Our desire for stolen wealth holding back the country

In Chinua Achebe’s seminal novel, No Longer at Ease, Obi Okonkwo returns to Nigeria after three years of university education in the UK to find the public service rotting under the weight of corruption. Educated Africans have begun taking up posts that were previously the preserve of European expatriates. They expect — and are expected — to live like Europeans. This presents huge financial pressures. Many succumb to temptations to become corrupt. The outcomes are not so pleasant.

The theme of power and corruption is recurrent in pioneering African writing. Ngugi wa Thiong’o has abundantly addressed it in Devil on the Cross as in Petals of Blood and very powerfully in the short story “The Mubenzi Tribesman.” Ayi Kwi Armah deals with it in Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born as does Wole Soyinka in Kongi’s Harvest. And there are many others. Why did this question trouble African writers so early in the life of our new nations and states? Would it appear that the thunderstorm of corruption accosted us just before we got into the house of freedom? If it did, did it intensify after we got in?