FORM AND CONTENT OF BENJAMIN BEMDOO KAKIS POLITICAL POETRY

ABSTRACT This study is on the form and content of Benjamin Bemdoo Kakis political poetry. The choice of this oral artist is necessitated by the fact that he is a leading oral poet of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State whose renderings have continued to lie unattended to academically. Four songs have been selected from the renditions of the oral artist and duly transcribed, translated and analysed in the study using the rhetorical theory as the theoretical framework. This theory is deemed suitable given that the game of politics has to do with persuasion using a variety of rhetorical devices to convince. Despite the numerous songs produced by this selected artist, there is no preponderance of scholarly studies on the poetry of the oral artist. The study therefore analyses the thematic preoccupations that are recurrent in the songs selected from the poetic inventory of the artist. Prominent amongst them are the themes of advocacy of peace, justice and fairness, projection of the credentials of political candidates and patrons, vituperative castigation of perceived political enemies, political advisory and history as a negotiating factor in politics. The study equally discovers the dominant literary stylistic devices which make up the form of the oral artists poetry to include: metaphor, hyperbole, rhetorical questions, allusion, proverbs and invectives. These devices, according to the findings of the study have been deliberately deployed by the artist with the sole aim of passing the desired message to the target audience and creating the desired effect. The study which uses the fieldwork approach of data collection purposively samples four songs deemed heavily endowed with political persuasive strategies and content. The oral artist was consulted to elicit biographical information and to seek clarification on certain portions of the poetry. Library materials found germane to the study have also been adequately utilised. The study concludes that the songs are rich in content especially that they are heavily pregnant with literary stylistic devices under whose wings the entire meanings fly. The study which is a contribution to knowledge having subjected a somewhat neglected artist to studies therefore recommends that more efforts be made by students, academics, government and other critical stakeholders in the research industry so as to ensure aggressive research on Tiv oral poetry so that most songs do not go extinct or lie fallow academically.