The Guardian newspaper was established in February 1983. The new tabloid precipitated fundamental revolution in the form and content of the archetypal Nigerian newspaper. Alexander Uruemu Ibru, founder of The Guardian, envisioned a newspaper that would rank among the very best anywhere in the world. It should be a one-stop-shop of information, education, enlightenment and entertainment for the reading public. According to Adesina, Ibru “founded The Guardian in 1983 intending to make it the best newspaper in Nigeria and one of the best five in the world.”

This vision of holistic excellence in the aesthetics of the contemporary Nigerian newspaper is further espoused by Cole, when he explains the philosophical origins of The Guardian. Ibru’s aim, according to Cole:

“…Was to produce the best and most authoritative newspaper Nigeria had ever seen… The Guardian believes that all Nigerians should walk with their heads high up, not out of pride, but out of achievements. We further believe that the destiny of Nigeria is interstitially connected with the destiny of Africa and that if Africa is left without progress, so much would the world become poorer and more dangerous and unstable.”

For Ibru to achieve his vision of articulating a world-standard product, it was imperative for him to headhunt the most cerebral and creative minds in the print media business.

This mission is further amplified by Adesina who says: “He (Ibru) hired the best and brightest for this venture and it was not long before the newspaper became the flagship of the Nigerian press.” From the inception of the newspaper therefore, Nigerian academics, scholars, critics, writers and teachers across disciplines who were only previously encountered mainly on the pages of texts – journals, books and the like, were involved and incorporated in the conceptualisation of The Guardian. Names like Femi Osofisan, Patrick Dele-Cole, Onwuchekwa Jemie, Eddie Iroh, Stanley Macebuh, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Edwin Madunagu, Olatunji Dare, Odia Ofeimun, Chidi Amuta, Ashikiwe Adione-Egom, among others, constituted the core of early intellectuals and creative minds who came together to give practical interpretation to the founding vision of The Guardian. Individually and collectively, these scholars had earned substantial reputations as authorities and reference names in their various disciplines and vocations, before their eventual congregation at The Guardian.

As would be expected, the impact of this aggregation of top-notch intellectuals very positively influenced critical departments and sections of the new publication, notably: news, features, finance, economy, politics, international reportage, healthcare, sports, photography, cartoons, and graphics. Indeed, an otherwise innocuous section like cartooning was invested with such novel scholarship and profundity in The Guardian, that Jegede notes:

One newspaper, in particular, The Guardian, elevated the art of cartooning to a cerebral level on the op-ed pages through a cultivated avoidance of what was by then becoming a “splash – dash”culture of popular art. And in the case of The Guardian, one cartoonist, in particular, Bisi Ogunbadejo, emphasised not humour, but also the discursive and philosophical aspects of cartooning.

Such was the multi-departmental, multivalent impact of this wholesale descent on the newspaper, by seasoned academics. It was probably on the Editorial Board and the literary pages that the new revolution was most apparent. Idowu (2003) records that the Editorial Board of The Guardian was a “powerful” assemblage of some of Nigeria’s most respected literary minds. And one major figure who contributed immensely to shaping the character and editorial direction of that Editorial Board was Stanley Macebuh.

Macebuh who held a doctorate in literary criticism from the University of Sussex, United Kingdom, had previously served as Editorial Adviser in the Daily Times of Nigeria from 1978 to 1981 when Dele Cole was Managing Director of the organisation. In that capacity, Macebuh pioneered the formal creation of the Editorial Board in a typical Nigerian newspaper.

Cole himself was arguably the first doctorate holder appointed to the leadership of the Daily Times group of publications, by the Federal Government. He had taken a doctorate in History from the University of Cambridge, England in 1970, served as guest professor, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in the USA between 1970 and 1973 and worked in various senior administrative capacities in the Federal Civil Service before his appointment at the Daily Times in 1976.

He held this position until 1980. It is testimony to Cole’s intellectual and authorial qualities, that he wrote: Modern and Traditional Elites in the Politics of Lagos
(1975).

He co-authored with Peter P. Ekeh and Gabriel O. Olusanya, Nigerian History Since Independence: The First 25 Years, Volume V: Politics and Constitution
(1989). Only an intellectual like Cole who would have had the vision, courage, and self-confidence, to engage a fellow scholar to assist with the responsibility of lifting the editorial quality of this organization. Espousing on the enterprise of Macebuh further, Idowu says:
… It was at The Guardian where he was first Executive Editor and Director of Publications and later Managing Director that he (Macebuh) made the greatest impact. Widely credited with the intellectual thrust of the paper, he assembled a powerful editorial team, which was headed by Dr. Onwuchekwa Jemie, with Dr. Femi Osofisan, Dr. Chinweizu and later Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi as members. It was said that The Guardian Editorial Board was a literary theatre that dissected issues of the day.

A study of the academic backgrounds of individual members of this Editorial Board reveals the very heavy literary bent of the team. It followed that arts, literature, and literary criticism will be significant beneficiaries of the editorial disposition, temperament, and colouration of the Board. For instance, Osofisan underscores the deep-seated literary inclination of the pioneering editorial team at The Guardian, apart from himself:

At The Guardian, we were quite a team of literary people. Jemie was there, Eddie Iroh came, Stanley Macebuh himself, Chinweizu, and later on, others joined us. We were there; we were literary people; we were literary critics. And the joke thus was that Stanley (Macebuh) was trying to create a newspaper of facts and he hired fiction writers!

Ogunbiyi buttresses the agenda-setting vision of the pioneering team, which was going to be unapologetically committed to the development of literature. According to him:

It was evident at the onset of The Guardian as a professionally-run daily tabloid in July 1983, that either in the immediate or future, the publication would be actively engaged in the project to facilitate the “popularisation” of our robust literature. It was obvious to the initiators of the publication that the scholarly department of a committed national tabloid, had an overriding responsibility to participate in, initiate, and even stir-up debate, in the all-important area of literature and culture. In a broad sense, that was a prime objective for starting The Guardian Literary Series, GLS.

De Fleur and Dennis in explaining the “Agenda Setting Theory” further, opine that “the press (news media in general), determine a variety of subjects, concerns, and current affairs, while continually surveying its domain, for issues to process and report daily as the news.” Espousing the theory further, De Fleur and Dennis proffer that: “…In other words, the press developed its own agenda concerning what issues were news and how much space and prominence to give to them. The agenda of the press then became the agenda of those who followed the news.” Thus, with this solid ideological and visionary backing, The Guardian would go ahead to establish itself as a leader of the tabloid platform for literary expression.

Sample Literary Activities In The Guardian
Right from the inception of The Guardian, the newspaper was poised to give exceptional attention to literature and literary development. While working assiduously to create a respectable newspaper and a new brand in the highly competitive Nigerian tabloid market, the “literary journalists” at The Guardian were also very concerned with the popularisation of Nigerian literature by deploying the new tabloid for this experimentation. Osofisan espouses further on the inspiration for the choice of popular literature on the public podium of the newspaper, in an interview with Ademola in Olasope (ed). According to him:
…I have been thinking more and more of popular literature because it is of concern to me, literacy is dying. How do we develop a taste for reading?… And I started thinking that maybe the way we have been presenting literature to the public is the problem. Maybe we present it always like school books for examinations, the kind that people, when they leave school, are happy to forget and never go back to…And I thought: Well, if people will not go to literature, why doesn’t literature go to the people? And the way I responded was to use the newspapers. After all, Charles Dickens and the rest of them used the newspaper in their time.”

We must note that literature, culture, and the arts were not the priority for the typical tabloid editor before this time. “Hard news,” for the conservative editor, consisted of topical issues and developments from the realms of politics, finance and economy, sports and international affairs. Prime attention was also received by the all-important advertising section, which remains the cash cow of the regular Nigerian newspaper. Macebuh informs us of the helplessness of the pioneer Editor of The Guardian, Lade Bonuola, who virtually had to concede space, usually grudgingly to items that were not “news.”
According to him, “… the editor of The Guardian Lade Bonuola, sometimes had fits of helplessness whenever he was obliged to find space in his slim paper for what, after all, was not “hard news.” Thus began a new lease of life for culture and the arts in the Nigerian print media.

The Guardian devoted prime space with sustained regularity, three days of the week to literary criticism, creative writing, and literature. Initially on Wednesdays, (later Tuesdays), and then Saturdays and Sundays, students, scholars and enthusiasts of Nigerian literature were assured of vibrant offerings on the pages of The Guardian. The midweek edition of the literary section was called “Arts and Culture” (sometimes merely The Arts) page; Saturday, The Guardian Literary Series (GLS) and Sunday, Guardian Literary Supplement. The mid-week literary section of The Guardian typically featured theatre reviews, book critiques, conference papers, under-currents from popular art and music, as well as art updates. Abati in a 60th birthday tribute in honour of Shina Peters the Afro Juju music exponent, recalls the place of the Nigerian newspaper within the period under discussion, in the whole process of literary development:

I wrote in those days very actively for the Nigerian press – Daily Sketch where I did book reviews almost weekly; Nigerian Tribune, where I also wrote reviews and essays; The Times Literary Supplement, anchored first by Afam Akeh and later by Dapo Adeniyi and of course the seminal Guardian Literary Series anchored by Ben Tomoloju, where literature was promoted and rigorous intellection allowed.

The Saturday section featured the more seminal literary criticism and it was called The Guardian Literary Series (GLS). This invited essays, which benefitted from rigorous research as well as academic articles on the multi-generic evolution of Nigerian literature. The cream of Nigeria’s literati in the universities and tertiary institutions wrote the articles. The GLS also published academic interviews with literary giants on the broad spectrum of our national literature –oral literature, poetry, prose, drama, and literary criticism, providing fresh and illuminating insights.

Osofisan recalls: “Yemi Ogunbiyi went round to create this literary criticism section which was published into a book later. We commissioned people to write these things from the universities and Yemi spent a lot of time editing them.” The book in question is the two-volume publication Perspectives on Nigerian Literature: 1700 to the Present.

On Sundays, The Guardian Literary Supplement accorded space in the main to creative writing and also to criticism. It was on these pages that Osofisan (writing under the pen name Okinba Launko) commenced his top-rated fictional series, “Tales the Country Told Me,” which ran consistently for weeks and months on end. Realising the apathy of the reading public towards books, literature and literacy generally, Osofisan explains that this informed his deliberate deployment of a literary style which will not only endear his readers to his writing but encourage them to sustain a healthy reading attitude. This experiment has since spawned the publication of four well-received novelettes: Ma’ami, Cordelia, Wuraola Forever and Abigail (published as Pirates). The literary supplement page also featured book news, conference updates and a bottom strip, which ran across the centre pages, called “Guest Poet”.

Toyin Adewale-Gabriel, a leading female poet notes that it was The Guardian, which first announced her arrival as a serious writer. Speaking in an interview conducted for this study, she notes:

It was The Guardian that first published my work for the first time ever. That was another epic moment for me. Odia Ofeimun was then editing the literary pages of The Guardian. A friend of mine who was working at The Guardian had introduced me to Odia who requested that I send him some of my poems. This must have been in 1988 or 1989. You can imagine picking up a copy of The Guardian and finding my works published as the Guest Poet…At that point, it was like “Oh yes, you are a writer!”

There is sufficient evidence that right from its year of birth, The Guardian had a clear vision for tabloid literature. In The Guardian of Sunday, December 18, 1983, two poems feature in The Guardian Supplement. One of them, Inemo T. Ikama’s “Christmas dey Come” is articulated in pidgin and reproduced below:
Birds dey cry
Bells dey chime
All dey say Christmas dey come
Buyers dey buy
Sellers dey sell
Prices dey fly up up
Dis mean say Christmas dey come
For inside livestock sheds
Fowls, goats, all, dey cry
Say dem end don near
As Christmas dey come

Employahs and employeahs dey talk bonus Papa, mama and pikin dey talk new klots – Who know if austerity go allow dem wish well Whether or not, Christmas dey come
Well, forget about big headtie
Big big dress and shokoto shoe Dust the old ones for Christmas As austerity don keep new ones far
De thing wey dey sweet Christian for Xmas No bi klot, big chop and plenty drink
But na di joy, peace and hope
Wey Christmas bring foram.

The Guardian Supplement of Sunday, January 22, 1984, features three poems, one of which is Dele Morakinyo’s “To Thy Shame” which goes thus:
Oh, for turning us all insane
Awake, picking through in pain
At night craving for rest in vain from this dreg some gain
In millions from here to Britain
Some too sleep on stables come shine or rain
That saviour not coming again?
Or caught up in the traffic train
No NEPA he MAY complain
Or water… anything he can explain
Oh, fleeing glory perch again

High above the NET in-flame Call again to restore our name If you fail to re-live your fame It is to thy shame.

The fact that the tabloid platform gave opportunities to youngsters and younger writers, is validated on Page B4 of The Guardian Supplement of Sunday, March 11, 1984. The page features four poems whose writers were secondary school students at the time: “A Dream” by Chigozie Anumba, Class II, FGC, Lagos; “The Vengeance of the Gods” by Bolanle Adeyemi, Class V, FGC, Oyo; “Mother Africa, I Wail for You” by Theresa Ofili, Lower Six Arts, FGC, Sagamu; and “She Went Away” by Rosemary Ogobi, III F, FGC, Lagos.

The whole of Page B4 of The Guardian Supplement of September 26, 1993, is dedicated to poetry. There are a total of nine poems on the page with eight of them written by Oluwole Adejare, who at the time was a Professor of English and Dean of Arts, Lagos State University, which underscored the seriousness and respectability conferred on writing and being published in The Guardian at the time. It is important to note that The Guardian sustained this practice of encouraging literary creativity throughout the period under review. Just as is the case with the various literary works in these pages, the tabloid platform brought these efforts to a wider readership and public knowledge.

Textual Analysis Of Select Literary Works In The Guardian
Odia Ofeimun’s extended interview runs in the literary column of three consecutive Wednesday editions of The Guardian beginning from Wednesday August 17, 1983. It reaffirms that he belongs to the crop of Nigerian and African poets and writers who believe in the transformative role of the literary arts and deploy it as a weapon for the redemption of the lost ideals of nationhood. He drew heavily on his political experience right from his time as a vital member of the late Obafemi Awolowo’s party and also as Personal Secretary to the late politician. Ofeimun’s writings, therefore, frontally combat inept and corrupt leadership in Nigeria and Africa in general.

In one of his poems, titled, “The New Brooms”, which was featured alongside an interview, titled, “Conversation with Odia Ofeimun” by Onwuchekwa Jemie, on p. 11 of The Guardian of Wednesday, August 17, 1983, the poet asserts his unmistakable stance as a socially committed poet. He is preoccupied with exposing mass disillusionment among Nigerians, who welcome the emergence of new leaders with high hopes and expectations that the so-called ‘new brooms’ would sweep the land clean of the morass foisted on it by the past leaders, are soon disappointed:
The streets were clogged with garbage
The rank smell of swollen gutters
Claimed the peace of our lives…
To keep the streets clear
They brought in the world-changers
With corrective swagger-sticks
They brought in the new brooms
To sweep public sores away…

The lines above aptly demonstrate the optimism with which the new leaders are received by their constituents. Unfortunately, the aftermath of their enthronement rapidly defeats this popular optimism. The devastation and desolation of the people become quite palpable, “with refuse still glutting the public places un-swept.” The poet maintains that any attempt to question why the expected change is yet to manifest in the era of ‘the new brooms,’ is rebuffed:
And if you want to know why
The streets grunt now
Under rank garbage
Under the weight of decay of night soil. More than ever before
They will point triumphantly, very triumphantly

At their well-made time-table: we shall get there soonest Night soil clearance is next on the list.

It is clear from Ofeimun’s lines that the new regime had merely foisted grief, unhappiness, sorrow, distress, hardship, pains, burden, hopelessness, and uncertainty on the people. The poet says, “in our model democracy the magic promises of yesterday lie cold like mounds of dead cattle along caravans that lead nowhere.”

In another poem on the same page 11 of The Guardian of Wednesday, August 17, 1983, titled, “How Can I sing,?”

Odia Ofeimum restates that he cannot “blind himself to putrefying carcasses in the market place pulling giant vultures from the sky.”

The poet does not shy away from talking about the utmost degeneration and putrefaction in high places. Deploying very apt images, the poet reminds us of the imperative of speaking up in the face of political inconsistencies orchestrated by lousy leadership in his fatherland.

Also in the interview Ofeimun argues that the difference between the first and the second generations of Nigerian writers is not significant, and he gives his reason for this assertion thus: “I think it has to do with the basic climate, the socio-political climate within which production takes place.”

Ofeimun finds himself among the several Nigerian poets whose poetic exploration of the Nigerian socio-political climate reveals a patriotic feeling that is true to life. He continues to make statements through his poetry that those who aspire to govern must govern well. His poetry as featured in various newspapers, boldly indicates that he has always been a radical poet.

He is undisguisedly partisan in his political views and his support for the ordinary people in their daily struggles. To this extent, it is difficult for a poet of his inclination to wholly escape the appellation of “political poet,” despite other concerns of his art.

The following instalment of “Conversation with Odia Ofeimun” by Onwuchekwa Jemie appears on page 10 of The Guardian, Wednesday, August 24, 1983.

In this special edition, Jemie engages Ofeimun on the question of leadership, especially the feeling that there has been a shift of vision. Arising from this development, certain leadership distortions have emerged due to peculiar developments. Ofeimun maintains that Nigerian writing up to the time of this interview including his, reflect unsuccessful attempts to break out of the elitist strain. For him:

It is not yet a rupture that one can celebrate in comparison with the kind of rupture that came in Nigerian politics with the appearance of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo, a rupture which made people realize that with this two, politics could no longer be played in the way it was played before.

There needs to be a shift of vision away from elitist themes which did not help to understand how our common lives… akind of literature can be produced which joins issues around the common needs which defines us as a people.”

Two of Ofeimun’s poems are also featured on the same page in this edition of The Guardian. In one of the poems, titled, “For the Aladuras,” Ofeimun x-rays the resort to religious adventurism by a people disillusioned by the socio-political realities of their time. The Word Aladura is a Yoruba expression for “prayer people.” It is used in this poem to connote the season-inspired hunger for spiritualism by a despairing people as seen in the lines “they thronged heavenwards/quivering with infernal delight/ at the feet of the all-accommodating Kristi.”

This hunger for spiritualism is duplicitous, with the people desiring to “surrender completely to God’s timeless fire, away from the lame camel that defines religious worship.” Ofeimun’s poetics address the experiences of the generality of Nigerian masses and expresses Nigerian post-colonial realities. In the next poem titled “Where the bullets have spoken,” the poet laments the disillusionment of the ordinary citizens in the aftermath of a coup-de-tat which culminated in the assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, “the action man of July twenty-ninth,” whose rule many Nigerians viewed as the “newfound entrance into the days of hope.” The people had already begun to experience some optimism under Murtala before he was murdered in cold blood.

This is what the poet means when he says: “Where joy was filling its nest with eggs/the serpent pitch their pin-heads, coil for spoils/ against walls of fear as against claps of death/ we hedge in the dreams that were recreating us.” The incorporation of orality into his poetry and the accessibility of language are unique aesthetics that make Ofeimun a distinctive poet.

In the third part of “Conversation with Odia Ofeimun” by Jemie published in The Guardian of Wednesday, August 31, 1983, Ofeimun speaks of the need to successfully blend rhythm and reason to achieve good poetry of Christopher Okigbo’s variety.

Two of his poems also appear on this page. In the poem titled “The Messiahs,” the poet provides an illuminating and satiric insight into the hypocrisy of the new civilian government. The new government triumphantly parades itself as the messiah who would provide the desired leadership to match the yearnings and aspirations of the people. They end up in deploying vacuous propaganda “for victories that are yet to be won.” The insincere hype of their belated success is captured in the fourth stanza thus:
Their harvest report say
The barns explode
With tubers of plenty
All the trees are watered
With scented alcohol
Now they grow faster than they ever did In the other dynasty

The poem reflects the reality of the leadership scenario in Nigeria where every government that comes into power serially jettisons the high expectations of the people and indulges in self-glorification. They do so with facts which cannot be substantiated, “hiring praise-singers and talking drummers” to drum their so-called success story into the people’s ears. In the next poem entitled “A Footnote (II),” the growing proclivity and passion for impudence by our leaders at the expense of the masses finds adequate expression in the lines:

The guilty are too well-fed to pass Through the needles’ eye of our scorn The noose of public contempt
Hangs idle at the market place
A halo, a brazen halo
Fashioned by praise singers and clowns…

Here again, the poet-persona provides very sympathetic views of the despondency of the ordinary Nigerians whose fates are determined by the impunity and mischief of the leaders. Ofeimun’s concern for the oppressed, his anger at the dearth of public morality, cultural inadequacies, and economic mismanagement as demonstrated in these pages of The Guardian are qualities he shares with Niyi Osundare, a foremost exemplar of the radical poetics of his generation.

The Guardian of Wednesday January 11, 1984, features the works of three upcoming poets on page 9. In the first poem titled “Soul that Sinneth Dieth,” the poet identified mononymously as Buno, reminiscent of Chinweizu, dwells primarily on the question of the law of retributive justice catching up with those who trample the weak. January 1, 1984, which the poet profers as the date he wrote the poem is quite significant. The day before, December 31, 1983, military officers led by Major- General Muhammadu Buhari overthrew the Shehu Shagari government in a bloodless coup. Buhari’s new government enjoyed widespread public support for its condemnation of economic mismanagement, official corruption by the ousted civilian government and the monumentally flawed 1983 elections.

The emergence of Buhari’s military regime is therefore seen by the poet as nemesis catching up the civilian leaders who had misruled the country. The poet graphically captures this in the second stanza thus:
At last the vast business organization Called government
With its shareholders in ministerial And advisory garment
Gave way to the wrath of the people.
From these verses, we see how the Nigerian politician’s betrayal of national trust had continued to elicit pugilistic literature from writers over time. The highest point of the poem can be seen in the last two stanzas “No more shall we like the Lilliputians watch/ while the proverbial blind lead us to destruction/ …Today, the soul that sinneth dieth/ Today, the soul that stealeth runneth through the bush path.” The quote captures the mood of the times when most of the corrupt politicians ran into hiding for fear of being sent to the dungeons, by the military establishment. This similar concern is carried over into the next poem on the same page 9 of The Guardian of Wednesday, January 11, 1984, written by Modupe Olaogun under the title “Gone, the Lethargic MomentsWih.the “coming of the Buhari regime into power, poets like Buno and Olaogun saw the event as a major revolution that would “purge the land of its reeking filth” Olaogun thus proclaims:
Gone, the lethargic moment of our lives
Hollow rings the lullaby of spurious leaders
Mouthing freedom promises with the country in chains

The revolutionary tones and moods of these poems depict the efforts of combatant writers who take bold steps through their poetry, to unearth the monstrosities of the dictators and appreciate the plight of the masses.

This tone of oppression is carried further in the next poem titled “Song of Limbo Serf” by Emma Nwagbara, The Guardian, Wednesday, January 11, 1984.

The poem reflects the insensitivity of Nigerian leaders to the plight of the masses as expressed in the first line:
“Those we have made kings/have made us hewers of wood
Those… we have made princes/have made us servants/they have made us slaves…
Those wave made rich/ have made us poor.”

The continuous juxtaposition of “those” and “we” that runs throughout the poem creates interesting parallelism which depicts the enormous gulf between the affluent leaders and the very poor, who have contributed in elevating the rich to their present heights, with their votes and support.

In The Guardian of Wednesday, January 11, 1984 is the review of a play titled Lanke Omuti which is Kola Ogunmola’s adaptation of Amos Tutuola’s novel The Palmwine Drinkard. Kemi Atanda Ilori in the review, shows how the play relied heavily on the merits of traditional travelling theatre to tell a weird, ultra-supernatural fable.

The Guardian of Wednesday, January 11, 1984, also features a review of Frank Aig- Imoukhuede’s volume of pidgin poetry titled Pidgin Stew and Sufferhead. Obi Maduakor the reviewer, regards Imoukhuede, the author of the volume of poetry, an essential voice in the history of modern Nigerian poetry. This is not just on account of his talent as a poet, but also his innovativeness, especially as he had adapted pidgin English to producing serious poetry. The title, “Pidgin Stew and Sufferhead” comes to us as a rationalization of the poet’s choice of the ordinary language, the common man’s expression:
Pidgin, you say no be language
For serious profundity;
But I tell you big morsel
Dey hard stronghead swallow
Unless you get good stew

The lines above suggest that straight language may convey the criticism to those in power, but the kind of criticism that comes in a humorous meta-language may elude their attention.

The September 5, 1984 edition of The Guardian features a review of Niyi Osundare’s collection of poetry, titled, Songs of the Market Place, The reviewer, Chuzzy Udenwa notes that the volume of poetry, provides “insights into the resilience of the poet’s social message and contributes immensely to establish him as one of the most prominent of the younger generation of writers.”

The reviewer also submits that what constitutes the overall message of Osundare’s effort is his dedication. Udenwa notes that “…histhreading of events is haunting, he has indicated where he wants poetry, and indeed literature to go.”

The Guardian of Wednesday, March 30, 1985, features an incisive literary essay on “Oral Literature and the Development of Nigerian Literature,” by Ropo Sekoni. The article traces the development of written Nigerian literature, beginning from the oral traditions of the Nigerian people. According to him, “Oral literature is the springboard of written literature in Nigeria.”

On Wednesday, April 27, 1985, the newspaper features Funso Aiyejina’s critical essay, titled, “Recent Nigerian Poetry in English: An Alter-Native Tradition,” which is predicated on the tendency of post-civil war Nigerian poets to move towards the demystification of the aesthetics of early Nigerian poetry in English, for which Soyinka, Okigbo, MJC Echeruo and some other members of their generation, have been criticised.

Aiyejina contends that “…the poets could no longer afford to speak in inaccessible riddles and occultic tongues. New and strident voices were needed for the immediate and unambiguous expression of our tortured and fragmented psyche.” Other factors which Aiyejina identifies as imperative for the new aesthetics of poetry includes the geographical expansion of the poets as well as the proliferation of universities which served as factories for the production of poets. Aiyejina is in good company because Osundare in his essay, “Bard of the Tabloid Platform: A Personal Experience of Newspaper Poetry in Nigeria”, reinforces the stylistic gulf between the first generation of Nigerian poets, and their audiences.

A special edition of The Guardian Literary Series, which appears on Saturday, January 18, 1986 features Olu Obafemi’s essay on Zulu Sofola, Nigeria’s first published female playwright. Sofola, extolled for her multi-talented endeavours as a singer, dancer, and prolific dramatist, wrote and produced many plays for stage and television, including King Emene.

Her plays range from historical tragedy, to domestic comedy, deploying both traditional and modern African motifs. Elements of magic, myth, and ritual are prevalent in her works. The examination of conflicts between traditionalism and modernism, and male supremacy is a recurring theme in her writings.

Sofola is regarded as one of the most accomplished women in Nigerian and African literature. Obafemi submits that having been “born in 1935, one year after Wole Soyinka, Sofola occupied the same position among female writers, that Soyinka occupies among his male counterparts in the literary, dramatic/theatrical scene.”

In the same vein, The Guardian of Sunday January 25, 1986 features an essay by Catherine Acholonu in celebration of Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian novelist based in Britain.

She had published about eight books, at the time of the review. These include, The Bride Price, The Slave Girl and The Joys of Motherhood. Most of Emecheta’s books have three major themes: the quests for equal treatment, self- confidence, and dignity of the woman.

According to the reviewer, “Emecheta’s novels reflect the plight of the African woman trapped in the claws of traditional taboos and restrictions that only help to propel male chauvinism.”

Her works explore the joys and sorrows of African women as they struggle with patriarchal dominance, neocolonialism, economic exploitation, and racism. The author was born on July 21, 1944, in Nigeria. She got married at 16 in 1960 and moved to London in 1962 to join her husband who had gone ahead to study accounting. The marriage proved difficult, however, and Emecheta left her husband in 1966 She later earned a masters degree in sociology. Although she served for some time as a social worker, she decided to concentrate her efforts on writing which she saw as both a means of self-expression and a way to support her family. Emecheta’s earliest novels, In the Ditch (1972) and Second Class Citizen (1974), are inspired by what she experienced while working in London. These earlier novels were trailed by three others, set against the background of Nigeria, where Emecheta was born. They are The Bride Price (1976), (the manuscript of which had earlier been destroyed by her spouse); The Slave Girl (1977); and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). The trilogy are important documents on the recurring question of gender relations in African societies. The Joys of Motherhood is classified Emecheta’s best novel. It follows the life of a woman consumed by the societal demands of motherhood.

The 49th instalment of The Guardian Literary Series published on Saturday, April 5, 1986, features a critical essay on “Chinua Achebe as a Poet” by Onuora Ossie Enekwe. It illuminates the activation of the poetic sensibilities of Chinua Achebe by the Nigerian civil war. Enekwe advances that the destabilizing effect of unrest denied him time and leisure to produce long fiction. According to Enekwe, Achebe’s collection of poetry Beware, Soul Brother (1971) “could easily be seen in part as a poetic diary of the civil war.” Take, for instance, the unforgettable lines from the poem titled “Christmas in Biafra” “…Her infant son flat like a dead lizard/On her shoulder, his arms and legs/cauterised by famine.” Poems like “Christmas in Biafra” are more direct in their approach to their subject matter. There is a comparison between a mother tending her afflicted child, and the Christian nativity myth. In the Biafran example, maternal tenderness for ill-fated infants contrasts powerfully with God’s distance from atrocity. Enekwe concludes that:

Achebe’s poetry engages with the intensity of an essential quest, reluctant to let ideals thrive in their morbidity. It places the searchlight on life, tearing off the veils of anarchy and deceit. Most of the poems have high- descriptive power, which gives the impression of actuality. All this contributes to the vitality and originality of Achebe’s poetic efforts.

The Guardian Literary Series of Sunday, April 19, 1986, features a critical essay on the poetry of Enekwe and Udechukwu by Funso Aiyejina. Both belonged to the second generation like Ofeimun, Osundare, Osofisan, and their other contemporaries. The poems of Enekwe and Obiora Udechukwu, according to Aiyejina, “bear testimony that the post-independence incidents of violence have become essential factors in shaping the content and form of new Nigerian poetry in English.” In the same vein, Harry Garuba takes on “The Poetry of Odia Ofeimun and Femi Fatoba” two of the significant new voices in Nigerian poetry of the time, in The Guardian Literary Series of Saturday, June 7, 1986. The article reveals that “the poetry of Femi Fatoba contrasts very sharply with that of Odia Ofeimun”. He argues with conviction that while Ofeimun delights in words, Fatoba exhibits something of a disdain for them. More significantly, Ofeimun and Fatoba, through their engagement with the works of their predecessors, created for themselves an idiom of expression that was personal and accessible. “The poetry of Harry Garuba and Ada Ugah” is also given adequate ventilation by Ezenwa Ohaeto in The Guardian of Saturday, February 14, 1987. Ohaeto sees a worrisome trend in the poetry of Ugah and Garuba in the sense that their conception of the anomalies in their society is frightening. Beyond this, however, their poetry generates hope that patriotic and dedicated citizens can help in the elimination of these social distortions.
Biodun Jeyifo in The Guardian of Saturday, March 7, 1987, studies the poetry of the late Mamman Jiya Vatsa. Before his death, Vatsa churned out over 20 books, mostly poetry. He had a particular inclination for writing for children. He was a soldier-poet who energetically encouraged other soldiers to write poetry. He edited the volume of civil war poetry, titled, Voices from the Trench. Vatsa was also a cultural enthusiast, who actively cultivated the friendship of other writers. Jeyifo explains that for certain reasons, Vatsa’s poetry failed to attract genuine critical attention. One area of his poetic expression which lends itself to critical controversy, is the pedantic and substandard nature of his poetry.

According to Jeyifo, “two great shortcomings of Vatsa’s poetry are the poverty of metaphorical and figurative expressiveness…”

Take, for instance, the following lines from The Poetry of Abuja:
Abuja was my town
But the nation asked for her
And then gave the name to our nation Suleja is now my town
And Abuja our town I once owned Abuja
But Abuja now owns me.

It is precisely on account of these inadequacies that his poetry could not attract the desired critical attention befitting a poet of his status.
The Guardian Literary Series of Saturday, July 7, 1990, offers an article by Taiwo Oloruntoba-Oju on “Prose Satire in the Print Media: The Example of Olatunji Dare.”

Dare is duly acknowledged as placing satire as a literary genre on the map of widespread awareness.

In the words of Oloruntoba-Oju, “Dare’s satirical output is vast, especially because satirical writing is for him the rule, rather than the exception. The rhetorical richness of his satire also makes a stylistician’s delight”.

Oloruntoba-Oju attempts an analysis of rhetorical strategies common with Dare’s essays which confirms his place as a “master rhetorician and satirist”in the Nigerian print media.
Placing Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments under the lens of the sociological approach to criticism, Benson Omonode, in The Guardian Literary Series of Saturday, July 25, 1992, avers that:

A work of art is both a product and mirror of its age, just as the artist is bound to be influenced by the spirit of his age, its values, and prejudices. Thus a work of art is not created in a vacuum; it is the perspiration, not only of an individual, but of a creative artist, fixed in time and space. The sociological critic is therefore interested in understanding the writer’s social origin, the social values, and the context, in which the work was berthed.

Having laid the background for sociological criticism, Omonode views Armah’s Fragments as a novel which poses a fundamental question: What is the place of a reformer in a morally depraved and materialistic society? The answer seems not to be in the affirmative since he is only a fragment of society. Juana the psychiatrist in the novel, recalls such individual position as running against a general current, a situation which Baako describes as ‘Cataract.’

Harry Garuba’s critical review titled “Ben Okri: Animist Realism and the Famished Genre,” featured in The Guardian of Sunday, March 13, 1993. It is a review of Okri’s remarkable novel The Famished Road.

Okri, according to Garuba, ventures into a mediation, between tradional African ontologism, and Western contemporaneity. The Famished Road is the account of an African “spirit- child.”

The novel, published in 1991, follows Azaro, an abiku or spirit child, living in an unnamed city, most likely in the Nigerian country. The novel employs a unique narrative style incorporating the spirit world with the “real” world in what some have classified as “magical realism”.Others have labelled it “African Traditional Religion” realism. Still, others choose to call the novel fantasy literature.

The book exploits the belief in the coexistence of the spiritual and material worlds that is a defining aspect of traditional African life.

Harry Garuba sums up the novel as a remarkable novel that will “nourish the famished genre of Nigerian fiction. By reaching deep into an ancient tradition, reviving it and refashioning the tools for a new generation, the novel will have a lasting literary and historical significance for modern African fiction.”

The success of the experiment of The Guardian with the promotion of the growth and development of literature validates the perspective of Severin and Tankard Jnr.

According to them “the agenda-setting function of the media refers to the media’s capacity, arising from copious reportorial efforts, of accentuating the significance of a topic in the mind of the public.”
Awhefeada recalls the unique contributions of The Guardian to the consummation of the development of Nigeria’s national literature when he observes that “the monumental contributions of The Guardian Literary Series to the consolidation of Nigerian literature remains undiminished. Much of what constitutes Nigerian literature derives its origins from the pages of newspapers.” This once again underscores the centrality of The Guardian as a newspaper in the evolutionary process of Nigeria’s contemporary corpus of literature.

Conclusion
In this essay, we have examined and ascertained that the tabloid as exemplified by The Guardian newspaper, has been very largely supportive in nurturing literature and the arts since its inception.
Beyond being taught and studied in the lecture rooms and auditoriums of educational institutions, The Guardian brought literature and its holistic gamut to the public square in a manner of expression, beginning from its earliest years.

Poet Laureate Niyi Osundare, elsewhere, has captured the development as the transposition of the arts to the “marketplace,” both literally and metaphorically. Every other day, The Guardian offered diets and bouquets of literature to the reading public.

The publication was initially criticised for being too elitist because of the multidisciplinary editorial sophistry it brought with it.

Its tenacity in the face of such characterisation and the continuing relevance of the literary topics and concerns it featured and continues to promote to day-to-day, real-life experiences, attracted the newspaper to its teeming admirers.

Forty years after the inaugural edition of The Guardian, it has survived the attrition which many of its older peers and younger imitators have undergone. Very importantly, the newspaper organisation has continued to flourish in the years succeeding the demise of its founder, Alex Uruemu Ibru.

It has demonstrated such grit and resilience in a milieu where private enterprises or family businesses are very easily susceptible to dysfunction and collapse, following the exits of their progenitors.

The newspaper has continued to run as a very professional enterprise and to sustain its place as the true “flagship of the Nigerian newspaper.” This way, it has sustainably remained a pillar of support for the advancement of national and global literature and the arts.

Olusunle, Ph.D. is Chairman, Editorial Board, People and Politics Magazine, Abuja, Nigeria. He could be reached @ babatstone@yahoo.co.uk