The Struggle: premieres in Rivers State

A stage play, The Struggle, written, directed and Choreographed by Dan Kpodoh, will premiere in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Capital between 10th and 11th July, at the Arena Event centre in GRA.

The play, organised by Dan Kpodoh production and Theatre in the Arena, will showcase an action-filled drama with lessons of peace, non-violence and good governance with its plot in the Kalabari Kingdom.

In an exclusive chat with Africa Update, the brain behind the Struggle, Dan Kpodoh, said tickets will be sold at N2,000 to students with means of Identification, while other ticket categories are : Regular ticket- N3000, VIP ticket-N 6,000 and table ticket-N50,000.

Dan Kpodoh, is a native of Trofani in Sagbama Local Government Area, in Bayelsa State. He is a theater maker, film maker, artistic director, choreographer, festival curator, content developer, theatre consultant, dancer and pageant coach amongst Others.

He is the founder/Director of Active Playhouse, a theatre and entertainment outfit based in Port Harcourt. Now widely known as a prolific outstanding and experimental Director, he studied dance, music and choreography at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and holds a B.A Directing and a Masters Degree in Dance and Choreography from the University of Port Harcourt.

He has lots of dance and theatre performances to his credit (most written by him). He is also a consultant to Calabar Carnival, Rivers State Carnival and many organizations both in the Niger Delta and Nigeria.

He is a Member of National Association of Nigerian theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP), Actors Guild of Nigeria, Association of Dance Scholars of Nigeria, amongst several others. He has staged many plays within and outside Nigeria.

Synopsis
Tired of the sufferings of his people, Miebi goes against King Ikiriko, the corrupt Amayanabo, and leaves his family behind to journey to the Creeks, braving the angst of the Militants from his community in an aempt to turn things around and bring the gun-toting youths back home. However, the youths are angry and determined to set things right their own way…. Angry at the Government for neglecng them, angry at the companies for pollung their lands, and angry at the Amayanabo for enriching his own pockets instead of the development of his land and people.
The Struggle, written and created by Dan Kpodoh, is an action-filled drama with lessons of peace, non-violence and good governance.
Foreword
Since the discovery and consequently, the exploration and exploitation of oil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, there has been a cocktail of chaos, restiveness, insurgency, agitation, militancy, decimation and pogrom occasioned by the protracted marginalization and negligence of the region by successive governments on one side, and the multinational corporations on the other. 

It is no longer news that the sheer negligence of the Niger Delta region has translated into a myriad of societal unrest and agitation for self determination by the youths of the region. It is this sustained agitation by the youths that provide the raw material and ideological inspiration in the crafting of Daniel Kpodoh’s The Struggle .

In this dramatic excursion in the genre of protest literature, Kpodoh brings to the fore, his latent skill and experience in the craft of dramaturgy. He confronts us with the harsh realities and naked truth about the pangs of militancy in the Niger Delta region without an iota of sugar coating. In the world of Kpodoh’s The Struggle, the business of militancy (or agitation as the militants prefer to call it) has  flourished so beautifully that asking the militants to “retreat or refrain” from “the struggle” practically amounts to attempting suicide. This is the lot of Miebi, who has his two eyes disgorged by an overzealous militant who

 misconstrues the “order” by Kronaka, (Miebi’s old time friend in the struggle and now the leader of the most dreaded militant group in the community). 

Typical of a playwright with a flood light vision, Kpodoh applies a highly unique dramatic technique that is driven by suspense.  At first,  he creates the impression that Miebi has died by the hands of the vitriolic, volatile and ferocious militants but in the end, Miebi emerges from the blues and continues in his insistence that the militants should drop their weapons, come out of the creek and mingle with the innuocuos citizens in the community so they can think of better ways of survival. 

No doubt,  Kpodoh’s The Struggle is a vivid portayal of the incessant violence and serial unrest in the Niger Delta region due to the protracted environmental degradation, poverty and  impoverishment hoisted on the region through negligence by the government and multi national corporations. No doubt,  The Struggle justifies the sad truth that insensitive leadership, as exemplified by King Ikiriko, can only breed anarchy, chaos and deviant behaviour from  agrieved subjects. No doubt also,  The Struggle is a timely clarion call by Daniel Kpodoh on Niger Delta youths to drop their weapons and think out of the box about better ways of survival in a Niger Delta region that is blessed by abundant mineral resources but cursed by paucity of purposeful leaders (human resources). 

Any researcher wishing to know  the real and hard facts about the creek struggle should read Kpodoh’s The Struggle.

Edward Egbo Imo
Senior Lecturer 
Department of Theatre and Film Studies,  University of Port Harcourt. 

Associate Dean
Student Affairs Department,  University of Port Harcourt