My Destiny, My Choice and Hidden Sparkle by Idris Bankole Sulaiman: SYNW Books of the Month (September 2020)

 

MY DESTINY, MY CHOICE AND HIDDEN SPARKLE BY IDRIS BANKOLE SULAIMAN: SYNW BOOKS OF THE MONTH (SEPTEMBER 2020)

MY DESTINY, MY CHOICE

My Destiny, My Choice is a didactic play. It is written with a strong conviction to lift teenagers out mental dungeons that our society has put them. In these days when glamorous lifestyle seems the other of the day, the play tries to point the youth to a better path: path where hard work pays. The play paints the picture that the future is a piece of blank paper and each of us, with our actions and inaction, writes what we want our future to be; hence, the title of the play.

   The play employs lateral plots of two youths in the same tertiary institution. Akeju Oriowo, a son of a wealthy man, who chooses to waste his childhood basking in the euphoria of his father's wealth, rather than his studies. Fate plays a fast one on him when his parents died tragically in an auto crash and the lawyer reveals to him that his father's estate had suffered terribly during a recent recession and the old man had turned to banks to keep his business afloat. And now the banks own everything the he left behind. However, his father sets aside a sizable amount for his education which he can only access if he succeeds in his coming examination. Abandon by friends and girlfriends, Akeju bites his finger in utter regret.

   On the other hand, is Beeko Onilari, an orphan boy, who owes his education to a local church from their village. Beeko receives sad news from the Bishop of the church that they will not be able to fund his education further than the college. He is told he may have to take up some kind of job to be able to go to the University. About the time, the Provost of the College informs the students that a novel scholarship scheme has come the way of the institution for the best overall student that session. Beeko puts himself to task to win the scholarship. In the end, he is able to win it due to his sheer will power.

   The play is clearly an entertaining piece of writing. It is enjoyable to read and even better as stage play where the students acted out the roles themselves.

HIDDEN SPARKLE

Hidden Sparkle is a motivational play at the same time an educative one. It employs perfectly scripted dialogue to teach the students how to get the best out of their studies with well-researched psychological and philosophical facts.

   The play captures the struggle of a child with learning disability. Bodunde Oni, final year student in a secondary school, he is being maligned both at home and at school. His teachers are fed up with him in the school so they promote him so as to ease him out of school. At home, his father, Mr Oni has had enough. He has only his mother to support him. At school, one teacher in particular, biology teacher, Mr. Mongudu, makes it his business to remind him every time that he can never amount to anything in life academically. When the time for SSCE registration approaches an angel is sent to him in form of a female student, Chimamanda, who just transferred to the school. She is a girl ahead of his age having come from a educational privileged family. She decides to make friends Bodunde and counsel him on steps to take to make the best of one's studies. Eventually, Bodunde makes progress, slowly at first but get better with time. He graduates from the secondary schools and goes on to study Medicine and Surgery at the University and later becomes a Neurosurgeon. The play concludes when, Mr Mongudu, in his old age , suffers Parkinson    disease and Bodunde, now a doctor, is brought in to treat him. Whatever mind can conceive, it can achieve is the ultimate lesson from the play and that no one is defeated until he or she acknowledges the defeat.

   The play is very easy  to perform in a school environment or on any occasion. It is entertaining as it is educative and the lessons learnt stays with the students forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Author, Idris Bankole Sulaiman, hails from Osogbo in Osun State. He is an educator per excellence. He is also a scriptwriter as well as playwright. He believes in educating our youths right by having the common sense to tell them the truth about where our country and continent presently stands.