Ofeimun and the Nigerian Polis: Lithomancy as Agency

Abstract

What establishes Odia Ofeimun‟s reputation for public intellectualism is his oft-polemic versification, appreciated in critical circles as the fulcrum for his commentaries on the Nigerian polity. Ofeimun‟s anthology chosen for the present study is I will ask questions with stones if they take my voice (2014 [2008]). The study seeks to underscore fresh vistas for the interpretation of his concerns about the Nigerian polis, powered particularly by the figurative agency of lithomancy. Ofeimun‟s lyricism is thus approached from the reconstruction of the anthology‟s title as an inquest by stone, and as divinatory parables on the abject Nigerian condition. Selected poems in the anthology that are intimate with such construal will be interpreted as divination monologues excreting the people‟s deprivations, as presented by poet and poet-persona. The objective here is to critique the import of Ofeimun‟s poetic praxis on the Nigerian national consciousness with the selected anthology. However, this will be pursued by rendering lithomancy as a distinctive enterprise of citizen activism, as a strategy of negotiating the abject, and as a trope that junctures off the typical reading of Ofeimun in the radical breath.