COPYRIGHT AND CITATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012) Title of the thesis or dissertation. PhD. (Chemistry)/ M.Sc. (Physics)/ M.A. (Philosophy)/M.Com. (Finance) etc. [Unpublished]: University of Johannesburg. Retrieved from: https://ujcontent.uj.ac.za/vital/access/manager/Index?site_name=Research%20Output (Accessed: Date). POST-TRANSITIONAL NARRATIVES AND CULTURAL EXPRESSION IN SOUTH AFRICA AND NIGERIA, 2000-2010 by Aghogho Akpome Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree D. Litt. et Phil. in ENGLISH in the Faculty of Humanities UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG Supervisor: Professor Ronit Frenkel May 2016 DECLARATION I, Aghogho Akpome, hereby declare that this thesis titled, “Post-Transitional Narratives and Cultural Expression in South Africa and Nigeria, 2000-2010” is my own work. All the sources used and quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of a complete reference list, and the thesis has not been submitted at any university for degree purposes. Signature: Date: 19 May, 2016 Aghogho Akpome i DEDICATION To the glory of God and the advancement of knowledge for better societies. And to the memories of my late father, Samson H. Akpome, and uncle, Duke E. O. Akpome. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful, firstly, to the Almighty God for the divine grace that enabled me pursue and complete this project. I prayed, many times, for staying power, for the ability to concentrate, to devote myself to the work, to remain motivated and focused. I found myself buffeted on several occasions, and I realized that without divine support, this project would be abandoned. I am glad to say God heard my prayers: Oghene wo kobiruo! I am grateful to my family members, my Christian brethren, my friends, and my colleagues. I count myself blessed to have so many good people around me. Without their constant encouragement, this would not have been possible. At the great risk of leaving out some names unintentionally, I wish to mention: My dear wife, Rita, and our adorable children, Oghenovo, Oghenetega, Oghenenyerhovwo, and Eguonoghene. I know that the few gifts I brought home during the holidays are grossly insufficient to compensate for the sacrifices you made throughout the years. Thank you for loving me. I owe you forever. My mother, Mary Agnes Akpome and my sisters – Omamomo, Efemena, and Oro; and my brothers – Ufuoma, Ejovwokoghene, Iruoghene, Oghenerukewe, and Patrick. Thank you. Prof Ronit Frenkel, my supervisor for believing in my abilities and for the all-important roles she played throughout the course; Other members of staff and colleagues at the Department of English, University of Johannesburg; especially Prof Craig MacKenzie, Prof Karen Schezinger, Dr Jane Starfield, Dr Sikhumbuzo Mngadi, Dr Bridget Grogan, and Dr Rebecca Fasselt. I thank you very much Rebecca for lending me that old Lenovo laptop after mine was stolen (along with three years of notes and my back-up USB stick) in downtown Johannesburg on the Eve of Easter Sunday, 2015. You saved a life! I would like to make special mention of Mrs Nicole Moore who was the first person I met at the department upon my first visit in June 2009. The collegiality of the members of the department made a huge difference during my long stay there. God bless you all. The brethren at St. Luke’s Anglican Cathedral, Sapele; especially Sir Robert Esiri, Dame Josephine Omagba, Ven. Benjamin Efevwerha, Ven. Nelson Emebeyo, the late Ven. iii Oyovwe Okpara, Mr G. U. Oyibo, Mrs Ejuren-Odeh, for and on behalf of others too numerous to mention. Your extravagant goodwill and the generous gifts you gave to me and members of my immediate family strengthened me during the years I spent on this course. The brethren at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Overcomers Parish, Brixton, Johannesburg; especially Pastor Leon Ikediashi and his amiable wife, Maureen; Pastor Jimi, Ayo and Masechaba, Emeka, Kazeem and Fati; Blessing, Esther, Seun, Thembi, and all the others. I love you all. I have been encouraged (and sometimes terrified!) by how highly my abilities have been regarded by my many dear friends including Kayode Ikujenya, Ruese Udoro, Moses Ighedo, Lawrence Ekpetubu,‘Big Jo’ Akpome, Ese Eruoghororere, Cletus Atariata, Alex Amurunoghotse, Pamela Esiri. Thank you too, Abubakar Abdulkadir, Henry Gwaza, Yinka Adedoja, Femi Adeagbo, Edwin Etieyibo, Ama Monday, Bros Olu, Julius Osayi, Augustine Amos, the Ogbonnaya family (‘Chief’, Uzor, Ebuka, Chuks), Rexwhite Enakrire, Kehinde Owolabi, Nurudeen Aderibigbe, and all the members of the various Nigerian communities in Johannesburg and KwaDlangezwa. Thanks to my mentors, Prof Godwin Oboh (‘Owainor’) and Joseph Eghwrudjakpor (‘Pajo’) who have been constant sources of encouragement over the years. I am grateful for the bursaries provided to me by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg and the UJ Alumni Network, and for the financial gifts I received from friends and family members throughout the period of this course. My former colleagues at the Writing Centres at the University of Johannesburg and at Wits School of Education were part of a stimulating environment that contributed in no small measure to the successful completion of this work. Thanks to Laura Dison, Navan Govender, Emmanuel Sibomana, Hilaire Habyarimana, Epimaque Niyibizi, Kgopotso Khumalo, Honore Fokwa-Mbamwi, Kabinga Shabanza, Sandy Kane, Rustin Schutte, Sandra Ayuk, Noel Dube and all the others. I thank Chris McWade, Allan Muller, Rebecca Fasselt and Michelle Nel for taking time to read through some of my drafts and for offering priceless suggestions for improvement. iv A summary of the rationale and scope of this study was presented at the 2015 African Literature Association (ALA) conference held at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, where I received helpful comments and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Prof Craig MacKenzie who provided for my attendance at that conference, and who has been a constant reference over the years. Some of the ideas in chapter four are discussed in my article on Bitter Fruit which appeared in Africa Spectrum, 48 (2), 2013. Parts of chapter three appeared in Africa Insight, 44 (1), 2014. I thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. v ABSTRACT This study examines patterns and discontinuities in the cultural and literary articulation of nationalism and public memory across transitional periods in South Africa after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Nigeria after the return to democracy in 1999. The selected South African texts are: Achmat Dangor’s novel Bitter Fruit (2001); Niell Blomkamp’s feature film District 9 (2009); and Jacob Dlamini’s Native Nostalgia (2009). The Nigeria texts are: In the Shadow of a Saint (2000), a biography of the late Ken Saro- Wiwa written by his son, Ken Wiwa; Helon Habila’s novel Measuring Time (2007); and the controversial BBC documentary Welcome to Lagos (2010). These texts, from three different genres, are interrogated for the ways in which they represent social identity, history, and nationhood in the changing contexts of on-going socio-political transition. The analyses foreground critical features of the evolving cultural history of the respective countries, both of which are representative of highly contested postcolonial spaces. The study reveals important intertextual relationships between what is theorized herein as post-dictatorship Nigerian writing and post-TRC South African literature. With particular regard to the two sites under focus, the study makes evident the ways in which narrative contributes to the shaping of the social imagination, especially in a post-conflict, transitional setting (see Ndebele, 1998; Andrews and McGuire, 2016), and how it is invariably implicated in legitimizing the truth claims upon which existing social categories are reinforced and new ones founded (see Moon, 2008). The first chapter provides a background to so-called ‘third-generation’ Nigerian writing and ‘post-transitional’ South African literature, which are theorized respectively as ‘post-military dictatorship’ (or post-dictatorship) and ‘post-TRC’ in chapter two. Each of the next three chapters presents a dialogic reading of one Nigerian and one South African text. The (auto)biographical texts In the Shadow of a Saint and Native Nostalgia are discussed in chapter three, with a focus on literary historiography and the texts’ portrayal of changing social categories. Chapter four explores the perspectives of the marginal protagonists in the novels Measuring Time and Bitter Fruit, while chapter five interrogates the films Welcome to Lagos and District 9 for their representation of slum urbanism as a key feature of contemporary transition in each country and in Africa at large. The final chapter foregrounds the salient features of post-dictatorship and post-TRC writing as vi revealed by the texts. It also draws out the convergences and divergences in the overall depiction of national transition as a means of foregrounding the specific