AFRICAN DRAMA FEMI OSOFISAN: Women of Owu Comment on the agreement between Anlugbua and Lawumi to punish the allied forces

Answer Details

In Femi Osofisan's Women of Owu, the agreement between the god Anlugbua, founder-deity of Owu, and his mother, the goddess Lawumi, to punish the allied forces is a pivotal element that gives the tragedy its promise of retribution and expresses the play's central moral judgement on the conduct of war.

The context of the agreement. The allied armies of Ijebu, Ife and their confederates have utterly destroyed Owu, a city Anlugbua himself founded and protected. In their triumph they have not merely defeated the city but committed gross atrocities: massacring the people, enslaving the women, killing the royal child, looting and desecrating the shrines of the gods. It is against these excesses that the divine agreement is directed.

The gods judge the victors, not merely the vanquished. The significance of the agreement is that it turns divine attention onto the conquerors. Victory in war does not confer innocence; the gods weigh the manner of the victory. Because the allied forces have crossed the bounds of decency and offended the gods by their cruelty and sacrilege, they are marked for punishment.

It promises retribution and cosmic balance. By agreeing that the allied forces will suffer, Anlugbua and Lawumi restore moral order. Their pact foreshadows the disasters that will overtake the victorious armies on their return, mirroring the way the triumphant Greeks in the original myth are scattered and destroyed. The agreement assures the audience that the crimes will not go unanswered.

It comforts the suffering women, if only obliquely. Though it cannot undo the women's losses, the divine resolve gives meaning to their suffering by promising that their oppressors will not escape justice, so that the tragedy is not merely one of helpless victimhood.

It carries Osofisan's anti-war and political message. The pact universalises the warning: any power that wages war with unchecked brutality invites its own ruin. Written with modern conflicts in view, the agreement is Osofisan's caution to conquerors of every age that atrocity breeds nemesis.

In conclusion, the agreement between Anlugbua and Lawumi to punish the allied forces is significant as an act of divine justice that condemns the atrocities of the victors, promises retribution and cosmic balance, and voices Osofisan's enduring warning against the brutality of war.