By Ikeogu Oke

The conception was fortuitous, the gestation brief, the birth pangs spasmodic, the delivery somewhat fraught; but nothing in this anxiety-laden process foreshadowed the excitement of the audience on seeing the new baby on stage at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja, on October 14, 2010.

The event was the culminating dinner of the Presidential Retreat for Power Sector Investors attended by several potential investors in the Nigerian power sector currently undergoing reform and many dignitaries associated with the reform and the power sector, including the Minister of State for Power, Alhaji Nuhu Somo Wya.

The new baby is an expository, satirical, utilitarian, unabashedly tendentious play titled “Towards a New Dawn.” It was commissioned by the Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP), Abuja, chaired by Profssor Bart Nnaji, and written by Greg Mbajiorgu, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theatre Arts and Film Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

The play enacts an aggregation of beauty and menace: the beauty of art and the menace of such forces that would rather keep Nigerians in darkness by keeping electricity out of their lives. At a different (and eminently positive) level, it strikes one as a coincidental theatrical amplification of the theme of the 2009 Ahiajoku Lecture.

UNN students cast for the play

Incidentally, the lecture, titled “Ka Ihe Di”: “Let There Be Light” (and subtitled “The Power of Light Energy as a Fundamental Instrument for Socio-Economic Development”), was delivered by Prof. Nnaji, a distinguished and tenured Professor of Mechanical Engineering formerly at the University of Michigan, USA. The lecture strikes a keening humanistic note in spite of the essentially technical orientation of its subject-matter and examines the forces that have foisted on Nigerians a long regime of darkness, and what must be done to vacate them, vis-a-vis the benefits Nigerians are bound to enjoy from being freed from their control. The play does a similar thing on a symbolically r
aised platform for theatrical performance, lending high artistic seriousness to the same subject, and leaving hints of incidental inter-textuality.

The 17-man cast (comprising six females) was dominated by young and promising thespians from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka’s theatrical forge being hammered into sundry shapes of skilled actors on its tutorial anvil – a heavy and exacting tool. The actors’ roll includes: Greg Mbajiogu (who doubled as the director/narrator), Amara Ereojikwe, Adaobi Obinwa, Ikechukwu Ereojikwe, Precious Udechukwu, Chidinma Chukwu, Chinyere Lucy, Chiamaka Okolie, and Ugwuanyi Damian. The others are: Eke James, Elema Effiong, Charles Chukwudozie, Ahabuike Godfirst, Jude Agada Aguzie, John Ismael, Charles Ugwu, and Anthony Nnalue.

Prof. Barth Nnaji

Though dominated by students, the cast made the impression of a group of cockerel actors that have already begun to crow loudly at the dawn of their careers.

In particular, Jude Agada Aguzie (the King, of Greenland) and the group’s lead actor, and Amara Ereojikwe (Mr. Corruption) were embodiments of panache and finesse on stage, with great potential for mastering the ropes of dramatic projection.

The play is about the difficulties associated with electricity supply in Greenland, a name redolent with hints of Nigeria. Mr. Corruption is one such deleterious force that would rather deny Nigerians the opportunity of enjoying full and constant electricity.

He appears on stage a cocksure, assertive and menacing figure, holding his ground against three delegates despatched by Greenland’s leaders to tackle the “two monsters” (labour and corruption) working to frustrate reliable electricity supply in their land. Asked by the delegates to take his fangs off their skins, having identified him as “a major stakeholder in our power industry today,” he retorts, piqued: