A Man of the People Social Concerns

A Man of the People Social Concerns

A Man of the People is a fictional account A.that recalls events that took place in post-Colonial Nigeria in the 1960s. Its central social concern, also a political concern, is the effect of corrupt government on the daily lives of Nigeria's people. The chief character, Odili Samalu, is a teacher who himself has been taught by the man who now rules the country, Chief Nanga, whose epithet is the tide of the book. The title is undercut by irony at every turn, for Nanga has put the people last and misruled the country for personal gain. In the episode that opens the novel, he has fired a well-educated finance minister whose sensible advice to cut coffee prices to curtail inflation Nanga blatandy disregards because it is an election year.

Mobs condoned by Nanga then vandalize the house and car of the dismissed finance minister, and beat another dismissed...
(read more)