ECO-TRAGEDY AND RESISTANCE: NATURE AS VICTIM AND AGENT IN TOCHI ONYEBUCHI’S WAR GIRLS AND TANURE OJAIDE’S THE ACTIVIST

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of eco-tragedy and resistance in Tanure Ojaide's The Activist and Tochi Onyebuchi's War Girls, arguing that both novels position nature as both victim and agent in ecological struggle. Drawing on postcolonial ecocriticism, Rob Nixon's concept of slow violence, and Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin's expanded definition of agency, the study demonstrates how Ojaide's realist depiction of Niger Delta oil extraction and Onyebuchi's Afro-futurist projection of planetary collapse establish a narrative continuum rather than a generic break. Through close textual analysis, the article reveals that eco-tragedy encompasses systematic destruction, irreversibility, and the paradox of human agency, while resistance operates across representational, political, and ecological registers. Nature emerges as a wounded yet powerful agent whose transformations shape human possibilities, from the embodied suffering of Niger Delta communities to the mutated landscapes of Onyebuchi's Redlands. The study concludes that African environmental literature serves a prophetic function, warning of unchecked extraction while insisting that resistance persists even in the face of irreversibility.