Themes of Corruption and Moral Decay in Festus Iyayi’s Violence

This study examines the representation of corruption and moral decay as interconnected thematic concerns in Festus Iyayi's debut novel Violence, one of the most politically committed texts in the Nigerian literary canon. Iyayi's Marxist-inflected fiction, set against the backdrop of 1970s oil-boom Nigeria, constructs corruption not as individual moral failing but as a systemic feature of a class society in which material deprivation and exploitation are structurally reproduced across generations. The study applies a materialist literary critical framework, drawing on postcolonial and Marxist theories of violence, class, and ideology to a close reading of the novel's narrative structure, characterisation, and imagery. Analysis focuses on the contrasting economic worlds of the Lagos elite and the urban poor represented through the relationship between Obofun and Idemudia, examining how Iyayi uses language and narrative perspective to unmask the ideological naturalization of wealth inequality. Findings reveal that corruption in the novel is presented as endemic rather than exceptional and is explicitly linked to the betrayal of post-independence nationalist promises. The moral decay theme operates at both individual and national levels, with the family unit serving as a microcosm of broader social disintegration. The study argues that Violence anticipates many of the corruption discourses that would characterise Nigerian public life in subsequent decades and remains a prescient text for students of Nigerian social fiction. Recommendations include the reinstatement of Iyayi's fiction in undergraduate African literature reading lists in South South universities. Keywords: Festus Iyayi, corruption, Marxist criticism, Nigerian fiction, class struggle.