Bell-Gam’s Ije Odumodu Jere and Decolonization of Literature: A Postcolonialism Paradigm

Abstract

The jaundiced representation of Africa by Western writers has received critical scholarly attention in the past by African writers who have tried to decolonize African literature to present the African reality. Although most Igbo novelists writing in the Igbo medium have endeavored to reflect the Igbo reality in their novels, no attention had been paid to deconstruct the opinion of Western writers that painted a picture of a dark Africa in need of enlightenment. It is against this backdrop that the present study examines the issue of colonialism; this is with a view to delineating the trajectory of colonialism and the benefactors/recipients of civilization. Leopold Bell-Gam’s novel Ije Odumodu Jere was purposively selected as a result of its thematic concern with the subject matter. Edward Said’s Post-colonialism Theory was used as guide in the study. The result of the textual analysis reveals that, Africans of the Igbo stock was involved in colonizing some white entities, not necessarily Europe. The protagonist, Odumodu took a voyage by sea from Eko (Present day Lagos) to an island named Finda and later Mimba whose inhabitants were white, or at least not black. In Finda, Odumodu stopped the culture of cannibalism, revolutionized their agrarian system, changed their barbaric laws and introduced a legal system that prioritized fair hearing and justice in Finda. In Mimba, Odumodu introduced the formal education system and built schools including teacher training institutes where courses such as Geography, biology, the eco-system, marine science, archeology, and religion were taught. Leopold Bell-Gam, a white writer deconstructs the Western concept of colonialism by positing that blacks were also engaged in colonizing uncivilized people implying two facts; first, in the past, whites were as uncivilized as blacks, and second, the trajectory of colonialism is not White to Black, but also Black to White. This study maintains that colonialism was a bidirectional interaction involving mutual exchange of ideas and interests between giving and receiving groups, and not a unidirectional engagement as Western literature and history tends to portray.