Eco-Poetics and Politics of Nationhood in Nigerian Literature

The Nigerian sphere of the global greening aesthetics is crisis-ridden and coloured with an admixture of ecology, polities of national identity, and exsentially regionalised in its spatial settings. This flowering trope focuses the environmentally degraded delta coastal fringes and evalves as a direct response to the environmental degradation and marginalisation of the ethnic minority of Niger Delta region that produces the petro-dollar wealth which is the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. This literary tenor became more strident in the aftermath of the brutal execution of the Ogoni-born Nigerian writer/environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, in November 1995. These texts posture the oil-bearing coastal region as victim of environmental disasters, political and economic emasculation, and as a people most disadvantaged in the successive federal regimes. This paper relies on ecological postcolonialism as theoretical basis for analyzing the emergent eco-regional literary trope that globalises Nigeria’s long- drawn ecological crisis and its enlistment in the global greening movement for socio- economic justice, environmental sustainability and human development.

Keywords: Ecological Postcolonialism Greening Aesthetics Environmental Imaginaries Ethnic Nationality Niger Delta

Author

• David Ekanem Udoinwang
  Department of English
  Akwa Ibom State University, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria