Drama by some so-called opinion leaders taking sides with Boko Haram and bandits. Drama by the Nigeria Police as men and officers of the Low-morale Force mount roadblocks and criminally extort citizens whom they swore to protect from criminals. Drama against Judges as a gang of scoundrels raids the home of a Supreme Court judge on the orders of a rogue Chief Enforcer of the Law. Drama in the courts of justice and injustice. Drama by terrorists as they ambush Nigerian soldiers after receiving tips of intelligence from saboteurs within the army. Even in the presidency, there is the drama of silence, keeping mute while herdsmen are murdering hundreds as in Agatu and Uwheru, but crying loud when 49 persons are killed on the Nigeria-Niger border! Drama by state governors, as some of them spend more time in Abuja than in the State House of their States. There is drama in government and by government. Indeed, if Nigeria is a movie, we can aver with mock seriousness that its script is written (or improvisations) in the tradition of ‘Theatre of the Absurd’, crystallised in ideological and philosophical thinking by Martin Esslin in the seminal essay The Myth of Sisyphus and epitomised by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett’s iconic play Waiting for Godot! In our clime, Ola Rotimi’s play Holding Talks- a play in which characters prefer to hold discussions while the world is crumbling – captures the absurdist attitude and dimensions of governance in our beloved, boisterous but beleaguered and endangered conglomeration of diverse and disparate people.
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