CHAPTER ONE

1. INTRODUCTION
   1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY

        Postcolonial is a term used for an era when colonies achieved freedom from European colonization. The term post colonialism concerns the effects of colonialism on cultures and communities which are originally historians used it after WWII referring to the post independence time. Bill Ashcroft and et al state in The Empire Writes Back that " more than three- quarters of the people living of the world today have had their lives shaped by the experience of colonialism'.

        Though there was a political change, many nations got independence and no more they are colonies, but culturally and economically there appeared many dilemma and crisis, they were still in confusion about their culture and identity. This appearance of national and ethnic identity dilemmas and endurance in previous- present gap "defined and redefined after the collapse of the Empire, the continuous movement between margin and centre (be it spatially, socially or metaphorically circumscribed), the interpretation and reinterpretation of common history"(Marinescu, 90). In fact, colonialism was not only a power control but it was a cultural control by the colonizer, in which still colonized people tied to. The struggle of the colonized subjects for their cultural identity and the social formation of the new independent nations was an aspect of cultural transformation that led to a conflict with the colonizer's culture.

         Many of those countries were in economic and cultural crisis. What characterizes postcolonial era is the resistance to colonialism and seeking identity to confirm their independence. Furthermore, the population movement and migration from former colonies to the colonizer's countries created new mixed, hybrid societies that clash with each other culturally in one hand and in the other hand between the citizens and migrants. Bill Ashcroft and et al argue that" All post-colonial societies are still subject in one way or another to overt or subtle forms of neo-colonial domination, and independence has not solved this problem."(1994, ) Ethnic conflict is another feature of postcolonial era left behind because of colonial policies conducted in the colonies especially in Africa and Asia.

         The ethnic sectors' struggle is for independence or to be recognized as equal to each other. Colonial powers created societies in their colonies that are heterogeneous by divide them ethnically. Inter ethnic rivalry exposed, specifically, in former British colonies because "the British did not effectively break down the traditional mobilizing structures that facilitate ethnic collective action" (Blanton, Mason, Athow 2001).

         Furthermore, the impact of colonization plantation continued even after of decolonization that phenomenon is an image of Caribbean communities where the heterogeneous society from different cultures and ethnics brought together for labor by colonial powers. That led Caribbean's do not digest this kind of hybridity when they lost the sense of being natives or belong to the Colonizer. In general, the postcolonial atmosphere and situation was overwhelmed with the tensions of struggling of newly independent states to achieve their cultural, political, psychological identification reflects their privacy, established by their self-detrmination not that imposed by the colonizer in which mimicrized them for a long time.

1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

        For a research of this nature, there is little to fall back on as not much has been written on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood   except reviews and commentaries, some of which are only about a sentence or two. But in order to do justice to the works, a combination of critical approaches will be used while avoiding the debacle of the Nigerian critic, whom Emeka Nwabueze says, “Is still a slave to traditional criticism” (2004).

         It will be equally wrong to deal with texts as an extension of the nationalist struggle or tools for criticizing political and social practices (Akwanya 2004) because they keep in focus the impact of colonization on the fictive characters and their fictional worlds. It also amounts to reductionism to treat them simply as a feminist discourse because the “oppression of women is indeed a material reality, a matter of motherhood, domestic labour” (Eagleton 128-129), or that they deal with the “predicament of the African women in what mostly remain highly patriarchal societies” (Jowitt 361). To borrow the words of Francisco J. Varela, “I do not intend to build some grand theory” (1991: xviii), but I simply want to open a space of possibilities in which Adiche’s novels  Purple Hibiscus and   Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood  are analysed based on the implication of colonization in the dispossession of the characters, as in those of her literary mentor, Chinua Achebe.

        Finally several research  has been carried out on Colonialism and the Post- Colonial Nigeria: Complexities and Contradictions 1960 – 2015: A Post -Development Perspective. But not even a single research has been carried out on  postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus

1. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

        The main aim of the study is to determine postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus. Other  specific objectives of the study includes;

1. to determine the relationship between postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus.
2. to determine the factors affecting postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus.
3. to determine the effect of postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus.
4. to determine the extent to which of postcolonial issues has affected  Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus.
5. to proffer possible solutions to problems.
   1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is  the relationship between postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus?
2. What are the factors affecting postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus?
3. What is the effect of postcolonial issues in Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus?
4. What is  the extent to which of postcolonial issues has affected Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus?
5. What are the possible solutions to problems?

1. SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

         postcolonial  issues as reflected in Ngugi’s Petals of Blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus.  It has identified the socio-political crisis prevalent in post-colonial Africa such as violence, corruption, insecurity, unemployment, nepotism, imperialism, among others. This crisis is contradistinguished from the high political, economic and social expectations at the point of attainment of sovereignty from the British colonial masters.

        Ngugi and chimamanda captures these political and economic failures in his novel, where he clearly shows that colonialism and post-colonialism have impacted greatly on the negative socio-political score card of nascent African nations after the attainment of independence.   Finally the study will contribute to the existing literature and knowledge to this field of study and basis for further research.

1. SCOPE OF STUDY

        The study on postcolonial issues is limited to Ngugi Wa Thiogo’s petals of blood and chimamanda Ngozie Adichies’s purple hibiscus.

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Postcolonial

Is the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands.