Theatre, Memory, and Nation-Making in Nigeria: A Critical Genealogy of National Performance from 1960 to the Present

This dissertation undertakes a critical genealogy of national performance in Nigeria from independence in 1960 to the present, investigating how theatre has participated in the contested processes of nation-making, national identity construction, and public memory formation across six decades. Theatre's relationship with the Nigerian nation-state is a complex and often contradictory one, encompassing both official cultural nationalism and subversive critical resistance, and the full scope of this relationship has not been systematically historicised. The research employs a genealogical methodology drawing on Foucauldian historical analysis, postcolonial theory, and performance historiography, working with archival materials from the National Theatre Archives, the Ibadan Arts Theatre records, university drama programme archives, and newspaper performance criticism across the study period. Original interviews with veteran practitioners supplement archival research. The dissertation identifies five distinct phases in the genealogy of national performance in Nigeria, characterised by shifting relationships between the state, the market, ethnic cultural assertion, and transnational performance influence. An original contribution is the dissertation's theorisation of performative nationalism as a dynamic and contested cultural field in which theatre serves simultaneously as state apparatus, oppositional space, and market commodity. Keywords: national performance, genealogy, Nigerian theatre, nation-making, performance historiography.