(Re) examining Autobiography as Social History: a Historico-Critical Reading of Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai’s The Accidental Public Servant

Abstract

In literature, no form of writing aptly captures the life, times and disposition of the author to his subject matter as an autobiography. As a fact-fiction, it centers on the author, draws from his past experiences and dissects the events surrounding him at the time of writing. It thus becomes a social account that can only be adequately understood within its socio-cultural cum political milieu. It is against this backdrop that this study examines The Accidental Public Servant in relation to the Nigerian polity. Deploying New Historicism, the study argues that autobiography reveals the inward life of the author which hitherto the publication have been veiled from the public. It posits that El-Rufai’s The Accidental Public Servant justifies the tenets of autobiography as a social history in relation to his personal and social life with in Nigerian polity. The study concludes that the book is a landmark documentation of history which challenges the mediocrity, complacency and self aggrandizing attitudes of political actors who had the opportunity to turn around the fortunes of Nigeria but never did.