The Metaphors of Insecurity in Olu Obafemi’s Running Dreams: A fabulous Theatre Discourse

Abstract

After British colonialists left the shores of Nigeria, many believed that a new government of Nigerian intellectuals would constructively do away with colonialist hegemonies and western capitalist exploitations of the poor. But corruption, terrorism, militancy, and the nationalistic resistance of the struggles for independence by the first republican politicians make Nigeria susceptible to a likely collapse of her sovereignty. It is the objective of this research to explore Olu Obafemi’s Running Dreams through the application of the fabulous theater to expunge the exploitative actions of the ruling class over the masses. The socio-political instability narrated in a dream sequence was discovered to have ruptured the security of Nigerians in all the geopolitical zones of Nigeria. With the application of the fabulous theater discourse, it was discovered that the playwright’s application of the African equivalent of Brecht’s Epic theater was used to call Nigerians into taking a revolutionary stance against an inherited exploitative colonialists’ style of governance.