Political Corruption And Symbolism In Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi’S Half Of A Yellow Sun And Okey 2
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic
DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL
Political Corruption And Symbolism In Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi’S Half Of A Yellow Sun And Okey 2
Chapter One: Introduction
Political corruption occurs when government officials utilise their power for illegitimate private gain. Political corruption is defined as the misuse of government power for other ends, such as repressing political opponents and general police brutality.
Corruption is responsible for the majority of economic, political, and social issues in developing countries such as Nigeria. Some of these issues include a lack of accountability, the transfer of public resources to private hands, various forms of discrimination, and ethnicity. Lack of competence, inefficiency, and so on.
There are numerous reasons of political corruption, including inadequate political processes, ineffective political financing, and poverty. Ethnic and religious differences.
The lack of transparency in government documents highlights the necessity for legislation such as the freedom of information bill and public participation in governance.
The colonial masters have been criticised for widespread corruption. This viewpoint suggests that the nation’s colonial history may have limited the impact of early ethical revolutions.
10
Throughout the colonial period, most Nigerians lived in ignorance and poverty.
The amount of corruption created severe concerns among Nigerians and the world community, which ranked Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries.
Although the government enacted anti-corruption measures, they were not truly and adequately implemented, so the desired purpose and goal were not met. The situation became more serious. Corruption has remained a barrier to national growth ever since.
In Nigeria, corruption is a major issue that must be addressed.
In his book, The Root Causes of Corruption in West Africa, Owusi (2002) argues that corruption stems from opportunistic use of existing laws and regulations to gain an advantage.
He emphasised that the desire for wealth, power, prestige, and high status, as well as the use of scarce and expensive import commodities, is a major contributor to societal corruption.
11
Over time, the country’s wealth has dwindled, leaving little to show in terms of common people’s living standards.
Nigeria, like many other African countries, was founded on an artificial structure created by previous colonial powers who ignored religious, linguistic, and ethnic diversity.
The origins of the Nigerian Civil War were numerous, but in his biography, writer Alex Mitchell blames the British, Dutch, French, and Italian oil firms, whose fights for Nigeria’s wealthy oil fields sparked and fuelled the conflict.
Nigeria’s political issues stem from the British government’s abandonment of the country and its people after taking control. The British administrators made little effort to unite the country’s diverse population. Many of today’s technology are the result of their enlightenment.
Northern politicians, fearing that independence would result in political and economic dominance by the more westernised elites in the south, preferred to maintain British sovereignty.
As a prerequisite for adopting independence, they requested that the country remain divided into three sections, with the North having a clear majority.
12
On January 15, 1966, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and several junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup. Because of the ethnicity of those executed
it was widely assumed that the coup was orchestrated by the Igbo for their own personal gain. principal Nzeogwu executed the North’s two principal political leaders, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Northern Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello. The wife of Sir Ahmadu Bello was also slain.
The coup was not only carried out in the Northern region, but it was also the most successful. Lieutenant Connell Arthur Umegbe was slain due to the incompetence of the commanders in charge of carrying out Nzeogwu’s objectives in the east.
The coup, also known as the coup of the five majors, is widely regarded as Nigeria’s sole revolutionary coup. Nigeria’s young democracy experienced its first coup.
The coup plotters cited electoral fraud as one of their motivations. Following the coup, General Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and Head of the Nigerian Army, assumed control as the country’s first Military Head of State.
13
By the late 1960s, disillusionment literature was emerging as a response to the extensive violent strife and governmental corruption that had begun to pervade African cultures. Such disputes naturally threw the nationalist concept into disarray: how can one talk about a nation, let alone a Pan-African identity, when a national is at odds with itself?
In terms of the novel as genre, Gikandi claims that in the mid-1960s, the form and purpose of the novel altered virtually overnight, shifting the reader away from the occasionally joyful and utopian tone of previous works and towards a gloomy critique of the narrative of cultural nationalism. This was a generation of writers that deliberately distanced themselves from the concept of cultural nationalism.
Writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o share an interventionist perspective on African ethnic conflict today. In discussing Nigeria, Adichie believes that the concept of the tribe has its roots in colonialism, as people did not consciously identify as Igbo, Yoruba, or Hausa until the British arrived.
The British ruled Nigeria indirectly through their traditional rulers, therefore the genuine leader of the masses was hobbled and held back. Africans were granted authority to reign over their own people (14).
They saw it as a way to exploit people who had more than them and sell his or her sibling, sister, or mother in order to acquire favour with higher leaders. The British (Adewale Ademoyeya: Why We Struck).
The actions of local and foreign leaders prompted the people to desire independence. Many of them were no longer thinking clearly. The current leadership blames the colonial masters and forerunners of independence for failing to perform what was expected of them, as well as for embezzling and stealing public funds.
The politico encourages others to become wealthy and important in society, stealing and blaming it on the economy and leaders. No one accepts responsibility for their own crimes and acts.
Politicians and military dictators blame each other for terrible governance; no one agrees that the other is superior to himself.
Emeka Nwabueze believes that the question is not whether or whether we should wage war against corruption; rather, the struggle should be waged in accordance with the constitution.
Many argue that Nigeria’s political and economic underdevelopment since independence is due to widespread corruption in both private and public sectors (15). Nepotism is the practice of giving preferential treatment to family in politics or business regardless of merit.
Bribery is defined as the act of donating money or gifts in order to influence the recipient’s behaviour.
Political scandals occur when politicians or government officials are suspected of engaging in various unlawful, corrupt, or unethical actions.
Electoral fraud is defined as any illegal intervention with the electoral process. Acts of fraud influence vote counts in order to produce an election result, either by boosting the vote share of competing candidates or both.
Embezzlement, abuse of power, etc.
Arnold defined corruption as the receipt or promise of money or other benefits in exchange for a contract, obtaining an opportunity, unqualified favour, pervasion of justice, moving ahead of a queue, and the like. He saw corruption as poverty in contrast to vast wealth and luxury, or crook in order to live large.
A symbol is an object that represents, stands for, or implies an idea, belief, action, or physical thing. Symbols are words, noises, gestures, or visual representations that are used to communicate ideas and beliefs.
16
A symbol is a sign, shape, or object that represents another thing.
Symbols appear in every culture, religion, and society. This makes symbols universally acceptable in the sense that they do not exist in one society but are absent in another. There are cultural and religious emblems.
Cultural symbols can be found in language, traditional costume, and tribal insignia, as well as sacred artefacts with ancestral attributes, such as “ofo” in Igbo culture, which represents ancestor communion.
Grey hair is a symbol of old age in Igbo culture, and it should be treated with dignity and respect. Proverbs are particularly symbolic in Igbo society since they represent wisdom and tradition.
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic