Prof. Whole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka is a seer and he prophetically captured the atmosphere that still bugs Nigeria today. In his novel, “Season Of Anomy—“, the author looks at a pathological state where appetite is deregulated or unregulated. It denotes a state of normlessness when the hierarchy of functions are no longer considered just.
Soyinka equates the failure of Nigeria’s first regime/republic to a state of anomy—. He argues that the state of normlessness or the pogrom is not because of tribal divisions but because of the unrestrained appetite of the ruling elite.
The Nigerian civil war and the pogrom are attributed not to tribal differences but to the divisive greed of a ruling elite. Franz Fanon augues in the “Wretched Of The Earth” that each time a ruling elite fails the African population he channels aggression into tribal differences. Each time the native bourgeoisie fails to have a coherent plan of social distribution, it channels the people’s aggression away from itself and diverts it to tribal antagonism.
“Season Of Anomy—” documents the personal experiences as registered in “The Man Died“. “Season Of Anomy—” has greater novelistic exploration and puts forward Soyinka’s argument in people’s lives. He suggests that the killing in the north is not because of tribal differences but engineered by the ruling elite who wants to distract people from actual social grievances.
The real issue is the division of royalty from mining in the north, just as the issue is the division of oil royalty from the South.The members of this population had complained that Zaki had taken all the royalty, and their farmlands are being wasted.
It would appear that the virus of thought is being spread by the members of Aiyero. Zaki wants to stop the suggestion of thinking and best of revenge. He therefore suggests that his people should rather expell the foreigners and leave his paternalistic role total.
In “Season Of Anomy—“, Soyinka rises above tribal allegiance. He shows that tribe or clan is a cover of fogies used by the politicians in the exploitation of the ignorant populace. There are two polar worlds in the novel. The world of greed, Lisa of oil money and a ruling elite who lives in Victorian splendour among an impoverished populace. He describes this world as the elite, hold magnificent parties; a pointed irony underscores the beauty of their living standard and pretensisness of the life style.
Soyinka calls it “a flouraitine moment in the heart of a festrine continent”. In contrast is the world of Aiyero. This is a society organised on socialist lines of each according to his need. It is a religious community where there is a common ownership of capital and therefore equal sharing.
Soyinka describes it with great beauty in superlative language even in opening pages as in “quaint anomaly”. He describes the method of Aiyero in a meeting house all the people participate in reaching a decision about their project. In the forest too, there is unified labour.
It is anagronism but a world of satisfying labour where the people enjoy their work because they have equal participation in the profit. As a country without norm, Soyinka describes it as the gateway to hell. Our senses are cooled, reminding us of the religious order in Aiyero.
“See the picture of horror: all religious sense of life is lost. As a child’s corpse fly from a moving train. Some of the fanatics hunt a man like animal, kill him and cut out his genitals. A pregnant woman has her womb carved out. A church full of people is gradually surrounded, boarded up, douzed with petrol and set ablaze. The human instinct for preservation is destroyed..”
“Season Of Anomy—“ is a testament against genocidal slaughter and the elte greed, rational and religious education of the masses will lead to the Nigerian revolution.
No wonder, Ofeyi says “wake up”.
