The post-colonial epoch in Nigeria was marred with violence and the suffering of the Igbo people under the umbrella of the Biafra. While the quest to secede still continued and undeterred by the deliberate suffering inflicted by the Nigerian government on the people whose intention was well understood, the story takes excellent analogy using two elementary protagonists, Odenigbo, and Olanna. The narration clearly alludes to the change of era in the Africa nation’s history that led to the suffering of the people. However, disputes should always be contained before they escalate to war. The paradigms of the analogy are a demonstration that Civil War can lead to unimaginable atrocities.
In the view of the narrators, the Igbo people undergo series of torments in the hands of the Army forces who subject them to harsh treatment and abject poverty to deny them of their fundamental rights. It is essential that people are offered the necessities to be able to sustain any form of adversity. However, the narrators of the story provide a tale of the empathetic circumstances that led to the end of the Republic of Biafra. Richard, who is a white man, is entangled in a love affair with Olanna’s sister and finds himself emotionally attached to the Igbo people who are at the center of the warfare. Another narrator, Ugwu is a peasant who moves to the city to work for a University professor as his houseboy. However, the professor has notable revolutionary ideals that make her paramount in the warfare. There are the dirty sides of the Nigerian Civil War as portrayed by the story. Every aspect of the story provides accounts that lead to a famous deduction that little can be enjoyed about warfare. The disparity in the social class is portrayed as the foundation of Ugwu’s anecdote. He comes from an impoverished village where riches are merely a dream. However, he finds himself working for a professor in a dusty town. Despite this town being a short drive away, Ugwu considers the place to be of unimaginable riches. While the professor is a radicalized personality who constantly launches scathing attacks on the colonial masters in a bid to shun oppression, it remains hypothetical as to the course of destiny as war is around the corner. Ugwu comically saves the chicken in the pocket a clear depiction of the scarcity and rarity of meat where he comes (Adichie 15-47). Despite the agonies of the people and Ugwu’s aggrandizements, he too is developing an appetite for ladies as he’s buried in sensible lust for Nnesinachi, who seems unreachable. The influence of the colonial master is very much evident despite Nigeria gaining independence. The disastrous nature of the war becomes oblivious when a group slaughtered the Nigerian soldiers as retribution for what Igbos considered a coup on their nation.
The frustrations of the Igbos increases as everybody hold high hopes that only Biafra can save them from the fierce clauses of the atrocious Nigerian government. There are ugly scenes and inhuman acts committed by the government that declare war on the Biafra people. The British are blamed for stirring up the conflict by sparking ethnic tensions. it is undeniable that the colonial masters and every other character in the conflict played a critical role in strengthening the atrocities. The British clearly comes to blame for their supply of weapons to the Nigerian government (Krishnan 26-38). There are dirty sides of the government that come to play when Nigeria eventually declares war on the Biafra people for attempted treason. In this, starvation is considered a tool by the government and the Biafra Republic is starved out of existence. Many people are starved to death, and the government ups its levels of deliberate poverty affliction on the people to suppress them to submission. Children, adults, and youths all die due to starvation. Everybody is denied necessities as the government cuts the supply of food and other basic needs to the Southerners, who are utterly the Igbo. Due to severe poverty and lack of food, many Igbos die, and the war came to a sudden halt in 1970. Many people are equally killed in what forms a mass execution of the Biafra people. Genocide, in this case, becomes a tool and weapon of affliction in the civil war. Nobody is spared of the atrocities. Children are slaughtered by the government soldiers while adults are also killed in broad day lights. Even at the Odenigbo’s house party, there are endless scenes of fear and violence (Krishnan 26-38). It is a demonstration of how dangerous the country has grown. The huge deaths due to poverty are a culmination of casual violence that is carried out by the government and the Biafra soldiers. It is undisputable that war can be detrimental to society. The ugliness of war overwhelms the human nature of people, and more astronomical tragedies happen as evident when a woman is carrying the head of her daughter in a basket while it is equally well-braided. In another horror show, Ikejide’s head is chopped using shrapnel. The likes of Ugwu also assert their ugliness and conformity to warfare by raping the bar girl.
Work Cited
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. "Half of a Yellow Sun. 2006." Toronto: Vintage Canada (2007): 15-47.
Krishnan, Madhu. "Abjection and the fetish: Reconsidering the construction of the postcolonial exotic in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun." Journal of Postcolonial Writing 48.1 (2012): 26-38.
