The Nigeria Problem Explained in Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease

The Nigeria Problem Explained in Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease

                          --Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy

'If you want to eat a toad, you should look for a fat and juicy one.' (No Longer at Ease: 5)

The above proverb sums up the anathema bedeviling Nigeria, as well as many other third world countries. This anathema is bribery and corruption, it has become so endemic that it has come to be seen as the norm, nobody sees anything wrong in getting a few 'cola' (or gratification as some will like to label it) from here and there to supplement the 'little' you earn as salary. The problem persists because most of us want to live larger than our means whilst what we earn can only afford us a decent life. This problem occurs in every facet of society, and there is most likely very few of us who have never been involved in it. In fact, it has become a defining factor; visit government parastatals to obtain documents and signatures, you will hear: 'Oga, do something nah, are you not a Nigerian?', on your way home, police officers would stop you for a stop and search and you will hear the same mantra: 'Oga do something nah, are you not a Nigerian?', it begins to look as if being a Nigerian no longer comes with any atom of dignity! In Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease, one can easily see to what extent corruption has been institutionalised in the country using the arrest of Obi Okonkwo as an example.

The proverb 'If you want to eat a toad, you should eat a fat and juicy one' is used by the president of the Umuofia Progressive Union at an emergency meeting held at Lagos Mainland to decide whether to render assistance to Obi Okonkwo after he was arrested and charged to court for taking bribe. The proverb points at Obi who even with a salary of 60 pounds, 47.3 pence went on to receive an illegal meagre sum of twenty (20) pounds as bribe. The president's perspective is that the money is just too small for a man of Obi's standing (a senior civil servant) in the civil service to receive as bribe.

The implication of this proverb is that bribery and corruption which is one of the major theme in the novel has eaten deep into the bone marrow of our society. What the proverb is in essence saying is that it is not wrong for one to receive bribes, it was only wrong to accept a meagre sum of money. Hence, it would have been better had Obi been caught taking a far higher amount as bribe rather than the 20 pounds he was shamefully caught with.

The president says that 'it is a thing of shame for a man in the senior service to go to prison for twenty pounds. He repeated twenty pounds, spitting it out' (5). The question here is therefore, would there have been no shame had Obi been arrested for taking a larger sum of money as bribe? The ugly truth remains that bribe is bribe, either large or small, in cash or in kind; they all fall within the ambit of BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION.

In conclusion, using the proverb, Achebe has pinpointed the Nigerian Problem which is the institutionalisation of bribery and corruption as a norm in the society. Rather that struggling towards a total eradication of these nefarious acts, we accept and reject it in part with the determining factor being how big or small the amount taken as bribe is. This stereotypical attitude exhibited by young Africans is the reason d'être behind characters like Mr Green's (Obi's boss) insistent conviction that the African is corrupt through and through.

© Ubaji Isiaka Abubakar Eazy 2019