AFRICAN PROSE; ISIDORE OKPEWHO: The Last Duty Discuss the effects of the war on the people of Urukpe.

Answer Details

In Isidore Okpewho's The Last Duty, the civil war between Nigeria and the breakaway region of Simba has a profound and destructive effect on the ordinary people of the small garrison town of Urukpe. Though the great battles happen elsewhere, the war reaches into every household, poisoning relationships, spreading fear and inflicting suffering on the innocent.

The war fills Urukpe with an oppressive climate of suspicion. Neighbours watch one another for signs of disloyalty, and anyone can be denounced as a saboteur or enemy sympathiser. The people live under military occupation, subject to curfews, searches and the constant threat of arrest. This atmosphere corrodes the ordinary trust on which community life depends.

The war inflames ethnic division. Aku, the wife of Oshevire, is an Igabo woman married into the Simba community. Because her people are associated with the enemy, she becomes an object of suspicion and hostility. Isolated, watched and vulnerable, she suffers loneliness and social rejection, and is finally driven into a compromising relationship with Odibo. The war thus turns a settled wife into a suspected outsider and destroys her peace and reputation.

The war creates conditions in which the unscrupulous prey on the weak. Chief Toje uses the machinery of wartime security to ruin his business rival Oshevire, falsely branding him a saboteur so that he is imprisoned without genuine evidence. The people of Urukpe learn that in wartime justice can be bought and truth twisted, and that private greed can hide behind patriotic pretence.

The occupation and the disruption of normal life bring economic distress. Trade is dislocated, movement is restricted, and the people struggle to make a living under the shadow of the soldiers. Toje's rubber business and the wider commerce of the town are all shaped and distorted by the war economy.

The most poignant effect is the suffering of the guiltless. Oshevire's young son Oghenovo is neglected and frightened, and at the novel's violent close the child is wounded and blinded. His injury stands as a bitter symbol of how war maims the innocent and mortgages the future of a whole generation.

Beyond physical harm, the war damages the inner lives of the people. It breeds guilt, desperation and moral compromise, seen in Toje's scheming and impotence, in Aku's fall, and in the general erosion of decency. The community's moral fabric is worn thin by fear and self-interest.

Conclusion. The war visits upon the people of Urukpe fear and suspicion, ethnic hatred, injustice and exploitation, economic hardship, the suffering of innocent children, and deep moral and psychological damage. Okpewho shows that even far from the front line, war shatters ordinary lives, and its wounds, like the blinded child's, cannot easily be healed.