Soyinka’s ‘The Man Died’, ‘Ebrohimie Road’, ‘The Swamp Dwellers’ in focus as Lagos Book & Art Festival 2024 opens
By Godwin Okondo
AS the 26th edition of Lagos Book and Art Festival begins today, November 11 and runs till 17, 2024 in the week-long biggest culture picnic in Africa, discourse and activities on Africa’s first Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka will dominate in a festival aptly designed as ‘The Soyinka Year.’ Programme line-up for the festival plays up the Soyinka persona amidst a recent body of works, mostly in the filmic art, that are dedicated to exploring the man’s art, activism and essential humanity. With the theme ‘Breakout: Hope is a Stubborn Thing’, LABAF 2024 is dedicated to celebrating Soyinka who turned 91 on July 13, 2024.
The first outing on the Soyinka sub-theme on Wednesday, November 13 at the Agip Recital Hall of MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos is the screening of the film The Man Died, inspired by his prison memoirs of same title published many years ago. Time is 7:30pm. A conversation on ‘Resistance, Resilience and Nation Building’ will follow the film show, with reception starting at 6:30pm.
The next day, Thursday, November 14 @7:00pm at the Foodcourt of Freedom Park, Broad Street, LABAF’s festival drama will be performed. With Segun Adefila directing and Kate Odiong choreographing it, The Swamp Dwellers is the first time LABAF will have a section dedicated to drama. But this is not surprise given the personality of Soyinka, the man being celebrated, an eminent dramatist, who also wrote the play back in 1958. Soyinka’s political activism during and after Nigeria’s independence struggles informs much of his writing, including his first major drama, The Swamp Dwellers. A short play that stages one day in the life of an impoverished Nigerian family, The Swamp Dwellers concerns the fallen fortunes of young Igwezu. Critics have read Igwezu’s failure as a cautionary tale regarding Nigerians expectations of prosperity following their impending liberation from British rule.
Clearly, Soyinka couldn’t have been more presient about the fortunes of his country that was yet to come into being at the time of writing the play. Nigeria’s consistent unravelling bears out the ominous theme of the play as being predictive of Nigeria’s future as the euphoria of independence soon gave way to hopelessness as Nigeria’s leaders systematically squander the country’s fortune and its aspirations to greatness.
The performance of the play would be followed by the screening of another culture project on Soyinka, a documentary on Soyinka titled Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memories on the same day, November 14. Soyinka’s house during his teaching days at the University of Ibadan was on Ebrohimie Road from where he was taken to prison for two horrific years during the Nigerian Civil War for attempting to broker peace between the two leaders Yakubu Gowon and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who were on the brink of war, thus a metaphor for his personal and national struggles over the years against oppression and tyranny. The war would last for 30 long months with millions sent to their early graves.
These valuable offerings among several others make LABAF 2024 a must-attend festival for its high cultural and educational impact.
