Environmental Degradation and Attendant Consequences in Isdore Okpewho’s Tides

Résumé

Environmental degradation is one of the foremost cankerworms plaguing the Niger-Delta region of our country, Nigeria. The discovery of oil there has become a curse instead of a blessing to the people there. The activities of the oil companies there and with the tacit support of the Federal Government has become a source of sorrow and nightmare to the inhabitants whose local environment has been destroyed. So in this study, "Environmental Degradation in Isdore Okpewho’s Tides" the researchers set out to portray how the writer criticised the events in his society, and how the story serves as a reflection of the problems of the masses and the downtrodden in our society. The novelist made use of the literary medium to satirise the leaders in Africa and their styles of exercising reins of power which, instead of ameliorating the problems of the people and bringing in even development, only succeed in creating more suffering, pain and disappointment. Isidore Okpewho shows the humiliation, oppression, insensitivity, waste of lives, exploitation, cruelty of the ruling class, especially the military, on the citizens, as a result of greed and capitalist tendencies, which impoverish the citizens further. The findings showed that the citizens of the Niger-Delta experience betrayal, oppression, deprivation, and environmental degradation as a result of oil exploration. Unfortunately, their leaders do not care much about their problems as they are only interested in selfish acquisition of wealth to the detriment of the people.