Ernest Hemingway’s works and his life of perpetual adventure as a world-class, big game hunter sound like a promise of endless summers on exciting safaris, perpetual tans, perfect waves and pretty blondes. He and some Western writers are at fault, at times, to paint life as if it is only full endless carousal — mellow golden sunsets or carefree walks through town.
Chinua Achebe, on the other hand, was gritty; an incurable realist with no time for “western-style romance.”
As a critic once remarked, “Romances tend to represent life as one might think it to be, and create a relatively heroic, adventurous, or picturesque world. In contrast, works of realism portray the world as it really appears.”
Whereas Western romance writers could swing the arc of literature to the ideal, Achebe brought that arc of the human saga full circle; to the vital, urgent and muddled clutch of the real.

In his ruthless novel, A Man of the People, he deploys his weapons on African soil, to a land of common people under imperfect leaders, not of princesses living happily ever after; in a place where even our best monuments celebrate fragile lives molded from clay. Indeed, there is something very delicate about A Man of the People.

This is probably because Achebe’s focus is on African politics; a dark world that casts grotesque shadows on the lives of millions on the continent. In matters terrifying, nothing beats African politics; always ready to pounce like the African tiger — red in claw and tooth.
If Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, was a neat stiletto jab into the tender hide of the colonists, A Man of the People, is a rather crude bludgeon indiscriminately aimed at all politicians and the voters who are bribed into electing them term after messed term in office.
The protagonist (Odili Samalu) is a young idealist going head-to-head in a deadly dance with the villain (the ruthless Minister for Culture, Chief Nanga). Achebe presents Chief Nanga as a political opportunist with no political morality who became rich through bribery, corruption and intimidation.

However, like all politicians worth their salt, Chief Nanga knows how to work things to his advantage often in the false pretences that he is doing it “for the people’s interest.” Odili is bitter and totally disillusioned at seeing how politicians like Chief Nanga exploit their people and even get people clapping for them as they plunder the country and run it down.

The narrator hopes for salvation but in vain as he laments: “As I stood in one corner of that vast tumult waiting for the arrival of the minister, I felt intense bitterness welling up in my mouth. Here were silly, ignorant villagers dancing themselves lame… in honour of one of those who had started the country off down the slopes of inflation. I wished for a miracle, for a voice of thunder, to hush this ridiculous festival and tell the poor contemptible people one or two truths. But of course it would be quite useless. They were not only ignorant but cynical.”

It is clear that the people, either through ignorance or nonchalance, have let the political elite exploit them as they continue to dance themselves lame to entertain politicians. In A Man of the People, Achebe proves to be a more realistic prophet [even if of doom] than most of our political scientists who still hold the African politician with kid’s gloves.

The African politician, whether Kenyan, Nigerian or Ugandan, is most of the times hopelessly corrupt and greedy. In Kenya, right now, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) is poised to engage in a bruising (often losing) battle against senators and members of county assemblies (MCAs) who want more perks.

The SRC already lost an earlier battle with Members of Parliament who amid public uproar and protests managed to increase their perks — the Constitution notwithstanding. It is hard to rein in lawmakers when they want to increase their perks; they can even threaten oversight bodies and executive officers with impeachment.

With the referendum calls in the air, both the leading opposition party and the ruling party seem especially interested in keeping MCAs happy with promises of goodies because MCAs could hold the key to either failure or success of any envisioned referendum.
It’s no doubt, therefore, that the ruling elites are powerful. Unfortunately, some of them misuse this power, like in A Man of the People, to amass wealth and intimidate critics into silence.
The writer is the CEO of Phoenix Publishers.