ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE

MODULE 1 THE RISE OF WRITTEN NIGERIAN LITERATURE

Unit 1 The Beginning of Written Literature

Unit 2 Market Literatures
Unit 3 Nigerian Nationalist Literature
Unit 4 Literary Journals in Nigeria
Unit 5 Pioneer Drama/Theatre

UNIT 1 THE BEGINNING OF WRITTEN LITERATURE

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 General Overview
3.2 Nigerian Orature in Nigerian Literature
3.3 Orature in and as Early Nigerian Literature
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Readings

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In this unit we will study the beginning of written literature in Nigeria. This unit links us with
Introduction to Nigerian Literature 1, where we examined all aspects of orality that culminated in
the rise of written literature in Nigeria. In the course preceding this we studied the types and
the various influences that led to the emergence of Nigerian literature. Nigerian oral tradition
carries the Nigerian storytelling tradition with it. It embodies the beliefs and general attitudes to
life. They transmit and store the values of their experiences by telling the tales to the younger
generations as guide. In this unit, we will look at the beginning of written Nigerian literature in
all genres as influenced by the preceding oral traditions. Forms like the folktales, fables,
proverbs, clichés and idioms in order to establish the true development of Nigerian literature after
the emergence of writing through colonial education.

2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

 recognize orature as part of Nigerian literature;

 establish a link between the orature and written Nigerian literature ;
 accept that oral narratives are in the written Nigerian literature ; and
 explain that early Nigerian literature owe a lot to oral narratives.

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3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 General Overview

In the colonial period, some Nigerians exposed to English language began to write literatures in
English. Nigerian writers in this period wrote both in Western language (notably English) and
in traditional Nigerian languages. One interesting thing about these early works is the absorption
of the oral arts in them. D.O. Fagunwa pioneered the Yoruba language novel. In 1938, Fagunwa
wrote his Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmale, the first novel written in the Yoruba language and
one of the first to be written in any African language; Wole Soyinka translated the book into
English in 1968 as The Forest of A Thousand Demons. Fagunwa's later works include Igbo
Olodumare (The Forest of God, 1949), Ireke Onibudo (1949), Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje
(Expedition to the Mount of Thought,1954), and Adiitu Olodumare (1961). Again, Fagunwa's
novels draw heavily on folktale traditions and idioms, including many supernatural elements. His
heroes are usually Yoruba hunters, who interact with kings, sages, and even gods in their quests.
Thematically, his novels also explore the divide between the Christian beliefs of Nigeria's
colonizers and the country‟s raditional religions. Fagunwa remains the most widely-read
Yorùbá-language author, and a major influence on such contemporary writers as Amos Tutuola.
Amos Tutuola‟s The Palm wine Drinkard was also written based on the style of African Orature.
In Igbo area, Pita Nwana wrote Omenuko which is regarded as the first Igbo epic. The same
occurred in the Hausa literature especially the works of Samanja Mazan Fama, and Karo-da-
Goma. In all these early written literatures in Nigerian languages, we see the re-enactment of the
oral narrative power of Nigerian. We see the mystical and the mundane intermingling in many
ways. We see the supernatural forces determining the fate of humans, humans marrying strange
beings and other mythical realities. Nigerian Orature is richly drawn from the people‟s way of
living and belief system which form the basis for the moral undertone of oral tales which are
evident in the early written literatures. Western education enabled the African people the
opportunity to put down their oral narratives into written words.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Explain how orature metamorphosed into literature in early Nigerian literature.

3.2 Nigerian Orature in Nigerian Literature

Nigerian oral literature, like other forms of popular culture, is not merely a form of entertainment
but a medium for commenting on contemporary social and political events. It can also be a
significant agent of change capable of storing the people‟s historical experiences. This is how
myths and legends emerged. Myths are stories of origin or creation. They are stories about the
beginning of a people, a race or a community. Many communities attribute their greatness to
their beginning. Legends are records of a community‟s heroes. They are stories about those
who founded a community and how brave they were. Ruth Finnegan (1980) expresses that
myths and legend capture the most valued history of a people by tracing how they began and
how their beginning affected their situation. It also traces the beginning of traditions, cultural
rites, worship and the discovery of food, craft, and other lore. We also have different forms of
myths and legends recounted in most African novels set in the rural backgrounds. Myths and
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legends are fictional but have traces of reality as each of them has a physical referent in the real
world. This referent guides the members of the community in certain observances. Myths and
legends help to store or preserve a people‟s cultural beliefs about nature and their natural
habitats. This is one of the sources of truly African novels as one of the earliest novels to have
come out of Africa called the palmwine drinkard by Amos Tutuola which is truly an embodiment
of African orature in the written form. Myths have often occurred in African novels such as the
origin of Ulu in Arrow of God, the exploits of the great Umuofia men in Things Fall Apart, the
story of Osu Caste in No Longer at Ease etc. It seemed impossible for the early Nigerian writers
to extricate themselves from the clutches of Orature.

Folktales are animal stories. They are stories about select animals personified to carry certain
human attributes in order to play out a needed role for moral lessons. In folktales, there are
heroes and villains. The heroes are human or animals that play the major roles. A common type
of Nigerian folktale is also called the "trickster" story, where a small animal uses its wits to
survive encounters with larger creatures. Some animal tricksters include Ijàpá or Mbe, a
tortoise in Yoruba or Igbo folklore of Nigeria. One interesting thing about the folktale is the
manipulation of animals as humans playing out their political, sociological and cultural roles in
a fictional community. We have seen the folktale forms occurring in African novels. In
folktales, the essence of poetic justice is expressed and this is a recurring feature in some African
novels. D.O. Fagunwa‟s My Life in a Forest of a Thousand Demons is purely a written folktale,
similar to the form in Amos Tutuola‟s The Palmwine Drinkard. The form of the folktale has a
great influence on the present form of the Nigerian novels. The folktale form is arranged in a
manner that there is a beginning in a distant land with different wrongs being committed by a
given animal at the end of which poetic justice occurs. This thematic form is often the structure
of most African novels. The effects of oral narratives on the written literatures in Africa are
mostly structural and thematic.

There seems to be the impossibility of discussing the African story without a link at the
traditional values. These values are stored in the various tales: myths, legend, oral narratives of
different sorts, songs and acts. The early African writers attempt in various ways to blend these
oral values in the written contexts. It seemed to work. This is because it helps in marking out a
true African literary tradition where the written absorbs the unwritten values in the quest for
making literatures the totality of the people‟s rites of passage.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

How does the folktale tradition influence the writing of African novels?

3.3 Orature in/as Early Nigerian Literature

Orature occurs in various ways in early Nigerian literatures. Unlike the western literature,
African literature contains the oral heritage of the African people. In Chinua Achebe‟s Things
Fall Apart, we have various oral heritage of the Igbos in the novel. There is the form of drama
which manifested in the form of wrestling and the Egwugwu Masquerade group. We also see the
belief in the existence of changelings as revealed in Ezinma‟s search for her iyiuwa. There are
sessions where folktales are narrated and various songs are rendered according to the required
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circumstance. These are oral narratives manifesting in the written literature. The same occurred
in other novels especially in novels set in rural background in Africa. In Achebe‟s Arrow of
God, we see the tradition of religious worship, how gods are created and how poetic justice
prevails in a community. Elechi Amadi‟s The Concubine presents a typical eastern Nigerian
village with all their arts: stories, songs and dances. There is the typical exposition of the
traditional belief regarding the intermingling of humans and the supernatural forces.

Considering the root of the Nigerian writers first as Nigerians brought up in the Nigerian
society and secondly as the fortunate recipients of western education, they cannot avoid
expressing their art forms in their new found form of expressing art. The resultant effect is that
they represent the Nigerian personality and culture. Some of them who could write in their
native languages using English alphabetic forms attempted original works in their first
languages as can be seen in Fagunwa and Nwana. Although, English served as the only
language that could make their message reach wider audience, the writers try as much as
possible to incorporate the oral literary forms in their works. It is not surprising though that
the early literatures in Nigeria are mostly works generated from the oral tradition of the
people. We see this strongly in the works of Fagunwa, Tutuola, Amadi, Achebe and Soyinka,
among others.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Explain how oral traditions manifested in and as early Nigerian literature

4.0 CONCLUSION

It is clear that Nigerians has a rich oral tradition. Besides, there are patterned literary forms akin
to the western types in Africa. The difference is that African literature then was oral. Western
education marked the rise of African literature. There was a smooth transition from orature to
literature. Africans did not hear of literature for the first time from the Europeans. The three
genres of literature also manifests in African orature in various forms. The epic and legends of
Africa have often occurred in the written literature. The other forms like songs, masquerades,
rituals, incantations, folktale narration, the application of proverbs and anecdotes amongst
other African oral heritage have become a regular form in African novels. All these reflect the
influence of the oral tradition in the Nigerian literature. In the beginning, after the encounter with
western education, the early Nigerian writers began with the writing of orature as literature. The
works of Fagunwa, Tutuola, and Achebe among others reveal a leaning towards the oral art as
an expression of a true Nigerian literature. The application of these forms has been tagged „local
colour tradition‟ by critics of Nigerian literature. They are local colour because they capture the
original oral art in its entirety in the written form. We notice today that Nigerian literature is
identified mainly by the oral forms and inherent lore. There are elements of orature in most
genres of Nigerian literature and the Nigerian literature embodies all the genres as the storyteller
uses every means to reach out to his immediate audience.

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Orature is African heritage in storytelling, songs and masquerades. It is the most significant ways
of transmitting cultural values and belief systems of the people. Orature like literature has
several genres. These genres manifest in various forms. African writers imbibe the oral tradition
in the writing of literature. Early novels began as a revisit of the African tradition. This is
evident in works of the the early Nigerian writers like Faguwa, Tutuola, Achebe and Amadi
among others. They reflect the African oral tradition in their works. It is thoroughly evident that
Nigerian literature began from the oral literary tradition of the Africans. We have the application
Nigerian myths and legends, folktale forms, fable forms, proverbs, idioms, dance, songs,
incantations and masquerade forms in African novels. This is because a writer is a product of
his environment and reflects that in his works. Western education only prepared the African
writer for the task of transmitting his cultural values to a wider audience beyond his immediate
environment. Quite often, not surprising though, the Nigerian literature still reflects the
Nigerian orature in various forms to reflect a true Nigerian literature.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Answer these questions carefully:
1) Explain the various effects of orature in Nigerian literature.
2) How does Nigerian orature manifest in Nigerian literature?
3) Explain why orature has been termed „local colour tradition‟.
4) Must Nigerian literature be written in Nigerian languages?
5) Discuss the link between orature and literature in Nigerian.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Finnegan, Ruth (1980). Oral Literature in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Obiechina, Emmanuel (1975). Culture, Tradition and Society in the West

AfricanNovel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taiwo, Oladele (1976). Culture and the Nigerian Novel. London: Macmillan.

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UNIT 2 MARKET LITERATURES

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 General Overview
3.2 Market Literature
3.3 Onitsha Market Literature
3.4 Kano Market Literature
3.5 Transition from Pamphlets into Full Literatures
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Readings

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we shall examine critically the way the early educated Nigerians were able to write
creatively. Most of them had no university education and it is only those who had the
opportunity of attending the then University College Ibadan that really turned their creative
sketches into full blown literatures. At that time, pamphlets of all types in all literary genres
flourished and were sold to interested members of the public for entertainment. The first set of
Nigerians that came in contact with European education was excited about the discovery and
attempted several experiments through writing. These group of Nigerians were actually not
well educated as most of them had little education, especially the type that allows them write
and work as civil servants. They had middle level of education equivalent to the present
secondary education. We will study the historical development of pamphlets and how they
contributed immensely to the development of Nigerian literature. Most of the writers were civil
servants and traders. They were concerned with expressing themselves in pamphlets as means
to counselling, guiding or entertaining the people. However, some intellectuals like Cyprian
Ekwensi among others started writing through pamphlets. The pamphlets were not really
published but were printed without ISBN numbers.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

 understand pamphlets as one of the beginnings of Nigerian literature

 trace the beginning of pamphlets to western education
 appreciate pamphlets as motivation for full literature
 see market literature as the end product of pamphleteering
 explain how pamphlets transited into Nigerian literature
 recognize Onitsha Market Literature & Kano Market Literatures as the most popular in
early Nigerian literature.
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3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 General Overview

A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). It may consist of a
single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths
(called a leaflet), or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and stapled at the crease
to make a simple book. In order to count as a pamphlet, UNESCO requires a publication (other
than a periodical) to have 'at least 5 but not more than 48 pages exclusive of the cover pages'; a
longer item is a book. Pamphlets can contain anything from information on kitchen appliances
to medical information and religious treatises. Pamphlets are very important in marketing as
they are cheap to produce and can be distributed easily to customers. Pamphlets have also long
been an important tool of political protest and political campaigning for similar reasons. The
storage of individual pamphlets requires special consideration because they can be easily
crushed or torn when shelved alongside hardcover books. For this reason, they should either
be kept in file folders in a file cabinet, or kept in boxes that have approximately the dimensions
of a hardcover book and placed vertically on a shelf. The word pamphlet means a small work
issued without covers. Pamphlet coined from „Pamphilus‟ was derived from Greek, meaning
"loved by all". It has the modern connotation of a tract concerning a contemporary issue. By the
end of the seventeenth century the most effective means of persuasion and communication in
the world was the pamphlet, which created influential moral and political communities of
readers, and thus formed a „public sphere‟ of popular, political opinion. In Africa, pamphlets
were used for political campaigns and as guides. In Nigeria, the use of pamphlets was
popularized through the consistent use of it by market traders. The most popular are the Onitsha
and Kano Market Literature which flourished so much before the emergence of regular
literatures. They were pamphlets dealing with various issues: some literary, some political, some
religious and some pedagogical. Some of them are used as satiric attack on the frailties of man in
his society. It is interesting to note however, that People of the City regarded as the first African
novel per se published in 1945 was written by one of the Onitsha Market pamphleteers called
Cyprian Ekwensi.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Explain thoroughly the major difference between a pamphlet and a book.

3.2 Market Literature

A market literature is a consistent form of writing popularized by traders in a given market

place or by people living and working in a given commercial centre. Market literatures are
printed as pamphlets. They have no standard form or guiding rules covering the subject matters.
Most of the subject matters go from moral to amoral, from sacred to profane, from political to
apolitical and from pedagogical to generalities. They are usually written with less commercial
intention. The authors have the joy of being read by others and being classified among the circle
of writers. The pages are usually very few and written in very simple and transliterated
English forms. The language of market literatures is usually entertaining and the lexical
selection is usually unconnected but creates fun in the reading. Market literatures are regarded as
popular literatures. The Kano Market writers wrote mainly in Hausa with just a handful in
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English. The critical question has been: was the popular pamphleteering in Nigeria a success or a
failure? The obvious answer is that it was a big success. There are several factors which
contributed to the success of these market literatures. In 1946, the colonial government of Nigeria
sold their used printing presses and shortly after, the local market places were flooded with
romantic novelettes and chapbooks. Many traders in Onitsha bought these discarded machines.
Cheap production costs also made it possible for large print runs to be produced. There is the fact
that the authors had declared that their main concern was not to make money from their writing
but that also meant that the publishers had a free hand to fix cheap prices for the pamphlets.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Differentiate between a market literature and a real literature

3.3 Onitsha Market Literature

Onitsha Market Literature is a term used to designate the popular pamphlets that were sold at the
large market in Onitsha, Nigeria, in the middle decades of the 20th century. Written by and
intended for the "common" or "uneducated" people, this literature covered a range of genres
including fiction, current events, plays, social advice and language study. Starting in the 1960s,
European and American scholars began to take an interest in this form of popular literature,
especially insofar as it reflected African social conditions. It is not known whether any individual
or group of people ever came together, sat down, planned and worked out the details of what they
wanted to do in advance before they started publishing and selling pamphlets in the Onitsha
market literature series to the public. However, what is known is that, according to Emmanuel
Obiechina, the first pamphlets in the series were published in 1947. It could be said that the first
publications in the Onitsha market literature were written by Cyprian Ekwensi, who later became
a famous Nigerian novelist. The titles of the pamphlets written by Ekwensi were "When love
whispers" and a collection of Igbo folktales called "Ikolo the wrestler and other Igbo tales". All
these were published in 1947. Another factor which spurred people on to writing the
chapbooks was the end of the Second World War. The Nigerian soldiers, who fought in India and
the far East, came back with copies of Indian and Victorian drugstore pulp magazines which
served as models for the pamphlet literature.

It has been said above that a good number of young people with the minimum educational
qualification of standard six found their ways to Onitsha either to trade or to work as
apprentices in various trades and professions. It was this group of new literates, school
leavers, school teachers, low-level clerks, artisans, provincial correspondents of daily
newspapers who now devoted their time to writing the Onitsha market pamphlets. Most of
the authors of the Onitsha chapbooks were amateurs rather than professionals. Another group
of people who wrote the Onitsha market pamphlets were local printing press owners, booksellers,
journalists, railway men, traders, and farmers. Some of the pamphlets were written by
grammar school boys who wrote under pseudo names so that their school authorities
would not identify and then punish them. Most of the pamphlet authors maintained that
financial gain was not their reason for writing the pamphlets. The authors already had full-
time employment from which they earned their living and they merely took up
writing as part-time and for the joy of it. Consequently, even if they earned little money from
their writing, that was regarded as a supplementary family income. A good number of the
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authors wrote a preface to the finished work in which they gave biographical details of their
lives. Usually such a preface gave the details as to how and why the authors came to be
personally involved in pamphlet writing.

The strategic position of the city of Onitsha on the eastern bank of the River Niger also
contributed to the success of the market literature. Onitsha is easily accessible from all parts
of Nigeria and people come from all parts of the Federation and also from other countries
in West Africa either to buy or sell their commodities at Onitsha. The pamphlets were sold in
various bookshops in Onitsha as well as in the open markets. Roadside hawkers as well
as peripatetic booksellers helped to sell thousands of copies of the pamphlets. Travellers passing
through Onitsha boasted of buying copies of the cheap chapbooks to show to their relatives and
friends at home. Onitsha town has a large home-based market and many educational institutions.
There are thousands of traders in the Onitsha market and also thousands of grammar school
boys and girls in Onitsha who bought copies of the pamphlets.

The publication and distribution of the pamphlets coincided with the period when many people
were becoming educated in Eastern Nigeria. Even the Onitsha traders who were not educated
decided to go to the night schools to learn how to read and write. By so doing, they were
able to read the stories by themselves. Some illiterate traders who bought the
pamphlets but decided not to go to the night schools, availed themselves of the services of
the Onitsha public scribes. These were educated people who had it as their full-time job
to read or write letters as well as read stories from books to illiterates and charge them for the
service.

There were still other factors which helped the success of the market literature. By
the time the first set of pamphlets was published in 1947, public libraries did not exist in
Eastern Nigeria. The market booksellers concentrated their efforts in selling prescribed school
textbooks and not popular fiction and general trade books. The people had nowhere to
go when they wanted to read some light materials. This meant that for many
years, Nigerians were suffering from book hunger. Consequently, when the Onitsha market
pamphlets were issued, the people were happy and the cheapness of the retail price enabled
them to buy the copies in large numbers. As already stated, the 5-year period, 1958 to
1962 may be described as the heyday of the Onitsha market literature pamphlets. During that
period, one could easily go to a bookshop and select up to 200 titles. The popularity of the
chapbooks quickly spread from Onitsha to Enugu, Aba, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Calabar and
other cities and towns in Eastern Nigeria. From the East, it spread to the West, Northern Nigeria
and to Lagos, to Cameroons, Ghana and other countries in West
Africa. As Onitsha could no longer cope with the popular demand, the printing and production
were now contracted to companies based in Aba, Port Harcourt, Yaba in Lagos, Enugu and
Owerri. The average Onitsha market pamphlet sold 3000-4000 copies per title. There were
two titles which sold over 30,000 copies each

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Trace the historical development of Onitsha Market Literature and the factors
responsible for its growth.

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3.4 Kano Market Literature

Due to historical peculiarities, the Hausa-Fulani comprising all the tribes that speak Hausa
language as a first or second language, were less enthusiastic in the pursuit of western
Education right from the colonial periods up to the present time. Consequently, several methods
that can appeal to their understanding and comprehension were devised to enlighten them on
government policies and programs. This gave rise to a medium of mass communication like
Town Criers and Drama Series which became very popular as a result of its acceptability among
the generality of the people. In that golden period, monetary consideration was never a factor in
gauging the success or otherwise of the actors/actress, it was more or less voluntary. The main
objectives were simply to enlighten the public, with strict adherence to the rules and regulations
which guard against anything that will torch our sensibilities. This ensured the protection of our
cultural norms and values jealously over the years. The thespians were just happy and
contented to partake in a venture that will lead to the general understanding of government aims
and objectives on several issues.

The many prominent personalities that took part in the drama series of this early
phase include the following: Kassimu Yero, Kar-Kuzu, Late Alhaji Buguzun, Dan
Hajiya, Dan-Magori, Hajiya Tambaya, Me Ayah, Late Mallam Mamman, Golobo,
Samanja Mazan Fama, Late Karo-da- Goma, Barmo and several others too
numerous to mention. They used their God given talent effectively in mass
mobilization and enlightenment and for that, we are very grateful indeed. What is
now known as Kannywood, evolved partly out of the booming Kano Market Literature
(KML), which made some of the writers instantly famous. The success recorded,
made some exuberant youth to begin the conversion of the content of
their „soyayya‟ books into films. Subsequently, what started as a small private
affair suddenly metamorphosed into a full-blown money spinning venture and the rest is now
history.

With the government‟s inability to cater for its citizens‟ needs, coupled with the opulent
life style of these writers, in addition to endemic poverty; film making readily
become a veritable source of employment and instant fame and wealth. This induced mass
exodus of all characters from every part of the North and even neighboring countries to Kano, to
the ready embrace of the stakeholders in the industry. Many boys and girls in their
teens therefore migrated to Kano, leading to the resurgence of divorce cases in many parts of the
north.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4

What are the major thrusts of Kano Market Literature?

3.5 Transition from Pamphlets into Full Literatures

The first book in the Onitsha market literature series was published in 1947. This was
quickly followed by other titles some of which were so slim that they numbered less than
20 pages each. In a relatively short time, these chapbooks and novelettes became popular
in Eastern Nigeria especially among secondary school boys and girls and among thousands of
traders in Onitsha market. From the Eastern Region the popularity spread to the
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Cameroon, Ghana and other West African countries. The 5-year period, 1958 to 1962
may be described as the heyday when the total number of books published each
year was near the 50 titles mark. The language used in the books was suitable for
most of the people in the society because not many of them were educated to
primary and secondary school levels. By the time the Biafran war ended in January
1970, the publication and selling of the Onitsha market pamphlets and chapbooks
was dying a natural death.

The same period in history also marked the transition from writing novelettes with
semi-literate population in mind to writing serious trade- books, both fiction and non-
fiction, for highly educated people. By general trade books we mean those books written
for the general public, mainly the adult population, and published by a commercial
publisher. Such books are written for the non-specialist reading public, such as
biography, novels, literature, letters, etc. Incidentally, these are the kind of books
which people usually buy for their intrinsic merits, and they read them for their own
sake.

Despite the popularity which the Onitsha market literature enjoyed for nearly a
generation, by the year 1975, that literary phenomenon had ceased to exist. To
many people, especially those who enjoyed comfortable living as a result of this
special book trade, the demise came rather too quickly and too unexpectedly. Why was
this the case? One obvious answer is that the Biafran war of July 1967 to January 1970 had
abruptly halted the progress of the pamphlet business. At the end of the war, when
people came back to Onitsha, what they saw was a city which had been systematically
destroyed. It was like a ghost town. There was little or nothing left for them to use in
starting a new life. This state of affairs led to frustration, hopelessness and despair.
People even turned round and started blaming their fellow Onitsha inhabitants for being the
cause of their woes. The spirit of comradeship, for which the inhabitants of Onitsha were
known, had gone. People did not trust one another anymore. Rather they started being cagey
and secretive. The informality and the openness of life in the Onitsha market had
gone. People were no longer prepared to tell their fellow traders the truth.

However, there were people who loved the Onitsha market literature so much that they
were determined to reactivate their business. Before long, they discovered that they
were facing many odds. Their printing presses and other production equipment had
either been stolen or destroyed beyond repair. Buying new machines would
obviously cost them more money. Moreover, the resumption of the production of new
pamphlets was capital-intensive. The cover price for each new title produced would
be increased considerably. Some of the well-known pamphlet authors had
disappeared from Onitsha, and some even lost their lives. Obiechina stated clearly
that one of the famous pamphlet authors, Chike Okonyia, the author of Tragic,
Niger Tales was killed during the war.

The whole fabric of society and the special characteristics which distinguished Onitsha from
other cities in Igbo land had gone. Thousands of people decided to leave Onitsha for good
and set up new lines of business in other cities like Enugu, Aba and Port Harcourt.
Before the war, some traders were prepared to buy every new pamphlet title published.
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After the war, the same traders decided not to purchase the publications any
more, partly because they had no money, and partly because the new retail prices were
too high for them. Few years after the war, even those who thrived on the pamphleteering
business had no alternative than to give up the trade. Consequently, it can be said that by the
year 1975, the Onitsha market literature had ceased to exist. The people of Eastern
Nigeria had to look elsewhere for their reading materials. The disappearance of this literary genre
was a loss not only to the Igbos and to Eastern Nigerians but also to the whole of Nigeria and
to some West Africans. The Biafran war had changed the philosophy of life of the Igbo people of
Nigeria.

Between 1950 and 1970, a period of 20 years, some classic novels written by Nigerian authors
were published. The same period coincided with the time when the Onitsha market
literature was in vogue from 1947 to 1975. Some of these novels were The Palm-Wine
Drinkard by Amos Tutuola (1952); People of the City, by Cyprian Ekwensi (1954);
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (1958), and One Man One Wife by Timothy
Aluko (1959). These represent what Oyekan Owomoyela called the First Wave Writers
of West Africa. Their works also represent a transitional period from the novelettes and
chapbooks of the Onitsha market literature, to serious fiction written by intellectual
authors. One Nigerian novelist who may be said to have spearheaded the transition
was C.O.D. Ekwensi. He wrote for the Onitsha market literature as well as serious novels for
the more sophisticated readers. As Obiechina has rightly observed, both the pamphlet
writers and the intellectual West African writers used their writing as media to provide
insights into the contemporary West African life. The pamphlet writers concerned themselves
with surface appearances, while the intellectual writers tried to dig deep into underlying causes
and explanations.

We have already seen how serious fiction was being published almost side by side
with the pamphlets of the Onitsha market literature. Those novels were written by first
wave intellectual writers from Nigeria. During the Second wave, we had Wole Soyinka‟s
novel The Interpreters (1965) and Gabriel Okara‟s novel, The oice (1964). It was during the
Second Wave that Chinua Achebe published his two next novels – No Longer at
Ease (1960) and Man of the People, (1966). Elechi Amadi‟s novel, The Concubine, was
published in 1966. Achebe‟s A Man of the People dealt with corruption, and ended with violence
and a coup. It was during this Second Wave that some of the novels of the pioneer Igbo
women writers were published. The first was Efuru, by Flora Nwapa (1966), and
Idu (1969). The other female novelist, Buchi Emecheta, published her autobiographical
novels, In the Ditch (1972) and Second Class Citizen, (1974).

The writers of the Third Wave were young people writing for an African audience and not for
the Euro-Americans as was the case with the first Wave authors. These new
Third Wave authors sought not only to entertain like the Onitsha chapbooks, but
also to edify and instruct, as well as to forge a common cause with ordinary
people. Some of the novels of the Third Wave are One is Enough, by Flora Nwapa
(1981); Kalu Okpi‟s The Smugglers (1978), Zaynab Alkali‟s The Stillborn (1986)
and Abubakar Gimba‟s Trail of Sacrifice (1989).

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5

Explain thoroughly the factors that led to the demise of pamphleteering

4.0 CONCLUSION

No doubt, pamphleteering constitutes a very important aspect of the development of

the African novel. From the above excursions into the development of pamphleteering
and the emergence of market literatures, Onitsha and Kano, it is clear that they represent one of
the first attempts at writing and publishing what is real literature. This development
process is not an African thing. Early literature writers in Europe and America
started through pamphleteering. American literature began as pamphlets which still
represent an important aspect of their literary heritage. The works of Thomas
Paine and Thomas Jefferson were mainly in pamphlets and they are one of the most revered
documents in American literature today. However, the pamphlets of Africa unlike the
revolutionary aspects of Europe and America constitute attempts by the half literate Africans
at expressing them in the printed words. It represents a beginning that actually saw literature
beyond the ordinariness of the spoken words. It elevated the orality of literature to
the status of the printed matter. It brings African novels to the realm of the printed words.

5.0 SUMMARY

Pamphleteering developed to market literature in Nigeria. This is because most

of the pamphlets were written by traders and people living in the two most commercial
areas in Nigeria: Onitsha and Kano. They are middle educated members of the
society that for fun and belongingness to the circle of writers. The quantity of works produced is
enormous and represent many aspects of man‟s developmental needs from the physical to
the spiritual. The quality reveals beginners with no clear-cut genres, themes and functionality.
The works reveal the budding desire of young half educated Africans who wrote to
bring African orality into the print. The market literatures marked a real phase in the
development of printing in Africa. Thus, pamphlets led directly to the real publishing of African
novels and other genres.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Answer these questions:

1. What factors led to the emergence of pamphleteering in Africa?

2. Differentiate critically the thematic differences between Onitsha and Kano Market Literatures
3. Explain the basic contribution of pamphlets to the development of the African novel.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Furniss, George (1996). Poetry, Prose and Popular Culture in Hausa. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Obiechina, Emmanuel (1971). Literature for the Masses: An Analytical Study of Popular
Pamphleteering in Nigeria. Enugu, Nigeria: Nwankwo-Ifejika Publishers.

Obiechina, Emmanuel (1975). Culture, Tradition and Society in the West African
Novel. London: Cambridge University Press.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
UNIT 3 NIGERIAN NATIONALIST LITERATURE

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 General Overview
3.2 Nationalism and Early Nigerian Literature
3.3 Literatures of Identity and Personality
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Readings

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we shall examine the beginning of written literatures from the contributions
of Nigerian nationalists. Many African nationalists, that is, those who fought for the
independence of their countries were mostly educated Africans who were trained abroad
as there were no universities in Africa to produce graduates then. They used everything at their
disposal in the fight. They used propaganda, journalism, literature etc. They used literature
mainly to sensitize the Africans about their personality and the destruction of inferiority
complex. They contributed in the development of African literature. Many of these
African writers present the African society, culture and personality in such manners that reveal
the totality of African values. The issues of equality, cultural values and social mores are
presented in manners that show the placement of attitudes and societal requirements for
greatness. The values of leadership are also examined using the African leadership parameters
as yardsticks. In Nigeria, most of the nationalists used literature as tools for their nationalistic
messages.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

 understand that Nigerian literature was a tool of nationalism;
 explain the need for nationalist literature;
 relate the Nationalist literature to Nigeria‟s struggle for independence;
 see Nationalist literatures as part of early Nigerian literature; and
 distinguish nationalist literature from negritude literature.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 General Overview

Early Nigerian poetry in English was an anti colonial, mobilisational poetry. It

was one of the weapons used by nationalists to fight the British colonial
administration in Nigeria and sensitized the people to the injustices of colonialism.
This anti colonial poetry movement was West Africa wide. R. E. E. Armattoe, Michael Dei-
Anang and Benibengor Blay, all of Ghana; Crispin George of Sierra Leone; and,
Roland Tombekai of Liberia, are the prominent names. In Nigeria, the important names
are Dennis Osadebay and Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Literary arts were part of the colonial educational structure which had as its basic end, the
incorporation of Africans into the orbit of Western Civilization. In the European
Colonization of Africa, commerce, Christianity and civilization were a three – legged
relay in which Christianity was always either first or second baton (after
commerce). Both combined to produce colonialism and the sum total of all three was the
imposition of Western civilization on Africa. Of all the contacts with the Europeans, the most
decisive of them all is the evolution of the modern Nigerian state as a colonized
entity in the late 19th century. Although Africans had been writing in Portuguese as early
as 1850 and a few volumes of African writing in English and French had been
published, an explosion of African writing in European languages occurred in the mid-
twentieth century.

In the 1930s, black intellectuals from French colonies living in Paris initiated a
literary movement called Negritude. Negritude emerged out of “a sudden grasp of
racial identity and of cultural values and an awareness of the wide discrepancies”
(Gerard 39) which existed between the promise of the French system of assimilation
and the reality. The movement's founders looked to Africa to rediscover and
rehabilitate the African values that had been erased by French cultural superiority.
Negritude writers wrote poetry in French in which they presented African traditions
and cultures as antithetical, but equal, to European culture. Out of this
philosophical/literary movement came the creation of Presence Africaine by Alioune
Diop in 1947. The journal, according to its founder, was an endeavour "to help
define African originality and to hasten its introduction into the modern world"
(Owomoyela 39). Other Negritude authors include Leopold Senghor, Aime Cesaire,
and Leon Damas.

In the mid-60s, Nigeria replaced French West Africa as the largest producer and consumer of
African literature, and literary production in English surpassed that in French. Many Nigerian
nationalists, like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Denis Osadebe and Chief Enahoro among
others were products of Western Education and they recognized the power of literature in
the achievement of their goal for Nigeria‟s independence. They constituted the nationalist
writers. Their literary motive was akin to that of negritude. They emphasized African culture,
personality and value system. They believe that giving attention to everything Africa is one of
the basic tools of their agitation. Large numbers of talented writers in Francophone Africa came
to occupy important political and diplomatic posts and gave up creative writing.
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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE

The vastness in size and population of Nigeria gave it an advantage over smaller countries. In the
1950s, a large readership made up of clerks and small traders and a steadily increasing number
of high schools students developed in Nigeria, and this readership enabled the emergence
of market literatures. Even Ibadan University College, founded in 1948, produced
some of the writers that came to the forefront in the 60s. The encounter with Europe through
trade relationships, missionary activities, and colonialism propelled the wave of literacy in
Nigeria. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, literary activity in the British colonies was
conducted almost entirely in vernacular languages. Missionaries found it more useful to
translate the Bible into local languages than to teach English to large number of
Africans. This resulted in the production of hymns, morality tales, and other literatures in
African languages concerned with propagating Christian values and morals. All these
helped in the propagation of nationalism which culminated in the independence of the country.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Explain the importance of Nigerian literature in Nigerian nationalism

3.2 Nationalism and Early Nigerian Literature

Nigerian literature of the early 50s and 60s were more of journalistic and nationalistic. Dr.
Nnamdi Azikiwe was a journalist and a nationalist. He, like his peers, wrote poetry and other
forms of literature to express his Africanness as a way of killing the inferiority complex
always expressed by the Africans. Most of these nationalists suffered much racism in their
studies abroad. It was these racial experiences that sparked off their agitation for
independence. However, their creative works were not allowed in the curriculum of
schools. The same western education curriculum prevailed in the British colonies. The
curriculum of western education was largely made up of European texts and
authors. Admittedly, at the inception of tertiary education in Nigeria in the 1950s,
authors of African origin had not written many texts. But neither literature written in the
indigenous African languages, nor the traditional artistic practices were considered of
significance enough to merit attention in scholarly investigation of literary
experience, presumed when convenient, to be universal. Thus, until the postcolonial
agitation for artistic and cultural decolonization impacted on the academia,
African literature was like an inconceivable possibility or at best, a shocking
novelty. Given the above, it is not surprising that the curriculum of literary
studies in Nigeria as it obtained in many parts of colonized Africa was fashioned in the
image of metropolitan derivation. Primary texts and authors studied, the critical and theoretical
approaches adopted in textual interrogations were largely Euro-American. Where the
continent features as subject, it is done with a view to underscore its significance as we
see in Joseph Conrad‟s Heart of Darkness, Shakespeare‟s Othello and
Tempest, Sir H. Rider Haggard‟s King Solomon‟s Mine, etc. No indigenous
poet had presumably emerged to rival Thomas Wyatt, William Shakespeare, John
Milton, Alexander Pope, William Blake, and T.S. Eliot among others.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
The indigenous imagination was seen as incapable of producing such epical
compositions with the rhetorical grandeur exhibited in Beowulf by the Anglo-Saxons or
works of arresting suspense and didacticism as exemplified in Chaucer‟s The
Canterbury Tales. In terms of drama, African ritual performances and festivals,
myths, legends and other narratives of the people wherein lie the seedbeds of
African drama earned no place in the curriculum fashioned in the main and ab
initio from the metropolitan centres. Thus, the historical trajectory of literature in Nigeria shows
that it was part of the embracing marginalization of the colonies.

By the 1960s, there was a gradual legitimation of African oral literature as a worthy subject of
literary inquiry. Thus, traditional rituals, festivals and indigenous poetic chants became
worthy subjects for learning. Nationalism had the conscious drive to put
Nigerians on the self appraisal of their personality and culture. These works,
mainly poetry, are written in simplified syntax with the aim of communicating
ideas. The poems read as discourse projecting the need for understanding and
appreciating the black race.

By its very nature, this poetry had a public tone. It was confrontational and defamatory,
and was meant to be hurled at the white opponent as a counter to his negative assumptions
about African culture. It was also a highly affirmative poetry, often taking Africa as a
monolithic entity and singing her praise to the high heavens. This posture must
have been justifiable at the time, given the sustained denigration of Africa by
whites who were either ignorant of the real situation in Africa or were simply
malicious.

Dennis Osadebay was the leading Nigerian poet of the mobilization era. In 1952, he
published a book of poems entitled Africa Sings which, in many ways, is typical
of the mobilisational mode. In the poem "Who Buys My Thoughts", for example, the
emphasis is on the throbbing soul of Africa, an Africa that is still hungry, naked and sick, but
whose youth are already awake, restless and questioning and who by this very fact are going to
make significant achievements in the future. But Osadebay was also a poet with an ambivalent
disposition towards the West; for, while he may condemn the West for some
of the cruder features of colonialism, he nevertheless sang the white man's praise
unabashedly for what he called the benefits of western civilization, namely schools,
hospitals and the like.

Perhaps the poem that is most typical of him is "Young Africa's Plea" in
which he seeks a synthesis of black and white values especially in the following
lines:

Let me play with the Whiteman's ways

Let me work with the Blackman‟s brains
Let my affairs themselves sort out
Then in sweet rebirth
I'll rise a better man
Not ashamed to face the world.

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This consciousness of Africanness elevates the thought-system of the Africans and

creates a superior sense of their existence among mankind. Nationalism was seen as a
way of asserting their integrity and modified to carry the tones of Anglo Nigerian
experiences.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Many Nigerian nationalists believe that our literature should dominate our education.
Explain why it should be so.

3.3 Literatures of Identity and Personality

The 50s in Nigeria were also the time when the ferment for freedom was at its highest. India was
independent, so it was only a matter of time for West Africa to be free. The Second World War
was fought for freedom as they told Africans. They were asked to collect palm kernels for the
war effort. They were told that each one would put a nail on Hitler's coffin. Nigerians
returning home from the war asked, 'where's the freedom we were told about?' So the two
issues were together: the political ferment and the revolution in the classroom. The Nigerian
elites were angered to see that they were deceived into fighting a war they never knew
how it began. They never knew Hitler and were amazed that a man they never knew and who
never offended them turned out to be their enemy. The enlightenment from those ex-
servicemen, who actually fought in the battle front with the whites, discovered that
they were stronger than their white counterparts at the warfront. The myth about
white superiority began to wane in their mind. They began to teach Nigerians at
home on their return from the war that the colonial masters were not superior to them. This
resulted in the publication of pamphlets and papers on the need for African independence.
In Nigeria, many of these ex-servicemen who later joined the Nigerian armed
forces began to spread information on the possibility of self governance in
the country.

For the elites, the educated Nigerians at the forefront of the battle for self
governance, the need to implant the consciousness about the superiority of
the black person over the whites began as a necessary independence slogan. They
wrote poems, short stories and historical account of their encounters with the whites.
They painted gory pictures of racism and instilled in the educated few, the need
for their self aggrandizement in the face of all odds. Unfortunately, most of these
nationalist works were never in complete books as most of them were products of
the immediate necessity or the situation that that gave rise to them.

They were usually published in newspapers like The West African Pilot which had the late
Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as the editor at the time Nigeria‟s agitation for independence was at
its peak.

In most of these literary works, the nationalists emphasized national unity,

identification with the struggle for independence, the elevation of the African personality
and the destruction of inferiority complex.
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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Discuss the factors that led to the realization of African identity and personality
during the struggles for independence

4.0 CONCLUSION

Nationalism paved the way for the appreciation of African oral arts. Apart from the
significant interests shown in indigenous oral literary and artistic traditions, by independence, the
nation had produced writers who were significant in many ways. The literary field witnessed
expansion in the list of works written by educated Nigerians, whose sources of artistic influence
were not only the classical European literature to which they were exposed in the
course of their education, but also their indigenous oral and performance resources in
Nigerian culture. These were writers whose mastery of poetic, theatrical and narrative
skills were acclaimed beyond the shores of Nigeria. These writers include Gabriel
Okara whose collection, The Fisherman‟s Invocation, was and is still regarded as the
trailblazer in true poetic expression in Africa. Okara uses indigenous materials
in capturing his ideals while painting the metaphors of truth using his environment
as proper poetic tool in his craft. His novel, The Voice, an experimental work
written with the transliteration of Ijaw language into English makes a case for
the appreciation of the linguistic beauty in African languages. The Voice, apart from
its linguistic properties carried more message of nationalism as it examines Nigeria beyond
Independence. Independence is a goal but he believes that the success of independence
rests with the individuals who must work with clear conscience in order to pilot
Nigeria towards worthy ends.

5.0 SUMMARY

The little literary products of the nationalists paved way for the arrival of serious
literatures attacking the excesses of colonialism and neocolonial mentalities in
Nigeria. The arrival of Chinua Achebe‟s novels (Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, No
Longer at Ease and A Man of the People) strengthens the nationalistic themes in
Nigerian literatures. Achebe‟s novels cleared certain complexities about the
African continent and personality. His first novel Things Fall Apart was a reaction to the
distorted pictures of Africa by the Europeans. More so, Wole Soyinka‟s plays (A Dance of
the Forests, The Strong Breed, The Lion and The Jewel, Kongi‟s Harvest and The Road)
use the theatre as another avenue for the same nationalistic ventures; even J. P.
Clark in his Ozidi, Song of a Goat, The Raft, among other plays elevated the
African personality and redirected the Nigerians adrift. On the feminine angle, Nigerian women
contributed to the nationalistic consciousness. Writers like Flora Nwapa, Mabel Segun and
Zulu Sofola towed the lines of the men in the same nationalistic concern. They rested their art on
the need to embrace openness in the society by avoiding sexual segregation. Though many
people saw their works as European ideals but others believe that African culture like
every other is dynamic and must follow change. Their works fuse elements of the indigenous and
Western literary traditions. Although, many of the works of the early nationalists like Nnamdi
Azikiwe, Dennis Osadebey among others were not really published as books because they
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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
appeared as pamphlets and in newspaper; but some of them have been collected recently
in anthologies such as West African Verse edited by Donatus Nwoga who categorized
their works under pioneer poetry.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Answer these questions:

1. Discuss the importance of literature in Nigeria‟s struggle for independence

2. Nigeria‟s nationalists were products of western education. How did that aid them in
writing literature?
3. What are the major thrusts of nationalist literatures in Nigeria?
4. Relate the concern of Negritude literature with those of Nationalist literature in Nigeria
5. Explain the major factors that led to the emergence of nationalist literatures in Nigeria.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Gerard, Albert (1990). Contexts of African Literature. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.

Harrow, Kenneth (1994). Thresholds of Change in African Literature: The Emergence

of a Tradition. Portsmouth and London: Heinemann and James Curry.

Owomoyela, Oyekan (1979). African Literatures: An Introduction. Waltham, Mass, African

Studies Association.

Nwoga, Donatus (1980). (ed.) West African Verse. London: Longman. Senanu, K. & Vincent T.
(1977). A Selection of African Verse. London: Longman.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
UNIT 4 LITERARY JOURNALS IN NIGERIA

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 General Overview
3.2 The Horn/The Black Orpheus
3.3 The Mbari Club
3.4 Okike and Other Journals
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Readings

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we will study the emergence of journal literatures in Nigerian premier
universities which helped in grooming Nigerian writers. The University of Ibadan, which
was the university college affiliated to the University of London, produced the majority of
Nigerian writers because of the literary consciousness in the university that resulted
from the existence of literary journals on the campus. These journals, which were products of
the Nigerian students, started with the advice of the European teachers in the university.
The journals were edited by the Nigerian students themselves. We will study the origin
of these journals, the effects of the journal in the training of Nigerian writers and
the effects in the development of Nigerian literature in all ramifications.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

 understand the meaning of journal literatures;

 assess the importance of journal literatures in the development of Nigerian literature;
 discuss journal literatures as Nigerian literatures;
 see the emergence of great Nigerian writers through journal literatures; and
 distinguish journal literatures from other forms of literary expressions.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 General Overview

In search of a new policy on higher education, the Colonial Office set up the Elliot and Asquith
Commissions which recommended the creation of a university college at Ibadan.
According to Adewoye (1973), the founding of the college in 1948 “represented the
fulfillment of many years of aspiration by Nigerians for the establishment, locally of
an institution of higher education.” The British, however, entrenched their cultural
hegemony in the new college by specifying that it should have British universities as its
model in order to maintain a high academic standard. The college was affiliated
with the University of London in what was termed a “special relationship.” This,
in practice, forced the University College to adopt the curricula of the said university
until 1962 when it became autonomous and came to be known as the University
of Ibadan. The residential nature of the college made it possible for it to create
intellectual elite in Nigeria. The college was the first institution of higher learning to bring
such a large group of talented young men and women from various parts of the
country together. Takena Tamuno wrote that the plan to make the college residential was
fully thought-out.

The Asquith Commission favoured the principle of residential universities for a number of
reasons: the unsuitability of off-campus accommodation and the necessity to supervise the
health of students closely; the widely different backgrounds of the undergraduates and the need
to promote unity; the opportunity offered for broadening their outlook through extra
curricula activities. The social climate within the university easily created venues for
interaction and mutual edification among the students. This was evident in the growth of
campus publications including The Bug, Beacon, The Eagle, The Sword, The Weekly,
The University Herald, The Criterion, and The University Voice which served as the official
organ of the students‟ union. In the sphere of extra-curricula activities, the Arts Theatre was
a major catalyst and it enjoyed the patronage of the small university community. Geoffrey
Axworthy of the English department, who was responsible for creating the Drama Unit in
the department, also directed plays at the theatre. The experiences of the students in their
new environment and the prospects of university education engendered in them an
awareness of their status as privileged members of the society with unlimited opportunities in
the emergent nation. They were not only fascinated by, but also celebrated their encounter
with, the prevailing intellectual attitudes in Europe. Some of the students saw the
university campus as a world on its own. Most of the activities that enlivened campus life at
Ibadan in those early years originated from students in the humanities.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Discuss the factors in the university which led to the establishment of campus journals.

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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
3.2 The Horn/ Black Orpheus

A major development in campus journal was the establishment of The Horn, a

poetry magazine in the Department of English in 1957. Martin Banham, a young
lecturer in the department who was also a fresh graduate of Leeds, suggested the
creation of the magazine to John Pepper Clark, then an honours student in the
department, who later started and first edited The Horn. Banham‟s proposal was borne out of a
desire to experiment with what was obtained at Leeds University, where Poetry and Audience, a
student-run magazine with the same orientation, was stimulating poetic creation.
Interestingly, the official involvement of the English department in this development was
minimal because the idea was novel in the university.

W.H. Stevenson, who was part of the department, explained that The Horn started
when John Pepper Clark gathered a committee of three including Higo Aigboje and
John Ekwere and so in January 1957 the first issue of The Horn appeared. There were no funds
available for such a venture. Martin Banham himself provided enough cash to start it; the
English Department provided paper also the printing equipment. But funds had to
be raised, and so The Horn was sold at two-pence a copy (raised after the third issue to
three pence, a price maintained until the end). It could not afford to appear in
any but the most modest from which was probably just as well if it were to remain
a genuine student magazine. The pioneering role of The Horn is often acknowledged
but within the few years in which it appeared was due largely to the effort of individuals who
were interested in giving impetus to the literary renaissance that it initiated.

After Clark‟s editorship, it became a rule that only third-year students would edit
it. But this never worked. Between January 1957 when its first issue was published and
1964 when it last appeared, The Horn only had five editors: J.P. Clark (1957-58), Abiola
Irele (1958-60), Dapo Adelugba (1960-62), Omolara Ogundipe (1962-63) and Onyema
Iheme (1963-64). Despite its short lifespan, The Horn gave exposure to many student-
poets and served as a forum for discussing issues related to Nigerian writing. Even
though copies of the journal are no longer easily accessible, some poems published in its
first three years have been collected in Nigerian Student Verse, an anthology edited by
Martin Banham. Curiously enough, Clark objected to being represented in the anthology on the
grounds that he was not writing “student verse”. The few contributions of Wole
Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo were also not included in the anthology. They
had both left Ibadan and had contributed from Leeds University and Fiditi College
respectively. Of the thirteen student-poets: Mac Akpoyoware, Minji Karibo,
Pius Oleghe, G.A. Adeyemo, Gordon Umukoro, Yetunde Esan, U. I. Ukwu, R. Opara,
Frank Aig-Imoukhuede, B. Akobo, A. Higo, J.D. Ekwere and Abiola Irele, whose works
constitute the twenty-seven poems that form Martin Banham‟s anthology, only Frank Aig-
Imoukhuede has since published a personal collection - Pidgin Stew and Other Poems (1982).

If The Horn mainly served the Ibadan student community, Black Orpheus,
another journal started at Ibadan in September 1957, was more ambitious. It was committed
to promoting cultural activity in the entire black world. It was also a brainchild of
expatriates - Ulli Beier, a German attached to the extra-mural department of the
University, and Janheinz Jahn, his compatriot, who did not reside in Nigeria but showed much
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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
interest in black arts and culture. The special interest of the founders of Black
Orpheus in poetry is reflected in its name and the journal made a stronger mpact
in the society than The Horn not only because it had a broader vision and wider circulation
but because it also enjoyed the financial support of the Paris-based Congress for
Cultural Freedom and the government of the old Western Region.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

What are the major reasons for the establishment of The Horn magazine and what is its focus in
literature?

3.3 The Mbari Club

The cultural currents stirred by the intellectual elites at Ibadan came to a climax in 1960 with
the formation of the Mbari Writers‟ & Artists‟ Club, an organization that soon harted
a direction for African arts and letters. The Mbari complemented the role of the
Black Orpheus in the sense that some of those who formed its nucleus were
associated with the journal. The cosmopolitan character of the first Mbari Club is
illustrated by some of its founders. These included: Chinua Achebe (Igbo); Frances
Ademola, (Ghanaian); Mabel Aig-Imoukhuede (now Segun), (Bini); Ulli Beier,
(German-born British citizen); John Pepper Clark, (Ijaw); Mercer Cook, (African-
American); the late Chief D.O. Fagunwa, (well-known Yoruba writer); Begun
Hendricks, (South African Indian); Vincent Kofi, (Ghanaian); Christopher Okigbo
(Igbo); Ezekiel Mphahlele (South African); Demas Nwoko (Igbo) and Wole Soyinka
(Yoruba).

The Igbo name Mbari, suggested by Chinua Achebe, has its roots in the Igbo religion where it
refers to a house built for, and dedicated to, Ala, the earth goddess. It denoted any act of
creation in which the light of the gods is reflected in the work of man. The name
perhaps bestowed an African essence of the creative enterprise inaugurated at the
Mbari centre which was located at the heart of Ibadan. Naturally, the activities of the group led to
the formation of similar clubs at Oshogbo and Enugu. Besides the creative ambience it
provided for writers, the Mbari centre was also used for art exhibitions, dramatic performances
and the training of promising writers. The club became a major cultural institution,
strong enough to take over the publication of Black Orpheus in partnership with
Longman in 1962. Mbari‟s success may be seen in the light of its popularization of
African writers and their works. Because the club ran a small press, it performed on a
large scale what the journal could attempt or only do on a small scale.

The Mbari, for instance, published the first volumes of a number of African
poets. Among these were Clark‟s Poems (1962), and Okigbo‟s Heavensgate (1962) and
Limits (1964). The club promoted the emergent art of these writers through its encouraging
exposure of their works. It is important to note that the writers and artists in the
Mbari were not all based in Ibadan. Okigbo, one of the frequent contributors, for
example, was teaching at Fiditi College -about twenty miles away from Ibadan. Early
Ibadan poetry is conceived here as the totality of the output of the poets, ranging from their
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juvenilia in student publications in the fifties, to their poems written just befor the civil war,
when with the maturation of some poetic voices and the assistance of the Mbari, individual
collections had begun to appear. Works published during the period may be seen as
unified by certain tendencies, such works being a product of the shared experiences of the
writers. At the same time, the works of Achebe, Clark, Soyinka and Okigbo represent both in
quantity and enduring merit, the best produced at that period. There is a need to examine
the manner in which the syllabus of the English department at Ibadan in its early days in
particular influenced the creative expression of her products who, understandably, constitute
the majority of our writers even in this contemporary dispensation.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Critically assess the role of the Mbari Club in the promotion literature and arts in Nigeria

3.4 Okike and Other Journals

With the establishment of Nigeria‟s first indigenous university at Nsukka, some of

the scholars from Ibadan trooped en mass to the new university. Most of them decided
to create a university of excellence by improving on the standard set up at Ibadan as a college of
the University of London. University of Nigeria, Nsukka was established in 1960,
some years after the graduation of the excellent literary scholars like Achebe, Soyinka,
Clark, Segun and Okigbo among others. The Department of English at Nsukka under the
headship of Chinua Achebe began the publication of Okike which he called “a journal
of new writing”. He was the Founding Editor for several years before leaving
Nsukka. Okike was created to cover issues beyond literary works. It covered such
areas as creative works, meta-criticism of literature, language and other issues relevant
to literary discourse. The other universities which fall into the first generation
universities include the University of Ife, Ahmadu Bello University and the University of
Lagos also has established literary journals in their departments of English.

Okike became a mouthpiece for several literary scholars within and outside
Nigeria. Some prominent African scholars like Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo,
Ngugi Wa Thiong‟o, Taban Lo Liyong, Dennis Brutus among many others contributed
to this journal. Many prominent scholars and writers in Nigeria began their literary
productions from being published in Okike. The journal created the opportunity
for literary expressions in many forms. Unlike the Ibadan journals which concentrated
mainly on poetry and prose, Okike gave voice to dramatists because Achebe encouraged the
inclusion of plays in the journal. Many known literary critics in Nigeria like Obi Wali, Abiola
Irele, and Biodun Jeyifo among others expressed some of their critical discourse in Okike. The
journal served in various forms to promote literary discourse and later became a
reference point in world literature. Okike experienced an interregnum when Achebe left
Nsukka. Okike is now being edited by Prof. Ossie Enekwe. It was and still is a respected
journal in the field of literature today. With the multiplication of universities in Nigeria
came the multiplicity of literary journals like Kiabara, Kakaki, Gong, Tablet, etc.
Most of these universities in Maiduguri, Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin, Calabar etc.
started various literary journals in the departments of English andDrama which
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aided in the development of literary consciousness in Nigeria and Africa at
large. However, with time, these journals metamorphosed into pure academic
journals with the sole aim of publishing critical works instead of literary
works. Although, the students‟ associations in most departments of English in
Nigeria still float literary journals edited by students under the tutelage of a lecturer in
the department. These journals now serve the function which The Horn and The
Beacon in Ibadan served. Some students‟ clubs like „The Literary Club‟, „Creative Writers‟
Club‟ and „The Creative Discourse Club‟ among others serve like the then Mbari
Club but the issue of inactive sensibility and consciousness have drained the
keenness expected in creativity among literary students today. Yet, many young
writers emerged from there.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4

Discuss in details what distinguished Okike from the other literary journals in
Nigeria

4.0 CONCLUSION

Early Nigerian writers like Achebe, Clark, Soyinka and Okigbo, for instance,
manifested peculiar traits which were best understood in relation to the
preference and growth of each of them. Early Clark was representative of the
poetry of his era in the sense that some of the best and the worst tendencies in
early Ibadan poetry were present in his poems collected in Poems. He
appeared to have been incapable of refining borrowed methods. His best poems,
“Ibadan,” “Night Rain” and perhaps “Abiku”, were therefore those not
stained by technical appropriations from his imitation of the style of
Hopkins, Yeats and Eliot. Clark‟s early poems were generally marked by a
nostalgic strain which betrayed his alienation from his people and their
culture. If his poem “Ivbie” then made a case for his violated people, “Agbor
Dancer” projected his own quest for reunion with the same people and
their heritage. Thus, the unnamed dancer merely provided him an occasion
for personal reflection. He compensated for his technical dependence by frequently
adopting a familiar locale as the setting for his poems.

Clark wrote that their training affected both their understanding and practice
of poetic craft in an essay entitled “Another Kind of Poetry” (1966).
Apart from the fact that the Ibadan poetry of this period is largely derivative, the
medium employed by the poets, especially Okigbo and Soyinka, evinces what,
for want of a better label, one may call „arrogant complexity‟. Intended
complex effects best confirms the elitist orientation of their art. It is safe to assume
that their audience was, in the main, the few university-trained art enthusiasts
at Ibadan at that moment who were already furnished with the skill and
learning needed to penetrate their work. Okigbo had been termed obscure. He
had said that his poetry was not for non-poets. Soyinka‟s poetry, like
Okigbo‟s, ranks among the most complex literatures in Africa. Chinua
Achebe‟s novel fashioned in line with the style of the British novel reads quite simple
because his prose was not poetic; the British writers he read wrote in
simplified prose to convey their message.
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5.0 SUMMARY

Martin Banham explains in his “introduction” to Nigerian Student Verse, that

the influence of European literature on Nigerian literature was unwholesome for
the growth of Nigerian literature. He explains, “Some of the verse presented here
shows only too clearly how deep is the influence of the alien verse of English
romanticism upon aspiring Nigerian writers. The more Nigerians can be encouraged
to write as Nigerians, about Nigerian themes, for Nigerian audiences, the better for the
development of a healthy literature in Nigeria.” Chinweizu and his colleagues
clarified this observation in Towards the Decolonization of African Literature. They
highlighted the “failure of craft” in the works of the Ibadan poets, tracing the problem to
what they saw as “a divorce from African oral and poetic traditions”. But the
truth is that this imitative tendency was a betrayal of the deeper anguish of
Nigerian writers at that historical moment. The writers, part of emergent elite
incapable of authentic self-expression, were caught in a crisis of identity. It
was almost inevitable that they would borrow idioms rooted in European literary
traditions to convey African experiences. Wole Soyinka has drawn attention to the
fact that a purist outlook on the African imagination was unrealistic. He
maintained that it was impossible to kill impulses generated by the contact of
Africa with the non-African world, as “individual writers,” in reality, “make
their creative emergence from the true and not the wistful untainted
backcloth” (“From a common backcloth...” 1963).

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Answer the following questions:

1. Discuss the foundation of journal literature in the University College Ibadan.

2. What are the major thrusts of The Horn and The Black Orpheus journals?
3. Assess the influence of The Mbari Club in the development of Nigerian
literature.
4. There were marked relationship in the style and language of the Nigerian and British
writers as discovered in Nigerian Student Verse. What led to this unfortunate identity?
5. Distinguish the literature of the early Ibadan writers with that of the contemporary
Nigerian writers.
6. Differentiate between Okike and the other literary journals in Nigeria.

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7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Aig-Imoukhuede, Frank (1961). Pidgin Stew and Suffer Head. Ibadan: Heinemann.

Aig-Imoukhuede, Mabel. On being a West African Writer. Ibadan 12 June (1961): 11-12.

Banham, Martin (1961). Nigerian Student Verse. Ibadan: U.P. Chinweizu, Jemie, O. &
Madubuike I. (1980). Toward the Decolonization of African Literature Vol. 1.
Enugu: Fourth Dimension.

Lindfords, Berth (1979). Critical Perspectives on Nigerian Literatures. London: Heinemann.

Soyinka, Wole (1967). “From a Common Backcloth: A Reassessment of the African Literary
Image.” The American Scholar 32, 3. 387-396.

Stevenson, W.H. (1976). “The Horn: what it was and what it did.” In Critical Perspectives on
Nigeria Literatures. Berth Lindfords (ed.) London: Heinemann. 209-233.

Tamuno, Tekena (1973). The Formative Years in the University of Ibadan: 1948-
73: A History of the First Twenty-Five Years. Ibadan: UP, --- --- ---. “Mbari
-The Missing Link”. Phylon XXVI, 3 (Fall): 247-254.

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UNIT 5 PIONEER DRAMA/THEATRE

CONTENTS

1.0 Introduction
2.0 Objectives
3.0 Main Content
3.1 General Overview
3.2 Performance Drama/Theatre
3.3 The Literary drama
3.4 The Emergent New Playwrights
4.0 Conclusion
5.0 Summary
6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignment
7.0 References/Further Readings

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we shall examine the emergence of Nigerian theatre/drama. Africa is a rich
theatrical environment. All aspects of the people‟s culture: birth, death, ritual and all
rites of passage have theatrical basis. The history of theatre in Nigeria traces back to then hey
days before the advent of colonialism. The traditional artist is a complete theatre in
practice. In orature, the folktale narrator is regarded as a complete one man theatre.
We will study the development of the theatre and the literary drama in Nigeria. We
will also take an incursion into the various factors that led the development of the genre in
Nigeria over the years.

2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

 trace the origin Nigerian theatre and literary drama;

 discuss the emergence and role of mobile theatres in Nigeria;
 relate the thematic focus of the early theatre practitioners with the present;
 see the early Nigeria theatre as a product of necessity; and
 assess the thematic concern of the early and current dramatists in Nigeria.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 General Overview

It is difficult to imagine any respectable assessment of contemporary Nigerian art, drama

in particular (being more indigenous than other art forms, like the novel) without a
consideration of its fountain, and in particular those images, tropes and usages
which continue to run through every stage and subsequent development of the
drama - from the traditional and trado-modern theatre through the literary theatre
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(especially drama of English expression), to the Community theatre, the Cinema and its
now ubiquitous successor, the „Home Video Film‟, sometimes contentiously referred
to as “Nollywood.” It is these archetypal tropes deriving from traditional modes of
theatrical expression that also continue to provide the mark of authenticity in contemporary
Nigerian drama. This authenticity includes but also transcends the question of language or verbal
deployment, to encompass the gamut of theatricality. What we find in contemporary Nigerian
drama is a continual projection of the past into the future at every level of theatrical expression.

The emergence of drama in Nigeria through the agency of the numinous is well established.
Anthropomorphic representatives of ancestral spirits – egungun in Yoruba, egwugwu in
Igbo, masquerade in English – emerge during funeral rites or other rituals around
which festivals and myths have been constructed in the indigenous communities.
Theatre emerged from the imitation of the egungun display and the appropriation of the ritual
motifs for popular cultural ends. Total theatre in the Nigerian contexts is defined
in terms of the relative degree of approximation of these motifs of the egungun
festival - mask, dance, drumming and singing, drama, audience participation. In contemporary
Nigerian theatre output from stage and literary theatre to video film we find a continued
quest to represent the cultural nuances of traditional Nigeria in the drama.

A parallel development from about the middle eighties was the rise of English
theatre professionalism which had begun to take the theatre of English expression out of the
University. Before then, theatre outside the university and school system had been the
main preserve of the indigenous language theatre, with the major Nigerian example being the
Yoruba Travelling Theatre. By the early 80s some teachers and students of theatre had begun
to seek outlet outside the walls of the university. Notable examples were John
Pepper Clark who set up his PEC Repertory theatre in Lagos in 1982 and Bode Sowande
who retired from the University of Ibadan at a fairly early age to concentrate on his Odu
Themes Meridian Productions. The heydays of the rise of professionalism of drama of
English expression in Nigerian were in the mid-eighties.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Lagos, a theatre tradition
developed featuring well-known English and European musicals, concerts and operas.
The actors, concert groups and clientele of the foreign tradition were the new,
Westernized elite. The artists featured included Handel and Mozart. Similar concert
groups were set up in lbadan and Abeokuta. Soon, there was a clamour for works based on
indigenous Nigerian subject matter, and one D. O. Oyedele is said to have written a play
entitled 'King Elejigbo' (1904) in response to the call. The play cannot now be traced,
but there are references to it in the Lagos theatre reviews of the period. This theatre
tradition did not last beyond the first decade of the twentieth century. Politics was already in
the air in Lagos and in other parts of Nigeria, and many of the leading spirits
behind the Lagos Theatre Movement, like Herbert Macaulay, soon found politics
more attractive than the theatre. For about forty years after the play 'King
Elejigbo', there was no notable development, in the Nigerian Theatre until Hubert Ogunde
came to the scene in 1944.

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SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

Discuss the transition from the traditional theatre to the elite theatre in Nigeria

3.2 Performance Drama/Theatre

There was a gradual development of the performance drama or theatre in Nigeria. Alarinjo, the
traditional Yoruba theatre so well espoused by Adedeji (“Alarinjo”) is direct ancestor of
the Yoruba Travelling Theatre which flourished from the late forties well into the late
eighties before its practitioners and their descendants dispersed into television, film and video
productions. At its zenith, the Yoruba travelling theatre assemblage had some two hundred
different theatre groups criss- crossing the length and breadth of the country Nigeria.
The major personages of the Yoruba travelling theatre in its formative years were the
acknowledged “father of Nigerian theatre”, Hubert Ogunde, and his contemporaries Duro Ladipo
and Kola Ogunmola. They constituted the „trinity‟ of the indigenous mask idiom in the
Nigerian theatre, the defining mark of their vocation being the representation of an
irreducible Africanness in language and histrionics. Performances were always preceded by
the „opening glee‟ which comprised traditional drumming, dancing and invocation of the
metaphysical realm and pertinent deities. Duro Ladipo‟s forte was the ritualised stage in
which Yoruba deities such as Sango, Oya and Moremi thundered back to life and electrified
stages across the globe. Ladipo was singularly responsible, with the collaboration of
transnational culture worker Uli Beier, for bringing the myths of Sango and some other
Yoruba deities to the international stage. The theatres of the trio were mutually reinforcing

Hubert Ogunde, who wrote both in English and in Yoruba, more than anyone
else, created the awareness of the modern theatre tradition in Nigeria. His was an
operatic travelling theatre, and he took his plays to various parts of the country, and
also to other West African countries, particularly Ghana and Sierra Leone, for
about forty years. Ogunde's plays have religious, social and political themes and
titles such as Garden of Eden, Nebuchandnezar's Feign, Herbert Macaulay, Journey
to Heaven, Tiger's Empire, Strike and Hunger and Yoruba Ronu (Yoruba
rethink). Occasionally, he came into confrontation with the political authorities and
had his plays banned. Hubert Ogunde was professionally remarkable in another sense.

Early in his theatre career, he confronted the problem of the frequent resignation
and departure of his actresses, especially as soon as they got married and their husbands
objected to their wives continuing as actresses because of the stigma
attached. Ogunde then solved this problem in a practical way by marrying virtually
all his actresses. This stabilized his performing company such that he often had
too many actresses and sometimes made some of the women to perform male
roles. Ogunde was the first professional theatre man in Nigeria who lived entirely
by the art and, indeed, for it.

Ogunde had many followers and imitators, and there is now a flourishing
art of the popular theatre. Biodun Jeyifo (1984) listed over a hundred such theatres in Yoruba
land alone. They are popular with the masses because they use the local language,
and their operatic mode (a balance of speech and music) endears them to the
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people. Indeed, the ordinary Nigerian is hardly aware of any other modern theatre form.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Critically assess Hubert Ogunde as “father of Nigerian theatre”

3.3 The Literary Drama

Apart from the popular travelling theatre of Ogunde and his followers, there is also
literary drama, largely university-based and elitists. One of the first practitioners of this
mode was James Ene Henshaw. He wrote several plays including This is Our
Chance, Children of the Goddess, Medicine for Love, and Dinner for
Promotion. These plays are commentaries on social and political life in Nigeria
in the years just before and after independence. They treat issues of culture contact and
conflict, of the problems of building a coherent nation out of diverse ethnic
groups, and of morality in social dealings. The plays were popular in schools
and other literate circles in the 1960s and early 1970s, and were the first diet of many
budding Nigerian playwrights.

By far, the dominant personality in Nigerian literary drama has been the Nobel laureate, Wole
Soyinka, who has been in active theatre, both inside and outside Nigeria, since
the late 1950s. He produced and published many plays. Early in his artistic
career, he established the Orisun Theatre Company and the 1960 Masks from
which literally flowed a stream of truly remarkable plays. He has a background which
includes the University of Leeds and the Royal Court Theatre in London,
university jobs in Lagos, lbadan and lfe and reasonably well- equipped theatres in
lbadan and lfe. Thus, Soyinka was well prepared for an outstanding career as a
playwright and theatre-practitioner.

Soyinka has tended to write two types of plays; first, the relatively easily comprehensible play
in which he is dealing with a single issue or a limited number of issues in
plain language; and second, the more ambitious, full-length play in which he is
dealing with a wide array of issues in complex language, often loaded with abstruse
imagery and symbolism, and for which he has acquired the reputation of being a
difficult writer. The easier plays include The Lion and the Jewel, The Jero
Plays, Kongi's Harvest and A Play of Giants, while the more abstruse ones
include The Road, The Strong Breed, Madmen and Specialists and Death
and the King's Horseman. In content also, Soyinka has tended to write two
types of plays, viz; the political play and the social/metaphysical play. In the political
plays, Soyinka exposes
the bizarre, insensitive and bestial nature of governance in contemporary Africa. In the
social/metaphysical plays, he explores, often in a satirical vein, issues like prejudices,
religious hypocrisy, and futurology, or he probes the nature of sacrifices, conflict, the
transition from life to death, and the inscrutable supernatural forces which control the universe.

John Pepper Clark is another important playwright. He has published seven plays,
namely, Songs of a Goat, The Masquerade, The Raft, Ozidi, The Boat, The Return Home,
Full Circle and The Wives‟ Revolt. The first four belong to the 1960s, and the
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last four to the 1980s. As in his poetry, Clark's setting is the ljaw Delta environment and
his universe is one of storm and tide, of sandbars, boat capsizes and drowning, and the
human tragedy enacted therein. The plays, with the exception of Ozidi which is
Shakespearean in style, have Greek models and seem organized into two sets of trilogies.

Ola Rotimi, who started his writing career in 1966, has been a well- rounded
theatre man and a first rate play director. He has published about six plays,
namely, The Gods Are not to Blame, Kurunmi, Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, Our
Husband has Gone Mad Again, If…Tragedy of the Ruled, and Holding Talks. Rotimi's
major pre-occupation in his plays is with history conceived as tragedy either in
metaphoric or in plain expository terms. The Gods are not to Blame , for example, is a
Nigerian adaptation of the 'Oedipus theme' in which Rotimi uses the metaphor of communal
dispute, self-love and ethnic pride to symbolize the problems that culminated in the Nigerian
Civil War of 1967-70. Thus, it is not the gods who are to blame for Nigeria's national
tragedy, but the people themselves who led their nation to disaster through their
incautious actions and aggressive self-interest. In Kurunmi and Ovonramwen
Nogbaisi, the message is even less ambiguous: it is the case of a people who plunge
themselves into tragedy either because of the excesses of their leader or the limited
vision of the people themselves.

There are several other playwrights in Nigeria who belong to this liberal-conservative
ethos, notably Wale Ogunyemi and two women playwrights, Zulu Sofola and Tess
Onwueme. Ogunyemi's landscape is similar to that of Ola Rotimi. His ljaiye War, for example,
is earlier and uses basically the same material as Rotimi draws on for his Kurunmi.
Ogunyemi has published many other plays, including Eshu Elegbara, and Obaluaye.

Zulu Sofola, the first Nigerian woman playwright, has been writing plays for over
twenty years. Her titles include Wedlock of the Gods (1972), King Emene (1974) and
The Disturbed Peace of Christmas. Her forte is tragedy put in domestic or two ritual
setting with human error, insensitivity or crime as the tragic flaw. In Wedlock of the Gods, her
first play, a girl was bundled off to marriage because her parents needed money
from her dowry to pay medical bills for her sick brother. She considers herself as
being in bondage for three years the marriage lasted, and then the husband dies. Rather
than wait for three months as stipulated by custom or agree to the obnoxious custom of
leviration, she becomes pregnant for her former lover. Custom is broken, the consequences
are severe - the plot thickens as the tragedy unfolds.

By contrast, Tess Onwueme started writing in the early 1980s. Her plays include A Hen Too
Soon (1983), The Broken Calabash (1984), The Desert Encroaches (1985), The Reign
of Wazobia (1988) and Legacies (1989). Unlike Sofola, her vision is not
predominantly about the past; rather she moves across temporal and cultural
frontiers with relative ease.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Critically assess the thematic focus of most Nigerian playwrights.

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3.4 The Emergent New Playwrights

In the late 1970s and the 1980s, a group of young people started expressing unease
about the prevailing liberal-conservative ethos in the Nigerian theatre. They were mostly
former disciples or admirers of Soyinka, but who were no longer fully satisfied
with his vision of society. While still paying respect to his great artistic
skill, they suggested that he was not giving the adequate leadership in his plays
about what the people ought to do to alleviate their social and political problems. With varing
degrees of sophistication, they express their desire to see the theatre in the vanguard of
the search for solutions to society's problems and as a propaganda machine
designed to achieve this purpose. Some of the prominent names in this socialist
alternative are Femi Osofisan, Bode Sowande, Tunde Fatunde, Olu Obafemi, Sam Ukala
and Kole Omotoso.

Osofisan has published more than eleven plays, the most important of which are
The Chattering and the Song (1977), Who is Afraid of Solarin? (1978), Once
Upon Four Robbers (1980) and Morountodun (1982). Bode Sowande's plays include
The Night Before, Farewell to Babylon and A Sanctus for Women (1979).
Fatunde has No More Oil Boom (1985), Blood and Sweat (1985), No Food, No
Country, (1985) and Oga Na Tief Man (1986). Obafemi's publications include three short plays:
Night of the Mystical Beast (1986), The New Dawn (1986), and Suicide Syndrome
(1988). Omotoso wrote the play The Curse (1976).

All these plays in various ways protect the socialist vision of the Nigerian
society. At its most competent, for example in Osofisan's plays, the vision is
realized through carefully woven plots mediated by limit-credible characters and
situations. Some of the playwrights, however, give the impression that their
works have been hurriedly put together to catch the moment. Such plays are little
more than topical social and political tracts with only a thin veneer of fiction.

This succeeding generations of dramatists of English, for which Femi Osofisan and
Bode Sowande remain frontline representatives were not as tired of the gods as
they had proclaimed, even if they do seem occasionally wary of their „inviolability‟.
Also literary in orientation, their work is however marked by ideological departures,
and a toning down of sacred idioms of the numinous in favour of a more secular verbal
engagement. The gods continue to appear in the lays of Osofisan, allegedly only as „metaphor‟
rather than in their full mystical significance as potent, real or functional personages of the
metaphysical world. The distinction between the deployment of the numinous as myth or as
metaphor had been subject of scholarly exchange.What is crucial to the current engagement
however is the continued appropriation of tropes of the traditional theatre for
contemporary dramaturgy in their works.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4

Most Nigerian playwrights acknowledge Soyinka‟s influence. Explain why some

dramatists towed a new direction
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4.0 CONCLUSION

Apart from the traditional folktale narrator and Yoruba Travelling theatre groups
at the early state of theatre, theatre in Nigeria was largely university-based and elitist even
though the question of authentic representation of indigenous theatre aesthetics was
more prominent. The drama of frontline playwrights like Soyinka, John Bekederemo-
Clark and Sofola acquitted themselves well in their deep-structure representation of the
Nigerian worldview and aesthetics. Soyinka proved also to be consistently master
translator of the indigenous ritual stage, with metaphysical confrontation deployed
as metaphor for the understanding of life‟s critical moments in his major works from
Dance of the Forest (1960) to Death and the King‟s Horseman (1975). His plays are drawn
into the arc of post-coloniality not on account of being post-independence per se but also
because of the debates and issues they deliberate set up in opposition to colonial
experience and European postulation of epistemological and cultural superiority.
Confrontation is usually achieved at two structural levels of drama and dialogue, first by
pitching the Yoruba metaphysical world-view in direct confrontation with
western/colonial epistemic or ontological systems, and second through telling, reality
invoking dialogue.

The late matriarch of the literary stage of English expression in Nigeria, Zulu Sofola, herself a
theorist of the African stage, explores the realm of the tragic and ritual as representational idiom
in both her Wedlock of the Gods and King Emene (The tragedy of a Rebellion). She is also
known for her gender-centred plays. In her work, tragic conflict consists on the one and in a
confrontation with temporal and super-temporal powers beyond one‟s full understanding
and grasp, and on the other hand in her immersion in her dual Igbo (Isele Ukwu)
and Yoruba traditional heritage.

The other playwrights and theatre practitioners have been in the vanguard of
addressing socio-political issues in Nigeria through the theatre. They have been
realizing the odds of the Nigerian state in various forms on stage. Unlike, the
histrionic concerns of Hubert Ogunde‟s art, the later dramatists aim more on the
correction of political odds, social vices and culture destruction.

5.0 SUMMARY

The Nigerian state has been affecting the Nigerian theatre and drama. What was
more difficult to survive was the grip of the Nigerian political economy and its aftermath, which
has proved an even greater test for the resilience of the tenets of traditional drama
aesthetics. The downturn in the Nigerian economy from about the early eighties had a direct
impact on the literary theatre as on various other intellectual sectors. The
departments of English and theatre in Nigeria, which had been the nursery of the
important dramas, began to suffer severe brain drain and creativity fatigue. Promising
playwrights had their attention divided by the sheer need to survive economically and began
to turn their creativity into other, occasionally and not so noble, spheres. The
commitment of students who were the mainstay of the literary theatre productions
(as cast and crew members and as consumers) could no longer be
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ENG 114 INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE
guaranteed. Many outstanding students could not secure graduate assistantship
in university departments where they could have honed their talents. The relative
economic security and political stability that produced the great literary works of
the first and second generation playwrights had suddenly vanished. Related to this
was the problem of dictatorship, the clamp-down on the Nigerian intelligentsia from
where came the most vociferous opposition to untoward government policies left
the university in droves for either the private sector or the intellectual
pastures in Europe, America and even some more favourable climes in Africa such as South
Africa where the radical dramatist Kola Omotoso, and more recently the poet and
literary critic Harry Garuba reside. Even Soyinka left Nigeria at the height
of the draconian experiences. Theatre/dramatic literature in Nigeria is long history
of upheavals.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Answer these questions:

1. Trace the emergence of Nigerian theatre from the time of orature

2. Discuss the role of Yoruba Travelling Theatre in the development of Nigerian Theatre.
3. Carefully assess the influence of Wole Soyinka in Nigerian
Theatre practice.
4. What factors led to the emergence of anti-Soyinka playwrights?
5. Highlight the major thematic focus of Nigerian theatre artists/dramatists since the
late 80s.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS

Adedeji, Joel (1978). “Alarinjo: Traditional Yoruba Travelling Theatre,” Theatre in Africa. Ed.
Oyin Ogunba & Abiola Irele. Ibadan: Ibadan UP, 27 – 51.

Adelugba, Dapo (1978). Wale Ogunyemi, Zulu Sofola, Ola Rotimi: “Three Dramatists in
Search of a Language”. Theatre in Africa. Ed. Oyin Ogunba & Abiola Irele. Ibadan:
Ibadan UP, 201 – 220.

Clark, John Pepper (1985). “Aspects of Nigerian Drama” in Drama and Theatre in Nigeria: A
Critical Source Book. (Ed.) Yemi Ogunbiyi. Lagos: Nigeria Magazine.

Jeyifo, Biodun (1984). “The Yoruba Popular Travelling Theatre of Nigeria”. in Dramaand
Theatre in Nigeria: A Critical Source Book. (Ed.) Yemi Ogunbiyi. Lagos: Nigeria
Magazine.

Osofisan, Femi (1982). “Ritual and the Revolutionary Ethos: The Humanistic Dilemma” in
Nigerian Theatre.” Okike 22 (1982): 72 – 81.

Soyinka, Wole (1982). “Theatre in African Traditional Cultures: Survival Patterns.” Art,
Dialogue and Outrage. 190 – 203.
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