SPUTTERING DEMOCRACY IN SELECTED ANGLOPHONE AFRICAN FICTION: A THEME ACROSS GENERATIONS

Abstract

While fighting for the independences of their countries, African people used to think that their breaking of the colonial bondage would bring them lasting democracy. But very soon, democracy was trampled underfoot. Many fictitious works account for such a state of affairs. Among them are Abrahams’s A Wreath For Udomo, Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Djoleto’s Money Galore, and Ogundimu’s A Silly Season. Internal factors as well as external ones have ‘driven’ African countries into sputtering democracy. As internal factors we can mention, Corruption, embezzlement, favouritism, and dictatorship through the imposed situations on the peoples including the absence of the freedom of the press, the absence of freedom of association, torture, abductions and arbitrary imprisonments. As far as external factors are concerned, we have regular incursions of Western countries in the African politics and economy too. Africans must be creative and original in order to avoid copying blindly what is being applied in Western countries which reflect more their realities and not always African ones. This paper aims at examining the Africans’ failure to cope with the cliché of Western democracy for more than half a century. It also suggests means and ways to promote democracy and economic prosperity. Both the qualitative research method and the postcolonial theories have been adopted.