The Queen who filled the stage with her regal presence; who held audiences bound with the spell of words and transfixed eager eyes with the magic of dance has left!
Dr. Stella Moroundia Oyedepo, teacher, playwright, song-composer, costumier par excellence, theatrical director, Director-General of the National Theatre and National Troupe has passed away.
It was in 1993 that I met Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo. Though the encounter spanned only a few months; it remained the single most important force that led me into literary and artistic adventure. I had been drafted alongside a few fellow students of GSS Ilorin to represent the school in a schools’ contest at a programme organised by the Kwara State Council for Arts & Culture under the directorship of Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo. At the venue of the event, realising much to my surprise that it was a Play Reading/literature contest for schools in Kwara State and not an essay writing competition as I had thought, I expressed my reservation to the accompanying school teacher. I was a science student and was at odds with the idea of being asked to go into a contest in a matter that squarely revolved around literature.
Perhaps I had been drafted in to join the team based on my position as president of the school’s literary and debating society, but, I had never sat in a literature class.
Following my hesitation to participate, an official of the Kwara State Council for Arts & Culture ushered me and the accompanying teacher to the office of the Director, Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo, she having been briefed of the ensuing puzzle. She looked up from her table and after the ritual of pleasantries, declared in my direction, ‘You are here already so you are going to participate in the contest!’. Afterwards, she reeled out a long list of names and explained to me that all those were acclaimed playwrights, poets, novelists and literary icons who primarily pursued science disciplines and still made their marks in the world’s literary landscape. John Keats was one of the names that stuck in my memory in that encounter.
I went on to participate in the contest and came 4th winning a consolation prize in the contest. Of course, I was thrilled.
After the event, I went back the next day to express my gratitude for her encouragement. I was told to wait, ‘Director is in the theatre’ an official told me but promised to get her informed of my presence.
After another 15 minutes or so, a young lady, barefoot and in colourful costumes came around, ‘are you Adigun from GSS?’
‘Yes’ I replied.
‘Oya, follow me’ she beckoned, as she led me dance-like in a conduit of paths and stairs through the largely wooden prefabricated structure of the Kwara State Council for Arts & Culture which was at that time located adjacent to the Ilorin Post Office (the Council is now located at its permanent site in Geri-Alimi). As we approached the rendezvous, rhythmic drumbeats and melodies could be heard until we finally arrived at the theatre. It was a little world in itself. I was now completely enveloped in a cloud of thunderous drumbeats, dancing, songs and refrains. Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo was in her full theatrical spirits. She acknowledged my presence and pointed at a few seats beneath the stage. I sat and watched. For about 45 minutes, I was enthralled – it was the rehearsal for a new play.
For the next 3 months or so, these visits and rehearsals observatory became part of my routine and represented my baptism into the literary firmament and the world of theatre arts. Later that year, I finished at the GSS Ilorin and gained admission to the University of Ibadan to study medicine & surgery. The exposure at the Ilorin Council for Arts & Culture however had left an indelible imprint in my mind – theatre arts and literature had become irretrievably ingrained into my psyche. By the time I resumed at U.I, I had virtually finished reading all of John Keats poetry as well as many other classics related to literary parsonages of that ilk.
A few years after leaving medical school, I found myself deeply and easily integrated into the community of the literati. Indeed, in Abuja literary circles, many at first interaction felt I was a lecturer of literature. Credit for these positive experiences goes to one mentor only – Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo. She it was that instructed me to remove all walls from my mind and imagine the world as an open space. I remember very clearly her instructive lesson during those few months, that science itself is an art and that the world is a stage – a big theatre with all humans as the cast.
Her passage to the immortal realm on Easter Monday, April 22, 2019 is personally painful to me for I have been unable to meet her again for the past 26 years. I have been unable to give her a report of what her cheering-on had done; I have been unable to show to her how the impact of her brief mentorship has brought out the arts and artist in ‘the quiet boy from GSS’. That wish will now go unfulfilled.
Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo was a Queen of the theatre. Without argument, with over 300 written and staged plays, she was the most prolific playwright from Africa. A clearly revolutionary and bold playwright, she was also the most commissioned playwrights with endorsed commissions from many Republics across different continents. Under her leadership, the Kwara State Council for Arts and Culture grew to great national and international reckoning. Meritoriously assuming the leadership of the National Theatre and National Troupe as Director-General one year ago, her Midas touch and commitment to Arts development were already yielding fruits in the transformation of that national legacy when she left the stage.
Her very first staged play was in 1979, Our Wife is not a Woman. Among her many other notable works are: The Greatest Gift, Burn the Fetters, Vigil for the Prisoner of Conscience, Beyond the Dark Tunnel, Doom in the Dimes, The Mad Doctor, Don’t Believe What You See, The Twelfth Wife, My Daughter is an Egg, Alice! Oh Alice!, Blindfolded by Fate, Rebellion of the Bumpy-Chested, At the Devil’s Mercy, Days of Woe, See!, Worshippers of the Naira, The Gentle Heart that Bleeds, Brain has no Gender, The Missing Ingredient, Survive, We Will, and hundreds more.
With a heart bowed in grief for the early exit and yet bound in gratitude for the unquantifiable impacts of her personality and works, I celebrate the life that Dr. Stella Dia Oyedepo lived.
Who will join me to sing for the song-maker?
Who will join in this dance for the lead dancer?
People of the country
Men and women who pass by
Who will sit down with me here
Under this canopy
And chant with me softly
An elegy for a departed queen?
Moroundiya!
Custodian of countless maidens of songs
Enchanter in the house of dance
From across the two rivers
– Benue, Niger
Your children bring the finest beads, bracelets
The ones you sired with warm palms of friendship
They bring fresh ornaments of silky scarfs of songs
Songs of love for a Queen departing…
I mourn the passage of a colossal phenomenon; a rare human before whom there were no walls. It is my considered opinion that her works, hugely revolutionary, issue-driven and didactic as they are, have not received the critical attention they deserve yet in Nigeria and that she was not celebrated enough for her contributions while she was alive. Dr Stella Dia Oyedepo was the greatest exponent and revivalist of the live theatre and performance-on-demand in Nigeria. She was tireless in her commitments and impactful in her prodigious output.
I will at this juncture recommend the following:
1. The naming of the National Theatre in Lagos or a section of it after her by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
2. The naming of the Kwara State Council for Arts & Culture complex as Stella Dia Oyedepo Cultural Centre by the government of Kwara State.
3. The establishment of an annual festival of plays to showcase her notable works, starting from 2020 by the Kwara State Government.
4. The constitution of an editorial team by the Kwara State Council for Arts & Culture to work in conjunction with the family on her several manuscripts for the purposes of premiering her yet-to-be unveiled plays and also towards publishing all her plays in a single compendium.
May the comfort of God be with her beloved husband, Dr. Hezekiah Oyedepo, her children and the entire family. May she rest peacefully in the bosom of the LORD. Farewell to the Queen of the stage!
Dr. Seyi Adigun: Medical doctor/Health Management Consultant is Lead Director @ Lazforte Medicals & Head of Medicals @ Adonai Hospitals, Nassarawa State. He is a chartered insurer, poet & playwright, formerly Chairman Association of Nigerian Authors, (ANA) Abuja from 2008 – 2012. Author of A Child of Smell, Princess of the Harmattan, Prayer for the Mwalimu and other poetry collections and plays; one of his plays (Call for me my Osheni) was staged by Arojah Theatre at the National Theatre during Festina 2013 (Annual festival of the Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners) He was Chairman of the Governing Council, Kwara State College of Nursing, Oke-Ode until his voluntary resignation in December 2018.