Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Corridors of power in the African continent have regrettably become a bedlam of cronyism, nepotism, unconscionable ethnic bias, brazen corruption, political oppression and repression, and a theater of ostentatious display of illegally acquired wealth. The identified scourges undoubtedly explain the reasons for the manifest stunted development of Africa, and inability of the continent to measure up with other continents of the world. This disturbing trend has truly unsettled and challenged the best of African creative writers to directly confront and challenge the sad realities of poor leadership and unacceptable state of governance in the continent through the literary powers embedded in their caustic pens. The literary giants of Africa have equally deployed their intellectual endowments to attract global attention to the deliberate misuse of political powers and resources by leaders of the continent. This paper dwells holistically on the courage of Samuel Adewumi in his demonstrated fearless ability to speak truth to the corridors of power in Nigeria. The focus of the paper is on the selected poems from Adewumi’s “The Sounds of Our Heart,” and the use of Marxist theory as a theoretical framework to capture the reasons for underdevelopment in the African continent.