Drama is the easiest way to communicate

Femi Osofisan: It is always a difficult question to answer because, I think it is a combination of things that led to my being a writer. First, it has to do with the way I grew up. Having lost my father very early and my mother married to a man who travelled around very frequently, I found myself in a very unstable situation. For instance, I had my primary school in about five different towns. So it really became impossible for me to establish a root, friends or a sense of home. And I think that?s what drove me into books. And, of course, doing well in class always meant that you would be involved in play productions; end of year production, and all that. I was quite busy. But then, the company of books became really the only true company I had in my early years. Going to a very good school also contributed. My college days at the Government College Ibadan in the 1950s was quite a fulfilling experience. There were adequate learning facilities - a conducive atmosphere for learning. But being an elitist school, with many students coming from rich families, it also drove one into himself. Coming from a poor family, I experienced a sense of being an outsider, a sense of isolation. Of course, there were quite a number of us who were not really well-to-do and we tended to move together. And I think being in this company and sharing our common problems helped in building me towards writing the kind of things I now write. At the Government College Ibadan, we had a principal who was very much interested in drama. That also helped me to develop interest in it.

Yes. I prefer plays mainly because they are more direct in their impact on the audience. It has a way of bridging the communication gap. The audience don?t have to understand the language being used to be able to comprehend the message of the play. And my major concern when I started writing was to communicate, to enlighten the people on the drift our society was going through. My period of growing up coincided with the military periods. The time I was leaving school was the time we had the first military coup, and in the next ten years we were involved in all kinds of wars and civil disorder. And then came the vast corruption of the oil boom era. All these combined to increase the misery of the poor masses. Being from a poor family myself I was conscious of the need to mobilise the people against corruption. So I felt that since the vast majority of our people do not understand English, drama would be the viable means of reaching them. However, it does not mean that I don?t write other genres. In fact, my first work was a novel. But, like I said, drama is the easiest way to communicate. Drama is the easiest means of mobilising the people.

No, my work alone cannot change the society. It is just part of the general action that must be taken. I believe that everything starts in the mind. You can use force to get somebody to do something. But as soon as that force ends, you are back to square one. And, in any case, force tends to provide resistance. But if you persuade someone to do something, you don?t need to give him any weapon, he will find the weapon himself. So literature is just part of that process of building up people?s mind, of clearing the dust from their eyes. And, hopefully, through it they would be convinced to change their society. So I?m not so ambitious as to think that one single play will change things with immediate effect. When I wrote the play, Once Upon Four Robbers, against public execution, it was part of the whole process of convincing the society to desist from such practice. And eventually, it was stopped. You can?t say one particular work has done this or done that.

I am in this government because it is a civilian administration and I think there is a possibility of changing things. You see, co-operation between the writer and the government depends on the type of government. I myself I was convinced all through the military years that there was no way we could change them. If you try to join them and say you want to change them you may end up being corrupted. So, I don?t see how you could collaborate with that kind of government. It is quite understandable that writers are becoming more and more antagonistic towards the rulers. It is because the rulers have become more and more vile, more violent against the people. The slightest amount of criticism is met with persecution. So antagonism between the writer and rulers is inevitable. And cooperation between the two parties depends on the situation; the type of government.

First, let me point out that the problem of reading is no longer peculiar to us. The developed countries too are already having problems because of the computer and the modern audio-visual media such as the television. People can hardly spell anymore, because they don?t have to write. But our own case is more serious because we hadn?t attained any degree of literacy at all when we just jumped on the audio-visual media. I?m worried because what we gain in literature, the deep sense of contemplation, of reflection, etc., is absent from the audio-visual media. The television does not give you the time to reflect. It is a global problem and the developed countries are already carrying out programmes to see how they can encourage reading. Here we could also solve the problem through a conscious government policy. And I have been trying my best to see that the government does something. I have proposed a number of things to the government, as I had always done even before my appointment. I have proposed a national book list whereby the federal government would make provision in the budget to automatically buy specific number of books every year, and then make sure they are distributed to at least ten schools in each state. That is talking about thousands of books. If one publisher can sell that much, that publisher is in business, then the author is empowered and the books are in the libraries for reading. The cost of doing this will not be more than 10 million Naira. And when the federal government starts, the state governments can then go ahead. If this is done, we will surely revolutionalise reading in this country. But making proposal is one thing while accepting to implement it is another. It is a pity that government does not take such things as a priority. They think that physical infrastructures such as road construction are the only important aspect of development. But I think the mental development of the citizens should also go hand in hand with the physical development. Because, if you build the road and the person who is using it doesn?t even know how to use it, doesn?t have the mental capacity to use it properly, it will not last. Reading is really important and we will continue to advise tile government on what to do to promote it, hoping that they would eventually heed to the advice.

With this appointment, I?m quite busy now. After leaving the job I can then get back to my normal life.

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