To achieve this protest, explicit reference to and use of dirty language that are concerned with excretion, sex, and animal abuse are used to establish resistance through hidden transcripts. The vehemently objected and detested conditions include moral decadence, rampant corruption and Europeanism dilemma. Thus, the counter discourses have been achieved as a hidden transcript of resistance through non-euphemistic language intentionally employed to be offensive and show the intensity of resistance and resentment at the post-colonial ills in Africa. This is done by presenting selected texts from the novel and analysing it using principles of counter discourse which resists and protests against the dominant discourse. This article examines Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968) as a hidden transcript of resistance to the ills committed by post-colonial African leaders and elites. In other words, it is for a therapeutic purpose. The coarse language is used as an electroconvulsive tool to deliberately alarm the reader to draw his attention to the decadence and corrupt behaviours Armah exposes and condemns in the novel. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is deliberately crafted to sound very vulgar for a purpose. Armah's method in the novel is that he uses these corrupt practices to portray his disgust and hatred of the state of affairs in Ghana at the time of the novel.
The study is premised on the use of scatology as a device in other to depict that every part of Ghana oozes out corruption of various forms and dimensions.
Using The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, and for in-depth study, the paper stresses the trajectory of Armah's philosophical reflections on 'the trouble with Africa' as it relates to governance and development. This research paper is a critical exploration of Ayi Kwei Armah's novel with a view to analysing the author's perception of, and responses to Africa's contemporary political history.
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