Peep Into Chinua Achebe’s Anthills Of The Savannah …An Epitome Of Absolute Power, Corruption

Professor Chinua Achebe’s celebrated novel, Anthills of The Savannah published in1987 is a bitter ironic novel by the renowned author of Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, The Man of The People, among others. The novel presents a candid, trenchantly insightful view of contemporary African state fictitiously called Kangan with capital in Bassa.
“Anthills of The Savannah is a story of conflicts of interest and xrays the haunting theme of power, dictatorship and corruption as it mirrors the sordid reality and erosion of popular will which is akin to governance in contemporary African state, and provides a glimpse of african political unrest”.
Anthills of The Savannah is about three close friends trying to live together under an oppressive military regime. The story revolves around three friends, Sam, Chris Oriko and Ikem Osodi, described as “the three green bottles” who have now come into power in Kangan.
Sam is the defact to leader and President of the Republic of Kangan, he is a hard stern man, a career soldier, and has come into power. Sam began his rule with good intentions, but his hunger for power grows and knows no bounds. As soon as his power is challenged or questioned, he begins to silence those who doubt him and stand in his way including his longtime friends, Ikem and Chris.
It is clear that he does not have his people’s best interest at heart, to make matters worse, he has steadily become increasingly paranoid over time. Sam has change as he ascended to power, in the past, his friends thought he would be a good president, however, power makes him hunger for more power and more oppression of the people and willing to put down resistance with force.
Ikem on the other hand is the polar opposite of Sam, he is a scholarly fellow with and appreciation for arts and culture. He is quickly becoming Sam’s most vocal critics, voicing out his opinions regarding the need to make several government reforms through the nation’s newspaper, the National Gazette which he edits as the editor.
He is having a more difficult time coping with the power the friends have gained and uses the Newspaper, to criticise the government even though technically, the paper is working for the government.
Chris is the most level headed of the three and often plays the role of an arbiter between Sam and Ikem. He is the Commissioner for Information for Kangan. Though Ikem and Chris critical to Sam’s success, with matters taking a turn for the worst, both men came to regret their involvement and as such seek to restrain Sam by leveraging their positions, since they don’t all agree about the direction and methods of Kangan.
The three are vastly different in their political leaning and personal temperament. Chris, however, thinks things can be maintained if they hold the power and make Sam less radical. He tries to convince Ikem to work with him rather than against him, Chris tries to appease His Excellency and believes that there maybe an opportunity to operate from a place of reason.
As the novel progresses, it becomes clear how irrational His Excellency’s despotic behaviour is, there is no reasoning with it or tempering it , the government is corrupt. His Excellency, not only wants to exterminate the people who speak out, but also the ideas they are promoting and he does this in his attempts to discredit them after their death.
Sam in his desire to hang on to power decides that he wants to become president for life, a position unheard of in their nation’s history. This move requires a nationwide plebiscite, but Abazon, one of the regions in Kangan rejects the notion of putting Sam in power for the rest of his life.
In response to their refusal, Sam deprives the region of his support during a drought in the hope that this would break their spirit. His embargo forces the region to send representatives to the capital to plead their cause and get the necessary supplies. Sam however mistakenly suspects the mission of mercy to be  a ruse, thinking that they might be planning a revolt. His paranoia fuels his imagination even further and he comesta the conclusion that the revolt may actually be funded and organised by some one privy to private details about his life, some one close to him.
His Excellency will do what he wants, Chris realises that he cannot negotiate with someone who behaves like this, but it takes the majority of the novel for him to accept the irrationality of his friend’s behaviour, there is no point in being reasonable or petrifying His Excellency as he will do as he pleases no matter what.
His Excellency is an example of the old adage, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, while he did not set out to have absolute power and initially shunned the idea of ruling for life, he soon ignores past statements, betrays his friends and ultimately lies to the public in order to advance his own agenda. He is willing to do anything to protect his power by silencing protesters, spreading misinformation and assassinating those who stand in his way. The drive for absolute power drives him to corruption.
The corruption of His Excellency dominates as an overreaching theme, but there is more time and attention dedicated to the ways in which the minions of the government perpetuate this corruption than the actual acts of His Excellency. The behaviour of His Excellency gets tone for the rest of the administration who has a more direct impact on the well being and experience of the citizens on Kangan.
The best example of this, is the behaviour of the police force, from accepting bribes from the bus drivers to the attempted rape. Ultimately, Ikem is fired from the newspaper for speaking out against the government and he is killed by the state police. When people say Ikem wants Sam to be beheaded, Ikem is killed because he spoke out and the government tries to cover up the murder by saying it occurred in struggle.
Chris tries to escape when they want to arrest him and he does get out of the city but he is later killed defending a woman he met while he was trying to get away from Kangan. His Excellency, Sam was killed by another group of coup plotters taking over his government in response to his lack of popularity, paranoia and bad choices.
Anthills Of The Savannah is Achebe’s most experimental novel, it may not be the best work of the Man Booker Award Winner, nevertheless it is an important contribution to world literature. According to Richard Dowden of the Independent, “Anyone ruling or aspiring of ruling an African state, should read this book, so should the rest of us”.

By: Jacob Obinna