Patriarchy and resource control in Nigeria: a reading of Ben Binebai’s Drums of the Delta

Abstract

Nigeria is faced by a plethora of social problems generated from the complexity of modern existence. The complexity of modern living encourages the production of adequate goods and services to meet with the increasing population. The problem investigated here is not the production of goods and services but the control of resources. As a typical capitalist economy the resources produced by the people is controlled and owned by the federal government composed of the major ethnic groups patterned after patriarchal formation. While other developed capitalist countries have replaced clan and tribe relations in resource control, Nigeria is still deep in patriarchal character in resource control. The framework for the paper is based on Karl Marx’s Historical Materialism which explains the role of history in material or resources production. The methodology employed is qualitative and relied on secondary data for the analysis of social roles and social justice in federating systems. The analysis of the play, Drums of the Delta by Ben Binebai, forms the primary data. The conclusion of this paper is that social justice and natural resources are natural rights of the people. Therefore, the recommendation is that equitable schema should be  adopted in resource control and not patriarchal character in the 21^stcentury.

Keywords: patriarchy, character, resource, control, drama, justice