Lost In Thought

I just finished reading A Man Of The People and i find it hard to express my sentiments about it. The protagonist, Odili, suffers horrific ordeal and all sorts of ill treatment due to his ambition to run for a parliamentary seat at the hands of the hirelings of his opponent, Chief M. A. Nanga, who incidentally happen to have been his pupil teacher.

The reason for my ambivalence is hard to say but i guess it's due to the fact that, Chinua Achebe does an excellent job in depicting the political terrain(at least our idea of it however stereotyped it may be) of the time and i daresay now and this i find hit too close to home for comfort.

Odili from his childhood has always worked through primary school to university and even to his position as a teacher by dint of his hard work. Though he feels satisfied with his job as a teacher his father and later Chief Nanga think otherwise and the later offers to find him a job befitting his educational level. Though he has an air of incorruptibility about him(at least as regards bribery), Odili still fails morally with regards to his sexual life. This i find is a common trait he shared with Chief Nanga and which will later lead to collapse of their friendly relationship.

M. A. Nanga on the other hand is the quintessential glib politician who seems to get away with any and everything and is hailed by all though these same praise-singers are fully in the know of his nefarious deeds. To these people "the mainspring of political action was personal gain." Yet in the end, it is these same people who decry the rot of that regime.

On the whole, A Man Of The People is a great read for anyone who wishes to have an idea of what the world is politicians is like.