By PRISCA SAM-DURU

London-based Nigerian writer, Efemena Agadama’s fierce, poetic and classical portrayal of the 1894 Ebrohimi war between the British colonial administration in the Benin River and Nana Olomu, was recently staged at the Talawa Theatre in London.

The play takes its first scene from the activities in the month of June, 1894. Actually,  the month of June 2015, makes it exactly 121 years of those fierce activities that led to the ferocious war. A war that made Ralph Moor, the British Acting Commissioner and Consul general to inform the foreign office for them to send additional war ships and forces to enforce those already in the administrative districts.

This dramatic piece took Efemena to the Itsekiri kingdom where he personally interviewed one of the highly respected Itsekiri chiefs who is also one of the greatest historian known to the Itsekiris. He also personally visited the Christ Church Museum in Ipswich, School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the British Museum also in London. He said he was worried about writing a one sided story or a play developed from fallacious assumptions.

The play titled Ebrohimi Burns had its first staged reading in February 2015 at the Talawa Theatre in London with actors from London; the staged reading was produced by Keshia Watson and directed by Dare Babatunde.

In that production, Lamin Tamba played Nana while Kieran Nero played Akpata. Kieran Nero playing Akpata was naturally funny as he spoke the Pidgin English like a Warri comedian, born and bred. Simone Mcintyre played Mammie, one of Nana’s wives. Simone brings a feminine atmosphere to the play. She shows the loving and understanding nature of a typical Itsekiri woman, so tender and affectionate. Mammie’s character seems controversial as she brings softness to the play and also understands when Nana goes after younger and fresher women whose beauty and endearing features are not only enticing but certainly entrapping.

Ebrohimi Burns is a reflection of Efemena Agadama consistency in his writing style which tells and retells the use of African songs, language arts, settings, beauty of words and dramatic pacing and this has seen his works produced in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and France.

Efemena Agadama’s play on Nana, which is at the publishing stage in a trilogy, is a dramatic deviation both in literary style and historical facts when compared with other literary works on Nana Olomu. This is due to years of research on the historical facts surrounding the Ebrohimi war of 1894.