A Cultural-Conceptual Analysis of Some Metaphors of Corruption in Nigerian Literature

This study explores the metaphors of corruption used in Soyinka’s Samarkand, Osundare’s Waiting Laughters and Olafioye’s The Parliament of Idiots, examines how they are conceptualised within the Nigerian cultural setting and highlights the attributes that corrupt public officials share with them so as to portray how destructive they are to Nigeria and its people. The study, after analysing such metaphors as lion, dog, hyena, vulture, cobra, locust, leech, tortoise and virus, among others, reveals that their referents are destructive since they share with them such attributes as greed, selfishness, callousness, cunningness, wastefulness, brutality, recklessness, pretentiousness and moral rottenness, among others, which have wreaked havoc on Nigeria as a nation. The study also reveals that corruption has continued to strive in Nigeria because the nation’s moral fabric has been weakened and, thus, such vices as avarice, materialism, compulsion for a shortcut to affluence, glorification and approbation of ill-gotten wealth are celebrated at the expense of honesty, hardwork, patriotism, community service, commitment and selfless devotion, which ought to have been taken as symbols of national pride. Thus, there is the need for massive cultural re-orientation for attitudinal change so that those, who had earlier had the wrong orientation that corruption is a good way of life, can be persuaded to live a virtuous life and, thus, shun all forms of corrupt acts that can impede meaningful development. It is this responsibility of cultural re-orientation that the Nigerian literary artists have demonstrated in the selected works.