Two West African Voices in search of Decolonization: Kofi Awoonor and Christopher Okigbo

Abstract

This study traces the process of decolonization in the poetry of two West African poets; Kofi Awoonor from Ghana and Christopher Okigbo from Nigeria. The chosen poets represent two distinct models toward decolonization. Decolonization is chosen as the topic of this study for its powerful presence in and effect on the literature of West Africa. In the process of decolonization, Awoonor and Okigbo seek to underscore the importance of Africans' returning to their roots as a means of reshaping their identities which the colonizers were determined to obliterate. They undertake, as their responsibility, to resist the literary manifestations of imperialism and direct their peoples towards forming an indigenous cultural identity. They succeed to incorporate the imagery of West African myth and folklore to revive the past and connect it with the present hoping to reconstruct a bright future for their people. Many critics have tackled decolonization in their critical writings; among them were Frantz Fanon, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Edward Said and Bill Ashcroft. The study makes use of some of these views with special reference to Fanon and Nugugi