Lost in Translation: Decolonizing Nigeria’s Narrative

In recent years, Nigeria has faced criticism for being too obsessed with its national image. Specifically, its image in the eyes of the global West. But when BBC Africa asked its audience to describe Nigeria in one word, the two most popular words were ‘corruption’ and ‘Boko-Haram’ (Nwaubani), an Islamist jihadist organization based in northeastern Nigeria that is responsible for the death, rape, and kidnapping of thousands of people, most notably young schoolgirls (Chapter 6. foreign terrorist organizations). As for corruption, Nigeria is the 35th most corrupt country in the world (2023 corruption perceptions index: Explore the results), known for its bribery and nepotism (CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA: PATTERNS AND TRENDS). And while I do not intend to downplay the seriousness of these issues, other “developed” nations like America have similarly awful things happen on an equal scale. The United States has had terrorist attacks motivated by abortion laws, antisemitism, and white supremacy, and quadruple the number of child trafficking cases in Nigeria (Child traf icking by country 2024). The United States and Nigeria are very close in global safety rankings, with America only being 9.8% safer than Nigeria. But when US News ranked all the countries, America was 5th, and Nigeria wasn’t even ranked (Best countries in the World | U.S. news). There are so many great things about Nigeria that the international media overlooks. So how and why does the Western world slander Nigeria? In this paper, I will explain how Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States misrepresent Nigeria through mistranslations of impactful Nigerian works, harmful portrayals of Nigeria in the news, and disproportionately negative characterizations of Nigeria in history textbooks.

Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist and political activist, was widely regarded as the father of African Literature. He rejected this praise, condemning those who thought this as unacquainted with other great African writers (Inyang). Titles aside, Achebe was renowned for his works that illuminated the realities of imperialism in Africa. This paper will focus on the mistranslations of his first and third novels, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, into German. 

Things Fall Apart, the most widely read and translated African novel of all time, follows Okonkwo, a former leader of Umuofia, an Igbo community, who was exiled for accidentally killing an elder’s son. Upon returning to Umuofia, he finds Christian missionaries have inhabited the land, and the tensions are high. This novel was the world’s introduction to Igbo and Nigerian culture, and the language Achebe used and aspects of the culture he included were very intentional, as he wanted to portray his culture not just in a naïvely positive light but in a realistic one. Keeping Achebe’s sentiments alive in translation is essential to maintaining an accurate depiction of Igbo and Nigerian culture and giving the world a look at pre-colonial/colonial Africa. However, in the following examples, the translations (or rather mistranslations) erase crucial parts of Igbo culture and portray it as violent and misogynistic (Eke). The translation of Things Fall Apart is called Okonkwo oder Das Alte stürzt (literally translating to ‘Okwonkwo or the old one crashes’) by Dagmar Heusler and Evelin Petzold. One difference in the German translation of Things Fall Apart is its changing of the word woman to wife. In the original version of Things Fall Apart, the quote says “It is not bravery when a man fights a woman”(Achebe, 66), but in the translation, Heusler and Petzold wrote, “Es zeugt wahrlich nicht von Tapferkeit, wenn sich ein Mann mit seiner eigenen Frau schlägt”(Heusler & Petzold,106). This directly translates to “It really does not testify to bravery, when a man fights with his own wife.” This original Igbo proverb does not distinguish between wife and non-wife when talking about who men shouldn’t fight. It is evident that beating women in any capacity is condemned in the original proverb, but the translation modifies the meaning, insinuating that the culture condones beating women as long as they aren’t the man’s wife. This misrepresents Igbo Nigerians as hostile against women and suppresses accurate knowledge of the Igbo African culture to the target readers (Eke). 

Another difference in the German translation is its removal of animal symbolism from a popular Igbo idiom. In the original version, the quote reads, “As the dog said, ‘If I fall down for you and you fall down for me, it is play’”(Achebe, 51), referring to the symbolic process of giving away one’s daughter to a man for a bargained bride price. The quote is meant to show the fun, lighthearted nature of the bargaining using the innocence of animal play. This process doesn’t intend to objectify but rather to fulfill tradition, and the animal imagery is culturally necessary to emphasize this point. In the modified translation it reads, “Aber wie der eine zum anderen sagte, ‘senkst du den Preis, dann will auch ich mich nicht lumpen lassen, denn dann ist es ein Spiel’”(Heusler & Petzold, 83) which translates to “but as one said to the other, ‘lower the price, then I will also spend generously, for then it is a play.’” There is no real reason to remove the animal imagery from the proverb as animal play is widely known regardless of the culture, and the quote wouldn’t lose its meaning on a German audience. This substitution is likely a subconscious attribution of animal comparison to barbarism. They, instead, adapt the proverb to fit a modern capitalist market, but by doing this, they imply that this bargaining of a bride price is ascribing value to the bride, consequently objectifying her, which is not the point of the tradition. Thus, it westernizes an Igbo Tradition (Eke).

Arrow of God is Achebe’s third novel about a traditional Igbo priest, Ezeulu, facing off against an indigenous African Christian missionary who tries and succeeds at converting Ezeulu’s village. This work was translated into German by M. von Schweinitz, but like in the translation of Things Fall Apart, there are some mistranslations. In one quote, the German translation changes husband to mistress. The original quote is “Please husband, I implore you” (Achebe, 74), but in the translation, it reads, “Bitte, Herrin, ich flehe dich an” (von Schweinitz, 93), which translates to “Please mistress, I beseech you.” The woman saying the quote is Ugoye, and she is speaking to her mother-in-law. The German translation modifies the quote to be more accurate (since Ugoye is speaking to a woman). However, the Igbo word Di, which means husband, “is gender neutral and also represents power, strength, maturity, and other positive attributes associated with maleness in Igbo culture. […] A daughter is “husband” to women married into her extended family” (Onyeozili). This change in wording is a misrepresentation of Nigerian cultural perspective, identity, and knowledge and shows that hegemonic cultures are quick to judge and correct other subaltern culture’s perceived mistakes. The last example of mistranslation is when von Schweinitz changes the phrase men of title to ‘the wealthy.’ The original quote is “assembly of elders and men of title” (Achebe, 15), which von Schweinitz translated to “Gruppe der Ältesten und Reichen” (von Schweinitz, 26) or “group of elders and the wealthy.” In Igbo culture, personal achievement is not measured by the level of material wealth but by how much of a positive impact one has made on the clan or community. This translation indicates the materialism rampant in German culture that equates wealth with achievement. This translation paints Nigerians in a similarly neoliberal and capitalist light (Eke).

Similar characterizations of Nigerians as capitalist and money-hungry are prevalent in international news. Akintayo Adetokunbo-Edmund performed a content analysis of The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian, British newspapers with a combined 5.5 million monthly readers (List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation). In this analysis, Adetokunbo-Edmund found the following. From 2007 to 2010, British headlines about Nigeria focused on “corruption, crime, conflict and war.” The stories use polarizing language such as ‘wasteful’, ‘cursing’, and adding to ‘Africa’s misery’ when referring to Nigerian footballers. Stories surrounding Nigerian politics characterized all Nigerian politicians as corrupt and power-hungry while insinuating that Nigeria’s democracy was inferior to the Western democracies. Furthermore, the information provided for most of these stories came from foreign correspondents, so Britain isn’t even getting their Nigerian news from Nigeria itself. This level of misrepresentation and, in some cases, misinformation to so many people in a hegemonic country can jeopardize Nigeria’s international reputation and relations with other dominant nations, further hindering its growth.

And these ingrained perceptions continue to be reinforced in the world’s youth, perpetuating a cycle of misinformation and misrepresentation. In 2019, Oluseyi Matthew Odebiyi and Cynthia S. Sunal conducted a content analysis of Nigeria’s portrayal in various high school World History textbooks used in Alabama. They evaluated topics in the following categories: Resources and Poverty, Underdevelopment and Conflicts, Cultural Practices (Mis)understanding, and Ecological Framing. In each category, they noticed that every textbook negatively characterized Nigeria. The textbooks analyze Nigeria through an imperialist lens, writing that independence didn’t necessarily bring Nigeria economic freedom or proper government and insinuating that Nigeria would’ve been better off as a British protectorate. These textbooks elaborate on Nigeria’s economic and social issues, specifically how these issues led to domestic conflict. They often compare Nigeria to Western “developed” nations to show where it might be going wrong, but these Western nations were never colonized and left bereft of resources and a stable government. The textbooks also associate Nigeria with a lack of technology. However, according to the International Trade Administration, “Nigeria is regarded as Africa’s largest ICT [information and communications technology] market with about 82% of the continent’s telecoms subscribers and 29% of internet usage.” When discussing the conflict between Nigerian ethnic groups, the authors of these textbooks do not attribute the conflict to anything making it seem like Nigerians can’t peacefully coexist. In reality, the British amalgamated many ethnic groups together, much to the chagrin of the people within them. Britain did not consider the ramifications of grouping such unique ethnic groups that speak different languages and practice diverse religions, resulting in a very unstable and heterogeneous protectorate. The textbooks contain brief sections on Nigerian cultural practices and use remarkably shallow descriptions to portray meaningful and spiritually significant traditions. Regarding Nigeria‘s environment and climate, many of these textbooks presented pictures of wild animals and forests as a representation of Nigeria as a whole. Yet only ten percent of Nigeria is forest (Nigeria Forest Information and Data). For reference, almost 33.2% of America is forest, so this is a gross mischaracterization that plays into stereotypes about African barbarism (United States of America Forest Information and Data). Overall, these textbooks do a deplorable job of characterizing Nigeria to very impressionable youth who will form their opinions based on what they’ve learned. Through this knowledge begets a cycle. No one will want to visit Nigeria or other African nations because of their horrible media portrayal, and more culturally inconsiderate rhetoric will be released for mass consumption.

Most of the negative facets of Nigeria are direct causalities of colonization, and Nigeria’s international depiction to the Western world continues to reinforce stereotypes that hard-working Nigerians and Africans are trying so hard to erase. When translating works from any source language, scholars need to take care not to alter the portrayal of a culture and its people. Foreign and international news outlets must prioritize positive and negative stories equally regardless of revenue and viewership, as doing otherwise is harmful and constructs hurtful narratives. Textbook authors are responsible for ensuring their content is accurate and untainted by personal opinions of a culture or a country. These scholars, journalists, and educators hold the knowledge of today’s youth in their pens and have the power to influence in their tongues. For the sake of Nigeria and other “developing” nations, they need to use them for good.