"Dirge to slit bodies": EndSARS, police brutality, and Nigerian Dystopia in Jumoke Verissimo and James Yeku's Soro Soke: When poetry speaks up

Ojebode, Ayokunmi

Abstract

Since the post-independent era, Nigerian literary and political activists from Fela Anikupo Kuti’s Zombie to Ken Saro-Wiwa’s “Silence Would Be Treason”, and Wole Soyinka’s The Man Die have utilized a plethora of genres to parody, protest, and provoke public consciousness about the oppressive structures, national liberation, and transformation of Nigeria. Following George Floyd’s death in the United States on 25 May 2020, Nigerian youths exploited social media in different Nigerian states, especially Lagos and the diaspora, to demonstrate public outrage against the horrendous brutalities of the Nigerian Police Force’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The online protest, which started with the hashtag #EndSARS, motivated other hashtags, especially the #Sòròsókè, and became a creative outlet for social commentaries on the Nigerian police, government, and ominous massacre of protesters at Lekki, Lagos State, in October 2020. Only a few compelling studies have considered experimental poetry as both protest literature and empirical evidence on violence, especially police brutalities in Nigeria. Therefore, this study explores Jumoke Verissimo and James Yéku’s (2020) Soro Soke: When Poetry Speaks Up, a poetic volume by budding Nigerian poets for imageries of violence and the underlined public encounters of police brutalities underpinned by youths’ revolutionary and creative impulses. Beyond literary expressiveness, poetry is a creative asset for social therapy and documentary to protest and expose political oppression, schemes, and social vices. The selected poems blend emotive and cognitive, creative, and realistic portraits of Nigerian youths’ visionary and unyielding quest for social reformation and justice in Nigeria.

Citation

Ojebode, A. (2024). "Dirge to slit bodies": EndSARS, police brutality, and Nigerian Dystopia in Jumoke Verissimo and James Yeku's Soro Soke: When poetry speaks up. . Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40754-3_14

• Online Publication Date: May 7, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Deposit Date: Jun 24, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: May 8, 2026
• Pages: 307-327
• Series Title: The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Africa
• ISBN: 9783031407536
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40754-3_14
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/36562724
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-40754-3_14#citeas
• Additional Information: First Online: 7 May 2024