Stay With Me

Akin is the novel’s other protagonist. While many of the novel’s conflicts are a direct result of his inability to be honest about his impotence, reflecting The Powers of Self-Deception, Akin’s narrative voice lends him nuance and creates room for character growth.

The root of Akin’s conflict, like Yejide’s, lies in his own upbringing. As his mother’s firstborn child, her expectations for him are high. He is expected to bring her many grandchildren and improve his family’s reputation. Caught between these expectations and the fear of his mother’s disapproval, Akin deeply fears exposure of his impotence as proof of his failures as a son, husband, and father. This fear of failure motivates his deception with Yejide. He uses Yejide to cover for his impotence in increasingly tangled ways as he desperately seeks a cure. He allows his mother to blame Yejide for their childlessness, leading her to pressure him into a second marriage despite Yejide’s objections. He persuades Dotun to impregnate Yejide on his behalf but does not tell Dotun that Yejide has no idea about the scheme. He is then so caught up in the pressure of his lies and fear of exposure that he kills Funmi by accidentally pushing her down the stairs when she raises questions over how Yejide conceived her first child.

It is not until Rotimi’s birth and the exposure of his secret that Akin confronts his limitations, finally growing beyond his fears. As Akin becomes Rotimi’s primary caregiver, he must let go of his selfishness. In doing so, he finds purpose and fulfillment in the role despite his lack of cure for his impotence. He overcomes his lack of genetic contribution to Rotimi by risking his life to save hers during a military occupation of Lagos, thereby fulfilling his role as her true father despite the limits that he and society have placed upon him. Rotimi’s survival of her sickle cell disease is further proof of his success as a father and caregiver, and his reunion with Yejide at the novel’s close implies that the family may be healed after all.

Moomi is Akin’s mother and Yejide’s mother-in-law. Moomi comes closest to filling an antagonistic role in the story. Her overbearing and selfish interference in Akin and Yejide’s marriage drives the novel’s early conflicts, as she pressures Akin to take a second wife and produce grandchildren for her. Her love for Akin is conditional and based only on his ability to uphold her expectations. This has undermined his confidence and led to his fear of rejection for his impotence.

Yejide regards Moomi’s attitudes as linked to her status as the first wife of Akin’s father. Yejide’s own experience has taught her that first wives are the most miserable for having been rejected by their husbands for another woman, and she views their internalized jealousy as the reason for their constant scheming. Yejide initially mistakes Moomi’s overbearing help for genuine concern, which enables Moomi to force her into fasts and visits with many faith healers in a quest for a child. However, Yejide also finds that Moomi’s love is conditional when Funmi arrives as a second wife and Moomi refuses to help her visit the Mountain of Jaw Dropping Miracles. Moomi is also unsupportive of the couple’s grief after the deaths of their first two children. When Rotimi shows signs of sickle cell disease, she even attempts to find Akin another wife, believing that Yejide is doomed to have abiku children. Moomi thus serves as an example of a mother who fails to be a supportive and kind protector.

Funmi is Akin’s second wife, whom Akin marries without Yejide’s knowledge or consent. Though Yejide frames her as an adversary in her own narrative, this may be due to Yejide’s own experience of scheming wives in her father’s house.

Akin chooses Funmi because she is the only potential bride who seems amenable to living separately and tolerating infrequent visits. However, Funmi’s arrival soon causes increased tensions between Akin and Yejide, with Funmi harassing Yejide at work and Yejide feeling wounded by Akin’s betrayal of their monogamous marriage. Funmi and Yejide’s mutual hostility and scheming mirror the coup attempts and vying for power among the military generals of this period of Nigerian history (See: Background). Like the generals rising up in the power vacuum left by British colonialism, Yejide and Funmi are circumstantial adversaries rather than real enemies, who find themselves playing for power in the household. Akin’s power rests on their mutual ignorance.

Furthermore, Funmi’s accidental death reveals the depths of Akin’s commitment to lies and control of his household. Allowing Yejide to shoulder the blame for their childlessness is a passive and opportunistic cover for his own impotence, but covering Funmi’s mouth, which results in her falling, is a much more severe consequence of Akin’s deception. Funmi’s death plays on Akin’s guilt, leaving Akin wondering whether his children’s deaths are payment for Funmi’s death.

Dotun is Akin’s brother and Yejide’s brother-in-law. Although Akin believes that Dotun is his mother’s favorite son, Yejide regards Dotun as jealous of Akin’s successes and resentful of his closeness with their mother.

Akin and Dotun share an ambivalent relationship, as their mother’s overbearing pressures have put them in constant competition. This love-hate relationship is what draws Dotun into Akin’s dubious scheme to have him impregnate Yejide. While he initially agrees in the hopes of helping his brother, his jealousy of Akin’s successful career and wife while his own career and marriage implode in scandal also drives him to pursue Yejide beyond the boundaries of his agreement with Akin.

Akin’s severe beating of Dotun is the turning point in the novel. When Akin catches Dotun having sex with Yejide, the deceptions and jealousies driving the tragic love triangle are exposed, and the parties can no longer ignore the consequences. Akin releases his pent-up rage and internalized emasculation by beating Dotun nearly to death. Dotun leaves Nigeria afterward. This act of catharsis purges both brothers of the anger and jealousy stemming from their inability to meet expectations, enabling both of them to find another way. Dotun and Akin’s reconciliation at their father’s funeral at the novel’s close marks their development beyond the rigid roles imposed on them by family and tradition.