![Sample our Language & Literature journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5941/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Language-Literature.jpg"})
Abstract
The Niger Delta struggle or problem is no longer news to the international community. It has become the preoccupation in the works of contemporary literate writers from the region. In fact, such works have even begot the name, literature of the Niger Delta; and there is much scholarship on the appreciation of these works. However, what has been missing is that scholars in the disciplines of folklore, literature and cultural anthropology have not given attention to the relationship between the struggle and the traditional verbal art forms of the region. Therefore, this paper explores a fairly long oral poem about the struggle, chanted by the Ịjọ praise-singer, Chief Adolphus Munamuna. It points out that, in doing so, Chief Munamuna continues the tradition of the African bard who comments on the goings-on in his society; not just chanting the praises of chiefs and other important personalities. It concludes by noting that the Niger Delta problem becoming a tool in the hands of an oral artist adds a new dimension to the discourse on the Niger Delta struggle.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Russell Kaschula, the supervisor of the doctoral dissertation from where this paper is reproduced with significant changes. I also wish to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers whose comments strengthened the paper, and my colleague, Kurotimi Oyabara, who proofread it. My thanks are further due the two funders of the doctoral research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Imomotimi Armstrong is an early career researcher in the Department of English and Literary Studies, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Nigeria. He took a PhD degree in 2020 from Rhodes University’s School of Languages and Literatures, Grahamstown, South Africa. His research interests are in the areas of African oral literature, folklore, children’s folklore and popular arts - with particular emphasis on those of the Ịjọ of Nigeria’s Niger Delta region.
Notes
1 The Niger Delta region, “Africa’s largest delta” in the words of Nyananyo, Daminabo and Aminigo,” consists of the six states which make up Nigeria’s South-South geopolitical zone: Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River (12; see also Ibaba, Ukaga and Ukiwo 1, 5). However, for political reasons, sometimes the name is extended to include the three other oil producing states of Ondo in southwestern Nigerian, and Imo and Abia in southeastern Nigeria (Uyigue and Agho 5; Niger Delta 1). But Bayelsa, Rivers and Delta are sometimes referred to as the core Niger Delta states (Singh, Moffat and Linden vi). Some of the ethnic groups in the Niger Delta include the Andoni, Etche, Ịjọ, Urhobo, Isoko, Ikwerre, Bini, Itsekiri, Ibibio, Efik and Ogoni (for a geographical description of the Niger Delta environment, see Francis, Lapin and Rossiasco 9-11).
2 The people are referred to as “Ịjọ,” the anglicized form “Ijaw” and “Ịzọn.” It is important to note that they are subdivided into more than forty ibe mọ - clans; singular form is ibe – (Alagoa v-vi). An ibe comprises a few smaller communities who share strong ties and is thought to speak its own dialect of the languages associated with the people (Alagoa 15). However, some ibe mọ are swift to take exception to being called “Ịzọn,” making “Ịzọn” to sometimes refer to the ibe mọ who speak the various dialects of the Ịzọn language in the large ỊJỌỊD and BENUE-CONGO language families that the Ịjọ speak. If we go by this sentiment, then, speakers of Ịzọn, by far, make up the majority of the Ịjọ community. For this reason, politicians in Ịjọland usually play on the two terms to achieve their desired political ends by making such statements as “core Ịjọ” and “non-core Ịjọ.” The bard uses “Ịzọn” in his poems; but I have used the broader term, “Ịjọ”, in this paper.
3 See Ebienfa 637.
4 See Ejobowah 33.
5 Clans; see also endnote 2
6 For studies of Ewi, Oriki and Egungun poetic forms, see Oyeniyi Okunoye’s “Ewi, Yoruba Modernity, and the Public Space,” Karin Barber’s I Could Speak until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women and the Past in a Yoruba Town and Oludare Olajubu’s “Iwi Egungun Chants: An Introduction.”
7 See under works cited for date of interview.
8 See Armstrong 160-168 on the emergence of praise-poetry recitation in Ịjọland
9 For the existence of literate bards amongst the Xhosa and Zulu, see, for example, Opland, “Imbongi” 187, 203-204; Kaschula 48-64; Gunner 51.
10 For the concept of a performance poet, see Raphael d’Abdon.
11 See Olajubu, “Yoruba” 77; Olateju 353; Azuonye 347.
12 See, for example, Samatar 69-70; Andrzejewski and Lewis 45; Abdulkadir 32; Cope 27-28
13 “Izon Ibe” is amongst a few chants that Chief Munamuna has published under the title Ịzọn Ibe.
14 Ijaw House was built by the government of Bayelsa State for the deliberation of matters pertaining to the Ịjọ.
15 An ideophone which describes something in abundance.
16 Another ideophone meaning something in abundance.
17 An ideophone which in this context means a variety of something.
18 An ideophone meaning something in abundance.
19 An ideophone that describes something in abundance.
20 An ideophone describing the slow-walking pace of millipedes in their numbers.
21 See Obi 22-23; Orugbani 279-281.
22 A mollusk. It is very tiny and smaller than a snail. Males (teens and children) search for them, remove the soft bodies and use knives to cut out the mouths of the shells. When this has been done, the shell is held by two fingers (the thump finger and the middle finger) and played out. It goes out and turns brilliantly for some time before stopping. For a competition, it is played out into a flat opening in the ground. Another person too plays his out into the same opening. They go out of their hands and begin to fight each other, as it were, and turn simultaneously until one goes out of the opening. The owner of the one that remains wins. Sometimes, it does not turn in a way you like (the meaning the poet has in mind). Before this time, it was the number one game for male teens and children amongst the Ịjọ.
23 IENPRON – Ijaw Ethnic Nationality Rights Protection Organization of Nigeria; INC – Ijaw National Congress; IEF – Ijaw Elders Forum; MOSIEND – Movement for the Survival of the Izon Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta; IYC – Ijaw Youth Council; MEND – Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta; SEA – Supreme Egbesu Council.
24 See for example, Ibaba 564-565.
25 See Anugwom 13-14.
26 An ideophone which describes the sound that is made when one puts something in one’s mouth.
27 See also Opland Xhosa Oral 51
28 Something that is used to carve and/or smoothen a paddle.