[In A Man of the People Achebe] illuminates today's confused events along the opaque waters of the Niger. Life imitates art, but seldom so promptly on cue. Achebe's book sounds the obituary drums for "the fat-dripping, gummy, eat-and-let-eat regime" that history has extinguished, and makes clear why his still unstable nation should turn to military government. In fact, his novel ends with just such a military coup, the first of many, it seems….
Achebe tells his story through the mouth of Odili Samalu, a sprightly rapscallion—part idealist, part young man on the make—whom it would be tempting to call a colored Candide, except that Odili has no innocence at all, only a naiveté that makes a farce both of his convictions and his ambition. He is, in fact, perhaps the most engaging character in fiction about Africa since the hero of Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson, who was factotum to a white colonial official. (p. 80)
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