Environmental Sustainability, Security, and the Politics of Ecological Violence in Nnimmo Bassey’s Eco-Poetry (Published)
This study interrogates the ecological crisis in Nigeria’s Niger Delta through an interdisciplinary synthesis of postcolonial ecocriticism and environmental security discourse, foregrounding the intricate nexus between environmental sustainability and national security. Drawing on a qualitative methodology grounded in close textual analysis, the paper examines selected poems from Nnimmo Bassey’s We Thought It Was Oil, but It Was Blood and I Will Not Dance to Your Beat. It argues that Bassey’s eco-poetry transcends conventional environmental protest to function as a critical discourse that reconfigures ecological degradation as a form of structural and securitised violence. Central to this analysis is the symbolic triad of earth, oil, and blood, which encodes the entanglement of ecological devastation, economic exploitation, and human insecurity within the Niger Delta. The study further demonstrates how Bassey’s poetic imagination exposes the paradox of petro-capitalism, wherein resource abundance engenders poverty, militarisation, and socio-political instability. In sum, the paper contends that eco-poetry constitutes an epistemic and political intervention that advocates sustainable resource governance, ecological restoration, and the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals as prerequisites for peace and stability, in Nigeria.
Keywords: Environmental Justice, Environmental sustainability, National Security, Niger Delta eco-poetry, environmental security discourse, postcolonial ecocriticism
Eco-theatre and Environmental Ethics in Rudolph Kansese’s Obeseri (Rumble in the Wild): Reimagining Performance for a Sustainable Future (Published)
This paper addressed the lack of critical engagement with ecological ethics in Nigerian theatre, despite the country’s worsening environmental crises. Using “Obeseri: Rumble in the Wild” by Rudolph Kansese as a case study, the study applied Una Chaudhuri’s theories of Geo-pathology and Species thinking to examine how performance can move from raising awareness to provoking moral reflection on environmental loss. Employing qualitative and textual analysis, the study interprets Obeseri as an eco-theatrical narrative that dramatizes the contradictions between cultural heroism and ecological collapse. It revealed the forest as a grieving entity and animals as ethical witnesses, thus challenging anthropocentric storytelling and reinforcing the moral complexity of traditional folklore. The study contributed to African performance scholarship by showing that Nigerian theatre rooted in ritual, myth, and communal ethics holds powerful potential for environmental advocacy. It recommended ecologically conscious set and costume design, dramaturgies grounded in indigenous knowledge, and performances that treat nature as an active presence. The article concluded that eco-theatre in Nigeria is both relevant and urgent, offering a creative and ethical platform for imagining a more sustainable future.
Keywords: .eco-theatre, Environmental sustainability, Ethics, Folklore, dramatic performance