Ecological Imperative in the Drama of Niger Delta

Abstract

History, arguably, presents literature as a convergence of physical and human environmental interactions. Our line of thought suggests that writers are instinctively engaged with appreciating the environment. This notion is extended to enunciate the vibrancy of how such exchanges sometimes consider the ecology in a reasonably indirect manner. Overtime, the growing concern for a sustainable environment has given rise to a rich corpus of fictional and non-fictional writings about humans’ relationship with the natural world. Literature that focuses on the Niger Delta has continuously depicted the dynamics of the people's fight and greatly enlivened their predicament as they deal with the numerous ecological issues in their immediate surroundings. These challenges reflect a variety of uncertainties and ironies so that writers like Tess Onwueme, Ahmed Yerima, J.P. Clark, Chris Nwamuo, Femi Osofisan and Tanure Ojaide have from numerous prisms subtly articulated the environmental hazards in this area. In some cases, these writers have provided alternative narratives of how these challenges can be better understood or represented. Some writers have aligned with traditional approaches and reconciled oral narratives within their works to basically resonate these challenges while others have provided more radical alternatives to these challenges. It is our contention to critically analyse a number of writers and their writings and identify how they have offered an ecological imperative to their writings. We are quick to suggest and accept that these writers have been strongly inspired by not only socio-political considerations but by deep-seated cultural sensibilities. We submit that these writers offer creative depictions of the region’s situation which are most times substantiated in robust performance codes to intimate society about certain damaging lifestyles.