The pivot of sociological imagination is that it prioritizes social context, rethinks social problems in the light of broader perspectives, interrogates the relationship between a specific problem and the larger society as well as establishes patterns of the phenomena. By deploying the sociological imagination as a theoretical approach, it exposes the reader to diverse shades of interpretation of what constitutes impunity. This paper examines Remi Raji’s poetry of social relevance, but exploring the various patterns that emerge in the poems in order to present pictures of impunity as necessary steps to revamping society of its rot, tyranny and untoward social relations. Impunity is conceived in this paper as the breeding ground for lawlessness. Thus, the paper focuses on the Nigerian socio-political context as site for impunity. Through textual analytical interpretation of the poems in two of Raji’s collections, such as Gather My Blood Rivers of Song and Webs of Remembrance (henceforth abbreviated GBR and WOR), the paper reveals the poet’s fictionalization of impunity and the dimensions while identifying steps to be taken to end the practice. The following findings are identified and they include the propagation of two main pictures of impunity as well as proposition of four main strategies for fighting impunity. The paper concludes that Raji presents impunity through evocation of violence and public theft and proposes revolt, denunciation, resistance and physical violence as methods for putting an end to impunity in Nigeria.
Clement Eloghosa Odia