The Sun News Online | How I write

As a dramatist, writer and theatre scholar, Dr Sam Kafewo is committed to the development of theatre in all ramifications. Since the late 1980s when he started teaching at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kafewo has also proved himself as a lover and promoter of educational theatre, particularly radio drama and home video that are now popular entertainment outlets.

Daily Sun recently cornered Kafewo at a workshop organised by Institute of Media and Society on Strategic Planning for Campus Radio held at Akure, Ondo State. He explained how he started creative writing and how he has fared in inspiring younger theatre artistes to develop their skills in drama and theatre:

How I started
I came into writing through learning because as an undergraduate at the University of Jos. I had my playwriting teacher, Prof. Shamshudeen Amali taught me and from the little exercises we had, I started writing playlets and later full length plays. Before then, I had developed interest in drama right from secondary school at St. Augustine Secondary School in Kabba. I was always watching plays by Baba Sala, Ade Love and Lady Funmilayo Ranko, who brought their troupes to our school to perform. I enjoyed all the things they were doing, so I made up my mind very early to become a playwright and dramatist. Even though people were saying I would become a lawyer, I made up my mind that I would be a dramatist, and that was it.

Writing as an undergraduate
Incidentally, I first fell into love with poetry but I am a very bad poet, I am not a master of languages. So, I read all the poems. I did very well in the poetry aspect of literature. So, I said, if these people could master these lines, then I would like to be like them, so I read in the night all the works of John Pepper Clark, Dennis Brutus, Leopold Sedar Senghor and others. All these we found in the collection, Selection of African poetry, by Senanu and Vincent.

When I went into my own writing proper, I discovered that I couldn’t master the language of those books I have read but I have to just express myself in the best possible way that I could construct my stories. First I had to start from my background because in our children theatre class, we were taught on the need to fall back to our background. I know that my father and my brothers were hunters, so I had to do a play on a hunting accident where a man suddenly shot his brotherving, h mistaken him for an animal.

Inspiration
I must confess that I was influenced a lot by my teachers. I went to school of course in the 1980s and at that time, the debate between marxism and capitalism was dying down but it was still on. But what really inspired me into writing was change. I want to affect the poor people and I want them to change, I want them to have a positive output in life.

Published works
My first major play called The Generals Award captured my experiences at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) which was introduced by Gen Yakubu Gowon. I conceived the idea in 1987 or 1988 but the play did not see the light of day until about 10 years after, 1998 or 1999. But what really inspired me was; why do people do what they do? And if they do what they have done, what do they hope to achieve by it. So, my first major published work is like the other ones I have written but which have not been published.

Nevertheless, I have published more plays but since I attended Unijos before moving over to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the philosophy of theatre practice I met at ABU is founded fully on town and gown. I went into it fully and got myself integrated into it so the lot of the work I now do, are more or less collaborative works. I have contributed my plays some collections sponsored by McArthur Foundation and other agencies.

Some of them are playlets of about 25 to 30 minutes. About 10 of these or more have been published in one collection. Most of these plays dramatise the problems of women especially the peculiar circumstances of women in Northern Nigeria. I have also done a lot of work with students. Before I came into Ahmadu Bello University, the ABU drama students, of course, were very active, very hard working, dynamic but somehow the school calendar became very unstable. The students were no longer very active on the Nigerian Theatre scene- I mean the Nigerian University Theatre Arts Association NUTASA who organise an annual festival called (NUTAF).

But when I came along with other colleagues like Razak Ojo Bakare and others, we started working with students and one of my happiest moments was that I was able to publish a collection called splitting images and other NUTAF plays.

It was an experiment we cordinated with the students. We had a lot of productions and and improvisations. We had wonderful productions but no script to use to back them up but this time round, we forced all those involved in the experiment to put down dialogues, collected them and polished them, we later gave them straight direction and everything was okay, and we got them published. These plays have been reprinted and performed across Nigerian universities and polytechnics.

Process of writing
My preparation for writing is always longer than the actual writings itself, my background and orientation as a critic has always affected me. I always wonder about what people would say when they see write. So, I always indulge in self censorship, self-criticism such that sometimes I don’t write. But once I get to the moment of writing, whatever people think of, it does not matter, so I can spend weeks, months or years not doing anything but the idea would always be in my head, I can lie down on my bed, I would envisage the scenes and some of the scenes, I can dream about them, and I would write them down and I would recreate them and use the right words to explain them. I usually visualize the plays in advance and that is why the actual time of writing is always short.

Contemporary Nigerian writers
The current generation of writers must acknowledge the fact that those who came before us are extremely talented but they were also extremely lucky in the sense that the competition was far less. That is not to take away what they have done which is a pioneering effort, they have set a high standard from which we are trying to take off.

In the present times, writers are trying within the constraints of the time to give their best. But we need to work harder, it is always more difficult when somebody has set a bar and for you to jump over that. It is possible that there are classics now unpublished but that is the lot of the present generation of writers where they have to strive and strive to meet that standard.

Experience with publishers
My experience with publishers has been very nasty but I wouldn’t want that to discourage any body. The first major work I published, a friend linked me up, the publisher pretended that he was helping me. When he took my manuscript, he didn’t demand for any money, he sent it for assessment and he later gave useful comments which even influenced the change of titles and other things. But after the publishing, I was naïve, I didn’t enter into any formal legal agreement with him and I was " forced" to literally buy off the initial prints at the cost price of the publisher and I sold with the promise that when all the copies were sold, we would sit down and share the profits under a formula that never materialized. I felt very cheated but what could I have done?

I was very eager, young, enthusiastic, I just wanted to see my works in print, and I naively went into that without any written agreement. I don’t want that to discourage other people but the experience with publishers has been very bad.

Advice to publishing industry
I saw what I went through like a young footballer who is blind and rushes into a blind, slaved induced contract and by the time he wants to come out of it, he may not be able to because he had signed with his own hands.

My advice to young writers is that as much as they want to see their works in print, they should leave their eyes wide open. If we had reputable publishing houses that we could send manuscripts to and they would access it objectively, no matter how long it takes and brings out something for them, I may not have gone into what I went through. Those publishing houses are simply not ready to take anything that any young writer has, they are more interested in established writers.