Abstract
Oil (crude) has become such an important international resource that has attracted all kinds of attention and conflicts among states and between states and citizens. In Nigeria, oil has been implicated as a major factor leading to coups and counter coups in the jostle for power among the various factions of the ruling elite to establish their hegemony with a view to controlling the wealth of the nation. This paper reviews the politics of oil in the Niger Delta in particular and the Nigerian post-colonial state in general, including the implications of this politics on national development. Tanure Ojaide’s novel The Activist provides an anchor to examine the struggles of the Niger Delta peoples against a vampire state working with entrenched interests.
Keywords: oil, imperialism, Niger Delta, Ojaide, The Activist, vampire state, underdevelopment
Introduction
In Nigeria as Turner and Badru (1984) have shown, oil has been implicated as a major factor leading to coups and counter coups in the jostle for power among the various factions of the ruling elite to establish their hegemony with a view to controlling the wealth of the nation. The stupendous wealth accruing from oil to both the state and the oil multinationals at the expense of the communities and their environment has spawned serious clashes with tragic consequences between the Oil Companies and the host communities of the Niger Delta in Nigeria.
Niger Delta in History
The area known as the Niger Delta in Nigeria spans over 70,000 square kilometers. Prior to the coming of the Europeans, the Niger Delta peoples were relatively a successful lot as they engaged in their trading activities amongst themselves and their neighbours. Since the Anglo-Dutch Multinational Oil Corporation, Shell, struck the first Oil well in Oloibiri in the central Niger Delta in 1956, the communities in the region have known only poverty, pain and privation.
The Nigerian State and the Niger Delta Region
Historically, the Nigerian state is a creation of colonial rule and it has continued to function as the instrument of economic accumulation and a key player in its distribution. The Nigerian state has not done away with its colonial character and at every turn when there is a conflict it resorts to brutality and outright decimation of the people. The legitimate demands of the Niger Delta people for basic social and infrastructural developments were treated with contempt by the neo-colonial ruling class. In November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight other Ogoni compatriots were hanged after a flawed judicial trial on the orders of General Abacha.
The Role of Literature in a Crisis-Ridden State
As Shatto Arthur (1977) has noted, “human suffering has been the subject matter common to literature of all cultures.” Given the place of writers in society, they intervene from time to time through their creative lenses in the goings-on in their societies. In Nigeria for instance, its writers identified with their nationalist politician colleagues in the struggles of Nigerians to liberate themselves from the shackles of colonialism and imperialism.
The Activist as an Expose of the State and the Oil Multinationals
The Activist is Ojaide’s attempt at creating a fictional prose work out of the crisis bedeviling the Niger Delta. The novel is woven round a Niger Delta patriot named the Activist by the author. The novel is set during the military era in Nigeria with all the brutalities associated with the regime. The Activist establishes a strong relationship with the area boys, the students’ movement and the Women of Delta Forum (WODEFOR), recognising the power of women in the march to change the Niger Delta.
The implicit message that Ojaide tries to pass across in the novel has to do with the intricate and complex relationship existing between the state, imperialist forces represented by the Oil Corporations and the colluding elite. The above is achieved because of the collusion between perfidious internal agents and their Western masters to sustain their hegemonic interests.
Conclusion
All in all, The Activist is a novel about exile, about corruption of the elite, about corporations in peripheral formations with emphasis on Nigeria, about Military dictatorship in Nigeria, imperialism with its complex institutions. The writer tries to show the possibility of change if correct and practical strategies and tactics are adopted by social movements working strenuously for a change of the status quo.
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