Michael Obiajulu Okonkwo

As the novel starts, Obi, a twenty-six-year-old Oxford University educated Ibo man, sits in court in Lagos, Nigeria, being sentenced for taking a £20 bribe. Lectured about wasting his potential, Obi sheds—and hides—a tear. Obi is born in Iguedo, one of the nine villages in Umuofia, where his father is a hard-minded Christian catechist. Obi finishes at the top academically in middle and secondary school, earning the nickname "Dictionary". At eleven, he writes an indiscreet letter to Hitler, for which he receives a caning. When the Umuofia Progressive Union (UPU) establishes a scholarship to educate one of its own in England, Obi is an obvious choice. He majors in English rather than law, but this gets him a "European post" in the civil service and a luxury flat in Ikoyi.

While still a student, Obi decides that Nigeria's problem is letting old men...