CHILD-SOLDIERS AND ARMS-PROLIFERATION IN AHMADOU KOUROUMA’S ALLAH N’EST PAS OBLIGÉ: LITERARY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT IN THE WEST AFRICAN SUB-REGION

Abstract

Since the independence days, Africa has been bedevilled by countless conflicts, wars and violence of various kinds in which children are involved. African countries such as Congo, Nigeria, Chad, Angola Mozambique, Uganda, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire among others have been plagued by violent and murderous wars. These conflicts, with their attendant destructions in this Sub-Region have led to untold misery, deaths and mutilation of millions of citizens and displacement of populations. These wars also brought along insecurity which represents a public threat with a negative effect on the social, political, and economic development of the sub-region. This paper attempts, firstly to unearth and examine the history and fate of children soldiers and the proliferation of lethal weapons in Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah n’est pas obligé, secondly, to discuss how violence unleashed by these children during the Liberian and Sierra Leonian wars has truncated development in the affected West African sub-region. The paper also attempts to justify further how the poor level of development of the West-African sub-region is attributable to the truncated education of the youths as a result of their forceful recruitment into illegal armies. In the end, recommendations are made to salvage such agonizing situation and to put an end to the proliferation of arms so that the sub-region can experience an upsurge of development, peace and progress in no distant future.