INTRODUCTION
In this unit we will be looking at the different types of anti-colonial literatures in Nigeria. By types, we mean what they focus on the treatment of the theme of colonialism. Some anti- colonial Nigerian literatures focus on the effects of colonialism on the Nigerian society, some on the effects of colonialism on Nigerian culture, some on its effect on the political development of the country while some focus on the change in literary form: structure, language and theme, as a way of driving home the points about avoiding colonial mentalities in Nigerian creative writing spheres. We will study various anti-colonial Nigerian literatures as possible explanation of these types of anti-colonial works in all literary genres.
3.1 General Overview
Anti-colonial literature in Nigeria is a vast phenomenon. However, that magnitude is perhaps the least of the difficulties facing the critic in attempting to give a fair view of this ever-growing phenomenon. A more formidable problem arises from the fact that Nigerian writers are writing two different kinds of literature. The first is the social-realistic literary convention that has been familiar to readers and still exists. The second is the kind in which a new language prevails; this is relatively unfamiliar to many – perhaps even most – readers. This is premised on the awareness that there is always a close relationship between Nigerian literature and its historical context(s). The multiple paths that are followed include a thorough examination of the ideologies and context(s) within which the work was produced, the consideration of the expression of life of disenchantment and pain in the literature. All lead to the unmasking of Nigerian literature as a socially symbolic act, that is, a reflection of the problems of the writer’s immediate society, in particular, and the African continent in general.
Many Nigerian writers have been termed anti-colonial because of the manner in which the colonial experiences are attacked. It also exposes the traumatic effects of colonial power on Nigeria’s development. Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and a host of other writers from Nigeria have often been described as anti-colonial writers because they have often chronicled the experiences of Nigerians during the colonial days. They write to draw sympathies from the people, especially the non- African consumers of Nigerian literature and to direct Nigerians properly in avoiding the repetition of such experience. One characteristic feature of anti-colonial Nigerian literature is the detailed exposition of the negative experiences of Nigerians during the colonial period and avoiding any positive impact they may made on the African continent. These writers prefer painting gory pictures of slavery, imposition of taxes and levies, the destruction of African culture and the abuse of their fundamental human rights. Anti-colonial themes occur consistently as protest literatures against the excesses of colonialism.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Explain the major characteristics of anti-colonial Nigerian literature
3.2 Type 1: Anti-Colonialism on Society
Many anti-colonial literatures in Nigeria focused on the effects of colonialism on the social lives of Nigerians. Nigerian society before imperialism is ordered within a cohered society. The rural set up is made up of people with communal laws and ethics. Justice was fearlessly dispensed and leadership is left in the hands of monarchs and most of them through the process of primogeniture that is by inheritance. The northern Nigeria, through the effects of Islam, established a standard form society enmeshed in the rubrics of Sharia laws and living. The monarchs occupied religious and political positions. The southern axis has divided societies. The Yoruba in the south, like the Hausa in the north, also maintained a society with standard laws, mythical practices and political stability. Except the eastern Igbo, which had no established kingship, the role of the select members of the community in the administration of social justice, parliamentary roles and religious affinity is quite commendable. This was the society met by the imperials. For the Hausa north and Yoruba south, the singleton of their monarchy made it easy for the imperials to impose and administer their colonial agenda. The Igbo south was not easily ruled by the imperialists. There was no single political leadership to hinge on. This issue is recalled in Achebe’s Arrow of God, where the colonial administrator, Captain Winterbottom, tried forcing Ezeulu, the priest of Ulu into performing the role of a Warrant Chief. This was rejected by Ezeulu and was subsequently imprisoned by Winterbottom. The entire society is destabilized with famine and religious riots.
With the increasing effect of colonialism, urbanism became a focus. The Colonial masters were busy developing a new type of settlement for themselves and the educated Africans. The rural setting became undeveloped because attention is paid to the city. The city embodies everything ugly: armed robbery, stealing, prostitution, suicide, manslaughter and other negative vices which the rural areas are not always known for. With the arrival of electricity and other communication gadgets, the city became a haven for the educated and the foreigners. Cyprian Ekwensi People of the City published in 1954 was the first book by a Nigerian writer to garner international attention. Ekwensi tries to examine the urban society in Nigeria during the colonial days in comparison with the rural setting which still has elements of true Nigerian society since at least there are still some aspects of the society under the control of the people with their laws and ethics still being observed. This novel was the first novel, telling the true Nigerian story beyond the earlier mythical and legendary stories of Fagunwa and Tutuola.
In People of the City, Ekwensi examined the life of the urban dwellers and the effects of colonialism on the Africans. One fascinating thing about these urban novels is that they try to juxtapose the rural setting with the urban setting in order to assess the rural and the urban lives as it affects the Africans. His most successful novel was Jagua Nana (1961) which was about a Pidgin-speaking Nigerian woman who leaves her husband to work as a prostitute in a city and falls in love with a teacher. He also wrote a sequel to this, Jagua Nana's Daughter. Most of these urban novels especially Ekwensi’s Jagua Nana and Jagua Nana’s Daughter explored deeply the negative imports of urbanization on Nigerian society
Chinweizu’s Energy Crisis (1978) is a collection of poems which introduced the stirring of cultural and artistic sensitivity in an artiste whose roots were beset with problematic responses toward a hollow but endemic frippery of twentieth century western modernism in Nigeria. It left the artiste with the choice of either furthering the prevalent vision of self-promotion or joining the bards of ancestral days in elucidating a community aesthetic. One can see this tenuous struggle in Energy Crisis which seemed torn between the poet's obsession with self and for his people – his folks – with all their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies as reflected in their social conditions and responses to society. Those poems had come to reflect an artistic awareness and adaptation of his African– contrasted with a powerful but close-minded Western– world to his choice responses to social experience. It saw the articulation of vision which initially had started jaggedly as of a raconteur, who eager of merit, initially betrays a floundering that nevertheless recedes with one bold proclamation after another.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Discuss any Nigerian literary text that attacks the effect of colonialism on Nigerian society.
3.3 Type 2: Anti-Colonialism on Religion/Culture
The traditional African religion is embedded in African culture, so both are intertwined. In their practices, missionaries regarded indigenous names, religion, arts and music as signs of paganism that must be wiped out. Through their teachings and practices, they won converts who formed the nucleus of early Christianity in most urban areas. Even when they preached a gospel of equality in all men they were the new elites within the new society. They trained teachers, catechists, clerks and many that were in the literary professions. With some impact this gesture could not completely change the peoples’ perception that authority came from the white man and not from his God. Consequently, imitation of the white man’s ways penetrated into the fabrics of the society. In other words, through missionary influences many people began to accept what normally would have appeared bewildering and unacceptable to them. For instance the indigenous setting would never have allowed the sale of land which was held in trust by the elders for the dead, the living and the yet unborn.
The Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) among other missionaries established several stations where the intensities of Christian religion were being administered to the people. One cannot also underestimate the role of the converts in the spread of western influences. Singing songs like “Onward Christian Soldiers marching on to war”, they led converts to destroy shrines and all images which they considered were idolatrous. In the same vein indigenous relics and totems were destroyed as a sign of the outward appearances of conversion. We see this also in Achebe’s Arrow of God where Oduche, Ezeulu’s son, tries to imprison the sacred python of Idemili as a sign of his new Christian faith. This single act brought lot reactions from the people against their chief priest who should have protected their culture. Even in Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, we see how Obi Okonkwo went against his culture by marrying an Osu. His behaviour is a consequence of his Christian background and his western education.
Conversion into Christianity was marked by baptism. In the process of baptism indigenous names that had meaning in the indigenous setting were discarded for Christian or Biblical names like Paul, James, Peter or Andrew. As the people embraced Christianity and early churches began to get fuller, the people ensured that loyalty to customs and beliefs changed. In spite of the efforts of missionaries, Christianity did not suit the every day life of the people and as such frustration gave vent to mischief. The destruction of indigenous ways of life led to an attitudinal somersault that paved way for corruption and delusion.
Christopher Okigbo’s poem 'Fragments out of the Deluge' in Labyrinths laments the European imperialist exploitation of the human and material resources of Africa and the colonial conquest. The colonization of the continent is imaged as a deluge that erodes the very foundation of African societies, for the 'gods lie in state', abandoned and unsung (p. 34). The poet represents the possessors of power who rape Africa and violate her gods and goddesses as predatory eagles in whose talons young birds wobble and utter the cry of death. The use of animal images to express the poet's vision of Social Darwinism signifies that Western civilization or industrial capitalism is cannibalistic and its purveyors are savages. The attainment of Independence by African countries does not change their dependency status. The suffering of the people continues unabated. The dream of Independence fades; another 'big white elephant...'(p.26) appears to continue the mayhem.
James Ene Henshaw wrote several plays including This is Our Chance, Children of the Goddess, Medicine for Love, and Dinner for Promotion. These plays are commentaries on social and political life in Nigeria in the years just before and after independence. They treat issues of culture contact and conflict, of the problems of building a coherent nation out of diverse ethnic groups, and of morality in social dealings. The most important of all is that these plays never relented in pointing directly towards the imperialist’s direction for whatever has been the basis of all these traumas in culture clash.
The issue of the effects of colonialism on African culture has been of concern to most anti-colonial Nigerian writers. Many people still believe that African culture is dying because of the various ways by which the imperialists imposed certain rules that almost destroyed Nigerian cultural heritage. Chinua Achebe in his artistic creed emphasized that the wrong presentation of African culture in European literatures was responsible for his venturing into creative writing in order to give the correct picture of things.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
Using any Nigerian literary drama, discuss the attack on the colonial effect on Nigerian culture and religion
3.4 Type 3: Anti-Colonialism on Politics
Most Nigerian literatures seem to be an attack on the ruling class who are direct descendants of the imperialists. Since independence the question of leadership has been a very sensitive issue in Nigeria. The Nigerian writers have been commenting on the bad administration of the country. In 1966, Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, was described as a prophetic novel because it predicted the first ever military coup in Nigeria. It was glaring as at that time that the civilian government in Nigeria was very corrupt and that military intervention was the only option.
Nigerian literature manifests the struggles of a people whose country is undergoing the painful process of transformation from colonial through neo-colonial to wholly self-determining nation. After a bloody fratricidal war (1967-70), immediately followed by an ill-managed oil boom that, in turn, created social and political dislocations that the nation has yet to overcome, it was inevitable that Nigeria's artists would fulfill the pre-colonial definition of the artist as "town crier," to borrow that fine expression from the late poet Christopher Okigbo. They have made Nigerian literature, in its many forms, a social act against the wantonness of the new society.
The tradition of protest poetry in Nigeria began with Okigbo's "Path of Thunder," which marked the first significant step by any Nigerian literary poet to transcend the usual "quarrel with the self" of poetry and the bemoaning, in personal terms, of the griefs and failures of the commonwealth. This poem was a forewarning of the cataclysm that was to envelop Nigeria in the mid-1960s, culminating in the civil war that tragically claimed the life of Okigbo himself. In this poem, Okigbo aims at a direct attack on the imperialists with their imperial political system being practiced by Africans and which has been the bane of wars and unrest in Africa.
In many literary dramas and the theatre, there are anti-colonial themes meant to guide Nigerians and to expose the ugly effects of colonialism on Nigeria’s political structure. For instance, in Ola Rotimi’s Ovoranmen Nogbaisi, the British conquest of Benin Kingdom which led to the ostracizing of Oba Ovoranmen Nogbaisi is re-enacted. The play attacked the imposition of strange laws on the society and the attempts at destroying the primogeniture patterns of Benin monarchy. This also reflects the British attempts at imposing their kind of politics on the Nigerian nation, the major problem which has even led to wars.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 4
Assess the vast anti-colonial political themes in Nigerian literature
4.0 CONCLUSION
Many critics of Nigerian literature consider anti-colonial themes as the most prevalent and consistent in most literatures written within the post- independence era. These writers emphasize that the problem with the country began with British imperialism: new laws, new politics, new people, new education, new religion and new modes of thought. The old values have been thrown out while the alien values are being inculcated on a people who do not even understand why they must tow the line. Nigeria is a country with multifaceted people and culture. This complex nature of the country was not even considered by the imperialists in their attempts at exploiting Africa. This is a major problem. Nigerian writers have been recording history through literatures. They have recorded the past and the immediate traumas of the Nigerian people as a result of colonial experiences. Some critics of Nigerian literature believe that English Language is an imperial language representing colonialism in all its facets. They advocated that Nigerian writers should use their native languages in writing literatures. It looked as if there was no compromise in this direction because the Nigerian or Africa stories must be read beyond Africa; after all, the true picture of things must read by the world that Nigeria’s history was an ugly paradigm of imperialist’s ideals.
5.0 SUMMARY
Nigerian literature has a tradition of protestation. The literatures written before colonialism harmers on the essence of cultural cohesion but the ones written during and after colonialism are with the undertone of disillusionment. Nigeria as a country never existed before colonialism but the British partitioning of Africa created the country with less consideration on the complex linguistic and cultural make up of the people. It has been cries if woes. With the recent discovery of oil in large quantities, imperialism continues, this time being administered from Scotland Yard and the White House. The Nigerian writers have seen the need for cohesion in the country. They write literatures with a common voice to correct the ills and to fight a common enemy. So, we have many literatures in Nigeria with anti-colonial themes: on the Nigerian society, Nigerian politics, Nigerian religion and Nigeria culture.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Answer these questions carefully:
1. Explain the major concern of anti-colonial literatures
2. Discuss any Nigerian literature attacking colonialism
3. Using any Nigerian literature of your choice, assess the imposition of British culture on Nigerians
4. Distinguish the anti-colonial themes in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart from that of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman
5. From what perspectives do the Nigerian writers attack Christianity as a tool of imperial evil?
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Achebe, Chinua (1958). Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann.
Achebe, Chinua (1972). No Longer at Ease. London: Heinemann.
Achebe, Chinua (1966).A Man of the People London: Heinemann.
Achebe, Chinua (1963). Arrow of God. London: Heinemann.
Ekwensi, Cyprian (1954). People of the City. London: Heinemann.
. (1972). Jagua Nana. London: Heinemann.
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INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE II
INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN LITERATURE II
Markovitz, L. I. ( 1977). Power and Class in Africa: An Introduction to Change & Conflict in African Politics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Roos, Henrietta. (2009). “The Sins of the Fathers: The Missionary in
Some Modern English Novels about the Congo.” Tydskrif, 46(1), 58-76.
Soyinka, Wole (1985. Death and the King’s Horseman. London: OUP.
Temple, C.L. (1968). Native Races and their Rulers. London: Frank Cass.
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