“OUR CHILDREN ARE COMING “ BY CHUKWUEMEKA IKE’S
CHAPTER ONE
1.0    INTRODUCTION
This chapter is an introduction to the entire essay. It examines the life and work of the author, Chukwuemeka Ike, scope of study, justification of study and literature review in the novel.
1.1    LIFE AND WORKS OF CHUKWUEMEKA IKE
Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike was born on 28 April, 1931, in Ndikelionwu near Akwa in Eastern Nigeria. He studied at Government College, Umuahia, University College (now University of Ibadan) and at Stanford University, Paolo Alto, California, USA, where he obtained his M.A in 1966. He was a teacher at the Elementary School in Amichi, near Owerri from June to September 1963, and at Girl’s Secondary School in Nkwere near Orlu, from June 1955 to December 1956. In 1957, Ike became the Assistant Registrar of the University of Ibadan. He gave up the post in September 1971 and became a Registrar of the West African Examination Council. In 1978 he became a Visiting Professor of English, University of Jos, Jos.
Ike has at several times been chairman of various commissions and committees. From 1983 to 1988, he was the chairman Culture Sector, member of the Nigerian National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNICEF). He was the Pro-chancellor/Chairman, Governing Council, University of Benin, Benin City from 1990 to 1991 and chairman, Nigerian Books Foundation from 1991 to 1993. He has also been the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Book Foundation since 1993. He is married to Adebimpe Olorunsola (nee Abimbola) with children.
As a novelist, Ike has authored many novels which their titles have manifested his creative prowess and thematic pre-occupation. His works are as follows: Toads for Supper (1965), The Naked Gods (1973), Sunset at Dawn (1976), The Chicken Chasers (1980), Expo’ 77 (1985), The Bottled Leopard (1985), Our Children Are Coming (1990), and To My Husband From Lowa (1996).
As an artist, he uses his writing to mirror the society with a view to effecting the change that will lead to the progress of the people.
1.2    SCOPE OF STUDY
    This essay establishes that satire is both a means and an end. It is a tool in the sense that it is geared towards societal reformation. It is an end because it is realized by literary devices such as irony, humour and sarcasm. Looking at the background in which Our Children Are Coming (henceforth referred to as OCAC) is written, the essay evaluates the work as a social satire. This is based on how the social environment influences the writer.
    Also, the various aspects of the social ills are identified and analyzed as the writer’s target of satire. The devices used for achieving this is looking at - the techniques, style, characterization, and function.
    More so, the achievements and influences of satire on the reader and the public is also looked at. This is based on how the writer effectively employs satire to expose the prevalence of social vices in the society.
1.3    JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY
    This essay evaluates the depiction of satire in Ike’s Our Children Are Coming because through the novel, the author successfully depicts the prevalent social vices in the society with a view to correcting them. The efficient and artistic deployment of satire in the novel greatly contributes to its success.
1.4    LITERATURE REVIEW
    One of the critics who has been at the forefront of the literary battle fithing the war on who is rightly qualified as the critics of African literature is Ernest Emenyonu. He was the first to observe that critics have not given Ike and his works the adequate attention, despite his (Ike’s) contributions to the literary scene. Emenyonu observes that for too long:
Chukwuemeka Ike has remained untouched by Africans and indeed Nigerian critics. A few uninformed generalizations have trickled in from abroad with little or nothing profound to say about Ike as a writer, his moral preoccupation, his portrait of his society, the world-view presented in his novels, the author’s literary techniques and his contributions to the African novel. (62)
    The minute critical evaluation on Ike’s work is unfair because Ike through his novels offers critical opinions about the society which are worth reviewing. However, there are a handful of critics who have commentaries on Ike and his works.
    Kanchada Ugbabe says that Chukwuemeke Ike is a writer whom works imaginatively articulates the social and political history of Nigeria over the years. He also says that Ike offers us a perspective on:
events and institutions which we in our day to day involvement with these institutions do not see. He projects into the future through a vigorous leap of the imagination. (1)
    Ugbabe concludes that Ike’s work offers a kaleidoscope of historical events and situations, and that his novel (OCAC) strikes an immediate rapport with his readers, whether young or old.
    Commenting on the literary methodological approach of the author, the renown African novelist, Chinua Achebe observes that OCAC:
Chronicle in a memorable fashion the live, the hopes, the despair of Nigerians. Ike achieves brilliant observation, light-hearted homour and somber seriousness. And that combination of light touch and serious purpose is the hallmark of his entire oeuvre. (1)  
    Furthermore, Kpolugbo and Okwechime in their article remark that Ike in his novel, OCAC paints a picture of the stark reality of Nigeria’s political and social scenes. Thus, they state that:
We are made to see the different facets of our society in which there is stinking rottenness, corruption, deceit, parental hypocrisy, false accusation of the youths, sexual promiscuity, misuse and abuse of power, and the exploration of the innocence of our students and youths in general as exhibited in the University System of this so-called great nation. (62).
    Thus, Kpolugbo and Okwechimen’s criticism dwells on the author’s thematic concerns, and how these themes are verisimilitude to the contemporary African environments, especially Nigeria.
    Again, Emenyonu in his review of Ike’s Our Children Are Coming, like Kpolugbo and Okwechime, dwells on the social realism of the author’s thematic preoccupation. He says:
Ike explores the hypocrisy and double standards which characterize to scandalous proportions, adult behaviour in Nigeria society. It is perhaps Ike’s emotional attach to the subject that makes it difficult for him to distance himself from the issues he attacks in the novel. (12)
Emenyonu goes further to say that Ike does not only dissect and criticize the society, but he offers possible solutions to the decadence even if some of the ideas he puts seem far-fetched in this century especially with the present generation. He sees Ike’s manner of conflicts resolution as unrealistic and says that it seems too contrived and mechanical to blend with the story. He further states that the end of the novel is untidy and that “it fails to sustain both the theme and the moral, and the ideological premise on which the development of the story had been so systematically built” (117).
    These views on Ike’s works especially Our Children Are Coming, present Ike as a social critic committed to changes in the socio-political problems of his society. None seems to have evaluated his means to that achievement – which is our focus in this essay.
    Though critical comments in Ike’s OCAC appear few, these are no doubt valid comments, when one reads the novel. However, none of these has examined the novel as satirical. Therefore, this essay looks at the novel and concludes that it is satirical as revealed in the employment of the devices and techniques.