The disenchantment of the masses in post-independent Africa is prevalent in African
novels. Both A Man of the People and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born are existential and
societal realities of the neo-colonial Ghana and Nigeria. This comes cross the idea of Aijaz that
“all the third-world texts are necessarily national allegories”. Armah and
Achebe's treatment of the disillusionment and pain is a strong analysis of the African past and
present, and a pessimist view of future evolution. Both Achebe and Armah did not lay all the
blames for the demise of pain in Africa at the doorstep of the colonial masters; rather they consider that the neo-colonial indigenous rulers are even worse than the white colonists. The lives of the
masses in these two novels suggest that independence in African nations has not been beneficial
to the masses.
Before independence, the African leader was portrayed as a devoted person whose aim is
to attain the independence how subtle it is. He was the symbol of African aspiration for a bright
future. When independence was attained, his people hailed him as the leading father, however,
immediately after the independence he was mediocre and the worst person. Since the independence
the leaders have used power as a means for accumulating the money of the states this impasse has
been seen clearly in A Man of the People. The leaders in these novels were dishonest, since they
can do anything that can make them stay in power. African leaders were dictators any one in power
does not want to be replaced. The politicians usually use power against their masses that they
promised to serve as much as they could, but they were really disillusioned. In these two novels
the leaders live in good places and the masses in rats and bad environment. This social inequality
is plainly seen in both A Man of the People and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.
Corruption was one of the major hurdles that Africa was facing; this phenomenon is
obviously seen in both A Man of the People and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. In A Man
of the People corruption has been shown as an inevitable problem in African post-independent
politics. Odili in A Man of the People was depicted at the very beginning as an ideal but at the end
of the novel he showed his audience that politics in Africa is not more than ruses. Achebe has used
this aspect of Odili in order to depict the situation of the educated elite immediately after the
independence. Chief Nanga on the other hand was described as one of the dedicated men, who can
get anything he desired. By the same token in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, the Man was
scrambling to change the world around him, but he found out that it is impossible to live without
being involved in corruption. In The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born two of the most important
metaphors were depicted in this novel; the bus and the banister, which stand for corruption. In
these two novels bribery and embezzlement contributed in the malaise that afflicting post-independent African societies.
In both A Man of the People and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, coup d’ etat was
the only possible solution to remove African leaders from the rainy season. Armah and Achebe
were very exasperated by the vast socio-political contradiction in their nations, this leads them to make out of coup d’ etat full stops for their novels. Achebe was very frustrated by the deplorable
situation. He says that “things have got to such point which there is no other answer, no way you
can resolve this impasse politically, the political machine had been so abused whichever way you
pressed it, it produced the same result. And therefore another force had to come in.” This is one of the reasons that push him to conclude the novel with the military coup as a
solution for the malaise in his country, and as a solution for any situation which is similar to the
Nigerian case.