‘Tell Us, O Wise One’ written to promote climate change awareness, healthier planet, says Onadele
By Godwin Okondo
NIGERIAN-AMERICAN playwright, poet and producer, Cash Onadele, also known as Aiye-ko-ooto, has assured that his latest play, Tell Us, O Wise One – climate fiction playbook – will encourage living on a healthier planet and promote climate change awareness in children, youth, and adults. He noted that there is growing global concern about climate change, the environmental impacts, and the attendant social impacts.
“This climate fiction playbook is written to encourage living on a healthier planet and to create culture, identity, and climate change awareness in children, youth, and adults,” he said in an interview. Onadele, who has over 125 published creative works across genres, has crossed genres again with this new young adult climate-focused literary fiction play Tell Us, O Wise One.
The story revolves around two young friends who are concerned about the planet’s future. They go to seek wisdom from an old sage about what they could do to make the planet healthier. The old man teaches them to take climate change actions first by themselves, then for their families, and lastly for the community.
Speaking on the staging of the play, he said: “We plan to work in collaboration with our sponsors to have this play ready for May 27th Children’s Day in Lagos. We may have park shows in the Mainland and the Island. Details are yet to be worked out. Generally, children can enjoy the show and ice cream.”
He added that there is also a children’s colour version in the works.
“This new climate awareness book’s story draws on themes of culture, cultural identity, community sacrifice and collective climate change. Given the Federal and State governments’ drive to achieve significant targets in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), hopefully climate change analysts, green enthusiasts, circular economy policymakers, and educationists would take advantage of the message in this book to improve climate awareness, drama, and literacy in our schools.
“In a lighter mood, we hope that they would take away gifts – t-shirts, books and have fun. But seriously, we hope the children will be impacted with awareness of climate change actions, desire to take collective actions and gain a sense of cultural identity in their neighbourhoods.”
Onadele’s biggest work to date, The Noble Warrior-Ẹni Ogun book also turned bestseller in Nigeria when it celebrated the Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka two years in a row in the theatre (2024 and 2025).
“We hope to see the play again in the theatre in 2026. The Noble Warrior book was recently approved by National Education Research Development Council (NERDC) for national literature and grammar studies in senior secondary classes. It was previously approved by the Ministry of Education & Technology both in Lagos and Ogun States.”
Cash Onadele
