To the casual observer, Maye, a successful artist, suddenly turned soldier, leads the Owu campaign for selfless and patriotic reasons. One reason is the need to punish Owu for attacking Apomu, the commercial satellite town of Ife. The other is to stop the slave trade. However, a close examination of Maye's real motive reveals other reasons.
Maye is essentially an artist, not known to be a warmonger. Rather, he is a lover and defender of all that makes life worth living. And so he will rather go to war for reasons of romance than those of heroism. As events later show, the motive behind the man's war exploits is the burning desire to reclaim lyunloye, his abducted beautiful wife. Against all expectations that Maye will summarily execute lyunloye for her promiscuity, he allows her to defend herself — an opportunity that lyunloye seizes to seduce and bewitch him. Maye, against very stiff opposition, especially from Erelu, rules that lyunloye will no longer be killed in Owu but in Ife. To the dismay of soldiers and civilians alike, Maye and lyunloye go back to Ife in the same caravan in a most erotic mood. This is how Maye actualizes his hidden agenda.