The Victims of Rivalry

The Victims of Rivalry is the story of a silenced, vanquished people in a war that was declared: “No Victors, No Vanquished.” It is the story of the victims of the Biafran/Nigerian Civil War and its colonial connection. Set in a village in the Ikwerre tribe of southern Nigeria, the story opens with the roaring rage of the villagers, as they struggle to extricate themselves from the colonial stranglehold that had suddenly happened upon them. Initially unaware of the white man’s intentions for coming to their village, the villagers opened their arms to the visitor. But when they realize why he had come, their suspicions set in, their anger wells up, and they rise up in revolt, only to be calmed down by their revered, open-minded Chief. However, the white man, a Baptist missionary, has other plans. He decides to approach the uncooperative villagers with caution. In the end, the villagers succumb to his ploy by sending their children en-masse to the white man’s newly-built school. Not long after the school opened, a civil war breaks out in Nigeria, severely derailing the progress the village had made in educating its children.