Sam Ukala

thumb|Nigerian playwright Sam Ukala (1947 - 2021) Sam Ukala (1948–2021) was described as a 'great literary icon'. He was a Nigerian playwright, poet, short story writer, actor, theatre director, film producer and academic. Quotes I whole-heartedly and most gratefully accept the award of The Nigerian Prize For Literature, 2014. I dedicate the award to God Almighty for inspiration, talent and direction and to all writers and critics of Nigerian Literature, especially those who have contributed to making it significant throughout the world. He thanked NLNG for “Offering the biggest literary prize in Africa.I also thank the Advisory Board and Panel of Judges for processing entries with transparent integrity. Sam Ukala's speech while receiving the Nigeria prize for literature It’s like the Nigerian crown for a beauty queen who had earlier won state and zonal crowns! The prize is much higher than the Association of Nigerian Authors’, British Council’s, and other prizes I had won. Winning it is like getting into broader limelight, getting more popular, which is good. But it’s also like attracting more critical attention, having your neck stuck out for critical stones to be thrown at your head Sharing what winning the Nigeria Prize for Literature truly meant to him. Nigeria has only one issue troubling it, bad leadership. Every other issue – bad followership, corruption, poverty, squalor, disease, human and infrastructural undevelopment, ritual and political killings, cultism and examination malpractice, intra-country wars and militancy of different names, etc. – all stem from bad leadership. Iredi War focuses on bad colonial leadership and the insurgency that it bred from a relatively small and hitherto peaceful kingdom. The play is about good governance and might communicate to the Nigerian leadership, leadership in every sector. On the deep inspiration behind the winning book, Iredi War. The central thought of Iredi War is that insurgency must arise, some day, against any misruler, no matter how formidable he/she might seem and how ill-equipped and vulnerable those he/she oppresses might seem. And these oppressors, the bad leaders, the apostles of bad governance, are found everywhere in our nation and continent. For good governance is not measurable at state houses alone, at the President’s office or Governor’s offices alone, but also at every public and private sector office, every home. On the vital message he hopes the public takes away from the winning book, Iredi War. My educational background, a bachelor’s degree in English and Master’s and doctorate in Theatre Arts exposed me to the works of great Nigerian and foreign playwrights, novelists, short story writers and poets; my birth and socialisation in Ika culture exposed me to the artistic patrimony of the Ika of Delta State, which triggered my research into the African folktale and its compositional and performance aesthetics, which influenced my theory of “Folkism” and influences my writing. On how his background affected his writing. If our governments and all stakeholders work hard at it, if our governments to concrete steps to reduce the need for the materialistic struggles which consume all our time, energy and leisure, reading culture will be cultivated slowly and steadily. What is not read today may be read tomorrow. On the sense of writing when no one is reading. There are a few reasons why I think that what we should do as writers is to actually explore our heritage, our artistic patrimony. One reason is because nobody else will explore them for us. A second reason is because our folktales contain the laws that rule us. We didn’t have written constitutions. If somebody said it is bad to steal, it is because it is there entrenched in their verbal art, their folktales and proverbs. And I see that Nigerians are getting more and more bestial, they need to be re-humanised. The best way to do it is to come from the roots, prick the people’s conscience to enable them realise where they are coming from and that the things they are doing in the cities, they would not dare do them in their villages where there are no written constitutions. Where even if the written constitution were distributed, they would not read it yet they had folklores which sometimes I prefer to call ‘folk-law’. On the use of folklore in his work. When I am zeroing in on the folk tradition, I am thinking about the kind of expression that we find in folk tradition. Every little child will understand the folktale that is told but that does not mean that language is simplistic, the language is simple but imagistic and every little child will understand how the production, the performance is done. Every little child will understand that the subject has to do with them and so if we write about them in their own language they understand and present what we write in the way that they are used to presenting their stories, then we will increase mass appeal. Everybody would understand what is being done because the essence of writing is to communicate and if you wrote and didn’t communicate, you will alienate your audience and if you did then you have not succeeded as a writer. On the use of folklore in his work. I developed the theory of folkism, which is the tendency to base literary theatre on the history and culture and patrimony of the people. And then to write and produce those plays according to the performance conventions of the folktale which is the most popular narrative tradition in African tradition. In folkism, you follow a performance structure that is from the roots, from your folk aesthetics. That is where it comes from. So, before I use any play, and turn any story into a folkist play, I go round audiences where those stories will be performed for me and if I got that same story performed in 10 different towns, I would find interjections from the audience which would be very popular coming from almost every audience. So if I find an interjection which makes 60 percent of the total number of performances that I have found, I pick it out. In folkism, the lines are not cast in stone; it is a process. The production is still on because in the traditional aesthetics one folktale will only have one skeletal framework. The words belong to the narrator, who does not memorise anybody’s lines. With folkism, you are always mindful of the audience, that you are using a story that the audience knows. On folkism, a theory he propounded. Culture is dynamic and it keeps evolving. When they were talking about tortoise yesterday and tortoise meant an animal that was clever yesterday, today the tortoise will be referring to the fraudster. Because the tortoise of today will come in suit, he will carry a briefcase and drive a good car. The tortoise of yesterday didn’t. On the dynamism of culture and folklore. External links Category:Living people Category:1948 births Category:2021 deaths Category:Academics from Nigeria Category:Film directors from Nigeria Category:Film producers from Nigeria