Repression and resistance in Niyi Osundare’s drama The State Visit (2002)

Abstract

Since Nigeria attained independence in 1963, there has been a steady flow of literature emerging from what Niyi Osundare dubs the ‘angry’ and ‘anxious’ generations. This literature satirises and scathingly attacks the Nigerian political leadership for their failure to fulfil their promises. The aim of this paper is to explore through Osundare’s dramatic oeuvre, The State Visit (2002), how this political leadership has instead resorted to state repression to quell dissenting ‘voices’ while accumulating personal riches and indulging in lavish spending of national wealth. Ironically, it is this disregard of ordinary people’s hopes and aspirations by Nigerian political leadership that invites the wrath of satiric temper and bears the seeds of resistance as dramatised through The State Visit (2002). Through his drama, Osundare is warning the Nigerian political leadership that the period of ‘honeymooning’ is over, and that the leadership should start to deliver or face the consequences of being thrown out of power by the people. It is also shown in this paper that the fate of Nigerian political leadership dramatised through The State Visit acts as a metonym for the fate of any African leader in the postcolonial era that has sacrificed the general masses on the ‘alter’ of poverty, disease and death through corruption and mismanagement of state resources.