Metaphorical import of Achebe’s ‘Savannah Anthills’

Africa and African people; the anthills, therefore, can withstand the forces of the Sun, epitomised by Sam, his Cabinet and colonial backers. The barren landscape that faces the post-colonial nation state has its roots in colonialism, which is responsible for the dialectical tensions that are now at the core of an elite leadership that gobbles the “national cake” (Achebe, 1966).

“THE trouble with Nigeria is simply a failure of leadership . . . The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership,” intimates Chinua Achebe in a 1987 seminal paper titled “The Trouble with Nigeria”.

Achebe, therefore, appeals to Nigeria to be exemplary in leading the African’s dream to a world where “right” leadership decides the future of the continent.

Achebe’s appeal, as depicted in “Anthills of the Savannah” (1987), does not suggest that this enterprise will be easy and that there are ready intellectuals out there to fill these roles. Rather, it is a difficult undertaking not without false starts, yet Africa must continue on the path towards people-centred leadership, because the alternative, as suggested through coups, is not for the best.

Group interests, while inevitable, should not be the focal point, so Africans must “stop all this nonsense about religion, about tribe and so on (Achebe cited in Ohaeto, 1997:263), or at least temper it with larger societal concerns which are crucial.

This scenario reprises itself in many other African states where the rat race for material gain seems to be the driving force behind political decisions. This breeds animosity, hatred and civil strife, leading to those who feel that they deserve as much from the State and those who feel excluded, resorting to unconstitutional means to gain power.

“Anthills of the Savannah” focuses on the challenges that the fictional West African country of Kangan, which can be read as Nigeria, faces after a coup that deposes the civilian government that has been in power for nine years. The military junta that comes to power, headed by Sam, a former general, does not seem capable of taking the Kangan people to a better place.

The problems of Kangan seem to multiply under Sam’s rule and instances of corruption, selfishness, dictatorship and intolerance increase as power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few. As the situation deteriorates further, Sam is deposed in another coup and the people are once again taken to the beginning of the cycle of hope, which will most likely become despair as the new leadership follows in Sam’s shoes.

Part of the tragedy which seems clear from the start is how the people are hopeful that their situation will improve when the new regime is not a product of their own actions and when they have no presence in these newer institutions. Added to that, the ideological orientation and vision on which the new dispensation hinges is alien to them, and this becomes yet another cue at the birth of the new regime for yet another coup.

Achebe’s vision, however, is that it is possible for African people to fashion their own democratic processes, which take into cognisance the significant role that women and youths play in merging memories of the past and the present, regardless of religion and ethnicity. It is in this light that the anthills of the savannah, which Achebe focuses on in the novel, become crucial as symbols of these hopeful figures, who remain alive and eventually take the initiative to define the African political landscapes.

Like the anthills, no amount of hardships and challenges can destroy the African people grounded in their worldviews, and it is the fortitude that their past gives coupled with that of the environment, which when transposed to the generation Achebe invests hope in, will liberate the continent. From the beginning, therefore, Achebe’s novel is optimistic and looks to an Africa without coups.

It would be interesting, however, to unbundle how the philosopher-writer thinks this is possible, and to evaluate whether the methods he advances are practical and can, indeed, alter the African political landscape.

Part of the inspiration for Achebe’s artistry is traced to the griots like Djeli Mamadou Kouyate in Djibril Tamsir Niane’s “Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali” (1961), who says: “I teach kings the history of their ancestors, so that the lives of the ancients might serve them as an example, for the world is old, but the future springs from the past.”

Because Africa has its own rich past from which it can fashion its present and future, the African artiste should write, “about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out” (Cesaire, 1994: 21) and to use these to foreground the forward thrust. This is especially so because he/she functions as the custodian of the mores and values that inspire societal aspirations, thus, he/she should draw from the traditions that have always shaped his her/her people even in the face of adversity.

An awareness of this past should not be blind to its negatives as well, but look to them as reference points to what should be guarded against. The good and the bad that the continent and its people go through are crucial markers to negotiating the present and mapping the future.

In coining the title “Anthills of the Savannah”, Achebe was conscious of “the political and cultural crisis that marks the transition from the colonial system to a post-colonial situation” (Gandi, 1991: 18). It is this transition, causing complexities in the nation state, which reflects in the contradictions in relations and events portrayed in the novel, as a new breed of leadership comes in.

However, the new leaders imitate the coloniser, whom they replace and purport to be against, thus sowing the same seeds of discontent that they once fought against; making another revolt inevitable (Fanon, 1967). What Achebe also wants to highlight is where the ordinary men and women are in this revolution and whether they play a part, which allows them access to power and the decisions of the new leadership or the people remain on the margins and the power politics at play have nothing to do with them.

The title “Anthills of the Savannah” is coined from a proverb in which Achebe combines the metaphors of drought, degeneration and poverty signified in the Single Eye of God; the Sun, which symbolically stands for the new dispensation epitomised by Sam and his cronies, yet which ironically as well casts them as harbingers, not of growth, life and regeneration, but of death and sorrow.

This is a sun which scuttles hope, for when it comes out, “morning no longer existed”. As is captured in the title, Sam, the Sun and Eye of God, is initially a paragon of hope when he comes to power, almost unwillingly, and ostensibly in response to the people’s call for a new broom after the excesses of the old leadership. Sam is also an embodiment of destruction as the novel explores throughout. So desperate is the situation that Achebe captures it thus: “The trees have become hydra-headed bronze statues so ancient that only blunt residual features remained on their faces, like anthills surviving to tell the new grass of the savannah about last year’s brush fires.”