Ilamina My Sister

Tarri and his friend, Dokugbo, are already dissatisfied with life in their community. It is an endless tale of woe, suffering, poverty, deprivation, degradation, and unfulfilled promises by the federal government and local politicians.

All this strife and frustration experienced by Tarri and Dokugbo eventually result in calamities in their families, starting with Ilamina, Tarri’s sister, a young and beautiful teenager, a victim of the deprivation and degradation. This had a rippling effect, which brings about pain and sorrow not just to Tarri and Dokugbo but to the entire community of Tumbila.

This is a story of the Niger Delta struggle where the economy of the country is sustained by the oil obtained from the Niger Delta; and yet the people still suffer degradation, deprivation, and injustice.

So what’s the benefit of the oil?

This is a poignant and touching story told from the heart, through the dialogue between the different characters in the play.

Though Fran has been writing over the years, Ilamina, My Sister is her first published work. Fran’s love for reading and writing was encouraged by her father who, from a very early age, gave her gifts of books and educational toys. She attended Cornelia Connelly College, Uyo, where her love for reading was further developed. She remembers with nostalgic feelings how she and her cousin, Maureen, would compete every week to see who would read the greatest number of novels in their school library.

Fran lived all her childhood years in her beloved Aba, Abia State, and most of her adult life in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. She remembers playing along the footpaths of her maternal hometown, a Niger Delta community similar to the setting of the play. Six decades after she walks down the same footpaths, still dilapidated, the community still the same--poor and deprived with rain or water from the wells still their source of drinking water and the town covered in darkness with no electric power. Her life reliving the play all over again.

She is blessed with three daughters, Ifeoma Ihenacho, Daniella Adeyinka, Melissa Agwuh, and eight grandchildren; Chinonso, Amarachi, Tobi, Demi, Temi, Tochukwu, Chimno, and Kobi.