Leadership Crisis In The Postcolonial African Narrative

Different historical episodes have marked the development of African literature. From accounting for the African myth of the past, valuing its culture, and then depicting the misdeeds of colonization, African literature is now making a self-criticism of misleadership and disillusionment of African people in the postcolonial era. With reference to Tiyambe Zeleza’s Smouldering Charcoal, this research paper tries to examine the origin, thematic and aesthetic of this disillusionment due to the malpractices of the post-independence African leaders. It also contends that beyond this present disillusionment and disappointment, there are ways out and new hopes for better living conditions and development of African people and their continent as suggested in Zeleza’s narrative.