Halting a Wilful Degeneration into the Abyss: Rhapsodizing the Morass of Despair in Esiaba Irobi's Inflorescence and Cotyledons

• Published in: Kata (Surabaya) Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 15 - 22
• Main Author: Akingbe, Niyi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Surabaya Petra Christian University, English Department 01-01-2014; Petra Christian University
• Subjects: Exile; Failure; Halting; wilful degeneration; abyss; rhapsodizing morass of despair; political precipice; Petroleum production; Poetry; Political leadership; Politics; Postcolonialism; Society; Africa
• ISSN: 1411-2639; 2302-6294

An examination of Nigeria's nationhood in the themes of Inflorescence (1989) and Cotyledons (2009) reveals a dogged inscription of Esiaba Irobi's poems within the context of Nigeria's interweaving socio-political tragedies: the rapacious rape of her resources by the successive political class, the continuous violation of her humanistic ethos by the rampaging military institution, and the ignoble dispossession of her hopeless downtrodden masses. Irobi portrays a dialectical juxtaposition of the fragmented and haunted existentialism in Nigeria against the sanity and sanctity for human rights obtainable in the Western nations. The grounding of Nigeria's disillusionment further underscores Nigeria's stand on the brink of a political precipice. The paper aims to evaluate how Esiaba Irobi's Inflorescence and Cotyledons have implicitly challenged Nigeria's inability to live up to its expectations of fulfilling the present and future aspirations of its teeming population in the areas of human and infrastructural developments.