Nigerian Historical Plays, Film Making and National Rebirth

Abstract

Apparently, the Nigeria has a very rich history. The people’s history can be traced to the nation’s pre-colonial epoch which was blessed with rich culture, norms, strong sense of belongings and viable traditional leadership institutions, the colonial period which was a direct attack on the people’s indegenious system of life, and post-colonial era which has been characterized by social ills such as tribalism, nepotism, bad leadership, corruption among others. As a result of the aforementioned Nigerian cultural, socio-economic and political background, the country is currently facing different challenges raising from unemployment, economic hardship, kidnapping, armed robbery, terrorism and cyber crime. However, history, when it is told through the right channel, has a great potential to regenerate the society for sustainable development. A number of Nigerian playwrights like Wole Soyinka, Ahmed Yerima, Emmy Idegu, Armstrong Adachaba, John Iwuh among other Nigerian creative artists have made great efforts in documenting the nation’s history through play texts. Obviously, film as a means of communication has certain advantages over some of the other channels of communication. Hence, this paper intends to investigate the needs for Nigerian film makers to use Nigerian historical plays as source materials for film making for national rejuvenation and progress. To this end, the work adopts content analysis of the qualitative methodology to interrogate the aforementioned issues using some selected Nigerian play texts. Among other things, the work concludes that adaptation of Nigerian historical plays into movies can regenerate the nation’s lost glory and promote national development.