IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 23, Issue 2, Ver. 11 (February. 2018) PP 68-77 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2302116877 www.iosrjournals.org 68 | Page The God And People’s Power In Chinua Achebe’s Arrow Of God Afolabi Olarongbe Akanbi 1 , Noor Hashima Abd Aziz 2 , Rohizah Halim 3 1,2,3 (School of Languages, Civilisation and Philosophy, UUM CAS, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010, Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia) 1 (Department of Languages, Federal Polytechnic Offa, Kwara State, Nigeria) Corresponding Author: Afolabi Olarongbe Akanbi Abstract: Chinua Achebe has made the question of power one of the central concerns of his works. As a novelist, he has devoted considerable attention to the use of powers by leaders. In Arrow of God, Achebe focusses on Ezeulu, the Chief Priest and spiritual leader of Umuaro to address the question of who, between Ezeulu and the people of Umuaro, decides the wish of the god. This paper, using textual analysis and application of myth theory argues that Ezeulu‟s powers are derived from the myth of the founding of Umuaro and arising from this, the people believe that their wish should prevail in Ezeulu‟s discharge of his functions. The paper contends that the crisis of the New Yam Feast which set the people against Ezeulu is traceable to the refusal of the Chief Priest to let the wish of the people prevail. Umuaro people believe that their Chief Priest has failed to protect them at their trying moment, thus, they abandoned him and Ulu, their god. The paper find that when Ulu later intervenes on the side of the people, it affirms that they have a say in who decides the wish of the god. This intervention leaves no one in doubt that People‟s power prevails and that “no man however great was greater than his people”. Key Words: Power, People‟s power, Abuse of power, Concern, Leaders, god, Myth --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 15-02-2018 Date of acceptance: 01-03-2018 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION Arrow of God is Achebe‟s third novel which he describes in its preface as “the novel which I am most likely to be caught sitting down to read again”. It is set in Umuaro, a fictional Igbo community in Nigeria at a time when British Colonial rule and the effects of missionary activities are already entrenched. Umuaro comprised of six villages that come together as a union to face their common enemy. The plot unfolds within this village locale in its rigorous examination of African culture. Achebe (as cited in Killam, 1982) explains his motivation for this work and why he devotes considerable attention to the culture of his people: I think I‟m basically an ancestor worshipper… Not in the same sense as my grandfather would probably do it, you know, pouring palm wine on the floor for the ancestors…With me it takes the form of celebration and I feel a certain compulsion to do this… And in fact the reason ( Arrow of God) goes back to the past, not as remotely as the first (novel) is that I‟ve learned a lot more about these particular people…my ancestors (p. 59).Achebe puts Ezeulu, the Chief priest of Ulu who is the major character in the novel at the centre of this ancestral worship. Ulu is a God created by the six villages for protection against slave raids and Umuaro elevated the new God as the first among other deities. With the creation of Ulu, its power supersedes that of older village deities and Achebe looks at the complex relationship between the GOD and His Priest when it comes to deciding what shall be the wish of the God: I‟m handling a whole lot of …more complex themes… like the relationship between a god and his priest. My chief character in this novel is a village priest not a Christian priest – a traditional African religion. And I‟m interested in this old question of who decides what shall be the wish of the gods… (Killam, p. 60). Arrow of God has been subjected to critical analysis by literary and culture scholars since its publication in 1964. For example, Machila (1981) examines the major conflicts in the novel such as the one between the colonial administration and the native authority, the conflicts about the internal politics of Umuaro and the conflict between Ezeulu and Ezeidemili and argues that all these conflicts develop around the person of the Chief Priest. Machila explains in his study that Ezeulu is not only a complex character but as an ambiguous character in the way he relates with Umuaro and the colonial administration. He considers Ezeulu ambiguous because his motives are always impure as they are influenced by numerous often conflicting interests. In addition, Akwanya (2013) regards Arrow of God as a harrowing story of traumatic change which makes a traditional society to lose its cultural identity as a result of internal and external pressure. Furthermore, (Aning & Nsiah (2012) critique the novel from the point of view of what they call political myth. According to them, Political myth refers to how African political leaders were able to mobilize the citizens for