Politics, power and the commonwealth: A review of Paul Ugbede’s ‘Mr. Chairman Sir!’

Paul Ugbede’s Mr. Chairman Sir, couched in the epic theatrical form interrogates the place of politics and power in human relation and the distribution of the commonwealth. The use of synecdoche in the narration of a national tragedy is highly ingenious and one of the play’s outstanding merits. That is, the market where the story […]

Paul Ugbede’s Mr. Chairman Sir, couched in the epic theatrical form interrogates the place of politics and power in human relation and the distribution of the commonwealth. The use of synecdoche in the narration of a national tragedy is highly ingenious and one of the play’s outstanding merits. That is, the market where the story is set, a microcosm of Nigeria. Within the political hierarchy of the market, we see godfatherism, colossal corruption, bribery and misappropriation of public fund. But what triggered the action in the play was a natural tragedy: ‘flood’. A section of the market, Okpaiye Unit, was assaulted and despoiled by the flood. That unit housed the poor, downtrodden and the wretched of the earth. The assault on their shops and stalls plunged them into deeper misery and gloom. 

However, the Unyogba Foundation with the assistance of the state government came to the aid of the distressed. The four million naira donated by these donors is large enough to revitalize the broken lives of the people, but the cunning Chief Jekaje (Igala word meaning: Eat and let’s eat) who had hitherto installed one of his stooges as the chairman of the Market Union, invented an anonymous character: “The Screening Officer” who is omnipotent, and omniscient. The officer is “coming with the master register of all the traders in this country! If your name is not there, you will not collect” the money (5). In this manner, those who are in tatters and tears and needing sympathy are emasculated by obnoxious bureaucracies aimed at strangulating them into silence and further despair.   

Flashback is used to recreate the past of the Chairman of the Market Union. He was taken from the gutters by Chief Jekaje and the other members of the inner circle. He wishes to rise up above poverty in life but when his prayer is answered and power thrust into his fists, he realises that, political power in his society is not used in bettering the lives of the commoners but to enforce the hegemony of the few over the downtrodden. Seeing the tragedy that befell the people as a means of showing solidarity with them, he is appalled by the insistence of Chief Jekaje, Secretary, Iye Aja, and Revenue Officer that the money given the people be shared as booty. This brought to the front burner the question of sharing formula of state resources. The few who constitute the trustees of state fund use it as personal property thereby entrenching the rightful owners into abject and dehumanizing penury.

At the centre of the contradiction and tumult over the fund are Chairman whose conscience is not seared with hot iron and the bellicose and revolutionary Akilaki Adi, a woman who sees through the gamut of the wiles of the bourgeois class and mobilizes the subaltern class, mounting fierce opposition against the ruthless tyranny of the few over the majority. She leads series of protest against Chief Jekaje which culminated in an unarmed revolution, dismantling the powerful hegemony of Chief Jekaje and his clan of vultures who for years have picked on the flesh and hope of the hoi polloi. 

The use of epic theatre is skillfully handled by the playwright. He used dual-role play where Chairman plays several roles and the reader is able to follow his metamorphosis. The use of stark realism deconstructed all shades of illusion and idealism, bringing to the fore the rottenness prevalent in a capitalist society. More so, the use of symbolism is apt and added to the aesthetic station of the play. The playwright minimized the use of classical Marxist diction in his portraiture of the rot in society, misery of the workers and the vulturism of the capitalist class. He neatly delineated the ideological outlook of the characters in their actions and dictions. We thus noted society a split opposing camps, the ruling and the ruled, the oppressed and the oppressors. On the side of the oppressed are armed bandits (Timo, and his boys) while religion is seen as opium of the people and as a mask. Underneath this ugly mask, brutal and inordinate wickedness is being committed. The Screening Officer serves as the justice of God on a rotten social class. He unmasked the inanities of the capitalist class and ultimately led to its dismantling. He further symbolizes the judiciary. The judiciary must be empowered so as to send corrupt officials to jail and to strip them of their ill gotten wealth and halo of immunity.

The playwright, Paul Ugbede is a committed contemporary Nigerian writer. He aligns his art with the subaltern class and championed their cause through the deployment of the epic theatre. Although a political leader once said that “power grows from the barrel of the gun,” Ugbede proselytizes another kind of revolution which grows through questioning, agitation, solidarity of the oppressed and standing firm in unarmed protest against the tyranny of the oligarchs. To destroy the existing foundation is imperative but destruction through the barrel of the gun will led to the destruction of nature and humanity; however, the destruction done by raised placards and voices, lead to the dismantling of tyrannous institutions and those behind them.     

Ugbede, Paul. ‘Mr. Chairman Sir!’ Lagos: Ready Writers Publishers, 2014. Pp. 117. 

Victor is of Kogi State University, Anyigba