ABSTRACT
In Nigeria, the mid 1960s up until the later part of the 1990s marked a turning period in the nation‟s political landscape, mainly because of the militarization of the Nigerian political space. These military interventions which began on 15th January, 1966 reached its zenith during the repressive regimes of Ibrahim Babangida and the dictatorship of Sani Abacha. Nigerian literature remains a formidable part of the opposition to military dictatorship and tyranny. The country‟s writers hold and project the military‟s messianic pontifications in huge suspicion and disbelief in their writings. Using Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel (2002) and Chinua Achebe‟s Anthills of the Savannah (1988) as templates, the aim and objectives of this study have to do with examining in a broader perspective, the recurrence of the military in the nation‟s history as reflected in fiction as well as the public‟s perception of the military institution. Adopting postcolonial theory as a discursive framework for analysis, the study x-rays how the older generation of Nigerian novelists like Achebe and the younger generation which Habila represents depict the dynamics of military politics in their narratives. Postcolonial theory with strands that resist oppression and dictatorship have aided the analysis. The findings of the study show that, although the writer and the masses may not have the power to physically change the oppressive character and disposition of the military establishment, they can however; undermine military oppression and dictatorship through collective action in popular resistance.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
In the discourse of post-colonialism and the historicity, Chinua Achebe and Helon Habila mark as an outstanding African and Nigerian English novelist and as established postcolonial writers and the historians, in order words, postcolonial re-collectors of Nigeria‟s historical socio-cultural experiences in their fictional novels. The postcolonial debates are born from the historical experience of colonialism. The postcolonial writers assert that their countries had a prestigious history, culture, heritage, government, politics and tradition and they also depict the past from which they have got the raw materials for their works. This discourse has ceased to be mere adaptations of the West.
The fundamental part of the European laws, the damage of post-colonialism and the suitability of the dominant European discourses become noticed in the process of cultural decolonisation. The socially acceptable view finds all the ethnic and the cultural groups as having special characteristics and they are bound with their own territorial existence and cultural roots that have been discussed in postcolonial novels. Moreover, it has been stated that the roots, the unique characters, and even the territorial existence are created through their migration from one region to the other or from one settlement to another. The colonial invasion in general and the British imperialism in particular over the region; Africans were inspired by their urge to invade and appropriate the rich resources of the African lands and man power.
The postcolonial schools of thought such as Orientalism and New Historicism and other different branches of learning express new views of enlightenment to the oppressed. The new generation made an attempt to translate the dreams of the suppressed into reality by organising nationalist movements which in turn were supported by postcolonial writings. The present century finds a new hybrid school of global theory known as globalisation in which knowledge and information, goods and services move freely across the borders. In this context, it is highly interesting to study the fictional works of Chinua Achebe and Helon Habila, who are a postcolonial voice in a „globalized perspective‟ „in which the global is transformed at the local level‟ (Ashcroft, 1989:218).
Many scholars are of the opinion that politics and literature are inextricably linked, while others are of the opinion that, politics robs literature of its artistic value resulting in mere political statements by writers; such as Chinua Achebe‟s A Man of the People (1965), and Ayi Kwei Armah‟s The Beautiful Ones are not yet Born (1965); Ngugi Wa‟ Thiongo‟s Wizard of the Crow; Adebayo William‟s The Remains of the Last Emperor and Okey Ndebe‟s Arrows of Rain; Mamman Vatsa's Voices From the Trench (1985); Wole Soyinka's From Zia with Love (1992); Chukwuemeka Ike‟s Sunset at Dawn (1976); Chinua Achebe‟s Girls at War (1972) and Anthills of the Savannah(1987); Rasheed Gbadamosi‟s Echoes From the Lagoon (1973); Isidore Okphewo‟s The Last Duty (1976); Festus Iyayi‟s Heroes (1986) etc. In the development of African literature, politics has impacted greatly on both its themes and style. African writers, from inception, have tapped from the socio-political events in the continent in the construction of their novels. This is because African historical and political experiences have presented highly political subjects for the continent‟s imaginative literature. In Nigeria, the country's literary tradition exhibits a continuing political dimension. The Nigerian literary tradition provides a ready example of the link between a country's literature and the political realities of a nation. This is so because, literature broadly understood, has always shed light on the idiosyncrasies of the human condition that may not be fully captured in the empirical gaze. Thus, literature provides an important platform for such critique which ultimately could help pave the way for an enduring political regeneration and reform. Writing on the intersection between literature and politics, Suleiman Jaji (2013) observes that:
The point of convergence between literature and politics has always generated debate from earliest times especially from when “society” came to be identified with the development of humanity and the emergence of the nation state (76). In Nigeria, the mid 1960s up until the later part of the 1990s marked a turning period in the nation‟s political landscape, mainly because of the militarization of the Nigerian political space. These military interventions which began on 15th January, 1966 reached its zenith during the repressive regimes of Ibrahim Babangida and the dictatorship of Sani Abacha. As the sociological critics of art contend, literature even its counterfeit nature (fiction) can be used for a systematic study and interpretation of society. Uzoma Nwadike (2009) rationalizes this assertion noting that:
The literature of a people is the mirror through which they see themselves. In it, their successes, their failures, their aspirations, their expectations, their fears, their orientation, their occupations, their potential, their intrigues and their entire ethos and worldview are chronicled (47). For this school of theorists, writers in any society function like activists in their documentation and interpretation of socio-political experiences. For postcolonial Nigerian writers, literature must be committed and every piece of fiction should refract truthfully the situations, atmosphere and realities in the public space. Postcolonial Nigerian literature remains unwavering in its consistent foregrounding of the socio- political tensions and contradictions in the nation‟s body polity. In various ways, Nigerian literature has captured the politics and inherent contradictions in the country‟s military establishment. In doing this, Nigerian writers have reflected the various forms of dictatorship, betrayals and oppression prevalent in the nation under the military era. Writing about the military as a recurrent motif in Nigerian literature, Gbemisola Adeoti (2003) contends that
The realm of fictional literature also bears the imprints of decades of military rule. A military coup provides the dues-ex-machina that resolves the political debacle in Achebe‟s A Man of the People, although the author later in Habila‟s Anthills of the Savannah re-views the messianic conception of soldiers, especially in their intervention in civil administration. Soldiers and the military institution provide the butt of Soyinka‟s ridicule in plays like Kongi’s Harvest, Jero’s Metamorphosis, Madmen and Specialists, A Play of Giants, Beatification of Area Boy and the most recent, King Baabu. Festus Iyayi in Heroes celebrates the ordinary people and the under privileged soldiers on Nigerian and Biafran sides as the true „heroes‟ of the civil war. Chukwuemeka Ike‟s Sunset at Dawn, Odia Ofeimun‟s The Poet Lied, Ken-Saro Wiwa‟s Soza Boy and Frank Uche Mowah‟s Eating by the Flesh are also part of Nigerian letters that engage soldiers as subjects (4). Elsewhere, Adeoti (2003) lays bare the character and temperament of fictional works dealing on military politics in Nigeria:
That the reality of militarism has engendered its own aesthetics. Hence, the predominance of drama of rage, fiction of protest and poetry of indignation. Indeed, literature of “anger and protest” flourished during the period. These writings are remarkable for deliberate violation of hallowed conventions of literary compositions without necessarily impeding significations. After all, military rule itself thrives on violation and subversion of rules. Through their arts, writers participated in the general struggle to end military dictatorship. While some sympathize with victims of harsh politico-economic policies of military government (e.g. Structural Adjustment Programme), some depict the reality in its grimness. Some seek to stir resentment in the people against the military, goad them into a possible confrontation with a view to liberating them… (33). Using Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel (2002) and Chinua Achebe‟s Anthills of the Savannah (1988) as templates, this study examines, in our perspective, the recurrence of the military in the nation‟s narrative fiction and possibly the public‟s perception of the military institution. In doing this, the study will endeavour to x-ray how the older generation of Nigerian novelists like Achebe and the younger generation which Habila represents, depict the dynamics of military politics in their narratives. This is in line with Adebayo Williams' (1996) observation that:
African writers have resisted oppression and injustice on the continent with great force and courage. Literature is fundamentally incompatible with tyranny. In its purest state, literature is subversive of authority and authoritarian rulers. Its joyous and spontaneous celebration of life, its near anarchic contempt for regulation and regimentation makes it the most natural enemy of dictatorship. While the dictator seeks a total domination of men and society, literature often seeks their total liberation (350). Puncturing the acclaimed messianic pretension of military governance, Ladipo Adenolekun (1985), submits that the military has always claimed “the logic of a legitimacy derived from the barrel of the gun” (100). For him, this claim is an irrational logic. He illustrates this position with the failure of the military to keep the “Aburi Accord”, a failure that plunged the Nigeria into a thirty-month civil war.
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem
Nigerian literature remains a formidable part of the opposition to military dictatorship and tyranny. The country‟s writers hold and project the military‟s messianic pontifications in huge
suspicion and disbelief in their writings. Thus, this study is premised on these two propositions that, Nigerian literature interrogated military engagement in politics both as a major theme and a recurring motif, and that, Nigerian authors‟ fictional novels portray the then participation of military in politics interpreting as an act of demystification of the redeeming role and incorruptibility of the military institution and its actors. The questions here remain in what way and how can this be done, which this study attempts undertake.
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The representation of politics in literature in fiction is often problematic; this is because, the imaginative treatment of actual events and its assumed faithfulness to truth is always at conflict with that of the historian‟s pursuit of truthfulness. In this regard, the study‟s objectives are to:
- indicate that Achebe and Habila‟s works intertextually approximate real events inNigeria‟s military politics.
- capture the manner Achebe‟s Anthills of the Savannah and Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel portray the contradictions of military politics in Nigeria;
- show that the military, contrary to the portrayals by some of the early generations of African writers, is not a corrective institution it often claims to be.
1.4 Scope and Delimitation of the Study
The study examines only the works of two writers; Chinua Achebe‟s Anthills of the Savannah and Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel; despite the avalanche of literary works dealing on the dynamics and contradictions of military politics in Nigeria. However, the selected texts exhibit some of the seminal characteristics which have come to define what one may call „military narratives‟, such as voicing against oppression and dictatorship, and a conscious effort at deconstructing the „grand narrative‟ of the military as a corrective institution.
1.5 Justification of the Study
This dissertation contributes to the body of knowledge on the military leadership in the Nigerian novel, the postcolonial novelist as activists in Nigeria and today‟s contemporary novelists, and the use of postcolonial criticisms of texts and the fictional collection of historical events on Nigerian politics. This study sheds more lights on military politics of Nigeria in the eyes of Chinua Achebe and Helon Habila and post-colonialism, using these authors from two generations to illustrate the Nigerian leadership crisis in the past and present as a result of history. The Nigerian military and citizens and significant to the society and their depiction in the texts illustrates thematic concerns which respond to the today‟s political issues in Nigeria. The importance of studying military politics in Nigeria lies in the fact, not much analytical criticisms by scholars, has not been given attention to this area of post-colonial study, most especially on the selected two generational novelists, who portrayed colonisation and the aftermath subjugation of leadership on citizens by the military.This research will benefit students, teachers and future researchers by bringing to limelight the components of post-colonialism. The research also has the potential of spurring further research in the study of the Nigerian novelists today and the politics of our nation as well as an extensive look into the two texts selected for this study.
1.6 Methodology
In order to choose an appropriate research methodology, an extensive literature review was conducted on the methodologies other researchers have used in similar circumstances. It is
against this background that the study adopted the qualitative research methodology. Qualitative research is an interdisciplinary, trans-disciplinary and sometimes counter-disciplinary field.
According to Denzin and Lincoln (2005:7): Qualitative research embraces two tensions at the same time. On one hand, it is drawn to a broad, interpretive, post-experimental, postmodern, feminist and critical sensibility. On the other hand, it is drawn to more narrowly defined positivist, post-positivist, humanistic and naturalistic conceptions of human experience and its analysis. Further, these tensions can be combined in the same project, bringing both postmodern and naturalistic or both critical and humanistic perspectives to bear.
Qualitative research draws upon and utilises approaches and methods such as ethno-methodology, phenomenology, hermeneutics, feminism, deconstruction, ethnography, interviews, cultural studies, artefacts and participant observation. This generic focus of each of these versions moves in four directions at the same time:
- the detour through interpretive theory linked to
- the analysis of the politics of representation and the textual analysis of literary and cultural forms, including their production, distribution and consumption,
- the ethnographic, qualitative study of forms in everyday life and
- the investigation of new pedagogical and interpretive practices that interactively engage critical cultural analysis in the local community (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005).
This study based on qualitative research procedure, relied on primary (the selected literary texts) and secondary sources (archives, library books, articles, journals, thesis and dissertations etc.). As a literature-based study, the research methodology is largely textual analysis of the selected literary works. This entails a close reading of the texts as well as their analysis within the chosen theoretical framework. Through this approach, the study attempted to properly situate the texts as well as their contexts.
Furthermore, secondary sources were be used in order to anchor the arguments and discussions on sound critical and intellectual platform. Finally, a comparative study of Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel and Achebe‟s Anthills of the Savannah was undertaken with the aim of spotlighting how perspective, that observatory trajectory from which a writer tells his story, could shape and influence the works of two different writers whose raw material derive from the same source.
Generally, in a qualitative research plan, sampling designs involve mainly purposeful sampling for intentional textual content and historical related events of the context of the study. This purposive sampling suits better in a study whereby the researcher finds it convenient to select significant content of the text in other to represent the socio-cultural human experiences. Therefore, the selected sample represented the whole selected texts for this study: works written by Chinua Achebe‟s Anthills of the Savannah (1988) and Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel” (2002). These novels have been analyzed as a representative of the military politics in the Nigerian novel as a postcolonial reading. Specific data collection methods were employed in this qualitative research. Creswell (2002) mention observation and gathering documents as common methods of data collection in a qualitative research design. In this study, therefore, qualitative methods of data collection were employed whereas textual and content analysis was the major source of data. The analysis of data from the text was meant to show how literary devices are portrayed in communicating the message. For our convenience, only the portrayal of historical events from the novels was portrayed. The purpose was to show how the writers employed the literary techniques in the recollections of socio-cultural human experiences in a Nigerian novel of the historical events of military politics in Nigeria. The study analyzed them from text to text depending on their usefulness in communicating the message(s) in the novel. These variables were then examined comparatively as they apply to literary techniques of the postcolonial presentation in the novels.
1.7 Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework adopted in this study is postcolonial theory. Postcolonial theory is a disperse interdisciplinary field influenced by various thinkers such as Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie, Ngugi Wa Thiong‟O, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, Derek Walcott, and J. M. Coetzee. Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) is often cited as a foundational text of postcolonial theory and criticism. The subject matter of postcolonial theory is vast and varied. In The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures (1989), Bill Ashcroft et al. aver that the term „postcolonial‟ is used to cover all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by the European imperial aggression. Lois Tyson (2006), in Critical Theory Today: A User Friendly Manual, holds that as a domain within literary studies, postcolonial criticism is both a subject matter and a theoretical framework. As a subject matter, postcolonial criticism analyses literature produced by cultures that developed in response to colonial domination, from the first point of colonial contact to the present. Some literature works were written by the colonial masters, in order words, the westerners. Nevertheless, much more of postcolonialism was written, and is being written by colonized and formerly colonized people. As a subject matter, any analysis of a postcolonial literary work, regardless of the theoretical framework used, might be called postcolonial criticism. Postcolonial criticism focuses mainly on the literature of cultures that developed in response to the westerncolonial domination. However, as a theoretical framework, postcolonial criticism seeks to understand the operations politically, socially, culturally, and psychologically of colonialist and anti-colonialist ideologies.
Postcolonial criticism is a term which has obviously become globalised. However, a key problem remains in the actual naming. The prefix „post‟ raises questions similar to those arising from its attachment to the term „modernism‟. Does „post‟ signal a break into a phase and consciousness of newly constructed independence and autonomy „beyond‟ and „after‟ colonialism, or does it imply a continuation and intensification of the system, better understood as neo-colonialism?
According to Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brooker (2005):
The appearance of postcolonial theory has overlapped with the debates on postmodernism, though it brings, too, an awareness of power relations between Western and „Third World‟ cultures which the more playful and parodic, or aestheticising postmodernism has neglected or been slow to develop. From a postcolonial perspective, Western values and traditions of thought and literature, including versions of postmodernism, are guilty of a repressive ethnocentrism
However, for Jide Balogun (2011), post-colonialism as a literary theory, emerged in the late 19th century and thrived throughout the 20th century. Post-colonialism is a literary approach that gives a kind of psychological relief to the people (the colonized) for whom it was born. The focus of the postcolonial critic is to expose the mechanism and the evil effect(s) of that monster called colonialism on the colonised. Colonialism, which is the capitalistic and exploitative method by a „superior‟ nation (coloniser) to lord itself over a less privileged nation (colonised), leads to the impoverishment of the latter. The concept of colonialism has political, economic and cultural implications.
Post-colonialism sees literature as an avenue to probe into the history of society by recreating its past experience with the mind of forestalling the repetition of history. The ultimate for the postcolonial critic is to be melancholic about his historical moment that produces a new dawn in his society. Post-colonialism is a dominant feature in African and Caribbean literature as writers in these settings see colonialism as an instrument aimed at reducing them to nonentities. An interesting feature of postcolonial criticism is its attempt, not only to expose the oddities of colonialism but to reveal and discuss what the independent nations make of themselves even after the demise of colonialism. In another sense, postcolonial denotes a period of recovery after colonialism as well as a signification of its ongoing cultural aftermath.
Edward Ako (2004), focussing on the thematic preoccupations of postcolonial literature observes that postcolonial writers and critics deal with problems of migration, slavery, suppression, resistance, representation, difference, caste, class, race, gender, place and responses to the influential master discourses of imperial Europe such as history, literature, philosophy, and linguistics, and the fundamental experiences of speaking and writing by which all these come into being. Thus, in its engagement with literature postcolonial criticism, especially for the
„Third World‟, is a politico-literary discourse which in the words of Rehnuma Sazzad „opposes the power-knowledge nexus‟ constructed by the West, devising in the alternative, fresh ways of approaching old epistemologies. Thus, Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart (1958) epitomises the postcolonial as a counter-narrative to Joyce Cary‟s Mister Johnson (1902) and Joseph Conrad‟s Heart of Darkness (1902) respectively. J.M Coetzee‟s Foe (1986), in the same light represents a revision of Daniel Defoe‟s Robinson Crusoe (1719). These are Western „Master Texts‟ which portray distorted images of Africa and its people. Postcolonial criticism therefore takes as part of its objectives the critique of „Colonial ethos‟ reflected in „Colonialist texts‟.
Beyond the claims of counter-balancing the dominant discursive ethos of the West, postcolonial African writers also foreground the political tensions in their emergent independent states. With the failure of political independence to usher in the dividends of democratisation in many African countries, disillusionment has set in and writers in their works reflect these social dissonances manifested in political instability, ethnic identity, inequality, and corruption, abuse of power and leadership failure. The effects and aftermaths of colonisation become a fascinating theme of these writers, including the wide socio-economic inequality in society which often results in conflict. In all, postcolonial writers and critics share a sense of solidarity with the oppressed and marginalised.
Postcolonial theory is one which tilts strongly towards the incorporation of politics into literary theorizing. Postcolonial criticism often interrogates the dichotomy between history and fictional representation. As one of the newest developments in the evolution of philosophical and cultural theories, post-colonialism emerged in the later part of the twentieth century; a decade or so after many formerly colonized nations gained their political independence. According to Ashcroft Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin (1989), postcolonial societies are often characterized by a history of subjugation, including political, cultural and psychological dominion through colonial discourse and cultural hegemony. Postcolonial discourse is therefore resistant and has always been concerned with issues of political oppression, marginalization, political betrayals, and economic exploitation. In the interrogation of these subject matters, postcolonial writers often share a sense of solidarity with the oppressed and marginalized.
Emphasizing its ideological predilection, Ayo Kehinde (2010) argues that „postcolonial African novelists use their novels to facilitate the transgression of boundaries and subversion of hegemonic rigidities previously mapped out in precursor literary canonical texts about Africa and her people.‟ Awan Ankpa (1993) views the concept in like manner as representing „…those fields of significations in which people who had been colonised by Europe struggle to redefine themselves and their environment in the face of Euro-centricism‟s epistemological violence.‟ Thus, seen from the perspective of a counter-discourse, postcolonial literatures become in the words of Kehinde “…veritable weapons used to dismantle the hegemonic boundaries and the determinants that create unequal relations of power, based on binary oppositions such as „Us‟ and „Them‟; „First world‟ and „Third world‟; „White‟ and „Black‟; „Coloniser‟ and „Colonised. In other words, „post-colonial African novelists use their novels to facilitate the transgression of boundaries and subversion of hegemonic rigidities previously mapped out in precursor literary canonical texts about Africa and her people' (Kehinde, 2010).
According to Phebe Jatau (2014), postcolonial discourse is an encompassing hermeneutic mechanism or discourse. It is an all-embracing phenomenon whose versatility and diversity can encapsulate the extensiveness and complexity of the Nigerian postcolonial reality. Postcolonial discourse identifies the wide range, variety and nature of postcolonial writing. Jatau further observes that postcolonial theory can be used as an epistemology applied to the Nigerian novel to examine how Nigerian novelists ‘talk for themselves' within the context of Nigerian postcolonial reality by offering a re-reading of Nigerian novels especially with regards to their demonstration of difference and their celebration of hybridity and cultural polyvalence. In so doing, the manner in which the colonial contact distorted the hitherto socio-political, economic and cultural patterns of existence in Nigeria leaving the Nigerian, after independence, to grapple with a ‘new order' created by the resultant cross-fertilisation of cultures is highlighted. In this study, Jatau's definition very well serves our purpose as it will be explored in details in setting up our argument. Like almost every other theory, Postcolonial theory has also sustained a considerable amount of criticism. Critics included Marxists, subaltern writers and black intellectual history writers who attacked different aspects of the theory. One prominent voice in the questioning of Postcolonial theory is the self-criticism of Gayatri Spivak. While a major Postcolonial theorist herself, she agrees that the very act of studying the third world from the first world might be a reassertion of the first world‟s „centreness‟ and the marginality of the third world. She concedes that these subaltern studies located in the „centre‟ cannot possibly be a selfless act on the part of the West but that the only reason the West is making room for the margin is for the interest of further objectifying the third world.
A critique that is reiterated by many scholars and one which is truly concerning is the issue of Western „third-worldism‟. Marxists such as Arif Dirlik and Aijaz Ahmad have presented arguments which question the very need for such a discipline if it‟s not only to benefit the third world intellectuals who migrate to Western universities wearing the „representative of the native‟ cloak. Indeed Dirlik was being sarcastic as he says, “Postcolonial theory happened when third world intellectuals arrived in first-world academe” (1996: 282). This spatial removal of postcolonial intellectuals from where the real postcolonial realities exist on the ground, has raised protests that these intellectuals are merely engaging in philosophical mental flights “at the cost of social agency” (Gandhi 1998: 57), but Ahmad‟s reservation with Postcolonial theory goes beyond the location of practice and more importantly on the fact that postcoloniality is too homogenizing a label that can be attached to all societies that have been colonized.
The reason why the fact that the US and Nigeria for instance, are both former colonies of the British is unsettling, is because, we might contend, it is not subjection to colonization that makes one „postcolonial‟ (to call upon all the characteristics of what it means to be postcolonial) but the fact that he/she was subjected to imperialist hegemony. Ahmad seems to be suggesting that instead of the colonial/postcolonial dichotomy, the capitalist/proletariat division is more explaining to this condition which to Marxists, is a condition that has existed since the beginning of human race and hence does not require Postcolonial theory to explain it. Indeed the argument Ahmad (1996) calls upon to support his Marxist views which says that some two-thirds of the population in sub-Saharan Africa today are said to be living below the living standards of the colonial period can also be demonstrated in the case of Ethiopia which is suffering very similar economic challenges as other African states as well as facing the effects of neo-colonialism, all while Ethiopia has never been colonized.
Anthony Bogues raises the concern that Postcolonial studies present critiques of the hegemony of Western knowledge, and that they do so themselves grounded in and armed with Western philosophy. This “internal” resistance, he contends, repeats the Western error of leaving out or dismissing indigenous black intellectual traditions. He asks; what do those who were „outside‟, who have been „objects amongst objects‟ have to say? What are their discursive practices, and how should we study them? Do they form an intellectual tradition that we need to recognize and then critically engage? Finally can we lump the discursive practices of these thinkers only in the category of the Postcolonial? (p:3) perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt from the fact that African literatures cannot be expounded in American/European literary periods and theories such as Classicism, Romanticism, Victorian and so forth but only with continental parameters that consider Africa‟s history of socio-cultural experience literarily and the literary culture. Likewise, it seems, Black or other non-European conditions of „postcoloniality‟ also require to be addressed with native approaches grown out of local knowledge (Bogues, 2003:3).Finally, despite the polemics surrounding the concept of post-colonialism, it is unarguable that the emergence of the „post‟ in literary and cultural studies in the 20th Century is a significant development that has radically widened the scope of literary theorizing, criticism and interpretation. Depending on the context in which it is employed, „post‟ connotes both „a succession‟ as well as „a transcending of existing perspectives‟. From post-structuralism, post-marxism, postmodernism, to postcolonial criticism, the aim has been to interrogate dominant epistemologies and re-theorize their claims in the light of emerging new knowledge. Thus, for postcolonial Nigerian writers, writing does not exist in a vacuum; every piece of fiction possibly refracts truth situations, atmosphere and realities in the Nigerian socio-cultural experiences. In this sense, Anthills of the Savannah and Waiting for an Angel, offer us a fictional, and possibly the exact true picture of the postcolonial Nigerian predicament under military dictatorship marked by disillusionment and frustration.
