Postcolonial anarchy and minority discourse in Elnathan’s Born on a Tuesday, Sule’s Sterile Sky, and Yakusak’s After They Left

Abstract

Underrepresented areas in earlier Nigerian literature have become central to discourses in Nigerian literature. Using post-colonial theory as its premise, this paper examines recent efforts by writers of northern extraction to produce novels that deal with implications of the interaction between ethnic groups and religious movements in Nigeria. Elnathan John’s Born on a Tuesday (2015), E. E. Sule’s Sterile Sky (2012) and Edify Yakusak’s After They Left (2016) depict the explosive nature of the differences between various factions of religious and ethnic groups and describe the violence that has become the norm in Nigeria. The paper argues that the activities of jihadists and ethnic jingoists constitute post-colonial anarchy consequent upon the minorisation of people on grounds of ethnicity, religion or education. It contends that discriminatory post-colonial policies that ascribe privileges only to those with Western education exacerbate internal divisions, while mismanaged ethnic and religious differences lead to antagonisms among groups.