Surugede : The music of the d eaf in Emeka Nwabueze's A Parliament of Vultures and Esiaba Irobi's Cemetery Road

The so-called ' Platonic dilemma ' is a product of Plato ' s underrating of the capacity of imaginative writing to aid the cause of good leadership in the society. This is probably what impelled Oscar Wilde to claim that "all art is quite useless." This paper distances itself from such Platonic and Wildean broadside against literary creativity. Rather, the paper argues that imaginative literature conscientizes state steersmen to be positive and useful in the management of the polity and its scarce resources. The paper interrogates the reactionary but progressive dialogic on corruption and misappropriation, neo-colonialism and mal-administration with the consequences thereof, in the African environment as represented in Nwabueze's A Parliament of Vultures and Irobi's Cemetery Road . Underscoring the necessity for positive change through the reining -in of inordinate, greedy, and self -decapitating power, the paper details how literary creativity and its creators labour to whip power into line for the harnessing and advancement of the society.