Some basic truths – There is a strong explanatory power in a framework that holds that tragedies arise when uncomprehending humans are caught up by an issue in time and space for which they are ill-equipped to successfully negotiate happy outcomes. A related framework is that which situates conflicts as arising from failures in communication. The war between Okperi and Umuaro is explainable using such frameworks.
Conflict literature identifies a number of other elements in situations of interaction that are either conflict provoking or conflict enhancing. These include unfounded assumptions, flawed inferences, sinister projections of unfounded intentions, cultural differences, miscues, misreadings of the others’ actions and intentions, invalid assumptions, signalling failures, arrogance, equivocation, fear of being perceived as weak, ambiguity, “idées recues”and hazy bargaining.
Most of these played out in the Okperi-Umuaro conflict.
Whether arising from poor communication, or different value systems, including cultural differences or diametrically opposed interests or competition over scarce resources or personality clashes, conflicts can be severely damaging if they are not nipped in the bud since each next step in the conflict has a tendency to escalate, attract retaliatory escalation from the other party and thus magnify and exacerbate an already bad situation.
The Okperi – Umuofia conflict adequately illustrates this tendency towards ever widening and damaging escalations in conflict when a conflict is not resolved in its early phases. The story line is simple and the story is told in a manner that is racy but has all the qualities of “vraisemblance” and realism. A piece of land is in dispute between two communities, each community claiming legitimate ownership. Umuaro sends an emissary led by Akukalia to Okperi. Akukalia, whose mother comes from Okperi, has already a poor conception of the typical Okperi person. This choice of an emotionally and cognitively ill-equipped person to lead such an important peace delegation is a first, critical and enabling condition for conflict enlargement.
Secondly, Akukalia assumes that because his mother comes from Okperi, (and thus that he is an oke nwa – in Owerri, a nwanwa) he can get away with certain offenses which someone else without such an ancestry could be punished for. A second seed of conflict, this faulty assumption, is thus sown. Third, the delegation chooses a wrong market day to carry out the assignment. Most Igbo communities do not hold peace or war or marriage talks on Eke days. (Eke days are reputed as being violence and destruction prone.) This wrong choice of day plus Akukalia’s insensitivity and brashness create further tensions, especially after they refuse the traditional white chalk and kola nuts, the ultimate symbols for peace in Igbo society that the Okperi community offers to Akukalia and his delegation. Then a series of miscommunications set in with insensitive language accentuating the ever expanding misunderstanding till an exchange between Ebo and Akukalia, which touches on the sensitive issue of Akukalia’s impotence, literally throws petrol into the now smouldering conundrum. Hurt, Akukalia does the unthinkable, the unpardonable, the ultimate desecration of a man in Igbo land! He breaks Ebo’s IKENGA. Ebo shoots him with his dane gun. Ultimately war breaks out and it required the intervention of Captain Winterbottom to quell it. Winterbottom goes one step further and breaks every gun in Okperi and Umuaro.
The story is told with the right level of diction, economy and pace. No words are wasted and suspense is maintained through gradual exposure and unlayering and unpeeling.
Could the war have been avoided? I think so. With the right level of scan and risk analysis, yes and herein lies one major value of this tale of war and peace told by a master craftsman. The story even has implications for modern day conflict resolution moves – choose your delegation well and minimise unjustified assumptions during peace talks.
Reflections 