Chinua Achebe on the positive legacies of colonialism

Abstract

The late Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe was a key figure in the rise and persistence of anti-colonial ideology in Africa. Yet in his final work, Achebe made a clear statement about the positive legacies of colonialism, praising the British project of state formation and nation building in the lower Niger basin. A careful study of his writings and comments from 1958 until his death in 2013 shows that Achebe was never the simple anti-colonial figure that most assumed, and that his seeming reversal could be read as the culmination of a lifetime's meditation on African history and politics. Achebe's final views have significant paradigmatic implications for the knowledge relevant to national identity formation and state building in Africa today.