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LITERATURE, HISTORY AND CONTEMPORARY 

DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF CHIGOZIE 

OBIOMA’S THE FISHERMEN 

 

Chioma Emelone 
Department of English and Literary Studies 

Nwafor Orizu College of Education, Nsugbe 

Email: emelonechioma@gmail.com 

 

Abstract   

Literature reflects the society and so is a tool for historical 

discourse. Literary artists in Nigeria have used this means to 

bring up issues which seem forgotten in the nation’s history. 

These issues are presented to their readers to enlighten them so 

as to enable them solve contemporary problems such as poor 

leadership because Nigeria as a nation has yet to grapple with 

the problem of poor leadership since independence. This 

problem has been a great concern to literary artists as they 

portray the masses’ expectations and disappointments. The 

annulment of 1993 presidential election in Nigeria is one of 

them. This massive disappointment has been recreated by 

Chigozie Obioma in The Fishermen where he tells of the 

shattered hope of a proud father of six who wishes his sons to be 

great men in the society. He also presents the torn hope and 

peace of these brothers as he tells the story of the symbolic 

meeting of the brothers with Chief M.K.O. Abiola which 

metaphorically alludes to the struggle of Nigeria’s failed 

leadership. With the use of sociological critical approach to 

literary analysis, the dashed hope of the Nigerian masses and its 

effects on the populace are discussed. 

Keywords: Literature, History, Contemporary Development, 

Failed Leadership 

mailto:emelonechioma@gmail.com


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Introduction  
History can be recreated through literature. Because literature 

mirrors the society, literary artists bring back to the present those 

events that had taken place in the society at one point in time or 

the other. This move is not merely for the sake of art but to help 

in redirecting the present for a positive change. African writers, 

as Ezeigbo puts it, “grapple with the reality of African past for 

the purpose of illuminating and interpreting the present and 

directing the future” (11). The contemporary development of 

every nation must begin with the correction of past mistakes and 

with the reenactment of these past mistakes and their 

consequences; the writer is hopeful that a new society will 

emerge. One particular problem which Nigeria has been facing 

as a country is poor leadership and that has slowed down the 

pace of the country’s development. Leadership entails the 

capability of successfully managing an entity or an organization. 

It involves the ability to give meaningful direction to collective 

effects through locating and solving the problems of an 

organization. The importance of leadership in government is 

affirmed by Masciulli, Mikhail and Knight who have it that 

“leadership is an essential feature of all government and 

governance: weak leadership contributes to government failures, 

and strong leadership is indispensable if the government is to 

succeed” (3). This, therefore, means that there could be a 

government without leadership because it is just a characteristic 

of government, and that its presence may not be felt in a 

particular government or governance. In this case, it is the weak 

form of leadership which may eventually bring about a disaster. 

Leadership implies empathy and commitment to the populace. A 

leader needs to possess a deep understanding about the feelings 

and thoughts of those whom he leads so as to be able to really 

consider their perspectives. He should also be committed to the 



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growth of the people and the nation at large and should lead by 

example. By so doing, a leader displays a sense of responsibility. 

The Nigerian masses, the common people in the country, have 

lost hope and trust in the government because of the insensitivity 

of those who occupy various leadership positions in the country. 

These leaders have continued to exhibit and protect selfish 

interests in their course of governing the nation. Achebe in The 

Trouble with Nigeria succinctly posits that “the trouble with 

Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership… the 

unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the 

responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are 

the hallmarks of the leadership” (1). Since her independence in 

1960, Nigeria as a nation has been facing a lot of leadership 

problems. The unsteady leadership forms which began to 

fluctuate between the civilian and the military immediately after 

independence coupled with other glaring effects of the nation’s 

contact with the colonial masters have left the Nigerian masses 

in a pitiable state. Between 1963 when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe 

took over the leadership of Nigeria from the westerners and this 

present day, the military rule was on ground for about twenty 

one years. As recorded by Ogbeidi, it was General Muhammadu 

Buhari who ousted power from Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1983 

when the Nigeria populace tasted democracy once again after the 

civilian administration of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe between 1963 

and 1966. Then, came General Ibrahim Babangida in 1985, who 

in 1993 promised the Nigeria nation of handing over the steering 

of the nation’s affairs to a democratically elected president. And 

also, election process was planned and the masses went to the 

polls with the hope of returning to democracy. It was a kind of 

battle against the military regime for Nigerians who were so 

determined to take the bull by the horns. Votes were cast 

between Chief M.K.O. Abiola of Social Democratic Party and 



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the National Republican Convention candidate, Alhaji Bashir 

Tofa. The Nigerian masses had their hope held high, but then, it 

crashed. As asserted by Salawu and Hassan, “it was the hope of 

good governance that Nigerians expected from MKO Abiola that 

made them vote for him across the nation irrespective of ethnic 

and religious affiliations” (32). Writing about the election, 

Reuben Abati, a renowned Nigerian journalist puts it in his 

article, “June 12 and M. K. O. Abiola” that the election was 

adjudged to be free and fair, and peaceful. But the Ibrahim 

Babangida-led military government had been playing games 

with the transition – to – civil rule, and so it chose not to 

announce the final results of the election, and later on June 23, 

1993, the presidential election was annulled. It was a torn-hope 

for the Nigeria masses as power returned again to the military 

when Chief Ernest Shonekan’s interim government was ousted 

and General Sani Abacha took over the mantle of leadership.  

This disappointment has been metaphorically recreated by 

Chigozie Obioma in his first novel, The Fishermen, a novel 

shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and the winner of the 

inaugural FT/Oppenheimer award for fiction. This is one of the 

problems that have emanated after independence and writers 

such as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Mongo Beti, Ayi 

Kwei Armah, Femi Osofisan, etc. have presented these problems 

in one way or the other. In the words of Ugwuanyi, “Most 

African writers have tended to draw their materials from past 

and continuing history of their people and have been showing 

their concern for or commitment to the aspirations of their 

people (73). This is the case with Obioma in this novel, for 

writers, by diagnosing the ills of the society make the people 

aware of the follies of man. In criticizing the shortcomings of the 

government and the people’s attitude to life, they are hopeful 

that meaningful changes will eventually take place. This 



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confirms the assertion made by Amodu that “literature become a 

vital tool in exposing various societal shortcomings. It instructs 

the mind of the reader, it serves as a window to the world and an 

effective instrument for national consciousness, integration and 

development” (123). 

Brief Background Information on Obioma’s The Fishermen 

Set in Akure, the capital city of the present Ondo State in the 

‘90s between the electioneering period of the 1993 presidential 

election and the military regime of General Sani Abacha, The 

Fishermen is a story of four brothers Ikenna, Boja, Obembe and 

Benjamin whose father works with the Central Bank of Nigeria 

and, at the commencement of the story, is transferred to Yola, a 

town in the northern Nigeria. Their father’s dream is to see his 

children as great men as he maps out various professions for 

them. When their father eventually leaves for Yola, the boys, 

against their parents’ desire decide to fish in Omi-Ala River, a 

river where terrible incidents take place. It is on one of the days 

when they are at this dangerous Omi-Ala River that the brothers 

have an encounter with Abulu, a madman whose prophesy that 

one of the brothers will kill the eldest, tears down the hope and 

expectation of their father who, on his own part, has failed in his 

responsibility as a father to intervene at an appropriate time. 

This family story of four brothers is fused with the Nigeria story 

of the electioneering and annulment of the 1993 presidential 

election and its effects on the populace as well as the plights of 

the people during the Abacha regime. As the stories intertwine, 

the brothers meet one of the presidential candidates, M.K.O. 

Abiola, when he comes to Akure on a campaign tour and he gifts 

them a calendar which they cherish so much. It is their hope that 

“if he becomes the president after the election, we’d be able to 

always brag that we’ve met the president of Nigeria!” (The 

Fishermen 73), and “when M.K.O. becomes president, we could 



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go to Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of government, and we would be let 

in by just showing the calendar” (The Fishermen 80). It is, 

therefore, a devastating situation when Ikenna, during his period 

of metamorphosis, tears the calendar to pieces. As Helon Habila 

puts it in his review of the novel, The Fishermen embodies “a 

metaphorical allusion to the struggles of Nigeria’s failed 

leaders… an elegy to lost promise, to a golden age squandered”. 

Nigeria, indeed, “has been less than fortunate in its leadership” 

(Achebe 11). 

With the use of sociological approach to literary criticism, the 

relationship between the writer and the society is explored. A 

critic explores the circumstances of the social and cultural period 

in which the writer lives and the relation of a literary work to the 

audience toward which the work is addressed. Ogene puts it that 

“the basis for this approach to literature is the conviction  that art 

is not created in a vacuum: it is a work not simply of a person, 

but as an author fixed in time and space answering to a 

community of which he is an important member” (33). The 

writer’s environment helps to explain social attitudes and 

opinions that appear in a literary work. Literature, therefore, 

becomes a product of time, place, culture, and an individual, and 

therefore, capable of affecting, and perhaps changing the society 

into which they are introduced.  

Sociological approach is considered appropriate for this study 

because the novel under study deals with a family, the smallest 

unit of the society, alongside Nigeria leadership of the 1990s 

where the political, economic and culture milieu are woven. 

Failed Leadership as Portrayed in The Fishermen 

Nigerian leaders, at the time in which this novel is set – 

President Ibrahim Babangida and General Sani Abacha – have 

been acknowledged as authors of pain on the Nigeria populace. 



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The Babangida administration, according to Olayiwola, 

“promulgated many decrees to curb political communication and 

gag the press. Despite the administration’s euphoria and 

attempts to wear a human face, journalists were imprisoned, 

newspapers/magazines were proscribed, university teachers were 

sacked, social critics were arrested and jailed, students were 

massacred and a press council was established” (The Fishermen 

38). The reasons made the masses eagerly await the transition 

from military rule to the civilian, but eventually, the 1993 

election was cancelled. It was, indeed, a coup against the 

Nigerian people. 

The Abacha regime, on the same hand, let loose of terror on the 

nation. Abati, in his article “June 12 and MKO Abiola” asserts 

that during the Abacha-led government, media houses were 

attacked, journalists were jailed, bombed, beaten, civil society 

activists were hauled to detention, and when, on June 11, 1994, 

Chief M.K.O Abiola the undeclared winner of the 1993 

presidential election, requested that his mandate be duly 

recognized, he was arrested for treasonable felony and 

eventually died in detention on 7th July 1998. 

Obioma, in TheFishermen, recreates the disappointment by the 

leaders using a first person point of view. Just as Yakubu puts it, 

“African writers are social crusaders. They have used their 

literary works to express their concern over bad governance in 

their various societies” (77). The failure in leadership is 

metaphorically portrayed in The Fishermen through the 

character of Mr. Eme James Agwu whose departure from his 

home tears his family apart. When the story commences, the 

reader grasps the fact that he has been transferred to a branch of  

Central Bank of Nigeria situated Yola - “a town in the north that 

was a camel distance of more than one thousand kilometers 

away” (9). This becomes a big blow to his wife and children. His 



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sons -Ikenna, Boja, Obembe and Ben - begin to live a life coated 

with freedom. The eldest of the brothers, Ikenna, a fifteen - year 

old boy, becomes the head of the house and he, at a point, 

becomes so defiant to his mother’s instructions. The narrator, 

Ben keeps emphasizing the effect of their father’s absence on the 

family. That home of his which he rules with great strength and 

unity becomes vulnerable due to his absence. His sons who he 

has wished to become great men - pilot, lawyer, doctor and 

professor - decide to take up fishing without their parents’ 

knowledge. Fishing in a dreadful Omi-Ala River shows the 

boys’ level of vulnerability as their encounter with Abulu the 

madman and his prophesy that Ikenna will be killed by one of 

his brothers set the plot of the novel in full motion. 

Eme’s initial intervention when he becomes aware of his sons’ 

adventure at the Omi-Ala River would have nipped the problem 

in the bud because his presence around his house, and his 

principle of Guerdon - “a word with which he emphasized a 

warning or highlighted the retribution for a wrong act” (The 

Fishermen 11) – keep the boys’ behaviour in check. In his 

absence, Ikenna enveloped by fear due to Abulu’s prophesy, not 

only talks back at their mother, but also isolates himself, skips 

breakfasts to avoid going to school with his brother Boja, and 

skips lunches and dinners when they are meals that are eaten 

together from the same bowl as his brothers. He, as a result of 

these, begins to emaciate and his sclera – the whites of his eyes 

turns pale yellow; he actually becomes sick. It is only a threat of 

contacting his father about his health condition that forced 

Ikenna to seek medical attention. It is only when the damage has 

been done; when his two sons have lost their lives that Eme 

returns home and settles with his family in Akure even as the 

consequences of his absence linger on and his dream of having 

great men as sons becomes shattered. 



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Obioma metaphorically uses this story to expose the failure of 

the Nigerian leaders who are so irresponsive to the plight of the 

masses. Just as Eme’s lack of readiness in reacting to the 

breakdown of his family’s unity and his initial irresponsive 

attitude towards his wife’s emotional breakdown, the condition 

of the masses also received lack of concern from the powers that 

be. The economy of 1990s Nigeria is described by the narrator 

as ‘biting’ (The Fishermen 31). The narrator equally describes 

the conversation which his parents have on his father’s first visit 

from Yola “about the depletion of the naira under the rotten 

polity that is this current administration…  The Central Bank 

was heading for doom. He bemoaned the poor health facilities in 

the country. He swore at Abacha, the dictator, and railed on 

about the marginalization of Igbos in Nigeria. Then be 

complained about the monster the British had created by 

forming Nigeria as a whole” (The Fishermen 34). 

With this, Obioma indicts the British for these problems. 

Ikenna’s blood which flows into some spilt palm oil in Mama’s 

kitchen when he is stabbed by Boja his brother is also likened to 

“the river Niger and Benue whose confluence at Lokoja birthed 

a broken and mucky nation”(The Fishermen 149). The author 

apparently objects to the amalgamation of the Southern and 

Northern protectorates of Nigeria by Sir Fredrick Lugard in 

1914. The depletion of naira, the Central Bank heading for doom 

and the ‘biting’ economy all point towards the state of poverty 

which engulfs the masses. The return of the queues at the petrol 

stations which is attributed to “the nation’s daily output [which] 

has now been cut by fifteen thousand barrels a day” (The 

Fishermen 237) and the “rutted and dilapidated highway “death 

traps” called road” (The Fishermen 296), where people die 

everyday, all depict a failure in leadership. 



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The Portrayal of the Masses’ Response to Failed Leadership 

in Nigeria 

The leaders’ inability to synthesize the nation’s resources so as 

to perform creditably and acceptably and their unscrupulous 

manifestation of their superior strength, and behaving more like 

savage tyrants than partners and friends greatly affects the 

masses who respond to some of these actions in various ways 

such as riots. Obiomarecreates the people’s response at the 

annulment of the 1993 presidential election. Riots broke out in 

some parts of the nation as the situation becomes a tribal issue. 

This situation and many other incidence before it confirms 

Achebe’s assertion that “Nigeria was called “a mere 

geographical expression” not only by the British who had an 

interest in keeping it so, but even by our “nationalists” when it 

suited them to retreat into tribe to check their more successful 

rivals from other parts of the country” (The Fishermen 5). 

Ben, the novel’s narrator tells of his experience during the 

uprising. At this point, his father’s irresponsive attitude is 

buttressed. When the commotion begins while they are at 

school, “I sat there, waiting for the moment when father, like 

other fathers who had come to pick up their children, would 

come. But instead of him, Boja appeared in my classroom’s door 

calling my name… “Daddy isn’t coming, “he said…” (The 

Fishermen 123). He leaves with his brothers and they run for 

safety. Their contact with M.K.O. Abiola gives them great 

concern as they assume that that will give them away as M.K.O. 

supporters and so the enemies’ targets. The narrator captures the 

incidence as a tribal war thus:  

A group of men, armed with clubs and machetes, trooped 

past, casting furtive glances about and chanting, “death 

to Babangida, Abiola must rule”… we crawled behind 

one of the houses and found a van with a dead man in it 



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parkedjust across from the backyard, its front door left 

open. We could tell from the man’s attire – a long, 

flowing Senegalese robe – that he was a northern: the 

main targets of the onslaught by M.K.O. Abiola 

supporters, who’d hijacked the riot as a struggle between 

his west, and the north, where the military president, 

General Babangida, belonged. (The Fishermen 126) 

Consequently, there is a mass exit of the northerners from the 

south and vice versa. Again, the masses, who have seemingly 

lost hope in the government on ground, resort to every means to 

avert suffering. And so, corruption becomes the order of the day. 

Ben, the narrator, puts it that corruption… had eaten the entrails 

of the nation” (The Fishermen 219). This is not only the case of 

a corrupt government but the masses in the public offices who 

apparently receive meagre salaries indulge in the act so as to 

make ends meet. They too become insensitive to one another’s 

plights. The constable whom Mr. Agwu meets at the police 

station obviously demands for some bribe from him before he 

carries out his responsibility not minding that the man before 

him is a father of a missing child. 

Secondly, the narrator’s as well as his brothers’ hope to migrate 

to Canada is as a result of the condition which the family at that 

point is stuck in. The news of their travel to Canada is received 

with utmost joy and portrays the move as a step into a more 

comfortable life. The narrator puts it thus: “Mr. Bayo, father 

continued, had promised to take my brother and me with him to 

Canada. The news exploded over the table like a grenade, 

scattering shrapnel of joy all across the room. Mother shouted 

“Hallelujah!” and, rising from her chair, burst into singing. I, 

too, was elated and my body was suddenly charged with wanton 

joy” (The Fishermen 219). 



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Stylistically, Obioma in The Fishermen exhibits a degree of 

expertise. Having keyed into the style of such writers as Daniel 

Defoe, Charles Dickens, Camara Laye, Ferdinand Oyono, 

Chimamanda Adichie, Tsitsi Dangaremgba and other 

bildungsroman writers, Obioma presents a narrator who “moves 

from innocence through mock-sophistication to wisdom” (Dobie 

409). Just like Laye, the narrator in Camara Laye’s The African 

Child or Kambili in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, the reader meets 

a narrator who presents his story through more than one 

perspective. There is a primary vantage point which is that of the 

young boy but it is, at some points, being modified by the 

viewpoints of a man, reflecting on his childhood. With 

retrospection narration, the narrator gives a recall of events from 

a distance of many years where he looks back on time when he 

was younger. He tells us, “Wherever I think of our story, how 

that morning would mark the last time we’d live together, all of 

us, as the family we’d always been, I begin – even these two 

decades later – to wish he hadn’t left, that he had never received 

that transfer letter” (The Fishermen 12). By this, the reader 

deduces the fact that the story is being recalled after twenty 

years, at a time when the narrator who is nine years old at the 

commencement of the events has become an adult. 

The choice of a first-person point of view in this novel is a great 

move in engaging the reader’s emotional sympathy completely. 

It is also a means through which the author is able to tell the 

story of the Agwu family alongside that of 1990’s Nigeria. The 

narrator’s relay of his father’s absence from the house and his 

irresponsiveness as well as their consequences aptly captures the 

actions and inactions of the government and their effects on the 

Nigerian masses. A family which has ample resources and 

intelligent and brave children crashes due to father’s failure in 



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his expected responsibilities just as it is with Nigeria with all the 

mineral resources. 

The use of metaphoric expressions in the novel is quite 

captivating. The titles of almost all the chapters are used 

metaphorically. Mr. Agwu who is the father in this novel is 

described as an eagle – “a mighty bird that planted his nest high 

above the rest of his peers, hovering and watching over his 

young eagles, the way a king guards his throne” (The Fishermen 

31). The author, in this comparison, shows the ambition, 

strength and responsibilities of a leader. The narrator, in making 

this comparison, emphasizes that their “home would not have 

become vulnerable in the first place, and that the kind of 

adversity that befell us would not have happened” (The 

Fishermen 31). Ikenna, the first of the brothers is said to be “a 

python: A wild snake that became a monstrous serpent living on 

trees, on plains above other snakes” (The Fishermen 47). This 

description portrays Ikenna as dangerous and this transformation 

into a monstrous being remains as a result of his father’s absence 

from home which gives him and his brothers the freedom of 

fishing at Omi-Ala River where they encounter Abulu the 

madman who gives a prophesy that he will be killed by one of 

his brothers. Mother’s inability to checkmate her sons’ 

behaviour even when she attempts to bring the situation under 

control is compared to that of a falconer. Boja, the second of the 

brothers is compared to a fungus that “hides in the body of an 

ignorant host” (The Fishermen 161) when his body remains in 

the well where he drowns himself after stabbing and killing his 

elder brother. Hatred is likened to a leech while hope is 

metaphorically compared with “a tadpole : The thing you caught 

and brought home with you in a can, but which, despite being 

kept in the right water, soon died” (The Fishermen 245). This 

metaphoric expression aptly captures the situation in which the 



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narrator and indeed every member of his family finds 

themselves – and, by extension, the Nigerian masses’ fate too. 

The narrator sees himself as a moth after the death of his 

brothers who since his life have been his best companion; and 

his younger siblings as egrets who remain unscathed in the midst 

of storm. 

Symbolically, there are other incidences that point to the dashed 

hope of the Nigerian masses as a result of failed leadership. The 

narrator tells of “father’s treasured portrait” which is shattered 

into pieces when Ikenna kicks his sister’s plastic chair and it 

plunged into the shelf on which the glass - covered portrait is. 

Another symbolic incidence is the darkness which, the narrator 

observes, has descended heavily around them as Abulu, the 

madman sings on after prophesing about Ikenna’s death. “Even 

the Nigerian flag that hovered over the police station two 

hundred metres away had darkened” (The Fishermen 91). This 

obviously does not signify positivity. It suggests doom and this 

is what the masses are yet to grapple with. Ikenna’s passport 

which his brother tears and throws into a well and the drowning 

of Boja in that same well, the boys’ desire and plan to leave the 

country for Canada which is stalled by their killing of Abulu and 

the eventual disappearance of Obembe and imprisonment of 

Ben, the narrator, all symbolize the fact that Nigerian masses are 

mired in failed leadership. Obioma’s use of simple language is 

probably intentional as that enables him to get his message 

across to his audience. As Ogwude puts it, “the question of 

language use is of primary importance to every committed writer 

since he or she aims first and foremost to achieve a wide and 

relevance readership” (The Fishermen 74). 

Conclusion   

Nigeria, as a nation, has been so unfortunate when it comes to 

leadership as an aspect of human existence and literary artists 



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have continued to use their works to portray the various ways 

where the government of the nation has failed the masses. This 

is what Chigozie Obioma has done in The Fishermen, where the 

irresponsive attitude of a father as well as that of our leaders mar 

the hope and future of those they are meant to serve and protect. 

This recreation of history is meant to serve as a redirection to the 

present leaders who will redirect their steps towards working for 

the development of the country. 

Works Cited 
Abati, Reuben. “June 12 and M.K.O. Abiola”. 11 June 2016 

>pmnewsnigeria.com/2016/06/11/June-12-and-mko-

abiola-by-reuben-abati>. Accessed 20th October, 2019. 

Achebe, Chinua. The Trouble with Nigeria. Heinemann, 1983. 

Amodu, Eneojoh J. “Literature as a Mirror of Society: A 

Literary Analysis of Mohammed  Idris’ A Mystical 

Ring”. AJELLSAwka Journal of English Language and 

Literary studies, vol. 4, no.1, 2013, pp. 122-136. 

Dobie, Ann B. “Early Stream- of- Consciousness Writing: Great 

Expectation”. Nineteenth  Century Fiction vol. 25, 

no. 4, 1971, pp.405-416. 

JSTOR<http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 2933119> Accessed 

21st October, 2019. 

Ezeigbo, T. Akachi. Facts and Fiction in the Literature of the 

Nigerian Civil War. University Press, 2019. 

Habila, Helon. “The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma Review”. 

The Guardian 13 March 2015https://www.the guardian. 

com/books2015/mar/13th-fishermen-chigozie-obioma-

review. Accessed 20th October, 2019.  

http://www.jstor.org/stable/%202933119


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Masciulli, Joseph, Mikhail A. Molchanov, and W.Andy Knight. 

“Political Leadership in Context”. Ashgate Research 

Companion.2009 researchgate. Net/publicastion/ 

237607547-Political-Leadership-in-Context. Accessed 

20th October,  2019. 

Obioma, Chigozie. The Fishermen. Cassava Republic, 2015. 

Ogbeidi, Michael M. “Political Leadership and Corruption in 

Nigeria since 1960: A Socio- economic analysis”. 

Journal of Nigeria Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2012, pp.1 – 24. 

Ogene, Mbanefo. Literary Appreciation: Theory and Practice, 

with Creative Writing andTextual Critcism. Nolix 

Educational, 2010. 

Ogwude, Sophie Obiajulu. “Political and Human Rights in Non-

Fiction Prison Literature”. War in African Literature 

Today 26, edited by Ernest N. Emenyonu. HBEN 

Publishers,  2008, pp. 71-86 

Olayiwola, Rahman Olalekan. “Political Communications: Press 

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