Title:   DICTATORSHIP AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE IN POSTCOLONIAL NIGERIA: A STUDY OF HELON HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN ANGEL

Abstract
Nigerian literature has come a long way with its unique history, and generations of Nigerian writers have exploited literature to address a plethora of issues peculiar to their society. Issues concerning politics, philosophy, history, migration, mysticism, sexism, gender, corruption, social injustice among others have found their expressions in Nigerian novels. Armed with this awareness, this study selected Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel as a fictional text embodying the diverse postcolonial issues in Nigerian fiction. With postcolonial and trauma theories as theoretical anchors, the study investigated dictatorship and human rights abuse in post-colonial Nigeria from the fictional lens of Helon Habila. A textual analysis of the novel was done using primary and secondary sources of data collection. Habila’s Waiting for an Angel cast a cursory look at the dark moments of Nigerias history in the 1990’s under the sadistic military brutality, an era characterised by human rights violation of unimaginable proportion, thereby subjecting the masses to political and social trepidation. The study discovered that the postcolonial African state, Nigeria, as mirrored in Helon Habila novel, is a failed state marred with dictatorship, human rights abuse, repressive governance, corruption, suppression, leadership crisis, amongst others. The study concluded that Habila preaches total eradication of military men in the politics of the country. It shows the gains of literature as a voice against the dangers of dictatorship and human rights abuse with the hope of finding lasting solutions, to better the lots of the nation and make it habitable, irrespective of political, religious and ethnic affiliations.
Keywords: Dictatorship, Human, Rights, Abuse Postcolonial, Nigeria, Corruption, Social, Injustice.

Citations:

Publication Date: 2023-04-05