Second liberation will come after we fully enforce the law

Chinua Achebe reminds us what independence meant to politicians. Like Kenya, all African countries held at bay their age-old ethnic rivalries to kick out the white man. So when the bells of independence rang, everyone thought it was time to stop walking around in tatters, having two meals a week and cowering at everything including your own shadow. It was time to stand tall and have a ball as a free people.

Right? Wrong. The politicians had another card under the table. As the peasants struggled to take their children to school so that they could return and take over the leadership of their country – like the Umuofians in No Longer at Ease – the politicians were busy rummaging in the national purse. One Government official, while on an official trip abroad, writes his name on a bank note and hands it to a girl from his country to impress her.