Enewaridideke Ekanpou's books, Tompolo's Haulers and Hailers, and The Wanted Man in Camp Four, released

By: Chukwuma Emmanuel

The winner of the 2004 Isidore Okpewho Prize for Literature, Dr. Enewaridideke Ekanpou, has formally released new books entitled Tompolo's Haulers and Hailers, and The Wanted Man in Camp Four in Warri, Delta State.

The books foreground the Niger struggle, environmental degradation, developmental backwardness, injustice, leadership betrayal, oppression, exploitation, cultural indestructibility,  the insensitivity of the multinational oil companies to the plight of the oil-producing communities, and the need for value re-orientation in the society. 

Among the books released alongside Tompolo's Haulers and Hailers, and The Wanted Man in Camp Four,  which cut across poetry and drama, are Sandbanks in River Forcados, The Honourable Commissioner, The Strong Blood, The Raffia Palm Tree, You Must Leave Ekameta Tomorrow, The Imbeciles, and The Imprisonment of Ebi in the Coven. 

The nine books thematically dwell on the issues that threaten  peaceful co-existence, cultural exchanges and growth, rapid development and nationhood in a country abundantly  endowed  with natural and human resources. Specifically, the play The Wanted Man in Camp Four, explores the Niger Delta struggle , resilience, aspirations of the Niger Delta people and how they  risk everything to challenge oppression and demand justice from the federal  government and the multinational oil companies. 

Themes of resistance, sacrifice, betrayal, leadership, land disputes, peace and development are examined in The Wanted Man in Camp Four. The book, Tompolo's Haulers and Hailers, which explores the contradictions, paradoxes and vissicitudes of human existence, demonstrates man's capacity for witch-hunting, instigation, image-destruction, and praise-singing into the hearts of those they once sought to destroy through betrayal and instigation. In Tompolo's Haulers and Hailers, Dr Ekanpou creatively cuts the image of an environmental advocate and a moral conscientiser. In the books, Tompolo's Haulers and Hailers, and The Wanted Man in Camp Four, a clear navigable path is morally explored and charted for the society to walk on for a better world to be attained by mankind.

However, in the formal release of the books, the award-winning author Dr. Ekanpou, specifically thanked JKing Dr. Izonebi Alfred the exceptionally talented Ijaw highlife musician  for his philanthropically channelled anticipatory acquisition of 200 copies of the books  even before the books were formally unveiled and released to the public for possession.