Nigerian Poetry

Above: Wole Soyinka, in his forest home.

Perhaps it was the third or fourth young Nigerian poet that made me wonder: why is it every that young Nigerian poet I read is so talented?

Most of Britain’s colonial holdings in Africa extended from the south of the continent to the east. One of the few exceptions to the French rule of Western Africa was Nigeria. Though English is the colonial language, the language of business and mass communication, over five hundred languages are spoken there. Five hundred native tongues to enrich the speaker’s English with loan words and slang. Instead of speaking of Nigerian poetry as a monolithic entity, we might as well speak of Nigerian poetries.

With its 213 million residents, Nigeria accounts for one-sixth of the total population in Africa. This also makes it the sixth most populous nation in the world. By the middle of this century it is expected to reach a population of 400 million. By this time it will most likely have surpassed the population of the US, though its landmass is not too much larger than the state of Texas. According to projections, by 2100 Nigeria will contain 700 million, making it the third most populous country in the world. If this is correct, it will contain significantly more English speakers than Britain, the US, Australia and New Zealand combined.

Perhaps, in the future, Nigerian poetry will influence the poetry of other English-speaking countries in a way the former British colonizers of Africa could never have conceived.