# Greg Mbajiorgu

Gregory Nnamdi Nnabike Mbajiorgu (born 24 May 1964) is a Nigerian Associate Professor of Theatre and Film Studies of the University of Nigeria Nsukka. He is a playwright, poet, and established mono dramatist who had solo-performed his first play The Prime Minister's Son, many times both inside and outside of Nigeria. Greg Mbajiorgu is one of the earliest Africans to publish a mono drama; a source recorded him as the first, another source asserts he is the foremost solo dramatist in Nigeria. He has written other plays and poetry about water scarcity and mismanagement, climate change, and the environmental effects of plastics. With Professor Amanze Akpuda, he co-edited 50 Years of Solo Performing Art in Nigerian Theatre: 1966-2016, and in 2023, he edited the 420-page book, The Power of One: An Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays, which comprises sixteen works, including his The Prime Minister’s Son and, The Gadfly by Ahmed Yerima. Greg Mbajiorgu was also former Public Relations Officer (South) of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

## Early life and education

Greg Mbajiorgu was born on 24 May 1964 to Chief Moses Sylvanus Nnabike Mbajiorgu (a former university bursar of the University of Nigeria) and Lolo Theresa Mbajiorgu. He has a twin brother (Ferdinand Nnayelugo Mbajiorgu) and he is the fourth son in a family of nine children, who are all university graduates. Greg Mbajiorgu hails from Ihiala in Ihiala LGA, Anambra State, Nigeria. From 1975, he attended the Port Harcourt Primary School, Port Harcourt, graduating in 1979; College of the Immaculate Conception (CIC), Enugu (graduating in 1984); and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he earned a B.A. degree in Theatre Arts in 1990. In 1991, Greg Mbajiorgu went for the compulsory National Youth Service Corps programmer, serving at NYSC Secretariat, Calabar. He bagged an MA degree in Theatre Arts from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, in 2002.

## Academic career

After producing a play, The Lion on Exit, for the send-forth ceremony of the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Professor Chimere Ikoku, in 1992, Greg Mbajiorgu was employed in June 1993 in the sub-department of Drama of the same university as a graduate assistant. He grew through the ranks until attaining reader or associate professor of Theatre Arts in 2017.

## Writing career

Faced with multi-facetted pressures during his NYSC programme in 1991, some of which were a desire to prove to his father that theatre arts was his passion and not mass communication which his father wanted him to study as a postgraduate course; and, the lack of enthusiasm in his fellow NYSC theatre graduates to team up with him to start a performing company, he scripted his first play, The Prime Minister's Son, which brought him into prominence in solo dramaturgy as one of the first dramatists to publish a solo play in Africa. He embarked on a national tour with the solo play. It is recorded that Mbajiorgu performed the play multiple times. Mbajiorgu also produced a documentary theatre on the poems and speeches of Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe entitled, The Hero of Heroes/ The Lion of Lions. This was commissioned in May 1996 as one of the Federal Government approved cultural presentations during the funeral activities of Nigeria's first indigenous president. In 1997, he wrote a playlet, Trial of the Fittest, which was performed at the Bridge Water Hotel, Enugu, for the end-of-year retreat of the African Institute for Applied Economics, AIAE. Greg Mbajiorgu was contracted in 2003 to create a drama on resolving water conflicts by the Office for Environmental Protection/JDP Water Programme in Enugu, with financial support from MISEREOR in Germany. He produced Wota na Wota, which is co-authored with professor Chike Aniakor. During the National Universities Games (NUGA) in 2008, the play had its first global premiere at the Arts Theatre of the University of Nigeria.
In 2009, Greg Mbajiorgu wrote a short version of the work, Wake Up Everyone (later published in 2011) to analyze the challenges of climate in Nigeria as a commissioned play for African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS), Nairobi, Kenya. In October 2012, the play, Wake Up Everyone, won the first position in the Arts/ Humanities (Research) category of the 5th Edition of the Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF) organized by the Nigerian Universities Commission at the Federal University of Technology, Minna. He also wrote a play on power, Towards a New Dawn, for the Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP) which was performed for the then president of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 at the Presidential Banquet Hall, Aso Rock, Abuja, during the 2010 Power Stakeholder’s Forum.
During his one-year sabbatical leave at the Turkish-Nile University Abuja in 2014, the Department of English and Literature held a solo dramatic festival in his honour entitled, 48 years of solo performing arts in Nigerian theatre, with reference made to his solo play The Prime Minister's son. His edited book Water Testaments: Anthology of poems on Water and Water-related Issues published in 2008, just as Wota na Wota in 2003, points at water scarcity in developing countries. Mbajiorgu also co-edited a golden jubilee text titled Songs of Gold celebrating fifty years of the writings of J. P. Clark-Bekederemo.
With Professor Amanze Akpuda, he co-edited 50 Years of Solo Performing Art in Nigerian Theatre: 1966-2016
He also wrote the poem, Plastics, Plastics Everywhere, Poetics of Environmentalism and the Paradox of our polymer Age in 2020. In 2023, he edited the 420-page book, The Power of One: An Anthology of Nigerian Solo Plays, which comprises sixteen works, including his The Prime Minister’s Son and, The Gadfly by Ahmed Yerima.

## Recognitions

Greg Mbajiorgu was inducted into the Society of Nigeria Theatre Artists (SONTA) Hall of Fame in 2013. He also received the Africa Solo Award (ASA) in 2019.

## Works

* Odo, Greg; Mbajiorgu, Greg (2011). The noisy world and other works: an anthology of poems, painting and drawings. Nigeria: University of Nigeria Press. ISBN 978-978-53040-9-1.
* Plastics Everywhere—Poetics of Environmentalism and the Paradox of Our Polymer Age,

## Select academic publications

* Mbajiorgu, G.(2018). "Betty Okotie and the Birth of Solo Play Production in Post-Colonial Nigeria", Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.12, no.1, September.
* Mbajiorgu, G. (2009). "Improvisation As A Strategy For Inventing Dynamic Solo Plays: A Study of Tunji Sotimirin's Molue". OGIRISI: A New Journal of African Studies., April 12, 6: 93–104. doi:10.4314/og.v6i1.52337