“Saworo-Ide (Brass Bells)”, a Mainframe production is an allegory that captures what was and what is affecting Nigeria. It shows how the kingdom of Jogbo was subverted by king Lapite and his parasitic chiefs who were instrumental to his ascendancy to the throne.
Just like the bitter policy of hike in fuel price against the promise of fixing local refinery which would have made it needless importing fuel or paying ‘fraudulent’ otherwise called subsidy, people of Jogbo were served bitter pills of lack of electricity, water, hospitals and other essential things of life. Just like the civic public are being clamped down or are shrinking in Nigeria, the media, activists and labour leaders are either silenced with death or arrested through the instrumentality of the police.
Lapite and his chiefs opened their economy to foreigners to destroy their kingdom through reckless exploitation of forest resources which is the mainstay of Jogbo economy. Lapite and his chiefs pretended to be interested in developing the kingdom but arranged with foreign investors to send their share of the loot to their foreign accounts.
Is there any difference between Nigeria and Jogbo town? Were jogbo people right to have rejected Lapite three times before a ranking chief positioning himself to become king in the future packaged Lapite as the messiah that Jogbo needs? Opalaba in Saworo-Ide warns us to weigh the consequences of our actions before going ahead with it. He sings: Kò ì yé won, yí ò yé won lóla, (They can’t understand now, they will understand tomorrow). As at today, Jogbo is bitter; her people are bitter and more hopeless than ever before just as the present time in Nigeria. The tunnel is getting longer to see any light. The kingdom still awaits Bosipo (the restorer), who will use agogo eewo (gong of taboo oath) to check parasitic chiefs and make them accountable to the people of Jogbo so that this kingdom can be great again.