The Military as a Motif in the Nigerian Novel: Helon Habila’S Waiting for an Angel

This paper examines the continuous presence of the military as a motif in the Nigerian novel. It examines the paradigm shift from the older generation of Nigerian novelists who saw the military as corrective mechanism to the younger generation of Nigerian novelist who hold that the military is the bane of the decay that has come to envelop the modern Nigerian society. It is the position of this paper that ideologically, the military cannot be seen as a corrective mechanism. This is because it is responsible for the corruption religious malaise, academic rot and human right abuses among other observations that have bedeviled the Nigerian society. These among others are the issues which this paper has set out to discuss. Finally, the paper concludes the civil rule should left for civil authority while the military should remain within its orbit of protecting the territorial integrity off the nation. Key words: Scaffolding; Zone of Proximal Development; Peer review