TITLE : After the War 
AUTHOR : Ofonime Inyang
PLACE OF PUBLICATION : Uyo
PUBLISHERS : Minder International
YEAR OF PUBLICATION : 2006
NUMBER OF PAGES: xii + 44 = 56
PRICE : Not stated
REVIEWER : EDEM OKON
If what God has joined together, men have put a sword under, what could be more devastating, destructive and hope-wounding than this? When peace is traded by barter for war by kinsmen whose offspring scatter far and wide with the explosive speed of an Ukana seed while dialogue suffocates in the knot of their loins, they can never in the relics, trace solace, but only sorrows, pains and injuries in the vicious-circle, after the war.
Ofonime Inyang's After the War vividly reverberates the ugly scenario of the dawn of an aftermath of war; domestic, civil or any. It is a war story and its trails of woes put on stage for the war-thirsty lots blinded by violence, to see, deafened by their drums of war, to hear, and oppressors; causers of the causes of war, to refrain.
Set in countryside in Nigeria , the play exposes the psychological and physical repercussions visited on the land by the sins of the fathers in the likes of Obong Idio Anwa, Obotme and even Nsudia, (the medicine man) who, like the present day superpowers, fuels the war with his trado-nuclear charms and others who will never be tired of fighting.
Like the Greek chorus, the still small voices of the women; their clarion call for peace, is muted and the war rages on as the men enact another dance of ego while the women suffer the brunt of everything each time.
What remains, therefore, at the dusk of the war is sandwiched in the fate of Uwemedimo and Efioawan whose much-awaited marital fertilization is abruptly terminated in a coitus interuptus manner.
The duo of Uwemedimo and Efioawan, two offspring of the same father (Etukudo) but different mothers who were dispersed to Lagos , had met as lovers and mate. On coming home to perform the marital rites, meet the shocking revelation that the deceased Etukudo begot them all. It is even more heart-piercing that the umpire in this revelation is Ekaime, their aunty whose dearest expectation was to pamper the seed of Uwemedimo on her laps and be assured that her brother's name (Etukudo) lives on even before she joins him beyond. This Ekaime had pressed on through her numerous correspondences to Uwemedimo, which prompted or hastened this aborted and abominable union.
Ofonime Inyang's directorial dynamism and artistic prowess are brought to bear in the unique style of presentation, garnishing musical fusions, simplicity in language, absurdistic and neo-traditional proverbial uttering; a child who refuses the mother's generous offer of coconut water to cool his thirst will end up licking a dead man's vomit at the neighbour's house , as well as the preciseness with which the flashback (recall segment) is communicated, amongst other artistic inputs, are eloquent attestation.
The author's natural inclination and thirst for perfection in its minutest details in all his dealings is very ubiquitous in the sub-textual content of the drama text and thematically, very apt. The play dramatizes not only inter-ethnic or inter-states wars, physically fought in the battlefronts or through nuclear means. Its goes deeper than even the inter-personal wars to the intra-personal. In his choice of a life-partner, Uwemedimo tilted more, to the pressure from home and in the midst of this confusion, fought an intra-personal tribal war within him. After his marital war, he settles for Efioawan at the expense of Ojuola, his sweet heart of Yoruba stock. Ekaime, his aunt, who fueled this marital war from home, is not spared the agony.
The war of gender status is also very vivid in the story as it unfolds. Uto, an anti-feminist advocate is pruned to size by Innok, a stout and very vocal woman at the forefront of gender equality. According to her, though a woman's queendom is her kitchen, it is not a taboo for the owners of the kitchen to bring their products before their ready consumers like you (Uto). Here the war is fought but not won because it is only a quest for equality not subjugation of the male folks by the female gender.
I am particularly thrilled by the kind of peaceful- war led by Obong Akpan Udoawan, the Head of Akpadiaha Ekong's family, fought verbally through dialogue in a family compound to procure a tomorrow; a welfare for Uwemedimo whose father died during the war. Here, it is, finally, decided that he be taken to Lagos by his uncle, Umoh, for the impartation of western education. For Umoh (and, the reviewer) maintaining this tradition in the family (our polity) so much convinces me that we are still a very united entity.
The cover design which could have been, artistically and aesthetically, more appealing is made more frightening by the plurality of shot-guns displayed where one, I believe, could have been more appropriate. May be, the playwright needed to display these guns as picturesque of numerous wars fought and still being fought in Dafur, Iraq, Niger Delta, Zaki Biam, Ife-Modakekes, Ika, in Aircrafts etc. That not withstanding, the book quality and concepts are very up to date.
It remains for me to ask, must we continue to fight even when the after-war effects are more dehumanizing?
And the author questions
we live in perpetual fear, even the fear of our shadows. The land reeks of nothing but the smell of blood and death. The farmland turns to battlefields. What is ever made of us after the war?
And Cyprian Ekwensi echoes from experience in his novel Survive the Peace :
To survive the peace after the Biafran war takes more guts and resilience than to survive the civil war itself .
After the war should be procured, read and jealously kept in the family, school and in even the state Houses shelves, not only, as a book but a veritable alert mechanism that something must be done before the war instead of waiting till after the war.
