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Over the recent times contemporary
Nigerian literary texts have shifted attention from being completely narrowed
down to general stereotypical discourses in terms of thematic focus, and by
doing so creating a nucleus of political consciousness and assuming the social
political responsibility- a strong revolutionary engine room- that challenges
the predominant economic cum political factor behind the tyrannical display of
power and total abuse of economy by the diminutive but influential and potent people
of power – the class of bourgeois.
This drastically political
dimension and movement in literature which is Marxist in nature (a radical
perception of human society) could be said to be a pivotal projection of angst
and antagonism, since literature mirrors the society, with a view to subjecting
the philosophy of power management to criticism, thus advocating for crucial
and balance fundamental change in the societal polity and its economic
structures within the existing classes.
As Ngugi Wa Thiog’o
would put it: ‘a writer is a member of the
society. He belongs to a certain class and he is inevitably a participant in
the class struggle of his times.’ Contemporary African writers have inevitably
come to an age of active revolutionary involvement and total political activism
due to the quite lamentable, migraine-giving and completely untenable condition
they find themselves in the hand of the political capitalist cabals and human
materialists.
They cannot arm–fold themselves
in silence in the face of terror. Consequently, their works have become
reactionary with thematic signpost of revolutionary appeal against the
burgeoning acute leadership failure and draconian display of vainglory. The
burdening memories of agony and social malice, coupled with unparalleled resistance
against the bane placed on the bosom of the poverty-ridden, hunger-stricken and
hapless populace by the ruling class breathe life to the expedient demand and
open agitation for authentic African imagery and invocations that spin through
the political and economic hierarchy.
