NIGERIA: New play highlights dangers of foreigners working in oil rich Niger Delta

Record ID: 234803

  • Title: NIGERIA: New play highlights dangers of foreigners working in oil rich Niger Delta
  • Date: 18th March 2011
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) GENERAL VIEW OF THE THEATRE VARIOUS OF ACTORS ON STAGE
  • Embargoed: 2nd April 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA6I46ZRX33I4OJZ1OWNDSTCQ6
  • Story Text: The prevalent practice of hostage taking of foreigners by armed gangs in Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta has become part of a new stage play in Lagos attracting rev reviews from theatre lovers.
    Titled 'The cost of living'-it is a story about a bungled kidnapping and of its protagonists, an American hostage, played by Frank Adekunle Macaulay, and his Nigerian abductor, Toyin Oshinaike, who both end up learning about the value of life.
    During the kidnaping, the American hostage, who already has cancer and has only a few months to live, agrees to negotiations for a huge ransom on behalf of his captor but on condition that he kills him after he gets the money, so that his family back in New Orleans would be able claim his life insurance to enable them live a decent life. However, after receiving the huge ransom his captor refuses to kill him and urges him to return to his family in the U.S even if it meant they shared the ransom money.
    The play was written by Sefi Atta who is also a renown author. She said that the issues regarding hostage taking in Nigeria had not been adequately addressed by authorities despite the daily newspaper and radio reports about such incidents taking place.
    "I think people read the news and they shut down and it is a protective mechanism, it is my duty as a writer not to shut down always and sometimes to delve into the stories," said Atta.
    Atta is the author of books 'Everything Good will Come', 'News from Home and Swallow' and is considered one of the most imaginative and gifted female fiction writers in Africa.
    "Cost of Living ' is directed by U.S and U.K trained Nick Monu who said when he loved the the manuscript immediately after reading it. Monu added that his intention as a play director was not to be confrontational with authorities but to bring to the fore issues affecting society and to have then addressed.
    "It has become endemic, it has become a form of sickness, where people are just kidnapping people to make money, and sometimes even family members are kidnaping each other, we have a major problem with kidnapping but this particular form of kidnapping in the play is politically based, and it is based on someone hitting a level where they no longer believe in the system the country offers them either political or financially for their own lives, they no longer trust in the system, and that is a problem we Africans generally need to start asking questions about, start to debate within our cultures," said Monu.
    Noble Prize winner Professor Wole Soyika who attended the premier of the play said it was refreshing and that he had invited the crew to perform at this years Black Heritage drama festivals in the U.S
    "It is not only topical, but it provides a multi-layered analysis of society , in other words more than just an encounter between prison and the hostage and the captor; it is very provocative on very many levels that is why I like it...it is multi-layered, multi-textured and very provocative in social thinking and it is a kind of play more of which we should be seeing Nigeria today," said Soyinka.
    Others who also watched play said they had enjoyed every bit of it even though it had only two characters.
    "I enjoyed it immensely, I loved the juxtaposition of the Louisiana, New Orleans theme and also the Delta in Nigeria, I love that play," said Mrs. Aima Lijadu, an architect in Lagos.
    "It touches and concerns what is is a very present part of our reality, so I thought it was very interesting," said Femi Lijadu, a businessman in Lagos.
    Security experts say kidnapping for ransom still remains a major personal risk for those working in Nigeria and that is has been further complicated by the involvement of some government officials.
    Recently leaked U.S diplomatic cable have revealed that the Nigerian government fuelled kidnapping in the oil rich Nigeri Delta by paying millions of naira in ransom to kidnapers.
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