Dramatizing resistance and hegemony in North-Central Nigeria: A comparative study of Olu Obafemi’s Ogidi Mandate and Isaac Attah Ogezi’s embrace of a leper

Olu Obafemi’s Ogidi Mandate and Isaac Attah Ogezi’s Embrace of a Leper are both drama texts that quarry into Nigeria’s colonial history to bring to light the often glossed over stories of resistance to local and foreign hegemonies by the marginalized ethnic minorities.Beyond the factual historical footnoting of these occurrences of resistance in formal historical records and their hazy presence in popular imagination, these two playwrights under study, bring into reckoning in dramatic flair, aspects of a people’s history that should resonate in present day identity politics and search for harmonious relationship among ethnic nationalities of the nation-state, Nigeria. The study comparatively examines both plays to unearth the similarities and differences in their thematic explorations of resistance to hegemony and their theatrical constructs as influenced by both plays cultural backgrounds. The study posits that playwrights, especially those from ethnic minorities, are veritable voices in projecting to the theatrical forefront the often neglected stories of the larger groups of ethnic minorities of the nation-state, Nigeria and that it is in the telling of divergent but ennobling tales in varied forms that the inclusivity of a multicultural Nigeria can be realised in the Nigerian theatre world.