Journal of Research in Peace, Gender and Development (ISSN: 2251-0036) Vol. 1(11) pp. 302-306, December 2011
Available online@ http://www.interesjournals.org/JRPGD
Copyright ©2011 International Research Journals
Review
Indigenizing Development Discourse in Nigerian
Theatre and Drama
Ameh Dennis Akoh
Department of Languages and Linguistics, College of Humanities and Culture, Osun State University, Ikire Campus
Nigeria.
E-mail: amehakoh@yahoo.co.uk; a.akoh@uniosun.edu.ng; ojodumi39@gmail.com;
Phone: +2348035992490, +2348050293410, +2347081485254
Accepted 04 November, 2011
Development is not a natural process or endowment; it is a human-induced experience. However, it
appears that this human angle has made development discourse a singular myth of a metropolitan
culture. It has turned out to be the power of one (powerful) people to transform the destinies of
another (powerless, less fortunate) people. This trend is not anything different from the
tendentiousness of modernist Enlightenment project. This paper interrogates the myth of EuroAmerican discourse on development, or betters still, the ‘triadisation’ of development discourse. The
probe is based on the belief that there cannot be any holistic practice of development; and placed
within the messianic outline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the paper addresses
blind area(s) in this thinking vis-à-vis practice of Theatre for Development (TfD) in Nigeria.
Keywords: Development, theatre, indigenisation, Nigeria, discourse.
INTRODUCTION
The Idea of Development
Development is not a commodity to be weighed or
measured by GNP statistics (but) is a process of
change that enables people to take charge of their
destinies and realize their full potentials. It requires
building in the people, the confidence, skills, assets
and freedom necessary to achieve this goal (J. Clark,
Democratising Development: The Role of Voluntary
Organisations (West Hartford, USA, 1991), 22 cited in
E.A. Nyager 143).
The quotation above came about two decades after
Walter Rodney’s much touted definition of development
in human society as ‘a many-sided process’ involving at
the level of the individual, increased skill and capacity,
greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility
and material well-being (9). This would then mean many
definitions for the term, all possibly terminating at the
search for positive change in the overall life of a people. I
shall therefore not delve into any inquiry on definitions.
Modern development thinking is relatively new (about half
a century old) in comparison with the development think-
ing of nineteenth century political economy.
However, in relation to the complexities of social life, it
is argued that as an applied science, development has
become an ‘arena of ideological posturing or pragmatic
reformism, either way involving brutal simplifications and
crude interventions; and in relation to the collective body,
development interventions seem like performing surgery
with a chainsaw’ (Pieterse 71). In development discourse,
then, there is this longstanding reproduction of the
dramatically ‘unresolved tensions’ of the contradictions of
modernity. Modern development discourse is therefore
undoubtedly a product of the Enlightenment; a cryptic
chauvinism and arrogance that places it within the
fragmentation of individual disciplines and confines it to
the straight-jackets of specialisations, research methods,
and theoretical frameworks of each intervening discipline
(cf. Brohman 303; Pieterse 71).
Let us pause to ask some pertinent questions to this
paper: Why do development agents and experts often go
the villages and dictate to them the direction of the
projects intended? What is the level of participation of so-
Akoh 303
called development agents? Do they allow the people to
become tools for development themselves? Do they
make them see the projects as principally, on the short
and long run, their own without an intervening authority?
It is important to emphasise that the presence or
knowledge of the intervening or overseeing authorities for
the most part of the exercise would make the people
always to behave atypically. Why don’t they therefore
hand over to the people to teach them (the development
strategists) as well as dictate the direction of what is their
need? Nevertheless, these are some of the hanging
questions posed by an obsessive Euro-American
approach to development, an approach that still pretends
to proffer a modernist and holistic recipe for the
development of all peoples. This paper is of the view that
development art/theatre is not Universalist in nature; it is
culture-bound.
It is no more new to say that in Theatre for
Development (TfD) in Nigeria and Africa, programmes
addressing local development problems, infrastructure,
sexual health and sexual behaviour among others, are
often accused to have arisen out of a western or donor
driven agenda and seen as an imposition of western
morals and values. There is very little or no community
ownership
of
the
interventions
(From
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/201126 Placed on the
Communication Initiative site August 07 2002, Last
Updated May 13 2008, Accessed 31/05/08). This paper
shall also be looking at global thinking on development
vis-à-vis our efforts at achieving same with our
environments.
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development
These constitute what the UN (or US) thinks to be
the summary of the world’s problem and it seeks equally
a global solution with a deadline – 2015! Just seven
years to go. And African countries must run fast to meet
this deadline. Africa indeed is inured to paradoxes
(Awosanmi 65). The MDGs point to the fact of this reality;
the pretentiousness and insurmountable arrogance of an
intervening body like the US in the garb of the UN. It is
what I have conveniently called American postulate or
triadisation of development discourse. How far for
example can we eradicate extreme poverty? By
supplying food as intervention to war-torn zones of the
world or refugee camps? The autocracy and indeed,
hypocrisy of the MDGs and its conception can be seen in
the fact that in seeking global partnership for
development as it pretends to be, the triad (US, Europe
and Japan) provides the recipe. Without first seeking the
root causes of Africa’s underdevelopment, these goals
would remain a common fad even long after 2015. In this
wise, Africa, and indeed the entire world, would
experience a return to the crisis of the old ‘development
project’ in its new garb of ‘globalisation project’ (Munck
199). This, in the opinion of Munck, undoubtedly makes
the process of globalisation uneven, like development.
However, although it makes little sense to Munck to stick
to ‘categories derived from the quite different immediate
post-war and post-colonial world, the stark presence of
these categories in African and Third World countries are
the very reasons that prompt the pronouncement of the
MDGs.
•
•
MDGs and the Paradox of African Development
The Realm of Culture
One of the core problems of development is
pretentiousness, the insurmountable arrogance
intervening in other people’s lives. This may
balanced by an equal but entirely different kind
pretension – the Tao of development (Pieterse 79).
its
of
be
of
In his presidential address at the 62nd session of the
United Nations General Assembly n April 1, 2008, Srgjam
Kerim said: “Achieving the MDGs is fundamentally a test
of our global partnership on development. A partnership,
that goes beyond cooperation among Member States to
include the private sector, civil society and the global
public.” The Millennium Development Goals are indeed
lofty goals. And the entire world – national governments –
must work towards the attainment of these goals. Let’s
name these 8-point agenda of the world ruling body.
•
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
•
Achieve universal primary education
•
Promote gender equality and empower women
•
Reduce child mortality
•
Improve maternal health
•
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one
end of it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to
do what a violin string is supposed to do – to produce
music. So I take, fix it in my violin and tighten it until it is
taut. Only then is it free to be a violin string (cited in
Serena Nanda’s Cultural Anthropology).
In cultural anthropology human behaviour is studied
as learned rather than genetically transmitted yet it is
typical of a particular group. Culture then is a principal
way in which people/human beings adapt to their
environments. This is why cultural anthropologists are
interested in the study of particular cultures and how
different societies adapt to their environments (Nanda 5).
Adaptation is a necessary ingredient in any development
effort rather than academic pedagogy.
As much as culture is learned through social
interactions with others in the society, it is also shared.
This is because humans, more than any other animal,
depend on the social transmission of knowledge for
survival. Every human being therefore operates through
304 J. Res. Peac Gend. Dev.
participation in a socio-cultural system. Its ‘sharedness’
depends on whether the society is homogeneous or
heterogeneous. And as an adaptive system, it is a living
organism just like development but this does not make
the society instable as this only refers to relatively
satisfactory
adaptations
to
the
socio-physical
environment. If they are to survive, cultures necessarily
change in response to the changes in the physical and
social environment. In contemporary world, culture
change takes different forms – technology, economy,
tourism, etc. – but not by way of forceful erosion.
But what is the role of culture in development
discourse especially as it affects our present concern?
Theatre is necessarily a cultural experience; it must
position or re-position the history of a people within the
perspective of its handlers. Cultural productions therefore
must strive to equip people for development within a
milieu of an understanding rather than shock. As said
earlier, development art should be culture-bound, and in
most cases devoid of official patronage (Osofisan 47),
which seem to set the pace and direction of development
and pushes technology down the throat of the people; a
somewhat surreptitious top-to-bottom (even when the
claim is always for cooperation rather than subtle force)
approach that still bedevils the practice of theatre for
development endeavours in Nigeria today.
using these approaches in work on sexual health, sexual
behavior and HIV/AIDS in the countries of South and
Central Asia.
•
The emphasis on collective exploration generates
spontaneity that facilitates identification of issues that are
often associated with taboos, shame and fear.
•
TfD ensures that communities and children are
active participants not as passive recipients to
information. This encourages community ownership and
participation.
•
Helps in identifying and exploring the root
causes, questioning of practices that increase risk or
harm, the power relations and other determinants of
sexual behavior and responding to these issues in ways
that are contextually and culturally appropriate and not on
prescriptions from outside.
•
The whole process increases the sense of control
of children and communities over their existing situation.
The experiment of SCUK took place in Bangladesh, a
developing (?) nation like Nigeria. The approach
incorporates principles of good development practice and
rights-based approach to work. Its ‘new’ name TfD has
however not taken it from its orthodox democratic
definition as theatre of the people, for the people and by
the people; although it is not in practice always wholly by
the people.
What is TfD?
The Practice of TfD in Nigeria
Perhaps a bit of a rehash is needed here.
Theatre practice and TfD in its present approach is still
an ‘invitation to hypnosis’ (cf. Musa and Akoh, 118-119)
rather than appropriating the totality of images in the
hands of the people, images created and owned by the
people. To repeat a cliché, development is about people.
And the people must form the first basic consideration
before their perceived needs by the development agents
and agencies.
What is now TfD in Nigeria has a along but
interesting history having had its foundation and
burgeoning years at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria,
a possible adaptation from the Latin American examples
as well as some African countries of Uganda, Botswana,
Kenya, etc. It spread to some cities in the North and later
Southwest.
Most
departments
of
theatre/performing/dramatic/creative arts have long
adopted the sobriquet as an academic programme that
prepares students for the theory and practice of the
course. This is where the outreaches emanate from and
teachers of the course have also used it as a springboard
for launching personal projects through NGOs. We
cannot but note the failures/limitations of these
experiments. In most cases, the model adopted for
development always tacitly left out the people or rural
masses in the key stages of data analysis and drama
making. More so, its organisational and motivational force
is in the university and follow-up action is always minimal.
Theatre for Development (TfD) is ...a changeable
continuous
process
of
development
through
theatre/creative forms of expression. It is cultural action
for change. Cultural action is intervention in reality by
cultural means. TfD is one tool in the wider
development process. Theatre is used differently than
before
in
TfD.
(emphasis
added)
- from an International workshop of TfD activists held in
Bangladesh,
2000.
(From
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/201126 Placed on
the Communication Initiative site August 07 2002, Last
Updated May 13 2008, Accessed 31/05/08.).
The tools used for TfD seem to vary from location to
location. The practice involves tools and processes such
as:
•
Conceptualizing, writing, making plays and
performing;
•
Art, music, song and dance;
•
Analysing problems and finding their root causes;
•
Children engaging with adults and other children
for bringing about positive changes;
•
Negotiations with those in authority.
Let’s take one global example. The Save the Children,
United Kingdom (SCUK) has seen encouraging results in
Akoh 305
Where the outreach is collaboration between
individuals or NGOs and donor agencies, the application
for fund is always the first consideration. Where this is so,
cultural values are subverted for donor-interest.
I had already hinted on the Tao of development and
its insurmountable arrogance within which we are almost
irredeemably enmeshed in currents efforts. TfD in Nigeria
has like modern development efforts suffered from
severe case of ‘psychological modernism’ and it has in its
interventions tended towards placing technological
progress over human development. Again, we return to
Nerdeveen Pieterse’s recipe.
In Latin America, the work of the cientificos is not yet
complete. In Asia, ‘laboratory states’ have used science
as an instrument of power and reason of state… Even
critical Marxist development thinking has been
‘scientist’ in temperament. As ‘science became the
integrating myth of industrial society’…, so it became
the guiding light of development policy. Rationalization
was the key to modernization, so it became the master
key to development (Pieterse 72).
The reason for this embrace is not farfetched. We
love shortcuts. The problem solving stage of TfD
outreaches are nothing short of shortcuts. As Pieterse
has rightly held, in most cases, the ailment might
correctly be diagnosed but the remedy is not examined;
thus like some drugs that merely but adversely turn
headache to migraine or provide temporary relief, we only
end up creating some more problems: ‘reproduction of
dichotomous thinking, shortcuts and skipping levels, and
framing contemporary dilemmas in anachronistic terms’.
These remain shock development programmes naturally
attracting shock rejection in the long and short from the
people (Hagher 199).
In the 1950s and 1960s when it became obvious that
for the Third world countries to develop there was the
need for conscious all-round education. It is noteworthy
the success recorded in the Latin American country of
Brazil especially in the experiments of Paulo Freire which
appropriated primarily the non-formal education. This
became part of the new forms or ideas of a liberating
education that finally broke what he calls the ‘culture of
silence’. The non-formal system became also the leeway
to his now famous ‘cultural action for freedom’. As the
major spokesman of this approach he was quick to note
that the ignorance and lethargy of the dispossessed was
the direct product of the economic, social and political
domination (10). Freire’s concern in radicalising
education and educational methodology became popular
because he worked with illiterates in the adoption of the
non-formal structure which overthrew the ‘banking
system of education’. The meeting point between his
methodology and TfD is his belief and experiment that
the non-formal structure should also articulate a doctrine,
a pedagogy that is popular and participatory. This promp-
ted his fellow countryman and theatre practitioner,
Augusto Boal, in the latter’s experiment with theatre as a
good receptacle for the expression and actualisation of
popular education. The Nigerian examples started from
this stage but lost its bearing along the way with the
overdose of dependence on donor interest or academic
calendar.
As applied modernity the disciplinary fragmentation
and reductionism have made the so-called interventions
possible and yet contributed to the failures as well. After
all is said and done we need restate the fact of donor
agency influence in Third World countries like Nigeria.
The discourse on this influence has not gone beyond
academic and NGO considerations (cf. Dugga 64-65).
This continues to be what we teach in our universities
from year to year.
In the Kogi State University, where I had taught for
seven years before now, we had engaged in a total of
five TfD outreaches in and around our host communities
(Abocho, Alome-Ejule, Owowolo, Abejukolo-Egume and
Abejukolo) as part of the requirements for the academic
programme since inception. Like other academic
programmes from other Nigerian universities, our
outreaches have suffered defeat because of our
emphasis on modern technology than the human factor.
As I was putting this paper together I engaged in an
argument (what I actually meant to be a discussion) with
some of my final year students in an attempt to discuss
our past endeavours. Majority of them insisted that based
on the theories they leant in class there was no way they
just could allow the people to completely take over the
direction of the project they intended for them. The core
cultural problem has not yet shifted from the lack of
adaptation of technology to the cultural needs of the
people. And since the people cannot dictate the direction
they cannot also dictate the methodology. Thus the idea
of development in Nigerian theatre practice continually
“stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape” (Sachs 1)
(Cited in D.E Musa and Ameh D. Akoh’s “Local
Governments and Rural Development in Nigeria).
Examining Remedies: From Taoism to Localism
Perhaps, one of the hidden features of globalisation is the
search for localism, an insidious search for the
interpenetration of the global with the local, of outside
with inside. Thus if development must globalise it must
first localise or re-localise its operations. This then may
lead one to the ‘rediscovering of traditional knowledge’ of
Fals-Borda upon which Pieterse builds his argument.
‘The assumption that only a single mode of cognition
should prevail’ Pieterse insists, ‘implies skipping levels’.
We have continued to produce Neolithic nostalgia
through the current shortcut holism which in turn yield for
us and the people of our development targets only
temporary comfort; ‘island paradises that provide only
306 J. Res. Peac Gend. Dev.
local relief, politics of ecstasy that produce hangovers’.
We will therefore require striking a balance of ideas
between science and art, fact and value, analysis and
meaning that is ingrained in culture, again, recovering the
wisdom of ages. Pieterse insists further on this balance ,
not just a ‘recovering’ as shortcut but a bridging of
development gap and crossing sensibilities ranging from
Neolithic to postindustrial settings; which involve
recognising multiple levels of existence and, accordingly,
multiple modes of cognition that should necessarily
coexist rather than compete (15).
We would, again, insist that there is no holistic
practice in development? As John Brohman reminds us
“The failure of contemporary development to meet
popular interests underscores the need to devise more
people-centred approaches which stress empowerment
and participation” (345), in the same manner that he
insists with us that for development to be popular it must
carry with it ‘a process that empowers the people to take
control of their own destinies’ (352) (Cited in Ronaldo
Munck, “Deconstructing Development Discourses: of
Impasses, Alternatives and Politics). We agree with
Munck that the world unfortunately is not ready for such
simple recipes; however, there appear to be no escape
route. What is rather needed, once a peculiarity is
recognised with a people, is an alternative development
practice. Take the case of the Bondo Society in the
village of Segbwema in Sierra-Leone. The endogenous
approach to development has inspired the Nigerian
playwright Iyorwuese Hagher in his play The Camps of
Segbwema where he markets this endogenous approach
to Nigeria’s development. Thus, instead of teaching the
local people the approach to solution of their problems
development strategists should rather have the humility
to surrender to learning local knowledge through which
pre-colonial societies tackled their problems, and then
marry with modern approach(es) – a balance, not an
overthrow!
CONCLUSION
The most effective method of mass development is
through a folkloristicultural approach where culture will
dictate their development and by which the aspirations of
the majority of the rural folks can attain their full potentials
(Ojoade 30). Scholars will stop dissipating energies
borrowing topois and experiments from the West and
forcing them on the peoples once there is a conscious
recourse and dependence to culture. This would call for a
search for wholesome endogenous methods.
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