Nigerian authors mourn Stella Oyedepo - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) said its mourning with the family of Stella Oyedepo who until her untimely death in a motor accident along Lagos-Sagamu Expressway last Monday served as General Manager and the Chief executive Officer of the National Theatre, reports ITREALMS.

Mallam Denja Abdulahi, ANA National President in a statement made available to newsmen said that Dr. Mrs. Stella Oyedepo was a thorough bred prolific playwright with serious passion for drama and a committed member of ANA.

It would be recalled that her death was announced on Monday while returning to Lagos from an official trip. Her car was said to have rammed into an articulated vehicle in Sagamu along the Benin- Ijebu-Ode Expressway.

While noting that death is an inevitable end to every mortal existence, ANA President said members of the Association were, however, consoled that late Chief Stella Oyedepo, distinguished herself as an astute and exemplary playwright while serving her country as GM and the Chief executive Officer of the National Theatre.

Mallam Denja Abdulahi prayed Almighty God to grant her eternal rest and the family, the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.

Stella Moroundia Oyedepo (sometimes Stella Dia Oyedepo) (born c. 1954) is a Nigerian playwright. She died on Monday, 22nd April, 2019 in an autocrash along Shagamu-Benin Express way in Nigeria.

Oyedepo wrote over 300 plays over the course of her career; of these, only around 30 have been published. She takes as her subject daily life and problems, and her work often addresses such themes as marriage, corruption, politics, and family life. A typical example is her 1988 play The Greatest Gift, which contrasts the life of a family destroyed by the father's drunkenness with the life of a successful family. Her 2001 play Brain Has No Gender was written for the Kwara State Ministry of Education for Women-in-Science Programme. Her first play, Our Wife is Not a Woman, was written in 1979. Oyedepo's origins are from Ondo State. She trained as a linguist, and for some time in the 1980s she served as Senior Principal Lecturer at the Kwara State College for Education in Ilorin. She has also served as director of the Kwara State Council for Arts and Culture. Many of her plays were commissioned for specific occasions.

ANA members who attended the 1999 Convention in Ilesa and the 2000 Convention in Jos would recall the spice she added to those conventions with the performances of the Kwara State Council for Arts and Culture Troupe which she led at those periods.

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