Why the White Man is Better: (The Black Man's Rule of Africa)

By Sotonye Sagbe Boyle

Anger, greed, and ego are in the minds of top Nigerian government officials under British colonialism as they intrude on peasants’ land and the estates bequeathed to them by their colonial masters. Betrayed and angry, the landowners secretly join to fight to retrieve their lands. The peasant landowners are rewarded with torture, imprisonment, and untimely death.

Mathew, an upright kinsman, is disappointed in the hypocrisy of his fellow Black elite brothers and sets out to ensure his family will be on the frontlines of a movement to subvert the corruption that has taken over his land and right the injustices he and others have endured. After underestimating the stubborn will of the new landgrabbers, he is imprisoned. While he is behind bars, his wife dies. When a deceived and now elderly Mathew finally returns from prison, he concludes the White man is superior. But will his eldest son, Tudor, eventually find a way to fulfill Mathew’s dream for the downtrodden?

In this historical novella, a kinsman and his eldest son must battle corrupt elites, Black neocolonialism, and the underdevelopment of Africa after greedy landgrabbers upend their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823085267

Sotonye Sagbe Boyle

Sotonye Sagbe Boyle grew up in Abonnema, Nigeria. During his career development programme in Cape Town, South Africa, he was inspired to write his first novel, The White Man Is Better. His most recent work, Ben Abdul-Malik Akran, was inspired while he was sitting on the rail of a bridge on the QuaySide Peninsula in Cambridge, England, staring idly at marine birds.

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WHY THE

WHITE MAN

IS BETTER

(THE BLACK MAN’S RULE OF AFRICA)

SOTONYE SAGBE BOYLE

AuthorHouse™ UK

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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)

UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)

© 2023 Sotonye Sagbe Boyle. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/19/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8528-1 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8527-4 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8526-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023919927

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Theme

Synopsis

Acknowledgements and Appreciation

Author’s Note

Dedication, Declaration, and Declamation

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

In Why the White Man Is Better, Mathew laments the era of neocolonialism that has taken over his land as he loiters in the estate where he and his family once worked for the colonialists. Feeling betrayed, he sets out to ensure his family will be in the vanguard of a movement to subvert the corruption that has taken over his land and right the injustices he and others have endured. But will his eldest son, Tudor, coming back from conscription into the First World War, be able to realise Mathew’s dream for the downtrodden?

THEME

It is not wrong of Blacks to consider White intervention as partially to blame for the underdevelopment of the Black race. But it is also wise for Blacks to look inward and see how Black people have contributed to their own underdevelopment.

SYNOPSIS

The plot of Why the White Man Is Better is centred around Nigeria. Its theme examines contributing factors to the underdevelopment within the Black culture—both White and Black. The fictional story draws a comparative literary analysis between the White man’s rule (colonialism) and the Black man’s rule (neocolonialism) over the Black man as greed; corruption, anger, and rebellion become twisted up with governance.

Anger, greed, and ego are in the minds of top Nigerian government officials under British colonialism who seek to take over governance from their colonial masters. Soon, the opportunity beckons to them, and they resort to grasping it with open arms, eventually turning the polity put in place by the colonialists to wrong use.

Downward economic trend becomes the order of the day when the new Black administrators (the neocolonialists) are not able to steer the economic system put in place by the colonialists due to their greed and corruption. Following this order, they put a stop to developmental projects, giving rise to a general mass looting and corruption that soon infiltrates the fabric of the governmental system.

Thus, the new administrator, Josephus, once more orders his subordinate, Zack, ‘Constitute a committee to look into our economic system. We will drop the British pound sterling and design our own currency!’

During this time, the peasant landowners, who served the colonialists with love and servitude, are left wanting after the landowners’ uneventful departure to their motherland, precipitated by the looming crisis of the First World War in 1914. They are simply not paid the remuneration the colonialists had agreed upon with the new government before the shift of power into their hands. The new government, rather, resorts to usurpation of the peasants’ lands and the tokens bequeathed to them by their colonial masters.

Feeling done with and betrayed, the landowners secretly join together to fight to get back their lands. Mathew, an upright kinsman, puts his family in the vanguard to subvert the power of the neocolonialists and put an end to the injustice. But they underestimate the stubborn will of the new land-grabbers to hold on to their new possession.

At one of their secret meetings, the new government uses the courtima, the half nikka policemen and army—now acting hand in glove with them—to swoop down on the landowners with Dane guns and batons. The peasant landowners are rewarded with torture, imprisonment, and untimely death, causing some family members to abscond from the town.

Before Mathew returns from prison, his wife, Theodora meets her death. In his grief, as he loiters in the estate where he and his family once worked for the colonialists, he laments the era of neocolonialism, crying out, ‘The White man is better!’

Mathew’s eldest son, Tudor, who leads the vanguard, also escapes to Benin Republic with his younger siblings, where he eventually gets conscripted into the British Army to fight in the First World War on the side of the Allies.

The First World War soon ends, and Tudor and other kinsmen who were likewise conscripted start a new fight and dethrone the government in order to take back their lands. Killing and looting become the order of the day.

Soon, the peasants, having subverted the neocolonial government, make a clarion call to their former White masters to come back and re-administer good governance.

Mathew, a lanky six-footer, limped lazily through the shaded avenue of the colonialists’ once stately homes, lined with chestnut and pine trees. He wondered what had happened to this lively estate that had once been agog with life and activity—back when the colonialists had occupied the quintessentially picturesque Iguta town. Age had urgently taken the life out of him when he was just about to begin his mid-sixties.

To Mathew, the estate seemed deserted, but he knew the new landowners were alive and inside their stately homes. They were probably spying on him from their elaborate windowpanes, which were beautifully decorated with long curtains still drawn at this time of the morning. He raised his face up to the sky to view the position of the sun. It was almost overhead at the equator. He saw it was nearly midday—the sun already halfway through the sky by now. His colonial masters would be doing either of two things—swimming and sunbathing by their swimming pools or making themselves busy with administrative work in their offices. It was the time when, back in the day, his master would ask him to serve them fresh fruits plucked from the well-fruited coconut trees and date palms that were interspersed among the chestnut and pine trees lining the avenues.

Mathew shook his head in disappointment as he walked along, shaded under the dramatically overarching trees on both sides that had joined and created the impression of a hollow horizontal cylinder. Light from the overhead sun