By Raphael
From time immemorial, one of the strongest reactionary measures that humanitarian activists have taken to fight political corruption and leadership atrocities all over the world is literature. We have had a good number of scholarly works which cut across all genres of literature, viz: poetry, articles, novels, letters, to mention but just a few. For instance, during the time of black oppressions and extreme racism in the United States, there were scholarly works published as a response to those challenges. These include Maya Angelou's 'Caged Birds', 'I Know Why The Caged Sings' (1969), among others.
Later on, the effects of these anti-racial responses through literature played out positively and it's immense contribution towards the balance of that condition cannot be overphasized in the history book. To add a verisimilitude, African philosophers and Nigerian scholars, knowing that histories provide a crucial perspective for analyzing, understanding and solving current and future problems, have also, over the years, written a lot of works in response to the political instability, corruption and lack of leadership sincerity in Nigeria. Very relevant examples include Niyi Osundare's 'The Leader And The Led', 'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe, 'Chronicles From the Land Of The Happiest People On Earth', amongst others.
However, despite the proliferation of literary works as a way to tackle the perpetual political failure in Nigeria, the reality appears that no good results have been achieved. Although many people have argued that the reading culture of Nigerians is not encouraging. Yet, the fact remains that literature as a measure to solving Nigeria's social political and economic failure has seemingly proven abortive.
As it is known, the Nigerian government, out of their indignant ingenuity, has priortized media conspiracy. They have writers who defend their policies, blowing their trumpets all around. Moreover, people who write things to expose the evils of government are not really taken seriously any longer. A large number of the youths are now concentrating on how to escape from the country in search of greener pastures. Hence, the 'japa' syndrome. Nevertheless, the problem of the country continues to be the fact that there is absence of morally good leaders -the philosopher kings.
The core of this is to open the eyes of the people to alternative measures which could achieve the desired result since literature seems to fail. The solution to Nigeria's political defunct is revolution and it requires deliberate and practical strategies. Of course, it is easy for the government to ignore the resisting opinions of writers through books or even nail them on the walls.
At this point, citizens should wake up from their slumber and be conscious of the impossibility of the government to resist revolution; if and only if it happens in the real sense of it - physical and resolute.
0 Comments