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In his famous novel, Anthills of the Savannah, Africa’s frontline novelist, Chinua Achebe explores political intrigues that resonate with Nigeria’s political culture, revealing the kind of politics that plays out in the country.
First published in1987, the political satire unmasks a class of self-serving political gladiators whose main agenda is to perpetuate themselves and their cronies in power. Sometimes, the evil plots boomerang as the hunter becomes the hunted. This is instantiated in the character of Sam, a Sandhurst-trained military officer, who becomes President after a military coup and having tasted political power, desires to be life-president, using coercion and deception to obtain the people’s vote.
Set in Bassa, the capital city of a fictional, but typical West African country named Kangan, Anthills of the Savannah portrays the plight of unsung masses whose harsh socio-political and economic realities are ignored by the political gladiators. The protagonist, Sam blindly pursues his inordinate ambition of metamorphosing into a life-president. The dictator’s unpopular craving for power pitches him against his two friends, the Minister for Information, Chris and Editor of a famous government-controlled newspaper-the National Gazette, Ikem Oshodi as mistakes their wise counsel for insubordination.
The novel depicts the corrupt political environment of the post- independent West African country and addresses the deterioration in the socio-political architecture left as the colonial legacy of the British Empire. Due largely to their Western education, the three friends-Sam, Chris and Ikem are alienated from the socio-cultural realities of their African society. Despite the fact that they were educated abroad in the same institution, they are absolutely different in their political leanings and personal temperaments.
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The plot of the novel revolves around the intriguing power-play among the protagonists who eventually become victims of their own creation and the prevalent socio-economic situation that the less-privileged grapple with in their futile efforts to overcome the overwhelming burdens that the self-serving political class imposes on them. The story begins with a cabinet meeting of the Kanganese government at the Presidential Palace in Bassa, Kangan. The meeting is presided over by the President who ironically was politically naïve before his circumstantial ascension to power.
Abazon, an overly marginalized and oppressed region of Kangan sends a delegation of elders to the Presidential Palace in Bassa, to pledge their loyalty with the hope that “His Excellency” will rescind his decision of cancelling a bore-hole project he had originally approved for their region. Despite their willingness to join other regions in endorsing his tenure elongation bid, Sam brands them as rebels and accuses Ikem Oshodi who happens to come from Abazon of masterminding the rebellion. Things get messier as Sam begins a manhunt for his erstwhile friend, Ikem Oshodi whom he believes to be against his ambition.
However, Sam’s dream of ruling “forever” is truncated as he is killed in a coup d’état that ousters the infamous government he deceptively plots to entrench. His once trusted allies who had contributed to his mercurial rise to the exalted position of Head of the military junta a few years earlier are now systematically schemed out of the equation as the President imagines them as political rivals.
Gradually, discontent arises from a section of the army opposed to Sam’s draconian rule. The conflict snowballs into a full-blown national crisis that culminates in a counter-coup d’état that topples his government. The ensuing political unrest spreads across the fictive country and claims the lives of all the main actors, including Chris and Ikem Oshodi. A few survivors like their girlfriends-Beatrice and Elewa are left to tell the sad story.
Chukwuma Ajakah
