ABSTRACT
Chinua Achebe (born Nov. 16, 1930) is a Nigerian novelist, critic and
poet; he is one of the most-read African authors. The primary concern
of Chinua Achebe, the recipient of the Man Booker International Prize, 2007,
was his society, more precisely, the destiny of hispeople. Achebe,
perhaps the most authentic literary voice from Africa, wrote not only to
record the African, especially Nigerian, life but to analyse the
reality experienced by the native people in different times and
situations. In his view, the writer must be accountable to his society.
To him it was absurd to think of art as a pure and autonomous entity
coming into existence by itself in an aesthetic void. Accordingly, his
aim was to make his fiction an instrument of awareness seeking to
elevate the social reality to a higher level. In this regard, the paper
is an attempt to show Achebe’s endeavour to expose the rampant
corruption and evil in Nigeria to exert a decisive and positive
influence on his people. For Gimba, the intrigues and contestation over
power, especially within the civil service, assume a metaphoric
significance in unraveling social contradictions in society. Gimba thus,
evaluates the various dimensions of power and how it is used to
subjugate or oppress people. In most of his works, Gimba pillories the
repressive nature of power and the conflicts it engenders are
graphically illustrated. In his articulation of this disabling
environment, Gimba evokes a consciousness, concerned with Manichaenism
and alienation. Gimba is sensitive to his characters as they adjust to
the uncertainties of a postcolonial society with all the indices of
underdevelopment, greed, corruption, bureaucratic tardiness,
indiscipline, political instability etc. These characteristics of modern
Nigeria form the background from which Gimba’s characters are drawn.
However, drawing from their Islamic background, the characters in
Gimba’s works express their morality, conviction and thought through the
ideals of the religion. This leads to a remarkable blending of social
and moral concerns with the supervening influence of Islam without
sermonization. The outcome of this fusion is a balance between
aesthetics and spiritual interests in a way that captures the essence of
Northern Nigeria with vividness and freshness. Gimba, like Tahir,
therefore relates the traditional and cultural values of the people to
their response to the dilemma of new experiences and their
interpretations of them.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Chinua Achebe has proven his worth among English-speaking African
novelists by representing the African social and political environment
in a thoroughly realistic way. His novels depict life within a
particular historical background, and convey a sense of growing disgust
and unrest within Nigerian society, a society that has started to emerge
from the ‘colonial complex’ caused by years of denigration and
self-abasement. A Man of the People
(1967) is Achebe’s fourth novel. It describes Nigeria in its
post-independence phase, during which time the country became a
‘cesspool of corruption and misrule’ in the context of colonial-style
social and economic development, a situation that resulted in conflict
between the emergent elitist middle class and the general populace.
Achebe’s reputation as a novelist rests on his impartial understanding
of, and ability to represent the Nigerian environment.