The Parasite and the Host, Oil exploration and Exploitation of the Niger Delta: The Poet's Reflection

Abstract

The exploration of oil in the Niger Delta area is not so much news in a country where a greater percentage of the economic growth and boom is dependent on the rich natural resources buried in the womb of the earth of the Niger-Delta region. What is yet to be well articulated and exposed is the actual level of exploitation, self-denial, environmental degradation, climatic changes, loss of means of livelihood, death and decay of aquatic lives, poverty, suffering and negligence which the people of the Niger Delta have suffered for years as a result of the oil wealth which nature itself bestowed in their lands. This callous and unjust situation has triggered off series of violence, civil unrest, protest, guerrilla war and other forms of revolution. This has claimed also the lives of some prominent indigenes of the Niger Deltans. Ken Saro Wiwa still ranks among the Niger Delta martyrs slain for oil to continue flowing. Many lives have been lost and on their blood the economy booms. This paper studied the concern of some selected poets on the oil exploration and exploitation of the Niger Deltans. The paper selected and studied one of the collections of Tanure Ojaide, Delta Blues and Home Songs and Odia Ofeimun's Go Tell the Generals. The study examined how these poets, like patriotic poets reacted and decried the injustice on the Niger-Deltans. What ought to be done for the restoration of the land, environment and for improved state of existence for the Niger Deltans constitutes the objective of this study.