A Man of the People, by Chinua Achebe, Heinemann (paperback),1966
The blurb on the back gives a small biography of Chinua Achebe who was born in Nigeria. I have read another of his books, Things Fall Apart, but I do not remember it. One of the blurbs states that the book is a satire on corruption. I was inspired to look up some information on Nigerian history. I knew the country was colonized by Britain as it undertook to "have a sphere of influence" in Africa. That was in 1900. The Portuguese and Spanish explorers traded with the Nigerian population before that. Goodluck Jonathan is the present President.
The story takes place after Nigerian independence from Britain in 1960 (1966) before the oil boom changed things forever in Nigeria.
The narrator is a young teacher who is arrogant, annoying and callow in his pursuits. He is befriended by Chief Nanga who is the M.P. for the villiage of Anata. He relates the story in a breezy way and we can tell that he is beginning to fashion his actions after those of Chief Nanga. The corruption of the political parties and the government are an important part of the story. The Man of the People of the title is ostensibly Chief Nanga, but we can see that the young man, Odili Samalu, would like to be a man of the people. He goes about organizing another political party to challenge the two already on the scene.
Edna, the woman who is to be the Chief's second wife, becomes an important part of the story as Odili sets his eyes on her for his sexual conquest. In the end, Odili is badly beaten up and spends time in the hospital and, I believe, learns his lesson not to make intrigues against the governance of the corrupt Chief. The other political parties are corrupt also.
When the British leave a colony, they do not bother to prepare the people to take care of their own country. The worst aspects of colonial rule: dividing the tribes, giving the important offices to white people, imposing a new culture on an old one serve to make corruption ripe for the doing.
I think that is what the author is telling us.
From an article I read in the Globe and Mail about bloggers on the Internet creating reading clubs, I decided that I should endeavour to read the books I already have collected and put into my (smallish) library. I arranged most of the books in alphabetical order by author.
