The history of the Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance (NPTA) has its roots in the beginning of the Drama programme in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. In 1975 drama began to be offered as a course of study from within the Department of English where its operations and modalities were under the auspices of a Sub-Department of Drama. The programme, which the sub-department set out to offer, was a combination of the traditional Western Drama as practiced in most Universities in Nigeria at the time; and in addition, a radically participatory drama unknown to Nigerian Universities in 1975.  The drama on offer therefore was a practice of interrogating the relationship of the discipline to the ‘real’ society outside of the four walls of the University. In other words, its vision was beyond the ivory tower. It tapped its method(s) of operation from the cultural expressions and actions of the its surrounding communities and distilled these with the Western dramatic practice- no, perhaps tested the Western theories against the wisdoms of these autochthonous peoples around the University environment. 

Today the testimony to these community interactions and interrogations are evidenced in the Samaru Project and Community Theatre practices. The remote history of NPTA lies in the Drama programme of Ahmadu Bello University whose agenda confluence with NPTA’s. But the immediate motivation for the founding of NPTA itself were rooted in the gaps inherent in a purely academic practice, whose agenda was limited and engagement with communities short-lived. NPTA set out to engage more and speak more with communities on their development stories and aspirations. After 31 years of operations, we are still telling stories, and changing lives in our little ways!

On May 1, 2000, the Theatre for Development Centre (TFDC) was set up with support from the Ford Foundation. TFDC is the training and research unit of the Nigerian Popular Theatre Alliance. It is also affiliated to the Department of Theatre and Performing Arts, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. The location of the Centre in the University’s main campus in Samaru is to enable the Centre further its research goal and to function as a laboratory for training students in the methodology of Theatre for Development as research tool and as a strategy for development intervention.