Epken: Tiger in the Swamps

By Temienor Tuedon

Ekpen – Tiger in the Swamps is a story of historical and epic proportion, one of valor, of conflicts between duty, loyalty and conviction and of their resolution. From the intrigues and traditional politics in the royal courts of the Oba of the great kingdom of Benin over five centuries ago to an odyssey, a classic chase and warfare in the swamps and creeks of the Western Niger Delta and finally to a recognition of the futility of war, remorse and then peace and calm – and the community and Kingdom that rose from it all – the Okere Community in today’s Warri metropolis in Nigeria and the Warri Kingdom from which that city derived its name. The play is a lucid rendition of the dramatic history of the people of these parts of the Niger Delta in Nigeria. It is told with depth, candor and some dose of artistic license that nevertheless leaves the basic historical facts intact. The language is rich and engaging, typical of the cultural wealth and heritage of the Bini and Itsekiri people of Nigeria.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Temienor Tuedon
• Release date: Jan 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311846402

Temienor Tuedon

Temienor Tuedon was born in Warri and raised in Benin, both in Southern Nigeria, West Africa. He studied Literature in English at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University) from where he graduated in 1978. After a spell as a Literature and English teacher, he embarked on a career in Human Resource Management with the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria where he was formally trained in that discipline and worked from 1981 – 1999. He obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism in 1999 and a Masters in Industrial and Labour Relations from the University of Lagos in 2002. He presently pursues mainstream occupations in farming, publishing and Human Resource Management Consulting and is based in Lagos, South-West Nigeria. He is married with children and has some six other plays as well as a text book on Human Resource Management to his credit.

Book preview

Ekpen – Tiger in the Swamps

Temienor Tuedon

Copyright 2014 By Temienor Tuedon

Published at Smashwords

ISBN 9781311846402

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DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to the eternal celebration of my native town, Okere, and to the memory of my progenitors, Ejebi of the Ogitsi-Ekpen family of Okere, Eyekonegban, Princess Igba, Tuedongheye, Gbomo and Omatseye Torkington Gbomo Tuedon.

FOREWORD

ABOUT THE PLAY AND THE PLAYWRIGHT

EKPEN – Tiger in the Swamps is the first of the three plays that make up the trilogy FROM THE WOMB OF TIME. What follows here is a preview of these three plays and a brief background of the playwright.

From the intrigues and traditional politics in the royal courts of the Oba of Benin over five centuries ago to an odyssey, a classic chase and then warfare in the swamps and creeks of the Western Niger Delta and finally to a recognition of the futility of war, remorse and then peace and calm – and the community and Kingdom that rose from it all– the Okere Community in today’s Warri metropolis in Nigeria and the Warri Kingdom from which that city derived its name. The story is told lucidly in Ekpen – Tiger in the Swamps. It is a story of historical and epic proportion, one of valour, of conflicts between duty, loyalty and conviction and of their resolution.

But on the ruins upon which a Kingdom anchored on the hope for peace was built, a war child also was spawned. The circumstances are informative and the name of the child significantly suggestive of the surreptitious incursion of some contaminating extraneous influence. The child raises her head in I am Royalty and schemes her way into the royal household. She sacrifices her two children to her vaulting ambition and vanity; and her unwary husband, caught in the web of her scheming and conceit, walks into a river to his untimely death leaving his best friend to take final possession of the bed that he had been secretly sharing. In the intense hush that ensues, friend and wife sneak out of town under the cover of night in a race against shame.

They reincarnate nevertheless, bound in love and sin, in A Cock and Hen Story (aka Adam & Eve).

Adam, a more or less schizophrenic and nagging husband, does not leave his wife, Eve, in peace as he seeks to make meaning of his existence even as his mind is cluttered by memories and notions of past lives and religious dogmas. His wife, emancipated in the extreme, would rather be a man whilst remaining a woman. Both of them slug it out in this season of anomie. They are the reason for the season. All the great questions are asked: what’s life all about - who am I - what am I doing here? – But adrift as they are, they find no footing to reach for answers. While Adam seems to have a premonition of loss, Eve is blissfully oblivious of their state and simply paddles on – which is an irony because the woman is supposed to be more intuitive than the man, a fact that underscores Adam’s despair in the play. The couple ends up swaying to the base rhythm of their animalistic sexual impulses – a definition of their real status, all considered!

On the whole, the trilogy From the Womb of Time is a dramatic rendition of a story of fate, showing how man plots his own destiny from generation to generation. From a grand odyssey and sublime self-conquest and embrace of peace in Ekpen – Tiger in the Swamps, the playwright picks up the knotty, dirty thread of a child spawned in lust during the build-up to peace in the latter play and weaves it into a character befitting its ignoble origin in the person of Oyinbo in I am Royalty (she metamorphoses into Eve in A Cock and Hen Story) to demonstrate man’s decline and journey into decadence – from the fringes of royalty to the expulsion from paradise, if you like, and their eventual re-emergence in their solitary world of anomie in A Cock and Hen Story.

Ekpen – Tiger in the Swamps is written with candor, some passion, no doubt, and a reasonable degree of artistic license that nevertheless leaves the historical facts comfortably in place. The language is rich and engaging, typical of the cultural wealth and heritage of the Bini and Itsekiri people of Nigeria. I am Royalty continues with this language to a large extent but the sheer weight of the tragedy that ensues very quickly takes precedence over finesse of language. A Cock and Hen Story, on the other hand, despite its fast-paced and often witty dialogue, lacks the elegance of the earlier plays and adopts a staccato of language styles appropriate to the purposelessness, drift and decline the playwright seeks to portray – from pseudo poetry, through the pedestrian or prosaic to regular common usage and descending many times to the level of the excremental and vulgar! There is actually an excremental motif that runs through the play with a toilet at the background that continually underscores the waste, emptiness and decay typical of this new world.

Temienor Tuedon was born in Warri and raised in Benin, both in Southern Nigeria. He studied Literature in English at the then University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (Obafemi Awolowo University today) from where he graduated in 1978. After a spell as a Literature and English teacher, he embarked on a career in Human Resource Management with the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria where he was formally trained in that discipline and worked from 1981 – 1999. He obtained a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism in 1999 and a Masters in Industrial and Labor Relations from the University of Lagos in 2002. He presently pursues a mainstream career in Human Resource Management Consulting and is based in Lagos, South-West Nigeria. He is married with children and has some other plays as well as a text book on Human Resource Management to his credit.

Ekun

CHARACTERS

Oba Olua - Oba of Benin

Prince Ginuwa - Son of Oba Olua; later Ginuwa 1 [Odin’hiname]

Iyasere - Benin Prime Minister

Ologbosere - Benin War Minister

Oshodin, Imasuen and others - Benin Chiefs

Iyatsere - Ginuwa’s Prime Minister

Ologbotsere - Ginuwa’s War Minister

Oyeifo - Ginuwa’s Sister

Ekpen [aka Ekpenede] - A Benin War General

Obayangbon - Ekpen’s son and Commander in his Army

Akataika - Commander in Ekpen’s Army

Okoro - Commander in Ekpen’s Army

Idibie & Ebohon - Diviners and Medicine Men

Various Chiefs

Ifa Priest

Warriors

Various Women and Children

THE BENIN KINGDOM BEFORE 1480 AD.

A PANORAMIC VIEW OF AN ANCIENT CITY WITH TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURE - MUD HUTS AND HOUSES WITH THATCH ROOFS, A FEW DOMESTIC ANIMALS ROAMING THE FOOTPATHS AND COMPOUNDS, CHILDREN AT PLAY, WOMEN WASHING UP AT THE STREAM AND OTHERS AT SOME FEMININE CHORES AROUND