Rise and rise of Niger Delta literary consciousness

(Courtesy http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/friday_review/article06)
(September 25, 2009


By Anote Ajeluorou

WITH the introduction of the Nigeria Prize for Literature by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company, literary consciousness from the Niger Delta region has continued to grow from strength to strength. At the awards ceremony last year, Kaine Agary's Yellow Yellow won the prestigious $50,000 prize money. It was a narrative about self-awareness from the Niger Delta. And, someone jokingly remarked that the region was not being marginalised in terms of Literature as it was in other areas of Nigerian life.

This year alone, there are four writers from the region as co-contenders for the star prize. However, while three of the writers espouse issues that have perennially been headaches in the region, one writer Omo Uwaifo does not. His area of concern predates current agitations in the region for development, justice and equity.

But the other three writers are not apologetic about their creative preoccupation. Nengi Josef Ilagha might appear somewhat muffled in his outing this year about the issues but not necessarily because he has been suckled into government circles. Rather, he turns his literary consciousness on the gift of life as an act of faith from God worth celebrating with his January Gestures.

However, G'Ebenyo Ogbowei is vociferous in his literary militancy. Yet he is modest about it as he uses it to reflect on universal issues about oppression and abuse of rights of peoples all over the world.

The book party organized by the Committee for Relevant Art CORA held on Sallah day at the lagoon-front premises of the German Cultural centre, Goethe Institut, gave him vintage outlet to vent his spleen on knotty issues about the region.

Ogbowei insists he is not necessarily the voice or mouthpiece of the Niger Delta but the pains he feels are palpable as he spoke about the multifaceted ills being perpetrated in the region. He pointed out that a lot of people forget that they are from the troubled region with their indifferent attitude to the region's plight. Living as he does in the heart of the region, he has a rounded view of the contending issues and those who have been fomenting trouble. For him, government's complicity in the entire saga is a universal-given and needed no further comment.

However, he said certain elements in the region, including the chiefs (he actually rejected being made a titled chief as a form of protest against the bastardisation of that once noble traditional institution), whom he described as thieves in disguise. He insisted that for him, "poetry was more important than being a chief there. Chiefs foment trouble; youth foment trouble. We have a band of thieves from within and outside the Niger Delta. Until we fumigate the region and the entire country of these vermin, there will be no peace in Nigeria.

"We have abandoned our responsibility to our children. Our elders have been part of the problem. Federal Government is the enemy of the Niger Delta. Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged based on a plan from the Federal Government. I'm not a spokesman of Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND). MEND is fighting for us but I'm not MEND."

For elder statesman, writer, critic and journalist, Lindsay Barrett (author of A Memory of Rivers), the Niger Delta evokes a different kind of emotions entirely. As a member of the Africa Diaspora, who took the bold steps to come to settle down to the Motherland from the Caribbean in the 1960s in a spiritual and physical reunion, the region's turmoil has a continuity rooted in history, lamenting that nothing had been done to bring peace ever since.

He stated that the "Niger Delta was the gateway through which his ancestors were taken into slavery to form the Africa Diaspora. It has hardly changed from the gateway of exploitation. Now, it's through oil exploitation and the neglect of the people, which has resulted in suffering and multiple devastations. But people have been blinded to the beauty of the place. It has given life to so much."

Barrett argued that the region's dark slavery history has a correlation with current oppression but that its richness in other areas was being abysmally neglected. He stressed that the Niger Delta has given life to so much yet all that counted for so little in the nation's consciousness. He read 'Old River' from his collection. He also commented on the significance of the river as a 'living being, something that is alive' in just the same way Wole Soyinka sees 'the road' as a living being in one of his works. He urged people to look more at the river for its many manifestations as a living being capable of yielding more than can be imagined.

Clearly, just as the region's issues continue to dominate political discourse, what with militancy, the amnesty deal and all that, it has also been the preoccupation of literary consciousness. So that whether any of the three writers from the region with focus on issues about the region wins or not, it would still be credit both to the writers and the region that they are in the limelight. And that until the region's issues that now dominate Nigeria's political and literary discourse get satisfactorily resolved, the region will continue to be an open sour on the conscience of the Nigerian nation.