The Tongue of silence, a thrilling play that is based on the exigencies of a people confronted with daily living. Displaying a very deep knowledge of the traditional and modern legal system, Aminu Kayode Alilu's mental landscape oozes the wetlands of drama — fertile with the underpinning of thought. He feeds his readers with hooks of metaphors as the conveyor belts of ideas and the native touches of modern African proverbs such as:"the onions may not have teeth to bite like a viper or cane to flog like a masquerade, yet it can bring tears to the eyes… / Odegbami is a serpent wearing the cardigan of a chameleon / a man who goes about with hairs nourished with honey in the territory of barren bees invites tragedy to his face / a wise he-goat does not trust the handshake of a butcher…
The rivers of words, well etched and penetrated by the silence of profundity in The Tongue of Silence give a voice to Alilu as an African playwright.
The play not only entertains the general reader, but also provides a full engagement to literary critics as well as serves the academic purpose at both secondary and tertiary levels.
Prof. Sola Owonibi
-African poet and playwright-
