INTRODUCTION
In this unit we shall study the prose fiction of select new Nigerian writers. These writers write about the events that chronicle the experiences of the new Nigerian situation: politics, society, culture, religion etc. Interestingly, most of them are female. These new Nigerian novelists produce artistic works that show that Nigeria has her own history, culture, and civilization. They see their works as a service to their societies. They reveal that Nigerian society had its own contradictions and spiritual crises. Their fictional approach sharply contrasts to the early writers, such as Ekwensi, Achebe, Soyinka, and others, whose artistic works idealize Nigeria. They examine the social situations from the standpoint of class conflict. They use the English language to suit their purposes in fiction writing. We shall select a few of these writers in order to study their message about the new Nigerian situation.
3.1 General Overview
These new writers of novel in Nigeria reveal in their works the traumas of the present age: starvation, torture, oil spillage, environmental pollution, AIDS, murder, cultural odds, religious and political problems. Their tales/images reveal instances of pain and deprivation. Their novels enter the heart by sneak attack. The questions that often trail the minds of their readers are: Why are we so depressed? Is there no joy in our existence? How is it that our best and brightest are not mindful of the end of the machete that hurts our motherland? Regardless, these writers have every reason to be worried about the situation in Nigeria (Africa). The question becomes: What are they doing about it? Many of these writers spend a lot of time painting gory pictures of Nigeria’s (Africa's) sorry state. These writers focus on the Nigeria’s (continent's) corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, child traffickers and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation amongst other issues.
They write to critique and correct the horrible images of Nigeria (Africa) as one giant beggar-continent that will someday be erased when the intellectuals and writers like these millennium writers direct their rage inwards. They believe the African writers and intellectuals can stop feeding the West stories of irredeemable despair that turn Africa into a caricature continent. They believe there is hope, because there is a return to the oral tradition of storytelling by our ancestors and they call this change.
These new writers write for a precocious generation that went through books with the same intensity with which they surf the pages of the Internet. The pressures on these writers of fiction are enormous. Their voices never stopped singing, they delivered story after story, so painstakingly about the odds of the age. As you read their novels, you feel the passion and the love for the word, pulsating through every word; there is a near obsession for perfection that borders on a disability. These new writers focus on the true condition of the country without reducing the land and her people to ridicule.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
These new novelists are engrossed with revealing the totality of Nigeria’s ugly state. Discuss this proposition
3.2 Political Satire: Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
Kambili, the protagonist of Purple Hibiscus, uses a draconic pattern of her father, Chief Eugene Achike, to, reveal the problems in the entire Nigerian society. The unnecessary religious conflicts that make Kambili’s father to hate Papa Nnukwu; her grand father shows the high-handedness of some African people who use religion as a means of creating discord in their families. Uncle Eugene allows religion to becloud his sense of fellowship with his culture and society. His children must comply with the tenets of Catholicism. It becomes surprising that a man like Chief Eugene Achike who fights for the political freedom of his people through his journalistic ventures could apply what he attacks in his home. He engages in children and wife battery but criticizes those who batter the society. It looks like denying a phenomenon and embracing it at the same time. A paradox! He celebrates the relief that comes from coups believing that a new government means freedom in sight. He expects freedom but blocks it from his vicinity.
Kambili sees the contrast between her father and the military government when she critically asserts, “of course, Papa told us, the politicians were corrupt … , what we needed was not soldiers ruling us, what we needed was a renewed democracy. Renewed Democracy. It sounded important, the way he said it…” (25).
This whole dream sounded as if Kambili is expecting a ‘renewed approach’ to the family affairs first before hoping for a renewed governance in the country. Adichie explains that the issue of governance in Africa would change when the individuals begin to examine within themselves the correct approaches to life that would enhance the development of good governance.
Kambili and Jaja never experienced ‘real’ love in their home at Enugu. It was Aunty Ifeoma’s home that provided the needed environment for them to experience love. Jaja falls in love with flowers and other chores. He expresses himself to his cousins. He visits scenes and places and exchanges gifts and experiences. He sees the love of a ‘heathen’ grandfather who tells them moral folk tales and the love of a reverend father who provides the needed atmosphere for peace and joy. Kambili sees the love of a sister who teaches her to cook meals, care for others and accommodate people around her. She ‘falls in love’ with Father Amadi. Father Amadi sees in Kambili the character of a heroine who talks less but acts more in her mind, “she does not waste her energy in picking never-ending arguments. But there is a lot going on in her mind, I can tell.” (173).
Amaka is also a strong voice. She seems to be one of the strongest female voices in our contemporary fiction. Amaka refuses to take an English name for her confirmation because she sees no need for such ‘colonial’ necessity. She was never forced to accept this ‘necessity’. Not even from Father Amadi whose closeness to the family ought to have given the necessary touch for Amaka to choose an English name:
“I told you I am not taking an English name, father,” she said
“And have I asked you why?”
“Why do I have to?”
“Because it is the way it’s done. Let’s forget if it’s right or wrong for now,” father Amadi said, and I noticed the shadows under his eyes.
“When the missionaries first came, they didn’t think Igbo names were good enough. They insisted that people take English names to be baptized. Shouldn’t we moving ahead?” (271-272)
Amaka represents the new hope for the coming generation of African women. Amaka seems to be the most vocal of these characters: young, resilient, outspoken and unbending in the things that touch her African pride. Kambili describes her thus: “She walked and talked even faster and with more purpose than Aunty Ifeoma did” (78). She is a rare breed of the new generation of youths. She is creative, accommodating, honest, outspoken and a dogged fighter. Even when Amaka left the country with her mother, she never stops her protests against those things she finds unpalatable in the Nigerian society. Kambili tells us that:
Amaka used to write to the office of the head of state, even the Nigerian Ambassador in America, to complain about the poor state of Nigeria’s justice system. She said nobody acknowledged the letters but still it was important to her that she do something. (300)
Adichie takes a historical stance in the exposition of the travails of military oddities in the novel. Ade Coker fights the military regime through the Standard newspaper. Uncle Eugene sees the fight as his needed role in the correction of military anarchy. Aunty Ifeoma flees the country to the United States in search of peace and academic freedom. Brain drain increases daily. Later, Ade Coker is murdered. Nwankiti Ogechi (a typology for Ken Saro Wiwa) is murdered:
Soldiers shot Nwankiti Ogechi in a bush in Minna. And then they poured acid on his body to melt his flesh off his bones, to kill him even when he was already dead. (200-201)
After this killing, commonwealth countries suspended Nigeria and imposed sanctions. The Big Oga later dies “atop a prostitute, foaming at the mouth and jerking-…” (297). The Big Oga, invariably General Sani Abacha, is revealed as the ending point of Nigeria’s military rule. His death and the death of Uncle Eugene bring in a new hope, a dawn, to the polity. Jaja’s acceptance of the crime of murdering his father, even though his mother had claimed responsibility, shows the yearning of the family to get freedom from the brutal and strict father, just like the needed respite the Nigerian nation experienced with the exit of the dictator, General Sani Abacha. The symbol of the purple hibiscus bringing a new hope in their home is seen in Kambili’s new vision of tomorrow: “I reach out and place my arm around mama’s shoulder and she leans towards me and smiles...The new rains will come soon (307).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Purple Hibiscus is the picture of Nigeria at the zenith of anarchy. Explain how Adichie achieved this.
3.3 Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel
Nigeria in the 1990s, the setting for this novel, was a police state of such sadistic violence, with human rights abuses so staggering, that the country was expelled from the Commonwealth of Nations, and virtually every other country had sanctions against it. As the author says in the ‘Afterword’ to this stunning novel, "There was nothing to believe in: the only mission the military rulers had was systematically to loot the national treasury; their only morality was a vicious survivalist agenda in which any hint of disloyalty was ruthlessly crushed." Every hint of dissent and every suspicion of democratic thinking by many of the country's most gifted writers and thinkers were wiped out by the military government of Sani Abacha.
Focusing primarily on Lomba, a journalist and frustrated novelist, who, in the opening chapter is a starving political prisoner in a Lagos jail, author Helon Habila jumps back and forth in time, introducing us in succeeding chapters to the lives of ordinary citizens of Lagos, men and women, including Lomba himself, living on Poverty Street, trying to maintain some semblance of hope in an increasingly hopeless world. Lomba, jailed for two years without a trial as the novel opens, has gone beyond anger, which he describes as "the baffled prisoner's attempt to re-crystallize his slowly dissolving self," and entered "a state of tranquil acceptance" of his fate. When the jailer finds the poems and journal entries he has written and hidden, he persuades Lomba to write some love poems for the better-educated woman he is courting. A brief ray of hope flickers when the woman recognizes Lomba's cryptic messages and comes to the prison to meet him.
The novel then flashes back to the years before Lomba's arrest, and as various episodes unfold, the author shows us the effects of this dictatorial government on the ordinary people who populate the country. Though life is difficult and opportunities almost non- existent, the young people still have hopes and dreams. When Lomba and a friend have their fortunes told by a poet, one of the young men asks to know the day of his death, which he hopes will be "spectacular and momentous," a day he is assured he will know when the time comes—and does. A second friend, whose parents have been killed in a car crash, is so grief- stricken that he makes an intemperate and idealistic speech, then is arrested, severely beaten, and driven insane. With no chance of getting his own novel published, Lomba himself takes a job writing for the Dial, for which he occasionally reports on political demonstrations, one of them a demonstration in which people peacefully protest the neglect of their neighborhood. "We are dying from lack of hope," his friend Joshua says at the demonstration. The unarmed protesters are suddenly attacked by fifty armed riot police, tear gas is exploded, protesters are severely beaten, and running women and children are killed by cars speeding on the adjacent highway.
Because the author presents these episodes in random order, depicting the families, everyday life, and hopes and dreams of the participants, the reader easily imagines what life must have been like during this time and can envision what his/her own life might have been under the same circumstances. But Habila adds further reality to his depictions of life in Nigeria under Sani Abacha by including some well-known historical events and their effects on Lomba and the fictional characters: the hanging of Ken Saro Wiwa, the killing of Dele Giwa, the editor of Newswatch magazine, by a letter bomb, and the shooting of the wife of Abiola, the opponent of Abacha who was jailed simply for challenging him.
In one of the most telling episodes in the novel, Lomba goes to a party and meets the writers and poets of Lagos. A man introduces himself to him, saying, "Hi, I am Helon Habila." Suddenly, the reader realizes how much of this novel may be autobiographical, a factor which makes the drama of the story even more intense. We know from the author's biography that he once held the same job as Lomba and that he is now living in London. What we do not know is how many of the other realistically presented events may also be true. The reader may wonder how he knows so much about life under sadistic jailers in the prisons of Lagos, though no one will doubt the accuracy of his descriptions.
Because the chronological ending--Lomba's imprisonment--appears as the first chapter, the reader experiences a sense of déjà vu throughout the reading of the novel, as the action backtracks, forcing the reader to experience the events which led up to the opening chapter and to wonder if anything could have prevented Lomba's eventual imprisonment. Habila makes us think, ponder the fragility of democratic institutions which we take for granted, and explore how the slow erosion of rights can lead to the rise of dictators who seize absolute power to continue their rule. Though the drama and violence are presented with almost journalistic clarity, the novel's emotion is engendered by our identification with the characters and our ability to understand that these are people not much different from ourselves, people who through no fault of their own have become victims of circumstance and the power of a military controlled by one man.
Habila's novel is a powerful defense of the freedom of the press and a celebration of the lives of those courageous writers who have refused to be silenced, even when faced with death. As he says, "Every oppressor knows that wherever one word is joined to another word to form a sentence, there'll be revolt. That is our work, the media: to refuse to be silenced, to encourage legitimate criticism wherever we find it." This moving study of idealistic young people refusing to give up, even when faced with threats to their very lives, is an unforgettable story of the human spirit waiting for an angel--and sometimes meeting the Angel of Death.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Discuss the themes of political odds and military dictatorship in Waiting for an Angel.
3.4 Niger Delta Situation: Kaine Agary Yellow Yellow
Kaine Agary claimed that he was inspired by Saro-Wiwa's book entitled A Month and a Day in writing the novel. Yellow-Yellow was the first novel of Kaine Agary, who grew up in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The honour was to reflect the relevance of the book on how literatures have been used to illuminate the Niger Delta question. Kaine was in the United States of America for a while before relocating to Lagos. Yellow- Yellow was all about a young biracial girl, Zilayefa, who was born of a Nigerian mother and a Greek sailor, who left her rustic existence and the protective grip of her mother in the village in search of a better life in the city of Port Harcourt.
With a recommendation from her pastor, Zilayefa, the main character in the book, took in and was cared for by an elderly biracial woman, Sisi, and her friend, Lolo. She was thrust into the bustling city of Port Harcourt, unprepared for the pitfalls awaiting a young girl so unsure of herself and also in desperate need of direction. She was confronted by prejudices against her racial identity. Zilayefa joined the fast Port Harcourt life, coloured by the presence of expatriates in the oil sector and declining societal values during a military regime.
She struggled with accepting the void left by not knowing her father and tried to fill that void with the attention of an older lover. Through her budding sexuality experiences, Zilayefa grew to a higher level of knowledge and understanding. Yellow -Yellow portrayed life and culture in the Niger Delta through the eyes of Zilayefa when she struggled with development of her identity. It revealed a portrait of beauty and social destruction of the Nigerian Niger Delta, giving a picture and a human face to the hardships of the people.
At the early chapters of the book, the author reflected the menace of oil spillage on hectares of farmland that was supposed to be cultivated for food production. The villagers constituted a pressure group to fight against oppression especially from the foreigners, who were operators of the oil companies that laid their oil pipes in the village. They reported the case to the village head for immediate rescue. Some were crying, others were agitating for compensation. The crude oil, as reported by the author, spread out and covered more land and drowned small animals in its path. The air was polluted with bad smell from crude oil and decaying animals. Men and women were covered knee-deep in the crude oil.
The oil company rejected the accusation, declaring a suspect sabotage of the youth in the village. They insisted on not paying any compensation for all the destruction the burst pipes had caused. Many people lost their main source of sustenance to the spillage including the author's mother. Women rowed their canoes farther away to find land for farming. Every year, it was hard to catch fish. It was contrary to the early days of the author's mother when every husband was expected to give his new wife a dugout canoe he had carved out and crafted himself. The wife would use the canoe to fish, earn a living and help to feed the family. The big boys carved out decorative paddles that carried the legends of the Ijaws in every curve.
Sisi, who took care of Zilayefa, stopped schooling at primary six level. She was exposed to all influences that converged on Port Harcourt before Nigeria's Independence from the British. She used the exposure to get contracts for construction and food supply in government hospitals. She was good with creative ideas for projects she was selling to the procurement officers of the establishment. She was involved in the supply of toilet papers and leasing of pick-up trucks. She was the only woman who got contracts from oil companies. At the concluding chapters of the book, the author reviewed how young girls, who wanted to escape poverty, were looking up to white men to rescue them. Girls were trooping into hotel lobbies at Warri and Bonny, looking for how to attach themselves with the white men. There were people on contract, linking up good looking young girls with prospective white men. On one of such night cruises, Zilayefa met Sergio, his former jilted lover whom she thought was one of those hanging out for young girls.
There have been different reactions over the quality of artworks compiled in Yellow-Yellow by its author, which made it to gain such befitting recognition at a first trial. Yellow- Yellow takes us on an amazing journey through the Delta region of Nigeria: our guide is a young woman trying to find herself seeking her fortune in a big city, a city hungry to swallow her soul and spit out her jaded hollow shell. It is a truly authentic narrative of a region, the burden of its incredible wealth and a young woman's determination to carry it. This literary gem is a must read.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4
The Niger-Delta region in Nigeria is a focus of attention because of environmental degradation. How successful is Agary’s treatment of the issue in Yellow Yellow?
4.0 CONCLUSION
The new Nigerian novel is based on contemporary human experiences
in order to remain relevant. One fundamental character of the contemporary Nigerian novel is that it provides a specific manner of narration which identifies and assumes human names in such a way that suggests that they are to be regarded as individuals in the contemporary society. The new Nigerian novel becomes an exploration of the personality as it is defined in the interpretation of its past and present self-awareness. The mark of true realism therefore, is the depiction of an age as individuals’ experience and the bourgeois exploration of the individual’s experience reaches its highest form when this individual is not a fragmentary experience but the quintessential representation of a particular historical and social experience. The political life of a nation and its social-national dilemma is thus depicted through an individual experience, the individual himself being shaped by the socio-economic circumstances in which he finds himself. These writers reveal social cohesion or social consciousness. They reveal new interests and experiences in their crafts of fiction. Their novels are constantly interrupted in the effort to maintain and expand contemporary artistic activities and institutions in the face of their country's problems and a general sapping of energy and initiative.
5.0 SUMMARY
The new Nigerian fiction writers are producing artistic works that show that Nigeria (Africa) had its own history, culture, and civilization. These writers apply pathos and emotive power of their works to instigate the oppressors in their societies and to initiate a political and economic reorganization of their society in the interest of the oppressed. However, some critics maintain that the intentions (of the pathos and bitterness of these novels) are to whip the emotions of the people into revolutionary action. The artistic forms reflect the ideological content, for these writers use satire and ridicule as corrective narrative techniques to enlighten their society morally. The despair that pervades these works, which portray the oppressed as trapped and helpless, arises in the writers' political misunderstanding. These new Nigerian fiction writers have no choice but to join in the people's struggle for survival. In that situation, they will have to confront the ruling elites whose services are not beneficial to all. These writers apply the real language of struggle in the actions and speeches of their people, learn from their great optimism and faith in the capacity of human beings to remake their world and renew themselves.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Answer these questions:
1. The new novelists reveal every ugly thing that hinders Nigeria’s development. Explain how they achieve this.
2. Purple Hibiscus touches on the odds of militarism in Nigeria. Discus the thematic concerns in the novel.
3. Discus the blend of politics and social trauma in Habila’s Waiting for an Angel.
4. There are vast social and environmental traumas in the Niger- Delta region of Nigeria. Carefully discus how Agary revealed this in Yellow Yellow.
5. Compare and contrast the thematic thrust of the new fiction writers with their predecessors.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Adichie, Chimamanda (2005). Purple Hibiscus. Lagos: Farafina.
Agary, Kaine (2005). Yellow Yellow Lagos: Infomedia.
Habila, Helon (2005). Waiting for an Angel. London: Faber & Faber.
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