Received: 17 July 2020 - Revised: 28 August 2020 - Accepted: 1 September 2020 DOI: 10.1111/lic3.12605 ARTICLE InhumanityinNigerianwarplays OnyekaOdoh Department of Humanities and Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Correspondence Onyeka Odoh, Department of Humanities and Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. Email: onyekaoodoh@gmail.com Abstract Nigeria is the most diverse country in sub‐Saharan Africa. Sadly enough, the poor management of this diversity has led to series of conflicts and destructions which have become ugly characterising features of the country until today. Given that literature captures human experiences, the said conflicts and destructions have gained expression in Nigerian plays centred on war which depict different dimensions of inhumanity. Therefore, this essay aims to examine the representation of inhumanity in few Nigerian war plays. The significance of the study is to provide yet another treatise for teachers, students and researchers of African and Nigerian literature, particularly drama to engage the subject of war which is recurrent in all genres of African/Nigerian literature. The study will be underpinned by Sigmund Freud's dialectical concepts of ‘eros’ and ‘aggression.’ The finding shows that wars provide an avenue for humans to express the residing bestiality in them which neither civilization nor religion has been able to completely banish. The study concludes that the ratio- nale for wars cannot justify the barbarity witnessed during wars; hence the need for civil means of settling conflicts. KEYWORDS aggression, drama, eros, inhumanity, Nigerian, plays, war 1 | INTRODUCTION War, just like love, has been a constant motif in world literature. It has re‐occurred as a discourse formative in generations of writings in the Western and other cultural traditions. So significant is the subject of war in literature that Bennett and Royle (2004) maintain that Western literature began 'with war and with the rage of war,' given that Homer's Iliad begins with a description of the rage of Achilles, the Greek Captain, for the Trojan War (p. 272). Literature Compass. 2020;e12605. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/lic3 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. - 1of10 https://doi.org/10.1111/lic3.12605