The Dialectics of Elitist Leadership in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People and Ayi Kwei
Armah’s The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born

Ngozi Dora Ulogu. & Chika Okpalike

Abstract

Leadership as a human endeavour and its impact on the people presents issues and disputations
because certain leadership patterns are objectionable and antithetical to the common expectations
of the people. These usually manifest in forms of tyrannical and autocratic leadership, bribery
and corruption, selfishness and general abuse of power by the leadership. Elitist leadership is
usually political, in which case the people more often entrust power on a few assumed would-be
influential individuals. These personalities present to be good leaders but incidentally on
embracing the privileges of office thwart the initial good agenda and mission. The African
continent contends with such issues of bad leadership and failed expectation of dividends.
Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah in their respective texts, A Man of the People and The
Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born present perceived elitist leaders who ordinarily started well as
individual members of their societies but shortly pursued personal goals. Using a philosophical
method of argument on the trajectory of Hegelian principle of Dialectics; the thesis, antithesis,
and synthesis, this paper makes a literary analysis of the incidents and patterns of leadership in
the two mentioned texts. Specifically, the paper investigates the chameleonic pattern in
personality of the leaders and consequent failure of leadership, and sues for effectual leadership
for the common good and for humanity.

Keywords: Dialectics, Leadership, Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, Elitist Theory.

Introduction

Leadership in countries in Africa has presented the picture of an enterprise fraught with problems
that most times culminate in bad, selfish, corrupt and undemocratic dividends. Countries like
Nigeria and Ghana have over the years after their independence recorded unprecedented bad and
ineffective tracks of leaders who were entrusted with the power of leadership by the people. This
is in spite of the fact that such leaders are perceived to be elites who have through learning, effort,
and assumed leadership qualities are seen as the best among others and are therefore elected on
trust. Political power is usually concentrated in the hands of these few elites as seen in most
political parties with the hope and expectation of fair representation of the majority that elected
them into power. However, this expectation has usually not been met due to the abuse of office
and privileges by the so called elites and trusted leaders who betray that trust and rather choose



to divert attention from the people to themselves. This situation births a nation enmeshed in
poverty, bribery and corruption, autocracy and leadership crises. Alluding to the leadership
challenge in African countries, Afegbua, et al, state that “most constituted governments in Africa
have been undergoing serious and deepening politico-economic crisis. These problems generated
by political, social and economic instability and the prevalence of ethnic, communal and
religious crisis, which have bedeviled Africa, call our attention to the problems of leadership and
governance in the content” (141). Countries in Africa experience conflicts in leadership caused
by a multiplicity of issues including, the trusting to a fault of the elites and the constituting of
power by inefficient minority. Evidences abound that show that the bulk of the political
leadership in these two countries, Nigeria and Ghana, are in the hands of elites, who are a
minority, especially those with political affiliations.

Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah are two African novelists who represent in their texts the
elitist political leaders who on ascendancy to power thwart the people’s expectations and become
larger than life through dictatorship and self-aggrandizement. Incidents in Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart show Chief Nanga, a former school teacher and headmaster, who gains a political seat by
mere opportunity and shortly afterwards becomes enmeshed in political power and money to the
detriment of the common people. Similarly, the Beautiful Ones are not yet Born represents
events under Nkrumah’s political party, the P.O.P. The Minister, Koomson on whom friends and
relations reposed so much hope gets their hopes dashed in the height of his own selfishness. In
one of these two scenarios, Achebe captures issues in governance in the wider society while
Armah expresses individual, family and friends disillusionment and disappointment with their
own who are in positions of power and authority.

Scholars and critics have widely explored burning issues of leadership failure, corruption and
bribery, cultural heritage and others in the two texts. For example, dwelling on the magnitude of
corruption in the text, John Chukwuma Ajakah in the essay “The Corruption Quagmire in
Armah’s the Beautiful Ones are not yet Born” makes a satirical attack on the level of corruption
in African countries, using situations in Ghana. Hence in this essay, Ajakah exposes corruption
in the text as a common issue in Africa using Ghana as a typical example of African State
reeking of with corruption. He observes that Armah reveals moral depravity in every stratum of
society, using vivid descriptive images suggestive of stench and repugnancy. He further asserts
that “corruption is the bane of a typical African society by dwelling on the politicians who usurp
the power vested in them to pursue their pecuniary interests and bemoans the complicity of the
public in the economic carnage and moral depravity saying that virtually everyone directly or
indirectly aids and abets corruption” (John Chukwuma Ajakah Online). The problem of
corruption is usually manifest at the highest echelon of the political leadership. However,
everyone is deemed culpable in the corruption saga in the African system and it needs collective
effort of all to combat it.

Marvis Thokozile Macheka in the essay “Post-Colonial African Leadership: A Study of Ayi
Kwei Armah’s The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born and Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People



centers on the shift from democratic leadership to autocratic type of governance using textual
analysis. The paper observes the poor socio-economic situation of an independent African
society and notes that “the leaders abuse their posts to enrich themselves at the nation’s
expenses’’ (14). The writer highlighted the continuity of colonialism after independence as
occasioned by bad government as he further observes that “mostly the blame lies on endogenous
factors such as corruption, nepotism, manipulation of media, mass apathy, politics of lies,
demonization of democratic values, politics of deception and self-aggrandizement, ethnicisation
of political and naturalization of election violence which in a sense, is not a fulfillment of
expectations but, nightmare, an illusion that generated a false sense of survival” (15). The
problem of bad leadership is therefore no longer with the colonial masters but has become an in-
house and internal malady with corrupt leaders who act against their very own.

Similarly Aderinto S. I. Abiodun highlighted the issue of corruption in Ghana in the paper “The
Socio-Economic and Political Implications of the Various Episodes of Ayi Kwei Armah’s Novel
The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born” as “exposing the destructive tendencies of the misuse of
political power on the economy of most African countries” (23). It is unmistakable that most of
the issues already raised around The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born, are shades of corruption in
governance and leadership. Whereas Kabiu Ahmed in “A Man of the People and the Deferral of
Nation-Building” argues that usually both the leadership and the seeming opposition constitute
an obstacle to nation-building, using the two key contenders in the text, Chief Nanga and Odili,
he asserts that “the novel dramatizes the conscious and unconscious aspects of political motive
within contending characters, Odili Samalu and Chief Nanga in their struggle for supremacy in a
newly independent African country” (171). Incidents in the narratives indicate that in the long
run, both individuals seem to play their personal scripts as both become ambitious and desire to
better their lot rather than that of the country.

Away from the issues on characters, Saleh Ahmad Neimneh and Amneh Khahael Hussein in the
essay “Intellectuals, Politicians, and the Public in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People: A
Postcolonial Critique” argue that independence is supposed to be a glorious period in the history
of a nation, but it is presented in the novel as very gloomy. They observe that “A Man of the
People symbolizes the rift between the native intellectuals and the politicians in a politically
turbulent Nigeria and in the absence of an engaged public this national leadership in Fanonian
logic is neither fully prepared for nor seriously engaged in issues of nationhood” (19). These and
other works on the two texts under review have left a gap that will be filled by this particular
paper. And so, using Elite theory of power and Hegelian philosophical argument of Dialectics,
based on the three-pronged premise of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the paper ascertains the
fact that the majority usually entrust power on the elite minority consciously in expectation of
good dividends. Specifically the paper establishes the antithetical outcome of the expectations of
the people as failure through the interactions and events in the texts. Based on these
contradictions in the anticipation and eventual outcome, the paper draws from the fact of the



need for the majority to choose leaders based on antecedents of merit and efficiency rather than
on political loyalty and association.

Theoretical Analysis

The thrust of this paper is the sociological and political framework of Elite theory of power and
leadership with specific impetus from Hegelian Dialectic on its triadic prong of Thesis,
Antithesis, and Synthesis. These modes of philosophical argument examine power relationship
between the leaders and the lead where leadership is viewed as a process, and an intentional
influence rather than a position of power. A better understanding of such intentional influence is
captured by the Elite theory of Power propagated by pioneer social scientists, Vilfredo Pareto
(1848-1923) and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941). They popularized the concept of Elite “as a class
of people who have the highest indices in their branch of activity” (Puja Mondal). These indices
may include resourcefulness, influence or political alignment. The Elite is also described based
on the notion that “every society holds a ruling minority, a group that controls and disputes the
most important power sources” (Mathias Lopez). These usually are a class of politicians and
privileged personalities or individuals.

Gaetano Mosca, an Italian jurist and political theorist expounded the familiar thesis that “all
human societies were always and everywhere ruled by a controlling social class and thus these
are always divided between rulers and ruled. He believed that whatever the form of government,
power would be in the hands of a minority who formed the ruling class” (Puja Mondal Online).
This establishes the fact of a class of ruling minority. Hence, Mosca created a “society where
men will necessarily struggle for preeminence with each other, and that this competition for…
control of the means and instruments that enable a person to direct many human activities …”
(Raymond Barkley 97). This struggle is about power and authority over the affairs of the state
and over the people. To give credence to this idea of power struggle, Aregbesola Oluwasegun
posits:

Elite theory in political science and sociology is a theory of the state which seeks to describe and
explain the power relationships in contemporary society. The theory posits that a small minority
consisting of members of the political, economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the
most power and that the power is independent of a state’s democratic electoral process through
positions in corporations or on corporate boards, and positions with think-tanks or policy-
discussion groups. (Online).

The fact arises therefore that a group of individuals emerge as political leaders holding power by
occupying prominent positions. Such groups form a minority in society and the majority is
excluded from political decision-making. This exclusion and intimidation of the majority in the
affairs concerning them present serious problems in political leadership. This scenario is well
presented in the narratives of Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah depicting such influences



and powers by the elite minority. Worried about preponderance of failures of leadership by the
elites, “Vilfredo Pareto theorized that over time a distinct psycho-social propensity-manifested
by personality traits, mentalities, beliefs and actions become predominant in governing elites.
These render them, especially their leaders, prone to bias, closure, rigidity and cumulating
blunders” (John Higley and Jan Pakulski 2). The elites while reliving and leveraging on the
privileges of office in no time begin to derail from the set objectives of collective interest and get
stuck in self-aggrandizement and personal interests.

Dwelling on the standpoint of Hegelian Dialectic in understanding the scenario, the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines Dialectic as “a method of philosophical argument that
involves some sort of contradictory process between opposing sides” (Online). Further
elucidation of the concept of Hegelian Dialectic in Philosophy: History and Problems as a
method posits that:

Hegel’s dialectic process exhibits a triadic movement. Usually this triadic structure of the
dialectic process is described as a movement from thesis to antithesis and finally to synthesis,
after which the synthesis becomes a new thesis, and this process continues until it ends in the
Absolute Idea. What Hegel emphazied in his dialectic logic was that thought moves and that
contradiction, rather than bringing knowledge to a halt, acts as a positive moving force in human
reasoning.(Stumpf 329).

Hegel emphasizes a movement of thought or argument in arriving at a better acceptable position.
Hence, the arguments in the narratives fit perfectly to highlight the ills of bad elitist leaderships
and sustain the dialogue so as to arrive at a shift in the process. Hegel calls the dialectic method,
the triad of “Being”, “Nothing”, and “Becoming” (Stumpf 239). The thesis postulates that “The
most general concept we can form about things is that they are” (330). Hence, the thesis of this
paper, the “Being”, is the fact of elitist political leadership in Nigeria and Ghana, and other
African countries. Here, “the antithesis is contained in the thesis, Being” (331) whereby the fact
of non-delivery of the expected leadership dividend is taken from the fact that the polity is rife
with a select imprudent minority leaders. The argument further posits that the concept of
“Becoming” is the unity of “Being” and “Nothing” … It is one idea. Becoming is therefore the
synthesis of Being and Nothing” (331). The argument of “Nothing” and “Becoming” taken from
the texts of the discussion posit that there is failed political leadership in the African continent
with the proposition for a better self- willed individuals that have the common interest of the
people. Hence, “at each step, Hegel sets forth a thesis from which is deduced its antithesis, this
thesis and antithesis then find their unity in a higher synthesis. In the end, Hegel arrives at the
concept of the “Absolute idea”, which he describes in accordance with the dialectic method, as
Becoming, as a process of self-development” (Stumpf 331). These arguments are set to underlie
the process of ascension to good democratic, inclusionary and consultative kind of leadership to
bad, corrupt and selfish political elitist leadership taking instances from the texts of Chinua
Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah. The synthesis will suggest plans for a better democratic and
visionary leadership on the continent of Africa.



Textual Analysis of Antithetical Dialectics of Elitist Leadership

The texts under study present problematic leadership style manifesting shifts from hope and trust
to hopelessness and disillusionment. This is because most leadership patterns are objectionable
and antithetical against the expectations of the people. The antithesis or otherwise, the
disputation and the contrast of ideas and events in the narratives placed side by side identifies a
twist of movement and process from assumed form of leadership to eventual political leadership.
The elitist leaders are expected by the people to respect these codes of contract, but the process
of leadership changes in the course of leveraging the privileges of office. These mutations from
the goals and motives of leadership for the general good to individual undemocratic reliving of
self-aggrandizement and eventual disappointment of the masses are presented in A Man of the
People and The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born.

Chief Nanga, the teacher turned Minister first appears to the people as a conscientious leader, he
is called a man of the people due to his initial personality as a politician. He gained the trust of
the masses such that, “no one can deny that the Honourable M. A. Nanga M. P. was the most
approachable politician in the country. Whether you asked in the city or in his home village,
Anata, they would tell you he was a man of the people” (A Man of the People 1). So with this
level of trust and accolade from the people, Chief Nanga begins the journey to political
leadership. Prior to this, Chief Nanga had a good reputation as a teacher. This antecedent is
revealed by one of his pupils, Odili, who narrates thus:

Sixteen years or so ago he has been my teacher in standard three and something like his
favourite pupil. I remember him then as a popular, young and handsome teacher, most
impressive in his uniform as scoutmaster. There was on one of the walls of the school a
painting of a faultlessly handsome scout master wearing an impeccable uniform. I am not
sure that the art teacher who painted the picture had Mr. Nanga in mind. There was no
facial resemblance; still we called it the picture of Mr. Nanga. It was enough that they
were both handsome and that they were both impressive scoutmasters. (A Man of the
People 2-3).

As an impressive scoutmaster, Mr. Nanga possessed fine traits including, integrity as enshrined
in the scouting motto and slogan “to be prepared always”. Mr. Nanga as a school teacher
providing educational leadership presented good and people oriented leadership. To also affirm
his famed humility, Chief Nanga while exchanging pleasantries with the teachers assured them
of his resolve to take care of the teachers saying, “I am not as happy as when I was a teacher” …
I use to regret it. Teaching is a very noble profession … You can rest assured that those of us in
the Cabinet who were once teachers are in full sympathy with you” (A Man of the People 10).
This speech from Chief Nanga as a newly elected Minister is simply but a revelation of the spirit
of inclusion expected of good leadership.



Koomson in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born did not have any known
prominent status before he ventured into politics. The least antecedent he had as revealed by the
Man was that “Koomson was my classmate. He was not very intelligent, he was actually stupid”
(The Beautiful Ones are not yet Born 59). Even without any known intellectual prowess or
educational experience, Koomson was able to command acceptance from the people. He simply
enjoys the admiration and trust of the people who rely on him for their livelihood and financial
empowerment. Thus, Oyo and her mother do not stop at reasoning but only believe that “Brother
Joe”, “His Excellency Joseph Koomson, Minister Plenipotentiary, Member of the Presidential
Commission, Hero of Socialist Labour … something about a boat. The way Oyo’s mother tells it,
he is just going to buy a lot of fishing boats and give them to her” (56-57). The Man who is
surprised at the popularity Koomson is already gaining among his people expresses his surprise
that “I didn’t know Koomson had enough money to buy even one boat. Those things cost
thousands … I had taken a piece of paper to calculate Koomson’s total salary since he joined the
party. Now I dropped the paper and said, “oh I see … I have seen corruption and public theft”
(58). This ostentation and flagrant thrust of political power and wealth newly acquired plunges
the politician into the antithesis of the real or actual expected leadership.

Odili describes as “primitive loyalty” what he discovers to be Chief Nanga’s change of status,
being now a politician by the flamboyant convoy and extensive show of jubilation by the mass of
people who trooped out to welcome the Minister on his visit to Anata. He remarks:

As soon as the Minister’s Cadillac arrived at the head of a long motorcade the hunters
dashed this way and that and left off their last shots, throwing their guns about with
frightening freedom. The dancers capered and stamped filling the dry season air with dust.
Not even Grammar Phone’s voice could be heard over the tumult. The Minister stepped
out bearing damask and gold chains and acknowledging cheers. (Achebe 8).

The ordinary people go out of their way to organize a resounding welcome ceremony using their
meager resources in anticipation of rewarding dividends. Ironically, the poor masses impoverish
themselves more.

A similar scenario plays out as the family of the Man anticipates and prepares the reception of
Koomson in their house. The man and his wife in spite of their level of poverty are happy
spending a lot of money making expensive shopping and preparing food so as to impress on the
Honourable Minister who plans to visit them, a situation captioned thus:

The day before, going into the shops with his new money in his pocket, he had had the
uncontrollable feeling somewhere in the back of his mind that the expensive things he
was buying would deepen the agony of his next Passion Week. When he had asked for all
that white man’s food, the beautiful long rice in the packet with thousands of miles from
rich people’s countries, and the New Zealand butter, he had known it was stupid to be
feeling so good just because he was buying these things he could not in the end afford,



yet he could not help the smile that came to his lips and spread this feeling of well-being
over all his body. (Armah 115)

In both instances, the poor majority are shown to derive joy in adding to their suffering to please
the so called elitist leaders all in the expectation of being rewarded for their effort. This action
receives confirmation by Gaetano Mosca and Max Weber’s postulation in Elite Theory that
“emphasizes the ways in which tiny minorities out-organize and outwit large majorities adding
that “political classes” Mosca’s term for political elites usually have certain material, intellectual,
or even moral superiority over those they govern” (John Higley Online). This superiority
mentality is the result of inferiority complex and submissiveness of the majority who over-reach
themselves to endorse the presumed leaders, hence, Odili’s notion of “primitive loyalty’’.

Hegel’s Dialectics presents the contradiction in the process of attaining leadership status and the
actual delivery of the mandate. Thus, Chief Nanga the teacher-assumed Minister and Chief
Koomson the nonentity and member of Presidential Commission present the contradiction of
expected and failed leadership as political leaders. Chief Nanga relishing the juicy election and
appointment as Minister becomes the opposite of the apathetic teacher and minister he had
presented in the beginning. He desires money and power over every other need and fails to
provide the needed leadership for the people. He intimidates the people using his political
powers and callously withdraws his help from the Urua people for merely having their son Odili
as his political opponent. Odili has refused Chief Nanga’s offer of money and scholarship in
order to withdraw from pursuing his political ambition. Nanga plots a punitive action against
Odili for insisting on contesting the election. He ensures a development of “anonymously
removing” Samalu Hezekiah his father as chairman of P.O.P from office for subversive, anti-
party activities” (A Man of the People 148) and accusing him of tax evasion. This is intended to
intimidate Odili and his father. Chief Nanga goes on to the consternation of the villagers, to
molest the villagers too when “seven public works lorries arrived in the village and began to cart
away the pipes they had deposited several months earlier for projected Rural Water Scheme”
(149). This singular act of swooping on the people and reneging on the promises made to them is
the very antithesis of the expectations of elitist leadership. Bernard Dickson captures and
condemns this scenario noting that “Chief Nanga employs coercion and intimidation to make the
Urua community to renege on their promise to vote their son, Odili instead of Chief Nanga”
(UUJEL 238). This among several incidents and behaviours of the leadership impinge on the
very soul of the people, causing disappointment and disillusionment.

Such disappointments are revealed on the individual and family levels of relationships. They
depict the insensitivity of the leaders to the people’s plight and echo their lust for power and
money. Koomson, after all the promises to provide fishing boats for Oyo and her mother reneges
on the ground that spending thousands of pounds for a boat is expensive and may attract peoples’
condemnation. He mutters: “there is a lot of money to be made in it, but start something, and
fools will start shouting slogans at you” (The Beautiful Ones 136). All these are mere deceit as
Koomson and his wife Estella spend even much more for their comfort. This is quite in contrast



of a man whose house arouses in the poor the desire to admire the beauty as exclaimed by Oyo
that “there were things here for a human being to spend a lifetime desiring … Things of intricate
and obviously expensive design.…” (144).With these expansive comforts, Koomson and his wife
denied Oyo and her mother what could have been their life changing opportunity Their
disappointment is obvious although “even the old woman seemed gradually to have resigned
herself to the knowledge that what Koomson had come offering her was not the rainbow that
would forever end the darkness of her life and her daughter’s life” (152). Even after Koomson
deceitfully framed allocation of a boat to Oyo, the boat is seen to be dysfunctional. It was
observable that “what happened was that from time to time Koomson would remember the ones
who were supposed to be for the eyes and ears of the prying world, the owners of his boat, and
send one of his drivers with some fish for Oyo’s mother or for Oyo herself” (152). The meanness
of the politicians is unmistakable in Koomson who cannot extend kindness freely to the people
but rather glories in rationing or apportioning small inconsistent portions to the people but would
go all the way to satisfy their personal wants. That is why Koomson and his wife Estella can
afford “foreign exchange for the sister in London who has fallen in love with a Jaguar, and who
is going to kill herself if she can’t have it” (149). This shows a typical self-focused African
leader who is enmeshed in favouritism. Against a situation as this, Aderinto S. I. Abiodun
observes that the “character of Koomson in the novel depicts the way African politicians siphon
public funds to enrich themselves at the expense of the ordinary people” (23). But this
insensitivity to the plight of the common people forms the bedrock of the leaders’ nemesis.

The narratives confirm the fact that political elites appropriate to themselves the common
treasury for their selfish ends. The continued oppression and exploitation of the people build up
resentment. The discontentment was so strong that “everyone after the coup began to shake their
heads at the excesses of the last regime, at its graft, oppression and corrupt government”
(Achebe166). Such feelings of spite and relief come about as these mindless and autocratic
leaders are overthrown. For example, the people made a caricature of them and expressed joy
and support of the army. Similar expression pervaded Ghana as Nkrumah was toppled in a coup.
The people expressed “their loyalty to the new men of power singing old songs with the words
changed from the old praise for Nkrumah to insults for him” (158). Both Chief Nanga and
Koomson exited offices in a coup d’tat in most humiliating manners, to the excitement of the
masses, “for Chief Nanga himself was arrested trying to escape by canoe dressed like a
fisherman” (Achebe 165). The news of the coup in The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born mocks
political leaders and big party men who are being arrested and “placed in something called
protective custody - already a new name for old imprisonment without trial” (157). It is evident
that most elitist political leaders end up badly as they are usually caught up in the web of their
greed. It is a precarious situation as it seems commonplace that the politicians show their true
selves as soon as in power, in a vicious cycle. This by extension is a continuation of the Africa’s
way of life since not even the coups have solved the problem of corrupt leadership.

Conclusion



Leadership as a process recycles and does not leave a space, as it establishes constant fear of the
people on the recycling of a minority power-thirsty leaders. The thesis of the dialectics is that
elitist leaderships are resourced, able, and capable of quality leadership. While the antithesis
proves that such leaders turn the fortunes of the state against the masses as soon as they ascend
positions of leadership. The synthesis advocates that leaders should be schooled in the art of
leadership through self-study, education, training and experience. It is like saying that elites,
especially political elites who get into leadership as party loyalists or by political party alliance
are not likely to make good leaders. This paper therefore, posits that the problem of corrupt and
failed political leadership can get better when the citizenry collectively participate in the election
process, and when eligible electorates begin to endorse individuals with manifest common
interest, desire and will-power, rather than endorsement on the basis of influence and party
loyalty as it has been the case in the African political space.



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