Change management in Nigeria: The theatre and media paradigm

Abstract

The bane of most political leaders in the developing nations including Nigeria is lack of political will to render good governance to the people. Instead, most of them have been pre-occupied with corruption, propaganda, tribalism, favouritism, marginalisation, lopsided appointments and recruitments to public offices, and embezzlement among others. It is against this background that the study seeks to x-ray these maladies and recommends that Theatre and the media as two inseparable, indispensable and critical concepts in communicating socio-economic, socio-political, socio-cultural, and even socio-religious issues in the contemporary society will act as catalysts to stem the tide. The fusion of the duo will propel and engineer the arduous tasks of mirroring, reviewing, analysing, reconstructing the political, economic, social, intellectual, emotional, instinctive, traditional, and moral values in the society. The reason being that, they possess both communicative and didactic qualities that influence people’s consciousness and attitudes. Like sociology, theatre and the media are social phenomena that deal with the social problems in the society as well as offering solutions to them. This demonstrates that theatre and the media are agents of social change and watch dogs against human vices and immorality. They are, indeed, media for behavioural change in the society. It is, therefore, against the backdrop of their transformational and behavioural attributes that this study seeks to investigate. The study also revealed that lack of good governance had unequivocally led to injustices, abuse of human rights, widening of the gulf between the leaders and the led, rich and the poor, the metropoles and the peripherals as well as inducing the much taunted hate speeches that is daring the Nigerian nation at present.