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Gaslight: Femi Kayode's provocative novel unravels truth and justice in a fractured society

Gaslight: Femi Kayode's provocative novel unravels truth and justice in a fractured society
Joy Watson
By Joy Watson
15 Apr 2025
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The humour in Gaslight is both a survival mechanism and a form of resistance — a way to momentarily alleviate the weight of oppressive systems while also drawing attention to their inherent contradictions. And let me be clear: it’s deliciously funny at times.

Gaslight by Femi Kayode is a novel that refuses to be pigeonholed. At first glance it might read like a traditional crime story — a well‐structured narrative with a classic beginning, middle, and end — but a closer look reveals a layered, incisive interrogation of the human condition in a fractured society.  

The plot is an engaging one. Bishop Jeremiah Dawodu, pastor of a Nigerian mega-church, has been publicly arrested and charged with the murder of his wife, Folasade, the ‘First Lady’ of the church. 

The arrest sends shockwaves through Lagos, but Dawodu maintains his innocence. Dr Philip Taiwo, an investigative psychologist, is persuaded to take on the case by his sister, a member of the church. 

From the outset, it is clear what the church wants — it is not really interested in finding the murderer of the First Lady — it is far more invested in  clearing the Bishop’s name. 

The book isn’t just a traditional “whodunnit”. 

Sure, there’s a crime, a body, and a trail to follow — but it quickly becomes clear that this story is about much more. Kayode uses the detective genre as a way of pulling us into a deeper conversation about corruption, gaslighting, and the quiet violence of systems that leave people behind. The real mystery isn’t just who did it, but how a society makes certain lives easier to discard.

The inspiration behind Gaslight is rooted in real events in Nigeria: the brutal lynching of four university students in Aluu, falsely accused of theft by a mob. 

Public rage


The violence was filmed, widely circulated, and revealed how easily suspicion and public rage can override justice. Kayode described the impact of this moment on him: “I was haunted by the randomness of it all… and how quickly people are willing to believe the worst.” It wasn’t just the violence that stayed with him — it was the complicity. “There was no hesitation. The mob had no doubt. That was terrifying,” he said. 

For Kayode, the incident became more than tragedy; it became the ignition point for a story that interrogates the architecture of belief and the ease with which truth can be manipulated. Gaslight channels that unease — taking readers into the fragile territory where perception is weaponised, and justice slips through the cracks.

Kayode leans into the familiar contours of a classic crime story and uses them to disarm the reader. 

“People know how a crime novel works,” he told me. “So, if I give them that structure, I can sneak in the bigger truths.” 

The murder mystery becomes a vessel, a kind of Trojan horse, through which deeper themes unfold. As the protagonist peels back the layers of a gruesome killing, what’s truly being uncovered is the quiet, relentless way that institutions fail — and then gaslight those who dare to seek justice. The result is a story that moves with the pace of a thriller but lands with the weight of political commentary.

In Gaslight, the detective narrative becomes a metaphor for navigating a society where truth is deliberately blurred. The investigation is layered not only with clues, but with the weight of history, politics, and silence.

 “In Nigeria,” Kayode said, “We don’t always have the luxury of certainty. The truth is often negotiated, reshaped by whoever holds the power.” 

His protagonist, Dr Philip Taiwo, serves as a lens of sorts — through him, we see a nation grappling with the contradictions between tradition and modernity, faith and cynicism, justice and survival. What starts as a quest for answers slowly turns into a deeper reckoning with the systems that enable injustice to thrive.

Thoughtful undercurrent


There’s a thoughtful undercurrent in Gaslight that pushes you to rethink what we mean by truth — and who gets to own it. 

Kayode doesn’t just show how gaslighting happens in relationships; he widens the lens to show how whole communities can be manipulated by the stories we’re told about power, justice, and belonging. It’s a reminder that some of the biggest betrayals don’t happen behind closed doors, but out in the open, wrapped in politics, culture, and society. 

In Gaslight, the personal and the political are inseparable. The novel is as much about solving a crime as it is about excavating the layered systems that shape who is protected, who is believed, and who is sacrificed. One of its most striking elements is the role of the church — an institution that, for many, offers hope, community, and a sense of direction. But Kayode does not let the church off the hook. The same pulpit that preaches redemption can also enable silence, complicity, and moral decay. It’s a powerful reminder that even the institutions built to shelter us can become part of the machinery that breaks us.

Humour plays an indispensable role in the novel. 

Kayode employs wit not merely as comic relief, but as a subtle tool for critiquing the absurdities of everyday life. The humour in Gaslight is both a survival mechanism and a form of resistance — a way to momentarily alleviate the weight of oppressive systems while also drawing attention to their inherent contradictions. And let me be clear: it’s deliciously funny at times.

Histories of erasure and distortion


Underpinning the narrative of Gaslight is a deliberate reckoning with the politics of visibility. Kayode understands that writing from the African continent is never apolitical — it’s always in conversation with histories of erasure and distortion. 

“There’s a certain kind of gaze people expect when they’re reading African stories,” he said. “I wanted to make them sit in that discomfort.” The discomfort Kayode refers to is the feeling of dislocation that arises when readers are denied the comfort of easy explanations. 

Gaslight does not pause to translate cultural nuance, soften political truths, or universalise pain for the sake of accessibility. Instead, it asks readers — particularly those unfamiliar with its Nigerian setting — to stay with the tension, to resist the instinct to exoticise or explain away what is complex. 

This discomfort is not incidental; it’s intentional. It forces a reckoning with bias, expectation, and the subtle violence of a gaze that too often looks at African stories with either pity or distance. 

In Gaslight, Kayode doesn’t seek to universalise or sanitise the Nigerian experience; instead, he leans into its contradictions — forcing the reader to confront the structures that have long rendered African lives either invisible or misrepresented. His refusal to simplify or explain his cultural context becomes its own form of resistance.

Gaslight shows what happens when a writer looks their world straight in the eye and refuses to look away. 

It’s sharp, gripping, and full of heart — reminding us that stories are never just stories. They carry weight, ask questions, and shine light into the darker corners of who we are. DM

Joy Watson is a Daily Maverick contributor; she has worked as a researcher and policy advisor to national states as well as in the global policy arena. Currently, she works for the Institute for Security Studies and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. Her debut novel, The Other Me, was a finalist for the UJ Prize in 2023. 

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