Decolonial Aesthetics and the Radical Stage: Constructing a Theory of Resistant Performance in Post-Oil-Boom Nigeria

This dissertation develops an original theoretical framework of decolonial aesthetics as a critical instrument for analysing radical stage performance in post-oil-boom Nigeria. The dramatic conditions of post-oil-boom Nigeria, characterised by economic precarity, political corruption, and cultural displacement, have generated a significant body of performance work that explicitly confronts the neocolonial structures of Nigerian political economy. Existing critical frameworks for analysing political theatre in Nigeria remain largely derivative of Western decolonial and postcolonial theory and inadequately attentive to the specific material and cultural conditions of performance in Nigeria. This research constructs an original theoretical apparatus drawing on Achille Mbembe's postcolony theory, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's decolonising the mind framework, and empirically derived performance analysis of twelve radical stage productions staged between 2018 and 2024. Fieldwork involved production attendance, director and actor interviews, and critical reception analysis. The dissertation finds that decolonial aesthetics in post-oil-boom Nigerian theatre operate through what the research terms tactics of performative refusal: the systematic rejection of colonial theatrical conventions in favour of indigenous aesthetic vocabularies as acts of political sovereignty. This concept constitutes the dissertation's principal original theoretical contribution. Keywords: decolonial aesthetics, radical stage, Nigerian theatre, post-oil-boom, resistant performance.