…for many years; it has since sat gloomily like a bound captive awaiting saviours who would re-enact Nigeria’s story on stage for the presentation, preservation, and promotion of her culture and stir global attraction.
On Thursday, 30th of September, 2021, Nigeria celebrated her military-caped edifice marking its 45 years of existence. The National Theatre of Nigeria, popularly called the NATIONAL HOME OF ENTERTAINMENT, is located in Iganmu, Surulere, Lagos State.
It was set up by the National Theatre and the National Troupe Board Act issued on the 29th of October, 1991, construction started in 1975 and was completed in 1976 under former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime in preparation for the Second World Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977.
After the glamorous festival, this monument has not recorded a gathering as intense as the 1977’s. In fact, for many years; it has since sat gloomily like a bound captive awaiting saviours who would re-enact Nigeria’s story on stage for the presentation, preservation, and promotion of her culture and stir global attraction.
The current General Manager/CEO, Professor Sunday Enesi Ododo, noted in his opening speech at the celebration, that an environment of peace and understanding is a crucial requirement for the progress of the national theatre stating as ‘united will stand and divided will fall’. He also reaffirmed his commitment to reviving the theatre back to its glory while urging the staff members to take personal development seriously as the progress of the theatre requires a collective effort. He assured that the era of backbiting is over and that the era of progress has begun.
In his lecture, Professor Tunji Azeez, a professor of the Theatre, Films, and Cultural Studies in the Department of Theatre, Films, and Cultural Studies, Lagos State University, listed some necessities to be put in place in the attempt to revive the spirit of the national theatre.
1.) The new pilot must not and cannot be a civil servant; his attitude, his dressing, his outlook to life must reflect the new direction of the theatre as a business organisation. This should run through the entire mill of the organisation.
2.) The staffers of the new National theatre must be retrained to key into the new vision of the organisation.
3.) The nation’s culture house CANNOT close its doors at 4:00 PM and expect any change.
4.) The new National Theatre must create reward schemes for staffers in the form of incentives and commissions for attracting profitable businesses.
5.) The new pilot must work with the academia and the press not only for policy direction and implementation but also very importantly, for documentation.
He also recommended that the new national theatre should devise programmes to capture all strata of the society; identify all the troupes in the country and begin to collaborate with them on projects; be a major player in the unification of the nation; realise that businessmen are on the prowl and because they are businessmen and women, their interests come first. He remarked that if at all, the theatre loses its soul to those hubs when they come, it would be because the drivers of the engine of the theatre are ill-prepared for the revolution, not because the hubs have come to kill the National Theatre.
♦ Favour Chiagozie Ebubechukwu is an Editorial Staff Writer and columnist with the WAP
