Title: Exploring Activist Poetics and the Nigerian Leadership in Ndubuisi Martin’s Answers through the Bramble
Bartholomew Chizoba Akpah
Department of Languages and Literature
William V. S. Tubman University
Harper, Liberia
Abstract
Ndubuisi Martins, one of Nigeria’s young contemporary poets, reincarnates the vagaries of Nigeria’s neo-colonial desolation, which reflects a culture of mediocrity in Nigerian leadership and the continuous suffering of the masses. He lays bare in his poetry a strict disapprobation of dysfunctional and catatonic conditions that continue to widen the gap between the disadvantaged Nigerians and the political class that this study investigates. Thus, the significance of the study lies in the intervention of poetry as activism by Ndubuisi Martins to excoriate and negotiate better living conditions for the Nigerian masses. The study adopts
Marxism literary theory which explores the consciousness of class struggle in the interpretation of five selected poems: “To a returning general”; “When you said…”; “silence is spirit”; “The Reports”, and “Naija is a badly behaved poem”. The selected poems were critically analyzed as reflections of Nigeria’s leadership complexities that impose hardship on the Nigerian masses. This is what Martin’s poetry fustigates in answers through the bramble as a literary activist and intellectual voice against the tyranny of the ruling class in Nigeria.
Keywords:
Ndubuisi Martins, Nigerian leadership, activism, Marxism, Nigerian masses
How to Cite this Paper:
Bartholomew, C. A. (2023). Exploring Activist Poetics and the Nigerian Leadership in Ndubuisi Martin’s Answers through the Bramble. Atras Journal, 4(1), 150-170
References
Achebe, C. (1958). Things fall apart. London: Heinemann.
Adeniyi, E. (2021). “Who Nigeria Epp? From muse to text, neo-Marxist appeal and alter/native canonicity of two Nigerian poets. Postcolonial studies, 24(3) 399-419, DOI:10.1080/13688790.2020.1845112.
Adisa, O. (2020). “ENDSARS: Nigerian masses on the move-end, capitalist oppression and
exploitation”. In Defence of Marxism. Available at https://www.marxist.com/endsars- nigerian-masses-on-the move-end-capitalist-oppression-and-exploitation.htm.
Akpah, B. C. (2018). Venerating womanhood and rebranding feminist values in Lynn Chukura’s Archetyping in Ebonyi Journal of English and Literary Studies. Abakiliki: Meks Printing Conceptz Ltd.
Akpah, B. C X-raying contemporary consciousness in the poetics of Northern Nigerian women. Ife Journal of Language and Literature. Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. www.http//www.oauife.edu.ng ISSN: 2467-8635.
Awhefeada, S. (2017). Tanure Ojaide: Literary activism and order of merit. The Guardian. Available at https://guardian.ng/features/tanure-ojaide-activism-and-the-order-of- merit.
Babalola, D., & Onapajo, H. (2019). New clamour for “restructuring” in Nigeria: elite politics, contradictions, and governance. African Studies Quarter,18 (4). 41-56.
Can, T. (1972). The will to die. London: Heinemann.
Chigurupati, S. (2020). Niyi Osundare: The “Eco Elegist” Echoes through his Elegies. Global journal of human-social science: G linguistics & education. Online ISSN 2249-460.
D’Clark, R. S. (2020). “in conversation with Lola Shoneyin” Shades of Noir interviews.
Egya, E. S. (2011). Poetics of rage: A reading of Remi Raji’s poetry. Ibadan: Kraftbooks. Interesting literature. (2020). 10 classic poems about empire and imperialism. Available at www.google.com/amp/interestingliterature.com
Ngugu, W. T. (1991). Petals of blood. New York: Penguin Books.
Ngugi, W. T & Mugo, M. G. (1976). The trial of Dedan Kimathi. London: Heinemann.
Martins, N. (2021). Answers through the bramble. Ibadan: Grand Touch Limited.
Martins, N. (2017). One call, many answers. Ibadan: Communicators’ League.
Morawski, S. (1974). Marxism and Art. Essays Classic and Contemporary by Maynard Solomon Review by Stefan Morawski: The journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticisms, 37(I) 97-101.
Nwagbara, U. (2010). Poetics of resistance: ecocritical reading of Ojaide’s Delta Blues, Home Songs and Daydream of ants and other poems. African Study Monographs, 31(1), 17-30.
Obaze, O. (2017). Restructuring Nigeria, policy interrogation, discourse and debate restructuring Nigeria: Not when, but how. Available at Gamji.com/obaze/obaze15.htm
Ojaide, T. (1998). Delta blues and home songs. Ibadan: Kraftbooks.
Ojogan, I. (2010). A synchronic exploration of Nigerian poetry 1980-2000, (Unpublished doctoral thesis), University of Ibadan.
Okolie, A., Enyiazu, C., & Nnamani, K. E. (2021). Campaign propaganda, electoral outcome and the dynamics of governance in the post-2015 presidential election in Nigeria, Cogent Social Sciences, (7). DOI: 10.1080/23311886.2021.1922180.
Osundare, N. (2022). “Deep green” Available at https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/deep-
green-12577.
Olaopa, T. (2020). “EndSARS protest as a revolutionary movement” The Guardian. Available at https://guardian.ng/opinion/endsars-protest-as-a-revolutionary-moment/
Oyono, F. (1966). Houseboy. London: Heinemann Educational Books.
Shoneyin, L. (1998). So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg. Ibadan: Ovalonion House.
Ugah, A. (1983). Song of talakawa. Braunton: Merlin Books.
Verisimo, J., & Yeku, J. (Eds.). (2021). SOROSOKE: AN #ENDSARS ANTHOLOGY. Ibadan: Noirledge.
Copyright for all articles published in ATRAS belongs to the author. The authors also grant permission to the publisher to publish, reproduce, distribute, and transmit the articles. ATRAS publishes accepted papers under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. Authors submitting papers for publication in ATRAS agree to apply the CC BY-NC 4.0 license to their work. For non-commercial purposes, anyone may copy, redistribute material, remix, transform, and construct material in any media or format, provided that the terms of the license are observed and the original source is properly cited.