‘Myths are a rich source for stories’

Bookshelf: What spurred the creation of the just released ‘Death and the King’s Grey Hair and other plays’?Denja Abdullahi: The creation process started long ago as a result of a story I heard in a formal classroom situation as an undergraduate in the eighties. The subject was African Traditional Societies where the lecturer mentioned something […]

Bookshelf: What spurred the creation of the just released ‘Death and the King’s Grey Hair and other plays’?
Denja Abdullahi: The creation process started long ago as a result of a story I heard in a formal classroom situation as an undergraduate in the eighties. The subject was African Traditional Societies where the lecturer mentioned something about a tradition of the Jukuns, a part of Nigeria, where they have a practice telling the reigning monarch to abdicate the throne as soon as they notice a strand of grey hair on his head. They then give him poison to swallow and die and the belief was that he would die and be reborn as a lion. That’s how they end the kingship reign according to that myth. So he talked about it as an ancient myth which was no longer operational. I never forgot that intriguing revelation and thus kept it in my mind with the intention of knowing more. So later on I decided to use it to create a play about power, leadership and governance, using that particular myth where the society encourages their kings and monarchs to be young and agile and are not expected to stay too long on the throne so someone else can take over power. Now that was the kind of tradition I felt I could use to interrogate the issue of power and leadership in the society. That was what made me venture into writing the play.
Bookshelf: When exactly did you decide to write the play?
Abbdullahi: It was in the 1980s
Bookshelf: And it took you this long to write it?
Abdullahi: No, I wrote and completed it in 1994. It was produced in 1995 then I kept it in the cooler for so many years.  Plays stay much more in the cooler than any other genre or writing. You may have produced it, conceived and written the play, but you keep it for a while and test it in performances before you eventually produce it. That is the nature of a play. Some people don’t even publish their play because it has never been performed. Until it is performed before they think of putting it in book form. So I decided to put mine in book form in 2004. Of course, some revision has taken place to account for the years that have passed, but sometimes you largely leave that initial inspiration because it may be time bound.  But by the time you go back to it you see some timelessness in it. For example, this particular play, by the time it was produced in 1995 at the competition, at the Argungu International Fishing Village in Kebbi State, where I was then, it was done for the NYSC DG’s  zonal drama competition. So it was the Kebbi State entry. The first position was to be showcased in Abuja as a national event, but the subject matter of the play according to the judges then, was not too palatable for a national forum because it was clearly anti-military because as at then (late Gen. Sani) Abacha was in power. Now this is a play saying that a leader should not stay there for too long. So such a play could not be brought to Abuja and staged, because during that period we had a critical military regime that was dictatorial and checkmated everything that was adversarial. The play therefore could not have been supported by a national entity such as the NYSC. Also, the experience of the performance then and what happened in 1961 when Nigeria got independence and Wole Soyinka was commissioned by the federal government to write a play and he wrote ‘A Dance of the Forest,’ which was to be staged to mark Nigeria’s independence. When the government officials in charge of logistics for the play read the script and saw the play in rehearsal they now said “no, this cannot be the play for the celebration of independence” because it was just saying Nigeria was a mere gathering of tribes and the vision of that play was that the independence we are marking is already dead on arrival. If you go back to ‘Dance of the Forest’ today and relate it to what is happening now you would say it was prophetic. So when that performance of mine was done, I simply said “it has happened again.”
Bookshelf: Based on how you were inspired does that mean myths are a rich source for story ideas?
Abdullahi: Certainly. There are lots of myths lying in different cultures and thus tools for great works. You can use a simple proverb from a particular culture to write a big novel or a play. So this simply depends on the ability to pick such a proverb and see its contemporary application, expand it and even turn it upside down to create a vision. It can be used to add a touch of beauty, local colour and universality. That’s what makes us rich. Our first generation writers made good use of this and that is why the world applauded them – They made use of their cultural resources. In myths, legends and folklore lies the essence of our people and the code on which our civilization was built. So if we don’t make use of them, we would become the poorer for that.
Bookshelf: How did you evolve into the writer you are today?
Abdullahi: I believe that people who write have always had that impulse in them, although there are some exceptional cases. Early on as a young person you would know that you are given to observation, studying people around you, reading and the magic of words, then dabbling into the arts while growing up. I have always had the interest of reading widely right from primary school and also trying to write. I was in form three in secondary school when my letters to the editor were being published in the papers. The first was in the Nigerian Herald in Ilorin then. I wrote to complain about our environment and how we didn’t have good roads. One of the earliest articles that I wrote which was published in the opinion page of a newspaper was when I was in form five – and the topic was how to end apartheid. At that age I was interested in my culture and gave attention to cultural festivals. All this accumulated till when I went to the university. Studying literature came naturally.
Bookshelf: Did you have mentors and role models?
Abdullahi: Those times we hardly had mentors. We more or less mentored ourselves unlike now. The kind of mentorship I had was when a cousin saw my writing and tried to introduce me to some established authors. For writers I look up to, the usual would crop up – Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka then Chukwuemeka Ike, J.P. Clark and Ken Saro-Wiwa. They are accomplished in their genres. I identify with Saro-Wiwa’s humour and his struggle because I also come from an ethnic minority.
Bookshelf: You have authored several works, mainly poetry and now a play. Do you have a preferred genre?
Abdullahi: Most people know me as a poet and many were taken aback with this play. However, poetry first came to me because I studied it and wrote my final year thesis on it – I have written about five different collections. I also had a flair for drama as a student and penned several sketches. Now I am in the Performing Arts Department of the National Council of Arts and Culture as a deputy director. I was lecturing before and even had a drama troupe. I also have written short stories that I have not published. However, most writers have a genre where their best is evident. Soyinka writes across genres. He writes good plays but you would like to settle for poetry as his signature genre, the same for Achebe whose turf is prose.
Bookshelf: Which of your works have challenged you the most?
Abdullahi: ‘Abuja Nyuyi’ was more so in the sense that it was just a product of an exercise, a British Council’s Cutting Borders online mentoring programme where they would connect a younger writer with a mentor in the United Kingdom spanning over six months. You decide the project you would want to do, whether poetry or prose. My mentor was about 70 years old. I chose city poems. The mentor who had never been to Abuja now told me he wants to see, feel and hear the sounds of Abuja. It was something I had to construct and not what I was trying to get out at the heat of inspiration.
Bookshelf: What plans do you have for the future?
Abdullahi: I want to take a break for some few years and engage in scholarly and critical writings, exploring and interpreting the writings of others. Creativity can sometimes interfere with that process, so I want to pull up my creative side. However, there are works that I have not rounded off, particularly a historical play on a particular person and a milieu. I have completed research but have not put it all down. That is my next project which I would work on alongside the break I intend to take. After then, I would wait for impulse to come, and I may just write a novel.