Religious Exemplifications as Post-Colonial Dialogue in Ahmed Yerima's The Angel and The Bishop

The thematic preoccupation of dramatic endeavours among most African playwrights often highlight lived experiences of Africans. Therefore, the theatre space provides the avenue where such lived experiences are re-enacted, and challenged. Ahmed Yerima's theatrical endeavour follows in this pursuit, with creative dimensions. The objective of the study is to examine the selected plays of Ahmed Yerima as his perspective to the reality of religious malpractices, a major part of the bane of post-independence Nigeria that has hampered growth and development. The theoretical framework for the work is New Historicism, which argues essentially that every literary text is a product, reflection and refraction of actual historical realities. New Historicism is utilised to situate the plays in context, with thematic discourse, characterisation and dramatic techniques deployed for elucidation. The study accentuates plays-texts, as veritable tools for national sustainable development. The study discovers that religion among other things is lading with corruption, immorality hypocrisy and essentially, that religion is only used by most people as a coping strategy for post/neocolonial problems.