STORY-TELLING is an imaginative act of telling a story using verbal versatility, communicative fluidity, allusions, allegories, improvisations, body language and skillful voice-manipulation built around the activities of the people solely for the purpose of education, socialisation and ethical revolution.

Story-telling, which is a potent tool for the moulding of attitudes of people, is derived from Oral Literature. On the authority of F.B.O. Akporobaro in Introduction to African Oral Literature, Oral Literature ‘refers to the heritage of imaginative verbal creations, stories, folk-beliefs and songs of pre-literate societies which have been evolved and passed on through the spoken word from one generation to another’.

Let this society blossom like the biblical sower’s seed on the good soil; and for the luxuriant blossoming of a society, temptations to relegate the culture of story-telling to the background must be resisted all the time because, to late Professor China Achebe, …‘it is the story that conveys all our gains, all our failures, all we hold dear and all we condemn. To convey this to the next generation is the only way we can keep going and keep alive as a people. Therefore the story is like the genes that are transferred to create new beings. It is far more important than anything else’ (Conversations with China Achebe, 159).

Story-telling provides the imaginative platform for transmission of folktales, myths, songs, epic narratives, riddles, comedy and proverbs to generations born and unborn. And interestingly, to Prof. Akporobaro: ‘it is a traditional view that the proverbs of a people are a safe guide to its character and temperament, opinions and feelings, manners and customs. Bacon says that, “The genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs” ’, and these proverbs enjoy permanent residence in folktales – a pointer that the art of story-telling should be foregrounded in the daily engagements of man in the globe because a society without stories is a rudderless one, susceptible to moral whirlpools of destruction.

The ancient tradition of story-telling is a potent training ground for emergence of comedians, historians, philosophers, actors, actresses, musicians, novelists, dramatists and poets because it is the folkloric resources all these personalities draw on in their different chosen fields and shine like the sun to the applause of the world. The writers, historians, actors, actresses, musicians and comedians we celebrate today in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, would not have been possible without the ancient story-telling culture. The moral orderliness of pre-literate societies is a tribute to the ancient practice of story-telling.

Sadly, the beauty of the tradition of story-telling is now dead in our present society. In the place of story-telling children are daily exposed to movies that disrupt their moral up-bringing and development. In our various schools and communities story-telling has become a forgotten phenomenon. This explains why schools and communities should be re-educated to revive the culture of story-telling. Even in curriculum-planning and development for schools, the relevant authorities should incorporate the culture of story-telling as it has the capacity for rapid moral development of the individual.

Premised on the importance of story-telling in schools and communities, Hon. Julius Pondi the member representing Burutu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives who has endlessly surprised Burutu Local Government Area with interminable sharing of empowerment packages such as sewing-machine, keke, motorcycle, cars, solar light, cassava-processing machine, fishing canoes and fishing nets, whose UNITY FOOTBALL MATCH of  Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N500,000), Three Hundred Thousand Naira (N300,000) and One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000) as first, second and third prizes to be won is currently being played in the various communities that comprise Burutu Council, should be applauded for recently building ETEILEI (Rest-House) in Akparemogbene community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State.

The REST-HOUSE built by Hon. Julius Pondi is chiefly designed to resurrect the culture of story-telling in Akparemogbene community as a basis for grassroots moral, cultural and ethical development and revolution. Nobody in the Burutu Political history of representation has ever admirably combined empowerment packages and sports development with deliberate stimulation of the art of story-telling as integral components of his task of representing his own people like Julius Pondi. For a representative who has dramatically morphed into late Professor Isidore Okpewho, Prof. J.P Clark, Prof. G.G. Darah, Prof. Akporobaro and Ruth Finnegan in his silent moves to revive the culture of story-telling, Oral Literature would soon become a household name in Burutu Council.

Now the people of Akparemogbene community have a central structure where they can gather and tell stories for entertainment and edification. This ETEILEI structure built by Hon. Julius Pondi only has a historical parallel in England when Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) licensed James Burbage to stage plays in any part of England for her own enjoyment and her subjects, and on account of which he (James Burbage) built THE THEATRE in April 1576 and THE CURTAIN in 1577 as permanent structures where plays could be watched for pleasure in England.

The building of a central structure in Akparemogbene community for story-telling by Hon. Pondi is an imperative for implementation of the SMART agenda of Governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa as no development agenda can be successfully implemented in a society ruled by moral recklessness and cultural aridity.

The art of story-telling which Pondi, the activist of Oral Literature revival, has vowed to stimulate and resurrect as part of his service to humanity, would be a bulwark against threatening moral and cultural desertification.

Therefore, the Federal Government, the Delta State House of Assembly, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other relevant authorities should draw lessons from Hon. Pondi’s example and revive the culture of story-telling in schools and communities. Unarguably, this can be achieved through systematic legislation, policy-formulation and policy-implementation at the various levels of government now that  Pondi has dramatically morphed into an exciting activist of Oral Literature revival as a platform to command, merit, the intellectual companionship of Akporobaro, J.P Clark, Ruth Finnegan, Isidore Okpewho (even if posthumously) and G.G Darah.

Late High Chief Thomas Osen Ekpemupolo, the celebrated oral artist in Kurutie, Okerenkoko and Oporoza, would be too excited to discover in the underworld that his own grandson (Julius Pondi) has become his reincarnation in his passion for revival of the culture of story-telling.

Mr.  Ekanpou Enewaridideke, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Akparemogbene, Delta State.