A man of the people by Chinua Achebe

 Writers are known with their commitment to their home 

country especially those who their countries were under 

occupation since writing is a pure art , a clear message hold to

deliver to people. So through their writings ,they depict the life

in their countries during colonization and after the

independence. 

One of the famous African writers is Chinua Achebe, he is a 

Nigerian writer,his works focused primarily on politics in 

Africa, depicting the Africans in the west in addition to post 

colonial period in Africa and the effects of colonization on the 

African societies. A well known work of Chinua Achebe which 

tackle the previous points is "A man of the people".

It is the forth novel of Chinua Achebe which was written in 

1966. it reveals the changes in Nigeria during the twentieth 

century against a social and political changes. The story is set in 

Nigeria during Nigeria first steps to form a post colonial nation 

which turned to be corrupted one with a set of bad values in

this society as : embezzlement,bribery, even in education it

became more corrupted.

The novel deals with two different groups of people from 

different political and social aspects . The groups are :the old 

and new generation with two characters representing each 

group: Odili represent the new generation , intellectual one 

while chief Nanga , Odili's former teacher represent the old 

generation and now he is a politician.

Odili is a man of the people ,he received an invitation from his 

former teacher:chief Nanga. During this occasion  Odili knew  

how the politicians in this society enrich themselves through 

Nanga is so powerful but corrupted minister of culture. He used

his position to increase his personal wealth ,he learned how to

win elections through the corrupted system of politics. Nanga is 

known as a man of the people because of his smooth talk and

way of speaking which convince any person so they trust him

because he tells them what they want to hear.

Odili respected Nanga as a teacher,he learned many things

from him and was happy for his teacher when he became

minister. But as Nanga grew more powerful in his office, Odili

became more aware about corruption in this society.Odili

realized all this when he had the chance to live with Nanga and

there he witnessed Nanga power in spending his money and

having his way with the women he desired. The result of this

situation is that Odili agreed to lead an opposition political

party in the face of the powerful man (Nanga).Odili is an

idealist who has experienced pain and suffer of his citizens

While Nanga has no concept of political morality.

Chinua Achebe through this novel tackled the issue of switching

roles which means the changing of power between old and

new generation ,between good and bad, between morality and

corruption . The end of the story was marked by a military coup

which forced Nanga to resin from his office.