Title:   IDEOLOGY AND REVOLUTION IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY NIGERIAN POETRY: THE EXAMPLES OF ODIA OFEIMUN AND FIDELIS OKORO

Abstract
This research is motivated by the dearth of research on the directions that twenty-first century
Nigerian poetry has taken in over two decades of its existence. Its interest is in the revolutionary
dimension that some of the poems have taken. It does not argue, however, that the preoccupation
with revolutionary sentiments is peculiarly novel as regards Nigerian poetry. What it argues is that
the revolutionary tradition which was birthed in the twentieth century Nigerian literature in
response to colonialism has garnered a greater vim in the twenty-first century despite the socalled
‘democratic’ climate. Chosen for this task are selected poems from Fidelis Okoro and Odia
Ofeimun, all of which were published in the twenty-first Century. Through the tools borrowed
from Marxism, the research not only shows that the works are revolutionary but also the ways in
which they are so. The dominant mode of reading in this research is the Althusserian symptomatic
reading, but the Gramscian concept of hegemony and Some other relevant Marxist concepts will
also come in handy. There is, in this work, the treatment of Odia Ofeimun’sGo Tell the Generals in
terms of the perception of revolution as a Continuing process, through the evoking of what
Ofeimun calls ‘memories of unfinished Struggles’. Finally, in Okoro’s Pimples and Dimples, a
dissection of religious ideology and hegemony is undertaken. In all the cases, the aim is the
depiction of the revolutionary, that is, the ways in which the texts have subverted ideological
inhibitions to press for change in the order of things.
Keywords: Revolution, ideology, Nigerian poetry, Ofeimun, Okoro

Citations:

Publication Date: 2021-07-09