Reclaiming Independence, Pumping Oil, and Exporting Nigerian literature
Reclaiming Independence
From around 1900 to 1960, Nigeria was ruled by the British. These years involved renaming and reclassifying multiple regions of Nigeria. By 1951, Nigeria was divided in Northern, Eastern and Western regions that each had their own house of assembly. As Nigeria gained more and more leaders from their own country, they gain their independence over Britain. Independence, however, is not smooth sailing. Unrest between the regions comes to a head with a civil war. Northern and Western prime ministers are assassinated and Nigeria is split again into twelve states. After increasing hostility, a senior Ibo officer, Obumegwu Ojukwu, declared the Eastern region of Nigeria as an independent nation which ignites the violence between the Eastern region and the Northern and Western regions. The war takes it's toll. By 1970 the citizens of Nigeria are starving and the Eastern region is rejoined with the rest of Nigeria.
Information gathered graciously from History World. (www.historyworld.net)
Pumping Oil
Nigeria is known for it's large abundances of oil. Industries flock to the land, drilling first palm oil and now petroleum. Ten years after Nigeria's independence from Britain, the "output is more than two million barrels a day, the value of which is boosted by the high prices achieved during the oil crisis of 1973-4" (historyworld.net). After the oil prices drop, however, the country suffers and economic disaster as the average income per head drops from 75% or 1000 dollars a year to 250.
Information gathered graciously from History World. (www.historyworld.net)
Exporting Nigerian Literature
Chinua Achebe (Albert Chinualumogu Achebe)
Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist who was "acclaimed for his unsentimental depictions of the social and psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of Western customs and values upon traditional African society" (Britannica). His first novel, and quite possibly his most well known, was Things Fall Apart in 1958. The novel looks into the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo community leader and addresses the colonial government that is controlling the Igbo societies. His influential works continued with No Longer At Ease (1960), a sequel to Things Fall Apart, and Arrow of God (1964), which tells the story of a chief priest in the 1920s whose son becomes a Christian under British rule.
Information gathered graciously from Encyclopaedia Britannica. (britannica.com)
Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka, Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright who was granted with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He graduated from the University of Leeds in England before moving back to Nigeria to write A Dance of the Forests (1963) which looks at showing how the present Nigeria is no more glorious than what the past Nigeria was. He has participated in many groups including the National Democratic Organization and the National Liberation Council of Nigeria.
Information gathered graciously from Encyclopaedia Britannica. (britannica.com)
