Satirical forms and strategies in Joe Ushie’s Popular Stand and Rome Aboh’s A Torrent of Terror

Abstract

The influence of socio-political and economic realities continues to flock the literary sphere of Nigerian literature. In the genre of poetry, a park of social and political realities have always been the burden of early poets like Wole Soyinka, Tanure Ojaide, Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimun, Ezenwa Ohaeto, J.P Clark, Christopher Okigbo, among others, all in the attempt to portray the disillusioned status quo of the country as a result of bad governance. In a similar vein, contemporary poets like Musa Idris, Peter Onwundinjo, G‘Ebinyo Ogbowei, Kalu Uka, Gbemisola Adeoti, Ogaga Ifowodo, among others, alongside the early poets still feature the stark and dark, diseased and ill circumstances that keep the minds of Nigerians disillusioned. However, this paper investigates the satirical strategies and forms (Horatian and Juvenalian) in Joe Ushie‘s Popular Stand and Rome Aboh‘s A Torrent of Terror. Using New Historicism as a theoretical framework, the analysis attempts to show how the various types of satire and sub-satirical devices are used to question regurgitating socio-political aches in recent times. Furthermore, Ushie and Aboh are substantiated as satirists as their use of pun, ridicule, sarcasm, farce, innuendo, irony, travesty and other satirical tools help the quest for change amidst the prevailing upheavals hindering national growth and development in Nigeria.