Issues of ideal national identities in Tanure Ojaide’s The Questioner: A psychoanalytic approach

Environmental degradation has been a major topic of concern all over the world, especially because lands exploited for mining mineral resources such as crude oil become contaminated to such an extent that the natural ecosystems of many communities in the world are destroyed. Nigeria is not exempted from this problem and in particular, the Niger-Delta area has for decades suffered great deterioration due to the exploration and exploitation of oil. This situation may have instigated Tanure Ojaide to write poems that bring to the fore the psychological disposition of a people plagued with environmental degradation in the Niger-Delta area of Nigeria to call the world’s attention to the deterioration of life in the Niger-Delta. It is against this backdrop that this study understudies The Questioner, a collection of poems in order to further encapsulate the gory picture of environmental depreciation, neglect, corruption and unconcern for the people of the Niger-Delta. With the application of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical discourse, this study identifies the formation or adoption of questionable identities by individuals who are bedeviled with problems associated with environmental degradation. Hence, by the end of this research, it is observed that the personae in the poems studied, were embroiled in psychological conflicts that caused the fragmentation of their identities as a result of the devastating effects of environmental degradation.