‘Tafawa Balewa’ hits Bauchi, Abuja, Lagos stage January 15, 2025
* Artswax Communications partners National Troupe of Nigeria for the performance
By Editor
THE lure of epical biopic stage drama and film seems to have taken over the Nigerian theatre circuit in recent times. From Obasanjo to Awolowo, to Fajuyi, on to Ladi Kwali, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Azikiwe, Sardauna and to Sanusi, notable playwrights, producers and directors seem to have caught the bug of narrating and packaging the stories of great men and women of Nigeria for the stage and sometimes extending it to the screen, too. The overall idea is to animate and enliven the great deeds of these historical personages, who have played remarkable roles in the nation’s history for the enjoy, education and historical immersion of contemporary audience. Anyone with a knack for history can read historical texts or records to relive the lives of these characters, but what the theatre does to these narratives is to compact them and present each narrative from an perspective that best speaks to the world of today. There are lessons to be learned from the lives of these great men and women, what they did well or what they could have done better. This may be the allure of going back to unearth stories of men and women already set in historical accounts or people’s memories and retell these stories again with a touch of freshness.
When therefore playwright and producer Ola Awakan of Artswax Communications announced at a press conference held in Abuja on November 23, 2024 that preparations were underway for the production of a stage play on the life and times of the first and only Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, it was clear that the nation is in for another recourse to the theatrical enactment of the life of another worthy historical figure – albeit one whose remarkable story may have been ‘under-told’ before now. Even though he occupies a unique place in Nigeria’s history as Nigeria’s first leader at independence before the bubble burst. Fondly remembered as the ‘Golden Voice of Africa,’ Sir Balewa was Nigeria’s leader at its golden age at independence and First Republic. He was also one of the high profile victims of the military misadventure of January 15, 1966. He has an impressive biography of over 800 pages written on him by Trevor Clark entitled A Right Honourable Gentleman: The Life and Times of Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He has his body interred in a most iconic architectural masterpiece mausoleum in Bauchi with an adjoining museum.
Today, the memory of Sir Balewa and what he stood for seem to be fading away from popular imagination. To retrieve the precious memories of Sir Balewa from the dustbin of history and project them through drama into contemporary imagination made Awakan write the play Tafawa Balewa: The Black Rock and Golden Voice of Africa. This is the second play in the ‘Tales of Legends’ series of Artswax Communication, the first being the stage performance of Abibatu Mogaji, which was performed earlier in the year to immortalize the legendary market women leader and mother of His Excellency, President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Tafawa Balewa story is being packaged and told on stage to preserve the history of Nigerian heroes and to reawaken the elegant culture, tradition and values embedded in the soil of Nigeria. Particularly, the production of the play, scheduled to hold between January 15 – 26, 2025 in Bauchi, Abuja and Lagos is expected to bring into the consciousness of Nigerians the legacies of integrity, sacrifice and patriotism personified in the life and times of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Furthermore, the play aims to celebrate Tafawa Balewa’s immense contributions to Nigeria’s political landscape, highlighting themes of patriotism, resilience and visionary leadership and designed to inspire the audience with his commendable values. The playwright also explained that the initiative is to equip the younger generation with facts and the nuances of Nigerian history and help acquaint them with their roots.
To conceive a big theatre idea is one thing, but to realise it on stage lies the bulk of the task. For the forthcoming production of the Tafawa Balewa play, a partnership of renowned national performing arts institution and theatre practitioners has been forged. The National Troupe of Nigeria, the nation’s foremost governmental theatre institution, already steeped in such epical, land-marking and nationalistic productions, is partnering with Artswax Communication for the production. For the creative delivery of the project on stage, former Director of Performing Arts with the National Council for Arts and Culture, poet, award-winning playwright, theatre director, one-time Manager Operations, Abuja Carnival and former President of the Association of Nigerian Authors(ANA) Mallam Denja Abdullahi has been engaged as director. He would be leading a team of professional actors, choreographers, dancers, musicians, set designers, costumiers, makeup artistes and light and sound artistes to deliver befittingly spectacular productions in the three centres where the play would be staged.
The choice of Mallam Abdullahi as play director is auspicious as he spent close to a decade as federal government culture administrator in Bauchi, the home state of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa where he immersed himself well enough in the cultural and natal milieu that produced the historical figure. Also, the author of a critically acclaimed stage play Death and the King’s Grey Hair, Abdullahi has in his pouch the right theatrical expertise to lead a creative team to tell the story in the most engaging way.
May Olanigbe (left); Amina Bashar; Mallam Denja Abdullahi; playwright Ola Awakan; Artistic Director, National Troupe of Nigeria Kaltume Gana; Mohammed Kawu and Ariyike Hassan after the press briefing on Tafawa Balewa: The Golden Voice of Africa in Abuja
Support for the production of the play is also coming from the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, Jaiz Bank, Bauchi State Government, Lagos State Government and other critical stakeholders.
Rehearsals for the play has begun at the sprawling Uzzitz Centre for Arts and Culture, Abuja, for about a month now with the director leading the charge to interpret and deliver the theatrical ‘love letter’ from Awakan to Nigerians who would watch the performances early in the new year, 2025. The management of Artswax Communication has also visited the ‘owners of the story’, family and associates of Sir Balewa in Bauchi and Bauchi State government. Everyone seems set and eagerly looking forward to the dramatic re-enactment of the life and times of one of their greatest persons of national and international significance.
Interestingly, the performance team visited the impressive Mausoleum, well-kept Museum and modest home of the first Prime Minister of Nigeria in Bauchi City, so it could have a feel of the grandeur of the task before it. That visit fuelled the passion to convey the virtues of the man’s life and times to Nigerians in a stage drama for recollection and reappraisal. Echoes of that visit to Bauchi reverberated among the creative team, fortifying and inspiring them to do performance justice to the story of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in the most spectacular way possible when it premieres early next year.
