Modern African dramaturgy is a re-enactment of native historical, political, economic and socio-cultural variables interfused with elements and modes of the west, which is a clear pointer to its dual heritage. This study, therefore, deploys Stephen Greenbalt’s New Historicism, as it privileges cultural context and history, to explore the struggle for sovereignty and nation building in Ola Rotimi’s Akassa You Mi. The main aim is not only to unravel the power play and concomitant rupturing of relations between the British (represented by the Royal Niger Company) and the natives in the ancient Akassa Kingdom of present-day Bayelsa State of Nigeria but also, perhaps more importantly, to essentialize the enduring virtues of unity of purpose and selfless leadership as a sine qua non for a hitch-free and viable contemporary Nigeria.
Keywords: Akassa You Mi, Contemporary Nigeria, Nation Building, Ola Rotimi, Sovereignty., struggle
