Oral Tradition and African Environmentalism in Wasiu Abimbola’s Yoruba Movie, Ikoko Ebora

Abstract:

ABSTRACT: The oral tradition in African society has always served the purpose of transmitting the values of the African people across generations among other functions of entertaining and provoking critical thought. In the emerging global concern over environmental sustainability, understanding the perspective from which people view and interact with the environment around them would provide insights into the human-induced challenges facing it, and how these challenges can be overcome. This paper thus posited that the oral repertoires of African societies would provide insights into the people’s perspective of the environment around them. This paper, therefore, undertook an examination of the oral literary forms such as incantations, proverbs, myths, and songs in Wasiu Abimbola’s Yoruba film titled Ikoko Ebora for the deployment of environmental aesthetics which are peculiar to the Yoruba culture. The study concluded that the deployment of environmental agencies in oral literary forms reflects the African conception of the environment as a functional entity and a complementary agency for the use of man.