The Paradox of Underdevelopment in the Niger Delta: A Critical Stylistic Study of the Nominal Group in Helon Habila’s <i>Oil on Water</i>

Abstract

Petroleum, which God blessed Nigeria with through His endowment of the Niger Delta, has become a curse rather than a blessing. This paper looks at how Nigeria, through her brazen and reckless exploitation of petroleum resources, underdeveloped the Niger Delta. Specifically, it examines how Helon Habila uses the Nominal Group to this effect. The theoretical framework for the study is Critical Stylistics, while the grammatical model is Systemic Functional Grammar. The findings show that the Nominal Group has been used appropriately to reveal how the people of the Niger Delta have been impoverished and their environment degraded from decades of exploitation and neglect.