Browsing by Author "Afolayan Kayode Niyi"

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    A Critical Review of Childhood Reminiscence in J.P. Clark’s Poetry
    (The Department of History and International Studies, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State, 2025-12) Afolayan Kayode Niyi
    A superficial outlook into John Pepper Clark’ poetry agrees on the eclectic nature of his compositions in verse. Despite being the most prolific poet among his first generation peers and other poets in Nigeria, the argument about flexibility of his compositions has been used to explain the keen attention that Clark’s poetry has received. The study takes a critical look at the compositions of JP Clark on childhood experiences, which is one of the prominent subjects that cuts across his poetry oeuvre. The article showcases how the isolated poetic compositions have been used to advance the aestheticism of childhood experiences and, to project the African essence of living and its interconnection with humane values. The conclusion of the article reinforces the strengths in the eclecticism in Clark’s poetry but also observes that the subject of childhood is mostly neglected by many Nigerian poets to social political issues. However, the overriding presence of sociopolitical themes should yield some ground to reflections on childhood to form the basis for examination of the current state and validate the pedagogies which may resolve contemporary dilemmas.
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    Ecocritical Perspectives in Ben Okri's The Famished Road (1991) and Every Leaf a Hallelujah (2021)
    (The Department of Languages and Cultures, Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State., 2025-02) Afolayan Kayode Niyi; Oladeji Felix Oluwabukola
    Any critic familiar with the art of African writers will discover its filial link with primordial art forms. While critical responses have mostly focused on the social relevance of those forms in respect of their uses to resolve postcolonial dilemmas, more interpretations are needed which contextualise ecological texts within a framework that interrogates the relationship between man and his environment. This paper is an ecocritical engagement with Ben Okri’s The Famished Road (1991) and Every Leaf A Hallelujah (2021). The paper gives attention to two ecological issues raised by Nigerian writers. These include the crises of oil exploration in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria and the expositions on “forest fables” which is the relationship between man and nature on the one hand and the despoliation of nature on the other hand. The article separates Ben Okri’s alignment with the tradition of presenting “forest fables” and his ingenuous use of children as heroes in his prose works. The article concludes by drawing on the novelist’s affirmation of the compactness of the African worldview. In the relationship between man and nature, the paper amplifies the perspective that nature, in the African environment, acquiesces to dignified “exploitation” for its survival and sustenance of man.
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    New Wine in Old Skin: Wole Soyinka’s Cult and Meaning in Selected Poems (1965- 2022): A Retrospective (2023
    (The School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Malawi, Malawi, 2026) Afolayan Kayode Niyi
    Critical interventions that have attempted to assess the verses of Wole Soyinka have always pointed at the “obscure paths” to meaning in his poetry. Although there are few dissenting views, Soyinka’s pedigree as a poet is always questioned on the basis of inaccessibility of his verses. This article engages with the ‘new poems’ in Soyinka’s latest poetry collection, Selected Poems (1965- 2022): A Retrospective (2023), to address the question of obscurity in his poetry by synchronizing the topics that highlight the themes in individual poems. The article harnesses the major issues that cut across Soyinka’s poetry to include forests or voyage experience, the meaning of nature, life and existence, and dystopia conditions across the world. These interventions are constructed under the humanist ideals that the poet leverages on to interrogate the meaning and essences of life or existences. The conclusion of the article is that the “new” poems studied expose fresh possibilities of arriving at meanings while studying Soyinka’s poetry. However, the methods suggested, even though they have basis from the poet’s “old” collections, are unique in the ambivalence of “old in new” or “new in old” which has now become a major characteristic of Soyinka’s poetry
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    POST-OGUNIST TEMPER AND INTERVENTIONS IN WOLE SOYINKA’S ALAPATA APATA (2011)
    (The Department of Communication and Languages Faculty of Commerce, Human Sciences and Education, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia., 2025) Afolayan Kayode Niyi
    This article engages with Wole Soyinka’s parody on the current postcolonial realities in Alapata Apata (2011). The article begins by isolating, at least, two major dimensions discernible in Soyinka’s dramaturgy- in the nodes of cultural revalidation and social interventions- and their links with Ogun in Soyinka’s plays. The paper brings these into relation with the diverse social phases and crises mirrored in Soyinka’s plays and narrows down to the current post-dictatorship phase where, like other interventions, Soyinka presented an avatar of Ogun in his interrogation of leadership failure and other social malaises. The paper argues that the playwright’s re-invention of Ogun is a radical departure from the avant-gardist disposition of all other Ogun avatars that preceded Alaba. The conclusion of the paper, on account of Alaba’s accidental canonization, is interpreted as Soyinka’s veiled chastisement of political leaders whose failures have perpetuated diverse crises in the space mirrored in the play.
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    Rekindling the Ogun Spirit
    (Pan- African Writers Association (PAWA), Ghana., 2024) Afolayan Kayode Niyi
    The poem, with the title “Rekindling the Ogun Spirit”, is one of the seventy four poems collected to mark the ninety years anniversary and icon of African literature, Wole Soyinka. The author began by tracing the antecedents of Ogun, the progenitor of the celebrant by listing his characteristic penchant for justice and the course of humanity. These are linked with the current and diverse chaos that has plagued humanity as a whole. The conclusion charges the poet, seen as Ogun incarnate to intervene in the expected usual way to restore the lost hope and peace across the world.
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    Space and the Buffers of Gender Freedom in Selected Novels of Nigerian Female Novelists
    (The Department of Languages and Cultures, Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State., 2026-02) Afolayan Kayode Niyi; Oluwatoyin Adam Olalekan
    Over the years, feminist writers have achieved a convergence that identifies the typologies of oppression against women. The contexts of such deprivations have narrowed down to the domestic space and the diaspora, with the scale of success in favour of novels set in diaspora spaces. This article examines the intersection between space, gender oppression, and institutional mediation in selected novels by Nigerian female novelists. Although few novelists, such as Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo in Children of the Eagle (2002), achieved a relative success in their contextualisation of women’s struggles within the domestic space, many writers, such as Buchi Emecheta in Second Class Citizens (1974) and Yejide Kilanko in Chasing Butterflies (2018) and A Good Name (2021), have situated the ordeal of the African women within the diaspora landscape. The article is a qualitative study that draws on Alice Walker’s Womanist theory to inform its conversation on the prevalence of gender deprivations in selected Nigerian novels. After chronicling the typologies of gender novels in Nigeria and the identification of the marriage context as the habitat for gender deprivations, the article submits that most novels that use the domestic setting rarely succeed in their commitment due to entrenched patriarchy. This is in sharp contrast to novels that use diaspora settings where women can overcome similar crises on account of identified resources. The conclusion of the article is a call that awakens the consciousness, in the homeland, to the urgent need of establishing and activating the institutions that are sensitive to women’s rights and freedom. The article contributes to feminist literary scholarship by foregrounding space as a critical determinant in narratives of gender freedom and by highlighting the urgent need for responsive institutions within traditional societies.