nativeimmiGrant II – efiewurasuame
How does one become foreign to the self, alien to the others and nonexistence to be protected by law and by his own people? What are those multiplicities or binaries that exist beyond being human: Class, race, gender, religion, cultures, politics, and ethnicity or …? Could we ever be at ease? Is there any home as home, foreign as foreign and stranger as stranger?
“The paradox is our story, the metaphor our life, the irony ourselves…”
“nativeimmiGrant II – efiewurasuame” will explore the iconography and symbolic gestures of Nigeria- Ghana expulsion of the 1969 and 1983 reminding us of the visible metaphors in contemporary conditions and narratives of citizenship while evoking debates on Trans- Cultural Revolution, xenophobic threats, socially excluded citizens, the tensions between modernity, indigeneity, post-colonialism and immigration.
Expulsion has been critical and most traumatic moments for individuals, groups and families throughout African history and many black communities. The concept of nationalism, alien, citizenry and otherness has expanded beyond human sense of belonging, patriotism and cultural identity to the state of being paranoid and vulnerable hence the necessity to flee danger, death, humiliation and torture.
According history, 1969 recorded ‘Nigeria-must-go’, which resulted from a decree from the government of Ghana requesting all non-citizens without permit to exit within two weeks, repeating the revers 13 years later in Nigeria. In 1983, the Nigerian government expelled more than a million Ghanaian migrants a few, the largest exodus in the West African history given the name ‘Ghana-must-go’ to the chequered bag uses by most Ghanaians for their luggage.
The performance also questions our own sense of belonging and identity, and the contemporary narratives of human displacements spiritually, physically and psychologically as we may culturally be removed from [home].