Followership Complicity in Insecurity in Nigeria: A Case in Femi Osofisan’s Aringindin and the Nightwatchmen

Abstract

Insurgency, kidnap for ransom, banditry, herdsmen-farmers clash, and gruesome killing of individuals have become quotidian security realities in contemporary Nigeria. Scholarly approach to this concern has often resulted in criticism domiciled only at leadership while neglecting the role of the followership in this security predicament. This paper is therefore designed to examine the representations of the complicity of the people in insecurity using Femi Osofisan’s Aringindin and the Nightwatchmen (2002) as a case study. The investigation combines a deliberate look at the dramaturgical devices employed by Osofisan to enhance this representation. Georg Lukacs’s theory of literary realism and Achille Mbembe’s model of the Postcolonial theory are adopted as the framework for the study to unravel the complicity of the people. At the same time, the method applied is the interpretive design and the socio-artistic approach to literary criticism. Osofisan deploys dramatic metaphor, aesthetics of masking, Orunmila motif, and Satire to unmask the villains who mystify efforts to address insecurity and throw the state in a nightmare. The revelations are incredible even as vigilantism is deconstructed. The play points attention to the need to carefully examine proposals on ending insecurity in Nigeria while also contributing to emerging scholarship on investigating the followers with regards to their contribution to their disillusionment.