Eco-engagement and Existentialist Angst in the Poetry of Tanure Ojaide

Abstract

Tanure Ojaide directs his poetic energies towards fighting environmental degradation and human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, Nigeria and the world in general. He mirrors these injustices and frowns at successive Nigerian governments and their cohorts who degrade the Niger Delta and exploit the indigenous people. His poetry reflects the Niger Delta environment of his youth which has lost its slush vegetation due to the activities of multinational oil companies in the area with the continuous connivance of Nigerian governments. Consequently, he condemns the Nigerian governments and multinational oil industries that ravage the land as a result of the destruction caused by the oil exploration carried out in the area. To actualise his vision of achieving ecological balance in the area, the poet is intense, confrontational, protest oriented and works towards ameliorating the plight of the exploited and condemns the Nigerian political system in order to save the environment from further destruction. He speaks for the voiceless in the society and focuses on the problems that affect them as a reflection of what affects humanity generally. I intend to examine these issues by applying eco-criticism on Ojaide's four eco-poetry collections. The argument in this discourse is that the environment as deployed by Ojaide is not simply for aesthetics, but rather it is a tool of political activism directed at condemning the pangs of existential angst, corporate greed and in restoring ecological balance for the emancipation of the oppressed.