In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe depicted Okonkwo and Obierika as contrasting Igbo responses to colonial intrusion. Their symbolic tension persists in Igbo attitudes toward Nigeria today, and must be reconciled for effective political strategy.
By Chudi Okoye
They would not stand for any ‘nonsense’ like cautiousness, temperance, or strategic prudence; nor in their call to arms, tolerate any squeamish talk about avoiding self-harm. In their righteous rage, it seemed an outrage to make such inane suggestions. How dare one urge restraint and acknowledge constraints in the valiant struggle to wrest freedom from an overwhelming and asymmetrical force?
Such was my ‘temerity’ – recently having the effrontery to share my cautionary commentary on a particularly fervent Igbo forum. It elicited furious, and sadly predictable, reactions. In an instant, my sober and sobering piece was pulled, and when re-posted it invited a feverish but failed effort to force it off the forum.
Yet, to be fair, not all reactions were visceral. Cooler heads in that dreaded den seemed to understand and appreciate where I was headed in my latest essay series.
A few days ago, with Biafra Day looming and news trickling out about a potential opposition coalition ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 elections, I began to contemplate an essay on these developments. Initially conceived as a single piece, the effort has evolved into a trilogy.
The first installment welcomed the early opposition stirrings and emphasized the imperative of unity in the face of a flexed ruling party. But it also employed a game-theoretic motif to warn of likely pitfalls in the opposition’s efforts.
The second, published on Biafra Day, honored the occasion but cautioned that what I called “exitism” could undermine Igbo quest for national power, especially in this narrow window for returning to mainstream politics amid emerging coalition talks.
In this third installment, I dig deeper into the pathologies of Igbo politics, leveraging the dialectical tension between the Okonkwo and Obierika characters in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to describe the contrasting – and often conflicting – tendencies in Igbo culture and their impacts on political behavior. The ‘Okonkwo’ impulse favors confrontation; the ‘Obierika’ sensibility urges restraint.
I attempt a reconciliation of these dispositions – urging a tempered Okonkwo radicalism to animate Igbo political praxis, while cultivating and edifying it with Obierika’s wisdom and prudence – for a more coherent and strategic outcome.
‘Okonkwo’ vs. ‘Obierika’
Most readers will recall the Okonkwo and Obierika characters. Near opposites in temperament, thought, and action, they embody distinct ways of navigating the world. Through them, Achebe reveals a deeper tension in Igbo character: between impetuous valor and reflective prudence, between rigid mindset and pragmatic wisdom. These figures, to an extent, also evoke Carl Jung’s archetypes: Okonkwo as the ‘Hero’ – courageous but impulsive, whose shadow is insecurity and fear of weakness; Obierika as the ‘Sage,’ embodying wisdom, reflection, and adaptability. There are even echoes of these Achebe characters in other literary traditions. You could find the tragic hero Okonkwo in Sophocles’ hubristic Oedipus, and the measured and pragmatic Obierika in Shakespeare’s stoic Horatio. Yet in Igbo society, these archetypes are not merely literary; they manifest in political behavior and responses to existential tumult. Today, these contrasting impulses are mirrored in the strategic impasse of Igbo politics.
Okonkwo is the tragic hero par excellence: bold, martial, impatient with weakness, and uncompromising in his defense of tradition. Haunted by his father Unoka’s perceived failures, he equates strength with moral virtue, and action – especially violent action – with manly dignity. Okonkwo’s obsession with erasing his father’s legacy blinds him to the costs of his choices. He rises swiftly in the social ranks of his clan, Umuofia, by cultivating this reputation for fearlessness and decisiveness. But his rash and impulsive nature proves his undoing. When colonial rule arrives, Okonkwo cannot abide its subversion of Igbo autonomy. He yearns for instant, fiery resistance. And when that is not forthcoming, his people appearing paralyzed and uncertain, he takes his own life in a final, symbolic act of protest. It is an act, ironically, that violates Igbo custom and renders him an abomination even in death.
Okonkwo’s brave but unbending and belligerent spirit has echoed in key figures of Igbo political history. It manifested in Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the bold, charismatic, and military-trained leader who – appalled by the pogroms against Igbos in the First Republic and disillusioned by the unraveling of the Nigerian state – led the Eastern Region into secession and the civil war that followed. His Igbo foil at the time was Nnamdi Azikiwe, a nationalist titan cast more in Obierika’s mold, who initially counseled against secession and, as war broke out, worked diplomatically from abroad to help end it. While Zik the politician sought survival through negotiation, Ojukwu the soldier pursued justice through rupture – their approaches shaped by conviction, character and contrasting careers. The Nigerian state’s military response precipitated a brutal civil war, in which millions of Igbos perished, their homeland devastated, and a traumatized generation scattered. In this tragic arc, the Okonkwo archetype acted – and history still bears the scars.
This tragic cycle did not end with Biafra’s defeat. In the contemporary period, the Okonkwo archetype re-emerged in the person of Nnamdi Kanu and his separatist IPOB movement. Like Okonkwo, Kanu speaks in binary terms – freedom or death, secession or slavery. His rhetoric thrills the disaffected, and his charisma sustains a mythos of impending rupture. Yet, like Okonkwo, his defiance has precipitated no strategic gain. Incarcerated by the state, abandoned by most of the political class, and with splinter IPOB elements now engaged in violent criminality under the guise of liberation, Kanu’s crusade has left Igboland utterly disfigured – economically, politically, and otherwise.
Meanwhile a different tradition, in Obierika’s spirit, has over time proved more effective in transforming the Igbo political landscape. Colonial-era nationalists like Azikiwe secured regional self-government through the 1954 Lyttleton Constitution barely 40 years after amalgamation, followed by independence six years later; while the Okonkwo archetype has pursued Igbo independence from Nigeria for 58 years (since 1967), to no avail. Today, notable Igbo leaders in the Obierika mold, including governors and legislators, are making a difference. They reflect a sober turn in strategy: more technocratic than theatrical; focused on reform and reconstruction, rather than ‘slacktivism’. Their chosen path – negotiation, persuasion – contrasts sharply with the fiery ultimatums of exitism. In different registers, they exemplify pragmatic radicalism: advancing the Igbo cause through coalition-building and institutional engagement rather than isolation. The dividends are visible: improving infrastructure, growing social investment, and a re-energized civic spirit. Their gradual success stands as a quiet rebuke to the futility of performative agitation.
It is this Obierika mindset that I believe must permeate Igbo politics at this critical point, quickened by a tempered Okonkwo spirit. It is what I imply with my concept of pragmatic radicalism – restructuring rather than romanticizing secession, an echo of Obierika’s ethic of sober engagement. Like Achebe’s sage, this approach recognizes that wisdom often lies in navigating complexity, not conquering it. Jung reminds us that societies, like individuals, flourish when the Hero’s drive is balanced by the Sage’s discernment. The integration of these archetypes is the hallmark of maturity – personal and political. This approach is not passive. It recognizes the structural injustices baked into the Nigerian project and seeks their radical undoing. But it does so through coalition-building, institutional contestation, and regional restructuring. It pursues the possible, not an illusory perfect. It seeks to reshape the Nigerian compact rather than shatter it. And unlike the symbolic politics of exitism, which provokes without leverage, pragmatic radicalism marshals tools of real negotiation – demographics, alliances, elite consensus, and electoral strategy – to reposition the Igbo, not as exiles-in-waiting but as co-architects of a re-imagined federation.
The tension between Okonkwo and Obierika is not just a literary device; it is a lens into the pathologies of Igbo politics. Achebe, who understood the pulse of Igbo society like few others, warned that the crisis of modernity would test not only our strength but our wisdom. In this, he shares ground with Sophocles and Shakespeare, whose tragedies dissect the fatal allure of hubris and the redemptive power of prudence. Jung would add that the fate of a people depends on whether its heroes can learn from its sages, and whether the collective can harmonize the urge to act with the wisdom to reflect. In the current political moment, where emotional reflex often masquerades as courage, it is worth asking: which path yields more than momentary catharsis? Which one offers a bridge to real transformation?
The Okonkwo archetype may stir the soul, but it is the Obierika disposition, tempered yet resolute, that is more likely to salvage what must change. The challenge, then, is to transcend this binary and forge a synthesis of both traditions.
‘Obierikonkwo’
The argument advanced by the exitist camp is that the Igbo are so profoundly oppressed within Nigeria that nothing short of secession and sovereignty will suffice. But this thesis collapses when held up to the light of real-world conditions.
To begin with, who authorized this sweeping mandate for secession? Have the exitists consulted the Igbo power elite – the businessmen, professionals, politicians, clergy, and traditional authorities who are deeply invested in the Nigerian project? Have they taken the pulse of the general Igbo population, most of whom live and thrive outside Igboland? Millions of Igbos have made homes in Lagos, Abuja, Kano, and virtually every corner of the country, often building immovable assets, forging deep relationships, and establishing local economic networks that bind them more tightly to their adopted environments than to ancestral soil. Are these people – many of whom have ignored repeated “Akụ̀lụ̀ ụ̀nọ̀” (homeland investment) appeals – now expected to abandon it all and retreat to a hastily imagined sovereign homeland, spurred by a fervent digital vanguard?
More pointedly, how do the exitists intend to enforce this vision of sovereignty? What legal mechanism are they proposing to enforce it? If exitism was ever intended as a form of radical negotiation with the Nigerian state, the gambit has not succeeded; it is treated rather as insurrection, hence the prolonged prosecution and incarceration of Kanu. However badly ruled, Nigeria, like any modern state, will not sit idly by while its territorial integrity is challenged. The Nigerian Civil War of 1967–70 was a brutal lesson in this reality – a war the Igbo paid for in blood, in starvation, in generational marginalization. That war was led by charismatic, educated men – Ojukwu, Azikiwe, Nwafo Orizu, Eni Njoku, Louis Mbanefo, Pius Okigbo and others – whose international standing far exceeded anything the current crop of exitist figures can claim. Yet, despite their clout and a favorable post-independence era, they failed to secure meaningful support or global recognition.
Today, with less clout and an unfavorable geopolitical climate, what realistic path exists for exitists to achieve Biafran statehood? If the long-suffering Palestinians, along with others like the Kashmiris, the Kurds, and the Sahrawis have not achieved full statehood at the United Nations, how likely will Igbo secession receive global endorsement?
In truth, the exitist impulse is unmoored from practical politics. It is a theater of performance – a cathartic ritual more than a strategy. It produces spectacle, not statecraft. It dissipates Igbo energy into the ether of social media sloganeering, raising false hopes among the disaffected and uneducated, while diverting attention from winnable battles. It is full of sound and fury, but it signifies nothing – except perhaps that its fury, seen in the attempt to censor me on an online forum for merely urging restraint, may well portend an authoritarian ethos that would define an exitist-led Biafra. Its audacity, however, is proof of the void left by some among the Igbo political leadership.
That void must be filled, and filled with conviction. The Igbo political class must stop cowering before this chorus of futility. They must reclaim the narrative. They must speak boldly and clearly to their people – not just to dismiss the exitist fantasy, but to redirect its passion toward a restructuring agenda that is difficult but attainable. The lack of statehood does not always imply a lack of self-determination or agency. There are other pathways to assert identity, preserve culture, and exercise political leverage. The Igbo political class must show, with results and not just rhetoric, that “winning in Nigeria” is not only possible but preferable to “escaping” into implausible sovereignty. The dream of Biafra has become a displaced dream – one rooted in historic grievance, but exploited today by opportunists who offer no workable blueprint.
What is required now is a synthesis, not a standoff: an Obierikonkwo – a fusion of Okonkwo’s passionate insistence on dignity with Obierika’s strategic patience and clarity. The Igbo cannot afford to be trapped in extreme poles: not in tragic absolutism, nor in cautious inertia. Instead, they must forge a middle path – fortified by memory, but oriented toward the future. This is not a call to forget the wounds of history or the depth of current frustrations, but to channel them into a politics with the power to transform rather than merely protest.
The future lies not in romantic retreat, but in rational advance. Not in the brittle purity of secession, but in the messy, stubborn, and ultimately transformative politics of restructuring. That is the task of leadership. That is the challenge of this moment. And that, more than anything, is how to honor both the wound and the wisdom in the Igbo political soul.
