Using theatre to promote better living at the grassroots

IN Erema community located in one of the South-South Local Government areas of Rivers State called Onelga, people not only practice Christianity as their religion, traditional worship with shrines and worship grounds in the community is also strong. Some of the shrines seem also to be responding to modernity as bottles of coca-cola and Fanta, Five-Alive and other assorted foreign gin and wine bottles are seen displayed at the feet of the shrines as offering to the gods and the spirits.

The annual New Yam festival called the Egwu-ogba festival provided evidence that accounts for how the Erema people are still close to their traditions and roots. The festival, which has fire carrying as its major effect, is a source of spiritual purification for the people and the entire land. During this festival, confessions are made, evil practice renounced, sacrifices are offered and promises by the people to live peacefully and happily with one another through the year are made.

Anama-Oji

THE Anama-oji (Village Square) is a very important cultural and political space where the community meets to discuss and take major decisions as a people. The space is symbolic because it serves both political and cultural purposes. Any case decided at the Anama-oji becomes binding on the people. It is traditional democracy as the case may be. The Civic Centre, which is a space for community interaction and other community activities, is also a dominant feature in the community. Most of the community leaders are not comfortable in accepting ‘visitors’ to attend the community meetings held at the Anama-oji.

The Anama-Oji is the proverbial equivalent of the National Assembly of Nigeria at Abuja. However, in the case of the Erema people, the decisions taken at any meeting of this ordinary looking but hallowed turf is binding on all members of the community. Indeed, it is correct to say that most of the members accept and believe in the power of the Anama-Oji and its mystical significance.

Doing TFD in Erema

IN October 2008, Cordaid (Netherland) awarded a grant to the Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance (NPTA) to conduct training on participatory drama, specifically Theatre for Development (TFD) and Participatory Video (PV) as part of the grant activities in the Niger Delta area. The overall purpose of the grant was to strengthen the participation of ordinary people in the Niger Delta communities in non-violent civic action, advocacy, and peace promotion initiatives. The strategy was for the project to work with various NGOs who were working at the ground level in the Niger Delta.

The mandate was to engage with community groups using TFD and other Participatory Learning Approaches (PLA) resources to discuss community issues and how to carry along all community members on board in a horizontal and participatory way towards solving community problems and facilitating peaceful coexistence and violence-free resolution of conflicts, especially amongst the youths as they respond to elders and oil companies.

In actual sense, the entire journey of the project began from the training organised for the participants from the Niger Delta area. The training was conducted at the Drama Village, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, from March 16-25, 2009. Within the project activities, and according to the implementation schedule, the first main activity was the training of SDN programme staff and leaders of NGOs that SDN works/collaborates with in the Niger Delta. The training was conducted by the Theatre for Development Centre (TFDC), the research and training unit of the Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance.

It was attended by fifteen persons drawn from SDN and ten other NGOs/CBOs from three core States (Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers) in the Niger Delta region. The training in Theatre for Development (TFD) and Participatory Video (PV) was to offer a hands-on training to the participants in the techniques of TFD and PV. To take the participants through the process of collectively devising drama with community members; To coach the participants in the techniques and processes of story-boarding through to shooting a video of their stories; To provide advocacy techniques that would be useful in community work; To embark on community visits that exposes the participants to the practice of TFD in communities; to impart facilitation techniques.

Community Issues

The community work phase of the project threw up critical issues bothering the community chief of which is leadership. The Erema community participants explained during the presentations that there was apparently no control over leadership positions in the community as every person who has made some money and garnered some influence imposes himself on the community as leader. This has caused a lot of friction in the community over the years and has given rise to camps emerging as members of the community align with the various leaders.

They observed that the situation is as a result of lack of a coherent document or process of people ascending to power. This situation has implications and the only way out is to resort to producing a document that will guide the election or selection processes of the leadership in Erema community. According to their report, there is already an existing machinery set up to make this work facilitated by a Senator from the community. However, it has not produced results as the community people have become suspicious of the sponsorship and control of the project. The community people believe that there is a presence of some personal interest in it.

Participants also hinted that other institutions like the CDC, Youth and women group all operate their various constitutions. However, there is no central constitution that holds the various divides of the community together.

In an exhaustive interaction with some of the stakeholders in the community who were visited during the advocacy exercise in the community, the problem was emphasized as very pressing in the community.

There are also issues around the negative treatment of women in the community, which manifested loudly in the challenges experienced by widows in Erema community. Fortunately, this is an issue already being tackled by the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) in their work in the community with women. The women complained of relegation to the background and usually have no say in the community in spite of the organized women group with the women leader at the helm. Widows are especially subjected to hardship by being denied essentials of livelihood by the families of their dead husbands even in terms of portions of land to farm in order to fend for their children. They are also ‘encouraged’ or forced to remarry into their late husband’s family. This has become endemic and a source of frustration for the women. This scenario cuts across in terms of women’s participation in civic responsibilities in the community.

At the end of the performances and the post performance discussions, the community came to some tentative agreements on the issues of leadership, widowhood practices, treatment and participation of women in community affairs, etc. For instance, the community agreed to conclude the process of reviewing and fashioning a constitution acceptable to all that will regulate the activities of everybody in the community.

There was also the agreement on the need for the fairer treatment of women with some misgivings. Could this be the reason why the men vehemently refused that the performances and post performance discussion should not take place at the Anama-Oji? While the women had no problem with this, the men insisted that the performances and post performance discussions should happen at the civic centre constructed by Shell Petroleum Development Company. Will the men respect decisions reached at the civic centre like that of Anama-Oji? Only time will tell!

Prof. Oga Steve Abah, the leader of the Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance/Theatre for Development team, said he was happy with the outcome of the project: “Our original intention was to use the tools of video and drama to give voice to the voiceless in the Niger Delta; to enhance their ability to take positive action devoid of violence. How do you get women, youths and the men to start talking about their common problems and finding solutions without resorting to armed struggle that has become the hallmark of the Niger Delta crises recently?

“In some respects, we succeeded. But the water hyacinth issue, which is one of the several issues the project unearthed, has brought home not just the environmental crisis but the disproportionate nature of the sufferings of the different groups in the Delta and this time, the scale is tilted against the women”.

At the end of the day, the project ‘Local Voices’ helped to bring to public arena the voices of the women, the problem of the teenage girls, the increasing inability of the men to handle family and community issues and the drifting of the youth away from support for their community.

The project also trained members of the Community Development Committee (CDC) on leadership. The project team concluded that if what they heard from the women and men were anything to hold on to, then the project had made impact. As the project came to an end, Prof. Jenks Okwori and Samuel Kafewo who were part of the facilitating team said: “We have worked enough over these past three years with the CDC and community members for them to take the issues forward.”

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Arojah Theatre Returns with ‘The Wizard of Law’ in honour of the CJN

The Abuja based group, Arojah Royal Theatre will on Wednesday 31st October return to the stage with the late Professor Zulu Sofola’s play, ‘The Wizard of the Law’ which is being dedicated to the honour of the first ever Chief Justice of Nigeria, Honourable Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar.

The play which will feature the likes of Oyewale Oluwatoba, Jovita Anyanwu-Chukwuemeka, Oluwaseun Odukoya and Zeb John among others; is a satire about an old lawyer, Ramoni who has met with reverse and tries to impress his wife during a festive period by purchasing nine metres of lace material on credit at a time he is penniless. The cloth seller, Rafiu, takes advantage of this opportunity to inflate the prices of clothes in other to make a heavy gain. Unable to pay the debt, Ramoni gets into more trouble and desperately looks for a court case through which he could raise the money to pay his debt.

The Executive Producer of the play, Om’Oba Jerry Adesewo said “We were planning to stage the play to celebrate the International Day of Justice in July, that was to come immediately after our last outing. We missed the timing and so decided to find another relevance for the play. That was when the idea of using the production to commemorate the appointment by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, of Honourable Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar as the first ever CJN because we feel it is a lanmark achievement.” He added that the whole idea is to celebrate the CJN by hosting her, her family, friends and well wishers to an evening of theatrical performances.

Directed by Adesewo Fayaman-Bay, the Abuja presentation of The Wizard of Law, which is supported by the National Centre for Women Development, African Independent Television, NTA Entertainment and the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) will also starred the likes of Zubairu Jide Atta and Lara Owoeye-Wise.

Arojah Theatre’s last outing was in June 2012, when the group put up a weeklong festival of theatre in honour of the Executive Secretary of the National Institute of rCultural Orientation (NICO), tagged Festival of Barclays Ayakoroma’s Plays (FESTIBAP) which was held at the French Cultural Centre.

“This is the first of a very busy last quarter of the year for us. Apart from the monthly Play Reading Party we organise in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Centre, we have two other outings this year and I think it is good but for us as practitioners and for the theatre loving residents of the nation’s capital”. Jerry Adesewo said, adding that the group will stil stage two plays, Adinoyi Onukaba-Ojo’s ‘Sssooommmaaallliiiyyyaa’ which will be entered as Abuja’s entry for the annual Festival of Nigerian Plays (FESTINA) and Dr. Seyi Adigun’s HIV/AIDS awareness play, ‘Call for me My Osheni to celebrate the World Aids Day 2012.

The Wizard of Law comes up on Wednesday 31st October October, 2012 by 6pm prompt @ the National Centre for Women Development, Abuja with a Matinee for students of FCT schools.

Two Years of Fayemi in Ekiti, Articles | THISDAY LIVE

Two Years of Fayemi in Ekiti, Articles | THISDAY LIVE

Raging war between literature and history

National Mirror, 10 October 2012 — ADENRELE NIYI AND TERH AGBEDEH

 

As Femi Robinson calls for school ban of Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart
The storm generated by excerpts of Professor Chinua Achebe’s memoirs, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra, which were published in The Guardian of London of Tuesday, October 2, is yet to abate.

The book, set against the backdrop of the Igbo-born octogenarian’s experiences during the Nigerian Civil War (1967 -1970), also explores roles played by some of the major actors, including deceased Nigerian statesman, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

The revered Yoruba leader was one of the members of General Yakubu Gowon’s cabinet during the dark days of violent internal conflict. However, in Prof. Achebe’s documentation of intricacies and manoeuvrings around the civil war, he fingered Obafemi Awolowo as the mastermind behind a strategic policy of starvation which weakened Biafra’s succession bid, decimated its population and brought the bitter conflict to a quick end.

Long before the release of There Was a Country in September, there had been speculations by some literary enthusiasts that if the new book by the famous writer of Things Fall Apart does not become a bestseller in the country following the differences of opinions it has generated so far, no other book will. While critics abroad have focussed on the literary content, there is nothing short of an outcry against the book in the country.

In the controversial excerpts reproduced from the book, Achebe wrote that: “The wartime cabinet of General Gowon, the military ruler, it should also be remembered, was full of intellectuals like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, among others, who came up with a boatload of infamous and regrettable policies. A statement credited to Awolowo and echoed by his cohorts is the most callous and unfortunate: all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder.

“It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations.
“However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbo at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose – the Nigeria-Biafra War – his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams.

“In the Biafran case, it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation – eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.”
However, it was Achebe’s claims that the late revered Yoruba statesman used his position as the Vice Chairman of the wartime federal cabinet to “decimate” the Igbo as a race that stirred the hornet’s nest.
The contentious excerpts have since spawned passionate debates on the social media, especially on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Veteran theatre artiste, Femi Robinson, one of the pioneering cast of Village Headmaster, made his declaration on the new book yesterday where he called on the government to ban Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart in Nigerian schools.

Robinson said he decided to make this call because “it appears that the author of the book had, for years, been selling hate and disunity with the publication of his book and the promotion of the character, Okonkwo, as a role model to Nigerians”. Robinson, who said he had read sections of Achebe’s new book, explained that for many years he had asked himself why the Things Fall Apart came with that title.

“What fell apart and what could not hold?” He asked, saying that it was for this reason he had written a play titled: ‘Things Fall in Place’ “to counter some of what I considered dangerous propaganda by the book”.
Robinson went on to run an excerpt about the character of Okonkwo from his play, which shows him at the point where he returns from exile in Mbata. Robinson argues that Okonkwo was banished at the end of Achebe’s book and wondered if it had been a marketing gimmick to get international acceptance of the book.

“How many Okonkwos did the book breed before the war? How many unrepentant killers have we turned into heroes in all parts of the country? People who believed the centre can no longer hold because only they had the cultural ties that can keep it together.

“I am also a writer and I have always insisted that children should never be forced to buy books. I call on the Members of Senate, Members of the Houses of Representatives and all well-meaning Nigerians to ban this and any other forms of literature from being forced on the curriculum of schools and students”, Robinson said.

Referring to what he described as “Prof. Chinua Achebe’s clannish mindset from the early days”, Robinson said he was surprised the writer has not changed after 52 years of independence.

“Things may have fallen apart when he was young, but the youths today must be made to realise the need for the centre to hold. These days we do not need to go to war to settle our differences”.

However, poet and essayist, Odia Ofeimun, while speaking at the Book Party organised by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) for the 10 writers long-listed in the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature on Sunday, said the leaders who took the decision to go to war should now be given a proper trial and that Achebe’s new book will now encourage more writing on the war.

Ofeimun was personal secretary to Obafemi Awolowo who served in the Nigerian government during the war at the same time that Achebe was an ambassador to the Biafran government.

“All the leaders who took the decision that led to the Civil War should now be tried properly. Because the rest of us were angry, we allowed them to mislead us. It is wrong for people to use the falsehood of propaganda during a civil war”, he said.

The poet explained that leaders need to pay for what they did yesterday. “Ojukwu committed genocide against his people and he should not have been allowed to simply walk away. Nzeogwu was the leader of the Biafran army; he told them, we don’t have the guns, we can’t win this war”.

Ofeimun said the story of the Civil War “will now have to be told properly because Achebe has literarily taken the genie out of the bottle. We need somebody to begin to tell us why we were not ready for a war and they went ahead and committed genocide against their people”.

In a review in the London Review of Books, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie stated that Achebe mourns Biafra, but his anger is directed at the failures of Nigeria. His great disappointment manifests itself in a rare moment of defiance towards the end of the book.

This is not the first time Achebe is being criticised for his work: In 1975, he gave a lecture on racism in “The Heart of Darkness” that caused controversy.

Achebe chronicles the events surrounding the Nigerian Civil War, a three-year battle lasting from 1967-1970 and directly involving the author’s home and family. Already a noted writer at the time, Achebe supported Biafran independence. This book describes the state of the country prior to war, so that readers can understand its potential and carries on through the monstrous violence that took place.

http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/arts-and-lifestyle/arts/raging-war-between-literature-and-history/http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/arts-and-lifestyle/arts/raging-war-between-literature-and-history/

National Mirror - Young readers explore Nigeria at 52

Young readers explore Nigeria at 52

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JERRY ADESEWO 03/10/2012 00:14:00

Students of FCT Secondary Schools have joined the rest of the nation in celebrating the nation’s 52nd Independence Anniversary. More than 10 secondary schools gathered on Friday, September 28 for a special reading session under the auspices of the Explorers Club, one of Abuja’s foremost book and readers’ club, to commemorate the nation’s Independence.
Tagged ‘The Nigerian Story’, the event held at the Government Secondary School, Tundunwada, had both students and guests exploring Nigeria’s several decades-long history. Selected readers included Emmanuel Alex, a blind boy, who wowed the audience with his brilliance as he personally translated his own portion of reading into brail and read so flawlessly to the audience’s admiration.
A leadership parade, representing every leader whohas ruled this nation, from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, with the exception of course, of Chief Ernest Shonekan, the then Head of the Interim National Government, was put up by the host school.
Speaking at the event, Director of the FCT Secondary Education Board, Mrs. Yelwa Fatima Baba-Ari commended the organisers, especially Dr. Jerry Agada Foundation for the initiative. She went on to charge students to embrace reading; “life is not complete without reading. The only route to success is reading, reading and reading; Tthere is no other alternative”, she stated.
Barrister D.C. Uwaezuoke, Director Basics and Secondary School who represented the Honourable Minister of State, Chief Nyesom Wike revealed that being part of the reading session had done him a great deal of good. “Reading is a necessary exercise, not just for those who seek wisdom but as a confirmed therapy against depression”, he said.
Earlier on, the founder and chairman of the Dr. Jerry Agada Foundation and former Minister of State for Education under the late Umaru Musa Yar’adua administration, Dr. Jerry Anthony Agada reiterated his commitment to promoting academic excellence through reading. “I am an example of what reading can do to anyone. To become a champion in life, to become a leader who is worth its while and to become the signpost of excellence, you must read!.

National Mirror - Young readers explore Nigeria at 52

PRESS RELEASE: 20 ASPIRING ACTORS SCALE NEXT MOVIE STAR HURDLE

From Lagos to Lafia in Nassarawa State, Akure to Abuja and everywhere in between, hundreds of aspiring actors, the sublime and starry-eyed talents, thronged the final auditions of the 2012 Next Movie Star reality show which held at the exclusive Troy Bar and Lounge in Ogba, Lagos, last weekend. 48 hours after it began, the judges, comprising trusted and tested thespians and arts buffs like Jude Orhorha, Bukky Ogunnote-Ogunade, Doris Simeon, Raphael Stevens and Jerry Adesewo settled for 20 of these wannabe actors as meriting a chance at fame on the NMS platform. 

The lucky 20 include Okeke Chimezie Ivan, Okeowo Oluwatosin Speens, Alaha Gift Iyua, Aitsegame Halimat Sadiya, Josephine Micheal Ukpong, King Ojikemba, Samuel Babatunde Jameson, Ifovboa Ehijemen Jude, Oruambo Chrystabel, Esigbone Ejiro Kingsley, Obi Lilyjean, Tonia Ese Oria-Arebun, Ajuyah Sarah Onome, Million Santong, Alabi Folake, Mina Horsefall, Musa Olajoju, Chigbufue Bright, Perpetual Andy and Nnachortam Patrick. Chosen from audition centres in Port Harcourt, Benin and Abuja, these variegated talents have thus qualified as prospective housemates for the show. However, four of them will be evicted from the training and grooming session which will last a whole week. 

The training and grooming session, especially, according to the executive producer, Sola Fajobi, “is one of the unique selling points of the Next Movie Star because this is where we prepare these aspiring actors for a future that can be bigger than their wildest imagination; a future that can see them become the biggest brand in the industry. We have respected facilitators and experts on various aspects of entertainment who come around for the sessions. However, it also affords us a closer look at the contestants and we have no choice but to drop those who do not measure up to the standards of the show.” 

Speaking after the auditions, popular cross over actress, Doris Simeon, averred that she was stunned and surprised at the quality of talents on display. “I used to think that they (the producers) just handpick those who would appear on the show; i never knew that it is such a labourious and long process. I think that is why some of their products go on to excel more than any reality show products.” Indeed, Simeon was not being superfluous. In its eighth year, many alumni of the Next Movie Star show have gone on to establish flourishing careers in entertainment. Kevin Chuwang Pam, Uti Nwachukwu and Karen Igho went through the NMS school and are today established entertainers after winning the Big Brother Africa show in 2009, 2010 and 2011 respectively. For others like Tonto Dikeh, Annie Macaulay-Idibia, Porttiah Yamahan, they are now major forces in Nollywood after being discovered and nurtured by NMS. 

Despite being privately funded for the past six seasons, Fajobi says, “Our resolve is to ensure that the quality of the show never drops and we keep pushing the bounds to discover more talents for the entertainment industry.” Following in the tradition of the last two seasons which saw the 2010 and 2011 winners, Akio Ilami and Tamara Eteimo getting cash prizes and a brand new SUV, this year’s winner will get same, and more.