Social Criticism in the Nigerian Arabic Poetry

A Case Study of Musa Abdulsalam Mustapha Abikan's Poetry

Abstract

Social Criticism is one of the modern criticism trends that relate between literature and society, it shows versatile dimension and deals with every aspect human life. It usually condemns social problems in different dimensions and proffer adequate solutions to it. The Nigerian Arabic poetry has witnessed this criticism for a very long time, as many social problems were condemned; such as colonial injustice, civil war, poverty, underdevelopment, poor social amenities, ethnic, political and religion crises .Musa Abdusalam Mustapha Abikan is a prominent Nigerian Arabic poet who has criticized many Nigerian social problems. He explained the negatives aspects of human life in his poetry and suggested many ways to overcome social problems through his literary creativity. This paper aimed to investigate social challenges that were tackled and criticized in Abikan's poetry to assess how well he was able to related between society and literary work. The Social approach was adopted for the study with three selected poems. The outcome of the study revealed that; the poet expressed his social views and emotions  on a nation tragedy he criticized many social challenges from different angles such as: corruption, killing, poverty, ignorance, insecurity, right of workers and youths, ethnic, religion and political crises among others .Finally, the study explained that the poet does not live for himself, rather he lives for his citizens and felt their pains and problems in the society which made his message become a human message.

Key words: Literature and Society, Social Criticism, Nigerian Arabic Poetry, Socio Problems, Musa Abdusalam Mustapha Abikan.