The military in Nigeria's postcolonial literature : an overview

Adeoti Gbemisola

doi:10.14198/raei.2003.16.09

Abstract

The paper is a survey of Nigeria’s postcolonial literature with a view to highlighting how writers through diverse ideological persuasions and aesthetic modes have captured people’s experience under military rule (from January 15, 1966 to May 29, 1999). The paper observes that the military is not only a dominant political force in the country’s postcolonial governance but also a recurrent subject in its narrative fiction, poetry and drama. In the works of Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, John Pepper Clark, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofi san, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Odia Ofeimun, Niyi Osundare, Ben Okri etc, one is confronted with tropes of power abuse, economic mismanagement and poverty among other legacies of military regimes. Their art also capture the twist in public perception of soldiers. Whereas, the soldiers were celebrated initially as messiahs who rescued the polity from corrupt politicians, they became vampires in the 1980s and 1990s after plunging the nation into political turmoil and economic tribulation. In its conclusion, the paper contends that Nigerian literature in post-military dispensation will continue to be topical and relevant. Indeed, it has a crucial role to play in the task of nation-building and democratic development necessitated by years of military (mis) rule.

Highlights

Repulsive is the sectarian and self-seeking politicking that passes for democracy in the universe of Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People
If writers were detained or exiled in the previous era, they were haunted and killed for offences ranging from plotting coups to engaging in minority rights activism. And like the proverbial bird that has learnt to fly without perching because men have learnt to shoot without missing, Nigerian writers became more daring in their engagement with the ills of military rule
The paper has focused on the military as an institution and as a political force inscribed by creative writers into the fabric of Nigerian Literature

Summary

Introduction

Repulsive is the sectarian and self-seeking politicking that passes for democracy in the universe of Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People. “Hurray for Thunder” is Okigbo’s gleeful celebration of the arrival of the military in national politics following the collapse of the first democratic experiment in 1966. Writers have been casting a backward glance to find out how and why the nation squandered the profits of independence so soon They have been engaging the challenges of state re-construction and the imperative of democratic development in the post military years. In the particular case of Nigeria, the utilitarian value of literature is undeniable as it more often than not, yields a greater insight into socio-political events To this end, Nigerian literature presents a poignant engagement with historical realities in a manner that is rewarding, to literary scholarship, and to the study of politics in the postcolonial state. The latter is the focus of “The Second Coming” while the paper’s overall concerns are summed up in the “Conclusion”

When They Struck

Words on War

The Second Coming

Concluding Remarks