league of the state machinery, civilian and military, the Niger Delta elites and the
transnational oil corporations that, has contributed to the retardation of the region. If the
effects of the neglect are found everywhere in the region, they are more glaring in the
cities. A progressive response to this situation is to expose the conspiracy and speak out
against the exclusion of the majority of this region from the rights to good living. This
then explains why the subnational consciousness of the region has been on the rise in
recent times. While subnationalism can be pursued from both collective and individual
angles, Ojaide’s intervention in When it no Longer Matters Where you Live as in other
works of his, illustrates the externalization of a subnational consciousness, even if there
are other concerns in the work which are patently national in orientation. Perhaps the
articulation of exile as a logical consequence of overwhelming deprivation is captured in
“Home Song”:
The eyes blurred from exhaustion
see no farther than the next half-meal
& next week fresh exiles will take to flight
to distances without roots. (51)The South African situation in the post-liberation era must be considered from a similar
angle particularly with respect to Jean Comaroff’s remark about the “coincidence of
liberation and liberalization” (2005:128). If one can take the liberty of interpreting the
coincidence as meaning the liberalization of the South African economy and the
endorsement by the state of the free flow and accelerated border crossing of commodities
from the North to the South and vice versa in the wake of the collapse of apartheid, the
context in which Comaroff speaks of this coincidence can then be said to be replete with
the anxiety about the consequences of this coincidence. One of such consequences, as the
gains of liberation are no longer to come to the ordinary people with the initially
construed immediacy, but instead through the long term “trickle-down-effect”, is the
likelihood of human dispersal which is prospectively going to be more attractive in view
of the understanding that such movement or migration is to occur within the framework
of globalization. Thus, as Mongane Serote engages with this likely consequence in
History is the Home Address in form of migration, globalization takes on a bright look as
the productivity and authenticity of the African diaspora are invoked as a way of ensuring