Post-Colonial Identity in Nigeria: A Study on Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah

  • D.S Prasobh Madhavan

Abstract

Chinua Achebe is Africas most widely read novelist and the first to be taken seriously by both African and European readers. His novels and critical pronouncement have profoundly influenced his readers understanding Africans and their lives and have formed the basis for many a discussion of the African novel. Anthills of the Savannah (1987) relate the aspects of colonial process from the beginning to the end of the colonial contact in Nigeria. The identity issues of the people in Nigeria after Independence during the decades 1970s and 1980s are portrayed in the novel as the political satire. The three characters Sam, Chris and Ikem are known to each other for twenty five years, since their college days at Lord Lugard. Their college days are presented as the search for their identity. Post colonialism focuses on the issues of the power relations influenced by western culture. The political leadership in Nigeria fails to dismantle the western influences. The materialistic influences among people in Nigeria made them dislocated from the ethic indigenous identity. As a result they were needed to adhere the social harmony and equality. The paper aims to explore the post-colonial identity of Nigerian people because the pre-colonial practices are completely reversed after Independence. The colonial struggle among the African people doesnt just touch upon the identity of the native people of Nigeria to grapple with a new culture. But the more serious hindrance that they faced is the suppression their culture by the issues of crossed identity and imposed inferiority. Achebe explores the struggle and the issues of the identity of post-colonial Kangan society, as a representation of Africa in general. Here the paper unveils the issues of post-colonial identity in the Republic of Kangan with different facets of it.

Published
2019-11-15
Section
Articles