Representations of Sectarian Extremism in Selected Nigerian Novels

Sectarian terrorism has become one of the dominant thematic areas in contemporary literature and public discourse. Existing studies in literary criticism have interrogated western novels on the phenomenon more than Nigerian novels while those available in Nigerian novels concentrate mostly on trauma, neglecting the postcolonial comparative perspective of representing Islamist (sectarianism and terrorism. Edward Said and Elleke Boehmer’s aspects of Postcolonial theory are deployed to interrogate how the binary construction of self/other, good/evil is interrogated and deconstructed in relation to religious fundamentalism in connection with power relation between the terrorist and the terrorisedd. Elnathan John’s Born on a Tuesday (Tuesday) and Adaobi Nwaubani’s Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree (Baobab Tree) are purposively selected for this study because of their in-depth, prosaic representations of terrorism and they are subjected to interpretive analyses. Terrorism or extremism is depicted as perpetrated by extremist Muslims in Tuesday, while, in Baobab Tree, the perpetrators are portrayed as non-Muslims, despite appropriating Islam as their ideology. Similarly, Tuesday focalises the perpetrators while Baobab Tree narrativises the female victims’ experience of terrorism. The postcolonial condition that stimulates sectarian terrorism is also portrayed in Tuesday. Significantly, the authors’ gender influences their plotting of terrorism. This paper concludes that the two Nigerian writers narrativise sectarian terrorism in the Nigerian state differently, to suit their visions based on given points and contend that Islamic sectarian terrorism may be a more appropriate term than the generic Islamic terrorism.

Keywords: Sectarian Terrorism Extremism Contemporary Literature Nigerian Novels

Authors

• Israel Oluwaseun Adeleke
  Department of English,
  University of Ibadan, Nigeria
  adelekeisrael@gmail.com
• Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale
  Department of English
  University of Ibadan, Nigeria