AFRICAN PROSE ISIDORE OKPEWHO: The Last Duty Comment on the theme of rivalry in the novel

Rivalry is a controlling force in Isidore Okpewho's The Last Duty, and Okpewho develops it on both the private and the public levels so that the personal struggles of the characters mirror the larger destruction of the Nigerian Civil War.

The central rivalry is over Aku, the wife of the detained Oshevire. With her husband imprisoned as a suspected saboteur, Aku is left defenceless in Urukpe, and two men compete for her. Toje, the wealthy but impotent rubber magnate, desires her as a means of proving a manhood he has secretly lost, while his own nephew Odibo, whom Toje despises and humiliates, also loves her. The uncle and nephew therefore become bitter rivals in the same household, and their contest ends in violence when Odibo is attacked. The irony is sharp: the impotent Toje cannot possess Aku, yet he cannot bear that his crippled nephew should.

Rivalry is also commercial and political. Toje and Oshevire were trade competitors in the rubber business before the war, and it is largely to remove a business rival and clear his path to Aku that Toje engineers the false accusation that lands Oshevire in detention. Personal envy thus hides behind the language of patriotism and loyalty to the state.

At the widest level the novel sets the rivalry between the Igabo people and the minority Simbi community, a fictional reflection of the ethnic hostilities of the civil war. Oshevire's wife Aku is a Simbi woman, so the marriage itself becomes a target of communal suspicion, and private jealousy feeds on public hatred.

Through these interlocking rivalries Okpewho shows how selfish ambition, sexual jealousy and ethnic distrust combine to destroy innocent lives. The tragic ending, in which the reunited family is broken and Oshevire is finally killed, is the harvest of rivalry pursued without conscience.