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NATION-STATE, COLONIZATION AND NEO-IMPERIALISM IN
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN
NIDHI ANGURALA
M.Phil English,
Faculty of Arts,
Delhi University,
New Delhi.
ABSTRACT
This paper analyses Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and
explores the concept of nation- state through ideas of pre-colonial ethnic
tensions, corruption, involvement of (predominantly American) oil
transnational corporations, colonial development plans and argue that these
factors complicate the debate between seemingly arbitrary colonial
fragmentation of Africa and tribalism presented in the novel and further
challenges the culpability of the legacy of colonial cartography for the
secession. Additionally, it questions the impermeability and fixity of national
borders and utilizes Nivedita Menon’s idea of a postnation “from below”
mentioned in her essay “Between the Burqa and the Beauty Parlour? szation,
Cultural Nationalism and Feminist Politics” to read the humanitarian aid
provided during the Biafra war. Furthermore, it engages with the varied
representations of “cosmopolitan” in the novel and investigates the novel’s
comment on the debate surrounding globalization.
Keywords: Postcolonial Literature, African Literature, Globalization, Cosmopolitanism,
Postnation

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (HYS) is as much a depiction of the
“birth” and “death” of the nation of Biafra as it is of the personal lives of the characters in the
novel. It traces the genesis, construction and dissolution of the Republic of Biafra primarily
through the "peripheral voices” (Ganapathy 88) of major characters like Olanna, Ugwu and
Richard. Ugwu’s novel attempts to illustrate how the secession of Biafra is embedded in and
influenced by the global imperial dynamics of former colonial nations and is not, as was
believed by many, a testament to the inability of the former colonies to govern themselves.
This paper will explore the concept of nation- state through ideas of pre-colonial ethnic
tensions, corruption, involvement of (predominantly American) oil transnational
corporations, colonial development plans and argue that these factors complicate the debate
between seemingly arbitrary colonial fragmentation of Africa and tribalism presented in the
novel and further challenge the culpability of the legacy of colonial cartography for the
secession. Additionally, I will question the impermeability and fixity of national borders
would and utilize Nivedita Menon’s idea of a postnation “from below” to read the
humanitarian aid provided during the Biafra war. Furthermore, I will study the varied
representations of “cosmopolitan” in the novel. Finally, the paper will investigate the novel’s
comment on the debate surrounding globalization.

Oil Boom and American Involvement in Post-Independence Nigeria Ethno-regional tension

existed between the predominantly Islamic North (center of erstwhile Sokoto Caliphate) and

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Christian South, as well as between the three dominant regional ethnic groups: Hausa Fulani
in the North, Yoruba in the West and Igbo in the South West. Prior to their unification during
colonization, these three regions existed as separate kingdoms with distinct and disparate
political institutions and models of governance (Chapin 6-10). These lines of division were
further aggravated by the colonial administration that sought to minimize cost of governance
through “indirect rule” by forming alliances with existing political fragmentation (Paine 655).
These existing ethno-regional tensions in Nigeria were further compounded by the emerging
oil industry and transnational (predominantly American) vested interests in the petrostate of
Nigeria. The rapid growth in the oil industry interestingly concentrated wealth in the
erstwhile slave trading region and community (Klieman) in the east, indicating the
continuation of the colonial hierarchy in Nigeria. Although the presence of oil in the former
slave trading coast was incidental, nevertheless “the northerners greatly feared southern
domination in an independent state” (Klieman) when oil production and concomitant profits
increased. It appears then that the presence of the Oil TNCs in Nigeria played a significant
role in sharpening the lines of divide between South and North Nigeria. Two important
features of the oil industry post-independence are the roles played by the State and Southern
elites which shall be taken up later. The American involvement and patronizing opacity
regarding oil production reeks of neoimperial omniscient omnipotent supremacy. The loans
and grants provided by America(Nwachuku 576), one can argue, paved the way for the
“Americanization” of Nigerian middle-class youth evident in Adichie’s Americanah. The
burgeoning of this covert cultural diffusion can be seen in the provocative remark of Olanna’s
father made in the presence of Odenigbo where he bemoans the support received by an
indigenous Nigerian university from an American university rather than British (Adichie 47).

Yet America’s stance in the Biafra war was largely ambiguous. Officially, the US supported
the Nigerian government (Nwachuku 580) and considered the Civil war an internal matter of
the state, but on the other hand, it provided economic help for relief efforts and humanitarian
aid. Despite the concealment of American dominance in humanitarian and monetary
aid(Nwachuku 580), the American involvement although as menacing as British imperialism
was in its preliminary stages before the outbreak of civil war. However, as is the case with
contemporary India, the prosperity from American TNCs was disproportionately distributed
due to corruption within the political class and their collusion with the Southern elites. This
can be seen in the eagerness of Kaliene to pursue Shell BP before they left the country.

Corruption

Prior to the repressive function of the state during the civil war, the state in Nigeria
materialized in the public sphere in the form of corrupt economic and bureaucratic
malpractices, visibilised in the scenes with the Finance Minister Chief Okonjiand Olanna:
“Chief Okonji said again,” Look you don’t have to work at the ministry. I can appoint you to
a board, any board you want”” (Adichie 51) and, ““So will you be spreading your legs for
that elephant for Daddy’s contract?” Kainene asked” (Adichie 54). They also reveal the
nexus between foreign capital, corrupt government official and rampant nepotism. Rather
than being a static, unitary, demonic entity, the state is thus constituted through everyday
experientiality and interactions with civilians (Pierce 888) ( Das 2003). The killing of the
Finance minister is telling in its symbolism. It reflects the dissatisfaction of the general public
with the political elites and their civilian associates that siphoned off the profits from the oil

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boom. It is evident in the following pronouncement from Radio Biafra: “My dear
countrymen, the aim of the Revolutionary Council is to establish a nation free from
corruption and internal strife. Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men
in high and low places that seek bribe sand demand ten percent...” (Adichie 194).

Development Plans

Despite the formal exit of the UK from Nigeria, the British presence persisted in the form of
the development plans, foreign aid and paternalistic military intervention. Although the
British military presence in the colony was not as pronounced as the French (which
maintained military bases in the former colonies), the British, nevertheless, played a
significant role in the Nigerian political sphere since the dissolution of Nigeria reflected
badly on the British, as Nigeria, during Independence, was a “prized creation” of the British
and consequently, a “thorn in France’s eye” (Adichie 242). The Northerners killed in the Igbo
coup, as Odenigbo suggests in the novel, were placed in the government by the British
(Adichie 195)(Klieman). Changing and novel forms of colonialism can be seen in UK’s
intention of preventing the collapse of Nigeria, and consequently Africa, by quelling Biafran
self-determination. The precarious integrity of the nation resting on the warring factions had
to be maintained through the purveyance of arms (Adichie 403). Although it would be
tempting to blame the inefficiency and ineptitude of the colonial development plans and
“defence pacts” mentioned in the novel that the general public (including the fictional
character Odenigbo) decried (Adichie 176), it must be noted that the colonial development
plan were hazy at best and the defense pact was annulled due to public outcry. What is
relevant to the current study is their economic architecture:

“Although Nigerian political leaders made decisions about general objectives and
priorities for the first plan, foreign economists were the main authors of the actual
document. Its authors favored decentralized decision making by private units,
disregard of major discrepancies between financial and social profitability, and high
economic payoffs from directly productive investments (as opposed to indirect returns
from social overheads). They discouraged increased taxes on the wealthy (out of a
fear of dampening private incentive), and advocated a conservative monetary and
fiscal policy emphasizing a relatively small plan, openness to foreign trade and
investment, and reliance on overseas assistance” (Chapin 162 -163).

The political economy constructed by development plans created a “distorted” economy that
subsequently collapsed (Chapin), compounded the socioeconomic disparity between the
Nigerian elites and the rest of the Nigerians, giving rise to social unrest and frustration and
ultimately resulted in the eruption of violence. Moreover, the British economic advisors seem
to have favored economic profitability over social welfare (Utietiang).

It appears then that the Biafran secession cannot be believed to be a failure of supposedly
arbitrary colonial boundaries or the European carve up. As Mbmebe says, “Far from being
simple products of colonialism, current boundaries … reflect commercial, religious, and
military realities, the rivalries, power relationships, and alliances that prevailed among the
various imperial powers and between them and Africans through the centuries preceding
colonization proper... Before the conquest, they represented spaces of encounter, negotiation,

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and opportunity for Europeans and Africans” (265). Nor can the division along ethnic or
tribal lines vocalized by the tribal apologist Odenigbo be seen as a solution. The path leading
up to the Biafra secession was marked by an inextricable matrix of corruption, unsuitable
development plans, imperial and neo imperial interferences.

Nation State dyad The Biafra war also evinces the tensions inherent within the nation-state
dyad as “the nationalist discourse of citizenship remains attached in the social imaginary to
the state but clashes with the actual experience of marginalization, disempowerment, and
violence” (Aretxaga 396).

Postnation

It has long been established in studies of globalization that the idea of the disappearance of
the nation-state was a false alarm. The nation-state may have withdrawn in the exchange of
global capital but it preserves its repressive function in its interaction with minorities (Menon
19). Menon’s theorizations of the postnation “from below” (20), an alternate to the post
nation from above, can be employed in understanding the working of the humanitarian
organizations that not only circumvent geographical boundaries but also bypass national
politics due to their avowed neutrality. The Internation Red Cross worked with a similar
transnational agenda during the Biafran war. Its stance of neutrality and non-interference in
political matters (reluctance to acknowledge the genocide) however garnered external as well
as internal criticism.

Although the cross-border smuggling of supplies across enemy lines during the war by
Kaniene and others cannot be considered an example of the postnation from below given the
material nature of the transaction, it can also not be rehabilitated by the postnation from
above due to its illicit character. It perhaps inhabits the interstitial spaces between the two
concepts and is moreover reminiscent of the inter-regional trade and transculturation in the
past and the present1 between different nation states and regional groups in Africa and which
undercuts the fixity and impermeability of the national boundaries. The cross-border traffic of
goods during war questions the notion of the material solidity of the border and instead
indicates its porousness and openness to negotiation.

Cosmopolitanism

Ulf Hannerz has defined cosmopolitanism as a “willingness to engage with the Other” an
outlook embodied by both Richard and Susan in different gradations. Yet it can be argued,
that Susan has a myopic essentialized view of the Nigerians and is quite close to the
supremacist colonialists and Orientalists than she is to a cosmopolitan who is open and
tolerant to diversity. It is difficult to shake off the stench and baggage of Eurocentric elitism
from her and her guests at the cocktail parties. “They were mostly ex-colonial administrators
and business people from John Holt and Kingsway and GB Ollivant and Shell-BP and United
Africa Company. They chuckled how tribal Nigeria was and perhaps these chaps were not
ready to rule themselves after all... The people were bloody beggars, be prepared for their
body odours and the way they will stand and stare at you on the roads...never show weakness
to domestic staff. There were jokes to illustrate each African trait” (Adichie 83). Seen in this
light, their globe-trotting transnationalism lacks the cosmopolitan consciousness that Richard

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espouses. Despite the exertions to the city proper, Susan’s understanding of African is
restricted by her professional and class position.

Richard on the other hand can appreciate the aesthetics of African art and people and does not
attempt to delimit Africans and Africanness as Susan does with authoritativeness. He can be
said to possess a cosmopolitan consciousness that “include elements of self-doubt and
reflexive self-distantiation, an awareness of the existence and equal validity of other cultures,
other values, and other mores” (Werbner 497). This is evident in his relinquishing narrative
authority and control while writing a book about the experiences of Biafra wars thereby
acknowledging that the story of the Biafrans is not his to tell.

Globalization

The full extent of modern globalization is not visible in HYS, given its temporal location in
Nigerian history. The global flow of capital and growing network of TNCs are in the
preliminary stages before the outbreak of civil war. However, the nexus of corruption, ethnic
fragmentation and personal lobbying that is magnified in Americanah, is anticipated in HYS.
As Obinze finds out in Americanah, personal connections and lobbying are imperative to
taste the fruits of globalization which are ordinarily out of reach of the non-elites. The case of
Nigeria is similar to India in terms of the stratified distribution of wealth in a global
economy. The project of globalization has been marred by internal forces from within the
nation itself and this is clearly shown in Half of a Yellow Sun.

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