AFRICAN PROSE ISIDORE OKPEWHO: The Last Duty Discuss the impact of the war on Toje.

Answer Details

Toje is one of the most powerfully drawn figures in Isidore Okpewho's The Last Duty, and the war is the making and the unmaking of him. A wealthy rubber merchant of Urukpe, Toje exploits the conflict for his own ends, but the same war that gives him power also exposes his weakness and drives him to ruin.

The war gives him opportunity and influence. The breakdown of normal order allows Toje to rise. As a leading citizen he wins a place on the local council and cultivates the military administrator, so that his word carries weight with the authorities. The war turns him from a mere businessman into a man of dangerous influence.

He uses the war to destroy a rival. Toje's chief motive is to eliminate his business competitor, Oshevire, the other big rubber trader in the town. Exploiting the wartime fear of collaborators, he engineers the false accusation that Oshevire has aided the enemy, and he works to keep him imprisoned indefinitely. Thus the war becomes Toje's weapon for settling a private commercial grudge.

He uses the war to pursue Aku. With Oshevire safely locked away, Toje sets out to possess his rival's wife. He uses his wealth to make the destitute Aku dependent on him and presses his lust upon her. The war, by making Aku vulnerable and alone, hands Toje the chance to satisfy his desire.

The war exposes his impotence. Here lies the deep irony of his story. For all his power and scheming, Toje is sexually impotent, and his attempt to take Aku ends in humiliation. He is reduced to using his simple kinsman Odibo, which only compounds his shame and jealousy. The war strips away his mask of strength to reveal a frustrated, diminished man.

The war brings about his moral and physical downfall. Toje's greed, lust and abuse of power set in motion the tragedy that engulfs the whole community. His machinations collapse; the violence he helped to unleash rebounds upon himself and those around him, and he ends broken rather than triumphant. His fate embodies Okpewho's judgement that those who profit from a nation's suffering are finally consumed by it.

Conclusion. The war transforms Toje from a jealous businessman into a corrupt power-broker, giving him the means to imprison his rival and prey upon Aku, yet it also lays bare his impotence and drives him to destruction. Through Toje, Okpewho shows how war rewards greed and cruelty only to punish them, and how the true casualties of conflict include the schemers themselves.