Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba’s play, Body Parts premiered at the ninth Jos Festival of Theatre which took place in Jos, Plateau State from March 10 to 14. Very impressed with the performance, the playwright, journalist, teacher and one-time spokesman for then Vice President Atiku Abubakar talks about how the Nigerian environment is unfriendly to creativity, among other issues in this interview with Assistant Life Editor, TERH AGBEDEH.
For someone who has been in government in the corridors of power and considering where we are right now, A a country, are you writing another play?
Sometimes, as a writer you don’t set out to do a play about government; you can do plays about issues, especially social issues you have an opinion on. I think that is what I have done in this regard. The issue of unemployment, especially among young people, and the desperation that creates in them; the desperation to want to sell a part of your body. In doing this, I am highlighting what most people call a time bomb in Nigeria. Actually, this is the first of three plays I have that deal with the unemployment situation in the country. Even in approaching it, I have been very subtle; I didn’t want to be very preachy. You don’t write a play and say this is your objective to arrive at so and so; first of all, you want to tell a story that is in itself entertaining. And of course, the message will be embedded in it.
The candidates from the major political parties going into the elections do not seem to be dwelling on the issues, some of which you have raised, particularly unemployment. Maybe they mention it, but are not clear about how they are going to tackle it. Does it then worry you?
As someone who has been involved in presidential campaigns, it is not entirely true that they have not been talking about issues. They have been talking about issues, but Nigerians are the ones who are supposed to take them to task on some of the things they have talked about. If a candidate says ‘I will create seven million jobs in one year’, we journalists should be asking ‘how’. The Nigerian people too should be asking ‘how’. So I think, broadly, they have mentioned some of the things that they want to do; but it is for us now to task them to provide greater details.
As a journalist who has written at least five plays, how did you do it apart from the obvious fact of managing your time well?
I have about 12 plays, and most of them were written when I was in the U.S., especially when I was studying for my Ph.D and eventually started working with the United Nations. So I had a lot of time to myself and was able to do, because there are very little distractions. If you are not living with your family and friends, you have very little distractions.
But I do believe that it is time management to a great extent, so that even if it is one hour, you use it creatively. I know of people who make sure that at least one hour in a day, they write something. Maybe they are working on a novel, a play or poem, they make sure that every day they devote one hour to putting something down. So, it is better utilisation of time and then, of course, the Nigerian environment, to be very sincere, is not very friendly to creativity because of the problems – the distractions that we have over here.
Amid the dearth of residencies, you probably had a residency to write some of your plays?
I wrote my play called The Tower of Burden at a residency in Arkansas in the U.S. They paid me and then took me there and I spent three weeks. There, I did nothing else but to write.
Is this the first time you are attending the premiere of your own play?
No.
What would you say is different in this production?
I have had premieres of my play in New York, Off Off off-off-Broadway, and of course in Kenya. But the difference is that there the audience is very different, in the sense that they just sit down and watch. At the end of the play, they (would) come and say hello to you and that is it. But here, I enjoy the side talk, the commentary that people make on the play. I also enjoy the fact that a Nigerian audience is very lively. They (members of the audience) are not sitting down passively; they are commenting, writing their own plays with their comments. As a playwright, I think I enjoy that. I enjoy specifically the fact that they knew where the play was going, because I heard somebody say “he is your father”, even before that was let out. I think that is very interesting. As a playwright, I really find that exciting.
Do you think the director of the play has done a good job?
I think she has done a wonderful job. Like I said, this is the first time I am seeing it; so, what it is with directing? Someone else could pick it up and give it a totally different interpretation. But this one that I have seen, I think she has been very faithful to the work and has done justice to the work.
What is your view on the state and prospects of theatre in the country?
I think live theatre is something that we need to really revive, and this is why I want to specially thank and commend the Jos Repertory Theatre under the leadership of Patrick-Jude Oteh for doing a wonderful job, giving people like us a lot of fulfilment. I mean, if you write and you don’t have an opportunity to test it on stage, you don’t feel fulfilled as a playwright. So, I am really happy that they are doing a wonderful job and I want to really advise government at the federal, state and local level, as well as corporate organisations, to get involved in the sponsorship of live theatre. More people go to the theatre in England than the number of people who go to the premiership. They earn more money from the theatre than they do from football because more people go to the theatre.
There must be something that they are doing right; for instance, what do you think can be done for productions like this one to run for many years?
First of all, you need a theatre, a resident troupe that performs plays. Touring theatres could also come and perform plays there. But you need a space, a very conducive space for theatre production. The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie has been running since, I think 1956, in the UK. It is in the Guinness Book of Records. It is the longest running play. If you have a space where people can at least come and perform, then you build an audience. These guys have successfully built an audience now; so when you hear that the Jos Repertory Theatre is performing, either here or in Abuja, people go. They say: we know them for quality production. So you need to build a theatre-going culture and you can only do that if you have a very good space for performance and dedicated theatre artistes.
There are those who would argue that because people over there are literate, that is why they can even think of going to the theatre and some of them are of course not living below the poverty line like most of the people here, so they are thinking rather of where the next bread will come. Do you think the same?
I don’t think so. I think it is just building a culture, making it part of our life. Over there, going to the theatre is a normal thing and you don’t really have to save a fortune to afford it. Performances here don’t cost a fortune, maximum N2000, sometimes N1000; so that is not too much. People go to beer parlours and spend more than that on beer and pepper soup, so it has to become a habit, it has to become part of our social life. You learn a lot in the theatre.
