By Anote Ajeluorou
Echoes of Boko Haram terrorist
hideout, Sambisa forest in Borno State filled the exhibition hall at Freedom
Park last Saturday as the yearly Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF 2015) took
off on a sober mood. Also, the despotism that characterised many African
leaders soon after independence had its origins projected from the Haitian
example in the dramatic expose of The
Tragedy of King Christophe performed on day two of the festival.
Declaring the weeklong
cultural fiesta open were Lagos State Commissioner for Culture and
Inter-Governmental Affairs, Mr. Disu Holloway and Festival Consultant, Prof.
Wole Soyinka and many culture practitioners like Taiwo Ajayi-Lycett, Chief
Emanuel Francesca, Sir Peter Badejo, Tunji Oyelana and Jimi Solanke.
After Holloway briefly
restated the commitment of Lagos State Government to the ideals of the
festival, which are to promote and preserve Yoruba culture in particular and
Nigerian culture in general, he toured some of the events on offer. His first
call was the main stage where children’s group, Footprints of David put up a superlative performance. In a
dexterous combination of drumming, singing, dancing and folk narrative, the
children literarily transported the audience back to moonlight night reenactment
of years gone by.
However, the plight of the
219 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped a year ago resonated at the exhibition hall
where the paintings by school children were on display. It was in resonance
with the worldwide activities that marked the anniversary last week. With the
enigmatic theme, The Road to Sambisa,
which Prof. Soyinka gave them last year to work on, the children faithfully and
imaginatively rendered on canvas various traumatic situations the kidnapped
girls might be going through while they remain in captivity, presumably inside
the Sambisa forest.
From a shattered public
school system to bad governance, a helpless government and ineffective military
in the face of the kidnap a year ago to the plight of the girls; the dreaded
Sambisa forest to the wicked terrorists and the hapless girls and other harrowing
situations, the primary and secondary school students brought Sambisa forest,
the terrorists, the girls and how they perceive their own country from the
recesses of their young, creative minds. What comes across is a canvas of the
failure that has characterized their country, which, in the innocence of their
minds, they have rendered in poignant brush strokes.
Not least is the poetic
rendering to which some other children cast the dire situation of Chibok
schoolgirls. They told the guests their troubled thoughts concerning their young
female colleagues in faraway Borno State who have been made to suffer untold
hardships in the hands of their abductors. Indeed in designing the theme for
this year, it was the desire of Prof. Soyinka to get school children from
faraway South-West part of Nigeria to be in empathy with their colleagues in
the North-East and to render same in a moving fashion and in solidarity with
them.
And it worked. Visitors to
Freedom Park and the children’s exhibition would marvel at the sheer brilliance
and imaginative ingenuity of the children as they travelled in their
imagination and thoughts to be on the same page with the kidnapped girls in
their hour of need.
Other features of
yesterday’s events included Zangbeto masquerade
dance from Badagry, other masquerade displays and a bandstand in performance. A
boat regatta at the Lagos Lagoon and the performance of The Tragedy of King Christophe at Freedom Park will hold today just
as other performances will be held tomorrow through to the end of the festival
on Saturday.
ON Day Two, Jos Repertory Theatre staged The Tragedy of King Christophe based on the struggle of Haitians soon
after the revolution that chased their French colonial masters away. Henri
Christophe emerged liberator at the northern part of the country with Alexandre
Petion in the south. But in Christophe’s spirited effort to create an enviable
kingdom, he resorts to the iron fist to instill discipline and order, which
soon wears him out.
Rather than enhance the
prospects of his countrymen and women, he further enslaves them. He builds for
himself a throne like those of European monarchies complete with his courts. He
embarks on building a citadel that will proclaim the glory of Haiti. But this
comes at a huge cost to the liberty of Haitians, who have recently been freed
from slavery. Forced labour becomes the norm and poor Haitians are made to bear
the brunt of his tyrannical powers, with the executions of dissidents a regular
undertaking.
Ordinary Haitians live in
fear of their absolute king, who places the army at the top hierarchy in the
pecking order of prominence. The people become slaves in their own liberated
land. They are made to work even harder to realize the vision of their king,
who does not even appreciate their hard labour. Even his lieutenants are in awe
of him.
But as it often happens in
dictatorships, time and tide soon turn the tables, as King Henri comes to
learn. He suffers paralysis in his leg and his powers begin to weaken. This
gives room for open rebellion among his trusted aides who seize on his
condition to seek liberation from his tyranny. King Henri is an energetic and
charismatic character but flawed by his poor reading of his power over the
lives of his fellow countrymen and women. His is a good example of good
intentions but poor outcomes.
Indeed, Christophe and his
other Haitian league of despotic leaders like Papa Doc Duvalier provided the
first models for African leaders that emerged soon after independence from
colonial rule. Their propensity towards dictatorships and tyranny echoed
Christophe’s and Haitian leaders that were to follow.
Thus The Tragedy of King Christophe is instructive for democracies
across Africa. It calls for constant vigilance among the citizens against a
regress into something dark and reprehensible from a leadership that soon
assumes absolute powers. Christophe believed he had all the answers to his
country’s problems and went on to solve them his own way. But it ended up
alienating him from his people, who had, at first cheered him on, but who later
hated him for taking away the freedom they’d deservedly earned.
Jos Repertory Theatre’s performance of The Tragedy of King Christophe on the
night was energetic and exciting. Although, the characters did not affect the
speech patterns of Haitians, they came close to some of the mannerisms.
Particularly brilliant were the Victorian-style costumes, the ballroom parties
and affectations that Christophe created to imitate European monarchical models
of power and grandeur. Complete with a court clown, Christophe outdid himself
in slavish modeling and so fell flat on his face when his voodoo conjuration of
sango failed to inspire similar
national frenzy to his histrionics of nation-building that sucked the blood of
his fellow Haitians.
Also, the performance of the play at the big
stage at Freedom Park with the audience seated on the grass terrace gave the
performance a unique moonlight tale-like ambience. It also tallied with the
Festival Consultant, Prof. Wole Soyinka’s vision for this year’s event, with
drama as centrepiece:
“This year’s excursion into Drama as central
theme does however offer a special contribution to the artistic trail blazed by
these visitors (Shakespeare Globe Theatre’s staging of Hamlet). Its format was inspired by an increasing awareness of the
need to bring theatre closer to the people, not merely confine it to
predictable, albeit efficiently structured venues. Directors were selected,
then encouraged to scout for optional spaces that they find most appropriate to
their choice of plays – bare spaces, night clubs, open pavilions etc. - thus
weaning drama of domination by ‘congenial confinement.’ Freedom Park will
therefore constitute only one of this year’s drama venues, though without
abandoning its role as the hub of the festival”.
Lagos Black Heritage
Festival continues till Saturday with many theatrical performances for
audiences to savour.
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