INTERCULTURALITY

The Niger-Delta region of Nigeria is among the most ecologically compromised oil-producing territories in the world, yet the social consequences of its environmental crisis remain understudied in literary-critical discourse. This paper examines how environmental degradation precipitates the collapse of foundational social structures in the Niger-Delta through a qualitative, ecocritical analysis of Ahmed Yerima's play Hard Ground (2011). Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of ecocriticism as articulated by Glotfelty and Fromm (1996), Garrard (2004), and Buell (2005), the study demonstrates that oil-driven environmental destruction systematically undermines family cohesion, communal leadership, access to qualitative education, and gender equity in the region. The analysis reveals that ecological violence does not merely threaten physical survival; it erodes the moral and relational fabric of society, displacing productive identities and reproducing cycles of criminality, corruption, and gender subjugation. The study argues that Yerima's dramaturgical choices encode both a critique of corporate-state complicity and an implicit advocacy for governance reform. The paper concludes by calling for enforceable environmental legislation, communitycentered remediation, and educational investment as indispensable preconditions for social reconstruction in the region.

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