The Niger Delta and the Quest for Street Politics in Jowhor Ile’s And after many Days

This article examines the protest tradition in the Nigerian Niger-Delta fiction and advocates for the necessity of street politics as an alternative to a mere expression of anger; using Jowhor Ile’s debut and adroit novel, And after many Days (2016), which won the Etisalat Prize for literature in 2017. The article adopts the qualitative research method to explore the dimensions of violence meted on the people of the region. It argues that street politics will suffice in alleviating the region’s problems. Street politics is the politics of dissent and active non-compliance which tends to arm the people for active resistance against the forces of exploitation. Using postcolonial ecocritical lens, the article contends that multi-national companies operating in the region connive with local political leaders to rob the people of their God-given resources. The paper concludes that if the region’s crisis must be addressed, internal colonialism must be dealt with, and this can only be achieved by the creation of active dissidents, through street politics, similar to the Arab Spring.


Introduction
The Nigerian Niger-Delta crisis has become a major subject of discourse by environmentalists and eco-critical scholars both at national and international levels, attracting differing views. The central and adroit thesis points to the fact that the people of the Nigerian Niger-Delta have been exploited, devalued, and ravaged by the forces of neoliberal capitalism and internal colonialism, and these neo-colonisers are determined to keep the region as a buffer zone for their economic and political gains.
Historically, the Kaiama Decoration was one of the attempts to call on the attention of the oil companies and the Nigerian State to the effect of oil exploitation on the Niger Delta environment. The declaration, among other issues decried that, despite the huge contributions the region makes to the national coffers, her reward was death, arising from ecological devastation and military repressions. There has been no sincere effort by the Federal Government of Nigeria to rehabilitate the fragile Niger Delta environment. The Niger Delta, its history Abstract This article examines the protest tradition in the Nigerian Niger-Delta fiction and advocates for the necessity of street politics as an alternative to a mere expression of anger; using Jowhor Ile's debut and adroit novel, And after many Days (2016), which won the Etisalat Prize for literature in 2017. The article adopts the qualitative research method to explore the dimensions of violence meted on the people of the region. It argues that street politics will suffice in alleviating the region's problems. Street politics is the politics of dissent and active non-compliance which tends to arm the people for active resistance against the forces of exploitation. Using postcolonial ecocritical lens, the article contends that multi-national companies operating in the region connive with local political leaders to rob the people of their God-given resources. The paper concludes that if the region's crisis must be addressed, internal colonialism must be dealt with, and this can only be achieved by the creation of active dissidents, through street politics, similar to the Arab Spring.
particularly, oil history has attracted many scholars who have devoted scholarly attention to its studies. Among them are: Dike (1956); Tamuno Oil Wars in the Niger Delta: 1849, (2011Alagoa (1964Alagoa ( ), (1999; Nwahunanya (ed) From boom to Doom: Protest and Conflict Resolution in the Literature of the Niger Delta (2011); Okuyade (ed) Eco-critical Literature: Regreening African Landscapes, (2013); among others. This present study examines the Niger Delta environment and people along the trajectory of street politics as an alternative mechanism to protest and survivalism.
It seems that the discovery of oil in the region in commercial quantity is yet to profit the people of the region. Consequently, there have been violent protests which have culminated in militancy, kidnapping, among other forms of agitation, as the people struggle to have a fair share of the resources extracted from their land. These agitations have been seen by the Nigerian leadership as an affront. Diverse military operations have been embarked upon by the Nigerian government to deal with this perceived aggression from the people. One of such operations is Operation Crocodile Smile. Agitation for better living conditions for the people of the region had claimed the lives of notable environmentalists and writers such as Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa.
It is at this intersection that Jeyifo's assertion becomes remarkably relevant. He asserts that "This perhaps is understandable; by general, worldwide consensus, the oil boom in Nigeria has turned to oil doom" (4). Furthering his position, he explains that "Social and political disasters have followed in the wake of our oil boom" (Jeyifo 5). The people's farmlands have been lost to oil spillages and they are threatened by epidemics. Okpewho explains that the Niger-Delta environment plays host to a lot of flora and fauna, "Because of the very imposing presence of forests" (3). The forests have now been lost to oil exploration and spillages, and the current agitation is to correct these anomalies and reclaim the environment.
According to Raji, "oil resources worth several billions of dollars had been exploited from the bowels of Oloibiri, the town now stands in 'limbo'. It has no roads, no electricity, no drinking water… No good schools or any well-equipped health centre" (113). Raji's summation is an authentication of the earlier position of Saro-Wiwa that "The Ogoni nation sits in poverty on oil" (10). It becomes clear that the Ogoni situation is a real paradox, just as Saro-Wiwa, succinctly and convincingly captures the situation thus: "It is ironical that the discovery of oil on our land has brought us nothing but misery, hunger, and pain. By contrast, oil has brought prosperity and wealth to others who controlled the government and so the economic life of…Nigeria" (11). The ugly and gory picture depicted above agrees with the views of Ushie, who posits that: 50 years of crude oil exploration and exploitation has rather left the Niger-Delta completely vandalised, it once fertile land soaked in and sterilised in crude oil, its people living in thatch and mud shacks, its rivers, streams, and creeks poisoned , its fishes murdered, its people…left without drinking water, left without electricity supply, left without security, left without jobs, left without health facilities … And worse the region lives in the midst of oil spillages and round the clock gas flares…thus instead of fetching Niger-Deltans gold bracelets, crude oil fetches them handcuffs, instead of fetching them necklaces, it fetches them nooses, instead of fetching them tarred roads, its fetches them early graves (14). Ushie's position summarises vividly the situation in the Niger Delta. For the people, they were going through what can be described as rape of hope. Ushie's position alludes to the death of Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni writer, and environmental activist. His death becomes a new site for the struggle in the Niger Delta. According to Na'Allah, "The death of Saro-Wiwa and others have become a watershed in the struggle for the emancipation of the Nigerian downtrodden. Saro-Wiwa's death did not deter the people from the environmental and resource control struggles; rather, it emboldened them, giving them the impetus to advance their cause in a more tendentious manner. The struggle to free the region from the fangs of the capitalists and their neo-liberal policies backed by internal colonisers, is aimed at bettering the lives of the people and also "a metaphor for gauging social disaffection" (4).
According to Asagba, "In spite of the contrived peace parleys …the issues of resources control, or social justice and equity, cultural liberation, community right, and economic independence have continued" (7). Embedded in Asagba's position is the fact that the palliative measures put in place by the various regimes in Nigeria, were only postponing the doom's day. What is needed is equity and economic independence that would bring prosperity to the region. Asagba's views are in tandem with the perspective of Ugala, who argues that the struggle of the Niger Delta is similar to other struggles of deprived people all over the world; such as the Jewish Zionism, The Maji Maji uprising, the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa (59). The Niger Delta struggle is unique in the sense of its paradoxes, "The Niger Delta that has the oil, which has transformed the rest of the country into an eldorado of some sort, has been turned by the same oil into a desolate wilderness…. Oil spillage has destroyed their agrarian and aquatic life" (Ugala 65). The Nigerian Niger-Delta region has become, not only a desolate wilderness but an economic wilderness of sort.

Street Politics
Street politics has become a medium where the citizens who cannot or appear not to have political control takes to the street to make their voices heard. It involves civil disobedience, violent protest, and in most cases shutting down public facilities. Street politics is an expression of dissent and this has helped in changing the direction of government's policies. Street politics helps to bring about politics fueled by progressive impulses whose primary aim is to facilitate social, political, and economic justice for the overall good of the society. Phelps argues that in all ramifications, street politics rejects the idea of social Darwinism, a theory which explains that society is an arena for economic competitions whose terms of engagement are determined by market forces and that success is rewarded by survival which perpetuates the strong and eliminates the weak (76). The sustained and brutal exploitation of the working class and their seeming haplessness has given rise to a deluge of dissenting voices rejecting capitalist incantations.
In their opinion, Acemoglu, Hassan and Ahmed posit that corruption and favoritism have motivated the people to pour into the street to protest the economic arrangements benefiting connected individuals and firms. Such protests have sometimes been successful in unseating unpopular regimes. They make specific reference to the regime of Hosni Mubarak who "was forced to resign in the face of large protests in the main square of Cairo, Tahrir Square" (2) These views are aligned with those of Bayat, who posits that "The street is the chief focus of politics for ordinary people, those who are structurally not from the position of power…the street represents a complex entity wherein sentiments and outbursts are formed, spread, and expressed…In the street, one finds not only marginalized elements…but also actors with institutionalized power like students, workers" (1). This group of people collectively explode with outrage in other to change their fortunes. This agrees with the earlier views of Akung who posits that the "armed struggle, militancy, kidnapping in the Niger Delta are the different manifestations of the aspirations of violated locals for human freedom" (203).
The street has the power, and its potency cannot be underestimated, which goes to explain the doctrine of popular sovereignty, that power resides with the people and it is held by the elected representatives in trust for the people, and the people can take back such power through the ballot or violent protest and revolution. For instance, an entire government was forced to resign in Lebanon following the explosion in Beirut on August 4, 2020, that left no fewer than two hundred people death, over five thousand wounded and about six thousand homeless.

Methodology
This paper adopts a qualitative approach which seeks to provide an understanding of how Jowhor Ile creatively constructed a narrative of the despoliation, abuse and rape of the Niger Delta environment and, the need for street politics to redeem it. Data for analysis are gleaned from Ile's debut novel, And after many Days (2016). Other materials such as reviews, critical essays from journals, libraries and the internet also helped to guide the discourse and argument. To achieve this, the discussion is guided by postcolonial ecocriticism as a theoretical model. This theory was first introduced by Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin in their seminal book, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment. Their basic concern is to provide a nexus between postcolonial nations and their natural or physical environment. Just as postcolonial nations have suffered abuse, the same is applied to the environment which is suffering abuses from humans.
Postcolonial theory deals basically with the reading and interpretation of the works of literature, with the interest of history, culture and the shades of discourse of formal imperialist nations. Its basic concern is with the experience of colonialism on the colonised nations. These views have been popularized by Edward Said, influenced by Michel Foucoult, Frantz Fanon, Patrick Chabal among others. On the other hand, Ecocriticism was first introduced by William Ruecket as a way of applying ecological concepts and principles to the study of literature. Therefore, Ecocriticism has become a means of literary investigation/inquiry into the physical and natural environment as seen in the works of literature. The theory seeks to explore the roles of human and the non-human aspects of life and how they relate and influence each other. Postcolonial Ecocriticism therefore, compares the domination and occupation of colonial powers with the destruction and the exploitation of the flora and the fauna, showing that colonised people share the same fate with the abuse of the environment. The theory will help in shedding light on how the environment of the Niger Delta and its people have been so abused by oil exploration. This new consciousness, coupled with the long history of neglect of the region has inspired Jowhor Ile's treatise on the thesis of street politics as an alternative to agitation. The focus of this discourse therefore, centres on the protest by Bendic and Ajie, the leading Ahyu: A Journal of Language and Literature Volume 2-3 ISBN 2636-5839 (print) ISSN 2814-2446 (online) characters in the novel. Bendic, for instance, sues the government for the destruction oil exploration has done to the environment while Ajie on the other hand, is ready to go into an armed struggle, if this would help liberate the people from the exploitation and save the environment from further rape, ravage and damage.

Street Politics in Jowhor Ile's And after many Days
In And after Many Days, Jowho Ile re-enacts the recurrent issue of the struggles to free the Niger Delta people from the internal colonizers, backed by foreign companies operating in the region. The story revolves around the family of Bendic Utu, his wife, Ma, and their three children, Paul, Ajie, and Bibi. Bendic suffers double tragedy, as a victim of the instrument of the state power and as a victim of the Nigeria/Biafra war, he was incarcerated for over two years on a false allegation that he was a saboteur. The sudden disappearance of Bendic's son, Paul, and his whereabout unknown for many days, births the title of the novel. The narrative which is told by Ajie begins with the news of students' protests and disappearance of some dissident students who had become a reoccurring phenomenon in the region. The news comes also at the time five youths had been shot dead in Ogibah. Ogibah is the village where most of the events in the narrative take place. The narrator reports thus: "Over the last few days, there had been student demonstrations that had gradually escalated…police vans were burned, students shot at" (22). The brutality by state agents of coercion does not deter the people; rather, it strengthens their resolve.
Bendic and his family's trip from Port Harcourt to Ogibah, mentally disparage them as they are painfully exposed to the havoc oil exploration has done to the people and their environment. The river, the people's only source of livelihood, has been violated owing to economic activities that do not take into consideration the wellbeing of the people. This narrative angle taken by Ile, not only foreshadows the reflexivity between literature and the environment in line with postcolonial Ecocriticism captures the increasing relevance of street politics as a viable means of expurgating injustice to a people and their environment. The environment is without life any more as represented in the foliage metaphor of the mango tree: "The mango by the fence was thickly green with leaves but without fruits" (34). The mango tree is strategic and has a suggestive parallel. For instance, it can metaphorically be linked to the Niger-Delta region without any benefit from the oil exploration from her land. The narrator portrays Ogibah as a village that produces all the resources of the nation but has nothing to show for it. The region is without infrastructure and social amenities. This lack of basic amenities in the region accounts for the sustained protests and agitations. The narrator describes one of the houses in Ogibah as "…a mud house he imagined, built of mud, wattle and wood beams, plastered and smoothened with clay; …"(34). The people live in such houses yet the wealth they produce is used in developing other regions. Asef Bayat explains that poor people who migrate from rural areas into urban cities for survival are engaging in street politics (Street Politics, 3). This finds connection with the character of Mark who migrated to the city in search of a better living condition. As the narrative reveals, there are no jobs for the teeming population of the region. Ile  English; he could draft minutes, compose persuasive letters, and had a natural aptitude for quick learning. He applied for secretarial positions, clerk positions, office boy positions, but nothing was forthcoming. With his application letters and a standard-six certificate in hand, he rose early every morning and went from office to office, through the old Port Harcourt town area and the new layouts, yet no job was offered to him (107-8).
With this situation, Mark becomes aware of the damage that Company has inflicted on the people and their psyche. In a conversation on the state of Ogibah, Jonah accuses some of the leaders of colluding with Company to steal from the people. Ile uses the character of Company to refer to all the oil companies that are operating in the region which siphon the region's resources. Jonah confronts Nwokwe for taking a bribe from Company and Nwokwe in defense replies: "You say I ate bribe from Company…You say I ate bribe, can you swear? Do you have a witness?" (115). But Jonah is defiant: "I say you took money from Company" (116). Mark on the other hand provides information on how Company has cheated the people and the damage oil exploitation is causing. He explains that "Company has been here for nearly three decades…. before Company came, we were here, the oil was here, right here…. When their work destroyed our farms when they cut through people's houses to build their pipelines…Now they have decided they want to build a pipe for gas, not oil, they want the pipes to go through our farms and our waterside…I have only one question to ask if the ones they build for oil are killing us now, why should we allow them to put up new pipelines when we don't know what damage they might cause?" . This details Mark's resentment with how quickly and the vulgarity which Company destroys the environment and renders the people useless. It is this environmentalist patriotism that encourages Mark to raise the people's consciousness on the evil of Company and the need to take to the street and provide strong resistance against Company. Again, Nwokwe laments the plight of the region as a minority group, "All these bigger groups in this country who go in and out of government, do you think they would look in our direction if we didn't have oil? We can all disappear from here in a single afternoon, all of us" (119-20). Minority and majority ethnic politics have remained the bane of Nigeria's nationhood. Ile believes that for the people of the region to attain any greatness, they must take full control of their resources and destiny. They must rise and go to the street, for as the African adage goes "a snake cannot eat to its fill when coiled, it must stretch to eat to its fill". The people of the region have been coiled for so long, it is high time they got to the street. Ile believes that the politics of the street must be based on sound moral scruples of the people, and the people must desist from all forms of parrotry going on among some leaders from the region as exemplified in the character of Nwokwe.
The novel illuminates the visible trauma and dystopia in the Niger Delta region. It also explains the fact that "democratic ideals do not guarantee social justice" (Mūchiri 221). Mūchiri further states that for one to achieve social justice, there should be a "possible strategy for grass root movement seeking to deploy and achieve democratic ideals" (221). Street politics, will to a large extent, accommodate a continuum of violence since dialogue has not yielded much result. This does not necessarily mean that Ile is rejecting democratic ideals, indeed he advocates active political participation; as part of the street politics ideology, active political participation will help in creating a college of political dissidents who will take up and manage the politics of the streets. According to wa Ngugi, politics of the street or politics of violence emerge around the agency of "social change and translatability into political action"(158). This agrees with the earlier views of Fanon, that "violent resistance …was an integral expression of the colonized's agency…violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority and his despair and inaction, it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect"(94). The need for street politics and violent protest has become expedient given "the disparities in the economic and educational developments" (Tenshak 168). And after many Days becomes a form of proxy testimony on behalf of the suffering people of the Niger Delta as well as a clarion call for them to move to the street to resist the "politics of pity" (Eleni 99), which now defines the region as a people, or in the words of Udenta O. Udenta has made them to become some sort of deodorized carcass (1).
As the narrative unfolds, people realise that they must take their destinies in their hands. Mark thinks that Company should be made to pay compensation for the farmlands and houses that the gas pipelines are going to affect: "That if they give them an easy way, they would take us for granted" (128). They must fight now because "No medicine can kill government" (128). The people must be cautious because of the government's instrument of coercion, "They will burn a holy shrine and go scot-free: something an ordinary person will do and not last the hour without falling down dead" (128).
Rather than infrastructural development, Company resorts to giving the people cows as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). "Company has decided to give all of Ogibah a gift of twenty cows for the New Yam Festival" (p. 132). Ile sees this as an insult to the people's collective imagination, of a people whose resources have been carted away to enrich other lands. It becomes obvious that "Company … has brought gifts to win them over" (132). Though a few like Nwokwe have been bought over by Company, many others stand their ground to reject the gifts: "We do not want their disgusting gift! They can't buy us from ourselves" (136-37). The people believe that Company takes their resources and uses the same to buy them off. Selling of self will deny and rob the people of their nature-given resources. The need to rise and redeem themselves is now since equity abhors indolence.
In his study of the Middle East (2010), Bayat articulates how the tenacious cries of poor people in the Middle East brought about changes to the region. While their cries exposed the failure of leadership amidst its rich oil resource, such protest intensified change (Life as Politics, 2) Just like the Arab world, the Niger Delta is protesting against economic neglect, environmental degradation, social injustice among other issues. In the novel, Bendic takes up the challenge to protest the dehumanisation of the Ogibah people by the government and its ally, Company. He files court cases against the government where he stands in as both witness and his counsel. In one of the cases he filed, he tells the court: "There had been an explosion in an oil well near the farmlands in Ogibah, which left the area ankle-deep in crude oil, pervaded with the stench of rotten fish floating belly-up in the ponds, so Bendic took the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to court" (178). Though he loses the case when the verdict is eventually delivered, he is not discouraged from fighting on. Similarly, Uncle Tam and his wife, Auntie Leba, both of them university dons, continue in secret meetings; organising and mobilising the people because "There was an important man from their village …who had been arrested by the government and kept in detention for over a year now because he had told the government and the oil companies in their village to come and repair the damage they had caused or leave" (200).
Ajie's trip to Ogibah the fictional setting of the novel, further exposes him to the evil of oil exploration caused by Company. Rather than uniting the people and bringing prosperity to them, oil brings deaths and rifts. Ajie's mother, warns him about new developments in Ogibah: "Disputes are no longer settled with raised voices in a meeting. People no longer write strongly worded petitions to voice their dissents. If you disagree with someone these days, you simply go to the person's house with your face unmasked and shoot him" (276). With this, Ajie treads carefully. In Ogibah, he meets an old man while on his way to the swamp to cool off in the freshwater. The man quickly tells him: "It's gone. All the ponds are dried up…Company built that dam; they offered to pay for the land and the families who owned the land fought and fought among each other, but finally, the dam is there now" (279). The swamps are all gone, "The ponds are dried up, all the trees felled. No slowworms...no blackbird pecking on a rotten palm trunk" (280). The people have lost their land with no compensation. All these because of the rifts deliberately fueled by Company. This explains why Nwagbara is of the view that: "Behind the Mask of globalization, the multinationals undermine the Niger Delta's environment, biodiversity, and people" (191).
The loss of land, the people's source of livelihood, angers them and renders inevitable the Niger-Delta people's need to go to the street to fight to reclaim it from neo-liberal capitalists represented by Company and backed up by internal colonisers. Ajie is filled up with rage and is ready to take the action that will change the fate of his people and their environment: Right now, he would like to snap away something from someone, something dear to him or her, and destroy it completely. He would like to strike down whoever has made this happen, make them powerless to protect the thing they love, humiliate them, reduce them to trivial and useless things. What if he walks across the road now and stops any of these trucks passing with Company workers in them; if he is in luck, there might be someone in it senior enough to have been part of the decision to dam the river. He would order them out of the van and make like he has a gun in his pocket…. He would make them lie on the ground and step on their heads with his shoes to make… someone feels useless and powerless (279-80).
The people's treasures must be protected and they must not allow "themselves to be ambushed and have it taken away from them" (280). Ajie is ready to revenge the death of Paul, his brother, and make him a martyr because "Dying young is always considered an indecent act that should be met with appropriate rudeness so it doesn't repeat itself" (284). It is this appropriate rudeness that is the basic tenet and temperament of street politics. This has become the new defining idiom of the people of the region, giving them a new vision that it is only through street agitation that they would free themselves from the grips of internal colonisation. This intersects perfectly with the views shared by Darah that: The vision and trajectory of these movements and actions are to promote a Ahyu: A Journal of Language and Literature Volume 2-3 ISBN 2636-5839 (print) ISSN 2814-2446 (online) radical change in Nigeria's political configuration so that the nations and peoples who are victims of local colonialism can emancipate themselves. The nations and people of the Niger Delta are determined to enjoy the freedom and privileges that should flow from their resource endowment and strategic location in the world's economy (1-3).
Darah's position is encapsulated in the idea that the call for a radical change to free the people is the major thematic thrust of the literature of the street; And after many days fits appropriately into this literary idiom. The call for street-based agitation to liberate the people from exploitation as well as rescue the environment from further degradation runs imaginatively throughout Ile's narrative, "Perhaps it was high time everyone took to the street or else they ran the risk of being plucked off in isolation one by one" (238). It is this palpable fear of being plucked off that movements to the street have become very urgent and inevitable. It becomes expedient and germane to note that it is high time the people of the region got to the street to protect their environment from further rape and violation. Ile believes is not hiding his voice as he sees street politics as the only means or weapon by which the people of the Niger Delta region will liberate themselves from the shackles of internal colonialism that is day by day pushing them to annihilation.
Ile presents his theme in a very lucid language. Ajie's narrative is very detailed in its descriptions of events. The story moves through flashbacks to reveal the events that led to Paul's disappearance. There are religious allusions. When Paul goes missing, Ma and Auntie Julie call for a prayer session. This suggests the religious disposition of Nigerian people and their tendency to use religion as a form of escapism, of not facing the situation. Bendic on the other hand is a Christian, however, he is not opposed to the traditional mode of worship. He considers Christian scriptures as fairy tales. While in Ogibah, the attendants of the Ntite shrine visit him. This angers his wife Ma, who sees them as fetish and unbelievers. Ma tells Bendic, "you can help them from afar"(75). But Bendic is quick to reply to her: "Just because they believe in a different fairy tale from you doesn't make them evil" (75). Bendiic dislikes for Christianity is connected with the belief that Christianity is a culprit in the despoliation of the Niger-Delta's environment. Christianity expurgates the connection between the people and their land, represented by the shrine. The shrine becomes symbolic concerning the environment. The shrine becomes a means for the preservation of the environment and Bendic will rather identify with the shrine rather than the church which he sees as been culpable in the exploitation of the people.
Multinationals companies operating in the Niger Delta region are personified as Company. This way, Ile is able to present to the reader the direct effects of oil exploration activities on the people. Company is seen or personified as a mindless person whose activities have affected the people negatively: "Nobody can say we have treated Company badly" (117); "Company has been here for nearly a decade" (117); "Company has decided to give ...twenty cows" (132). It becomes obvious that Company has failed in his social corporate responsibility to the people from whom he has profited a lot from their resources.

Conclusion
This article examined the nature of street politics in And after many Days. The focus has been on Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region. The article reveals that despite the wealth the Niger Delta region generates for the Nigerian