Chapter 23
The Theme of Corruption in African Poetry
The culture of “corruption” in contemporary African society is so perverse and pervasive that, not to recognize it, or speak about it, or write about it, is, to say the least, not only hypocritical, but dishonest, disingenuous, and dangerous. There is no adjective, or qualifier in any English dictionary of current usage -- as far as I know -- that is adequate enough to characterize the monster called corruption, which manifests itself everywhere in our society in various contexts and configurations.
For those who profit from corruption, or practise it, or live by it, the venom is as sweet as honey. For those who dislike it, or fear its consequence however, corruption is synonymous with anything that is potentially harmful: cancer, stroke, snake, mosquito, lion, tiger, missile, tsetse-fly, bug, poison, murder, jail, devil, demon, death, etc. It is perhaps from this latter perspective that Francis Cardinal Arinze, the Prefect Emeritus for Congregation for Divine Workshop, views it.
In a recent interview, published in the Nigeria Tribune, and titled “Nigeria May Collapse Under the Weight of Corruption, if Nothing is Done About It,” the Pontiff warns:
When one thinks of the challenges facing Nigeria Nigeria
Similar questions about insidious corruption have been raised in other parts of Africa, including Ghana , Angola , Uganda , Kenya , Zimbabwe , Sierra Leone , and South Africa
Because of the limitations which a study of this nature imposes -- e.g., space and time, intelligibility and clarity -- an attempt has been made to focus attention not only on those corruption practices that are mostly predominant and noteworthy in contemporary African society, but also those that have attracted the most intense condemnation among African poets.
This essay posits that the theme of corruption in African poetry falls into four major categories -- namely, political, cultural, religious, and economic areas -- and it is along these four broad schemata that the discussion of this chapter will follow. Of course, the classification of corruption into four categories may appear artificial or arbitrary, but a study of this magnitude and complexity cannot escape any such criticism. Further, the point must be made that, in whatever way we examine the issue, we shall discover that each category of corruption necessarily shades off into the other(s). However, I offer here what I consider to be the best method and approach to the subject.
I
Although it has generally not received the attention of critics of African literature, political corruption has always been a dominant theme in African poetry, dating back from the colonial period through the post-colonial era and then the modern period. Following the Berlin conference of 1884/5, the principal European colonizing powers -- especially Britain , France , Spain , Italy , Portugal , and Belgium -- became the chief beneficiary of Africa ’s political, socio-cultural, and economic prosperity.
However, it was not the colonization of Africa itself that brought so much pain and agony to the indigenous African people, but the behavior of the colonizing powers. The imperial script, for instance, was laden with policies and practices which are inimical to the interest of the indigenous African people. Sometimes, for example, the partitioning of the continent into nation states was not only arbitrary and capricious, but it demonstrated little or no respect for the language, customs and traditions of the African people. At other times, the policies and practices of the colonizers revealed evidence of lurid, horrific, and atrocious tales.
Among the category of African poets to first attack European colonialism and its corrupt political policies and practices in a significant way, are Dennis Osadebay, David Diop, Augustinho Neto, and Dennis Brutus. Dennis Osadebay’s protest verse against colonial corruption, is highlighted, for example, in “Who Buys My Thoughts.” The lyric, although subtle, is yet pungent and unmistakable in its message, especially in its denunciation and the condemnation of the colonialist’s wanton rape and humiliation of Africa :
Who buys my thoughts
Buys the spirit of the age,
The unquenching fire that smoulders
And smoulders
In every living heart
That’s true and noble or suffering;
It burns all o’er the cleaning
Destroying, chastening, cleansing2
In his poem, “Africa ,” David Diop bitterly attacks the corrupt political policies and practices of the colonialists:
Africa my Africa
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work your slavery
The slavery of your children
Africa tell me Africa
Is this you this back that is bent
This back that breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying yes to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous son that tree young and strong
That tree there
In splendid loneliness amidst white and faded flowers
That is Africa your Africa
That grows again patiently obstinately
And its fruit gradually acquires
The bitter taste of liberty3
The imagery -- “this back that is bent/This back that breaks under the weight of humiliation/This back trembling with red scars” -- suggests everything that is pernicious about European colonialism, including the arbitrary partitioning of Africa into nation states, the enslavement of the indigenous people, and the exploitation of Africa ’s natural resources. Chronologically, the poem is organized into three phases: pre-colonialism, colonialism, and post-colonialism.
For David Diop, the pre-colonial period was the golden age of Africa , when it witnessed a series of prosperity, including “proud warriors,” “with beautiful black blood that irrigates the field.” Ironically, however, the colonial era is marred by horrors of devastation, pain, and sorrow. The post-colonial period, hopefully, will restore Africa to its golden age when its fruit “gradually acquires/the bitter taste of liberty.”
Of particular interest in the poem is the imagery which describes the political contours of the continent as being contrary to human reason (“Is this you this back that is bent”), as well as the political policies and practices which have subjected the indigenous African people to a state of “slavery,” “sweat,” and “humiliation.” There is in this poem a note of conflict and confrontation, as well as the need to act quickly and decisively if the political bloodshed across the land is to stop.
Gerald Moore and Ulli Beir, in their “Introduction” to The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, write about the ferocity with which poets and other writers fought the corrupt political policies and practices of the colonizers, particularly in Angola and South Africa
…in Angola, the movement of …political resistance, Let us Discover Angola, which began in the late 1940s, involved many white and mulatto writers and artists as well as many black Africans. So, later, did the political and military cadres of the M.P.L.A. The language seemed to be that which could unite them, which could counter point for point, the bland assertions of Portuguese imperial policy. Except in South Africa , it would be hard to find elsewhere in the continent so many writers not themselves black who have suffered exile and imprisonment alongside their brothers as in Angola
In Angola, Augustinho Neto, in his powerful political satire, “The Grieved Lands,” laments the corrupt political system of Portuguese imperialism in Africa, which has led to “tearful woes,” the “degenerating sweat of impure dance,” “the flower/crushed in the forest,” “the wickedness of iron and fire,” and even “the corpses thrown up the Atlantic/in putrid offering of incoherence and death.” Neto is undaunted in the end, hopeful that the resilience and determination of his people will triumph over every obstacle:
They live
the grieved lands of Africa
because we are living
and are imperishable particles
of the grieved lands of Africa5.
In South Africa
The grizzled senior warder comments:
Things like these
I have no time for;
they are worse than rats
you can only shoot them;
Overhead
the large frosty glitter of the stars
the Southern Cross flowering low;
the chains on our ankles
and wrists
that pair us together
jangle
glitter
We begin to move
awkwardly7
Nor can we forget Lenrie Peters’ contribution in “It is time for reckoning Africa ,” which centers on post-colonial political corruption. In this poem, the military boys easily overthrow civil governments for corruption but, with time, they too soon corrupt the political space:
all threatening coups
and claiming vast receipts
like winsome children
feeding on mother’s milk
The seats of Government
levelled at the dice
they get the most
who tell the biggest lies8
II
In discussing the nature of cultural corruption in African poetry, it is appropriate to begin with its genesis and its development. The traditional African society, right from antiquity, has always had a great deal of respect for its culture, customs and traditions. Furthermore, every traditional African tribe or society was organized and ruled in accordance with the indigenous lores and customs. And, of course, the ancient African society had its own kingdoms and empires, including the Mali empire, the Ghana empire, and the Songhai empire. With the onslaught of European colonialism however, the structure of the indigenous African society changed dramatically.
For example, while the British imperial policy, known as Indirect Rule, enabled Britain
Among the African poets who have attacked the Europeans cultural corruption and its negative impact on the indigenous African culture, are Kwesi Brew, Mazisi Kunene, Okot p’ Bitek, and Benji Egede. Of course the African poets, by the time they started attacking the corrupt imperialist practices, had a good knowledge of the fascination and interest which the African arts, culture, and civilization had on people worldwide, especially in the Western world. Leopold Sedar Senghor documents this fact vividly:
This regard for black values was consecrated by famous names. In music, by Dvorak -- later, Frenchmen like Darius Milhaud and Debussy; in poetry, by Vachel Lindsay and the School of Jazz; in theatre, by Eugene O’Neill, in the novel by Carl Van Vechten. About the same time, in Europe , Black African civilizations and art were discovered. The precursors in France America
In the poem, “The Sea Eats Our Land,” Kwesi Brew laments the disruption and destruction of a once rich Africa ’s cultural treasures. The principal imagery of the poem, the “sea,” symbolizes European colonialism which, with its characteristic force and raging power, swept away the sublimity of Keta, symbol of Africa ’s cultural values. The corrupt colonial assault on Keta, the poet suggests, is synonymous with the substitution of the European cultural urbanity, pomposity and artificiality for Africa ’s primal innocence, beauty and grace.
The tone of the poem is one of incredulous shock at a vanishing indigenous culture. The imagery of the poem’s title, “The Sea Eats Our Lands,” is deeply telling and poignant. With a note of historicity and feeling of nostalgia and betrayal, the poet recalls what was once a bountiful chest of rich treasures, but is now lost: “our ancestral home,” the “crumbling wall,” and “black power.” The last stanza of the poem highlights the sense of loss, longing, and desire which the poet projects: a sense of pathos, of a ruined universe:
Here once lay Keta.
Now her golden girls
Erode into the hands
Of strange towns.10
Mazisi Kunene similarly laments the negative foreign impact on traditional African cultural values, as in his lyric, “Elegy:”
O great departed ancestors
You promised us immortal life with immortal joys
But how you deceived us
………………………………….
We count a million
Strewn in the dust of ruined capitals
The bull tramples us on an anthill
We are late in our birth
Accumulating violent voices
Made from the lion’s
You whose love comes from the stars
Have mercy on us!
Give us the crown of thunder
That our grief may overhang the earth
O we are naked at the great streams
Wanderers greet us no more…11
Okot p’ Bitek’s anti-imperialist criticism in Song of Lawino on the one hand, and his subsequent pro-imperialist stance in Song of Ocol12 on the other, is not only distinctive in style, but it distinguishes him as a major poet in African literature. In both works, p’ Bitek creates a scenario which brings into focus the conflict of cultures, that is, the way and manner in which the European cultural matrix gradually corrupts the indigenous African cultural environment. The polemics that follow highlight the intensity of the conflict.
In Song of Lawino, the protagonist, Lawino, defends the purity of the indigenous African culture:
The ways of your ancestors
Are good
Their customs are solid
And not hollow
They are not thin, not easily breakable
They cannot be blown away
By the winds
(p. 41)
Conversely, in Song of Ocol, the protagonist, Ocol, makes a case for the European cultural values:
I have other properties
In the Town,
But,
Come,
Beat the dust off your feet
And jump into my merc…,
Let me take you for a ride
And show you around my farm
(p. 141)
The conclusion of the above dialectic is clear: The indigenous African cultural tradition is not only on trial, in fact it has been corrupted by European cultural modernism.
Unlike Kwesi Brew, Mazisi Kunene, and Okot p’ Bitek, who rail against the evils of European colonialism for its assault on the traditional African culture, Kofi Awoonor however directs his poetic attack against the Africans themselves, who, in the course of foolishly imitating the Western lifestyle (symbolized by “The smart professionals in three piece”), have not only lost their cultural identity, but perhaps their humanity as well. He makes this vividly clear in his poem “We have found a new land”:
The smart professionals in three piece
Sweating away their humanity in driblets
And wiping the blood from their brow
We have found a new land
This side of eternity
Where our blackness does not matter
And our songs are dying on our lips.13
………………………………………………..
Nothing, however, best articulates the concerns and yearnings of our right-thinking people than the prayer of redemption -- rendered in a mocking, ironic tone -- that Benji Egede offers in his “African Prayer,” which similarly attacks the hypocrisy of our “imitative” cultural behavior:
From the mistake of avoiding our indigenous languages
in favour of foreign accents and foreign languages
gracious father save us
save us gracious father
From the ruins of western decadence
since our glorious hour of independence
gracious father save us
save us gracious father14
III
The colonial administration brought along with it its Christian orthodoxy whose credo -- e.g., the Sacrament, the Holy Communion, the Eucharist -- is at variance with the indigenous African religious practices. Against this background, several African poets write in repudiation of the new religious order. Kofi Awoonor, in several of his lyrics, including “The Cathedral,” “Song of Sorrow,” “Song of War,” and “The Weaver Bird,” writes in strong condemnation of Christianity and its gospel.
Perhaps more than any other African poet, Awoonor’s lyricism expresses a strong aversion to the pernicious impact of Christianity on the indigenous religious practices. For example, in “The Cathedral,” he alludes to Christianity as a “Huge senseless cathedral of doom;” in “Song of War,” he vows his readiness to fight -- and, if possible, “die” -- along with his tribesmen and compatriots in order to protect, preserve, or restore the indigenous religious order (“Let the whiteman’s guns boom/And its smoke cover us/We are fighting them to die”). But nothing, however, compares with the intensity of the venom with which he views Christianity as the supreme promoter of religious corruption, as he does in “The Weaver Bird.”
The weaver bird built in our house
And laid its eggs on our only tree
We did not want to send it away
We watched the building of the nest
And supervised the egg-laying
And the weaver bird returning in the guise of the owner
Preaching salvation to us that owned the house
They say it came from the west
Where the storms at sea had felled the gulls
And the fishes dried their nets by lantern lights
Its sermon is the divination of ourselves
And our new horizons limit at its nest
But we cannot join the prayers and answers of the communicants.
We took for new homes everyday,
For new altars we strive to rebuild
The old shines defiled by the weaver’s excrements.15
The biblical images of the above poem -- especially “Preaching salvation to us,” “Its sermon,” the “prayers and answers of the communicants,” “the divination of ourselves” -- are employed derisively to castigate the colonialists and their Christianity, that is, they think they are laying a new foundation for human salvation and the glorification of the Jehovah, as if to say the African religious culture knows nothing about any of these. On the contrary, he seems to suggest, the African religious system not only recognizes the existence of a Supreme Being with inimitable authority, but its ceremonies and rituals are fundamentally secure and sound.
Unlike in “The Weaver Bird,” where the poet and his tribesmen effectively resist the menacing onslaught of Christianity, in “Easter Dawn,” however, they find the overwhelming power of Christianity so strong that, rather than protest or resist, they ironically join the large crowds of converts in the Easter celebrations:
………………………………………………..
The marchers sang of the resurrection
That concerned the hillock of Calvary
Where the ground at the foot of the cross is level.
the gods cried, shedding
clayey tears on the calico
the drink offering had dried up in the harmattan
the colanut is shriveled
the yam feast has been eaten by mice
and the fetish priest is dressing for the Easter service.
The resurrection hymns come to me from afar touching
my insides
Then the gods cried loudest
Challenging the hymners
They seized their gongs and drums
And marched behind the dawn marchers
Seeking their Calvary
And those who refused to replace them
In the appropriate season16
In this poem, the whole transformation circle, that is, the corruption process of the indigenous African religion has been finalized: Christianity has completely succeeded and has now taken over.
Other than Awoonor, the other poets who have written with exegetic force against Christianity for corrupting the indigenous religious system in a serious way, include Christopher Okigbo, the Cameroonian poet Mbella Sonne Dipoko, and Birago Diop. In their poetic narrative, it is obvious to the discerning reader that they are not only passionate about their subject matter, but their lyricism -- both in tone and feeling -- is profoundly satirical.
In Heavensgate,17 Okigbo, having converted from the indigenous local religion to Christianity, later goes back to worship “mother idoto” (the local river goddess and deity), for, as he finds out, Christianity cannot offer the personal salvation that he needs. The detour that he makes is borne out of his personal experience and conviction. Okigbo is the only major African poet, as far as I know, to find himself in the vortext of two diametrically opposed religious forces in his quest for spiritual fulfillment.
Although the poet provides no reasons for his later conversion to the indigenous religion, the employment of such images as “prodigal,” “leaning,” “Heavensgate,” “give ear and hearken,” “naked I stand,” “the depths my cry,” “under your power wait I” -- all of which derive from the Christian liturgy -- not only shows that his travail must be from a disappointing Christian experience, but suggests the fact that his parting with the religion is final and irreversible.
The verse of Mbella Sonne Dipoko, which is so remarkable for its stinging criticism of colonialism and its Christianity, deserves some pertinent references. For instance: in the lyric “Our life”, he laments that Christianity has “Masked our destiny with a black hood” while “we said the same prayers;” in “Exile,” he talks about “these soldiers in camouflage/These clouds going to rain in foreign lands;” and in “Our History,” he compares the stinking nature of colonialism and, by implication, Christianity, to the “carcass of drifting whales.” The crushing effect of Christianity, he states in “Pain,” is devastating:
All was quiet in this park
Until the wind, like a gasping messenger, announced
Thy tyrant’s coming
Then did the branches talk in agony
You remember that raging storm
In their fear despairing flowers nevertheless held
Bouquets to the grim King
Meteors were the tassels of his crown
While like braches that only spoke when the storm menaced
We cried in agony as we fell
Slashed by the cold blade of an invisible sword.
Mutilated, our limbs were swept away by the rain
But not out blood;
Indelible, it stuck on the walls
Like wild gum on tree trunks18
The imagery, “The tyrant’s coming” in line 3, from which “We cried in agony as we fell,” says it all. A tyrant is universally dreaded and despised. Consequently, colonialism and its attendant offspring, Christianity, the poet suggests, are monstrous, corrupting, and evil.
No serious discussion of the theme of corruption in African poetry can be made without a consideration of Birago Diop’s poetry, especially that aspect of his verse which revolves around the negative aspect of European Christianity. His poetry is unique because, unlike his contemporaries who deploy sharp invectives in their verse, Birago Diop prefers a mellow, serene tone, which ultimately gives his lyrics a dignified aesthetic glitter. One cannot but admire his employment of contrastive but yet complementary images and metaphors which recognize the inevitable co-existence between Christianity and the indigenous African religion, thus bringing sobriety and balance to the poetic landscape.
In his poem, “Viaticum”, for example, rather than condemn Christianity outright (as Awoonor, Okigbo, Dipoko, and even David Diop demonstrate, for instance), Birago’s style is one of indirection: Instead of captioning the poem’s title by a different name -- especially since an indigenous religious ritual is being performed for the poem’s persona -- the poet employs the word “Viaticum,” a Christian metaphor for a ceremony which, in the Eucharist, is generally performed as the last rite for the dying.
Further, he employs recurrent imagery like the “three pots,” “three fingers,” “touched me three times,” to mimic the Christian trinity (of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost). And, of course, there are three kinds of blood used in the ritual ceremony -- “dog’s blood,” “bull’s blood,” and “goat’s blood.”19 Finally, while he does not tell us precisely and bluntly that he prefers the indigenous religion to Christianity, he leaves us in no doubt that that is where his preference resides. In this way, he lends his poetics a profound aura of authenticity and truism, while leaving room for self-criticism, contemplation, and contrition on the part of the colonialists and others who follow or celebrate the Christian mythos. In all these, his verse captures the resonances of parody at its best.
IV
The European colonizers exploited the colonized territories economically, but no one, except the colonizers themselves, have a full knowledge of the exact value of such economic corruption. However, in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney gives a vivid and lurid account of how the European colonizing powers exploited the mineral resources in some parts of the African continent as follows:
…In North Africa , foreign capital exploited natural resources of phosphates, oil, lead, zinc, manganese and iron ore. In Guinea , Sierra Leone and Liberia
From the above passage, it is obvious that, during the colonial period, the European economic exploitation of Africa must have been enormous.
However, one would have thought, judging from the fight and political independence against the European colonizers, that the African elites would have learnt a useful lesson, that is, the virtue of economic responsibility. Alas, that is not to be! The lesson we learn from Dr. Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes -- mankind’s illusory ambitions and wild expectations against a backdrop of their existing realities -- find relevance here: Ironically, in the wake of the attainment of political independence, the African elites who had railed against the European colonizers for their various corrupt practices, soon find themselves the target of numerous economic corruption.
In Nigeria
The African poets who have attacked economic corruption practices -- with a high degree of seriousness -- include Lenrie Peters, Syl Cheney-Coker, and J.P. Clark- Bekederemo. In their works, the imagery the poets employ is not only visual and passionate, but their emotion, their sensibility, and their pain -- all fused into one -- has given them the bridgehead from which to attack what might be characterized as “man’s inhumanity to man.” The fact that the African elites themselves are now punishing their fellow citizens on purely moral and economic grounds, makes the poetic attack against them both pathetic and persuasive.
In “Lost Friends,” Peters is disappointed with the level of the economic corruption that he sees:
They are imprisoned
In dark suits and air-conditioned offices
Alsatians ready at the door
On the Saliva carpeted floor
They spend their nights
In their airlines
Would change them in mid-air
To show how much they dare
Drunk from the vertigo
On never catching their tails
They never seem to know
When not to bite their nails
Their new addiction
Fortified their lives
They are getting there
While the goings good
They have no time for dreamers.21
In this poem, the poet sees the African elites as amassing wealth for themselves, “flying in jet airlines,” and carpeting their offices which are generally “air-conditioned.” Furthermore, because they are infatuated with power, prosperity, and pride, they “have no time for dreamers.” The “dreamers” are the common people whose votes thrust them into instant political power and ill-gotten riches.
Finally, the imagery of the poem’s title, “Lost Friends,” is appropriate and intriguing. Because the elites have no sense of moral and economic responsibility, and because they cannot appreciate those who established the foundation for their growth and development, they have lost touch with the fundamental realities of this world: their friends, family, community, and their own essence as human beings. The level of their social and economic corruption is so bad that, indeed, they are the “lost” souls who cannot be redeemed.
Syl Cheney-Coker’s poem, “Peasants,” is important because it completely and accurately mirrors the predicament of the downtrodden of society, whose elite leaders are “treating them like chattel slaves.” Without equivocation, the poet goes on to give a litany of the sins which the political leaders are perpetuating against the poor and underprivileged class: e.g., they “live in thatched houses with too many holes;” further, they are “feeding them abstract theories they do not understand.”
The economic lifestyle of these leaders is one of opulence and security, as suggested by the following images: they are “erecting hotels” and riding in “cavalcade of limousines.” That these leaders are equally wicked and corrupt is without doubt. For example, they give the common people “party cards but never party support.” The poet’s sense of disappointment and disgust is suggested by his use of the word “agony,” which he employs twenty-two times to highlight the deplorable condition of the poor who are “cramped in roach infected shacks” with “lugubrious eyes and battered souls.”
The poet’s employment of the word “agony” is important on another count: it is used for emphasis, and to convey a sense of urgency and immediacy: There is a corrupt economic whirlpool which is so vast and overwhelming that, if nothing is done to address it, the populace might one day erupt into a state of turbulence like the mighty and rocky sea, whose dangers are uncertain.
J.P. Clark’s rendition of a corrupt economic society is illustrated in his “Songs of the New Millionaires:”
So close to the desert or forest
Out of which we all come,
We fear forest or desert will overtake
Us in our new city
So close to the desert or forest
Out of which we all come
How shall we find rest
In our new beds of gold?
This is why we stake
As far as eye can see
This is why we rake
The land of all we see.22
The rhetoric of this poem centers around the epithet “New Millionaires,” that is, post-independence individuals who have suddenly acquired dazzling and benumbing riches in Nigeria, mostly through corrupt practices. Also interesting is the word “Songs,” which, on the one hand, symbolizes infinite joy and happiness, and on the other suggests that different songs -- apparently four in number, one for each of the respective four stanzas -- are being sung.
The reference, “our new city stronghold,” alludes to Abuja , the new capital city and melting pot of Nigeria (after Lagos
The note of urgency sounded in the last two stanzas (symbolized by “This is why we stake…/This is why we rake”) is doubly meaningful: it highlights the peculiar nature and behavior of people who steal what does not belong to them, and their tendency to do it quickly and escape, in order to avoid capture or apprehension by the rightful owner of the stolen property. There is massive looting of public funds in Africa, especially in Nigeria Clark is kicking against in this poem.
V
What conclusions can we reasonably draw from this chapter? Firstly, that the theme of corruption in African poetry falls into four broad categories, namely: political, religious, cultural, and economic issues. In style and method, the response to the theme of corruption by African poets has been remarkably varied: Some, like Dennis Osadebay, Lenrie Peters, Birago Diop, Benji Egede, Mazisi Kunene, and Mbella Sonne Dipoko have been terse, serene, and genial in tone; others, like David Diop, Augustinho Neto, and Kofi Awoonor have been harsh and acrimonious; while the rest, like Dennis Brutus, Okot p’ Bitek, Christopher Okigbo, J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, Kwesi Brew, and Syl Cheney-Coker have maintained a via-media in their lyricism.
Secondly, that there is something vain and hypocritical about the behavior of the African elites. They ridiculed and vigorously attacked the European colonizers for their corrupt practices; yet when it comes to their turn to lead for example, they find themselves performing worse than the colonizers whom they had reviled. For example: in politics, they lie and deceive the electorates; culturally, they foolishly “copy” the Western lifestyle in rejection of their indigenous cultural values; in economic terms, they corruptly enrich themselves to the detriment of their people and country. In short, their mad ambitions and recklessness painfully recall some of the lessons which we have learnt from Dr. Johnson’s The Vanity of Human Wishes.
Thirdly and finally, that the nature of the various corruption practices which we have discussed in this essay, has perhaps altered forever the contours and foundations of contemporary African society. The slime of corruption navigates, without cease, our collective soul in various forms and forums: in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in the marketplace, and in other places. The story of corruption is a grim tale to tell, but it must be told fully, fearlessly, and forcefully. While our poets and, especially out political leaders, responded frequently and ferociously to the ugliness of the European colonialists’ corrupt practices, paradoxically they have not responded with much tenacity and vigor to the spate of post-colonial African corrupt behavior. Corruption is the devil, the demon, and the monster which manifests itself in veiled constructs in contemporary African society. Our poets must fight it fatally for our collective survival and for posterity. They cannot, and must not, fail in their mission.
Notes
1. Francis Cardinal Arinze, “Nigeria May Collapse Under the Weight of Corruption, if Nothing is Done About it,” Nigerian Tribune, 10 August. 2010, 5.
2. Dennis Osadebay, “Who Buys My Thoughts”, in West African Verse; An Anthology, chosen and annotated by Donatus Ibe Nwoga (London and New York: Longman Group, 1967), p. 15.
3. David Diop, “Africa,” in The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry, edited by Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 245. Further references to this book will be abbreviated simply as The Penguin Book, followed by the page number(s).
4. Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier, The Penguin Book, pp. 20-21
5. Augustinho Neto “The Grieved Lands,” The Penguin Book, pp. 29-30.
6. Dennis Brutus, “At a Funeral,” “Nightsong: City,” “This Sun on this Rubble,” and “Poems About Prison,” The Penguin Book, pp. 259-261.
7. Dennis Brutus, “Poems About Prison,” The Penguin Book, pp. 260-261.
8. Lenrie Peters, “It is time for reckoning Africa,” in A Selection of African Poetry, revised and enlarged edition, introduced and annotated by K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1976), p. 169. Further references to this book will be abbreviated simply as A Selection, followed by the page number(s).
9. Leopold Sedar Senghor, Liberté I. Negritude et Humanisme (Paris
10. Kwesi Brew, “The Sea Eats Our Lands,” A Selection¸ pp. 131-132.
11. Mazisi Kunene, “Elegy,” The Penguin Book, p. 263.
12. Okot p’ Bitek, Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol, with Introduction by G.A. Heron and Illustrations by Frank Horley (London and Ibadan: Heinemann, 1984). Further citation will be noted in the text with page number(s).
13. Kofi Awoonor, “We have found a new land,” A Selection, pp. 211-212.
14. Benji Egede, “African Prayer,” Song of Fuellessness (Benin City: Joeseg Books Ltd., 1998), p. 35.
15. Kofi Awoonor, “The Weaver Bird,” The Penguin Book, p. 93. Awoonor’s disdain for Christianity is suggested, for example, by the fact that he changed his name from George Awoonor-Williams to Kofi Awoonor.
16. Kofi Awoonor, “Easter Dawn” The Penguin Book, p. 94.
17. For a more detailed analysis of Heavensgate, see Isaac I. Elimimian, “Rhetoric and Style in Okigbo’s Heavensgate, Topical Issues in Communication Arts, ed. S.O. Unoh (Uyo: Modern Business Press, 1987), 168-187.
18. Mbella Sonne Dipoko, “Pain,” The Penguin Book, p. 57.
19. Birago Diop, “Viaticum,” The Penguin Book, pp. 241-242.
20. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1972), p. 183.
21. Lenrie Peters, “Lost Friends,” A Selection, p. 167.
22. J.P. Clark-Bekederemo, “Songs of the New Millionaires,” State of the Union (London: Longman, 1985), p. 23.
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