Transplanting the Iroko: Exile and the Niger Delta Urbanscape in Tanure Ojaide’s
When it no Longer Matters Where you Live
Once driftwood,
then transplant;
I am still
the iroko ( When it no Longer Matters where you Live , 20)
So far, this chapter, using Ofeimun’s London Letter and Other Poems, has illustrated how
the battle between global and non-global cities results in the experience of exile. It has
done so by foregrounding the juxtaposition of Lagos and London in the text. However
various dynamics, internal and external, are responsible for the subaltern status that exiles
and migrants in the work assume. Nevertheless, in the remaining part of the chapter, the
study stands to contend further that a similar battle rages from another part of the
Nigerian nation. The oil-rich Niger-Delta cities are no less affected in the global battle
between cities of the North and the South; while the outcome of such battle is replete
with multifarious effects, the dimension of exile will be worth considering by examining
Ojaide’s When it no Longer Matters where you Live.
The evolution of Niger Delta cities, like many other African cities, must be construed
against the backdrop of Western imperialism. When European activities began in this part
of the country in form of trade, it was on equal terms. The Niger Delta people then had
enjoyed the envious status of middlemen between Europeans and other African
neigbours, especially those from the other side of what came later to be known as River
Niger. But the equal relations soon gave way to an interaction of inequality, whereby
trade in African slaves, rather than exchange of African commodities for European
products, became the core definition of commerce. Truly, the Niger Delta retained for a
long time its position as a link in the trade; however, the knowledge that it was made to
compromise the humanity of its fellow black people, either from within the region or
outside, already indicated the devaluation of the people’s relationship with European
merchants. Nevertheless, the trade relations laid the foundation for the formation of Niger
Delta cities. The period between the abolition of the Slave Trade and the formal
colonization of the region as part of Nigeria in the late 19th century, made obvious the
foundation of the Niger Delta polis. If the Western polis, after which most of African