When Oteikwu Emmanuel Adah’s Apa (Scar) closed at the Lagos Fringe Festival 2024, audiences left Freedom Park with heavy hearts and important questions about abuse, trauma, and healing. The play, which tackled child molestation and societal neglect, earned IdomaLion Creations recognition as first-time participants with a sold-out show.
Twelve months later, Adah returned to the same Main Stage with Through the Rays, a production that traded the intimacy of family trauma for the sprawling devastation of communal betrayal and national insecurity. The 2025 festival’s theme, “Hybrid Identities: Merging Boundaries,” invited creatives to explore how borders are blurring, cultures are intersecting, and identities are evolving, providing the perfect framework for Adah’s newest work.
The play premiered at Freedom Park during the festival’s November 18-23 run, telling the story of two brothers, Ogaku and Omeche, whose community is torn apart by external forces and internal betrayal. What could have been a straightforward narrative about insecurity in Nigeria became something more complex through Adah’s lens: an examination of how greed, selfishness, and tribal bigotry make us complicit in our own destruction.
“We are the enemies of ourselves,” Adah insists. “If my brother or sister is not too self-centred and greedy, those who sneak in to harm us wouldn’t have such power. For an attack to be successful, there is either a traitor or a spy.”
From Personal Grief to National Tragedy
The genesis of Through the Rays began in pain. Adah had known since 2024 that he would return to Lagos Fringe, determined “to create bigger and better platforms for my team and I.” The idea itself took over six months to develop mentally as he tried to juxtapose the communal unity and brotherliness he experienced growing up with the violence tearing through communities today.
The turning point came with the Yalewata killings in Benue State. “I had wanted to carry out a peaceful protest on 3rd Mainland Bridge in regards to the killings,” Adah recalls. “But someone told me that going with what happened at the Lekki Toll gate, it will be risky for me to do so.”
Rather than become “a tragic victim in the Naija story,” Adah channeled his anger and grief into the play. The decision proved transformative, allowing him to address senseless killings and the abuse of fundamental human rights without putting himself at physical risk.
His personal connection to the crisis runs deep. In 2020, during the pandemic, Adah traveled home to spend time with his mother and found his village under siege. “Church service was done in hiding because at the time, the Fulani herdsmen were seriously troubling my village,” he explains. “It got to the point that my cousin, a medical student, had to take turns guarding the village by hiding in bushes with sticks as against the weapons of mass destruction they willed.”
By 2022, his cousin told him about a crippled man who dove into a gutter when news spread of an impending attack. “It was an ear sore,” Adah says. “I look at my village, a once peaceful place where dreams were molded, now a hideout zone where to live you need to hide.”
The land is becoming deserted as people flee to western states like Ondo and Ogun where they can continue farming safely. “Looking back to how we grew up and juxtaposing it with the current madness, I ask myself, where did we get it wrong?”
Brotherhood as Lens, Not Shift
Adah resists the idea that Through the Rays represents a departure from Apa (Scar).While the earlier play spoke to abuse and mental, emotional, and physical trauma, the new work speaks to the importance of community through brotherhood.
“I won’t say there is really a shift in the telling of the story,” Adah clarifies. “I think it is rather using a 35MM lens in place of the 50MM lens that was used in telling the Apa (Scar) story.”
Both plays function as dramatic satire, revealing ills in society with the aim of correcting them. “Our work is never to judge and that is why most times they are open ended so the audience can draw conclusions to the whole matter,” he says.
Where others were making skits and content from situations of urgent concern, trivializing the madness to gain social media followers, Adah saw his duty differently. “As a Creative, our first point of duty is to be the eye of the society and I rose to my obligation.”
The play doesn’t limit itself to one form of division. Adah deliberately included tribal conflicts, religious intolerance, and tribal bigotry in the storytelling. “For Nigeria to attain the God-given heights, we all (Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Idoma, Tiv) and other tribes in Nigeria must accept that we are one and the success of one is success for all.”
The Cost of Fear: Niffy Akorah’s Omeche
Niffy Akorah, who played Omeche, found herself drawn to the role for reasons that went beyond the script. “What drew me to my character was the honesty she carried and how real she was,” Akorah explains. “I felt like she was a human version of the pain that a lot of people in Nigeria are carrying at the moment.”
Omeche is someone deeply hurt and profoundly scared. “Every action she took was driven by fear; even when she was angry, it was because she was scared. She was almost like a hurting child.”
Underneath the pain and fear, Omeche remained soft, kind, and loving. Circumstances forced her to become “this hard, frightened shell of herself,” and that weight drew Akorah to the character.
Preparing for the role came naturally despite Akorah never having experienced war personally. “I have heard stories and seen what war has done to people,” she says. “I have imagined how much worse their situations could have been.”
The connection became easier when she considered Nigeria’s current reality. “Although we are not officially at war in our country, it often feels like there is a fire burning around us and we are all pretending not to see it. It is like staring at a fire and acting as though it does not exist.”
Akorah took that feeling of paralyzed fear and heightened it. “Instead of standing still and staring at the fire, everyone is running. Being in that headspace made it easy for me to fit into my character.”
The most challenging scene came when Omeche realizes the child she’d been trying to protect all along is dead. “It was difficult because this child had driven all her decisions throughout the play. The child was the reason she took risks and almost got herself killed, only for her to realise at the very end that the reason for all that pain, chaos, and destruction did not exist anymore.”
Worse still, she had accidentally killed the child herself. “Disbelief, shock, denial (it felt like all the stages of grief happening in a split second),” Akorah says.
The scene connects to many Nigerian lives where people do terrible, hard, and hurtful things only to later realize that what they were fighting for never existed or was never worth it.
Audience reactions surprised Akorah. “At the end of the play, when my character died, it was always shocking to see how sad or angry people were. They truly sympathised with her.”
The depth of care troubled her in a way she didn’t expect. “In today’s world, there are people just like my character who are going through so much and suffering quietly, yet no one pays attention because everyone is consumed by their own pain. That is why it was surprising to see people care so deeply about my character’s pain when, in real life, we often struggle to do the same for others.”
The Sponsorship Struggle
Funding remained a critical challenge. Adah began writing to companies in May 2025, giving them ample time to consider proposals for support. Almost all of them turned him down.
“I was at the verge of giving up until I got my first YES from Ecobank Nigeria (Lagos Island 1 Region) through the help of Mr. Ezemakam Azukaego,” he recalls. “It was a strength renewing experience.”
Ecobank’s support enabled something Adah had prayed for: bringing students from underserved public secondary schools within Lagos State to experience the performance. “The Festival team gave us a special day for the students to come watch, learn and interact with Cast and Crew members.”
The first school attended a performance of “Esther’s Revenge,” another production at the festival. “Just before our show, a mighty rain fell and just after the show, the rain resumed for almost two more hours,” Adah notes. “It was the only time we experienced a downpour in the course of the Festival. If you know, you know.”
Item7go restaurant came through at a critical moment. “More than nine were saved by the YES that we got from the restaurant,” Adah says. “It is a humbling experience for me and gives me more reasons to trust in God and putting Him first in everything.”
He also thanked friends who supported the project before it reached the stage, the leadership of Wesley Methodist Church Ikoyi for providing space for dress and tech rehearsal, and everyone who called to advise and encourage. “I see this also as a means of sponsorship because those calls and messages came at a time I needed a word to push through.”
Teaching the Next Generation
Performing for student audiences held special significance for Adah, who didn’t have similar opportunities growing up. “I remember a friend used to tell me to go to the old National Theatre to see how Creative Artists do their thing but I never had the opportunity to go because really I don’t know how it operates.”
He went on to study Theatre Arts at the University of Lagos with knowledge from school and church drama. “Although it wasn’t new entirely, what could have helped my practical prowess was lacking because I didn’t get enough orientation (practical).”
For Apa (Scar),the ratings were high, but while writing “Through the Rays,” Adah prayed silently for the grace to bring students from underserved schools. “God answered that prayer through the singular sponsorship that came from Ecobank Nigeria (Lagos Island 1 Region).”
The students are the future of the nation, he reasons, and they needed to understand the importance of brotherhood and togetherness early in life. After the performance, “they were really invested in Ogaku and Omeche because they truly fought for the peace of the land, but just like most who had left us, they are nothing but tragic victims in a story they could have become heroes.”
Akorah noticed the difference between student and adult audiences. “For the student audience, we consciously toned things down a bit. Even though the message of the play was important and needed to be communicated, we were mindful of not overwhelming them with imagery or emotions that might be too graphic or heavy.”
With adult audiences, “everything felt tighter and more intense. We leaned fully into the weight of the story (the pain, anger, fear, and loss) because we trusted that they could sit with those emotions and reflect on them.”
Total Theatre: Dance as Narrative
The dance director brought genius to the production, according to Adah. Once he sees and reads the script, he shares his vision of the dances that will suit the story. From there, the dance team draws up a skeletal frame for the whole production, deciding where dances should come in. “They always come up with a perfect sync,” Adah says.
His approach stems from a belief in total theatre, one that involves music, dance, and drama. “This could be due to the fact that I grew up with a grandfather who loves telling folktales and folktales to resonate, folklores are introduced.” In telling authentic African stories, you cannot neglect the inclusion of dance and music, he insists.
Dance was incorporated to increase dramatic suspense in a captivating manner. “Dance in itself in the performance tells a significant story and it sets the pace and tone at which the story unfolds.”
The Main Stage at Freedom Park allowed the team to play with lighting to heighten moods and draw attention. “Trust my team, we used the most of it and I am sure the stage enjoyed our company,” Adah says.
Audience Reflections
Erukakpomre Promise Obruche attended twice. His first time was to support a brother and enjoy a good play. “The second day was to follow the story and the characters’ words because I loved what I saw the first time.”
He described the experience as “wonderful and impactful.” What stood out most was “when peace came but because of greed and selfish interest they lost it.” He was particularly stunned “when Ogaku was narrating how his wife was raped and killed right in his very before.”
The themes resonated deeply. “Greed and selfishness is our everyday life here in Nigeria and Africa. The play touched every angle that needed to be touched and it addresses a lot of societal norms and values.”
For Obruche, the play created a new world in his mind while playing back memories of the past.
Another audience member found the turning point when a character broke the calabash that depicted peace, swinging the entire play in another direction. The play showcased Nigeria and its struggles, “the real mostly unspoken issue,” depicting what Nigeria really looks like presently for those who only hear about it.
The production inspired new thoughts about peace and healing. “I got to see Nigeria through another lens. The fact that some people actually live a privileged life and do not know what really is going on outside of their home. And people are actually broken. Either by the system or themselves, people are broken.”
Looking Forward
Adah has learned crucial lessons between Apa (Scar) and Through the Rays. The biggest concerns publicity and sponsorship. “During Apa (Scar) we concentrated more on internal publicity and really didn’t get good sponsorship,” he admits. “I was crude in every sense, I didn’t quite understand a lot about reaching out to brands for support, there was no physical fliers, no merchandise.”
He applied those lessons to Through the Rays with physical marketing materials and external outreach. “It is not the result we wanted but the connections made externally is worth it and I believe with the help of God, it will go from better to best as we continue on this path of telling authentic African stories.”
The ambitions for Through the Rays mirror those for Apa: tours to schools, communities, stages, and countries. “These stories are neo-African stories shaping the Theatre experience and the only way we can achieve that is when more eyes get to see it.”
For young theatre producers still struggling with funding challenges, Adah advises himself first. “I will advise myself that I don’t own a monopoly of connections, I will seek help and open up more to people, most especially those in my immediate circles. They have the right connections for my level and as we grow, we can interact with presidents of states and movers and shakers of industries.”
As for the future of IdomaLion Creations, Adah gives glory to God for the privileges. “We are a growing company producing excellent and authentic African narratives. What next? ‘Owa lowo Olorun’ (It’s in the hands of God). Wherever He leads, I follow.”
One thing remains certain: they won’t quit. “We will keep telling until He calls me home and the telling won’t still stop because IdomaLion Creations is beyond the person of IdomaLion.”
At a moment when Nigeria grapples with insecurity that has displaced communities and shattered the trust that once bound neighbors together, “Through the Rays” offers something necessary: a mirror held up to collective complicity. The play doesn’t offer easy answers or false hope. Instead, it asks audiences to confront an uncomfortable truth, that betrayal from within can be as destructive as any external threat.
The calabash of peace, once broken, cannot simply be mended. Tragic victims like Ogaku and Omeche remind us that good intentions don’t guarantee survival, and that the cost of division is measured in lives lost and communities destroyed.
For the students who watched from Freedom Park’s Main Stage, the message was clear: the Nigeria they inherit depends on the choices they make about unity, trust, and brotherhood. For adult audiences, the play served as both indictment and warning, we are running out of time to change course.
As one crew member reflected, “Through the Rays” represents “light on harsh realities of insecurity in Nigeria, about overcoming challenges or finding hope.” The play contributes to Nigerian theatre by tackling tough topics using theatre to reflect and address real issues while encouraging dialogue and reflection on pressing matters.
Two years, two sold-out shows, two unflinching examinations of Nigeria’s deepest wounds. Oteikwu Emmanuel Adah and IdomaLion Creations have established themselves as voices willing to tell the stories others turn into content, willing to hold up mirrors when others prefer filters.
Through the rays of harsh truth, perhaps we can finally see ourselves clearly enough to change.