Policy Studies, Activist Literature, and Pitching for the Masses in Nigeria

Abstract

Though political science, especially policy studies, and activist literature deal with politics, this is more so of policy studies than literature which may not have politics as its concern. Political science and literature are more closely related in their objectives than the often hostile appearance between writers and politicians. The activist writer, as a critic, tends to portray the politician as a reactionary and stumbling block to a progressive society as in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People and Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters. Modern African literature generally reflects the history of the continent or individual nations, a point that G-C. Mutiso, Janheinz Jahn, Romanus N. Egudu, and others have emphasized at one point or the other during the past 50 years. “History” in African literature is a code name for politics. As such, modern African or Nigerian literature reflects the political experience of the continent or country. It is interesting to note that in the 1990s at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was taught as literature in the then African and African American Studies Department (now Africana Studies) and also in the Departments of History and Political Science. This shows the subliminal relationship between literature, history, and political science.