INTRODUCTION
In this unit, we will study the effect of colonialism in the development of Nigerian literature. All Nigerian writers are products of western education. It is this western education that armed Nigerian writers with the linguistic tool to write literature in English. Colonialism has positive and negative effects. However, most Nigerian writers attack the negative effects of colonialism. There is the general belief that Africa’s woes result from colonial experiences and that the present African leaders are practicing the colonial method of administration. We will study how the Nigerian poets, novelists and dramatists presented colonialism, attacked colonialism and/or praised colonialism
3.1 General Overview
Colonialism according to the Advanced Learners Dictionary is an act of settling in a country or territory by migrants from another country, controlled by it (Hornby, 2000:p.196). Colonial rulers were agents in the promotion of Commerce and Christianity. The purposes of colonialism included economic exploitation of the colony's natural resources in any possible way. In colonial Nigeria, British rule dominated the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and imposed socio-cultural, religious and linguistic structures. According to Irvin Markovitz, “colonialism was only one expression of an ever more encompassing capitalism” (1977:p.58). Colonialism was often based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized. The ideas were propagated through schools and mission houses. British colonial rule in Nigeria was described by Frederick Lugard as ‘indirect rule’ in which the natives acted in the name of the Governor- General who approved actions of all native officers (Lugard, 1970, p.268). Indirect rule was also described by Temple (1968) as a system of administration which allows European influence to bear on the native indirectly as though he was ruled by their chiefs (30).
European attempt to propagate and integrate their ideas created two enclaves of domination and submission. This perhaps was not deliberate as the dynamics of domination paved way to doldrums. The distance from colonialism to civilization became infinite bringing along with it new patterns and ways of living including corruption, and sometimes near anarchy following the dismantling of the indigenous fabrics of societies. Indigenous administrative machineries were tampered with like all other facets of organic structures. Replacements were neither new nor old as the pot-pouri released the good, the bad and the ugly sides of two cultures. It was in the light of this that warrant chiefs were appointed by British officials on the basis of “make me believe that you can do the job”. On the other hand the peoples’ rulers were moved to pave way for individuals who gained by the European presence. According to Afigbo (1974, even when the British administration sought to undo the harm believed to have been done to the indigenous society in the era of the warrant chiefs the effort was a failure (11). British rule was corrupt and as such pragmatic. What was pragmatic to the Europeans was seen as an act of corruption by the natives. As a result, age sets, a form of pre-colonial organization was replaced by native executives many of which positions did not have any historical antecedents in the culture of the people.
British colonial rule led to significant changes in Nigerian societies. With colonial rule, initiation into the fullness of a tribe and manhood which was important for good conduct became irrelevant in the burgeoning urban centers of Lagos, Calabar, Lokoja and Benin to mention just a few places. Rites or knowledge of passage from one generation to another was abandoned. Urban people became individuals, with overt ideas that were uncanny to collective efforts or communalism. At the same time the competitive urban environment of the colonial period threw up new challenges where only the fittest survives. Old and traditional rules lost significance. Traditional refuge gave way to individualism. There was apathy. The drift was significant. There is delusion. By 1960, it became normal to find men and women that would otherwise have been protectors of the young, old and members of their societies engaging in various acts inimical to real growth. Communal roles became antiquated as moral consciousness gave way to personal needs. British colonial rule changed old ways. Violence and corruption were enthroned.
The Nigerian writers have been writing to address these issues in various forms. It becomes a commitment and a protest. It becomes a way of redirecting the Nigerian people towards reflecting on the beauty of original Africa before its corruption by the imperialists. These anti- colonial works have been addressing various salient issues that have formed the bane of Nigeria’s underdevelopment since the evacuation of the imperialists.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Explain the major characteristics of anti-colonial Nigerian literature
3.2 The Basis of Anti-Colonial Literature
The Nigerian writers tell stories to entertain and educate the people in a way they understand. Nigerian literature shows how economic, political, religious and social situations relate to pre- colonial Africa, colonialism, neo-colonial independence, and indigenous situations. Thus, the themes dealt with by Nigerian writers include art, religion, urban-life, tradition and culture, ironies of life, and pre-colonial, colonial, and neo-colonial realities. Just as the common storyteller of old, the contemporary Nigerian writer aims at helping his/her society to change while retaining the best features of authentic Nigerian cultures.
The bases of anti-colonial writings from Nigeria can be viewed from two perspectives. The first is to correct the ill- pictures of Africa in those literatures written by those Europeans who claimed to have written African literatures even when they were never African. The fact is that some literary writers who wrote about Africa during the colonial era were not Africans. For instance, Joyce Cary wrote Mister Johnson, a story about eastern Nigeria. It was this novel which prompted the writing of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. According to Achebe, Mister Johnson contained distorted pictures of the Nigerian society which he tried to correct in his novel, Things Fall Apart. More so, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is also a ‘racist’ story about Africa and the African People. The ugly picture about Africans painted by the western writers, made the early African writers struggle to face the theme of identity and the personality of the African people. To classify Joyce Cary and Joseph Conrad as African writers and to call their fictions African fictions becomes a major problem in the polemics of definition of African fiction. Fiction is an imaginative recreation of real life experiences. This means that the subject matters in every fiction must reflect the experiences of the society from which it emanated. One very important fact here, being that every fictional work must show realism not mere fabrication of unrealities purposely designed to distort the history of a people. Chinua Achebe made a proposition that fictional works about Africa written by non Africans tend to rewrite the history and culture of African people in very bad manner and intentions.
The second reason is the need to expose the ugly mode of governance of the imperialists and the effect on the Nigerian people. Early historians gave distorted history of Africa. They saw Africa as a continent of barbarians and animal-like humans with four legs without any form of culture or religion and this historical distortion has often influenced the western judgment of Africa and Africans. So, the imperialists treated their subjects like animals. The used them as beasts of burden, as slaves, as servants, as second-class humans, as idiots and as cultureless humans. Hence, we do not expect a better literature from non-Africans about Africa since they already have a distorted history about Africa. The anti- colonial Nigerian literatures are assertive about the African personality, the Nigerian identity and universal appeal of the Nigerian psyche.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
With adequate examples, explain the major thematic concern of anti- colonial Nigerian literature
3.3 Nigerian Literary Form as Anti-colonial
Chinua Achebe explained in his collection of essay Morning Yet on Creation Day that African things are not accepted in the writing literatures. He said that he was scolded by his teacher for writing a poem about Harmattan, instead of summer, winter or fall. In unit 1 of this course, it was clearly stated that, Nigerian literature owes much to the Nigerian oral tradition. On the sub-unit on the influence of journal literature, we read how the editor of Nigerian Student Verse decried the imitation of western writers by the Nigerian students who contributed in the anthology. He called it an unfortunate development which impairs the positive development of a true Nigerian literature. We see the effect of this negative influence in the works of Okigbo, Soyinka, and some other writers.
Later, however, there is a hinge on traditional oral values of Africans in the later works of these writers. Soyinka turns to the myth of Ogun in his works. He romances freely with the African values and in some cases we see him infusing western values in his African milieu. Many other writers like Okigbo draws his metaphors from his town Ojoto in Anambra State of Nigeria while J.P. Clark-Bekederemo writes freely about the Ijaw region of Nigeria, romancing with the sea and marine metaphors. This shift is deliberate because it marks the renaissance of Nigerian literature where Nigerian cultural values and Nigerian milieu are good subject matters for literature.
In their seminal critical volume Towards the Decolonization of African Literature Chinweizu, Jemie and Madubuike outline three major tendencies discernible in African poetry in English one of which is the Euro-modernist tendency to 'ape' the practices of 20th century European modernist poetry. They repeatedly name Soyinka's, Clark- Bekederemo's, and the early Okigbo's poetry as notorious examples. They believe that the trio never believed in their Africanness hence their leaning towards the style and mode of western literature. They believed that using western literary style, conceit or mode of literature does not improve the existence of a true Nigerian literature.
In contemporary Nigerian literature, there are deliberate attempts to use the Nigerian historical experiences in expressing the literary ideals. This leaning towards everything African in recent literatures from Nigeria marks a deliberate shift away from the western literary pattern thus undermining the use of English to achieve wider readership.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Clearly state the effect of the Nigerian cultural milieu in Nigerian literature.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Anti-colonial literature in Nigeria is a protest type of literature revealing the odds of colonialism and the effect of neocolonialism in the country. This theme has been more prevalent since the publication of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The Nigerian writers treating this theme have often contested all the experiences of Nigerians: economic, socio-cultural, psychological and the political dimensions of colonialism. When Chinua Achebe explains in his essay “The Novelist as a Teacher” that Africans did not hear of culture first from the Europeans, he meant that Africans were really treated as uncultured beings. This makes anti-colonial Nigerian works of literature strive to correct these misconceptions about the African personality and milieu. The question of audience comes in here. Many critics have wondered whom anti-colonial Nigerian literatures are meant for. Is it meant for the Nigerian people who are worried about the experiences of the past or is it meant for the Europeans who should understand that the experiences of Africans (Nigerians) had during the colonial days were not according to Achebe (1975), “one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.” The fact remains that anti- colonial Nigerian writings are meant to teach the Nigerian or European readers about the ugly sides and the effects of imperialism.
5.0 SUMMARY
Anti-colonial themes are common in Nigerian literatures because the experiences are still relevant and the relics of colonialism are around us. More so, the prevalent neo-colonial attitudes of Nigerian political rulers points to a reminder in the experiences of the ugly past. Nigerian writers act as “sensitive needles” in reminding the people and the politicians on the need to shun everything that will take the country back to those experiences of colonial trauma. It is true that the present form of written literature in Nigeria is an offshoot of Western literary style infused in the western education pattern in Nigeria but is it possible to have Nigerian literature in a pure Nigerian form that is without any hinge on the western form of writing? This may seem impossible since the literature writers in Nigeria make use of western style in their craft. However, Nigerian literature, in its basic form, is oral. So, written literature echoes western values but the infusion of the oral artistic forms in Nigerian literature has helped in the indigenization of Nigerian literature in form and style.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Answer the following questions:
1. Explain the main ideal in anti-colonial Nigerian literature
2. Discus the anti-colonial themes in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
3. How does Nigerian literary style contribute in anti-colonialism?
4. What factors have been responsible for the continued production of anti-colonial literatures in Nigeria?
5. Assess the importance of ant-colonial literature in Nigeria
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Achebe, Chinua (1982). Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann.
Achebe, Chinua (1982). Morning yet on Creation Day. London: Heinemann.
Aiyejina, Funso (1985). 'Recent Nigerian Poetry in English: An
Alternative Tradition,' The Guardian. Lagos.
Chinweizu, Jemie, Madubuike (1980). Toward the Decolonization of African Literature. Enugu: Fourth Dimension.
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