Religious Charlatanism and the Writer’s Vision in Liwhu Betiang’s Beneath the Rubble and The Cradle on the Scales

This paper attempts to unmask religion not only as a cesspool for exploitation, but as a force of digintegration. In its real sense, religion should provide succour and solace to humanity. and also serve as an instrument of societal cohesion, but it has become a machination through which humanity is plagued. In Nigeria, religion has been used as a means for perpetration of violence and fuelling of ethnic consciousness. It has also been used to polarise the nation and this has seriously disrupted the peace and wellbeing of Nigerian society Following this, the writer, being a sensitive member of society, is left with no option but to conceive, portray and examine these contradictions in a specialised creative manner aimed at exposing and sensitising the people on the contradictions and apprehensions inherent in religion. Through textual analysis and interpretation of LiwhuBetiang’s novels: Beneath the Rubble and The Cradle on the Scales, the paper presents an in-depth exploration and unmasking of religionas no longer the “opium of the society but a drudgery plain laced with stumps. The paper adopts New Historicism as its theoretical framework because New Historicism examines how a writer’s time affects his work, and how his work also reflects the undercurrents of his time. The paper recommends that adherents of religions should apply reason and not emotion in their practice of religion in order to launch society back to the path of honour.

Keywords: Religious Charlatanism Nigerian Society New Historicism Betiang

Author

• Kufre A. Akpan
  Department of English,
  Akwa Ibom State University,
  Obio Akpa Campus