Probing Fatalistic and Deterministic Conversations in Ahmed Yerima’s Drugga and Victor Dugga’s Gidan Juju
Mark Ogah Onwe* and Taiwo Afolabi**
Abstract
The effects of cultural globalisation on African performances have generated varying reactions from scholars. Some scholars advocate a radical continuance of extant traditional performances no matter their incompatibility with the present wave of change (fatalism). Others advance a modification to conform to change (determinism). Ahmed Yerima’s Drugga and Victor Dugga’s Gidan Juju engage these differing interpretations as an offshoot of a morphed conversation from the Facebook platform. This article employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to interrogate the emerging conversation on fatalism and determinism within the ambit of postcoloniality and new historicism within both plays in the wake of cultural globalisation.
Keywords: African theatre and drama, determinism, fatalism, cultural globalisation, postcolonial, New Historicism
Introduction
The experiences from the incursion into Africa by Europe in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, according to Chinua Achebe (54), birthed literature on different aspects of the continent. Gowon Doki categorically stated that as early as the 1920s, ethnographers and anthropologists had drawn attention to African rituals and festivals (20). The colonialists documented their experiences and recounted their perspectives on various cultures, religions and systems of organising life in Africa. Theatres, dramas, festivals and other art forms were parts of these descriptions. Achebe further stated that these descriptions, which were largely borne from the Eurocentric lenses, were to be responded to, reviewed and retold by African writers who felt the reports were either skewed or the African practices were not sufficiently understood by the colonialists (53). The responses generated debates and different theories regarding the content, nomenclature, functions, understanding, appreciation and preservation of African performances.
One of the theories upon which African traditional performances are articulated is relativism. Relativism, according to Austin Asagba, advocates that realities in a domain are relative to the perspective or the context in which they are judged (87). The advocates of this theory, especially in theatre and drama, insist that drama and theatre should be analysed based on the knowledge of the concrete and elemental phenomena that are identifiable with the social environment. The followers of this school of thought within the African literary theorisation are Wole Soyinka, Bakary Traore, John Pepper Clark, Ola Rotimi, Kofi Awoonor and Femi Osofisan, amongst others.
Rotimi asserts that the ultimate object of drama which implies an imitation of an action is to edify or entertain and, as such, demands that indigenous African drama meets this requirement (77). Awoonor sees drama in terms of presentation elements, such as music, dance, plot, characters, actors (impersonators), which are present in Africa (69). Clark insists that there is plenty of drama in Africa, stating that drama means “elegant imitation” (57). A further proposition of this theory, as exemplified in the works of Soyinka, Traore, and Osofisan, suggests that the African cultural environment is a unique phenomenon, and a sufficient understanding of its modus operandi is a prerequisite for fully appreciating African theatre and drama. This is because traditional performances, according to theorists like Schechner, Turner and Traore, are productive and entertaining, and serve manifold functions in the environment that bore them.
Although these positions have long been considered astute, recent developments, such as intertribal and transnational relationships through marriage, migration, business, and social media networks, have prompted a need for renewed reflection. A lot of activities have connected Africa to the rest of the world in such a manner that appreciating African traditional performances in isolation from other worlds becomes problematic.
Intercultural relations, colonialism and globalisation have shaped and nurtured new ideologies, religions, governance, business, laws, education and systems of interrelationships lasting over centuries in Africa. Nowadays, the fast-globalising world makes one either a global citizen or a completely ostracised one. Most ethnic groups in Africa are not completely impervious to foreign cultures. Even if any exists, no matter the sophistication of their creativity and ingenuity, they would be termed as grossly underdeveloped, considering the inescapability of the claws of globalisation. Within this environment, Glenn Odom averred that it becomes a “false project” to “preserve” a singular cultural form as a relic rather than seeing it as an evolving culture (104).
Consequently, certain salient questions come to the fore:
- Do traditional African theatres still find exclusively African audience and patronage in a rapidly interacting world?
- Do they still perform the functions for which they were originally conceived especially in a fast-globalising world?
- Does the relativists’ absolute position on African traditional theatre still find relevance in a globalising environment?
- Are the subsisting traditional performances, especially with reasonable patronage, still in their pristine form or now intermixed with performances from other climes?
- Should a new metric for measuring and appreciating intermixed performances be (re)negotiated?
These are necessary questions that should guide the practice and analysis of traditional performances in the fast-evolving world. In fact, Ugwu Affiah and Ndubusi Osuagwu invite scholars to reconceptualise and redefine Indigenous African performances after colonisation (6).
Postcoloniality, New Historicism and Critical Discourse Analysis
Postcolonialism has enjoyed extensive criticism, particularly in literary, political and religious studies. Edward Said is considered as the originator of the postcolonial theory (Lutfi Hamadi 39). Despite the undeniable role of other leading figures, his work Orientalism laid the foundation of the theory. Generally, theorists take different perspectives about the subject of postcolonialism. Lazare Lukundwa and Andries van Aarde, for example, point out that the optimists view it as a means of defiance of any exploitative practices, and the pessimists regard it as ambiguous and superstitious (1171).
The optimistic approach formulates its critique around the history of colonialism only to the extent of what Homi Bhabha called the “unequal and universal forces of cultural representation” (1994, 171) and, according to Robert Young, has determined the configurations and power structures of the present (69). This critique recognises anti-colonial movements, decolonisation efforts and other emergent platforms that are a negotiating space for equity and to reclaim sovereignty as significant. This critique is espoused in Gayatri Spivak (197), Bill Ashcroft et al. (13), and Jomo Kenyatta (36), among others, as they challenged and rejected the superiority of some cultures over others.
Furthermore, the critique of the optimists explains the preference and the adoption of the term “Tricontinental” instead of “Third World,” the latter widely used to distinguish between the developed and the undeveloped or underdeveloped continents—a term itself considered colonial to some anti-colonial and postcolonial theorists and, therefore, inappropriate for use (Rukundwa and Aarde 1181). Hence, the humanitarian, political, economic and religious justifications for post-colonial theory are mostly advanced from a tricontinental approach—Latin American, Asian and African perspectives towards self-consciousness and self-determination.
Contrarily, the pessimists’ view of postcolonial theory stems from its fluidity and ambivalence. Its “lack of consensus and clarity,” according to Stephen Slemon (100), makes it problematic for researchers particularly in a rapidly changing world. Slemon further stated that the prefix “post” makes it a “vexed” (100), while Moore referred it to an “utopian” (182) area of debate with social, political, academic and economic winds of change; Bhabha considers it a continuing struggle in the company of humanity (2001, 39). For example, in engaging postcoloniality in African literature, some process of recasting the past may become necessary. Recasting Africa’s cultural past, capturing the present, preserving and forecasting the future is a major area and theme of plays, poems, novels, research and other academic engagements. Writers particularly are confronted with two possibilities: On the one hand is the writer’s license to artistically juggle existing facts; on the other hand, is the same writer’s commitment to not distort facts but “faithfully” relay history to subsequent generations.
Furthermore, in the twenty-first century, an African person is a hybrid of many acculturations and confronted with two possibilities: the first is retribalisation, which Thadeus Agundu (366) said is a return to the traditional practices of their forebears which they may not have a full grasp of, nor are there plenty custodians who are sufficiently grounded in the said practices to midwife the return to source. The second option is Europeanisation (expounded in Awoonor 356); a complete denunciation and renunciation of the cultural practices of the past no matter their aesthetic significance and the attendant consequences of desecrating them. While retribalisation is both unrealisable and anachronistic, complete Europeanisation would be tantamount to cultural suicide. African cultural theorists, essayists, playwrights and enthusiasts always queue behind either position to advance their trades and have equally been a fulcrum of intertextuality in plays with African cultural themes. It becomes important that the analysis of postcolonial texts adopts specificity and some framework that guides such analysis—hence, New Historicism becomes central to this analysis.
New Historicism is the most innovative critical movement which came into existence in the 1980s from the critical manifesto of Stephen Greenblatt, “Towards a Poetics of Culture.” Cultural Poetics assumes that texts not only document the social forces that inform and constitute history and society but also feature prominently in the social processes which fashion both individual identity and the sociohistorical situation. With the rise of critical theories such as New Criticism, Formalism, Structuralism, and Deconstruction—each focusing on different aspects like directing attention to the text itself (Michael Ryan 128), prioritizing form as the primary criterion for aesthetic value, viewing the text as an objective structure, and emphasizing meaning within the text’s internal framework—New Historicism emerged. Unlike these approaches, New Historicism integrates an analysis of the culture and society from which a text originates, examining the interplay between text and historical context.
Importantly too, New Historicists are greatly influenced by the French theorist Michael Foucault, whose concept of discourse focused on structured power relations in a given culture at a given time. In his work, The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, Foucault stated that power is everywhere and comes from everywhere (63). He emphasised that society controls its members through constructing and defining what appears to be universal (qtd. in Ryan 29). Discourse analysis engages in dissecting and revealing the hidden agenda in particular texts in different domains and depending on the interest of the analysts.
This work adopts critical discourse analysis (CDA) and relies on the theoretical frame of postcoloniality and New Historicism because both plays, Ahmed Yerima’s Drugga and Victor Dugga’s Gidan Juju, focus on African culture after colonisation. Both plays interrogate the extensive change that is consistently reconfiguring several aspects of African cultures after colonisation. Dugga’s piece is a response to Yerima’s play. and Yerima’s is equally a continuation of his reflection on Dugga’s earlier post on Facebook. The two plays, according to Dugga (8), are therefore, “an engagement in discourse and counter discourse.” The analysis adopts CDA as it is designed to, as Roger Fowler said (3), “get at the ideology coded implicitly behind the overt propositions, to examine it particularly in the context of social formations” reflecting fatalism and determinism in Gidan Juju and Drugga. In this critical discourse analysis, the focus is not only on the actual words written by Yerima and Dugga but also, to use Bavelas et al.’s description, “the representations implicit in the words” of the texts (105). As Ian Parker argues, “texts are delimited tissues of meaning reproduced in any form that can be given interpretative gloss” (6). Therefore, the broader message, philosophy, ideology, social practices, individuals and institutions that make it possible or legitimate to understand the phenomena of fatalism and determinism in the context of African and Nigerian environment are factored in a way that the complex meanings of the texts are explained.
As an approach to literary criticism and literary theory, New Historicism is based on the premise that a literary work should be considered a product of its time, place and circumstances of composition rather than as an isolated creation of genius (Sharma 2). Renu Ukkan emphasised that a parallel reading or juxtaposition of different texts of the same historical period gives equal importance to the juxtaposed texts, and they work as sources of information and interrogation with each other (33). In this regard, the Facebook post, Drugga and Gidan Juju are intertextually analysed in this paper and against the cultural realities of Nigerians in a globalised world.
The Facebook Post, Drugga and Gidan Juju: Synopses
A Facebook post in 2017 by Victor Dugga, a professor of theatre and social change, on the demise of “the last traditionalist” in his entire extended family in Nasarawa State, Nigeria, marking the end of an era of a particular dance, elicited different and differing reactions and comments.


The reactions to the posting morphed from the online social media platform to a full-fledged play text by one of Nigeria’s most prolific playwrights, Professor Ahmed Yerima. Yerima’s play, Drugga, expresses his counter to Dugga’s position on the Facebook post. Dugga maintained silence for over three years and thereafter responded with a play text, Gidan Juju, in a manner characteristic of intertextual sparring between playwrights on the interpretation of events, histories and future forecast.
Drugga and Gidan Juju vividly capture a sparring match, with Drugga lamenting the futile attempt to erase a people’s culture, no matter how cruel or spiritually wrong it may be. In contrast, Gidan Juju champions self-determinism as an audacious and promising roadmap toward the future. Creatively, the plays have jumpstarted a discourse on African traditional expression in a new world; a world of disrupted cultural boundaries. This paper attempts to highlight the consensus message of the two plays by emphasising the palpable fears raised by Drugga while, at the same time, agreeing to the inevitable advances elucidated in Gidan Juju. Rather than juxtaposing the two plays as opposing in themes and discourse as they may appear, this paper points out the salient but silent areas of acquiescence.
Drugga dramatises the intrigues that ensue in an attempt to crown a new witch doctor, otherwise known as Drugga, for a village, as burial rites are held for the late witchdoctor. The heir apparent to the title has accepted Christianity and thus decides to organise Christian wake for the late father. The elders, seeking to impose the continuation of the tradition on the so-called Drugga, resort to deceit and trickery to outmaneuver him. However, his apparent refusal and counter-tactics lead to a disastrous and fatal bloodbath.
Gidan Juju, in contrast, introduces a new king who implements modern practices to safeguard the community’s rich cultural heritage. The only custodian of tradition in the community is entrusted by the new king with organising the traditional burial rites of the late king, but the custodian dies in the process. Apparently, with no one to perpetuate the enigmatic tradition, the new king, in consultation with the people, institutes novel and progressive ways of conserving the tradition of the community.

Drugga and the Fatalistic Ideology
One of the ways to demonstrate patriotism is to uphold the heritage of a people. However, this is dependent on the full grasp of the value of the heritage. Sophistication as against naivety is, therefore, a precondition for modern negritude in any place. The uncertainty that hovers over cultural or traditional expressions in a fast changing and globalising world formed the background to Ahmed Yerima’s Drugga. The passing on of the Drugga meant that he must be replaced by a chosen one. The conversation between characters Itoe and Pade paints the picture of what is at stake:
ITOE: Have you found the chosen one yet?
Yerima 14–15
PADE: No. Our burden is twofold. We also seek an Ibaba, who will carry the Drugga to the land of the ancestors. Do you know of such a person? A young man fit to carry the burden of life? A strong pair of feet who can navigate the narrow path between the living and the dead, and then fill us, the living, with the spirit of steadfastness, unity and hope of a continuous regeneration. Do you know of any?
Trouble starts with the late Drugga’s son (Iviki) putting his faith in a different god instead of willingly accepting the “honour” to be bestowed on him as the new Drugga. Itoe says of the late Drugga’s son: “A Christian son; a man who denounced his father for a new foreign all-powerful God called Jesus” (10).

Iviki, whom Pade thinks is the most suited to sit on the revered throne, speaks of his newfound faith: “Never! I shall not be a part of darkness. All things of the past are behind me. Gone. Forgotten. I am the new, my life is given to Christ!” (16). Pade expressly explains the gap between Iviki’s newly embraced life and the ways of the people that gave birth to him as “The main difference is that you live by faith and we live by fate. But whatever you call him, he watches over us all. In our case he lives by our names. In yours, you live by his name” (17).
The daily challenges and interconnectedness of life in Africa, expressed through various rites from birth to death, make it nearly impossible to completely detach from or reject one’s roots. Wozi tries to school Iviki on this:
WOZI: How about our blood? Our daughter poured blood on you when you were born, when we named you, when you tasted our food, and as you grew, we made incisions on your skin with medicines where your blood mixed with our blood. And now you deny us. You lie, Son.
Yerima 41
This inevitability means that non-conformity will result in bloodshed, as the elders resort to lies and deceit. Iviki asks: “Where is this madness coming from? When did the elders turn to animals, and when did young men who cannot wipe their bottoms properly want to rule the world with this new spirit of wildness?” (49).

The conversation between Wozi and Kuchi reveals the positions of the deceitful elders and the fatal consequences of the younger generation attempting to severe themselves from the practices of their forebears:
WOZI: I beg you two to calm down son. Even some of the elders are beginning to ponder wisely. I was a pawn in this evil game of death, too. I was born soaked into it. Like every person in this room, I, too, am a chicken in that basket of death. Leave with Iviki. Go to the city and find new destinies, better ones, there. The village will heal. It always does. We will sweep away this mess gradually. Besides, this is us; we cannot change our skin so easily.
Yerima 54–55
KUCHI: But we can, mother. We will kill them . . . kill them all. And the new us will create a new village where all the fingers will be equal. There will be peace and harmony. But we must start by killing the old, shake the very pit of the younger group, and the children will then have a brighter future.
While the game of trying to outsmart one another continues, Iviki asks a pertinent question: “Douse the flame, I beg you! If we kill all the elders, what about the individual? At what point do we change? Why do we hate each other so much? Why does shedding blood seem so natural to us now?” (54).

This seemingly inevitable conundrum, in whichever direction the pendulum swings, will be greatly opposed by either the elders or the youths. This is akin to the democratic crossroads that most African nations are frayed with currently. The youths feel that the crop of gerontocrats who pilot the affairs of African states are grossly corrupt, archaic and redundant. The elders in charge feel the youth are ill-equipped, immature and too infantile to be trusted with leadership, fearing relinquishment of their legacies. Consequently, attempts at challenging the status quo often meet with fatalism. This is what Yerima’s Drugga dramatises. Iviki’s challenge of status quo and an attempt to evangelise the community meets with tough resistance from the elders. At the end, the community is thrown into gloom as wails, agony and blood flow.

Gidan Juju and Self-Deterministic Ideology
The self-deterministic ideology in this play does not imply that an individual is entirely responsible for the outcome of their life. Rather, it reflects what Thomas Hauer describes as a “bi-directionality process” (1), where one becomes aware of their surroundings. This involves a journey of self-discovery and actively engaging with the social dynamics that shape their experiences.
Long before the unfolding of events in Gidan Juju, the dominant ambience in Africa had been distorted by strange drumbeats which ushered in a representative of the British government, District Officer, who declares:
DISTRICT OFFICER: You shall immediately take over as vassal ruler of these people. Set up organs of local administration as soon as possible. We shall give you a three-month moratorium. In the fourth month, we expect you to remit taxes and send forty able-bodied men every month to work on the road construction sites. We have an empire to build in England and here in this sweltering heat. Spare no one. If anyone opposes your authority, send them over to Loko. We shall transport them from there to the forced labour camps. For now, search the entire palace and bring out any and all objects of value to Her Majesty!
45–46
This statement summarises the activities of colonialists in Africa. Colonialism, in addition to looting valuable objects from the people, vanquishes some “authorities,” gives authority to “some authorities” to exercise over “other authorities.” Indigenous authorities were supplanted with the forcibly created “native authorities.” This dislocation and the conscription of labourers into labour camps and other places led to the dispersion of the sons, grandsons and great grandchildren of the Gwangwalla dynasty. Years after the international abolishment of slave trade and outlawing of some inhumane treatments, the dispersed descendants of the dynasty had the choice of remaining in foreign lands. After all, Aren was dutifully managing his computer software company in Finland. He says: “I grew up with little or no contact with this land. My memories were built only around the stories my mother told me about my father’s recollections of his childhood” (19).
When he finally returns, he still needed to be tutored on the traditions of the land. To be coerced into accepting responsibilities one knows little about could lead to contravention of traditions with profound consequences. Aren reveals his ignorance and helplessness when he says: “I have told you that I am young; frankly many of the ways of our ancestors are new and strange to me” (Dugga 21).
Conversely, a generation cannot entirely ignore its cultural practices or evade the responsibilities that come with preserving them, lest modern expressions fade into obscurity.This, Ezhim rightly amplifies:
EZHIM: Gbaaga Iduu! No matter how high a stone is thrown up in the sky, it answers the force of gravity and returns to the earth. You have answered the force of umbilical gravity to return to the land of your fathers. Your highness, you made the right decision to return home. May history be kind to you.
20
Returning home does not in any way equals maintaining a tradition that is redundant and fatalistic. Gidan Juju rejects both the continuation of a tradition that finds no relevance in the contemporary world and an outright discontinuation of the past. Rather, it proposes putting modern processes in place to preserve the vibrant cultural heritage of the people. The conundrum that confronts Africa’s cultural survival can be solved through a self-deterministic approach that democratises cultural practices. The people involved should be allowed, at any time, to collectively determine how they create, produce, consume or participate in cultural activities.

Gidan Juju suggests subtle ways of modernising indigenous practices. In the pageant that would produce the wives for the harem, Dugga satirises child marriage that is practised in some parts of the world in thetwenty-first century. Several reasons are provided to justify this practice. In the play, this is done to prevent belligerent young men from crossing the line before the interest of the king could be protected (Dugga 23).
Instead, Aren chooses to engage in one-on-one discussions with the young girls, where he learns about their ambitions, visions, and capabilities. At the end, he is able to help them harness their abilities and places them where they can maximally develop their potentials into fruition.

The Prospected Consensus in Drugga and Gidan Juju
Long before the publication of Drugga, Ahmed Yerima had, in a 2013 lecture, stated that part of his interests is the portrayal of inherited traditional consciousness in his plays. He wrote:
Whether we change our names or change our devotion, we cannot change our consciousness. Perhaps, we can bend it, perhaps not. We cannot change their indelible influences in our lives. And because of our communal way of life, we may not be able to change totally who we really are in terms of inherited beliefs and religion.
33
Regardless of the consequences, should a community choose to alter or maintain traditional practices, both plays suggest a balanced approach. They agree that the decisions of those directly involved should determine which cultural practices to adopt. No culture is static; its dynamism allows for diffusion, acculturation and evolvement. At the heart of these changes are the people whom traditions serve, rather than the traditions themselves. Any form of treachery or deceit to cone people into accepting what is not compatible with that generation will not survive the emerging globalising world. To be continually relevant is to constantly reinvent oneself. This position runs through the two plays.
In Drugga, Iviki’s proposition to bury his father in a coffin meets Pade’s rejection.
PADE: The coffin? (chuckles) The gods forbid, Son. The Drugga cannot be buried whole, not to think of caging such a sacred man in a box. A common carved box holding down the Drugga? (Chuckles again.) The gods forbid. The ancestors will break it into pieces when they come for his soul and find him locked up in a buried box. I swear, the lid will break open and the whole coffin will shatter.
16
Iviki, however, insists that nothing can stop the coffin from being used for the burial. He goes ahead to organize a Christian wake for his father and a swarm of bees comes to disrupt the gathering. “Yes. A swarm of bees came and disrupted the Service of Songs in honour of my late father. Is it a crime to want to bury my own father?” (Yerima 40). Similarly, when the Custodian slumps in Gidan Juju, Akpeshko’s suggestion that he be prayed for by the religions that he is not a member of is rejected:
PASTOR: Why me?
83-3
AKPESHKO: He needs help. Or would you pray for him here then?
PASTOR: The masquerade is not a Christian, is he?
AKPESHKO: I thought that you always said . . .
PASTOR: Do not disturb me . . . I am praying already.
EZHIM: Perhaps, the Imam is best positioned to pray for him.
IMAM: He is part ancestor and part human. We do not have masquerades in Islam. I have not prayed for anyone like him before.
Aren’s invitation of Pastor and Imam to participate in the late king’s burial is equally rejected on the same ground.
IMAM: Gbaaga Iduu! The late king was not a Muslim. According to Islamic rites, we Muslims can only be involved in the burial if the deceased was a Muslim. And besides, if a dead person is not buried within a short time, there are implications . . .
80
KINGMAKER 1: This is certainly true.
IMAM: And your highness, we usually bury our dead immediately. This one is more than seventy years. We cannot come near this even if he was a Muslim . . .
EZHIM: So, this rules you out? Well, Pastor, you don’t have such restrictions in Christianity.
PASTOR: Your highness, we don’t. But I have checked and checked and there is no record of the conversion of the late king to Christianity either. If we had, we would have organized a memorial service in his honour. As it stands, we can only be spectators in the public aspects of the funeral. We may attend and pay our last respects but we can never be involved in any burial rites or rituals.
The above connects to Yerima’s warning that blatant disregard and snubbing of traditional sources and total discontinuance of traditions is to misunderstand Africans in a modern world and to set a people on a course of predictable annihilation. It is this same position Dugga advances, that past traditions should not be thrown away, but fruitful means of adapting them to contemporary demands and circumstances should be sought. To meet the new challenges of self-empowerment and relevance, a people’s cultural expressions should be practiced within the confines of contemporary implication, applicability and significance.
Gidan Juju, instead of opposing or conflicting with Drugga, simply enhances Yerima’s fear of cultural extinction due to modernity by exploring contemporary spaces for them. Dugga’s invitation of unknown men (outsiders) to be villains of the purification ritual, follows, according to Brian Crow and Chris Banfield, Soyinka’s “community’s practice of selecting an unwilling outsider as their sacrificial ‘carrier’ rather than a properly qualified ‘strong breed’ ritualist who can endure, like the Old Man, the arduous task assigned him” (85), with the only difference being that the real protagonists live to enjoy the dividends and aftermaths of the act. Insisting on sacrificing the qualified “carrier” or the “strong breed” is tantamount to wasting and losing the heroes who should still be alive to celebrate and partake in the bounties of the transformation they engineer.

In the contemporary world, heroes are not those who died but those who team up with other people to change the course of things and live to enjoy the changes. Drugga points out that a person is not fully saved until his land and people are saved. Iviki forgets this truth and the result is fatal. Gidan Juju navigates this route effectively, leading the entire community to safety with Aren, resulting in only the reluctant Custodian suffering a casualty. This scenario carries significant implications for contemporary democratic states, particularly in Africa, where corruption and the exploitation of public resources by a few individuals often harm the broader population. The rich are truly not rich, safe, saved or secured until the larger populace is safe, saved and secured.
Conclusion
African cultural performances would never maintain the same position in a fast-globalising world; to insist on continuity would be tantamount to remaining irrelevant. It is like taking a living and evolving project and making it a museum relic. On the contrary, to insist on forceful adjustment to changing vogues without the willingness and consent of the people would equally cause havoc to both the cultural practices and the people. Obviously, Drugga and Gidan Juju both present their readers with fatalistic and deterministic tendencies in an attempt to alter the cultural expressions of a people. Yet, beneath the seemingly confrontational dynamic between Drugga and Gidan Juju lies a shared endorsement and mutual agreement on the importance of preserving and promoting African traditional performances in today’s world
Drugga and Gidan Juju have opened up and advocated gradual continuing adjustment of African indigenous practices in a manner that no willing individual is left behind and no unwilling individual is forcefully conscripted into the new space. In any case, times have changed and will continue to change; the provenances and rationale for cultural performances should be placed side by side with the shifting contemporary times and platforms for relevance.
Bibliography
Achebe, Chinua. There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra. Penguin, 2012.
Affiah, Ugwu, and Ndubusi Osuagwu. “Ethnodramatics: Towards a Theory for Indigenous African Drama.” Journal of Humanities and Social Science. vol.5, no 2, 2012, pp. 6–10.
Agundu, Thadeus. Social and Political Philosophy in the Age of Globalisation. Don Afrique, 2019.
Asagba, Austin. “Roots of African Drama: Critical Approaches and Elements of Continuity.” Kunapipi, vol.8, no. 3, 1986, pp. 84–99.
Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practices in Post-colonial Literatures. Routledge, 1989.
Awoonor, Koffi. The Breast of the Earth: A Survey of the History, Culture and Literature of Africa South of the Sahara. Anchor Press, 1975.
Bavelas, Christine Janet, Christine Kenwood and Bruce Phillips. “Discourse Analysis.” Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, edited by Mark Knapp and John Daly, Sage, 2002, pp. 102–29.
Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
—. “Unsatisfied: Notes on Vernacular Cosmopolitanism.” Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology, edited by Gregory Castle, Blackwell, 2001, pp. 38–52.
Clark, John Pepper. “Aspects of Nigerian Drama.” Drama and Theatre in Nigeria: A Critical Source Book, edited by Yemi Ogunbiyi, Nigeria Magazine Publication, 1981, pp. 57–74.
Crow, Brian, and Chris Banfield. An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre. Cambridge UP, 1996.
Doki, Gowon. Everyday Life is Theatre. Benue State University Inaugural Lecture Series, No. 11. Benus State UP, 2019.
Dugga, Victor. Gidan Juju. Kraft Books, 2021.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge. Penguin, 1998.
Fowler, Roger. “On Critical Linguistics. Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis, edited by Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard and Malcom Coulthard, Routledge, 1996, pp. 3–14.
Greenblatt, Stephen. “Towards a Poetics of Culture.” The New Historicism, edited by Aram Veeser, Routledge, 1986, pp. 1–13.
Hamadi, Lutfi. “Edward Said: The Postcolonial Theory and the Literature of Decolonisation.” European Scientific Journal, Special Edition. vol. 2, 2014, pp. 39–46.
Hauer, Thomas. “Technological Determinism and New Media.” International Journal of English, Literature and Social Science (IJELS), vol. 2, no 2, 2017, pp.1–4.
Kenyatta, Jomo. Suffering without Bitterness. EAPH, 1968.
Moore, Stephen D. “Postcolonialism.” Handbook of Postmodern Biblical Interpretation, edited by Malcolm Keith Adam, Chalice, 2001, pp. 182–88.
Odom, Glenn. World Theories of Theatre. Routledge, 2017.
Parker, Ian. Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology. Routledge, 1992.
Rotimi, Ola. “The Drama in African Ritual Display.” Drama and Theatre in Nigeria: A Critical Source Book, edited by Yemi Ogunbiyi, Nigerian Magazine, 1981, pp. 77–80.
Rukundwa, Lazare and Andries van Aarde. “The Formation of Postcolonial Theory.” Hervormde Teologiese Studies (HTS), vol. 63, no 3, 2007, pp.1171–94.
Ryan, Michel. Literary Theory; A Practical Introduction. Blackwell, 1999.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.
Sharma, Rajini. “New Historicism: An Intensive Analysis and Appraisal. The Indian Review of World Literature in English, vol. 10, no 11, 2014, pp. 1–11.
Slemon, Stephen. “Post-colonial Critical Theory.” The Postcolonial Studies Reader, edited byBill Ashcroft et al., Routledge, 1995, pp. 99–116.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. Routledge, 1988.
Ukkan, Renu Paul. “Approaching New Historicism.” Critical Practice, vol. 12, no 2, 2004, pp. 22–36.
Yerima, Ahmed. Drugga. Kraft Books, 2018.
—. Refracted Universe, “Alternative Realities. The Artist as God.” Redeemer’s University Inaugural Lecture. Redeemer’s UP, 2013.
Young, Robert J.C. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Blackwell, 2001.

*Mark Ogah ONWE holds a PhD in Theatre and Media Arts from the Federal University of Lafia, Nigeria. He is a Non-resident Research Fellow with the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre (C-SET), Canada. Through diverse methods, he investigates theatre and performances within the contexts of identity and postcoloniality with his works addressing issues of historical representation and fresh perspectives on under-researched cultures and voices on the margin. His research combines disciplines such as philosophy, languages and cultural anthropology where he has published several journal articles, book chapters and reviews.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6623-7754; ogahmarc@gmail.com

**Taiwo AFOLABI (PhD) is an applied theatre practitioner and interdisciplinary artist-researcher with over a decade of experience working in over a dozen countries across five continents. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), Canada Research Chair in Socially Engaged Theatre (CRC), Director of the Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre (C-SET), and an Associate Professor at the University of Regina. He is the founding director of Theatre Emissary International (TEMi) in Nigeria and Canada. He is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5905-1051; taiwoafolabi4@gmail.com
Copyright © 2024 Mark Ogah Onwe and Taiwo Afolabi
Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411
This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.