SYNOPSIS

RED FACE surveys the themes of authority, corruption and devevelopment in post-independent NIgeria. The characters of the Play, especially Ihuaku, battles the challenges of living in Nigeria and the complexity of identity that faces the Nigerian.

Ihuaku, a civil servant, is forced to resign from service because of conflict between her faith and official corruption. In the private sector, determined to make it in business, she is faced with the same force. Redface is a chronicle of her struggles to maintain integrity.

REDFACE

PROLOGUE
(dressed like a local hunter, with a mask on his face, he enters with dance, to the rhythm of ibo beats, the gong, the flute and the xylophone playing the Nigerian national anthem).

The antelope we caught, we canot eat;
The cricket we caught, we cannot eat;
The tiger we rode, we cannot eat.
The cow we bought, we cannot eat.
The chickens we bred, we cannot eat.
Our hearts have been painted
with the colour of grace and the shade of disgrace
And we are left with a red face.

My feet, my walk is crampled with sluggish mud
I have cried and I have laughed
But there is something I am yet to do.
Silence, nothing, these are not for me;
for If I but keep silence, who shall speak for me?
If I do nothing, what shall become of me?

The burden I bear these fifty years
Weigh heavily on my tired soul.
Stories have been toled and many have listened
Histories have been written and many have read them
What is left? Tell me what is left?

We are sorrounded by civilisation and barbarism
by mysticism and mystique
We are encircled by opportunities and the chaos of it
But why do we always turn these into an earthquake?

I left Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna,Enugu and Makurdi
I will go there. I will not go there!
What am I saying? What are you hearing?
The burden of these fifty years
Wigh ehavily on my happy heart.

Cheerful me, I am poisoned with a red face
Things have fallen apart, falling is now an art.
And me, who will give me a heart transplant?

I welcome you to this world of mine;
One I came to know since I was nine;
If you can make it better, if you can make it happier;
I want a change to my red face.

The Calabash

Last night when you cried
It was because you were thirsty
Neither for water nor for wine
For the caress on your tiny neck.

Why do you lament
The torment of the whiteman's bottle?
They say you are the black man's symbol
Yet your word exist in several languages.

Now you have fallen on the lost rock
Your parts scattered around the clock
Those who have accomplished this feat
Celeberate their endless defeat.

Abuja stoops to conquer you
To take the breath from your nostrils
And your heart covered with morning dew
Smiles at the wounds of their entrails.

Do not smile, Do not smile
It is not a mark of greatness
To watch your people die or starve
It's not a thing of pride to be a slave.

The bangles of freedom
Sounds from the warm and eager hand
But the children of Sodom
Have taken over rule in our land.

The calabash is broken, is broken
And the token of the future lies
Abandoned, like J.P. Clark's casualties
The calabash is broken, is broken

Tell it to the palm tree, so let it mourn
Let it cry tears for Chima and for you
Who do not realise that the corn
Planted in the farm will soon be few.

Dele-Israel Ikeorha
Kaduna, Nigeria

Tribute to Chima Ubani - By Dele-Israel

Sonnet of the Morning Light

Every glorious turn of history is made
By wheels of sacrifice,hearts of greatness
The tears we shed, the joys we share express
Our being shining before the morning light.

The marks we make on sands of time resound
Our names as fragrance rise above the stress
And what deeds are remembered are no less
Virtues on which nations entrust thier sight.

The flowers fly amidst the sunny sky
And sway above the mortal winds display
The answer to hope is just another why
The world's new light enfolds with love today.

Peoples advance on a culture of change
Men, by living beyond the common range.

Dele-Israel Ikeorha
Kaduna October 19, 2005

Sonnet of the Surreal Shadows: My Niger Delta

Lost in the woods somewhere poor Niger Delta
Men and women in red and black chanting
Their dreams consumed, fortune lost in ranting
The youths inflamed, runing helter skelter

When I schooled in you many years ago
We saw the world with eyes of paradise
We saw Nigeria's painted canvas
A wortheir work than Michealangelo

The shadows I see today saddens me
The wasted generation celebrates
Mediocrity shines, the crooked crown
They will not hear thy plea or cries of thee
O Mother Africa! By thy gates
Your children cry, thier leaders dance to town.

Dele-Israel Ikeorha
Kaduna, 19 October, 2005

Offiaji Dele-Israel Ikeorha, Ambassador for Peace 

We played in the waters, and danced in the nude

I

We swam your rivers and drank your waters
We slept on your bossom and sucked thy breasts
We dreamt of tomorrow and hoped for the best
We played in the waters, and danced in the nude.
We were young, and we were innocent.

There was no fear even in the thick of midnight
There was no shame, boys and girls we bathe together
There was no lust, and we were not lost
There was hope and it looked forever.
But there was 'them' the evil class.

The leeches they suck us dry
And dare us to ask them why
When we do they laugh at us
But their children will be slaves
And they know not.

II

They fill thier barns with plenty
Stolen waters from our nation's cistern
They defile our virgins with money
And not one pang of conscience or pain
The nation groan, they grow
Yet they believe they are great.

Many die in the clinics that are graves
Hunger plague another million
Disease writes epitaph on the tomb of many
They barter in mockery and trade in treachery
Yet the price of 'fuel' sways the waves.

III

We swam your rivers and drank your waters
We slept on your bossom and sucked thy breasts
We dreamt of tomorrow and hoped for the best
We played in the waters, and danced in the nude.
We were young, and we were innocent.

Now there is fear even in the heart of morning
There is shame, boys and girls no more bathe in innocence
The altars of lust have many disciples
And the shrine of despair many worshippers
But they will not hear the people's cry.

They trade in hunger and prosper in cruelty
They scatter hatred and triumph
When thier people beg
The mark of their greatness
Is that the poor never find soccour
But they are not God.

Dele-Israel Ikeorha
Kaduna, Nigeria October 19, 2005