After political independence, African people begin to view themselves as independent of colonial domination. They start to manage their own political affairs. These political leaders are perceived as the model of incoherence by uneducated masses. In the face of this problem, the most influential writers begin to castigate and denounce the ill-deeds of those profit-seekers. Political leadership includes the concept of democracy, a system of government in which the people choose their rulers by voting. This democratic concept is destined to serve the interests of native people and their rights. Politics includes negotiation with other political leaders making laws and exercising force and democracy and the way to choose government officials and make decisions about public policy. Political authority includes the affairs of the state which is governed by texts called constitution, a written document limiting the powers of the different branches of government. After many African nations had access to independence, the masses were optimistic about the future and the destiny of their countries but the contrary occurred because the new politicians who were believed to promote democracy and good political governing were just leading people to a gulf where corruption, injustice and self-interest developed. Many African writers have played a crucial role in the denunciation of political leadership and show their anti-colonial resistance to evoke the situation of disillusionment in post-independence Africa. Instead of creating programs that bestow economic self-reliance, democratic modernization, post-colonial political leaders manage to instrument their political power that booster corruption.

This article is divided into two parts. The first part sheds light on the situation of political disillusionment felt by African intellectual writers. Like Ngugi wa Thiong’o which chronicles in his works the moral decadence of a modern society infested with rampant corruption and overt oppression. The second part of this article reviews the problem of dictatorship and political instability in Africa as a harbinger of political mismanagement of African modern states. In this respect, the focus is laid n the reevaluation of Gorgui Dieng’s A Leap Out of the Dark and Chinua Achebe’s literary ideology which shows how civil wars in Sub-Saharan Africa led to the emergence of political instability and dictatorship in postcolonial period.

Political Disillusionment in African Literature: An Analysis of Ngugi wa THIONG’O’s Literary Works

In reaction to this mismanagement, many African writers nurse against this type of corrupt leadership in order to guide the masses  and  ensure  their  harmony  for  a  better future. Among them, Ngugi wa Thiong’o who is one of the most influential Kenyan writers rises against the issue of corrupt leadership in his country. In this respect, this Kenyan writer manages to raise his people’s consciousness by criticizing Kenyan society and the political system in which the peasants and workers are victims of. Ngugi’s memoir Detained: The Writer’s Prison Diary is the daily record of his experience in jail, symbol of moral oppression and physical torture.

Ngugi was detained in December 1977, in cell 16, with 18 political prisoners in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, a prison in colonial Kenya, next door to Kenyatta University College. In his memoir, Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, Ngugi denounces Kenyan political leaders especially Jomo Kenyatta and Arap Moi’s dictatorial leadership which led to a specific way to the political imprisonment of most African intellectual writers. Those elites strived so far to castigate through their literary works the misery of the masses and the politicians’ lack of maturity to handle the destiny of their people.

In addition, Ngugi’s novel Devil on the Cross devices all types of exploiting system of theft and robbery. Wariinga, the female protagonist is victim of male oppression and exploitation in a society where moral corruption and discrimination become the lot of most female characters. She refuses to submit to the moral decadence of her society where the intelligence of women is denied in a patriarchal society. In this novel, the people are victim of political theft as the characters Wariinga, a young secretary ruined by a wealthy man; Gatuiria and Wangari have all attended in a matatu, a place of competition for robbery. Those who compete are all proud of the ways and means they have used to exploit the masses. Wariinga takes a firm decision to fight against gender discrimination which paves the way for female emancipation.

The Wariinga of today has rejected all that, reasoning that because her thighs are hers, her brain is her, her hands are hers, and her body is hers, she accords all her faculties their proper role and proper time and place and not let anyone be the sole ruler of her life, as if it had devoured all the others. That’s why the Wariinga of today has said goodbye to being a secretary and has sworn that she will never type again for the likes of Boss Kihara, bosses whose condition for employing a girl is meeting for a five minutes of love after a hard drink [1].

In his prison life, Ngugi wrote Devil on the Cross on a toilet paper as the Ghanaian revolutionary writer and politician Kwame Nkrumah did by writing his book Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah on a toilet paper in his cell at James Fort Prison. The writers such as Dennis Brutus and Abdullatif Abdullah were political prisoners like Ngugi. From January to May 1979, Ngugi was victim of death treatment and denied employment due to utter criticism of the newly African corrupted leadership when he argued.

Capitalism cannot be run on any basis other than robbery and corruption (…). In a neo-colonial state, foreign capital aided by a corrupted bourgeoisie becomes so arrogant that it even pokes its fingers into the noses of a fledgling national capital [2].

Establishing democracy and social justice is the main objective for Ngugi as a social activist who is concerned about the dignity of Kenyan peasants and workers. This situation leads to Ngugi’s imprisonment as he considers prison life to be a kind of symbolic situation and personal ordeal which allows the political prisoner to gain consciousness. For Ngugi, detention without trial is a punitive act of physical and mental torture and a calculated act of psychological terror against the struggling millions as well as a terrorist program for the psychological siege of the whole nation. To illustrate his views, Ngugi argues.

Democracy and justice cannot be achieved when the various interest groups voice their positions and fight for them (…) The country can consider itself politically independent for as long as its economy and culture are dominated by foreign interests [3].

Prison life was received as a spiritual lethargy and intellectual torpor from which he strived to wake up for he was denied human presence. Ngugi’s resistance is a way for the political prisoner to show his sanity and humanity in order to avoid a spiritual breakdown. In his quest for a good order and peace, Ngugi strived to fight against the moral concept of brutality and solitude which influenced his prison life.

For the colonial system did produce a culture. But it was a culture of legalized brutality, a ruling class culture of fear, the culture of an oppressing minority desperately trying to impose total silence on a restive oppressed majority [4].

Ngugi uses the novel Petals of Blood to inspire national consciousness especially among the peasants in neo-colonial Kenyan society. It also presents the failure of the ruling elite to meet the needs of their people. The relationship between the village people who are viewed as honest and poor is in contrast with the portrayal of the new intellectual elites who are represented by the oppressive system of capitalism which is based is on self-interest and exploitation. 

Ngugi’s prison life was associated with that of the legendary hero and Kenyan freedom fighter Waiyaki wa Hiinga who fought against British occupation of Dagoretti. Invited to negotiate peace talks by the British commanding officer Purkiss, Waiyaki was arrested on August 14, 1892 and buried alive. He was taken as a political hostage and shot to death at Kibwezi. As Ngugi sings his grandeur and courage, Waiyaki became the hero of contemporary African history of liberation and freedom to fight back the white man.

Waiyaki, one of the political detainees in Kenya was also among the first to die in detention splendidly proud and defiant to the very end. He has rejected a slave consciousness [5].

Dedan Kimathi was also a leading figure for patriotic resistance against the British invasion and occupation of the Gikuyu land between 1952 and 1960. Inspired by colonial mentality, the new African leaders dare overlook the traditional beliefs of the Kenyan community and disturb its harmony. The Muthirigu dances and songs, an expression of patriotic tradition of Kenyan poetry and theatre were forbidden. The Muthirigu artists who advocate Kenyan freedom were all jailed and their performance was banned. The Mau Mau poems, songs and prose which occurred between 1940s and 1950s were banished and their performers jailed or murdered. That traditional theatre was replaced by the performance of Shakespeare in Alliance High School in Kenya.

As a communist, Makhan Singh was victim of physical torture and remained one of the intellectuals, who criticized post-independent Kenyan government especially Jomo Kenyatta’s policies and the KANU leadership but he eventually died in March, 1975. He was a political activist and trade unionist committed to political and economic liberation of his people from colonialism. All these heroes resisted to the colonial culture of fear and oppression and rejected economic, political and cultural dependence. They also fought against neo-colonial crisis perpetuated by colonial propaganda which allowed Kenyan people to claim their cultural legacy. Defenders of economic and political freedom, the African writers also emerge as the authentic advocators of African democracy as Ngugi argues.

I would explain the necessity of struggling for democratic and human rights even in prison. I would explain the importance of a truly democratic Kenya in which the different classes and nationalities would freely debate the past, the present and the future of our country without fear or flavor or flattery (…) If we do not do this, if we all succumbed to the culture of fear and silence, Kenya would have merely moved from a colonial prison into a neo-colonial prison, while the more than seventy years’ struggle was precisely to release Kenyan people from the imperialist economic, political and cultural prisons altogether [6].

Ngugi thinks that only democracy can lead to better understanding. The political situation in post-independent Africa is rather complex. Civil disobedience, war, murder, poverty remain the direct cause of the denial of democracy which is falsely enforced by new African political leaders unworthy of confidence as Ngugi believes that economic, political and cultural change is only possible through a struggle for true democracy. In Mali, the political leadership causes and continues to breed hatred between both camps. The main breed of poverty and underdevelopment, African political leadership is not the type of coherence. 

Set in a fictitious country of Aburiria, Ngugi’s novel Wizard of the Crow is one of Africa’s longest novel to be written by an East African writer. As an imaginary country, Aburiria is recognized as Africa in all its squalor and economic malaise. The novel is rich in metaphor, symbolism and biblical allusion. In his depiction of an African nation at the crosswards in the aftermath of colonial rule, Ngugi blends satire and polemic to paint the political misgoverning which characterizes the ruler’s despotic rule. This work of art can be perceived as a satire on the betrayal of independence by corrupt governments in neo-colonial Africa which is marred by disillusionment and political decadence.

Wizard of the Crow is not the first political satire to be written by Ngugi. In 1977, the Kenyan intellectual writer and essayist wrote a play lampooning Kenya’s dictator Daniel Arap Moi for which he was jailed and forced into exile. Moreover, this postcolonial novel paints the greed of those in power such as dictators who invite neocolonial multinationals to wrench the wrath of the masses in order to enrich capitalist nations of Europe and America. 

Despite this type of African politics, there are models of good political governing which represents true and authentic leadership. Among them, we can name Nelson Mandela who, in prison symbolized the idol of true African democracy. He sacrificed his life for twenty seven years of detention to liberate millions of South Africans from colonial racism. Patrick Lumumba was also another figure of political consciousness. It is high time that African political leaders took their destiny in their hands and fought for true democratic leadership in Africa in order to serve the interests of their people as Ngugi says.

Without contraries there is progression, attraction, repulsion, reason, and energy, love and hatred, are necessary to human existence. The hypocrisy of African governance resided in Kenyatta’s personality. According to Ngugi, Kenyatta was divided into four [7].

• Kenyatta of the KCA era fighting against imperialism and spokesman of workers and peasants

• Kenyatta of the KAU, a national organization which was not opposed to capitalism, an allied to colonial petty bourgeoisie

• Kenyatta of the KANU era, a prison graduate and ex-detainee who was jailed for nine years

• Kenyatta of the KANU in power in league with the petty bourgeoisie who excluded militant nationalism of workers and peasants from the seizure of power. Jomo Kenyatta was a black Moses destined to lead his people to the path of true democracy. But later on, he became a selfish leader who ignored the aspirations of his people for his own political interests to meet the needs of the British colonists in Kenya

Dictatorship and Political Instability in Contemporary African Fiction

Many African elites, especially those in French-speaking countries like Senegal, have used their pens as a weapon to castigate the political apparatus of newly independent African societies. In his book A Leap Out of the Dark, Gorgui Dieng as a Senegalese novelist addresses contemporary African issues especially the political dictatorship and the instability which hinder the concept of democracy in African politics. 

As a committed writer and a professor of Comparative literature at Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, Gorgui Dieng is one of the most prominent Senegalese writers fully rooted in African traditional values. He believes that the unification of African Diaspora will pave the way for African unity and solidarity. 

In this respect, the stigmatization of neo-colonial institutions plays the leading part in the underdevelopment of most poor nations of the Third World whose economy was largely dependent on foreign financial loans and the extortion of raw materials necessary for the growth of European industrialized nations.

Like most intellectual writers who care about the destiny of their nations, Gorgui Dieng urges for African unity and complete dependence which paves the way for African development and progress. Conscious of his role as an advisor, the author denounces the political situation of post-independence leadership in which the masses are oppressed and exploited by the new political elites.

Thousands of workers have been made redundant. The youths who have graduated from our university are in the street and everything is at a standstill. Seemingly, there is no direct way out (…) What I really mean is that the environment –social, economic, political -is in crisis (…) I believe that, as long as Africa does not rely on the expertise of her own children, who know her and her needs better than any other experts, she will always be flocked by all kinds of ruthless rapists (…) [8].

The emergence of corruption and political misgovernance became the cornerstone of political instability in post-colonial period. New African politicians who emerged after political independence were labeled as rascals, and profit-seekers. They govern their countries with self-interest while misconducting the masses and exploiting the wealth of their people. They followed the same political agenda as their former colonial masters who used to repress the colonized through all types of violence and oppression.

The illiteracy of the common people is the best weapon in popular government can have in their hands (…) the masses simply take delight in being shattered the more you cheat them, the more willingly they side with you. And when you try to explain to them that they are being conned by politicians, and other rascals in the government, they will laugh cynically at you and tell you that the number one role of any politician worthy of the name should be to help himself before another comer-up takes over [9].

The cases of embezzlement are the landmark of overt corruption and the first sign of misgovernance in which most irresponsible politicians are involved in order to profit from the wealth of their countries for their own benefits. Their mediocrity lies in the fact that these rascals prefer to embezzle larger sums of money than smaller amounts. This type of leadership intensifies corruption and allows young people to live on bribery and overt materialism. The embezzlement of large public funds becomes a common practice in this materialistic society where politicians boast of stealing large amounts of money from government funds.

If the jackpot is in the hundreds of millions of francs, they admiringly thrust their thumbs out into the air in great delight and congratulate their hero on his bravery [10].

Another strategy devised by politicians was to use the local language of the masses in order to meet their political expectations. As a result, African languages which are the language of the majority are neither the language of instruction nor used in parliament and education. Though spoken by a minority of African intellectuals, foreign languages occupy a large place in intellectual life, administration, public services, and lower and high education. Here lies a strong gap between the uses of both languages. The language of the poor people and that of the wealthy turns out to be a serious issue in post-independence Africa.

The local languages were referred to as dialects, and the politicians dare to resort to them only when there were elections or other propaganda stuff (…) to beguile the population into swallowing a drastic economic or social measure. When these were over, the dialects went back into the politicians’ dusty drawers, to rejoin there their faithful companions, the vital economic and social schemes that had been devised by competent natural experts (…) Moody rightfully believed that there was so great discrepancy between the colonialists and the new African leaders except that the former were red-eared and the latter black-eared [11].

After political independence, African leaders attempt to follow the European model of democratic governance which is often marked by corruption and autocracy restraining the democratic legitimacy in Africa. Because democracy requires a certain commitment to institutions such as the rule of law, civil society, free and fair elections based upon universal suffrage as well as freedom of speech. Ethnic fragmentation was the major cause of democratic instability in Africa after independence. Because, the Berlin Conference mapped up Africa without considering cultural realities and ethnic groups. 

As a consequence, many ethnic groups were divided and other tribes who often have a history of warfare were put together in a single state. This new social stratification imposed by colonial administration led to social tensions such tribal wars and has a heavy impact on the establishment of democracy in Africa. For instance, in Somalia, the civil war was caused by ethnic conflict and problems that stemmed from fragmented societies. In Nigeria, the 1967 civil war was due to a conflict over oil production and ethnic tensions between Nigerian government and Biafran authorities which resulted in millions of starved people and causalities on this part of the continent.

Moodu believed that the greatest lesson he had learnt from that evening was that African leaders were not only jeopardizing the present and the future of their own countries, but worst of all, they were a plague to the entire black world. The Diaspora people were the number one victim of their stupidity and lack of responsibility [12].

Burundi has a history of ethnic rivalries and the country has been dominated since independence by the Tutsi minority. Overall, western democracy was unfamiliar to African states as colonial powers were based on authoritarian rule as violence, repression, exploitation and oppression of the colonized. This situation prevents Africa from developing democratic structures. In undemocratic societies, social and mineral resources are kept by minority elite or foreign corporations. The widespread nature of corruption in Africa remains a real impediment to African democracy.

Democracy entails the likelihood for political change at the head of the state. This idea is absolute Utopian in Kensega. Those rascals in power are not ready yet to move aside for better hands to take over, and all the elections that have been held there since independence dramatically rigged [13].

Feeling of patriotism and an urge to return to the motherhood cause the African Diaspora to ponder over the cultural roots of Africa which represents the lost motherland, symbol of unity, solidarity and love. This sense of blackness surrounds the brother of Moodu’s friend Reginald who has now firm belief that he belongs to Africa despite his negative perception about African heritage.

Africa’s own mother our genuine mother our human mother and I can feel my soul coming back to me now. Yes, something that I’ve never felt before is invading my body and soul. Yes, I can feel it. It is blissful lightness compared with the heavy burden that has so far prevented me from flying around like a free bird [14].

Moodu’s sadness after his meeting with the village people to talk about the misuse of power and political misgoverning made the village chief angry as he qualified Moodu as rascal and lunatic. Similar passages can be compared to the Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. The unnamed protagonist the man refuses to take bribe as a clerk. However, his wife sees his attitude as foolish because unlike his friend Komson, a government prime minister lives on bribery and gets wealthier by stealing public funds. 

The same phenomenon of rampant corruption invades Kensega neocolonial state because most people are involved in the embezzlement of public funds. Unlike Obi Okonkwo who ends up taking bribe, Moodu remains still loyal and uncorrupt despite his position.

How politicians had so ably manage to lure the diehard conservatives of his village into bartering their deep-rooted sense of kinship for political partnership (…) the politicians of his country economically and financially ruined the lives of their country people, but also worse still they were killing them morally [15].

Moodu’s revolutionary ideas are conveyed through his editorial in an attempt to denounce the ills caused by political independence achieved by the new political leaders in power who keep on exploitation the wealth of the masses. Because of his overt denunciation of President Fojo’s political misgovernment marked by corruption, embezzlement, Moodu’s becomes victim of torture; his study and newspapers are burnt to ashes. The African writer who strives to advocate for true democracy is often deprived of freedom of speech. Some of them imprisoned and other forced into exile and their writings usually banned from public readership. The Kenyan writer Ngugi wa THIONG’O was imprisoned due to his political views. His play I Will Marry When I Want casts a severe look at the exploitation of the masses and peasants by Kenya government. The denunciation led to the imprisonment of Ngugi wa THIONG’O in 1977 in Kamithi Security prison where he began to write his controversial novel Devil on the Cross, on a toilet paper.

In Achebe’s No Longer at Ease, the personal attitude of Obi Okonkwo is the prototype of African intellectual unworthy of confidence. After being sent abroad to continue his studies in order to serve his people, Obi is the first intellectual to betray his local people. Firstly, his involvement in corruption is a sign of disbelief towards the elders. Secondly, his marriage with an outcast is one of the heartless betrayals and a sign of disrespect towards the tribal norms of his people. Unlike his father Okonkwo, who valorizes his courage among his people and remains the symbol of pride and honor in his determination to fight back the white man, Obi is a real dishonor and failure to his community. 

In fact, the people of Umofia Progressive Union (UPU) determination to send Obi in England to study law seemed to be useless because Obi’s political career was symbolic of personal and political misdeeds. His union with Clara the Nigerian outcast is against his parents’ will and that of the community. A particular failure follows Obi, as he becomes depressed and refuses to attend his mother’s funeral. He finally indulges in debts and accepts corruption as the last solution. The novel No Longer at Ease is derived from Thomas Stearnt Eliot’s poem The Journey of the Magi.

We returned to our places, these kingdoms. But no longer at ease here in the old dispersion, with an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death [16].

The dictatorial rule is caused by the educated Africans who have just come from abroad with another image of themselves and their people. Achebe also raises the problem of tribalism which is a threat to political and social order and national integration. In fact, Achebe is against all social and political classification which breeds suspicion and disunity within the states and institutions. ACHEBE reasserts Nigeria’s failure of true leadership which seems a hallmark of underdevelopment.

One of the commonest manifestations of under-development is a tendency among the ruling elite to live in a world of make-believe and unrealistic expectations. This is the cargo cult mentality that anthropologists sometimes speak about-a belief by backward people that someday, without any exertion whatsoever on their own part, a fairy ship will dock in their harbor laden with every goody they have always dreamed of possessing [17].

The diagnosis of this fundamental problem in Nigeria is the problem of leadership but there is nothing wrong with the Nigerian people as a whole Achebe thinks. Moreover, he affirms that the qualities of leadership are essential to the political development of a country and the ways and means to eradicate injustice and political oppression.

Chinua Achebe is also conscious of the lack of political leadership and the rise of corruption in Nigeria after the country gained its independence in the sixties. Achebe’s essay The Trouble with Nigeria questions Nigerian political leadership. The essay is a call to action and struggle to build a socio-political order towards the emergence of a new state. According to some literary critics, the essay may address the dictatorial politics of Nigerian president Murtala Mohammed in July 1975. In his essay, ACHEBE shows how tribalism and corruption have been an impediment to Nigeria’s political leadership.

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership [18].

In contemporary African fiction, the concept of political leadership has become a recurrent theme dealt with by most African intellectual writers like the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o who casts a severe look at the hard situation of political disillusionment of African political leaders who emerge after political independence and whose political governance was characterized by oppression and exploitation of the masses. In the same way, the phenomenon of dictatorship and political instability turns out to be the cornerstone of contemporary African postcolonial governance after the departure of the white man.

Therefore many African writers use their pens as a weapon to castigate the political framework of newly independent African societies which are torn by civil wars, the emergence of corruption and military coups. Gorgui Dieng, the Senegalese writer and Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian scholar have analyzed in their works the feeling of despair and political hypocrisy which become the landmark of African postcolonial politics.

Despite all the social and economic problems Africa is facing with nowadays, African politicians should take in their hands the destiny of their nations in order to lead their continent towards the path to development and prosperity by fight against corruption, political violence, civil wars and military coups which are viewed as impediment to human progress.
 

1. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. Devil on the Cross, op.cit., p. 218.

2. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, London: Heinemann,  preface xv

3. Ibid, preface xv

4. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, op.cit., p. 34.

5. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, op.cit., p. 46.

6. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, op.cit., p. 113.

7. Ngugi, wa Thiong’o. Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary, op.cit., p. 124.

8. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 153.

9. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 1.

10. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 13.

11. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 66-67.

12. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 51.

13. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 45.

14. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 47.

15. Gorgui, Dieng. A Leap Out of the Dark, op.cit., pp. 91-92.

16. Wikipedia. “No Longer at Ease.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/No_longer_at_Ease.

17. Chinua Achebe. The Trouble with Nigeria. op.cit., pp. 9.