Towards the Development of Niger Delta Thought and Discourses, its Metaphysics, Epistsemics and History: Thinking Aloud

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

                   

                                                   

                          Towards the Development of Niger Delta Thought and Discourses

                                                                               its 

                                                        Metaphysics, Epistsemics and History

                                                                       Thinking Aloud

                                                     Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                     Compcros

                                               Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

                                    "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

                                                                         

Thinking Aloud

The process of sharing one's exploratory thoughts.

What are Niger Delta Thought and Discourses?

Niger Delta thought and discourses, differently conceived by various thinkers, is the development of approaches to the realities of the Niger Delta, or through this focus, constructing perspectives relevant beyond the Niger Delta.

Strategic figures in Niger Delta thought known to me are Robin Horton, Nimi Wariboko, Victor Ekpuk and Bruce Onobrakpeya. 

The names I have mentioned are the very few I am sufficiently acquainted with. Others I need to be better informed about include Isidore Okpewho, Tanure Ojaide and Cajetan Iheka, among others.

Horton, from his grounding in the study of the intersection of spirituality, philosophy and arts of the Kalabari, developed rich explorations, controversial but perennially instructive efforts, of comparative rationalities,  particularly between classical African thought and Western science. 

Wariboko scours Kalabari thought for insights enriching his explorations of the nature of perception, of relationships between fate and free will, in dialogue with Continental philosophy and Protestant and Pentecostal theology. 

Victor Ekpuk's visual engagement with the evocative force of the Nsibidi communication system developed in the Cross River region and its Cameroon  proximates dramatizes issues of the intersection of communication, intelligibility, perception, the esoteric and the exoteric. 

Bruce Onobrakpeya's painterly, sculptural and mixed media installation art rising from the inspiration  of his Urboho roots to dialogue with  Edo, Yoruba, Fulani and Christian cultures, provokes questions of cultural and cosmic unity in seeking to reshape reality in the form of images.

I aspire to join these masters of thought and creativity through my forthcoming essay inspired by the theology and shrine culture of the Ekene water spirit  of Agbarha, in relation to Urhobo  nature spirituality and philosophy, Hindu and Christian thought and Western philosophy, exploring relationships between nature, humanity and spirit, seeking a synthesis opening a path to the essence of existence.

Why am I not content with the ideational and expressive syntheses  I have so far observed in my admittedly quite limited exposure to Niger Delta discourses, leading to suggesting a further category beyond the already existing designation "Niger Delta Studies"?

I am dissatisfied because Niger Delta Studies, priceless as it is in mapping scholarship in relation to the region in question, might not yet have foregrounded  what I'm beginning to see as possibilities of syntheses between various structures of thought developed in scholarship on this area and their distillation into matrices for viewing reality in general, an approach heuristic and  dynamic,  yet demonstrating a degree of epistemic and metaphysical solidity and architectonic structuring.

What do the concluding words in the previous sentence mean precisely-  ''demonstrating a degree of epistemic and metaphysical solidity and architectonic structuring''?

Niger Delta Studies provides a rich network of ideas facilitating explorations of reality, probing questions about the constituents, structure and dynamism of existence-metaphysics; of comparative ways of knowing and their relative strengths and weaknesses-epistemology; explorations which can be developed in terms of significant coherence-architectonic solidity, yet,  these distillations, these efforts of unification,  extrapolation and adaptation,  might not demonstrate uniform perspective in the hands of each thinker.

These varied integrative and extrapolative efforts constitute Niger Delta thought.

Previous Essays of Mine on Niger Delta Studies 

"The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta, Edited by Tanure Ojaide and Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega : A Panoramic and Yet Detailed Exploration of Beauty, Power and Challenge"

"The Strategic Significance of Niger Delta Studies : Thinking Aloud"