KAI NE AGARY’S YELLOW- YELLOW: THE THOLE OF A REGI ON

Adegite Adekunle

ABSTRACT

Environmental degradation and pollution have been the dominant motifs in Niger- Delta
narratives. This is apparently due to the myriad of problems facing the region as a result of
the activities of oil companies exploring the crude oil in the region. Research works on the
narratives from the region have however not adequately addressed the relationship between
fate and environment. This study, therefore, examines fate and environment in Kaine Agary’s
Yellow- Yellow with a view to bringing out the nexus of fate and environment and how the
characters in the novels have responded to the challenges of their environment.

This paper uses Ecocriticismas the theoretical framework. Ecocriticismdeals with the trends of
nature in literary works. The concern of ecocritics is the place of literature in the face of
climatic change and environmental problems. Agary’s Yellow- Yellow is selected because it
explores the environment of the Niger- Delta towards bringing out ecological problems facing
the people.

The novel critically explores the environmental hardship faced by the people of the Niger- Delta.
It also examines the politics of oil exploration in the region by oil multinationals. The
government is seen as a silent collaborator in the rape of the region. The expatriates and the
government reap the profits, while the people, whose daily life is characterised by poverty,
are left disillusioned. It is a revelation of the effects of exploration on the fate of the people of the
Niger- Delta whose socio- economic mainstay becomes jeopardised as a result of oil exploration and its
consequent adverse effects on the Niger- Delta environment. The life of Zilayefa clearly depicts the
deprivation the people of the Niger- Delta region suffer. Their dreams of good life are often cut short
as their environment could not support them.

Without prejudice to the concept of fatalism which has characterised the narratives from the
Niger- Delta region, the narrative reveals that the survival and existence of the people is a
product of their continuous interaction with their environment.

Keywords: Fate, Ecocriticism, Environmental degradation, Niger- Delta region, Kaine Agary.

The concept of Ecocriticism

The theoretical framework of this study is Ecocriticism. Ecocriticism began to develop in the
1980s. Its emergence provides a template for study of the relationship between literature and
environment. The late emergence, notwithstanding, it has continued to develop due to its
relevance in addressing the environmental problems our world is facing as a result of human
activities. Ecocriticism deals with the trends and manifestations of nature in literary works.
This entails establishing the relationship between literature and environment. Cheryll Glotfelty
( 1995) considers ecocriticsm as the study of the relationship between literature and the
physical environment. It is the primary concern of ecocritics to see literature’s response to
environmental issues

Richard Kerridge ( 2006) points out that the term ‘ecocriticism’ was coined in 1978 by William
Rueckert. Interest in the study of nature writing and reading literature with a focus on green
issues grew through the 1980s. By 1990, ecocriticism gained prominence with increased focus
on the environment. The focus of ecocriticism is on the analyses of literature and its
relationship with the environment. Kerridge ( 2006: 530) sees this theory as:

Literary and cultural criticismfroman environmentalist viewpoint,

texts are evaluated in terms of their environmentally harmful or
helpful effects, beliefs and ideologies are assessed for their
environmental implication.

This basic concern of the ecocritic is the place of literature in addressing environmental issues.
The subject is the interconnection between nature and culture. Ecocriticism is concerned with
the relationship between literature and the environment, conducted in a spirit of commitment
to environmentalist praxis. This establishes a close relationship between the ecocritic and the
environmentalist. This theory seeks to effect a positive change in the environment. Ecocritics
are seeking ways in which man can work towards sustaining the environment and protecting it
fromdamage.

Since this study deals with fate and environment in the selected texts, ecocriticism is used as
the theoretical framework of this research. This theory establishes that nature matters. It
equally provides the basis for the understanding of modern environmental problems.

FATE AND ENVI RONMENT I NKAI NE AGARY’S YELLOW- YELLOW

 It was the first time I saw what crude oil looked like. I watched
the liquid spread out covering more land and drowning small
animals in its path. It just kept spreading and I wondered if it
would stop, when it would stop and how far it would
spread…There was so much oil and we could do nothing with it-
viscous oil that would not dry out black oil that was knee- deep
( Kaine Agary’s Yellow- Yellow: 4)

The human environment plays a prominent role in the life of an individual as the whole of human
existence is tied to the environment. This is in form of interaction between man and the
environment - both living and non- living. The harmonious or otherwise relationship that exists
between man and the environment goes a long way in the determination of the wellness of man.

The desire of man is to live in an environment that would support his aspirations in life. Since
he has no control over his preferred birth environment, by fate man is bound to accept his lot
in terms of his environment.

The Niger- Delta environment before the discovery of oil was an agrarian environment just like
other regions in the country. The people support their existence from what they could get
fromthe water in the environment and the little land they could cultivate. Naturally, nature has
a way of replenishing itself. The largely unpolluted serene environment – the vegetation, the
animals especially marine life and human, all co- habit the Niger- Delta environment in a
symbiotic relationship. This mutually beneficial relationship kept the people going for ages.

With the discovery of crude oil, this relationship could no longer be sustained. The
environment that was hitherto peaceful can no longer be sustained. Pollution has become a
daily occurrence. This is due to the activities of multi- national oil companies. The fate of the
people and the environment is tied to the actions of oil exploiters.

The continuous plundering of the environment, serves as the spring board for ecoterrorism to
develop. The brains behind the degradation of the environment could be regarded as
ecoterrorists. According to Chad Nilson and Todd Burke ( 2002) “Eco terrorism is used as a
tactic to stop companies, institutions, organizations, and governments from damaging or
altering the environment”. This includes actions such as oil spilling and environmental pollution.
Lawrence Buell ( 2009) sees it as “the rape of mother earth”. Basically, ecoterrorismdestroys
the environment of a nation. Burke ( 2002) sees human being as just an ordinary member of
the biological community, no more important than say, a bear or a whale. Hence, his belief
that the activities of man should not in any way have a negative effect on the existence of
other components of the environment.

The activities of the multinational oil companies exploring crude oil in the Niger- Delta region
over the years have impacted negatively on the environment. As rightly observed, the
pollution in the Delta region is no longer an environmental issue alone. The people of the
region are equally polluted. What hitherto could not be tolerated is gradually becoming a norm.
This is the scenario that plays out in Yellow- Yellow by Kaine Agary.

Yellow- Yellow is a narrative of the Niger- Delta woven around a young- female character called
Zilayefa, a Greek- Nigerian girl. By birth, she is disadvantaged as she is born by unmarried
Binaebi and with no known father. Binaebi’s desire is to see Zilayefa go to the university and
succeed in life. The mother does not want her to make the same mistake she made. The “born
- troway” that she is, makes the society looks down on her as a product of illicit affairs and
this sets her and others like her on the path of marginalisation, deprivation and oppression.
This is compounded by the activities of the multi- national

The odds surrounding her birth and environment notwithstanding, she is able to tread the path
which fate lay before her. She relocates to Port Harcourt and meets Sisi and Lolo. Zilayefa’s
journey to the city brings to the fore problems of socio- economic deprivation that the rural
dwellers in the Delta region face on daily basis. This invariably compounds the problems
associated with rural- urban migration. The rural dwellers usually migrate to urban centres in
search of a better condition of living. Life in the village has no excitement to offer Zilayefa.
Her thought is occupied by her dreamof escape fromher village’s entrapment. She betrays her
discontent by going about her daily activities with “robotic precision” ( 34)

She soon realises that life in the city is lived in the shadow of the damages done to the
hinterland by the multinational oil companies. The preconceived notion of her background does
not help her any better. Zilayefa has this to say:
 I come to understand that people had preconceived notions about
others of mixed race - they thought we were conceited,
promiscuous, undisciplined, and confused ( 74) .

Her identity gives her a negative self- esteem; the tag of ‘born- troway’ places her at the
lowest level of the moral scale. “There is even much less regard for born- troways such as me.
‘We were products of women of easy virtue who did not have morals to pass on to their
children” ( 74) .

If her journey to the city is to escape poverty, she soon finds out that poverty is also
prevalent in the city. Hence she says; “The same poverty and discontent in my village that I
was running away from was present in Port Harcourt” ( 99) . Although, Sisi and Lolo offer her
the much needed comfort and affluence she craves for, she could not but wonder about
happenings around her. She is not immune to the environmental and social injustices around her.
By providence, she gets the comfort she desires but her moral misconduct brings her down.

The Niger- Deltans are farmers and fishermen. The land was fertile and sea animals were in
abundance. The environment, before the discovery of oil in commercial quantity, supports the
people’s existence. In Agary’s words:

Those were the days when Ijaw women cooked a fresh pot of
soup every day because the rivers were teeming with fish. Their
farms held plantain trees so fertile that there was more plantain
than anyone knew what to do with - roasted, boiled mashed,
green, and yellow, the possibilities were endless. Those were the
days ( 40) .

Agary clearly shows that the people via their interaction with the environment before the
discovery of oil were able to feed conveniently. In their own little way, they were able to
strike a balance with nature in such a way that they support the environment and the
environment supports them.

The harmony that existed between the environment and the people before the discovery of oil
gradually deteriorated. This becomes obvious “as farming was getting less and less profitable”
( 78) . This did not just start overnight. It is the accumulated effect of the rape of the
environment all in the name of oil exploration and exploitation. Says Zilayefa;
 during my second to last year in secondary school, one of the
crude oil pipes that ran through my village broke and spilled oil
over several hectares of land, my mother’s farm land included
( 3) .

This spillage marks the beginning of change in Zilayefa’s life. It is a regular occurrence in the
Niger- Delta region. The basic means of survival for Zilayefa and her mother is gone. The
mother has to struggle to support her survival. The struggle for survival pervades the novel.
Binaebi struggles to survive after her pregnancy at the age of eighteen. The same fate befalls
Zilayefa as she struggles to survive after her indiscretion with Admiral Alaowei Amalayefa. As
observed by AbdulsalamAmoo ( 2011) , it was a “struggle to find existential fulfillment in life”.

The agony of waste is not limited to farmland alone. The creatures of the river were equally
affected. The oil spillages, acid rains and general pollution all combined to leave the
environment worse. The people at the grassroots become the victim of the comfort of
multinational oil companies and the government who are the direct beneficiary of the proceeds
fromthe crude oil exploration.

The magnitude of the spillage that occurs in the Niger- Delta region often changes or shatters
dreams. The spillage inquisition here does not only destroy the entirety of a farmland but also
leaves her mother’s dreamfor her hanging in the balance. Zilayefa points out that,

the black oil that spilled that day swallowed my mother’s crops
and unraveled the threads that held together her fantasies for me
( 10) .

The destruction gives the mother added pressure to find another plot of land to farm on.
Binaebi’s serious target is to find a means to ensure that her daughter, Zilayefa has no hitch in
her education. As far as Zilayefa is concerned, the village holds no excitement for her. The
lure of the city is too strong for her to ignore. She says:

I did not care as much as she did about finishing school; I just
wanted to leave the village. The sameness of life in the village
would kill me if I did not escape ( 10) .

The mother is conscious of their environment. To her, the only way to escape the poverty and
prevent her ( Zilayefa) frommaking the same mistake she made is for her to be educated. She
wants her to accomplish what she could not ( 8) . This is even the thrust of Binaebi’s letter to
Zilayefa as she urges her to make her books her best friend ( 78) . Sisi and Lolo equally
express the same opinion that her education should come first.

Despite Admiral’s illicit relationship with Zilayefa, he still advises her:

see, that is why you must go to school and get your degree so
that no one has an excuse not to give you an opportunity, in life
( 137) .

The opportunity Zilayefa has is not the lot of other youths in the Niger- Delta region. The
degradation of the environment and general discontent in the region due to the apparent
injustice in handling the problems of the Delta region have all combined to put added pressure
on the people especially the youth. The city holds an escape route for them. This is
responsible for the youths migrating to the city as part of the survival strategies portrayed in
the novel.

The environmental pressure that is occasioned by the activities of the multinational oil
companies is a logical explanation for why the boys take to militancy and the ladies go into
prostitution to escape the poverty forced on themby the decimation of their environment.

Apart from contending with the social stigma that comes with prostitution, they have to
contend with the militants who raid and pimp them. Agary opines that,

occasionally, the local boys would remind the girls that they still
had power in town. They would attack the shacks where the girls
lived, beat them up, steal their money, and, if their minds had
been taken over by evil spirit in booze and hard drugs, they
would destroy all the property that had gotten in the way of their
mission. In areas where the local boys acted as pimps for the
girls, there were cases where one brother killed another over the
returns from a girl they were pimping. After recounting all of
these terrifying tales, our visitors would add, “And no our money
o! na our oil money! ( 38)

The oil they see as their common wealth which they are supposed to benefit from offers them
no pleasure. Rather they face agony daily. Life in the village is a miserable one. If one
considers this:
 My ear still rang frommaternal wails piercing the foggy days when
mother mourned a child lost to sickness or to the deceptively
calm waters that lay hungry below the stilt latrines, waiting to
swallow the children whose unsteady feet betrayed them before
they had learnt to swim( 39)

It is a pointer to the lack of meaningful health care systemin the environment. Infant mortality
becomes a daily occurrence in the environment. The water that should support their existence
becomes a death trap for the children.

Agary further captures the frustration of Zilayefa thus:

How many more times could I bear the pain like a hundred razor
blade slashing my private part because the river water that
washed it was the same water that received the waste rejected by
my body in its attempt to cleanse itself? The water that flowed
with streaks of blue, purple, and red, as drops of oil escaped
from the pipelines that moved the wealth from beneath my land
and into the pockets of the select few who ruled Nigeria was the
same water I drank ( 39)

This shows that Zilayefa is motivated more than ever to leave the village for good. The
situation is further compounded by the fact that the water of the village has no usefulness to
her.

The land did not suddenly become unproductive. It is the accumulated effect of the
environmental hazards that the environment has been subjected to. Agary captures one of
such hazards thus:

One of the crude oil pipes that ran through my village broke and
spilled oil over several hectares of land, my mother’s farm
included ( 3)

The people have to resign to fate when things like this happen. They are helpless and often
frustrated with no compensation as shown below:

The community took the matter up with the oil company that
owned the pipes, but they suspect sabotage by the youths and
were not going to pay compensation for all the destruction that
the burst pipes had caused ( 4)
The failure of the oil companies and the government to address the problem of the Niger- Delta
environment the way it should and coupled with the attitude of their leaders did not help
matters. The youths are of the opinion that the various community heads and the elites are not
representing themwell. Agary portrays this thus:

Young boys threatened to roughing the Amananaowei and his

elders because rumours, probably true had reached their ears
that the Amananaowei and his elders had received monetary
compensation meant for the village, from the toil company and
shared it among themselves ( 40)

The oil companies and the government exploit the environment, on the one hand; the leaders,
on the other hand, exploit the people. At the end of the day, the people are disillusioned.

The desire to put issues in proper prospective and address the socio- economic hardship the
people face as a result of oil exploration, gave rise to environmental activists. One of such
environmental activists and social crusader was Ken Saro- Wiwa. To actualize his dream, he
formed the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People ( MOSOP) . This did not go down well with
the government. The military junta characteristically is not ready to tolerate any crusade that
is at variance with its desire. Hence, the Abacha government has to organize Saro- Wiwa’s
death.

Every young boy had the vision of dying valiantly for the cause, as Ken Saro- Wiwa did.
Invariably the youths saw no reason why they should continue schooling. A good number of
them joined the militant struggle. Ladies on the other hand took to prostitution. The
government sees no merit in their act of vandalism. Rather, it considers them as fifth
columnists who are out to sabotage the efforts government is putting in place to address the
problems of the Niger- Delta.

The crises in the Niger- Delta environment are further compounded by certain awareness among
the people:

they would discuss how the Ijaws and other ethnic groups were
suffering and even dying while wealth of their soil fed others ( 9)
If the government is out of reach in Abuja, same cannot be said of oil workers. They are the
early target for the militants. Every struggle has its own casualty. Zilayefa opines that:

mostly they were successful, but sometimes one or two of our

boys failed to return from a mission. The word around the village
was that the police had caught and killed them, but we would not
hear about this on the radio ( 10)

This attests to the fact that every struggle has its own price. Death has continued to be the
fate of some of the freedom fighters of the Niger- Delta. This befalls Ken Saro- Wiwa. The
militants die without any acknowledgment. This has not in any way daunted their resolve to
continue to agitate that the government should address the Niger- Delta problem.

The human environment plays a huge part in the daily life of the people. Agary points out in
this novel that the Delta environment is a determining factor in the general behaviour of the
characters in the novel. What is obvious is the fate of the teenagers especially the females.
The environment is exploited by the foreign nationals and their local collaborators just the
same way the ladies are exploited.

The impoverished environment is the general cause of poverty in the Delta region. For the
female characters, their response is to migrate to the city especially Port Harcourt. They are
probably not aware that not all that glitters is gold. Binaebi, out of poverty relocates to Port
Harcourt. Zilayefa describes them as “a young and naive eighteen- year old. ” She relocates to
Port Harcourt in search of “instant property. ” This most of them engage in because they are
living under the illusion of oil boom. Unknown to her, the Greek man she falls in love with is
just a bird of passage. After a few flings the man disappears without a good bye. Zilayefa says
that:

she went to the port to look for him one day, as had become her
habit and was told that his ship had left. There was no message;
he was just gone, leaving behind his planted seed in my mother’s
belle ( 7)

Teenage pregnancy is not an isolated occurrence in the Niger- Delta, it is very common.
Zilayefa has this to say;
 My pregnant friend Ebiere and I were sitting in front of my
mother’s house one evening after a party to celebrate with one of
our age mates who had put to bed ( 41)

The society is oblivious of the problems the girl child in the Niger- Delta face before falling
victims and the efforts they make afterwards to earn a decent living. The mistake has been
made and nobody is ready to listen. Zilayefa is of the opinion that nobody cares about their
conscious efforts at living a decent life after the initial mistake. Her story would be difficult to
tell in a society that has its own prejudice against people in that category. Hence, it is their
fate to live with the circumstances surrounding their birth.

The search for acceptance and the desperate attempt to avoid poverty as a result of the
degradation of the Niger- Delta environment is responsible for the social standing of the ladies.
They take to prostitution and the boys take to militancy. Everybody has a story to tell and a
past to contend with or cover up.

After Zilayefa’s indiscretion with Admiral, Emem expresses her opinion about Zilayefa’s
feelings:

Do not think you are Lolo. Lolo has a name. She is from old
money. She can afford to sit on her high horse and pass judgment
on people because she hasn’t experienced hardship. Even then, I
don’t think she is totally innocent…She must have had one or two
of these affairs. Get yourself together. Save your money ( 141)

This is a clear demonstration that the girls go into prostitution because they need money to live
a decent life. The excuse could not even be sustained. The desire of Zilayefa is to further her
education to the university level. Emem is of the opinion that Zilayefa would be able to save
enough money from her affair with Admiral to finance her education. The response of Zilayefa
to this indicates that Sisi has promised to take care of her education. This type of relationship
is just the normal thing that the ladies engage in.

It is obvious that the injustice and the deprivation the people of the Niger- Delta suffer
transcend environmental degradation. The female population, especially the young ladies
became sex objects in the hand of the expatriates. The local boys who pimp some of them are
at the mercy of such boys who often deny them from enjoying what they made from their
exploitative venture. Prostitution became a means of escaping poverty induced by
environmental pollution. The environment could no longer support the people. Hence, the
people resolved to earn a living by whatever means at their disposal including militancy. Agary,
in this text, has been able to lay bare the issues bedeviling the Delta region especially as it
affects the ecology of the environment which is a violation of the tenents of ecocriticism.

WORKS CI TED

PRI MARY TEXT

Agary, K. 2009. Yellow- Yellow. Lagos: Dtalkshop.

SECONDARY TEXTS
Abdulsalam, Amoo. 2011. An Analysis of Kaine Agary’sYellow- Yellow in Relation to the Niger-
Delta Situation. Retrieved December 20, 2015 from
www. goodreads. com/ review/ show/ 169661206

Buell, L. 2001. Writing for An Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the
United States and beyond. Cambridge, M. A: Harvard University Press

Chad Nilson and Todd Burke. 2002. Domestic Terrorism. Retrieved October 10, 2015 from
http: / / sandhyamahadevan. wordpress. com

Glotfelty, H. C. and Harlod, F. Eds 1996. The Ecocriticism Reader’ Landmarks in Literary
Ecology. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Kerridge, R. 2006. Environmentalism and Ecocriticism. Literary Theory and Criticism Ed.
Patricia Waugh. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 531- 543.