Corruption as a Consequence of Colonialism - as portrayed in Achebe’s T

Corruption as a Consequence of Colonialism - as portrayed in Achebe’s The African Trilogy All quotations are taken from the 1988 Picador edition of Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy " He has put a knife on all the things that held us together and we have fallen apart" (Things Fall Apart, 145) The things that held the Igbo tribe together were their close bonds of clan kinship, unified allegiance to their gods, and their democratic society. These were the very things that the English set out to attack, to ‘put a knife on’. Once they began this process, Igbo society was never to be the same again. Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, while an excellent piece of literature in its own right, can also be read as an excellent historical account of this process. This essay concerns the responses of Achebe’s fictional characters to the very real actions taken by the British in their efforts to ‘pacify’ Nigeria, focusing on one aspect of this effort - the policy of creating ‘Warrant Chiefs’ and the subsequent era of corruption. The instigation of Warrant Chiefs in Nigeria was a matter of necessity for the British and a source of bewilderment for the Nigerians. The British could not have governed in any other way - English officials demanded high salaries and frequent leave, and were emotionally and psychologically ill-equipped to deal with this new culture. The colonial budget could only afford a limited number of them. The success of colonization depended to a large exten...