Section A: AFRICAN DRAMA FRANK OGODO OGBECHE - Harvest of Corruption To what extent can Aloho’s tragedy be blamed on the society?

Answer Details

In Frank Ogodo Ogbeche's Harvest of Corruption, the ruin of Aloho is both a personal fall and a social indictment. While she makes choices for which she must answer, the play argues strongly that a corrupt society sets the trap into which she stumbles. Her tragedy can be blamed on society to a very large extent.

The case for society's guilt:

• Unemployment and hardship. Aloho arrives in the city as a young, jobless school-leaver with no honest means of survival. A society that offers no legitimate opportunity pushes the desperate toward compromise.
• A corrupt system of power. Chief Haladu Ade-Amaka, a government minister, uses his office to procure young women, traffic drugs and buy protection. Aloho is prey to a powerful man whom the institutions shield rather than restrain.
• Corrupting companionship. Her friend Ochuole, an agent of the Chief, lures Aloho into the world of easy money and immorality, presenting vice as success.
• Failure of moral and legal safeguards. The police and officials she might have trusted are themselves compromised, so there is no shelter for the vulnerable until ACP Yakubu intervenes late.

The measure of personal responsibility:

• Aloho ignores the honest counsel of her upright friend Ogeyi, who warns her against Ochuole's path.
• She yields to the desire for a comfortable life and consents to the Chief's exploitation and to carrying drugs, choices that finally destroy her.

Conclusion. Aloho is not wholly innocent; her weakness and ambition contribute to her downfall. Yet the playwright's title and design place the greater blame on the society that corrupts. She is a victim of unemployment, predatory power and moral decay far more than of her own flaws. To a large extent, therefore, her tragedy is society's harvest, and her death is the play's warning about a nation that devours its own young.