The Politics and Poetics of Ethnic Bordering: Chukwuemeka Ike's Sunset at Dawn

Abstract

ABSTRACT The vastness of politics as a subject of discourse can best be grasped in border studies because politics encompasses both spatial and imaginary borders that distinguish one nation/state from another. The existence of spatial borderlines creates territorial demarcations that differentiate geopolitical settings within which policies that establish national identity are forged. But where the disparity in policy exists, national identity tends to fall apart. This is the case with Nigeria whose national identity was built on a questionable colonial policy which neglected the diversity of interests and cultures among the various ethnic groups hastily amalgamated into a single political entity. Literature grapples with political complexity and makes it easily comprehensible through narrative performativity. Chukwuemeka Ike’s novel Sunset at Dawn delineates the intricacy of bordering and debordering that shaped (and continues to shape) the Nigerian nation. I argue here that the identity formation in Nigeria is largely a function of the tensions that characterize both spatial and ideological borders of ethnicity, highlighting the novel’s exposure of the nuances of socio-spatial negotiation which calls for ethnic inclusivity in nation-building.