This study presents an interdisciplinary approach towards a critical analysis of some impacts of crude-oil exploration in Niger Delta and polemics of viable conϐlict resolution framework. This approach involves analysis of Ahmed Yerima’s creative portrayal in Hard Ground which revolves around the variables activating conϐlicting emotional interests in matters concerning ‘black gold’ in Nigeria, and how these variables resonant in debates and demands for Nigeria’s polity restructuring because of perceived resource mismanagement. More so, our scope includes an analytical attempt at illuminating elaborately our interpretation of the dimensions to the loud and shrewd inclinations subsuming what some see as solution to the lingering conϐlict, and the suppositions explaining why others see the debates and demands on polity restructuring as dark convoluted ploys aimed at hidden agenda. Hence, through select theories of victimhood, this study attempts to elucidate on the variables propelling conϐlicting emotional interestsabout oil exploration in Niger Delta, by looking interpretively hard and deep on the perspectives, views and suppositions deϐining the ideologies and inclinations propelling them. In the end, this study notes that the disenchantments and troubles with Nigeria’s polity framework and structure as it relates to oil exploration in Niger Delta are subsumed in Hard Ground’s creativecontribution as a means of assessing the points to the fault-lines that characterize the subsisting socio-political structure upon which Nigeria stands and wobbles.

We learn from history that some consequences of abysmal government policies and dysfunctional tactics include socio-economic retrogression, increased deprivation ideology, victimhood, rebellion, war and revolution; and theorists have provided several plausible contextualizations for elucidation. One of such conceptualizations is Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation, which can be applied to illuminate sufficiently how discontent enacted in Ahmed Yerima’s trilogy can lead to aggressive responses. Thus, through an interpretive approach, we shall look at how Yerima portrays creatively in his trilogy – Hard Ground, Little Drops, and Ipomu why a show of force, divide and rule, carrot and stick tactics by successive Nigerian governments have exacerbated grief, restiveness and rebellion in Niger Delta because of unwholesome oil exploitation and ineffectual corporate social responsibility approaches. In the end, this study proposes that Niger Delta oil exploitation related discontent will fester and linger if functional inclusiveness and proportional infrastructural development are not deployed progressively.

This paper analytically discusses the efficacy of Obiora Udechukwu’s eight paintings particularly their commonality in projecting humanity universal common, pervading melancholy consciousness, and their propensity to activate effectual catharsis. This paper also discusses how these eight paintings provide cognitive channels through which plausible interpretive attempt at psychoanalysis of Udechukwu in relation to the paintings can be attained. We are adopting interpretive approach in our attempt at coming up with plausible deductions and extrapolations of the embedded significations in the paintings. To deepen our purview on efficacy of these paintings as stimuli for emotion activation, we shall apply select theories explaining contexts of melancholy consciousness, effectual catharsis and cognitive channels of psychoanalysis in relation to paintings as texts. In the end, our interpretations indicate that Udechukwu’s techniques in these paintings create perpetual atmosphere subsuming consciousness of universally acknowledged debilitating agonies resulting from wars.

The purpose of this study is to extend scholarly reading of the contributions of Michael Soi’s politics paintings to social debates as a means of deepening our understanding of the complex relationship between art and politics. Thus, this study assesses relevant variables indicating how Soi’s selected paintings are effectively his means of projecting his views about his experiences, expectations, dreams, fears and reservations concerning his society’s socio-political realities. In an attempt at analyzing the functionality and aesthetic significances of Soi’s paintings, this study discusses relevant perspectives from individuals on politics paintings particularly how they can propel meaningful debates. Therefore, to gather relevant information on people’s responses to this kind of painting, we utilized viewer response approach and follow-up interviews. More so, we applied interpretive analysis in assessing the paintings (as metaphors depicting social realities), the collated responses (as means of espousing more on the concepts of cognitive process mechanisms), and relevant literature (as a means of assessing the trajectories of scholarly views on this subject). In the end, we observe that Soi’s politics paintings are efficacious medium of communication and that each individual viewer of these paintings produces responses that are similar or dissimilar but not exact because their subsisting ideological, political and philosophical inclinations are not exactly the same.

This study examines the aesthetics and shades of portrayals of ghosts as supernatural and metaphysical realities in two Nollywood films Heart of a Ghost and A Ghost Story as representations of Igbo worldviews on ghosts' realities. Our aim is to present an analytical explanation of the filmic attributions in relation to historical as well as the subsisting socio-cultural worldviews of the Igbo people regarding ghosts. Therefore to extrapolate on the subsumed Igbo worldviews and philosophies about ghosts in the selected films, this study adopts theoretical purviews on magical realism and Charles Peirce's inclination on interpretive community theory as the preferred conceptual praxis. Furthermore, this study applies critical interpretive analysis as the adopted analytical approach. Thus, the relevance of these portrayals to the subsisting sociocultural worldviews about ghosts among the Igbo forms part of our thematic purview. Essentially this study sufficiently provides plausible answers to questions bothering on whether ghosts exist in the manner portrayed in the two films, as well as plausible analysis of the significations of ghosts' appearances in clothing and whether ghosts do change their clothing like humans from time to time.