Peter Omoko’s ‘A Requiem for the Gods’ hits Asaba stage, as Obari Gomba gives ‘Free Troubles’ in Port Harcourt

By Editor

THURSDAY, August 29, 2024 at 3:00pm, Dr. Peter Omoko’s play A Requiem for the Gods will be performed at Nuel Ojei Hall, Dennis Osadebay University, Asaba. It is directed by Dr. Tunde Oliogu while Professors Charles Nwadigwe and Ben Oghojafor will play host and chief host respectively. It will be staged by the 100 level of Department of Create Arts of the university as part of their exams performance ritual. An oral literature specialist and playwright with many publications to his credit, Dr. Omoko also teaches at Dennis Osadebay UNiversity, Asaba. A Requiem for the Gods is one of his numerous stage plays.

Also in Port Harcourt on September 7, 2024 at 12pm, Dr. Obari Gomba will read and discuss his first seminal non-fiction book enigmatically titled Free Troubles: A Writer’s Eyes on the World. The multiple award winning writer will have a conversation with Dr. Okwudiri Anasiudu and guests at Bookville World bookstore on Ezimgbu Road, Off Stadium Road, Port Harcourt.

In Free Troubles, Gomba gives rein to his eclectic thoughts that fiction can’t accommodate and what comes through is an intellectual with his eyes of the ball, as his gave is unwavering in the issues he tackles that at the heart of global troubles. Gomba’s thoughts in this book range from the local to the global. His slice on Nigeria is tellingly searing, particularly a chapter that deals with the ‘tribal’ marriage that defines the country’s undoing among Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo ethnic blocks – the three big-for-nothing ‘tribes’ that have continued to hold Nigeria hostage with their ceaseless bickering which sexual political positions to adopt in bed with each other while the country burns.

Gomba will readily give as much free troubles as the country gets in its continuing slide into anomie and has promised a second, more searing follow up that holds absurdities in Nigeria in relentless gaze. But that will only make sense if you’ve read this initial instalment published by Masobe Books, Lagos. An Associate Dean of Faculty of Humanities, University of Port Harcourt and Vice President of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Dr. Gomba won The Nigeria Prize for Literature 2023 (drama category) with his play, Grit. The Lilt of a Rebel won him Pan-African Writers Association Prize 2022, among numerous accolades for his literary works over the years.