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Progress for its own sake is problematic. 

Obi’s sense of progress for its own sake is what ultimately dooms his endeavors. He is young and full of passion to make the changes he sees as necessary, but he labors under the ideals of an invading force, namely the Christian missionaries who have their own agenda. There is no real reason that the villagers of Ndume need to be educated in a Christian school, other than the church’s insistence on its own righteousness. To impose its system of beliefs on another culture is both problematic and prone to failure. There is nothing inherently wrong with the way that the villagers of Ndume understand the world, but it is distinctly not modern in the Western sense of the word. There is ancestor worship and a belief that the dead and the soon-to-be-born walk a specific path in the material world. These are beliefs that have shaped a culture and have been important for generations of people. It is only through arrogance and disrespect that the missionaries contend that changes must be made. Obi is a product of his upbringing. He reflects and concentrates the beliefs he has absorbed to a degree that even his supervisors are uncomfortable with, as evidenced by the report that chastises him for causing trouble in the village. Presumably there was little trouble in the village before Obi took office. Thus Obi’s progress is problematic for both the village and the school, indicating that his fervor goes beyond even that of the missionaries. 

Colonized people can inhabit the ideals of the colonizing force. 

Obi is a product of his Western education, and he works against traditional Nigerian ways of life. His education has been directed and reinforced by the Christian missionaries that spread across Africa, and in this case specifically, Nigeria. The missionaries want to convince those people whose spaces they have invaded that the way they live their lives is wrong. They may be working in a good-faith effort, but the work they do could extinguish a way of life. Obi is Nigerian, but he carries this Western mission to Ndume with him. Regarded as an “unprogressive” school, Ndume Central School is not fulfilling the duty it has been established to carry out. By sending a young, energetic man to lead the charge, the hope is that he will bring to bear the vigor and self-righteousness young people possess in abundance. Whether or not he means to, Obi reinforces the aims of the missionaries, and he is a tool for those aims. He provides cover for the Mission’s intentions by filtering their words and ideals through a fellow Nigerian. By coming down hard against the animist beliefs of the Ndume villagers, he works more effectively than the missionaries can. He wants to show his supervisors that he is enforcing their ideas, to the extent that the villagers push back and destroy parts of his school and the surrounding property. By insisting upon the righteousness he has been taught, Obi inhabits the ideals of the colonizing force.

Culture cannot be changed by one person. 

The central tension that arises in the story regards the path that runs through the school yard, but the path represents a wider cultural struggle that Obi cannot change on his own. Obi labors under the impression that changing a culture takes nothing more than an outsider coming in and pointing out things they see as “wrong.” Culture, however, is built over decades and centuries. It is built upon a foundation that those who live within it see as useful and beneficial. Because Obi has been taught about property lines and differentiating his school from the surrounding village, he sees the path one way. He sees it as an invasion of what he thinks of as his space. The villagers, however, see it as a kind of gateway for life. When the priest comes to Obi to explain the path’s importance, Obi is both dismissive and patronizing. Sure of his own correctness, he tells the priest that the village’s beliefs are “fantastic” and that his job is to teach the village children to laugh at them. But for Obi—and for the missionaries he works for—to tell a group of people that their belief system is foolish is not going to convince them to change. As illustrated in the story, a new idea of culture can be roundly rejected if the long-held beliefs make more sense to those who hold them. It is the zealotry with which Obi approaches his beliefs that is his downfall. He is unwilling to compromise his position, and therefore loses out to wider cultural influences.

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