Conclusion
The crisis in the African continent is evincible in almost every sphere of human endeavour - politically, economically, socially, historically and culturally. Ambrose Kom passionately laments over the catatonic state of Africa’s political arrangement:
The multidimensional failure of our institutions: Phantom states in search of an undiscoverable Democracy; an extrovert economic which is almost entirely controlled by corrupt networks; a disjointed society whose essential services – schools, public health, personal safety in particular – seem Irremediably compromised; young people who are crippled, left to themselves
in a world without any ethics (3).
This abysmal portrait of the execrable political state of contemporary Africa is by no means contentious. A critical appraisal of recent African poetry reveals an even more horrid picture. Recent African poets have displayed acute dismay at the problems of post-independence African states and are committed to artistic strategies in the quest for the resolution of the dire economic crisis that has reduced Africa, which Bill Ashcrof subtly puts as the “conflict between a dominant discourse and a local reality” (1). Recent African poets have not only reconstructed the nauseating social realities of their environment but have often proffered some form of ergonomic designs to palliate the appalling socio-political realities of Africa. The images in their poetry are rife with biting ironies. Through these ironies they dialectically interrogate the political idiocy of government.
Poetry for these poets is not just a mere package or assemblage of social facts in artistic form but a documentation of the diffused pains of the people and a blue print for containing Africa’s governmental misrule. The representation of government in the poetic vocation of these poets is demonic, their sense of criminality portrayed with artistic clarity. For African rulers, production or responsibility is socialized but distribution is privatized, hence while the ruled croon over their state of economic debility, the depraved rulers are ensconced in egocentricism. Success for them is measured against the heights of the skyscrapers they have erected and the impregnability of their fortresses and security zones. As the political temper of Africa continues to change the gulf between the ruled and the rulers continues to be unbridgeable. However, African poets continue to be very enterprising, proving that their wit, mythopoesis and, above all, their deep sense of commitment to the African predicament are of monumental importance.
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* Ogaga Okuyade is a Doctorial Candidate at the Department of English, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
(c) Ogaga Okuyage. All rights reserved.
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