Housing for whom? Wole Soyinka’s Beatification of Area Boy and the audacity of a new Nigeria

Growing urban Nigerian cities like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt continually record millions of poor immigrants from rural areas looking for a new survival space. To be poor in Nigeria is to be a target. Soyinka’s Beatification of Area Boy is primarily a response to the upheavals within the Nigerian society; a dramatic documentation of the different manifestations of power at different historical periods in Nigeria. Soyinka queries a manipulative ordered Nigerian society based on a pervasive and binding morality. He firmly traces this anomaly to the doors of the military, who have ruled Nigeria for a number of years after independence. A dark reminder of the journey the underprivileged has made from independence to date, Soyinka’s play is also a longing to recover Nigeria’s moral territory.