ABSTRACT
In the programme notes to the first production of Once Upon Four Robbers (1978), Femi Osofisan provocatively states that ‘the phenomenon of armed robbery seems to be an apt metaphor for our age’ (1980: vii). He cites the gross material inequities characteristic of post-independence Nigerian society as the fundamental root of this kind of crime, suggesting that the rich are themselves robbers of the country’s oil wealth:
Take a look at our salary structures, at the minimum wage level, count the sparse number of lucky ones who even earn it … and then take a look at the squalid spending habits of our egregious ‘contractors’, land speculators, middle men of all sorts, importers, exporters, etc. Or take a look at our sprawling slums and ghettos, our congested hospitals and crowded schools, our impossible markets … and then take another look at the fast proliferation of motorcars, insurance agencies, supermarkets, chemist shops, boutiques, discotheques etc. The callous contradictions of our oil-doomed fantasies of rapid modernisation. It is obvious that as long as a single, daring nocturnal trip with a gun or machete can yield the equivalent of one man’s annual income, we shall continue to manufacture our own potential assassins.
(Osofisan 1980: vii–viii)