Search

Copyright of Akofena is the property of Universite Felix Houphouet Boigny and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Yorùbá language, with its strong linguistic and cultural impacts in Africa and the Americas, faces imminent extinction, especially in Nigeria, where it counts the biggest number of speakers. It is no gainsaying then that Nollywood's production of historical classics in undiluted Nigerian Yorùbá language is playing the nationalist roles of rescuing and preserving the rich but threatened Yorùbá language and its culture. One of the ways Nollywood does that is through the use of witticism, especially, proverbs. The present paper analyzes some Yorùbá Nollywood canonic films and illustrates how their directors make use of strictly scripted films in Yorùbá language to preserve the authenticity of the language and bring to the fore many centuries of the ancient civilization of the Yorubas. Through a paremiological analysis of the richly coded Yorùbá language in the films, our arguments lay bare the meanings, the functions and the importance of proverbs in the oratory skills of the Yorubas. The analysis allows for a deep understanding of the ethnographical study of the values of the Yorubas in their various aspects of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the contribution that Nigerian Nollywood cinema makes to the discourse of nationalism and history in post-independent Nigeria and in other African countries. Specifically, it explores how Tunde Kelani's films Saworo Ide and Agogo Èèwò serve as socio-political weapons that condemn authoritarianism in Nigeria and in Africa. Kelani's works move from aesthetic mode to foreground cinema as a strong arm of constructing nationalism, allowing the audience to read ordinary Nigerians as political conscious, despite pervasive repression. With an underpinning of theory of nationalism, this article demonstrates how the two films advocate sovereignty by according voice to combat bad administration. It also argues for an inward look into solving the African socio-political predicament by suggesting an exploration of the wealth of African culture to attain a stable democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]