Ahmed Yerima Research Articles

Cultural Interpretation and Traditional Perspectives in Ahmed Yerima’s Akudaaya

Culture remains a clear indicator of the organic identity of mankind. Cultural materials are therefore one of the dominant sources from which playwrights have continued to draw. However, an attempt to dramatise certain inherent cultural practices of a people often comes with challenges especially for a playwright who does not belong to such culture. Hence, this study examines Ahmed Yerima’s Akudaaya with the view to define the cultural trajectories and traditional dispositions reflected in the play. Through textual analysis, the study analyses the selected play-text. It is revealed that Ahmed Yerima’s attempt to reflect the cultural identity and traditional perspectives of the Yoruba people is manifested in his dramatisation of the symbolic representation of the king’s crown; the cultural interpretation of akudaaya and the dichotomy of language; cultural norms and the significant position of Iyalode; ritual aesthetics and the spirito-cosmic identity of the Yoruba people. The study concludes that Ahmed Yerima’s Akudaaya remains one of the notable plays written by a Nigerian playwright which reflects the cultural identity of the akudaaya view among the Yoruba people. However, Yerima is able to achieve cultural reconstruction and initiate a challenge to create cultural consciousness through his play-text.

Emotion-based themes and locutions in Ahmed Yerima’s Otaelo

This study investigates locutionary indexing of emotion-based themes using Ahmed Yerima’s Otaelo as our selected text. Ahmed Yerima’s Otaelo has a considerable volume of pragmatically salient emotional themes. Aspects of the theories of speech acts, modified Odebunmi’s adapted model of pragmeme and emotionology, considered capable of addressing linguistic forms and functions and expression of emotion were adopted. The findings revealed that themes of emotional satisfaction and perturbation are found in Otaelo. Emotional satisfaction, incorporating love, assurance, appreciation and admiration, are indexed in the text. Emotional perturbation covers fear, anger, rejection, deception, conflict, disparagement and regret. The paper concludes that Ahmed Yerima’s Otaelo thematised emotional satisfaction and perturbation through salient locutions, thereby contributing to the increasing works on pragmatics.

“I Am Trying to Redefine the Place of the Playwright”: An Interview with the Nigerian Playwright Ahmed Yerima

“I Am Trying to Redefine the Place of the Playwright”: An Interview with the Nigerian Playwright Ahmed Yerima.

Environment, Climate Change, Insecurity and World Peace: A Critical Examination of Selected African Literary Texts

The interest in African literary texts has increased significantly in recent times within the academic community. However, crucial issues such as climate change, environment, insecurity, and world peace have not received adequate attention from scholars, despite their relevance. This study aims to explore these topics in African literary texts of various genres by employing the ecocriticism of selected African texts as a theoretical framework and using content analysis as the primary methodology. The corpus of this study focuses on the works of Ramonu Sanusi (novel Un Nègre a violé une Blonde à Dallas), Niyi Osundare (poem “They Too Are the Earth”), David Rubadiri (poem “African Thundersorm”), and Ahmed Yerima (play Ipomu), all of whom have been selected for sharing the primary objective of this work - to shed light on the environmental realities of modern society by describing the rates of environmental and climate change and their adverse effects on humanity. Moreover, the authors emphasize the need for world peace to ensure global sustainable development. By critically analyzing the African literary texts, this research seeks to contribute to the academic understanding of these significant global issues and the critical role that literature can play in addressing them.
 Keywords: African literature, climate change, Environment, Insecurity, World Peace.

Practs of Deliberate Conceptual Mappings in Ahmed Yerima’s Abobaku

Ahmed Yerima’s Abobaku is a drama that explains Yoruba cosmological belief in the concept of a scape-goat who dies to accompany Alaafin and other Yoruba Kings to the ancestral world.Despite its significance to Yoruba cosmology, Yerima’s Abobaku has not been given a full-blown pragmatic study. This paper therefore attempts to fill this existing gap by examining the practs of metaphor in it. Modified model of Mey’s (2001) pragmeme and Steen’s(2008) deliberate metaphor theory were used as the theoretical base of this study. The findings revealed that there are deliberate conceptual mappings of a human as a beast, a sacrificial lamb, and a saviour ; human’s life as a journey, a light, and a cracked cooking pot; death as a container/vehicle and a journey; life as a journey and a light; and love as a two-edged sword . Participants rode on the shared socio-cultural, cognitive and linguistic common grounds to pract lamenting, warning, informing, condemning, stating, reminding and boasting in the text.

Textual Orientation to Cculture-Sansitive Proverbs Meanings in Selected Ahmed Yerima’s Yoruba Culture-Based Plays

Proverbs have attracted a lot of attention in linguistic scholarship. Specifically, scholars have addressed the thematic and figurative features of proverbs in the espousal of ethnic experiences of different communities from sociolinguistic, stylistic, semantic and pragmatic perspectives. Observation has shown that Pragmatic efforts have however ignored emphasis on the impact of textual parts, especially, common grounds in character’s interactions through shared situational knowledge (SSK) and shared cultural knowledge (SCK) of interlocutors in proverbial interpretations. With the application of Kecskes (2014) socio-cognitive principle of common grounds, this study examines purposively selected Yoruba proverbs in Ahmed Yerima's Yoruba-culture based plays Mojagbe and Ajagunmale with a view to determining their meanings relative to Yerima's pragmatic intentions. The study reveals that proverbs which mainly have linguistic roots in metaphor are interpretively aided by common ground items of shared situational knowledge (SSK) and shared cultural knowledge (SCK) in characters' utterances to pragmatically serve to warn/caution, emphasize, lament, accuse, and explain in the plays. This linguistic contribution to existing literature on Ahmed Yerima’s plays is significant for aiding the understanding of form-function nexus in context-sensitive proverbial interpretation in fictional discourse in linguistic scholarship in Nigeria.

Exploring the Socio-Cultural Effects of Poor Parenting: An Appraisal of Ahmed Yerima’s No Pennies for Mama

Parenting is a cardinal part of social orientation and it plays a very critical role in a child’s developments and the character and traits that he forms during this process. Parenting is a guiding compass to engineer what the child eventually turns out to be in society and how he contributes to the society that he is in. This study examines the socio-cultural effects of the lack of proper parenting, using the drama, No Pennies for Mama by Ahmed Yerima. Through the lens of this drama, we are able to see these socio-cultural effects on the victims of lack of proper parenting. This study uses the content analysis methods of gathering and analyzing data. It finds that the effect of poor patenting has a dastardly devastating impact on both the child, his or her family and the society These children who are victims of poor parenting grow up with values that are both culturally and socially anomalous causing pain to both themselves, their families and society. This study recommends that would-be parents should learn the art and science of parenting before embarking on its journey, learning what works and what does not work. Dramatists should write more drama that emphasize the detrimental effects of poor parenting and they should be performed to audiences in as many cities as possible, so that people can learn to take parenting as seriously as it should be taken.

Sociopolitical Reconstruction in Niyi Osundare’s The State Visit and Ahmed Yerima’s Hard Ground

Socio-political reconstruction is a motif in African literature and it is for this reason, among others, African literature is regarded as literature of commitment since creative writers in the continent embed socio-political and economic problems plaguing the continent in their writings. Thus, African literature dwells more on the functional role of literature than the entertaining role, and that is why African literature is often described as functional literature. African writers see literature as a tool for societal re-education and liberation. They consider themselves as the conscience of the nation and terror on corrupt political leaders. Therefore, they take advantage of the opportunity literature affords and affect the lives of the people. They do so by portraying the everyday socio-political and economic challenges thereby making their literary art a commitment geared toward a reconstruction of the socio-political and economic systems of the society. This paper is therefore an attempt to highlight how Niyi Osundare in State Visit and Ahmed Yerima in Hard Ground depict and attempt to reconstruct the society.

The Playwright and Conflict Resolution: A Critical Perspective on Ahmed Yerima’s The Angel

This article examines the concept of conflict, its causes, effects and how to minimize it in human relationship. It employs Ahmed Yerima’s The Angel as its anchor or illustrative text. The theory for the investigation is sociological theory which explicates the relationship between art and society and how art redefines a world that has lost its track. The inquiry discovers that selfishness, greed, undue and unnecessary or unhealthy competition create dissension among siblings and members of the society. These things create discord which undermines family bloodline, and goes on to destroy everyone. It also shows that, the survivors, if there be any, concentrate, on how to maximize the moment for selfish gains rather than brooding over the monumental waste of lives, among other things. This indeed is disheartening. This paper resolves or establishes that, though conflict is prevalent in all societies, siblings and human beings in general could minimize it to the barest minimum. This is possible if they refuse to allow greed and avarices that usually becloud human sense of reasoning to overwhelm them. This must be articulated in families, homes and in childhood in order to avoid children growing up with the intent for self–aggrandizement which remains inimical to our collective wellbeing.

Religion, Security and Politics in Northern Nigeria: A Public Intellectual Reading of Ahmed Yerima’s Pari

Nigeria boasts of some of the world’s biggest worship centres, as the vast majority of its population attend religious services and pray regularly. However, this nation remains one of the most religiously divisive nations across the world. Critical and literary studies have shown the role of religion in the creation and aggravation of conflict in this nation. This article analyses the ways in which Ahmed Yerima’s play, Pari (2016), examines this burning subject of religious violence in Nigeria, and most specifically, northern Nigeria. Classifying this contemporary playwright as an active public intellectual, this article engages in a close reading of how the play speaks to the controversial subject of religion. The latter part of the article explores Pari’s handling of the subject of conflict resolution, positing that confession, remorse, and forgiveness are important requirements if lasting peace is to be restored after any crisis. These subjects are constructed around the 2014 abduction of the 275 Chibok schoolgirls in northeastern Nigeria by the Islamic terror group, Boko Haram.

Antimonies of Crude Oil Production in the Niger Delta: Reflection on Ahmed Yerima’s Trilogy

We learn from history that some consequences of abysmal government policies and dysfunctional tactics include socio-economic retrogression, increased deprivation ideology, victimhood, rebellion, war and revolution; and theorists have provided several plausible contextualizations for elucidation. One of such conceptualizations is Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation, which can be applied to illuminate sufficiently how discontent enacted in Ahmed Yerima’s trilogy can lead to aggressive responses. Thus, through an interpretive approach, we shall look at how Yerima portrays creatively in his trilogy – Hard Ground, Little Drops, and Ipomu why a show of force, divide and rule, carrot and stick tactics by successive Nigerian governments have exacerbated grief, restiveness and rebellion in Niger Delta because of unwholesome oil exploitation and ineffectual corporate social responsibility approaches. In the end, this study proposes that Niger Delta oil exploitation related discontent will fester and linger if functional inclusiveness and proportional infrastructural development are not deployed progressively.

A Conversation with Nigerian Playwright and Public Intellectual Ahmed Yerima

The concept of the public intellectual is yet to be well engaged in Nigerian scholarship. While it has been implied in many critical works on writers, activists, journalists, lawyers, and others, the concept of the public intellectual has not been exclusively engaged to study historic and current Nigerian public figures. In this article, although much of it is an interview with the award-winning and prolific Nigerian playwright, academic, former Artistic Director of the National Troupe, and Director General of the Nigerian National Theatre, Ahmed Yerima, I briefly establish the public intellectual history in Nigeria before engaging the playwright on this subject and interrogating his status as a public intellectual or cultural critic. During the course of the interview, Yerima also touches on other subjects facing Nigeria and the intersection between one of his plays, Abobaku (2015), and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (1975).

Violence, Oppression and Injustice in the Drama of Niger Delta: Tess Onwueme and Ahmed Yerima

Oppression begets violence. Violence is a reaction by people who are exploited, abused, oppressed or worst still unrecognized. Niger Delta; people of South-South geopolitical zone of Nigeria are vulnerable and deterred by threats and exploitation from the hands of the Federal Government and foreign investors because of the large deposit of oil in their lands, which generate if not all the nation‟s revenue. Part of their dilemma is deception and betrayal from their fellow victims. Perhaps the complexity of oppression and the gross injustice is that the oil resources are obtained and managed by people from other regions to the utter neglect and detriment of the land owners who suffer the ecological problems of the land, air and water degradation as a result of pollution arising from oil spillage. This treatise presents Tess Onwueme and Ahmed Yerima as watch dogs and the prophets of the people. They utilize drama to represent actions, attitudes in the society using variety of props, verbal and non-verbal devices to convey the violence, oppression and injustice to the public. It is a clamour of agitation for human rights and resource control.

21st Century Nigerian Drama: Futuristic Prospects

Nigerian society is plagued with problems of socio-economic, leadership, poverty, corruption and religious charlatanism that stimulate and give impetus to the country‟s dramatic output. Indisputable and decisive Nigerian dramatists have voiced the unpleasant situation in various forms of drama. At an earlier time from pre-colonial, pre-literate day‟s drama has been in existence reflected in the people‟s festivals, rituals, mythology and other forms of social engagements. Beyond entertainment it courts the supernatural world and certain phenomena of life in order to transcend them. Colonial contact obliged playwright to correct certain Eurocentric notions about her people and eulogize her culture. As early as 1944, Hubert Ogunde paved way for modern drama tradition in Nigeria. He was closely followed by University based James Ene Henshaw. Then, roared the colossus and Nobel laureate winner, Wole Soyinka, J P Clark, Ola Rotimi and others. Next in emergence were Soyinka‟s admirers who saw drama as the vanguard of search for solution to social problems and as propaganda machine designed to achieve this purpose; they were Femi Osofisan, Bode Sowande and others. While Osofisan and contemporaries have not given way and do not intend to do so, new wave of dramatic playwrights is brewing in the country. There is intimidating harvest of plays Bakare Ojo Rasaki, Effiong Johnson, Duruaku Toni, Sam Ukala, Ahmed Yerima, Emeka Nwabueze, Nwosu Onyebuchi and a host of others. This treatise attempts an analysis of growth of drama in Nigeria and holds that the future is very bright; that Nigerian drama is forward looking and future oriented as they repudiate the boisterous festivals of the past, make problems of tomorrow the center of their focus, since outstanding breakthrough in technology for instance have been possible for societies that made futuristic problems the center of interest today.

Directing gender equality in Ahmed Yerima’s Altine’s Wrath

Abstract One of the functions of the theatre director is to develop a concept that would appeal to the audience in the process of his interpretation. This paper textually evaluates the issue of gender equality as the directorial concept in Ahmed Yerima’s Altine’s Wrath. The paper adopts the sociological, literary and artistic methods to interrogate the directorial implications of the text as it will be demonstrated in the performance. The paper notes that a thorough understanding of gender theories and principles would guide a director’s realization of the identified concept. The paper, therefore, calls on directors to support the issue of gender equality by developing concepts in this regard and as such promote a peaceful society.

The Trope of Death in Ahmed Yerima’s Mojagbe

Contemporary African nations are plagued with hegemonic, despotic, and unchallengeable leadership which is a major bane of meaningful development and growth to the black race in general. People often groan under such myopic leadership. In solving leadership crisis, which is like a deadly disease, Ahmed Yerima in his play metaphorically suggests death as a lasting panacea. Employing the postcolonial concept of hegemony as the theoretical framework, the study investigates the trope of death in Yerima’s Mojagbe with a view to exploring the representations of the deathly reign of Oba (King) Mojagbe and a foreshadowing of the “death” of such dictatorial leadership as Mojagbe’s in contemporary postcolonial nations. In order to liberate people from the hegemony of the absolute anarchical monarch, Death is consulted to put an end to the kingship of Oba Mojagbe. The collective effort of the Yeye who represent the judiciary paves way for the termination of Mojagbe’s autocratic reign. Expounding the trope of death in Mojagbe, Yerima deploys proverbs, incantations/chants, code-mixing, and code-switching. The study therefore establishes Yerima’s commitment to his polity by depicting one major problem bedeviling the milieu – leadership crisis.

NIGERIA: DELTA OIL EXPLORATION POLITICS AND THE PORTRAYAL OF BRUTAL IMPACT IN YERIMA’S HARD GROUND

This study presents an interdisciplinary approach towards a critical analysis of some impacts of crude-oil exploration in Niger Delta and polemics of viable conϐlict resolution framework. This approach involves analysis of Ahmed Yerima’s creative portrayal in Hard Ground which revolves around the variables activating conϐlicting emotional interests in matters concerning ‘black gold’ in Nigeria, and how these variables resonant in debates and demands for Nigeria’s polity restructuring because of perceived resource mismanagement. More so, our scope includes an analytical attempt at illuminating elaborately our interpretation of the dimensions to the loud and shrewd inclinations subsuming what some see as solution to the lingering conϐlict, and the suppositions explaining why others see the debates and demands on polity restructuring as dark convoluted ploys aimed at hidden agenda. Hence, through select theories of victimhood, this study attempts to elucidate on the variables propelling conϐlicting emotional interestsabout oil exploration in Niger Delta, by looking interpretively hard and deep on the perspectives, views and suppositions deϐining the ideologies and inclinations propelling them. In the end, this study notes that the disenchantments and troubles with Nigeria’s polity framework and structure as it relates to oil exploration in Niger Delta are subsumed in Hard Ground’s creativecontribution as a means of assessing the points to the fault-lines that characterize the subsisting socio-political structure upon which Nigeria stands and wobbles.

Language and society in text: Ahmed Yerima’s Pari

Language and society in text: Ahmed Yerima’s Pari

CONTEXTUALISING HISTORY AND CREATIVITY: AN EXPLORATION OF AHMED YERIMA'S “THE TRIALS OF OBA OVONRAMWEM

This paper beams its searchlight on the relationship between history and creativity in Ahmed Yerima's The Trials of Oba Ovonramwem.The study adopted the qualitative research method usingDocumentary Observation Research instrument in line with the textual nature of the work. The theoretical framework used as a tool of analysis is the New Historicism theory propounded by Stephen Greenblatt, the theory aims at understanding the work of art through its historical context and also understanding cultural and intellectual history through literature. It was observed that, the history has been transformed into theatrical products. Thus the efforts of the playwright atcreating drama out of history appear to bridge the gap between fact and fiction in historical drama. The study establishes that the relationship between history and drama is the one which the playwright offers explanation through his play to historical event while forcing on it his thematic preoccupation.The study finds out that historical plays can be used in the most viable way for the promotion and propagation of the African culture. The play has to some extent tried to achieve this role through the use of songs, proverbs, dances, chants, language of the people. This study also reveals that the playwright has made the play relevant to the contemporary society through some specific themes. The study discovers that in using history for drama, the playwrights is free to rework and recognize the actual story depending on the purpose and what the writer aims to achieve with the story, this is done in order for history to have a sharper meaning to the new people who will see it and also to achieve a thematic preoccupation.From the foregoing, it can be said that history has therefore become a source material for the playwrights; they deem it necessary to interpret it by giving it contemporary relevance. The play is therefore a historical play that is set in a milieu which deals with historical personages and events. The history has been artistically woven from real life material into a highly dramatic piece, establishing a sense of a particular historical period and giving the audience necessary information at the same time leading up skillfully to the climaxes supplied by historical facts. As it were, the word of the past replaces the world of the past, since for the New Historicist, the events and attitudes of the past now exist solely as writing. The author's role to a large extent is determined by historical circumstances. The playwright has done this by carefully and skillfully blending history with the use of dramatic techniques such proverbs, chants incantations, characters, setting, irony, and climax. The paper attempts to encourage playwrights to continue to use history as source material in writing their plays It can therefore be concluded that the playwrights draws their source material from mundane human experience i.e. history and weave them with aesthetics through the power of imagination and creativity thus making it a beautiful play that can preserve the history of their society.

Royal Patriarchy and Intra-Gender Conspiracy in Africa's Age of Globalization: The Dramatist's Reflections in Ahmed Yerima's Jakadiya

Royal Patriarchy and Intra-Gender Conspiracy in Africa's Age of Globalization: The Dramatist's Reflections in Ahmed Yerima's Jakadiya