underdeveloped. In Nigeria, the 1966 Igbo coup was woven around an Igbo design to capture power, and the countercoup of 1966 was designed to return power to the North, the North being a euphemism for the Fulanis who lost power when their leader Sir Ahmadu Bello was killed in the 1966 coup. The civil war and the end of it and the restoration of a semblance of peace in the hands of General Yakubu Gowon with General Murtala Mohammed, who planned the revenge coup, becoming unruly and uncontrollable and eventually upstaging Gowon, installing himself as the head of state who will not consult anybody, as he alleged Gowon not to have done. Gowon was removed, and Obasanjo, the unwilling Yoruba man, became the head of state until he gave power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in civilian garb. Shagari was removed in the intrigues of generals led by Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Tunde Idiagbon. Another palace intrigue that produced Babangida, who also, as alleged, was almost removed by his friend General Maman Vatsa in a planned but unexecuted coup, and until now President Bola Tinubu, who told the whole nation it was his turn in the power struggle to be president because it was the turn of his Yoruba ethnicity. Of course, he won through intrigues and a bitter power struggle. As it was for the bitter power struggle in Nigeria and all nations, so it was for Amina in Zamanda. The kingmakers chose Amina, who was accepted by popular acclaim but rejected by ambitious princes who would not accept a woman to rule over men. Amina, being a woman, could not lead prayers over men, and it was the king that must lead because he is both the natural and the spiritual leader. Amina ran away to Ashara, a nearby kingdom, to escape the plan of Daud, a prince who must be king by all means, to kill her.
Convinced of a divine will for her choice as the queen and persuaded that society needs to change in its jaundiced view of women, Amina never gave up on her vision but ran to a foreign land where she resided for some years. Meanwhile, Daud, the very inordinately ambitious, rough, and tough would-be king, seized power by force, coercing all the kingmakers to make him king by force. After he became king by force, Daud was still not satisfied; he had his eyes on the fertile land of Nganga, which he went to fight for, despite the advice of his army general. He led the war personally, against the professional advice of his army. He got killed. This paved the way for the return of Amina from her land of exile in the Asara kingdom to Zamanda, her nativity.
Ethical relevance
Most people the world over think ethics must be foreign to human government. They would rather quote Niccolò Machiavelli to dictate or explain attitudes in government rather than the ethics of the religious books. The end justifies the means. Notable political scientists are reported to be behind the horrendous choices of prominent powers, especially the United States of America. For example, the renowned U.S. secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, was reportedly behind America’s foreign policy of sacrificing human lives for America’s expediency. Thus, many leaders and citizens of foreign nations were killed to achieve America’s objective. This is unethical, and it has bred more conflict in the world, even leading to general hatred for Americans everywhere. Sultan Daud, who forcibly snatched power in Zamanda, exemplified this unethical governance in the world. He was a wife snatcher; a land grabber; covetous; a cattle rustler, which he did through the herdsmen agents; impious and self-indulgent; mean-spirited and with insatiable desires, eyes that can never be satisfied, and an uncontrollable appetite for women. Amina, who replaced Daud after he was killed in a war, was a direct opposite of Daud. She was a patient woman who would wait for as long as it took to get what was due to her; she was loving and gentle, contented and bold, and courageous. If Africa is to turn around in her unstable governance, Amina must be a model.
Economic development and nation-building relevance
It is amazing that a novel situated in a background that looks very much like the north of Nigeria and among Muslims, where irresponsible and poor leadership has grounded the citizenry, will throw up a woman in a male-dominated system who will be such a wonderful model in economic development as Amina. The North is the sick child of Nigeria, dragging the nation down, but in Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback, we read the possibility of greatness for the sick North if she will unshackle her womenfolk. Amina is proof that attendance at Harvard University or any of the other great institutions of the world is not a requirement for good leadership that transforms society. A good heart, a perceptive spirit, a determination to transform society in social justice, a humble and peaceful heart, and a courageous heart are the requirements. Thus, Amina relaxed the tense atmosphere that had been encouraged by the vicious rule of her predecessor, reduced heavy tax burdens, gave people their land back, set the blacksmiths free from burdensome taxes, and sent people to foreign nations to learn new technologies; removed all shackles from the feet of women and thus released the boundless energies of this segment of society that is more than half of the population, who had been rendered non- contributory to the economy; and ensured justice by first warning the corrupt judges and subsequently removing them when they will not change because they were set in their ways. Queen Amina built a new palace using local materials and architecture. She also beautifies the kingdom.
Queen Amina, Soldier on Horseback is a treasure trove, but it is fiction that ends like a true story. This may have to be expunged in the next reprint of the novel.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
No comments:
Post a Comment