Chinua Achebe’s There Was a Country is more than a memoir; it is a profound moral and historical testimony from one of Nigeria’s most revered intellectual consciences. His central thesis—that Nigeria’s foundational tragedy stems from a decline in the character of its leadership, from the exemplary “first generation” to the venal and visionless rulers that followed—is compelling and emotionally resonant. It appeals to our deep-seated yearning for virtuous leaders. However, while this “great man” theory of history offers a powerful narrative, it risks oversimplifying Nigeria’s predicament by focusing on individual morality at the expense of the enduring, malevolent structures that form the true bane of the nation.
Achebe rightly lionizes the “class of 1948″—the Ziks, Awos, and Balewas—as men of immense intellect, integrity, and nationalist fervor. Yet, we must ask: were these men of character operating in a system that could perpetuate their virtues, or were they, despite their best intentions, laying the groundwork for a predatory state? The very political architecture they inherited and modified—the centralized state bequeathed by British colonialism—was designed not for equitable governance but for extraction and control. The regionalism they championed, while a pragmatic response to Nigeria’s diversity, quickly calcified into the very “tribal” fiefdoms Achebe decries, where loyalty to one’s ethnic group became the primary political currency. The “men of character” were thus playing a game whose rules were already rigged for eventual failure.
The catastrophic civil war (1967-1970) stands as the ultimate testament to this structural failure. Achebe’s poignant account rightly highlights the pogroms, the international hypocrisy, and the starvation as a weapon of war. However, to attribute this solely to a failure of character in Gowon’s federal government, while understandable from a Biafran perspective, overlooks a more systemic truth: the war was the logical, violent culmination of a zero-sum political system where one group’s gain was perceived as another’s existential loss. The central state, as the ultimate prize, was not an instrument for development but a resource to be captured. The war did not create this reality; it brutally confirmed it. The “no victor, no vanquished” policy that followed was a noble sentiment, but it papered over deep cracks without addressing the foundational flaws, ensuring that the victors would continue to see the state as their spoils of war.
This brings us to the core of the rejoinder: the bane of Nigeria is not merely a lack of men of character, but the active presence of a system that punishes character and rewards venality. To blame today’s leaders—the “insensible lot,” as Achebe might call them—is to mistake the symptom for the disease. The system selectively promotes the avaricious and sidelines the virtuous. A politician who seeks to serve the public good within a constituency that expects them to “bring home the loot” will not last. A bureaucrat who refuses to participate in the entrenched network of patronage will be isolated and rendered ineffective. The system is a self-perpetuating engine of corruption, and it is far bigger than any individual, no matter how virtuous.
Where Achebe sees a fall from a golden age of leadership, one could argue that the “first generation” was an anomaly—a brief moment of idealism before the resumption of the structural norm. Colonialism was not an interlude of order but a period of imposed, top-down authority that suppressed, rather than resolved, Nigeria’s inherent contradictions. The post-colonial leaders, for all their qualities, were unable to build institutions robust enough to survive their own passing. The subsequent military dictatorships, from which the current political class largely springs, perfected the art of state looting and institutional destruction, creating the very playbook that modern politicians follow.
Therefore, the solution is not simply to pine for the return of “men of character.” This is a passive, almost messianic hope. The urgent task, the true work of national redemption, is the deliberate and painstaking dismantling of the dysfunctional structures and the creation of new ones. This means:
- Restructuring the Nigerian State: Moving from a suffocating, over-centralized federation to a true federalism where regions have greater fiscal and political autonomy, thereby reducing the stakes for capturing the center.
- Building Strong Institutions: Creating independent, well-funded, and powerful anti-corruption agencies, judiciaries, and electoral bodies that can hold individuals, regardless of their “character,” accountable to the law.
- Cultivating an Enlightened Citizenry: A system is only as moral as the people who uphold it. This requires a bottom-up revolution in civic education, where citizens demand accountability as a right, not as a favor.
In conclusion, Chinua Achebe’s moral outrage in There Was a Country is justified and necessary. His elegy for a lost potential touches a national nerve. However, by focusing predominantly on the character of individuals, he offers a diagnosis that, while poignant, is incomplete. Nigeria’s problem is not that it lacks good men and women; it is that its political and economic structures are expertly designed to corrupt them, sideline them, or break them. The true bane of Nigeria is not the absence of great men, but the presence of a system that makes their sustained success nearly impossible. Our rejoinder, therefore, is not to discard Achebe’s powerful lament, but to build upon it by shifting the focus from the men at the helm to the rotten ship itself, which we must all work to repair.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 