LUMINA
Vol. 25, No. 1
October 2014
Dictatorship and Alienation in
Sefi Atta’s “Everything Good Will Come”
JULIET TENSHAK
University of Jos, Nigeria
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
It is to literature that ailing national politics out of necessity sometimes
turn to for inspiration and explanation. Nigerian literature, like other
literatures of the world, is therefore, a product of her history and the social
issues which influence it. Sefi Atta’s Everything Good will Come (2006), is a
coming of age (Bildungsroman) novel, which addresses the negotiation of the
contemporary female identity. It is also a novel that expresses a general
disillusionment with post-colonial Nigeria in the manner it explores the effect
of military rule in the Nigerian political and social landscapes.
This paper aims to investigate how Atta explores the concepts of
dictatorship and alienation in her debut novel Everything Good will Come. This
is with a view of exposing how Atta engages with these concepts in her
examination of the Nigerian political terrain during the military era of the
1980s to the 1990s. This paper proceeds on the assumption that Atta, through
her characters, presents a concern with the Nigerian experience of military rule
of the 80s to the 90s and illuminates the discontent of a majority of the
populace with the biting ‘excesses’ of the governments and further
demonstrates how Atta connects the military with the perpetuation of the
political, social and economic crisis experienced at the time.
KEY WORDS:
Military Rule, Dictatorship, Alienation.
INTRODUCTION
Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will Come falls under the rubric of writing
termed third generation Nigerian writing or contemporary Nigerian writing.
This term refers to a textual rather than authorial development which signifies
that this emerging literary trend that is taking shape in and from Nigeria,
presents texts with similar sentiments and goals: An engagement with
diverse forms of cultural hybridization, an increasing trans-national
consciousness and a focus on as well as an articulation of various
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developments in post-colonial Nigeria especially in this era of globalization.
Contemporary Nigerian fiction is [re]presented in a large part through the
genre of the novel, and the issues these writers are grappling with are
informed by their experiences as a generation that grew up after Nigeria’s
independence in 1960, and also as a generation that is a witness to the era of
military rule.
Given the centrality of military rule in the socio-economic and political
history of Nigeria, it is to be expected that its influence will be reflected in
Nigerian literature. Indeed, the military as a subject is a re-occurring theme in
Nigerian literature as evident in the works of generations of writers before this
present one. Writers such as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and their
contemporaries dealt with the tropes of economic mismanagement, abuse of
power and the other legacies of military rule in their earlier works. These
writers found inspiration in the ethnic and religious tensions and the
disparities in the economic and educational developments which became
magnified with the attainment of independence in 1960 and which laid bare the
precarious nature of the Nigerian State. The politicians who took over from the
colonial authorities failed to play the political game according to established
rules and this amongst other factors contributed to a feeling of contempt for the
politicians by the people.
Chinua Achebe aptly captures this show of contempt and the resultant
‘invitation’ of the military by the people into governance in his depiction of
the Nigerian first republic politicians in his novel, A Man of the People
(1967). Achebe in this novel presents an election marred with fraud, violence,
arson and looting and a character Odili who in expressing his displeasure at
the outcome of the elections wished upon the ‘voice of thunder’ to muzzle
the ridiculous festival venerating the politicians (p. 2). The ‘thunder’ eventually
comes in the form of a military coup d’état. In Anthills of the Savanah
(1988) Achebe continues the conversation he started in A Man of the People
and in the process, reviews the messianic perception of soldiers he had
promoted by criticizing their intervention in civil administration. Achebe like
Chukwuemeka Ike in Sunset at Dawn (1976) Festus Iyayi in Heroes (1988),
Frank Uche Mowah in Eating by the Flesh (1995), and Wole Soyinka in
Beatification of Area Boy (1995), in their engagement with soldiers and the
military, draw attention to how the people’s aspirations and hopes in the
military have become shattered in the manner that they expose how these
‘saviors’ have turned around to be oppressors and no better than the civilians
they ousted out of power.
Contemporary Nigerian writing has continued this engagement with the
military as an institution and as a political force in its inscription of it into the
fabric of Nigerian literature. The dominance of the military in the third
generation Nigerian literature, especially in its fiction is a reflection of the
experiences of the writers of this period with the turmoil of military
governance. Indeed, contemporary Nigerian writer Helon Habila (2007)
testifies to this when he says that military dictatorship:
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Dictatorship and Alienation
Supplied some of us with our subject matter, and also while it
lasted, gave us an education in politics that we couldn’t have acquired in
school or anywhere else. We saw pro-democracy activists being killed
or arrested or exiled unfortunate for the victims but great stuff for
writing (p. 55).
Therefore, engaging with the military as is being done by contemporary
Nigerian writers is according to Oyeniyi Okunoye (2011):
To focus on a period that reminds Nigerians of not just
infringements on the rights of individuals and the stagnation of the
country but one that also accounts for such unprecedented
developments in the nation’s annals as the murder of journalists and
politicians and the frustration of Nigeria's aspiration to democracy
(p. 66).
This paper being cognizant of the debates on the military in Nigerian
politics, posits that contemporary Nigerian writing also exposes how the
instruments of coercion and power conferred on the army, gave it a significant
control in the way it became a central factor in Nigeria’s post-colonial politics.
And because of this control, the military has through the years from the first
coup in 1962 until 1999 when the civilians finally took over power, treated
Nigerians as badly as the colonial authorities. Indeed, Julius Ihonvbere (1998)
observes, “some Nigerians actually have come to believe, and with good cause,
that the colonial authorities did not treat Nigerians as badly as the Nigerian
military has done”. He further posits that under military rule like colonial rule,
Nigerians had no say in who the political actors were and, those in power were
not accountable to Nigerians and therefore, freedom in any form was severely
limited giving rise to dictatorship (p. 1).
Indeed, Oyeniyi Okunoye (2011) argues that “the military experience left
the nation’s economy in ruins; frustrated her democratic desires and brought
the Nigerian military into disrepute” (p. 64). Sefi Atta’s Everything Good Will
Come, appropriately captures this period of military rule, and the dictatorial
character of the Nigerian state at the time, and exposes the challenges as
experienced by the people during that era.
DICTATORSHIP
Sefi Atta’s debut novel Everything Good will Come, tells the story of
Enitan in parallel with the story of post-colonial Nigeria. The narration is
told in the first person through the consciousness and eye of a child at the
threshold of puberty. The novel is divided into four sections; 1971, 1975, 1985,
and 1995 each section shows a progression and the different stages of growth
and development of Enitan and of the nation. The narration reveals Enitan’s
unbroken growth pattern from a pre-pubescent child until she comes of age
as a self-conscious and assertive woman. As Enitan’s story unfolds, that of
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Juliet Tenshak
the nation’s socio-political life at different stages also unfolds. Thus, Atta uses
her historical knowledge and experience of post-colonial Nigeria to enlighten
her readers about the happenings in the Nigerian state especially during
military rule.
We are introduced to the military in section 1975 with the announcement
of a military coup and we are confronted with the beginning of crisis in
governance. The leadership style of the military operates on the basis that
‘might is right’, thus military rule comes about by the taking over of power
through a coup. In the Nigerian particular experience of the mid-80s to the
late 90s, the Babangida and Abacha military regimes attempted to regulate
nearly every aspect of the public and sometimes private behavior of the people
and consequently became totalitarian. Therefore, the political terrain as
revealed by Atta is characterized by coups, detentions, unwarranted arrests and
gross inhumanity to people by the military.
By exploring the mode of operation of the military, Atta stirs up our
collective memory of military rule in Nigeria. Enitan tells us that, “there was a
military coup. Our head of state was overthrown” (p. 66), and we are
immediately confronted with the features of military rule; the taking over
control of the government by force, a disregard for the constitution by reorganizing the government and the implementation of policies that are not
beneficial to the people. The military change the constitution because, “they
can do what they want” (p. 77) and because they have no respect for the people.
The people on the other hand are wary of the military and Enitan’s father Sunny
Taiwo expresses the general attitude of the people being wary of the new
military government, and their promise to wage war against indiscipline, when
he posits that, “These military boys don’t care. They step in with one policy or
the other, suspend the constitution, mess up our law with their decrees… detain
people without charge. I’m sure they’re deliberately trying to ruin the country”
(p. 104). Referring to the military as boy, suggests that Sunny Taiwo, like the
character Mother of Prison, sees them as not having, “one ounce of sense in
their heads” (p. 257). Indeed, he goes on further to make the statement that
“These army boys think they can pass us from one hand to the other”, and then
asks the question “how long will this regime last before there’s another”
thereby, expressing the anger and feeling of despair that is prevalent amongst
the people. The announcement of the coup is followed by the imposition of
dusk to dawn curfew and in the days following the coup; we are faced with the
brutality of the military as Enitan tells us:
Along the way, road blocks had been set up, as they always were
after a military coup. Cars slowed as they approached them and
pedestrians moved quietly. A truck load of soldiers drove past,
sounding a siren. The soldiers jeered and lashed at cars with
horsewhips. We pulled over to let them pass. A driver pulled over too
late. Half the soldiers jumped down from the truck and dragged him out
of his car. They started slapping him. The driver’s hands went up to
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Dictatorship and Alienation
plead for mercy. They flogged him with horsewhips and left him there,
whimpering by the door of his car. (p. 68)
One of the critical strengths of a good government is the sense of
responsibility and accountability rulers have in regards to their subjects, and
Enitan in the quotation above reveals a number of negative concerns with
military rule: Firstly, soldiers are not easily restrained by the rule of law as we
notice above whereby the man’s rights to use a public road is ignored and he is
physically molested for being in the ‘way’ of the soldiers. Secondly, the
atmosphere as Enitan describes it is that of terror as the people cow in fear of
military violence and brutality. The picture she paints re-enforces the horrible
and dehumanizing situations that dictatorships can and do create. The
philosopher Karl Marx (1967) advises that people should anticipate painful
transitions or ‘birth pangs’ during the creation of new social orders (p. 8-10),
but the brutalization of the citizens by the military after taking over control of
the government as we see in Everything Good Will Come is not what he is
suggesting.
Dictatorships are traumatic and Atta in the telling of the Nigerian
experience of military rule testifies not only to its horrors but also to a past in
the Nigerian socio-political landscape when she talks about, “floggings for
jumping bus queues, squats for government officials who came late to work,
military tribunals for ex-politicians” (p. 77). According to Laurie Vickroy,
(2002) “Testifying to the past has been an urgent task for many fiction writers
as they attempt to preserve personal and collective memories from
assimilation, repression, or misrepresentation, their work reflects a growing
awareness of the effects of catastrophe and oppression” (p. 1). This ‘growing
awareness’ that is reflected in Atta’s novel presents military rule in Nigeria
during the period of the 80s to the 90s as being oppressive and unstable.
The indiscriminate suspension of the constitution and the generation and
implementation of policies without due regards to the effect of these changes
on the people by military regimes engenders a lot of hardship on the people.
Even though she just glosses over the subject, Atta engages with government's
insensitivity in regards to the effects of its actions on the people, by examining
the effects of policies such as the IMF/World Bank structural adjustment
program implemented by the Babangida regime and continued by the Abacha
regime. The adoption of the IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment reforms in
Nigeria during the mid-1980’s to the mid-1990’s were influenced by economic
considerations, but the conditionality and the dynamics associated with their
implementation made it inevitable that political repression will naturally
follow. Indeed, it is Claude Eke’s (1990) postulation that, “there is no way of
implementing the structural adjustment program without political repression”
(p. 62). Bonny Ibhawoh (1999) also makes the same point when he says that,
“irrespective of IMF/World Bank’s ideals, the reality of adjustment in Africa is
that a certain measure of repression and authoritarian rule is indispensable to
its implementation” (p. 160). One of the conditionalities of the SAP was the
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Juliet Tenshak
devaluation of the currency, and the character Peter Mukoro addresses this
when he talks about the Nigerian currency being devalued, about foreign
exchange currency regulations and the proliferation of black markets
(p. 120/21). Expressing his reservations on the loan, Peter goes on to postulate
that Nigeria as a country would be finished if she took the SAP loan because,
“the naira will be like toilet paper[…] and if we take the IMF loan we can kiss
our independence goodbye” (p. 121).
The devaluation of the naira meant inflation was at an all-time high and
therefore the costs of living sky rocketed. Social services on the other hand
were at an all-time low; there was a shortage of or no water at all, erratic power
supply, bad roads, and fake medicine at the hospitals amongst other issues.
In describing the situation Enitan says, “People died because they couldn’t
afford an intravenous drip. People died because they drank contaminated
water. People died from hardship: no water-no light, we call it in Lagos.
People died because they got up one morning and realized they were
ghettoized, impoverished” (p. 181). These debilitating circumstances explains
why Adebayo Olukoshi (2000) argues that the Structural Adjustment and the
most brutal experience of military dictatorship in Nigeria took place at the
same time (n.p).
ALIENATION
Nigerian writers tend to observe their society or environment from
history in the manner they deal with the changes in the socio-political and
economic lives of the people. Nigerian literature has therefore, been engaged
with history from the pre-colonial traditional era, to the period of slave trade,
through to the time of colonization to the period of independence and the
present times. Each period examined in Nigerian literature exposes its peculiar
problems in regards to changes which affect the individual and the societal
sense of well-being as they search for coherence and stability. The search for
coherence and stability by the society and the individual is tied to the feeling of
being alienated; the sense of a feeling of estrangement between the individual
and society, between individuals, and between groups. Alienation as explored
by Atta in Everything Good Will Come, is not a personality attribute, but a
situation-relevant variable.
The word alienation encompasses a wide variety of meanings such that the
context in which it is used needs to be known to ascertain what it means.
Different schools of thought express it to mean different and sometime
contradictory concepts. The theologian understands it to mean removing
oneself from God, the philosopher sees it as shutting oneself away from the
world, social critics may see it as rejecting the accepted traditions and norms of
a society, or a refusal to participate in socio-political activities at any level, and
psychologists could interpret it to mean the splitting of the mind into
conflicting components (Nwaegbe, 2013:17). From the foregoing, the word or
concept ‘alienation’ can and does include several nuances of meaning thus; this
word can be problematic in the way it comments on varied issues.
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Dictatorship and Alienation
The concept used for this article is concerned with alienation as
estrangement and is interested in gauging how the characters in Atta’s novel
perceive their situation in the negotiation of their condition of military rule and
dictatorship. Melvin Seeman (1959) in conceptualizing alienation, presents five
components of the term; powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness,
isolation, and self-estrangement (p. 784). This article embraces three of these
components in its examination of how political inefficacy and economic
dislocation of military rule in the Nigerian landscape of the mid-80s to the late
90s, bred social distrust and went on to encourage the expression of hostility
and resentment against the government of the time in Everything Good will
Come.
POWERLESSNESS
A feeling of powerlessness arises when people are separated from effective
control over their economic, political and social destinies. The root to
powerlessness is found in the relationship between social systems and
individuals and this relationship is determined in two ways; the degree social
systems are endowed with legitimacy and the degree system integration is
indeterminate. A feeling of powerlessness occurs in a people when the power
to govern the people as we see in Everything Good will Come is force fully taken
over through a coup d’état and the military imposes itself on the people. Sunny
Taiwo in expressing the people’s feeling of powerlessness says, “one hundred
million of us, less than ten thousand of them and they want to run this country
like a club that belongs to them? Then they tell us, tell us that we can’t talk? We
can’t say anything, or we’ll be locked up... Now look at the situation we are in,
older people afraid to talk” (p. 183-84). This diatribe by Sunny seizes us and
we are transported into the world of the powerless, a world that otherwise
might have been inaccessible to us unless we have experienced it. Enitan goes
on to make the point that the country is in trouble and expresses despair that
nothing seems to be able to save the country (p. 104). She tells us the situation
in the country with the military messing up things as they were doing has
caused her to “view the world with a bad squint, and a travelling eye” because
of the struggles she could see but could do nothing about (p. 104/5).
Powerlessness is expressed here by Enitan in the way that she makes the
statement that there is not much she can do about the problems that she
perceives to be important. Enitan here confirms Seeman’s (1959) postulation
that powerlessness is also an individual's perception that his or her behavior
cannot predict the results and reinforcements sought in relation to society
(p. 784/5).
NORMLESSNESS
The government as we can see has been forcefully taken over and the
people are now subjected to outright brutality, arrests, and illegal detention.
From a feeling of powerlessness, the people move into normlessness where
they begin to exhibit behaviors that cause them to act in ways that are not
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Juliet Tenshak
socially acceptable in order to survive. Normlessness occurs as we see in
Everything Good Will Come, when there is a breakdown of the cultural norms or
a breakdown of that set of values which govern society.
Uncle Fatai posits that Nigerians are indisciplined and Peter Mukoro would
not understand why. The following conversation takes place between the two
of them:
Our people are undisciplined. Uncle Fatai said.
How? Peter Mukoro asked.
You are driving and someone tries to run you off the road.
Trying to avoid potholes, Peter Mukoro said.
Speeding through traffic stops?
Running from armed robbers.
Teachers not showing up for class?
Can’t afford transportation
Hospitals selling supplies on the black market?
Benefits in kind.
Bribery?
Tipping, Peter Mukoro said (p.119/120).
It is pertinent to have quoted extensively here because, this conversation
shows how in a situation of normlessness, people no longer have any standards
but only disconnected urges. This is to be expected if it is understood that
the state of normlessness makes a man responsive only to himself and
therefore responsible to no one. Indeed Robert MacIver (1950) posits the
anomic man “derides the value of other men. His only faith is the philosophy
of denial. He lives in a thin line of sensation between no future and no past
(p. 161/2).
Normlessness also comes about with the loss of intrinsic and socialized
values and security to the people who are now hopelessly disoriented. The
lounge chairs in Sunny Taiwo’s house are stolen by fishermen who scaled the
walls to gain access to the house and to the chairs. He relates the incident to
Enitan who expresses surprise and wonders why the fishermen would steal
chairs. Sunny tells her it is not about the chairs but rather, “It’s about what's
happening to our country. Men who fish for a living becoming robbers” (p. 104).
He goes on to say the country was in trouble and blames the military for the
situation. This loss of intrinsic and socialized values and insecurity would also
be the reason the people are afraid to move about at certain hours of the day
(p. 105). Indeed, describing the situation of this type of normlessness in the
society, Enitan tells us “On a Lagos street, justice happened straight away. You
knocked someone's car and they beat you up. The people would come out to
watch. You knocked someone, and the people themselves would beat you up.
You stole anything, and the people could beat you until they killed you”
(p. 141).
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Dictatorship and Alienation
SOCIAL ISOLATION
Ethnic tensions/resentments were heightened during the time of military
rule and these brought about social isolation; a feeling of separation from the
nation or of isolation from national standards thus, the people became
alienated from the government and disconnected from each other on a national
level. The question of identity is important to an understanding of the human
personality thus, it is central to any discussion on alienation.
Where the denial of identity affects a group or class of people, we have
group alienation, which is also referred to as social or rather sociological
alienation. Atta shows how this was the case in Nigeria in the manner she
draws attention to censorship of the press by the military; she explores how the
state uses silence as a weapon of oppression in the public sphere. Whole
territories of national consciousness were silenced by the government in order
to make them inaccessible to the people therefore, certain actions of the police
or military, statements and writings by ‘banned persons’, and the activities of
pressure groups and other organizations were deliberately kept away from the
people. The government puts in place two decrees; Decree Two under which
persons suspected of acts prejudicial to state security are detained without
charge, or Decree Four, under which journalists can be arrested and imprisoned
for publishing any information about public officials (p. 77/78) in order to
silence the press. We therefore have the journalists Peter Mukoro and Grace
Ameh arrested, or are forced to go into hiding to avoid arrest and because
military rule in Nigeria and human rights promotions were inherently
incompatible goals, the censorship of the press which was at its highest during
the military era, was a strategy used by government to ensure and perpetuate
the continued marginalization of the people. Grace Ameh accurately describes
the situation when she says:
Our reporters are being dragged in every week, no explanation
given. They are kept in detention for weeks, questioned, or they are
left alone, which I am told is worse. Nobody speaks to you in detention,
you see. If you don’t cooperate, they transfer you to a prison
somewhere else, packed with inmates. Sick in-mates. You may end up
with pneumonia, tuberculosis, and you won’t get proper medical
attention. Jaundice, diarrhoea food in Nigerian prisons isn’t very good
(p. 206).
Also, Atta’s treatment of Brigadier Hassan, is one of a fluid movement from
one position to another, the drawing of a parallel between the public and
domestic spheres. By confining Sheri to the apartment he rented for her, and
putting various restrictions on her, Brigadier Hassan representative of the
government transfers oppression from the public sphere to the domestic
sphere. Referring to him Enitan says “Sheri’s Brigadier, for instance, was one of
the military men who deprived me of my rights” (p. 105). It is interesting that
Enitan would see Brigadier Hassan as one who deprived her of her rights
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Juliet Tenshak
especially as she had no personal relationship with him. It just implies that
Enitan sees the Brigadier as representative of the patriarchal Nigerian society
that has kept her in a subjugated position.
When identity is denied expression by the society or is repressed by the
individual, as we see in the case of Sheri, then alienation can be the ultimate
result. Alienation is either psychological or social; the former leads to internal
conflict, and the latter to anti-social behavior. Thus, even though Sheri is not
only beautiful but also intelligent, she has been stripped of all sense of selfworth by things that happened to her and by her relationship with Major Bello,
and is forced to live in isolation and is disconnected to her environment except
in her relationship with Enitan and her immediate family.
CONCLUSION
The story Sefi Atta narrates in Everything Good will Come is that of Enitan,
but her story is not told in a vacuum. Using the Bildungsroman literary genre,
Atta examines the socio-political and economic realities of the Nigerian state in
the period of the mid-80s to the late 90s in parallel with the story of Enitan. By
writing on an era of great socio-economic and political turmoil, Atta aptly
presents to us the crisis experienced at the time not only in the public sphere
but also in the domestic sphere. The novel depicts how dictatorship is
synonymous with military rule and how this brought about alienation between
the people and the government, between people and individuals. The military
experience in Nigeria is thus implicated in the perpetuation of exploitation,
repression, alienation and violence across the ethnic, class, gender and
demographic divide during the era of the mid-80s to the late 90s.
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