changing image of african lit

7/30/2019 Changing Image of African Lit

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The African Politician's Changing Image in African Literature in EnglishAuthor(s): Bernth LindforsSource: The Journal of Developing Areas, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Oct., 1969), pp. 13-28Published by: College of Business, Tennessee State UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4189643Accessed: 26/10/2010 16:55

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The Journial of Developiity Areas 4 (October 1969): 13-28.

The African Politician's Changing Imagein African Literature in English

BERNTH LINDFORS

In the 1950s the African politician was a hero. He was fighting to bringan end to European colonial rule; he was leading his nation to indepen-dence; he was the voice and symbol of African aspirations for a gloriousfuture. When independence was achieved, his people hailed him as fatherof the nation, paramount chief, redeemer, and living god. However, bythe mid-1960s the African politician had fallen from grace and in manyparts of the continent had tumed into a villain. He was mismanaging theaffairs of the nation, robbing the poor to enrich himself and his wealthycolleagues, and ruthlessly suppressing opposition and dissent. His peoplenow often branded him a criminal, a monster, a dictator, a vain fool. Inseveral countries his excesses finally brought about his own ruin. The me-teoric rise and sudden eclipse of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana perhaps bestillustrate the two polarities in this changing popular image of the Africanpolitician.In literary works produtced by African writers in the fifties and sixtiesone frequently finds sketches and soimietimesftull-length portraits of realand fictional African politicians, and these representations, whether drawnfrom life or imagination, are worth studying as reflections of popular atti-ttudes toward politicians in Africa. This paper, by surveying novels, plays,and poetry in English from West, East, Central, and South Africa, will at-tempt to demonstrate that the image of the fictional African politician inAfrican literature changes drastically once independence is achieved. Spe-cial attention will be given to Nigerian literature since it contains many ofthe most complete and most interesting characterizations of the Africanpolitician.

It should be stressed at the outset that the image of the fictional AfricanAssistant Professor of Engsh, University of Texas at Austin; Foreign Area Fellow,1967-69; editor of Researchin African Literatures,a recently initiated biannual journal;author of numerous articles on African literature.The author wishes to thank ProfessorC. S. Whitaker, for one of whose political science courses at U.C.L.A. an earlierversionof this article was originally written.


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14 Berimtli Lindfors

politician is something quite different from the image of the real Af-rican politician in fiction. African literature about real African politicalleaders tends always to be adulatory, at least while the leader is in power.In Ghana, for example, Nkrumah's friends and subjects showered him withrhymed flattery between 1957 and 1966, but none of this court poetry hasbeen seen since Nkrumah's ouster.' Similarly, Nigerian newspapers fre-quently carried poems praising outstanding Nigerian politicans until theJanuary 1966 military coup. Also, Nigerian pamphleteers 2 have writtenscores of inexpensive paperback plays, novels, and fictionalized "biogra-phies" based on the lives of prominent Nigerians and non-Nigerians.3 Inmarket bookstalls in Onitsha and other large towns in southern Nigeriaone used to find titles such as Dr. Nkrumah in the Struggale or Freedom,Zik and Auwolowon Political Storm,The Trialsof Lumumba,JomoKen-yatta and St. Paul, and How JohnKennedySuffered n Life and Died Sud-denly. These chapbooks spun legends round contemporary political heroes,emphasizing their noble deeds and superhuman powers. Lumumba, for ex-ample, was usually pictured as a caesar, a christ, a saint and martyr, a greatnationalist, an immortal, and a man foully betrayed. Obviously, panegyricliterature of this sort affords only the most idealized imagc of prominentAfrican political figures.One also finds faintly disguised portraits of famous African politiciansin several African novels. In Cyprian Ekwensi's Beautiful Feathers,4 whichis dedicated "To Leopold Sedar Senghor of Negritude Fame and AlhajiSir Abubaker Tafawa Balewa, Patron, Society of Nigerian Authors," thereis an easily recognizable French-speaking African president who gets car-ried away when he speaks of African unity and an equally familiar Koran-reading prime minister whose self-effacing manner inspires warm admira-tion. Ekwensi includes in another novel, People of the City1,5 descriptionof an eighty-three year old nationalist who greatly resembles Herbert Mac-aulay, an eighty-two year old nationalist who died in Lagos in 1946, onlyeight years before Ekwensi's novel was published. James Ngtigi, a Kenyan

"For an example of the adulation, see Michael Dei-Anang and Yaw Warren, GhanaGlory: Poems on Ghana and Ghanaian Life (London: Thomas Nelson, 1965). A very(lifferent attitude toward Nkrumah is expressed in Cameron Duodu, The Gab Boys(London: Deutsch, 1967), which will be discussed later in this article.2 Throughoutthis paper I referto Ibo writersas Nigeriamsbecause they wvereNigerianswhen they wrote and they vrote about Nigeria, not Biafra.Today they would no doubtprefer to be called Biafrans."Three substantial articles have been written on this literature: Ulli Beier, "PublicOpinion on Lovers: PopularNigerian LiteratureSold in OnitshaMarket,"Black Orpheus14 (February 1964): 4-16, Donatus Nwoga, "Onitsha Market Literature,"Transition19 (1965): 26-33; Nancy J. Schmidt, "Nigeria: Fiction for the Average Man," AfricaReport 10 (August 1965): 39-41. Political analyses of this literaturecan be found inKennethW. J. Post, "NigerianPamphleteersand the Congo,"Journal of ModernAfricanStudies 2 (November 1964): 405-13; Charles R. Larson, "The Kennedy Myth in Ni-geria," Colorado Quarterly 16 (Summer 1967): 39-45; and Bernth Lindfors, "Heroesand Hero-Worship in Nigerian Chapbooks," Journal of Popnular Culture 1 (Summer1967); 1-22.4 London: Hutchinson, 1963. Here and subsequently, quotationsare from the editioncited.5 London: Heineinann, 1963.


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T'he African Politician's Changing linage 15

writer, makes several references to "Jomo," an African leader Europeansare said to fear, in his novels Weep Not, Child and A Grain of Wheat."The authors have nothing but praise for personalities so readily identi-fiable.7It is, of course, tempting to regard every politician in African fiction asa real person masked and to search for the faces that best fit the masks,but such lines of inquiry seldom lead very far. It would be more profitableto think of the fictional politician as representing not a particular personbut a particular type of person and to search not for individual corre-spondences with reality but for typological differences in the images pre-sented. In African literature written before independence it happens thathe is usually pictured as a leading nationalist, a man of courage, integrity,and high moral character. This image can be seen in novels from SouthAfrica, Sierra Leone, and Malawi.Peter Abrahams, a South African Cape Colored,8 had been living in vol-untary exile in London for more than fifteen years when his novel, AWreath for Udomo, was published in 1956,9 only nine months before Ghanaattained its independence in March 1957. He had associated with JomoKenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, and numerous other Africans in England whohad returned to their home countries to lead nationalist movements. Hisnovel tells the story of Udomo, a dedicated nationalist who leaves London,where he had lived for several years in the company of African and WestIndian intellectuals, and returns to his homeland, Panafrica, to lead thestruggle for independence. Udomo starts a newspaper, enlists the supportof African market women who control a good portion of the nation'seconomy, launches an African Freedom party, is thrown in prison, and afew years later emerges as the leader of independent Panafrica. However,he soon learns that "Running a country can be more difficult than winningit" (p. 201). Before independence he had swom to send the white manaway, but now he realizes that his country needs white manpower and tech-nical skill to progress. He had also sworn to oppose the white regime inPluralia, a neighboring country where Africans are denied any voice in thegovernment, but now economic cooperation with Pluralia seems highly"Weep Not, Child (London: Heinemann, 1964) and A Grain of Wheat (London:Heinemann, 1967).

7 Notice that adulatory literatureabout real Africanpolitical leaders is published bothat home and in London, but literary works criticizing or satirizing leading politicianstend to be published abroad after a hated regime has fallen from power. This does notnecessarily mean that the adulatory literaturewas intended mostly for home consump-tion and the critical literature primarily for a foreign readership. Until quite recentlyit was virtually impossible for an English-writing African novelist or playwright to gethis workspublishedanywherebut London.Writerswho were disenchantedwith theircountry's ulersmay have bottled up their anger, knowing ull well that they wouldface censorship s well as punishment nd reprisals t home if they were to publishprotest iterature broad.Those who later seized the opportunityo condemn he fallenregine certainlymust have wanted their London-published orks o be widely read athome.

8 Cape Coloredsare mulattos,not black Africans, but in white-dominated South Africathey suffer basically the same disadvantages and indignities as other nonwhites. In thispaper two Colored novelists, Peter Abrahamsand Richard Rive, are discussed as Africanwriters.9 Faber and Faber.


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1l6 Bernlit Lindfors

desirable. In these dilemmas he always elects the alternative that will helphis country to advance more rapidly; hts ambition is "to carry the countryto a point from where there can be no going back. To make the greattransition from the past to the present" (p. 255). Most agonizing is the di-lemma that confronts him when Pluralia demands that he ttrn over Mhendi,a Pluralian freedom-fighter Udomo had befriended in London and hadpromised to help after winning independence in Panafrica. If Mhendi isnot surrendered to Pluralian authorities, Pluralia will withdraw the finan-cial and technical assistance Udomo has been relying upon to modernizehis country's economy. Faced with such a choice, he once again puts hisovn country's interests first. Five years later Udomo is killed by Panafricantribalists who accuse him of fratemizing with whites and betraying hisown people.Udomo is a hero who sacrifices everything for his country. He leads hispeople to independence and then tries to lead them into the modern world.He is willing to compromise certain of his principles and even sacrifice thelife of a close friend if by so doing his country will be able to "make thegreat transition from the past to the present." For a time he succeeds andhis country makes progress, but eventually the forces of darkness he foughtagainst overwhelm him.A similar hero can be found in The African, a novel written by historianWilliam Conton of Sierra Leone and published in 1960,10 one year beforeSierra Leone attained its independence. Kisima Kamara prepares to returnto his native country, Songhai, after five years of study in London. He anda close friend vow "to free our beloved country from the shackles of im-perialism and lead it into self-government" (p. 99). After a year of prepara-tion involving study of the various languages of Songhai, speaking toursthroughout the countryside, and Kamara's marriage to an uneducated vil-lage girl, they found the Party for Unity and Liberation (PUL), which hasats its official slogan: "Unity Now; Self-Government in Five Years." Theparty grows quickly and benefits greatly from the publicity it receives whenseveral of its leading members are jailed by the colonial government. Ka-mara is elected leader of the party and shortly thereafter becomes the firstAfrican prinmeminister of independent Songhai. Soon he is head of an inter-national committee studying the feasiblity of Pan-African unity. However,in the end he decides to resign all his political positions in order to joinan underground movement in the Republic of South Africa.Kamara, like Udomo, is a great nationalist hero who leads his countryto independence and is rewarded for his labors by being elected to assumecontrol of the country after independence. But unlike Udomo, Kamara iswilling to help in the strtugglefor independence in South Africa (Pluralia).He is thuis an even more idealized hero, a brave knight whose shiningarmor never gets tarnished.A variation in the image of the Africani politician as a nationalist herocan he scen in a Malawian novel, Aubrcy Kachingwe's No Easy Task,which was puiblished in Jantiarv 1966 l)ut had been largely written before

"0London: Heinemann, 1964 (reprint of 1960 original).


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The African Politician's Changing Image 17

Malawi attained its independence in July 1964.11The story is narrated bya joumalist who sees his elderly father, a simple village pastor, step for-ward at the invitation of a young nationalist party to unite the people ofhis country in a drive for self-government. The venerable old pastor isintroduced at a political rally as a man the people can trust, "a man ofpeace, of love, of goodwill. A good man, a brave man. A man who fearsGod, a man given us by the Almighty" (p. 164). The people, fed up withcorrupt, self-seeking politicians, respond enthusiastically to the Old Man,and in the months that follow he reorganizes the nationalist party, suffersimprisonment, and leads a party delegation to a London constitutional con-ference from which he returns with the triumphant announcement that newelections are to be held on a "one man one vote" basis, thus allowing Af-ricans a chance to return a majority in the legislative council. The storyends with the country well on its way to independence.In this novel the nationalist hero is not a young activist but an "OldMan" capable of commanding mass support in the drive for Uhuru. Thelink with figures such as Jomo Kenyatta and Dr. Hastings Banda is clear.As a nationalist hero Old Man Josiah Jozeni shares with Udomo andKamara a strong will, stubborn courage, and unselfish dedication to hispeople. Such is the image of the African politician in African literaturewritten before independence.Before going on, it should be noted parenthetically that in a few EastAfrican novels published after independence and in some South Africanfiction the nationalist hero is not a politician but a revolutionary. In WeepNot, Child (1964) and A Grain of Wheat (1967), two novels about hisnative Kenya, James Ngugi celebrates the role of the Mau Mau freedom-fighter.12In Peter Abrahams's A Night of Their Own (1965)13 the hero isan underground agent who enters South Africa secretly via submarine andsmuggles money to an Indian resistance movement. Much earlier Abrahamshad included an African radical as a leading character in his novel, ThePath of Thunder (1948).14 Another South African Cape Colored writer,Richard Rive, centers his novel, Emergency (1964),15 on a couple of youngColored radicals who engage in revolutionary activities during a period of

11London: Heinemann. It should be noted that there are several minor political fig-ures in this novel who are pictured as corruptand self-seeking. Since Malawi attainedits independence rather late, it is possible that Kachingwe's portrayal of these lesserpoliticians was influenced by the mood of disenchantment with nationalist heroes thatwas already spreading through other parts of Africa. Nevertheless, Kachingwe choseto personify his major political character Old Man Josiah Jozeni, as the archetypalnationalist who brings unity out of discord and leads his country to independence.12I have heard it argued that Ngugi may have intended the latter half of Weep Not,Child as a criticism of the Mau Mau rebellion since he entitles this section "DarknessFalls" rather than "Dawn Breaks."This seems to be a misreading of the book. Darknessfalls on the hero's life because he is deprived of education (light) and because hisfamily becomes involved in the war. But Ngugi never implies that the Mau Mau re-bellion was an unjust war or that "Jomo"and other nationalist leaders were wrong tobring on the darknessthat later brought the light of independence to Kenya. The novelis a bald anticolonialist tract, not a veiled criticism of Kenyatta and Mau Mau.13London: Faber and Faber.4 New York: Harper and Brothers.

16 London: Faber and Faber.


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18 Bernth Lindifors

cris in South Africa. Of course, since basic political rights are denied tononwhites in South Africa, the nationalist hero in contemporary South Af-rican fiction by nonwhites would have to be a revolutionary rather than apolitician, unless the writer were describing another country or an earlierera in history. Today in South Africa the nonwhite nationalist politicianhas become virtually extinct.Nevertheless, the nationalist hero as revolutionary in East and SouthAfrican literature is not very different from the nationalist hero as poli-tician seen elsewhere. Both are brave, moral, altruistic, and self-sacrificing.Both try to change their world so that their people can live in freedom.The politician usually succeeds and upon independence becomes leader ofhis country; the revolutionary sometimes fails and becomes a martyr toa lost cause.Turning now to the literature produced by African writers in West andCentral Africa since independence, we see an entirely different image ofthe African politician. He is no longer a hero but instead a rogue. He givesand takes bribes, siphons off government funds for his own personal use,rigs elections, imprisons his opponents, and does everything else he can,legal and illegal, to ensure that he retains or improves his position. lieis an elected representative of the people who is concered almost exclu-sively with his own welfare. Such an image of the Africani politician isfound in writings from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Malawi, and notably, Nigeria.

R. Sarif Easmon, a doctor in Sierra Leone, has written two plays onpolitical subicets. In Dear Parent and Ogre (1964), Dauda, a domineer-ing and snobbish aristocrat who is leader of the opposition in Luawaland,wants to marry off his daughter to the leader of another minority partyin order to cement a political coalition which will ensure him the primeministership after the next elections. He holds a very low opinion of thegovernment in power and a very high opinion of himself:Ourrulersare so obsessedwithpower heyhaveforgotteno governlPowercorrupts-corrupts ven the powerof the eye to look criticallyn tuponitself.Whata gloriousthingto be Leaderof the Oppositionl, at anyrate,see our problemswith the clarityof a stateman's ye, uncloudedby the need to balancethe demandsof office-seekersand nepotistswho, throughparty loyalties,eitherbatten like barnacleson the shipof State,or swimaroundt likesharksawaiting heirdaily quotaof offal. . . My godlHow I would bend everynerveto lift thiscountryup by its bootstraps, erethe reinsof PrimneMlinisterestingbetweenthese two handslPowerdoes not reallycorrupt.But,alas,power s like money-invariablyn wronghandswhennot in ours,whoaloneare bred to rule,and have the integrityand abilityto rulewith grace,with grandeur,and even perhaps with justice and a little modestyl (pp. 13-14).As can be seen from this passage, Dauda is a comic figure, the sort whoeventually succeeds in winning the prime ministership but never quitesucceeds in imposing his will on the members of his immediate family. Inthe end his French wife manages to persuade him to allow his daughterto marry the man she loves, a musician of low birth.In The New Patriots (1965),17 Easmon satirizes a more vicious type ofpolitician, the type who has no concern for the public. In the following

16London: Oxford University Press.17 London: Longmans.


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passage a governmentminister and a memberof the governmentare con-ferring:B: The P.M. said we should rememberhow much bigger is our ?3,000 a year salarycompared with the average worker'spay.M: Why shouldn'twe be paid that? After all, we are their elected eaders.B: Do you think that'll make the workers contented with their lot?M: If they want to change places with us, let them vote themselves in at the nextgeneral election.B: The discontent shows itself in the unrest up-country. And now the trade unionsare threatening to call a general strike if we don't grant a ninepence a day rise inthe workers' wages.M: (Scandalized) Ninepence a dayl That'll just about bankrupt the country.B: Is the country so near bankruptcy?And yet we've just increased our up-countrytravelling allowance three-fold.M: Naturally. You don't expect us to serve the country at a loss to ourselves.B: I think we should be more sympathetic to the workers' case. After all, it is thepeople who put us in power.M: Look here, man: on whose side are you-the people's or Government's?(p. 24).It is the selfishnessof "new patriots"who refuse to take the people's sidethat finally leads to a popularuprisingand the forceful overthrowof thegovernment.The politicianspictured in Easmon'splays are not self-sacrificingheroesbut self-seekingknaves interested only in obtainingand retaining positionsof power and wealth. They are not of and for the people but above andagainst the people. They are objects of scorn, ridicule,and satire.In a novel from Ghana,Cameron Duodu's The Gab Boys (1967), poli-ticians are treated even more harshly. The attack is both general and spe-cific since Duodu is not reluctant to identify Ghana's leading politiciansby name when expressing his discontents. The narrator of the story is ateenage delinquent who leaves his village and runs off to Accra wNherehemanages to find employment in the lower grades of civil service. He is ina good position to hear political discussions, to witness the deteriorationof civil order during election campaigns, and to experience some of thehardships of the Ghanaian proletariat after independence. Soon he, a "low"person, begins expressing his own opinions about the "high" people whooccupy political office. He is especially outraged by the extravagance ofthe Nkrumah regime.There would be houses of numerous names-"State Houses," "Government Houses,""Guest Villas," "Guest Chalets"-surpassing in luxury anything that the "thievish" gov-ernorsof colonial imescouldhave dreamtup to wet their beds in. And there wouldbe goldenbeds in thesehouses,and they wouldbe equippedwith helicopter andingstripsto makewhoringbothquickand safe. Andto provide he womenwith an oppor-tunityto show off the loot they gatheredn thesehouses,numerous eremonieswouldtakeplace each year: expensive, mptyexhibitions f pompositygoing under the un-ashamed obriquetof "pompand pageantry";he cars for whichthe roads would beclosedfor theseceremonieswouldno longerbe Chevrolets, ackards nd Rovers;hesewould have been tagged "small-boys'ars"and instead,we would see Rolls Royces,Cadillacs nd MercedezAutomatics. ndtheywouldtaxthe shitout of our arse-holesnorderto pay for theirpomposity; ssuming hat our stomachs, tarvedof meat, fish,sugar,milk,andbread,wouldremain apableof producing hit (pp. 144-45).

But he has seen enough of politics and politicians to realize that evenif the leadership of the country were to change, the gross economic dis-


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20 Bernth Lindfors

parities between the intelligentsia and the masses would not change. Thepoliticians in opposition were no different from those in power.The fact was that so far as we low, uneducated people were concerned, they were allthe same; they enjoyed the same things, though they attached labels to one another.None of them ever thought of giving up some of their privileges so that we couldenjoy a little ourselves. They had, and we didn't have; and the words they talked weremeaningless to us. Neither communasocialism nor neocolosciencism meant that some-body would stop people dying because they didn't have money to go to the hospital;or prevent them living in houses without ceilings, where ten people had to share oneroom; or give to public toilets and water supplies the same attention as to income taxand propaganda (p. 154).This is protest writing at its most virulent. The African politician is notjust ridiculed; he is denounced and spat upon.A recent novel from Malawi, David Rubadiri's No Bride Price,18 con-tains further condemnation of the African politician. Government minis-ters are shown living in luxury and employing their top civil servants aspimps, firing them if they fail to arrange "fixtures"with selected Europeanand Indian beauties. Those leaders who seemed so virtuous and dedicatedwhen the country was struggling for independence now seem totally un-scrupulous, immoral, and despicable. When the army launches a coup andtakes over control of the nation, people rejoice that a new era has begun.They agree with the general of the army who states in his first radio broad-cast that:Over the past three years much harm has been caused by the people you elected torule you. Not only has there been corruption, murder and injustice but their policiesand love of power had forced them to use all means to destroy the people. A wholegeneration of young people has been turned into monsters, trained to be destroyers oflives and destroyers of the souls of our formerly simple and great people (pp. 155-56).For African nations afflicted with such soul-destroying politicians, the onlysolution envisaged in this novel is military rule. The fact that many Africannations have actually turned to such a solution to rid themselves of corruptpoliticians indicates that the literature written in Africa after independenceaccurately reflects Africa's new mood of disillusionment with its formerheroes.Writers in Nigeria have always been more critical of politicians thanwriters in other African countries. Even before independence one couldfind traces of political satire in Cyprian Ekwensi's People of the City (1954),Chinua Achebe's No Longer At Ease (1960), and Wole Soyinka's A Danceof the Forests (1963).1 After independence, however, political satire be-came a major genre in Nigerian literature as writers grew more intent onexposing the inanities and transgressions of the elected representatives ofthe people. The Nigerian politician became an obscene joke, sometimesfunny, sometimes sick, but hardly ever respectable. His image can be seenin works by minor writers such as James Ene Henshaw, Obi B. Egbuna,

18 Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1967.19Achebe's work was published in London by Heinemann and Soyinka's in Londonby Oxford University Press; all were written before Nigeria attained independence inOctober 1960.


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and T. M. Aluko, and in works by major writers such as Ekwensi, Achebe,and Soyinka.The hero of Henshaw's play, Medicine for Love (1964),20 is a man run-ning for public office who tries to bribe his way to victory in the electionsbut loses because his opponent tricks him by writing a withdrawal paperwith disappearing ink. In Egbuna's novel, Wind Versus Polygamy (1964),21a fat, wealthy chairman of a local district council who believes his money canbuy anything or anyone, confidently proposes marriage to a young girl andis stunned when she flatly refuses him. In Aluko's novel, One Man, OneMatchet (1964),22 a semieducated local politician interferes with the workof a newly appointed African district officer and fattens his own purse byextorting huge sums of money from his people which he says are to be usedfor paying legal expenses in court cases which will benefit the district. Thepoliticians in these three works are without exception dishonest and money-hungry, and their outrageous behavior is a rich source of humor. Here theAfrican politician is seen as someone to laugh at.Ekwensi's first full-length novel, People of the City (1954), includes aninteresting portrait of an elderly politician who claims, "My party fights forthe people, for the poor. There are poor men in every tribe and race, there-fore my party is the Universal Party" (pp. 50-51). But he says he is upagainst unscrupulous opponents: "They're out to line their own pocketslThey're out to capture all the highest posts. . . . The candidate for the otherparty . . . says he stands for the workers-the liarl He tells them I am de-ceiving them, that I am an aristo. And he gives them money, so they believehim-that's the worst of itl" (p. 51). The hero of the novel, a journalist,listens sympathetically to the old man, but during the election campaignhe sees him in a different light. First in Lugard Square he hears speakersfrom the Self-Government Now party offer crowds of listeners "hoarse andfalse promises for better working conditions, improved medical services,more and better houses" (p. 93). Then in a narrow lane nearby he seesthe old politician addressing a small group of people: "He was saying muchthe same thing as the speaker of Lugard Square, namely, more houses,more food, more water and more light for the people" (p. 94). The moralthat can be drawn from this episode is that while some politicians may bemore unscrupulous than others, they all offer false promises in an electioncampaign. Moreover, as Ekwensi points out elsewhere, politicians find itdifficult to "sink their selfish differences and unite.... [They] all go theirdifferent and opposite ways, quarrelling like so many market women" (p.74). Thus, in Ekwensi's earliest novel, one finds traces of the kind ofpolitical satire that was to become his dominant mode of expression innovels written after independence.Jagua Nana (1961),23 Ekwensi's most successful novel, is a story of theups and downs of a Lagos prostitute who gets deeply involved in politicswhen she takes Uncle Taiwo, a Lagos politician, as her lover. Uncle Taiwo

20 London: University of London Press.21 London: Faber and Faber.22 London: Heinemann.23 London: Hutchinson.


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22 Bernth Lindfors

is secretary of O.P. 2, "one of the big political parties in Lagos. Herode a Pontiac and lavished a lot of campaign money in the name of theParty" (p. 125). He invites her to go round on campaign tours to help himwin votes from the women of the city. When she asks what she should sayto the women at a big campaign meeting, he answers:Tell dem to vote for O.P. 21 Tell dem our party is de bes' one. We will give dem freemarket stall, plenty trade, and commission so dem kin educate de children. Tell dem allde lie. When Uncle Taiwo win, dem will never remember anythin' about all dispromise. Tell dem ah'm against women paying tax. Is wrong, is wicked. Tell dem ah'mfighting for equality of women. Women mus' be equal to all men. You wonderin' whatto tell dem? Oh, Lordl Tell dem all women in dis Lagos mus' get good work if demvote for me. No more unemployment. Women mus' be treated right. Dem mus' havestatus. Dem mus' have class ... (p. 142).At another rally, when she sees Uncle Taiwo moving through the largecrowd "scattering handfuls of ten shilling notes, like rice grains on a bride,"she asks him where the money comes from and is told, "Is Party money.I give dem de money like dat, so them kin taste what we goin' to do forthem, if they vote us into power" (p. 138).At first Jagua finds this kind of life exciting, but she loses her enthusiasmfor it when Freddie Namme, her former boyfriend, returns from studies inEngland, joins O.P. 1, and announces that he intends to run against UncleTaiwo in the forthcoming elections. Jagua tries to persuade him to changehis mind.Politics not for you, Freddie. You got education. You got culture. You're a gentleman,an' proud. Politics be game for dog. And in dis Lagos, is a rough game. De roughestgame in de whole worl'. Is smelly an' dirty an' you too clean an' sweet (p. 137).Freddie, however, cannot be dissuaded; he tells Jagua, "I wan' money quick-quick; an' politics is de only hope" (p. 137). In the campaign that followsFreddie is badly beaten up by party thugs and later brutally murderedoutside a nightclub. Jagua is horrified athow ordinary people she knew became transformedby this strange devil they callpolitics. When so transformeda man placed no value on human life. All that matteredwas power, the winning of seats, the front-page appearance in the daily papers, thename read in the news-bulletins of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (p. 155).After the elections Jagua hears that Uncle Taiwo, a loser at the polls, hasbeen murdered by his own party for breaking faith with the party andfailing to win a seat. His death teaches Jagua that "politics was dirtiest tothem that played it dirty" (p. 185).The hero of Ekwensi's next major novel, Beautiful Feathers (1963), isWilson lyari, a Pan-Africanist who runs the Independence Pharmacy andleads the Nigerian Movement for African and Malagasy Solidarity(NMFAMS). An idealist who believes in unity, he is distressed by thepolitical strife in his own country and in Africa at large. "If only all theparties could put aside their bitterness, frustrations, jealousies and realizethat the end in view was the same . . . but nol everyone wanted to be aleader" (p. 29). He and other leading members of NMFAMS, a movement"dedicated to the abolition of disunity," plan a peaceful demonstration andmarch to rally public support and "to remind Nigerian leaders of our desire


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for African Solidarity." Police, however, disrupt the orderly procession anda riot breaks out. Wilson is arrested but bailed out of prison by a wealthybusinessman with political aspirations who offers Wilson and his move-ment ?50,000 if they will liquidate a government minister who might pre-vent him from winning a seat in the House at the next elections. Althoughthe NMFAMS is in desperate need of money, Wilson refuses the job andthe bribe. The publicity given the riot in the press brings Wilson's activitiesto the attention of the prime minister who decides to harness Wilson'senergy by asking him to lead a Nigerian delegation to a conference onAfrican Unity in Dakar. Wilson attends the conference, reports back tothe prime minister, and then, because of mounting family problems andpolitical pressure, disbands NMFAMS and withdraws from political life.Wilson is an activist but not a politician, and he insists that NMFAMSis "not really a party." Indeed, one reason that Wilson can retain heroicstature in a political novel is that he is above partisan politics. The onlyprofessional politician portrayed in depth24 is the "Minister of Consola-tion" who, with the assistance of a "Perennial Secretary" and a "Compli-mentary Secretary,"7presides over a useless ministry "founded as a sym-pathetic gesture, a kind of Universal Aunt" to console and help Nigeriansin time of need. Here Ekwensi's satirical thrusts are sharp and pointed.The minister is introduced as follows:

The Minister of Consolationwas standing before the mirroradmiring his own image.He turned his face to the left and smiled. He turned his face to the right and smiled.He watched the mirrorto see the effect of smiling with his teeth shut tight, with hislips parted and his tongue lolling out (p. 74).Later, when talking with a reporter,He showed his teeth in the manner which the mirror had told him was most flattering.The photographer appeared and began focusing his camera. The Minister maneuveredthe reportertill he was farthest from the camera (p. 78).A few clear-sighted individuals manage to see through this minister; onesums him up asstanding neither here nor there, only where the money is, the personal profit. He doesnot place the interest of Nigeria first . . . but . . . his own private interests. He is vain,conceited, stupid, empty, illiterate, a thoroughfool, but shrewd enough to take everyonein (p. 86 ).The tragedy is that whereas nincompoops like this are enshrined in minis-tries, truly talented men such as Wilson do not attempt to seek publicoffice. Politics is still too dirty a game for the clean ones to play.Ekwensi's most recent novel, Iska (1966 ),25 contains a brief sketch ofanother politician, Nafotim, a member of the House of Representatives inLagos. Nafotim is also a contractor and his association with the GreaterNigeria party yields huge profits for his company. However, after quarrel-ling with the leadership of the party over the locating of a new industrywhich he feels should be in his home district, he breaks away, forms his

24I am excluding here the characters mentioned earlier as representing Balewa andSenghor.25London: Hutchinson.


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24 Bernth Lindfors

own party, the Reformed People's party, and hires a journalist to write aparty newspaper. He is described by those wo know him best as "a sin-ister character . . . one who wants eveiything his way."[Nafotim] had certain qualities common to all politicians. He was shrewd. He wasdirect. He knew what he wanted, and even if his enemy possessed it and the best wayto get it would be through temporaryfriendship with that enemy he would arrangethat friendship of convenience (p. 182).While mouthing unity, he plays on tribal animosities to strengthen hisposition. When asked how he sustains his followers, he answers frankly,With promisesand a little money. Enough to keep them quiet. Look, don't forget thatman lives on hope. A man in the Sahara desert will always hope he will soon find water.It is this hope that keeps him alive. The people I lead hope they will soon find betterjobs, better homes, better everything (p. 183).Nafotim, like the Minister of Consolation, Uncle Taiwo, and other poli-ticians in Ekwensi's novels, thrives on lies and is willing to throw thecountry into chaos to make his own position more secure. As one characterin Iska, remarks,"It'sthe politicianswho bring all the trouble"(p. 173).Certainly, the politicians pictured in Ekwensi's novels lead one to agreewith Jagua Nana's statement that in Nigeria, "Politics be game for dog."Chinua Achebe has written less about contemporary times than Ekwensi,so one finds fewer politicians as characters in his novels. In No Longer AtEase (1960), written just before Nigeria's independence, Achebe includesa sketch of the Honorable Sam Okoli whowas one of the most popular politiciansin Lagos and in Eastern Nigeria where his con-stituency was. The newspapers called him the best-dressed gentleman in Lagos and themost eligible bachelor. Although he was definitely over thirty, he always looked likea boy just out of school. He was tall and athletic with a flashingsmile for all (p. 37).He drives a long DeSoto, dates "been-to" girls, and lives in a huge man-sion. There had been "controversy in the Press when the Government haddecided to build these ministers' houses at a cost of thirty-five thousandeach" (p. 68). The Hon. Sam Okoli, if charming and attractive, is alsorevealed as quite materialistic, pompous, and adhering to a belief in themyth of the superiority of the white man. At a party he tells his friends:I used to have a Nigerian as my [Assistant Secretary],but he was an idiot. Hlisheadwas swollen like a soldier ant because he went to Ibadan University. Now I have awhite man who went to Oxford and he says "sir"to me. Our people have a long wayto go (p. 69).It is men like Okoli who set a bad example for Nigerians in lesser positionsof responsibility and who thus weaken the moral fiber of the nation. Theyare notoriously corrupt. "Had not a Mlinister of State said, albeit in anunguarded, alcoholic moment, that the trouble was not in receiving bribes,but in failing to do the thing for which the bribe was given?" (p. 88).With such men in power, it is not surprising that people develop a peculiarnotion of government. "In Nigeria the government was 'they.' It hadnothing to do with you or me. It was an alien institution and people's busi-ness was to get as much from it as they could without getting into trouble"(p. 33). The politicians, of course, are in a position to get the most.


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Achebe's most recent novel, A Man of the People (1966),26 is also setin contemporary times and takes as its hero a young schoolteacher, OdiliSamalu, who is moved to enter politics when his mistress is seduced byChief the Honorable M. A. Nanga, MP and minister of culture. Odili joinsa newly formed political party and prepares to contest Nanga's seat inthe next election. He also tries to win the affection of Nanga's fiancee, ayoung girl Nanga is grooming as his "parlourwife." In the end Odili losesthe political battle but manages to win the girl. Nanga loses everythingbecause the election is so rough and dirty and creates such chaos in thecountry that the army stages a coup and imprisons every member of thegovernment.

In Nanga, Achebe has created one of the finest rogues in African fiction.He is by nature and profession consistently immoral. "Chief Nanga wasa born politician; he could get away with almost anything he said or did"(p. 73). He dazzles his constituents into believing that he is serving themwell when in fact he is using his position only to further his own selfishinterests. He grows fat on graft and wallows in ostentatious opulence.In an election year he tries to buy off or forcibly suppress his opposition.His palatial home, his shady business enterprises, and his openhandedmanner of giving and receiving bribes mark him as one of those dedicatedmen who seek first the political kingdom and then look for its silver lining.Of course, a corrupt politician is only a symptom of a sick society. Onemust look into the heart of the body politic to account for a diseasedmember, such as Nanga. Achebe's diagnosis is that people who have re-cently passed through a period of colonial rule adopt a rather cynical at-titude toward political corruption. They are willing to excuse the extrava-gances of their leaders because they believe that these men who led thestruggle for independence now have a right to "eat the national cake."They also believe that a well-fed MP might let a few crumbs fall to hisconstituents. In this kind of political climate, reforms such as Odii andhis party advocate receive little public support. "'Let them eat,' was thepeople's opinion, 'after all when white men used to do all the eating didwe commit suicide?"' (p. 161). Such cynicism keeps hungry men likeNanga in power and perpetuates a tradition of corruption in government.The sick society must undergo a major political convulsion before suchcynicism is transmuted into hope.Achebe's perceptive eye travels over the whole range of recent Nigerianpolitical experience. He shows us the noisy preindependence parliamentsessions with politicians jostling for position, the do-nothing ministers(minister of overseas training, minister of public construction, ministerof culture), the private armies of hooligans mobilized by politicians toterrorize the opposition, the election violence, the gross corruption andabuse of public office. Sometimes there is penetrating political analysis,such as this observation by Odili:A man who has just come in from the rain and dried his body and put on dry clothesis more reluctant to go out again than another who has been indoors all the time. Thetrouble with our new nation-as I saw it then lying on that bed-was that none of ushad been indoors long enough to be able to say "To hell with it." We had all been in

26London: Heinemann.


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26 Bernth Lindfors

the rain together until yesterday. 'Ten a handful of us-the smart and the lucky andhardly ever the best-had scrambledfor the one shelter our formerrulers left, and hadtaken it over and barricadedthemselves in. And from within they sought to persuadethe rest through numerous loudspeakers,that the first phase of the struggle had beenwon and that the next phase the extensionof our house-was even more importantandcalled for new and original tactics; it required that all argument should cease and thewhole people speak with one voice and that any more dissent and argumentoutside thedoor of the shelter would subvert and bring down the whole house (p. 42).And when thc house is finally brought down, when the "fat-dripping,gummy, eat-and-let-eat regime" is ended by a quick military coup,Overnight everyone began to shake their heads at the excesses of the last regime, at itsgraft, oppression and corrupt governmnent:newspapers, the radio, the hitherto silentintellectualsand civil servants-everybody said what a terriblelot; and it became publicopinion the next morning.And these were the same people that only the other day hadowned a thousand names of adulation, whom praise-singersfollowed with song andtalking-drumwherever they went (p. 166).Achebe's analysis is exceptionally deep and clairvoyant here, consideringthat this passage was written at least eleven months before the January1966 coup in Nigeria.27Odili's political role merits attention for he is one of those unusual menwho manages to remain untainted while swimming in a sea of filth. Thoughhis main motive for entering politics is to avenge the humiliation he suf-fered in a love rivalry with Nanga, he is also genuinely concerned aboutthe deterioration and abuse of national government and the greed anddishonesty of the politicians in power. He joins a radical party, the Com-mon People's Convention, which has been organized by one of his oldschool friends, and campaigns for reform. When Nanga offers him a gen-erous bribe to get him out of the race, Odili refuses it and campaigns evenharder. Finally he is brutally assaulted by Nanga's followers and windsup in the hospital on election day. His friend, the organizer of the CPC,is murdered. Odili vows never to get involved in politics again. Thus, likeWilson lyari in Ekwensi's Beautiful Feathers and Freddie Namme inEkwensi's Jagua Nana, Odili is forced out of public life. Politics is a dirtyprofession and only the dirtiest professionals remain eager to continuein it.In the writings of Wole Soyinka, Africa's leading playwright, politiciansare always comic figures. Soyinka is particularly fond of mocking theirgullibility and grandiose notions. In A Dance of the Forests (1963), a playcommissioned for Nigeria's independence celebrations in 1960, a councilorator proposes that his country make a search for the direct "descendantsof our great forefathers" so that they can be present on the historic occa-sion of the "gathering of the tribes."Find them. Find the scattered sons of our proud ancestors. The builders of empires.The descendants of our great nobility. Find them. Bring them here. If they are half-way across the world, trace them. If they are in hell, ransomthem. Let them symbolizeall that is noble in our nation. Let them be ouirhistoricallink for the season of rejoicing(p. 32).But when these honored guests appear, they are neither noble nor dis-

" The novel was submitted to Achebe's publisher in February 1965.


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tinguished; indeed, one is a whore. Soyinka plays on this irony in orderto spoof Africa's attempts to create myths of a glorious past at the timeof independence. Politicians are the men most eager to create such myths.Soyinka also includes politicians as minor characters in The Road (1965),The Trials of Brother Jero (1963), and in his novel, The Interpreters(1965 ).28 In The Trials of Brother Jero, to take just one example, anambitious member of parliament is duped into becoming a follower of ahypocritical, self-proclaimed prophet when the prophet predicts that tlleMP will become minister for war if he displays sufficient piety. AgainSoyinka is ridiculing the gullibility, magnificent schemes, and egocentricaspirations of the African politician. Unlike Achebe and Ekwensi, how-ever, Soyinka does not picture the politician as inordinately vicious; rather,he is a fool too easily deluded by his own dreams.Soyinka's most political play is his most recent, Kongi's Harvest (1967),29in which Kongi, president of Isma, an independent African country, plansto inaugurate a Five Year Developmient Plan with a grand national festivalto be known as Kongi's Harvcst. Kongi wants Oba Danlola, an influentialtraditional "spiritual leader," to demonstrate his loyalty and subordinationto the modern regime by performing his rituals at the festival and by pre-senting Kongi, instead of the traditional gods, with the symbolic new yam.Kongi will then reign as Spirit of the Harvest and all citizens will be obligedto submit to his authority. Kongi holds Oba Danlola in preventive detentionand offers him numerous bribes to persuade him to play his part. Danlolafinally agrees, but the festival is disrupted by a band of revolutionaries whosucceed in overthrowing Kongi.Kongi is a marvelous burlesque of the self-conscious African president.HIe s obsessively concerned with projecting an appropriate image and locksup a conclave of elders in a mountain retreat so that they can think withoutdistraction, decide which image would be the most satisfactory, and ghost-write his books and speeches. These advisors, together with an organizingsecretary who acts as Kongi's official go-between with the public, showgreat imagination in devising an image. Kongi's speeches are to be filledwith "positive scientificism"; he is to govern by the principle of "Enlight-ened Ritualism"; places are to be nained after him (Kongi Terminus, KongiUniversity, Kongi Dam, Kongi Refineries, Kongi Airport); the calendar isto be changed so that everything dates from Kongi's Harvest; he is to gointo seclusion before the Harvest and then emerge to announce a reprievefor all political prisoners awaiting execution. Kongi, perhaps rememberingrecent bomb-throwing incidents, balks at the suggestion of reprieve for hisenemies, but his secretary, endeavoring to point out how the outside worldwould look upon such generosity, produces a dazzling series of attractiveimages. Flattered, Kongi agrees to the reprieve which in the end bringsabout his own downfall.

Because Soyinka creates an entirely imaginary world in this play, hissatire tends to be broad and sweeping rather than aimed at a particular28The Road (London: Oxford University Press, 1965) The Trials of Brother Jeroin his Five Plays (London: Oxford University Press, 19645, and the Interpreters(Lon-don: Deutsch, 1965)." London: Oxford University Press.


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28 Bernth Lindfors

target. He pokes fun at African politics, not just African politicians. Heridicules not only image-building but also coercion of traditional author-ities, suppression of opposition, development plans, preventive detention,ideology formation, propaganda techniques, and tradition-tinged ceremonialoccasions celebrated in the modem African state. His image of the Africanpolitician, though hardly complimentary, is at least less savage than theimages seen in Nigerian literary works which strive to be realistic. Ekwensi'spoliticians were dogs, Achebe's were dogs with deceptive personal charm,but Soyinka's are foolish overreachers misguided by dreams of glory.To sum up, the image of the fictional African politician in African litera-ture in English changes drastically after independence. The idealistic, self-sacrificing nationalist is transformed into a greedy, self-seeking opportunist.Even in Nigerian literature, which was not without moderate political sa-tire before independence, the tendency has been for writers to critcize poli-ticians more vitriolicly and more frequently in recent years. The changingimage of the African politician in African literature affirms that Africanshave become disillusioned with their politicians since independence.

changing image of african lit

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