Nigerian Newsday

Iyayi is a post Nigerian civil war writer. He can be situated within the second generation of Nigerian novelists. This refers to those novelists who concern themselves with themes that assess topical issues in a post oil boom Nigeria. They are almost far removed from the themes of colonial rule and the culture clash. His novels include Violence (1983), The Contract (1985) and Heroes (1986).

Iyayi is concerned primarily with social themes and he adopts a very radical response to the decaying socio-political structures that dominate the Nigerian environment. Heroes assesses the Nigerian Civil War especially as it was experienced in the Mid West, formerly Bendel State, and now Edo and Delta States.

Violence on the other hand takes a look at the Nigerian society, progressively moving towards the path of retrogression, degeneration, corruption and moral decadence. This is a clear manifestation of the Nigerian society as a class society with all the contradictions and problems inherent in such society. We are confronted with power and its associated arrogance by the elites in a society that lacks the meaning of accountability, Corruption, immorality and bribery.

Through the use of such narrative techniques of flashback, simple diction, bitter tone, irony, juxtaposition, symbolism etc, Iyayi presents graphically and truly what he sees and experiences and concludes that Nigeria is a class society where nothing goes well. A society based on violence, injustice, brutality, immorality and a society where greed and corruption of the privileged and the ruling class has created a big gulf between the few wealthy and the majority of the poor masses thus creating a society woefully lacking in proper human relationship and brutal economic relations.

The activities revolve around Osime lyere, a political correspondent with the Daily News newspaper. It is through him that lyayi sees and comments on the Nigerian Civil War. This can be seen in the concluding paragraph of the novel:

"After the war, many generals will write their accounts in which they will attempt to show that they were the heroes of this war. They would tell the world that they single-handedly fought and won the war (1’86)."

The above quotation is a clear illustration that Iyayi is out to argue for who the real heroes of the Civil War are as against the contrary view and opinions expressed in certain other works that deal with the civil war. Iyayi articulates his opinion from the point of view of the masses especially in the ways in which they have been relegated to the background of bourgeoisie writers: Obasanjo’s My Command, Okpewo’s The Last Duty etc.

Symbolism in Iyayi’s Heroes and Violence is an important avenue for the expression of his view on the Nigerian society. It is possible that symbolism in a novel can be made to serve an aesthetic purpose. This is to say that symbolism can be used for an objective other than the functional use.

Symbolism is used in Heroes for the revolutionary conscientization of a people who are dwelling in an unjust social arrangement. Symbols, for Iyayi, have to operate in a very dynamic sense. In his perspective, symbol should not just add colour to a work of art but should also play an active role in conscientizing a people in the general process of reforming the society. Symbolism in Heroes operates at various levels. One of these levels is the group of symbols that are drawn from nature. Iyayi places emphasis on the symbolism in nature right from the beginning of the novel. The wind does havoc to Osime’s corn farm and Osime moans:

What I do know is that it is cruel for one part of nature to treat another part of it in this way.

It is cruel and hard. Wind to corn. Rain to corn, yes hard. The wind acted as a butcher, slaughtered my corn, my everything...

(H.P.6).

The event becomes even more symbolic when one realizes that Osime uses the verb ‘slaughtered’ in his description of the tragedy. It is not difficult to draw a relationship between the corn crop and the newly independent State of Nigeria which attempts to progress but crisis emerge and the nation is assaulted by cataclysm (the wind). It is important to note too that the wind has never, itself, been seen, but we always feel and see the effect of its influence. The suggestion we are given here is that behind the scene, the wealthy ruling elites fan the flames of war and give the crisis as a gift to the New Nigerian State. Another possible suggestion here is that with the type of leaders we have, there would always be a crisis in the Nigerian society. Earlier in the novel, Iyayi describes the sky in these words:

The sky was wild and black as a young gipsy woman’s hair. The flood ran wild and strong on the streets.

The wind was fierce and passionate as it chased after the rain, everything was wild and black and dangerous and passionate and desolate and yet beautiful....

(H.P.5)

Symbolism here lies in the fact that right from the ancient time, the sky has been regarded as a symbol of purity or perfection and the ugly portrayal of it here proceeds to become a commentary that emphasizes the bleak and tragic turn of the entire war effort.

The soil of Oliha market also belongs to the couples of the symbols drawn from nature in the novel. Iyayi describes the market in this way:

It was as if the soil of the market was night and dung and god’s faeces all mixed with muddy red water. The social was black and shiny and dirty. No, not dirty. There must be another word for it, a stronger word. Filthy? No not filthy. That was too weak. A market was worse than an eyesore...

(H.P.25)

This symbol is one of the most effective in Heroes. It is a study in rots. The rottenness of the era which was part of the origins of the civil war is presented in more physical terms by the ugly sight of the market, a place society frequents and therefore symbolic of the whole. There is perhaps a suggestion of revolution in the world ‘Muddy red water’. Red as a colour is important in art especially in Marxist art and it is normally employed to indicate a revolution or the need for a revolution.

The majority of the characters in Heroes are symbolic. They are avenues for his analysis of the Nigerian Civil War both in terms of its cause and course. The characters serve as contrast to each other. Iyayi’s focus on his characters is to demonstrate who is being exploited and by whom. Repeatedly, the civilian elites and the senior military officers are depicted as the exploiters while the lower ranks of the military and the lower class civilians are consistently portrayed as an unfortunate and exploited majority.

Characters like Ade’s landlord, Mr. Ummuna, Mr. Ohiahi, senior military officers, the junior rank of soldiers, the rank and file soldiers, the Oba etc, are all symbolic.

Ade’s landlord who is shot by the Federal soldiers suggests that anybody remotely associated with the Ibos is to be eliminated. This increases the gloomy aspect of the war. Mr. Umunna has a son fighting on each of the two warring sides. This symbolizes the fact that the leadership has effectively turned the lower civilians against each other and by the time cataclysm is over, the truth will be that the leadership will possess more wealth than they had before the war. Iyayi establishes this point when he makes Osime to reflect thus:

...I know that the Brigadier Otunshi sells our arms to the Biafra and sends out troops into battle a few days to their pay day. He sells our arms and kills our men and collects money from both sides... corruption everywhere. Sell your arms to your enemies and collect the money and put it in your pocket.

(H.P. 148).

In these words, Iyayi captures the monumental greed, which characterizes the entire course of Nigerian Civil War.

Mr. Ohiahi, Osime’s landlord is assassinated by the Federal troops at Benin. Not surprisingly, when Mr. Ohiahi goes to his death he is dressed in white clothes, white being a symbol of innocence and purity. It is Iyayi’s ambition to project the poor as the innocent suffers of a crisis instigated by corrupt leadership. Mrs. Ohiahi falls ill as a result of the tension and suspense established by the Civil War. Ndudi suffers grievously when she is raped in turn by Biafran and Nigerian soldiers. All these characters harmonize to reveal Iyayi’s arguments that during the Nigerian Civil War, the ordinary civilians and the lower and working classes had an experience, which was really one long night of terror.

Senior military officers are presented in such a way that one is able to observe that society is made up of classes of groups, which are antagonistic to each other. The Nigerian Head of State is portrayed as being callous and greedy. He sleeps with a girl and has her assassinated when she threatens to expose him. A description is made of the roots of Gowon and Ojukwu and this is proffered by Iyayi as a means of justifying and understanding the character, tempo and the over all mood of the war. Osime argues:

...Look at Ojukwu and Gowon.... These are men who for a long time, perhaps all their lives have never known hunger, have always had servants, have never known any want. You look at these facts and if you stand where I am and care as I do, then you will come to see that Ojukwu and Gowon have much more in common than Ojukwu and the ordinary soldier or Gowon and the ordinary Nigerian soldier.

(H. P. 181).

The argument here is that the military officers on both the Biafran and Federal sides are actually an elite group who are selfish and cannot respond nor associate with the wartime travails of the ordinary civilians. It is revealed also that the officers at the front live a life of peace and ease. They enjoy choice wines, attend parties and have an abundance of expensive meals. The officers also have access to beautiful women.

Brigadier Otunshi is a microcosm of senior military officers who desire comfort at the battlefront. Theirs is a life of enjoyment. He is an extremely jealous husband.

Gowon’s decision to many at a time the war is fiercest is condemned vehemently in the novel. Iyayi makes Osime to declare:

...and he gets married at a time when men and women in whole villages are being slaughtered, when soldiers are being slaughtered at the fronts. He sends the children of other people, the husbands of other women, the wives of other men into the war and has killed so that he can get married...

(H.P. 183).

The marriage of Gowon to Victoria at the time symbolizes the unemotional bend of the Nigerian Military leadership at the time of the civil war. Iyayi’s assessment of the Nigerian and Biafran Military leaders together with their senior officers at the war front unite to parallel the exploiter class of the civil society. It is the attendant greed and aspiration toward power and authority that ultimately gives birth to the Nigerian Civil War.

The quest for money is also demonstrated by the elites who take blankets meant for the displaced and injured in the war and sell these in markets in Kaduna, Kano and Lagos. We have here an illustration of a very materialistic society. Nigeria is presented as an environment enmeshed in a war articulated by the material ambition of royalty and a business caucus who all gain from their war effort.

The blood symbol is the next type of symbol in the text. In working out this symbol, Iyayi makes Osime to argue:

There was nothing like Igbo.. As these men lay in death, nor anything like Hausa, Yoruba or Edo. The blood of these men gushed out and mixed freely without the illusions of labels. In death, they had been told what was impossible in life, something they had been told not to strive for, to hold suspect even where it tried to blossom or actually blossomed.

(H.P. 196).

The suggestion in this symbol (Blood symbol) is the fact that the soldiers (the junior cadre) of the warring parties have always been united. Thus, it will be easier for them to unite and oppose the flatulent exploiter group in the Military and Civil society. In essence, the major point raised here is the fact that the bond of Nigerian unity is thicker than the contrived strategies of the hollow and selfish cabal. The extermination of this group is not to be seen as a mirage but a possible reality. Blood is a hint or suggestion of life and it coheres to make an argument for Nigerian unity and the development of the polity.

The final symbol in Heroes is that of elephant. Ade puts the image lucidly when he speaks:

...there are two elephants involved in this war and all round them is the grass - the grass is the one that is taking taking the beating. The elephants trample on the grass, most crudely most viciously... When two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers...

(H. P. 15)

Through this symbol, the war leaders are presented as conducting their affairs without reference to the feelings and desires of the masses of civil society involved in the war. The elephant symbol is a potent image of the war situation for it lucidly emphasized the entire war effort on both sides of the fighting forces.

Just as in Heroes, Iyayi uses various techniques in Violence in portraying the themes of poverty, corruption, oppression, structural and psychological violence. Such techniques include down to earth language in addressing these crucial issues in the novel. His style of juxtaposition and a play-within-a-novel are attempts to make a powerful point and to show the extent of the gap between those who have and those who are merely surviving. An instance of this is the juxtaposition of the affluent life-styles of the bourgeois class: Obofun and Queen and those of the abject conditions of living of the working people: Idemudia, Adisa, Osaro and the Jimoh family.

What lyayi achieves with this style is perhaps the appeal to the conscience of the reader to see the plight of the deprived masses in post-colonial Nigeria. Iyayi as a realist and revolutionary writer explores the questions of poverty, oppression, corruption and dehumanization in the radical manner within the context of class struggle. He is arguing that the class of producers and their families (Idemudia and his wife, Adisa, the Jimoh family) have not benefitted from their labour. On the other hand, it is the class of the parasites (Obofun, Queen, Iriso and Dala) that has immensely gained from this process of material gain.

Other narrative techniques include the third person narrative point of view where he describes, without bias or sentiments, the trials Idemudia goes through. He employs powerful imagery (short broom, bare floor etc.) To depict the abject condition of the working class people and effectively juxtaposes them with the affluence of people like Obofun, Queen, Iriso and Dala. The picture he paints of the working people touches the reader, making him sympathise with these wretched of the Nigerian society.

Another narrative technique and perhaps the most important which Iyayi employs in Violence is symbolism. The symbols he uses are concrete and ordinary. Symbolism in Violence just as in Heroes operates at various levels. One of these levels is the group of symbols that are drawn from filth.

Iyayi’s symbolism on filth can be seen in his description of vomit, dirt etc. These paint the picture of a society that has gone completely rotten at the center, a society that operates on a system of violence.

Furthermore, Ogbe hospital (a public hospital) becomes symbolic of the class distribution and inequality in the society. In Ogbe hospital, there is

Lack of beds in the male ward.

Meanwhile empty rooms are reserved for special people 9p.205).

Iyisaro is symbolic of exploitation. As a result of poverty, Idemudia inevitably drops out of school and goes to Iyisaro in search of a job. There he finds million copies of himself able-bodied but jobless, homeless and hungry:

...and there were hundreds of them like him, waiting on the look out for any car that would stop. He saw himself struggling, fighting, cursing and sweating and anxious (p.153).

Iyayi’s characters are symbolic and through them he reflects different aspects of social violence and creates an awareness of not only a different definition of violence but also gives an answer to this inequality which is reformation in the society. Idemudia for example gets an answer to this act of violence, which is a collective consciousness to overthrow the system.

Queen, a character in the novel symbolizers the ruling class. She uses her wealth to carry out various exploitations. Frist she exploits Idemudia and other labourers at will. She also uses sex to get Idemudia to call off the construction strike.

Adisa, Idemudia’s wife appeals to our emotion for she symbolizes the average woman who is torn between her duty as a wife in staying faithful to her husband and a basic necessity to eat and live comfortably. Idemudia on the other hand portrays a man dedicated to achieve despite the odds.

"I am not going to give up, I am going to continue to struggle, to fight" (P. 184).

Dala, Queen Obofun and Iriso symbolize the ruling class who steal from the country and stash their money in banks abroad. Through the activities of this group, Iyayi explores the abject conditions of the living of the exploited masses. The extent to which the masses are oppressed and exploited is made credible with vivid imagery. The dialogue among the wretched of the Nigerian society attests to this view.

It’s so unfair. One man has enough to eat, in fact so much that he throws some away. Yet here we are hungry... well, all fingers are not equal. Everything is God’s work. Patrick said, kai, it is not God’s work, it is man made. Omoiso disagreed (p.20).

The above is a clear illustration that Iyayi holds this group (capitalist) responsible for the plight of the down-trodden.

According to Tunde Fatunde:

Corruption means stealing. It is an action carried out by a person or group of persons whosteal what does not belong to him/her or them. By this act, another person or group

of persons is deprived of his/her or their right either in the short run or in the long run! (Tunde, 1988:2).

It is Fatunde’s opinion that at the level of political economy of any society, material goods are produced by the working people in order to satisfy the fundamental needs - food, shelter and clothing - of all members of the society. If after having produced these materials goods, the very producer cannot satisfy these needs but instead suffer material deprivation, then it follows logically that some people in the same society are enjoying what they have not produced and are therefore practicing stealing, that is corruption. A symbolic act can also be seen in the cause of a play-within-a-novel scene:

A school teacher is arraigned for the same offence with the labourer. While the teacher is being accused of robbery, the bigger robbers like General Igreki (retired) and Azonze a career civil servant are left untouched, these bigger thieves are now enjoying their ill-gotten wealth. (179).

This act is symbolic of the corrupt and dehumanized nature of the post colonial Nigerian society, the oppressed and the marginalized are being treated unjustly by the system while at the same time, greater crimes lie unpunished.

Furthermore, Mr. Cleride who works in Queen’s housing project symbolizes the collaboration between the expatriate Cleride (foreign exploiter) in the exploitation of the down trodden. Cleride says:

These houses must go up faster, No standing about, break reduced. By thirty minutes. If you are not satisfied, You go.... (p.239).

This obviously shows the exploitation the working people undergo. Due to the already suffocating unemployment market in the society, the labourers have no alternative than to stay and endure all the indignities of dehumanization. Iyayi here expresses his disgust for both the foreign and local exploiters.

Idemudia’s painful realization that his wife, Adisa has yielded Obofun’s lustful desires and his (Idemudia’s) forgiveness of her is symbolic of Iyayi’s optimism that despite the influence of capitalism, the lower class will ultimately overthrow the oppressive and exploitative nature of capitalism if individuals have the capacity to forgive and organize themselves. It is only then that the working people can avoid the situation where the over cleverness on the part of the ruling class will be checked so that in the end, the working people can retain enough sense of justice and fair play, enough courage and optimism possible to resolve man’s conflict and share the common resources equitably and humanly. These are the ideas which Iyayi, a proletarian worker, has for Nigeria, in the content of the novel.

Mr. Akaana E. Terhemba, teaches at Nasarawa State Polytechnic, Lafia.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004