An Insider Testimony: Odia Ofeimun and His Generation of Nigerian Poets

Abstract

Odia Ofeimun’s early life experiences, the sociopolitical condition and intellectual climate of his youth and adult life, and national and other historical circumstances appear to have not only prepared him for but also goaded him into an activist poet’s career. He ranges on the side of the common people and is at the vanguard of forces struggling against tyranny, dictatorship, oppression, injustice, and other sociopolitical vices so as to establish humane and democratic values. Because of this historicist approach, the specific contexts of historical period, geographical place, and local society and culture will be used to locate and interrogate Ofeimun’s work among his peers’ literary contributions since he shares similar public but often different individual experiences with members of his generation. The evolution of democracy must begin with its antecedents of dictatorship, tyranny, and undemocratic governance and vices, which are gradually eroded through struggle for more humane and democratic values.

I cannot despair

—Odia Ofeimun