No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe
No Longer At Ease (1960) is the second book in Chinua Achebe’s ‘African trilogy,’ and picks up many years after his first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) in the latter part of the 1950s. It tells the story of Obi Okonkwo, the grandson of Okonkwo and son of Isaac Okonkwo, who converted to Christianity as a young man against his father’s wishes. Isaac has been working as a Catechist since and considers himself a born-again Christian, marking a significant change from the African traditional religion (heavily explored in Things Fall Apart) to Christianity.
Obi, on the other hand, is an academically gifted child. As a result, he gets a scholarship from the Umuofia Progressive Union – made up of people from his Umuofia village, living and working in other Nigerian towns – to study in England. The scholarship is worth 800 pounds and should be repaid upon his return in a period of four years. The expectation of his community is that he can study law to help them handle their land cases. But in a show of defiance, Obi instead chooses to study English, much to the chagrin of his kinsmen. However, they still accept his decision.
The book begins with Obi in the dock in court as an accused. As the book continues, you get to understand how a young, educated man in his mid-twenties ended up like this. Obi is living in colonial Nigeria when he comes back from England and lands what is considered a plum job at the time, in the Civil Service in Lagos, yet hints of existing racial segregation are evident. Some establishments are gradually starting to allow educated Africans such as Obi to patronise them, while some remain predominantly white, with the only Africans allowed in them being employees. The use of Pidgin English (a mixture of Nigerian languages with the white man’s language) is already common among African Nigerians.
The book transitions from traditional society to a westernised society in a manner reminiscent of many once-colonised African countries. However, you still get a sense of cultural identity in the second generation of educated Nigerians that Obi represents. For example, they have reverted back to eating certain Nigerian dishes by hand as opposed to using a fork, knife and spoon. Some of the urban Nigerians in the book also wear stylish traditional outfits such as the agbada.
“They were eating pounded yams and egusi soup with their fingers. The second generation of educated Nigerians had gone back to eating pounded yams or garri with their fingers for the good reason that it tasted better that way. Also for the even better reason that they were not as scared as the first generation of being called uncivilized.”
The book also touches on the issue of corruption which has begun rearing its ugly head in Nigerian society. The white people living and working in Nigeria want absolutely no association with it and neither does Obi – but only for a period of time. As the first son of Umuofia to be educated abroad, the pressure is too much for him to live up to the expectations of his family, close friends and community.
As is typical in many African societies, Obi is expected to take care of his parents and siblings financially. He also has an education loan from the Union to clear, an appearance among his educated African friends to keep up and his own bills to pay – all the while bearing in mind that he should uphold his Igbo values and not succumb to the alien Western values he was exposed to while studying in England.
Coupled with the fact that Obi is dating a woman considered to be Osu (an outcast), we see a young man who is thoroughly weighed down by all these issues throughout the book. It’s no wonder, despite his initial resistance, that he finds himself the very corrupt person he never thought he would ever be.
And if one thought objectively of the matter – as though it related to Mr. B. and not to one’s self – could one blame those poor men for being critical of a senior service man who appeared reluctant to pay twenty pounds a month? They had taxed themselves mercilessly to raise eight hundred pounds to send him to England. Some of them earned no more than five pounds a month. He nearly earned fifty. They had wives and schoolgoing children; he had none. After paying twenty pounds, he would have thirty left. And very soon he would have an increment which alone was as big as some people’s salary.
Obi admitted that his people had a sizeable point. What they did not know was that, having labored in sweat and tears to enroll their kinsman among the shining elite, they had to keep him there. Having made him a member of an exclusive club whose members greet one another with ‘How’s the car behaving?’ did they expect him to turn around and answer: ‘I’m sorry, but my car is off the road. You see I couldn’t pay my insurance premium?’ That would be letting the side down in a way that was quite unthinkable.
No Longer At Ease was a book ahead of its time. What Chinua Achebe attempts to highlight in this book are things an African person reading in the 21st century would find relatable and that mirror present-day society. No Longer At Ease rightfully lives up to its praise as another African literary classic.
Lorna Likiza is a Kenyan writer, tutor of French, founder of Heroe Book Fair and children’s book author of Oi Gets Lost from the Oi Series for ages 8-12. She lives in Mombasa and can be found on Twitter @lornalikiza