The horror, injustice and extremism of a war crime of this nature perpetrated against a
civilian folk remain condemnable. The values of such repressed memory for artistic
invention and preoccupation with the present cannot be disputed. This is why concerning
the repressed, Dominique Scarfone (2006) says:
The repressed does carry a form of temporality, but that it evades chronological time. In
other words, the repressed is what lies outside the past-present-future-categories in which
thoughts and feelings wear away by combining with others of their kind and being
worked through into newer thinking and affect. (832)It is interesting how the “thoughts” of the injustice of the Civil War of which the
Iyalode ’s father was a fatal victim have worked “through into newer thinking and affect”
of the oppression and injustice of the Iyalode. The extremism of her flamboyance which
is an extension of military praetorian living is evident in her sense of dress. She does not
only adorn herself with the most expensive attires of various kinds from “smooth silk”
to “adire”, “sanyan” but also steps out in “Fifty lengths of akwete/ [which] sweep the
path behind ...” Beholding her therefore is beholding the “The true wealth of our land”
(24). The evidence of injustice subsequently lies in depriving others of good living. The
bourgeois proclivity of Iyalode saps the land entirely dry and forbids even the labourer to
enjoy the wealth of his sweat. The poet’s sympathy therefore lies with the masses. His
intervention is evident in his demands on behalf of the oppressed millions; that is, the
agitation for the people’s right to some measure of dignity which would not in any way
counteract the First Lady’s pleasures:
We do not need your charity
Benevolent one
We only ask that who works harder
She also eats better
We say that the boat that took your children away
Should also have a place for our own
That the eagle may perch
That the kite may also perch (25)This kind of vicarious supplication, rich in proverbial innuendoes and bardic wisdom of
the oral poet, is an attempt to engage with power and redress an autocratic injustice made
worse by the complicity of the General’s wife’s insensitivity to the pains of an entire