AN EVALUATION OF OIL IN NIGERIAN PROSE FICTION: A STUDY OF HELON HABILA’S OIL ON WATER AND KAINE AGARY’S YELLOW-YELLOW
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Since prehistory, literature and the arts have been drawn to portrayals of physical environments and human-environment interactions. The modern environmentalist movement as it emerged first in the late nineteenth century and, in its more recent incarnation, in the 1960s, gave rise to a rich array of fictional and nonfictional writings concerned with humans’ changing relationship to the natural world. Only since the early 1990s, however, has the long-standing interest of literary studies in these matters generated the initiative most commonly known as “ecocriticism,” an eclectic and loosely coordinated movement whose contributions thus far have been most visible within its home discipline of literature but whose interests and alliances extend across various art forms and media. In such areas as the study of narrative and image, ecocriticism converges with its sister disciplines in the humanities: environmental anthropology, environmental history, and environmental philosophy.
Literature and environment studies—commonly called “ecocriticism” or “environmental criticism” in analogy to the more general term literary criticism—comprise an eclectic, pluriform, and cross-disciplinary initiative that aims to explore the environmental dimensions of literature and other creative media in a spirit of environmental concern not limited to any one method or commitment. As Lawrence Buell et al. explain, “Ecocriticism begins from the conviction that the arts of imagination and the study there of—by virtue of their grasp of the power of word, story, and image to reinforce, enliven, and direct environmental concern—can contribute significantly to the understanding of environmental problems: the multiple forms of eco-degradation that afflict planet earth today” (3). In this, ecocriticism concurs with other branches of the environmental humanities—ethics, history, religious studies, anthropology, humanistic geography—in holding that environmental phenomena must be comprehended, and that today’s burgeoning array of environmental concerns must be addressed qualitatively as well as quantitatively.
At least as fundamental to their remediation as scientific breakthroughs and strengthened regimes of policy implementation is the impetus of creative imagination, vision, will, and belief. Even though, as the poet W.H. Auden (2) famously wrote, “poetry makes nothing happen” in and of itself, the outside-the-box thought experiments of literature and other media can offer unique resources for activating concern and creative thinking about the planet’s environmental future. By themselves, creative depictions of environmental harm are unlikely to free societies from lifestyles that depend on radically transforming ecosystems. But reflecting on works of imagination may prompt intensified concern about the consequences of such choices and possible alternatives to them. In this regard, the Niger Delta has recently become a topic of discussion for literary artists as the region’s environment has witnessed environmental degradations which constitute health hazards for the people and other natural organisms due to the activities of oil explorations. The need to arrest the deplorable environmental situations of the Niger Delta has being the focus of many literary and environmental activists, and this study falls within the many attempts to effect changes in this regard.
The Niger Delta region of Nigeria is rich in crude oil otherwise known as black gold. This singular factor has made this region a cause celebre and a hotbed of trouble in the Sub-Saharan region. The region is bedeviled with ecological problems. The discovery of oil in the region has affected agriculture, fishing as well as the living conditions of the people. Wumi Raji contends that “when Shell D’Arcy, the Anglo-Dutch Petroleum Corporation which later transformed to Shell Petroleum Development Company shipped out the first 5,000 barrels in 1958, the price of the mineral resources was only $4.00 US dollars per barrel. By 1981, when almost 15 oil companies jointly produced over 2 million barrels daily from the innumerable oil wells strewn all over the Niger Delta, the price per barrel had risen to 40 dollar …” (58). This has affected not only the environment but also the life of the people in terms of finding an eco-friendly land for their arable and acquatic livelihood. Good land has, thus, become an important scarce resource for the Niger Delta people. Land in the Niger Delta, like in other parts of Nigeria and Africa is regarded as a sacred entity as well as symbol of life and status. This is probably why Ngugi posits that “the basic objective of the Mau Mau revolutionaries was to drive out the Europeans … and give back to the Kenyan peasants their stolen land” (28). In South Africa, due to the temperate climate and natural endowment, the Europeans penetrated into the interior, driving out the natives into infertile land and exploring their mineral for their personal development at the detriment of black South Africans. The black South Africans became labourers in the mines. They were moved into shacks and condemned to a slow genocide.
Like in East Africa (especially Kenya), this form of oppression and deprivation led to resistance. This recurring decimal perpetuates itself in the Niger Delta environment, resulting in hardship for the people. Land, streams, creeks etc have been polluted, roofs of buildings in the area have been perforated while “the vapour when it settles on the skin turns into a charred surface in the form of an unsightly skin disease” (Raji, III). Raji reasons further that “there is also the effect of consistent explosions which cause many of the buildings to shake and the walls to crack. Because of this many of the villagers have had to abandon their houses, migrating to other villages in search of refuge” (III).
Apart from these ecological problems, the Niger Delta region lacks basic social amenities like portable drinking water, electricity, roads, hospitals, schools, and job opportunities to enable the people earn their living and become self reliant, yet the region is the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg that feeds the entire nation. It is against this backdrop of economic, social and political deprivation that Ken Saro Wiwa and eight of his kinsmen have died for. Saro Wiwa views the exploration of oil by multinationals as anti-people exploitation. In an insightful interview, Saro Wiwa affirms that his people live in the middle of death. What Saro Wiwa advocates for is the right of the Ogoni people to use their resources for their own development.
Sam Uniamikogbo and Stanley Aibieyi rightly submit that “considering the role of oil in national development, the struggle for indigenous control of activities in the industry has persisted over the years. Among oil exploring countries like Mexico and Libya, this struggle has culminated in apparent revolution, which ultimately forced out foreign oil firms from the industry and made way for national control of oil operations” (247). Saro Wiwa’s fight for social justice and minority rights has made him a man of the people. That he was able to mobilise and draw attention, locally and internationally to the plight of his people marked him out as one of the greatest activist of his time. Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow and Helon Habila’s Oil on Water situate themselves within the Niger Delta discourse as well as the polemics surrounding the women and environmental issues in this region. For instance, Agary’s inspiration as a writer derives from Saro Wiwa’s commitment for social justice for the Ogoni people, who have been marginalised, deprived and exploited. Pushed to the wall, these people have no choice but to bounce back in order to force the government and indeed humanity to understand their predicament. This has led to untold violence: killing, maiming, gun running, destruction/vandalization of pipelines and recently kidnapping of foreigners and Nigerians for ransom. Young girls/women who cannot find jobs to do or education, find succour in the hands of foreigners who exploit their sexuality. The plight of women in the Niger Delta region is indeed pathetic. Agary’s Yellow-Yellow is a literary enterprise whose main thrust is to expose further the socio-economic predicament of the people as well as explore the debilitating effect of poverty on the feminine psyche. Helon Habila’s concerns generally center on the need to find lasting solutions to the Niger Delta problems confronting the country. This underlies the commitments of both writers to the corrective role of literature in society.
