Patriarchy In Nigeria Summary

1.0 Background to the study

This research focuses on The Shifting Perspectives of Patriarchy in The Stillborn and Personal Angle, both novels are written by two Northern Nigerian female writers Zaynab Alkali and Fatima Baram Alkali (mother and daughter). They have attempted to examine the relationship between the genders as it relates to the predominantly Northern Muslim society. The choice of these two female writers, apart from attempting to examine how filial relationship affects creative impetus, is to examine the literary transformation which has existed in the two literary generations in which the two texts are situated. In as much as the study adopts feminism as a literary theory for the interrogation of this discourse and which necessitates

Its farthest Southern border is marked by “the territories of the Borgu, Yoruba, Nupe, Igala, Fulani and other Kwa-language speaking people” (Ali). It should be noted that every nationality that makes up the modern-day Nigeria had its own literary tradition before it encountered Arabic or European influences. The educated elite that emerged from latter-day contact with these foreign influences have been erroneously credited with the beginnings of a written literary tradition. The colonialist critics have equally mistakenly assumed these to be the genesis of literature in Nigeria. Adeyemi argues that “Othman Dan Fodio is the focal cultural event in the North in the 19th century, blowing as a wind of change against the old order of Habe kingdoms holding stifling sway over Hausa lands and its environs” (internet). He argues that the admixture of an Islamic influence via the Trans-Saharan trade route, and the very accommodating policies of the British colonial administration which favours a propping of the early 19th century Islamic reformer Uthman Dan Fodio’s system of emirates, resulted in the peoples of the North not being exposed to Western education until about a century after the peoples in the Southern parts of the country have embraced western education. While a rich history of Arabic-based literature existed, the extent of the known world of our fathers quadrupled in the decade starting from 1901. English but not Arabic became the language of world expression. Consequently, while the people of the North have had their unique experiences, “these experiences have hardly weighed in the national consciousness for they are only recent, in the last thirty years, being expressed in the language that counts – in English” (Ali, internet). He, (Ali) also argues that perhaps the most dominant mental image that is conjured up by the phrase