2025/10/30 by Ngozi Dora Ulogu, Effumbe Kachua · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #African Education and Politics #Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics #Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.37708/ezs.swu.bg.v23i3.14
openalex created_date 2025/10/30 · openalex publication_date 2025/10/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Nigeria is in the confederacy of democratic nations and is assumed to be blossoming. The manner of political leadership in the country has exposed even the fledgling democracy to the vagaries of uncouth behaviors with its affiliated oppression, tyranny, and brutality. This is such that the players in the politics of the callous unleash injustice and act without recourse to the rule of law. The consequent rumblings by its citizenry emanating from the undemocratic actions by the leaders are succinctly captured in Nigerian literature, such as in Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966), Anthills of the Savannah (1987), and Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain. (2021). These texts ventilate the anti-democratic processes prevalent in the politics of the country’s leadership from the period after independence to the present time, spanning the first republic, 1963, to this present political dispensation. This paper, therefore, using a qualitative method, makes a literary analysis of the issues of failure of democratic liberties and highhandedness by political leaders, using the trajectory of political science concepts of democracy, illiberal democracy, and liberal autocracy as key tools. It examines the political processes and behaviors in the afore-mentioned texts, and specifically focuses on the leadership styles and activities of the key actors, which are against democratic tenets. The paper believes that the governance deficit in the country results from non-adherence to the ideals of democratic principles by those at the helm of affairs, and advocates the rule of law and enthronement of true democracy to ensure a peaceful and harmonious nation.