Colonialism and Nigerian Politics

Though the plot of Purple Hibiscus unfolds mostly on a personal level, its characters’ lives are also affected
by a larger political background. Nigeria has a long history of English colonialism and oppression—it was a
colony of the British for over a hundred and fifty years, and its disparate groups only brought together as a
single nation because of British control—and it only became its own independent nation in 1960. Papa is
described as a “colonial product”: a man who has bought into the colonialist mindset. Though he is
Nigerian, Papa believes that white people do everything better, and he wants everything in his life to be
Western and modern. He speaks in an affected British accent when talking to white people, and avoids
speaking the native language of Igbo whenever possible. His sister Aunty Ifeoma, on the other hand, rejects
the idea that whiteness-equals-superiority. She is frustrated by the corruption in Nigeria, but she still
believes that the country should embrace its own resources and independence. She asserts that Nigeria is
still a young nation learning to govern itself, so it should not be judged alongside much older countries that
have already gone through growing pains.

While colonialism sets the background for the novel, Purple Hibiscus also takes place during a turbulent
time for the Nigerian government. The plot probably coincides with the real, historical military coup and
subsequent regime of Ibrahim Bangida, one of the country’s most corrupt leaders—although in the novel
he is only referred to as the Head of State, or “Big Oga.” Few details about the government are given, but
politics still affect the daily lives of Adichie’s characters: workers’ strikes cut off power and water, police
require bribes at random checkpoints, and Ade Coker, who is based on the real-life journalist Dele Giwa, is
assassinated with a letter bomb. We see everything through a young adult’s point of view, but Adichie still
manages to make her novel a political one by showing the tragic personal results of the legacy of
colonialism, dictatorship, and corruption.

Quotes

Papa was staring pointedly at Jaja. “Jaja, have you not shared a drink with us, gbo? Have you no words in
your mouth?” he asked, entirely in Igbo. A bad sign. He hardly spoke Igbo, and although Jaja and I spoke it
with Mama at home, he did not like us to speak it in public. We had to sound civilized in public, he told us;
we had to speak English. Papa’s sister, Aunty Ifeoma, said once that Papa was too much of a colonial
product. She had said this about Papa in a mild, forgiving way, as if it were not Papa’s fault…

Jaja’s defiance seemed to me now like Aunty Ifeoma’s experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the
undertones of freedom, a different kind of freedom from the one the crowds waving green leaves chanted
at Government Square after the coup. A freedom to be, to do.

Papa changed his accent when he spoke, sounding British, just as he did when he spoke to Father Benedict.
He was gracious, in the eager-to-please way that he always assumed with the religious, especially with the
white religious.
Papa wanted Father Benedict to hear our confession. We had not gone in Abba because Papa did not like to
make his confession in Igbo, and besides, Papa said that the parish priest in Abba was not spiritual enough.
That was the problem with our people, Papa told us, our priorities were wrong; we cared too much about
huge church buildings and mighty statues. You would never see white people doing that.

Sometimes I imagined God calling me, his rumbling voice British-accented. He would not say my name
right; like Father Benedict, he would place the emphasis on the second syllable rather than the first.
Ade Coker was at breakfast with his family when a courier delivered a package to him. His daughter, in her
primary school uniform, was sitting across the table from him. The baby was nearby, in a high chair. His wife
was spooning Cerelac into the baby’s mouth. Ade Coker was blown up when he opened the package—a
package everybody would have known was from the Head of State even if his wife Yewande had not said
that Ade Coker looked at the envelope and said “It has the State House seal” before he opened it.

“It is not about me, Chiaku.” Aunty Ifeoma paused. “Who will teach Amaka and Obiora in university?”
“The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind.
The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will
break that cycle?”

“When the missionaries first came, they didn’t think Igbo names were good enough. They insisted that
people take English names to be baptized. Shouldn’t we be moving ahead?”
“It’s different now, Amaka, don’t make this what it’s not,” Father Amadi said calmly…
“But what’s the point, then?” Amaka said… “What the church is saying is that only an English name will
make your confirmation valid. ‘Chiamaka’ says God is beautiful. ‘Chima’ says God knows best, ‘Chiebuka’
says God is the greatest. Don’t they all glorify God as much as ‘Paul’ and ‘Peter’ and ‘Simon’?”

“It’s your father. They called me from the factory, they found him lying dead on his desk.” Mama sounded
like a recording…
Jaja grabbed the phone. Aunty Ifeoma led me to the bed. I sat down and stared at the bag of rice that
leaned against the bedroom wall… I had never considered the possibility that Papa would die, that Papa
could die. He was different from Ade Coker, from all the other people they had killed. He had seemed
immortal.

There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried,
we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling
baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him
did not all crawl, once.