INTRODUCTION
It is not possible to talk about Nigerian literature without the mention of the Nigerian colonial experience. In this unit you will learn more about the Nigerian colonial experiences and its impact on the development of Nigerian literature.
3.1 Colonialism in Nigeria
Europeans at a point in their history became so adventurous that they sailed to other parts of the world and claimed that they discovered these areas. Africa was the worst hit in this discovery expedition. Christopher Columbus was said to have discovered while Mungo Park is the acclaimed founder of the River Niger. If they had discovered these areas, made history, included their names in their Guinness Book of Records, the word colonialism would not have emerged. The truth is that these countries and communities were in existence before the exploration of West Africa by the colonialist. They discovered continents, countries and towns and felt that the inhabitants of these areas were insignificant and so decided to “humanize” them. First of all, they imposed themselves on countries, peacefully or by force. Those who did not resist them, they settled peacefully with them and those who resisted them were subdued through a military force. Africans had bows, arrows, spears and clubs as weapons while their adversaries came with sophisticated guns. In the face of the guns, Africans became powerless. They imposed their civilization through education, culture, religion and politics. They deposed kings and installed warrant chiefs. People that lived together harmoniously were torn apart. One of the gravest evils of colonialism is the slave trade through which many innocent Nigerians were cargoed abroad for cheap labour to work in the plantations of some of their colonies.
European countries scrambled for space in Africa. Each of them claimed the countries where they were the first to arrive as their colonies. Thus some countries in Africa were colonized by the British, some by the French, some by the Spaniards, some by Portuguese and so on. The struggle for space led to the partition of Africa to avoid a large scale war among the world powers then. This explains while in West Africa you hear terms like Francophone and Anglophone countries. Francophone countries refer to the countries that were colonized by France while the Anglophone countries were those countries colonized by Britain.
Nigeria is an Anglophone country. The Europeans, who arrived in Nigeria from Britain, came with their ‘civilization’ that was heralded by many. The Christian priests and evangelists were sent ahead of the political set. In some cases they came together but the evangelists were the first to approach the indigenes with their religion of peace and salvation. As the saying goes, they came with the cross in one hand and the gun in the other. As the priests moved, the administrators followed to quell any resistance wherever there was one. They imposed their government, religion and culture, on Nigerians.
Gradually some Nigerians acquired the western education and fought for independence which was granted in 1960. Nigeria got her independence without bloodshed unlike Kenyans and South Africans. The reason is that the colonial administrators did not discover any solid mineral or fertile land for tea, coffee or other produce. If they had discovered, for instance, crude oil, the fact that they were scared away by the thick rain forest, mosquitoes, and malaria would have been nullified. After all, despite the hostility from the Niger Delta, they are still in the creeks drilling oil.
3.2 Colonialism and the Nigerian Culture
Nigeria was and is still a plural society. There are many ethnic groups and the language, food, mode of dressing and the general cultural attributes of each group is unique. The colonial masters condemned the culture of the people and termed it barbaric. They claimed that the people did not wear dresses, and those who did, did not cover their bodies very well. They forgot that the climatic conditions in Europe differ from that in Nigeria. However, they imposed their way of dressing on the people. The traditional way of dressing was condemned but now our sensibilities are being assaulted daily on the screen, posters and every where with obscene nudities another importation from the west. In the traditional society, people went about naked in innocence, but in contemporary Nigeria influenced by colonialism, nakedness is sold for money. Nigerian cultural festivals were condemned as fetish, while their own, especially Christian feast days were glorified and celebrated.
However, they did not succeed in destroying all aspects of the Nigerian culture. People still ate their food, and observe most of other aspects of their culture like language and literature. Some Nigerian festivals still exist till date.
3.3. Colonialism and the Nigerian Tradition
Tradition is the way things are done in a particular place, situation or circumstance. It comprises the norms and values of a people. The tradition of learning in NOUN, for instance, is that course materials are given to students, they study at home and go for facilitation for discussions. The tradition of a people involves the totality of the culture, customs, the ‘dos ’ and ‘don’ts ’ in that society. Nigerian traditions were condemned. Some of them include polygamy, killing of twins, kingship, some rituals associated with the cycle of death and burial, the system of outcasts, abandoning a man in an evil forest to die because he committed an abomination and many others. Some of the abrogated ones like killing of twins is applauded. The colonialists destroyed traditional boundaries and created artificial ones, thus forcing some people into a different socio-political set ups.
3.4 Colonialism and Nigerian Religion
The most devastating effect of colonialism on Nigeria succeeded through religion. Nigerians seem to be too fanatical about religion. Before the colonialists arrived in the country, there existed traditional religions practiced differently by each community. These are the oldest religions as both Islam and Christianity were introduced in the !9th Century. This means that traditional religion existed in the North before a greater part of Northern Nigeria was converted to Islamic religion during the Jihad of Utman Dan Fodio of the 19th century. The southerners worshipped God through different means in shrines, grooves, river banks. Ancestors were revered, and in other natural places. They are seen as the living dead since they still have influence on the living. They are invoked for intercession in times of adversity and are honoured in times of plenty before the advent of
Christianity..
3.5 Colonialism and Politics
Each ethnic group or town in Nigeria had its own system of government before the advent of the Europeans. In the north, the Emirs were at the helms of affairs. They ruled their subjects with perceived justice and the subjects were very loyal to the emirs. With this, peace reigned in the society. That system of government had its rules, regulations and a hierarchy that was abided by and respected by all. Offenses were punished while good deeds were extolled.
In the western region the Yorubas had their Obas, and other ethnic groups had their kings with different names. These kings had their council of chiefs who ruled with them as advisers, chief warriors, judges and so on. Citizens subjected themselves to the laws of the land. Any offender knows the punishment that awaits him or her and accepts it without question.
Most of the Igbo tribes did not have the type of kings mentioned above. They were ruled by council of elders or titled chiefs. Every member of that society knows his or her place and lived in conformity to the rules and regulations of the community and carried his/her obligations appropriately.
Nigerian societies, like many societies in the world, had a system of patriarchy that privileged men. But despite that, women did not complain before the advent of colonialism because in pre-colonial societies, there were checks and balances ensuring that gender roles did not translate into economic and political impoverishment of women” (Ngugi in preface to Tess Onwueme’s Tell It To Women, 1994)
Unfortunately, colonialism came with discriminations of race, gender, class, religious affiliations, and other influences. The dominant social class, those close to the colonial administrators developed prejudices and negative attitudes towards the local government. Gender roles became questioned, for instance, a man is expected to marry only one wife unlike in the traditional society where a man was free to marry as many wives as he could cater for. Polygamy had and is still has its problems and women have tried to challenge it in different ways different from western concepts of resistance.
The biggest blow on the indigenous politics was the introduction of warrant chiefs. These warrant chiefs snubbed and in some cases abused the existing system of government in their societies. They were very corrupt and manipulated and oppressed their people especially their perceived enemies. They extorted money and other materials from the people to judge cases in their favours. The bribery and corruption entrenched in the Nigerian system by colonialism through these warrant chiefs and their aides are still with us till date. The process of selection of leaders that was not by merit influenced the Nigerian political system so much that its eradication remains a mirage.
3.6 The Implication of Colonialism on Nigerian Literature
One of the most outstanding effects of colonialism on Nigerian lifestyle and culture is the evolvement of Nigerian literature. As a result of colonialism, Nigerian literature moved from orature to written art. Colonialism introduced western education in the country. Consequently, some Nigerians acquired the skill to read and write. They were able to read the literature of other countries and other forms of writing. These, influenced the development of Nigerian literature the way we have it now. The Nigerian artists sought to be like others, to record their stories for others to read instead of presenting them to a selected audience in their localities, the written stories had a wider audience.
The writers were also able to read what foreign authors wrote about Nigerians or Africans and wrote their own reactions against such pieces of writing. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is said to be a reaction against Joyce’ Cary’s Mister Johnson. Achebe was able to react, to present his own view because he could read and write. This means that colonialism had a positive impact on Nigerian literature. Other implication of colonialism on Nigerian literature is that it provided early Nigerian writers with themes for their works especially in prose and poetry. Colonial themes, like the culture clash, tradition/ modernity, oppression, subjugation and many others.
Western influences began to affect Nigerian literature as early as the eight century when Arabic ideas and culture were introduced to Africa. Later in the fourteenth century, written and spoken Arabic flourished in Northern Nigeria and by the seventeenth century, some Hausa literature had been translated into Arabic. Christian missionaries accelerated the importation of Western education into Nigeria during the nineteenth century. Some native black Moslems reacted to the incursion of colonialists with protests in poetry. Aliyu dan Sidi, for example, utilized the oral literature tradition to write poetic protests against the missionaries. However, other Yoruba authors, such as D.O Fagunwa and Isaac Delano, wrote novels promoting the missionaries and teaching the Christian religion. Although Fagunwa and Delano offered Christian religious instruction and preached acceptance of western ideas, both relied heavily upon their ancestral folktales in creative writing. Fagunwa’s pieces in particular “show an extensive use of proverbs, riddles, traditional jokes and other lore central to Yoruba belief.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/d.o.fagunwa)
In various parts of the country, novels developed around 1930. Centered upon fantastic, magical characters of humans and fairies, Hausa novels, called “non-realistic novels,” were based on folktales. The “mysterious” characters transmuted into other beings; fairies, animals, and humans. All conversed among one another. Of Muhammadu Bello’s fantasy novel Gandoki, Ajuwon comments, “One is led to say that the book is a reduction of Hausa oral tradition to written literature (Richardson 56). “In the 1930’s, Igboland also saw a growth in the number of novelists who expressed the dedication of their people for the Christian missionaries. While poetry of that period emphasized devotion to Allah (shunning the Christian god), Pita Nwana’s 1935 prize-winning book Omenuko shows the style of “didactic intention” (Emenyonu 34). Racism was common theme in early Nigerian literature.
4.0 Conclusion
It is clear that colonialism affected the Nigerian society culturally, religiously, socially and politically. It has negative effects on the society but it also had positive effects on the society because without colonialism, may be no Nigerian citizen would not have been educated. Consequently, Nigerian literature would have remained an oral art that is transmitted from one generation to the next through the word of mouth. The implication is that it would have been difficult for one tribe to learn about the literature of other tribes in Nigeria. Without colonialism may be there would not have been any country like Nigeria with a lingua franca - English
5.0 Summary
You have learnt from this unit that colonialism had both positive and negative effects on the country. One of the outstanding positive effects is the education of Nigerian and the birth of Nigerian written literature.
6.0 Tutor Marked Assignment
List and discuss three effects of colonialism on Nigerian literature.
8.0 References/Further Reading
Emenyonu, Ernest “The Rise and Development of Igbo Novel” in Yeme Ogunbiyi (ed)
Perspectives on Nigerian Literature: 1700 to the Present Vol. Two. Lagos:
Guardian Books.
Ogunbiyi, Yemi (ed) (1985). Perspectives on Nigerian Literature. (Volumes One and Two). Lagos: Guardian Book.
Olaniyan, Richardson (ed) (1987). Nigerian History and Culture. Hongkong: Longman.
Onwubiko, K.B.C (1967): School Certificate History of West Africa. Book one A.D
1000 – 1800. Onitsha: Africana Educational Publishers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/d.o.fagunwa)
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