Who is Afraid of Mongo wa Swolenka

“Africa’s past and present autocrats, all rolled into one, are here lampooned in the person of His Royal Excellency Bob Gbadarango Binyambutu Buthablaizi aka BGB², Celebrated Leader of Nubialand and Guardian of the Revolution. Steeped in a recognizable political ethic of self-aggrandizement, self-gratification, demagoguery, violence and neo-colonialism, Buthablaizi seeks to maintain his hold on power by fair or foul means. On the other hand are the forces of change, embodied in the exiled Mongo wa Swolenka and his group of home-based genuine intellectuals who must do battle, not only with an evident Gestapo machinery but also with belly-minded turncoats, to restore sanity to the land. In his one act tragi-comedy, Mongo Wa Swolenka, Mbuh Tennu Mbuh’s satirical project foregrounds the role of the intellectual in society from the Foucaultian premise that where there is power, there will be ‘strong’ opposition. The playwright’s eclecticism, witnessed in the intertextual interstices marrying aspects of African/world history, politics and literature to good effect, beautifully integrates characterization, humorous dialogue, poetry and apt diction in this wake-up call to African tyrants and intellectuals alike.”

“In this succinct yet intricately imagined and profoundly crafted play, Mbuh has returned to the question of the failed postcolonial state with a fresh breath. The play is an apt dramatization of all what has gone awry in the postcolonial nation. The playwright deftly describes this sorry state of affairs with his neologism “gunocracy” which symbolizes the complete failure of the state apparatus: failed leadership that relies on the argument of the gun to not only impose and maintain itself in power but equally to implement its anti-people policies, failed intellectualism which fails to stand up for and educate the masses but rather opts for betrayal of the popular cause and the argument of self-aggrandizement. This dense yet humorous play is set in Nubialand the representation par excellence of what every black African state has become; caught up as it were in the tragic hold of its unpleasant colonial past, the machinations of a treacherous international system and its own numerous internal tensions.”

“In Who’s Afraid of Mongo Wa Swolenka? a book launch is planned which, from information given to His Royal Excellency Gbadarango Binyambutu Buthablaisi, by a traitorous intellectual seeking preferment; and by his security agents, is a campaign led by disgruntled writers and intellectuals of Nubialand for the return of their exiled colleague and international award winner, Professor Mongo Wa Swolenka. How the celebrated leader of Nubialand and master of gunocratic politics responds to the prevailing circumstances is the nerve centre of dialogue, action and morality in the play.”