Theatre for development as tool for countering rural banditry: The Maganda workshop experience

Abstract

This paper examines the deployment of Theatre for Development (TfD) as a tool for countering rural banditry in northern Nigeria. The premise of our  argument is anchored on the fact that the TfD has the potentials of addressing divergent issues of community concerns however these potentials have  not been tested enough in a terrorised domain or community. The paper uses the Maganda TfD Experience, one of the five TfD workshops, which took  place in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State to contend for new approaches in gaining entrance into communities in siege, addressing  issues of development concerns and ultimately creating safe spaces for community facilitation. This paper uses Oga Steve Abah’s Methodological  Conversation to argue for an expansion of methods and approaches stemming from TfD workshops in the face of incursions and terror. The paper found  out that some of the existing TfD tools may not apply to communities under terrorist siege. The paper also discovered that the inaccessibility or paucity  of TfD workshops or reports conducted in incursive spaces affect pedagogy in terms of the adaptive processes of using TfD, especially when confronted  by terror.