(Mis)Conception of Leadership and the Tragedy in Achebe's Arrow of God

Abstract

Leadership, from the face of it, defines itself by its compelling demands on leaders for timely and unwavering decisions, an unflagging tenacity and unshaken resolve to bear the responsibility for actions carried out and decisions taken in the contestation and exercise of power. However, Achebe's Arrow of God implicates the contrasting, and even conflicting other views o the notion of leadership in the tensions that eventuated in the indiscriminate tragedy in the novel, as it belies the view that the tragedy is singularly occasioned by Ezeulu's hubris. This paper contends that the contestation over the exercise of power, which resolved in tragedy, between the High-Priest of Ulu and the elders of the clan ensued from the conflicting views of the concept of leadership which they respectively hold. To Ezeulu, his leadership of the people draws its legitimacy and power directly and exclusively from the clan god, Ulu, thus the insolence, stark obduracy and impenitence of Ezeulu. Conversely, the elders of the clan conceive of the legitimacy and power of Ezeulu's leadership as singularly sprouting from the communal and collective wishes of the people, even where the calling of his office is particularly religious. The implications of his office across a wide spectrum of the lives of the people discloses as it questions the boundaries of religion in the socio-cultural space of the clan. The paper thus concludes that the many tensions and displacements which ensued from the colonial contact acquired far greater drive or impellent towards the tragic from the contending (mis)conceptions of leadership between the two most powerful centrifugal forces in the clan: The High-Priest, Ezeulu, and the elders of the clan, than from Ezeulu's insolence and brazen disregard for contrary views.