Insecurity and the Imaginative Arts: Revolutionary Strategies in Osofisan’s Aringindin and Rugyendo’s The Barbed Wire.

Abstract

The challenge of insecurity, especially in Africa, has become very problematic. In political, religious, economic, and marital terms, almost all parts of Africa are embroidered in one form of upheaval or the other. This essay investigates and analyses the nature of insecurity dramatised in Osofisan’s Aringindin and the Nightwatchmen and Rugyendo’s The Barbed Wire and demonstrates that oppression, brutality, and lack of respect for human lives are its hallmarks in Africa. The essay also shows the various means by which both playwrights hope the challenge of insecurity can be addressed. It finds that both plays seem to suggest that desperate and revolutionary solutions must be adopted if the challenge of insecurity is to be addressed effectively. Both plays offer suggestions on how the challenge of insecurity can be tackled. It concludes that, as dramatised in the plays, open confrontation with bad leaders, tenacious resistance, and selfless sacrifice are the major revolutionary strategies required to fight the menace of insecurity.