“Oil is on Water”: Reading Habila’s Oil on Water through Said’s Imaginative Geography and its Representation

Abstract

Against the background of environmental devastation and change brought about by oil exploration, this article studies the representation of the effects of the extractive oil industry on the local environment in the Niger Delta in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water. Beginning with the assumption that the impact of oil exploration on the environment can be better understood by having a sense of place, this article will engage in a reading of Habila’s novel.Unlike the previous scholarship which perceive the novel as a narrative of militant realism, this study will argue that in the context of environmental transformation animated by petro-extraction and distribution the narrative of the novel challenges us to the inevitable need of collective social responsibility and action in the preservation of human, non-human lives and the environment. Working with the central motif of water as a life agent to human, non-human, and the ecosystem in general we will show that the story of the novel reveals that the destruction of water and the general aquifer turn every one into victims. In order to achieve our goal we will adopt Edward Said’s concept of imaginary geography and its representation in order to interpret the underlying contrapuntal relations in Habila’s novel. This contrapuntal relations manifest in the presentation of space, characters as victims and the complicity of traditional mode of worship in the conflict between the State and the militant groups. Again it is shown that the innumerable divisions between the militant groups raise the sceptical worry that these groups may have become trapped in the same ills they potentially confront.