Greg Mbajiorgu Clenches First Position Overall in the Arts/ Humanities (Research Category) Of the 5th Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF)
The University
of Nigeria has taken the 2nd position in overall performance at the
NUC-organized Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF)
held at the University Gymnasium hall of the Federal University of Technology,
Gidan Kwano Campus, Minna, Niger State from October 8th to 12th,
2012. The competitive fair meant for all
universities in Nigeria was attended by mostly federal universities (including
three from the Southeast zone which are Michael Okpara University of
Agriculture, Umudike; The University of Nigeria, Nsukka and the University of
Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt). The host University, FUT, Minna, took first
position in overall performance, while five universities took the third
position in overall performance. They include Federal University, Lafia;
University of Benin, Benin; University of Ilorin, Ilorin; University of Port
Harcourt, and, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
In his keynote
address during the occasion, the Director General, National Office for
Technology
Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr. Umar Bubar Bindir, stressed the need for individual innovation, development and profound and tireless optimism in research as road map to National Transformation and Economic Prosperity.
Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr. Umar Bubar Bindir, stressed the need for individual innovation, development and profound and tireless optimism in research as road map to National Transformation and Economic Prosperity.
The University
of Nigeria also took first position in Arts/ Humanities and second position in
agriculture. This was made possible by the individual performances of the
following members of staff of the University: Professor Michael Uguru of Crop
Science Department, who took first position individual award in Agriculture
(Development Category) for his work, “Phyto-feed Technology, organic waste
management and production of high premium crops in Southern Nigeria”; Mr. Greg Mbajiorgu of Theatre and Film Studies
Department took first position overall in the Arts/ Humanities (Research
Category) for his book, “Wake Up Everyone” a dramatic discourse of the ecological crises resulting from climate change in our
world; Mr. Jeff Unaegbu of the Institute of African
Studies who took second position overall in Arts/ Humanities (Research
Category) for his book, Ode on Lagos, adjudged the longest poem in Nigeria (700 lines long); and, Pharmacist
Justus Nwaoga of the Department of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry took
second position overall in Science and Technology (Research category) for his
work, “Synergy activities of black silicon, Chlorophyll and Thiosulphite
composite in Mimosa Pudica Leaf isolates for thin film solar cell development”.
These individual
performances enabled the University of Nigeria to emerge second in overall
performance in Research and Development out of over one hundred universities in
Nigeria. In the history of the Fair so far, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka
took second position in the 2008 (3rd Edition) and first position in
the 2010 (4th Edition of the) Fair.
The NURESDEF is
meant to showcase revolutionary research and development which is going on in
our universities to the Nigerian public. It is held biennially. This year’s
theme was Research and Development: A
Road Map to National Transformation and Economic Prosperity.
GREG'S NURESDEF ABSTRACT
DRAMA AS A STRATEGY FOR SAVING OUR RURAL COMMUNITIES
IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE: WAKE UP
EVERYONE AS AN ECOLOGICAL DRAMA
BY
GREG MBAJIORGU
DEPARTMENT OF
THEATRE AND FILM STUDIES,
UNIVERSITY OF
NIGERIA, NSUKKA
E-MAIL: gregnadix@yahoo.com
MOBILE: 08050511777
Wake Up Everyone
is a drama that drives home the implication of government’s inaction in the
face of adverse effect of climate change in our rural communities. The
playwright embarked on this fact-driven drama not just with the awareness that
very little information on climate change adaptation is reaching our rural
communities, but that even most of us in urban setting, who have information on
the implication of climate change seem not to have taken any proactive step
towards finding solution to the problem of our vulnerable rural dwellers.
Mike
Shanahan’s study on climate change and the media provides a summary of other
crucial reasons that motivated my creation of Wake Up Everyone:
1. Most
media reports on climate change are confusing and contradictory, and this has
led to the public feeling disempowered and uncompelled to take positive action.
2. Climate
change is the greatest threat humans have ever faced, yet news report seems to
focus more on terrorism and socio-political crises across the globe.
3. Rural
communities in the African continent have contributed least to the looming
problem of climate change, yet they are the most vulnerable who are bound to
suffer more.
4. These
vulnerable communities must adapt, and they need financial support to do so,
yet this aspect of climate change is under reported.
5. The
voice of the most vulnerable are rarely heard in international and
intergovernmental gatherings where issues of climate change are discussed.
These are some of the contradictions in ongoing war
to bring an end to the challenge of climate change. These contradictions have
disturbed the mind of this researcher/creative artiste and compelled him to
embark on an interventionist dramaturgy that x-rays a rural society struggling
with environmental disasters at a time their Local Government Chairman is
renowned for nothing else but his sense of political ineptitude and obtuseness.
To accomplish the research and creative objective
that gave birth to this project, Wake Up
Everyone has been designed to achieve the following:
1. To
inspire our people to change the way we relate to our environment
2. To
dramatize some of the measures rural famers and dwellers can take to survive
the threat of climate change.
3. To
draw our attention and sympathy to rural dwellers who are the most vulnerable
people in our threatened planet.
4. To
emphasis the urgency of adaptation in rural African communities and the huge
cost of our failure to take necessary action when we should.
5. To
amplify the voice and viewpoints of poor rural farmers and dwellers on the
ongoing climate change debate.
6. To
expose the vested interest such as oil companies and their allies that resist
the call for positive change towards our attitude to the ecosystem.
7. To
demonstrate the interface and the interconnectedness between the science and
the arts of climate change.
8. To
offer the best dramatic techniques for telling the story of climate change in
such a way we can mobilize government and policy makers to action.
See
attached the published play and its newspaper reviews. Note also that this
play, Wake Up Everyone was performed
for ATPS Nairobi during their international conference on climate change in
2009 and for the Committee on Building Trans-disciplinary Climate Change
Adaptation Capacity at the University of Nigeria, during its inauguration.
This is powerful history archived for posterity.
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