"Ah, but it's the Gondwanan!" exclaims the Nigerien police officer when he discovers that the driver he wanted to check is none other than comedian Mamane. He immediately stands to attention and salutes as if he were standing before a powerful head of state. Then he bursts out laughing.
We are not in the "Very, Very Democratic Republic of Gondwana" with its "founding president," invented by Mamane to criticize poor governance and the lack of democracy, but in Niamey, the capital of Niger, his native country.
"Police officers in Africa sometimes call me 'president'. It's a kind of African irony, a way of laughing but also of criticizing the system. A form of resilience," says Mamane, a true star in French-speaking Africa, where his Gondwana chronicle on RFI and Le Parlement du rire (The Parliament of Laughter) on Canal+ Afrique, in which he plays the president of a grotesque National Assembly, are all the rage.
Despite a schedule busier than a minister's, Mamane, author, actor, director (Bienvenue au Gondwana), producer, and businessman, found the time to come to Niamey for a show during the recent African Union summit, while overseeing plans for a comedy school he hopes to open in two or three years.
"We weren't invited to the AU summit, so Gondwana invited itself. Gondwana is coming to claim its place in the concert of nations," jokes Mamane, 52, before adding: "I am Gondwanese because Africa is my continent. But I am proud to have Nigerien blood running through my veins."
– Junk food and cannibals –
Born in Agadez, the son of a senior civil servant, he traveled around the prefectures and embassies of Africa in his youth before returning to Niamey to take his high school diploma and then enter Haro Banda University.
He then moved to France to study plant physiology. "That's where I went from plants to the stage," he says, first in theater and then as a comedian in Paris, opening for artists such as Ray Lema and Manu Di Bango.
"Gondwana" was born during those years. "It was the era of 'junk food' (…) and one of the recurring stereotypes about Africa is cannibalism: I turned the problem on its head with a cannibal who worries about the quality of his food."
Mamane hopes that Africa and his country will emerge from "Gondwana." He is doing his part by soon launching the construction of a comedy school, where he plans to bring together all the performing arts professions and which will function as a conservatory.
"It's up to us to take charge, to make plans in Niger, otherwise we'll spend our lives going to Dakar, Abidjan, Lomé, or Paris to do things. In the 1960s and 70s, there were great sub-regional schools in Niamey, which was a crossroads. That needs to come back."
African actors should not be forced, as I was, to go to Paris to get a foot in the door," he continues. "A comedian can't go and live in Paris, Chelsea, or Manchester like footballers. He has to be with the people he pokes fun at and live the reality every day."
"It's my life's work" –
On the outskirts of the city, Mamane walks across a deserted plot of land bordering poor houses and where starving sheep graze. "The school will rise up on this sand," he explains. "Talent will blossom (…) This school is my life's work."
"It costs a lot of money, but the money is there," he says, assuring that he has the support of "the Nigerien government and international financial institutions," without revealing the amounts involved.
He thus intends to "offer opportunities for young people in a region, the Sahel, which is today at the center of global geopolitics with jihadism and emigration." And to say that "we can create jobs here in Africa."
In his view, it is necessary to create "training centers in comedy, but also in much more manual trades."
This is a courageous project, given that some Islamists do not appreciate or even condemn the performing arts. The International Festival of African Fashion (FIMA), founded by the famous Nigerian designer Alphadi, has long been under pressure. In 2000, its premises were vandalized.
"What jihadists don't like is to see people living their lives and embracing their freedom. They want to recruit people and lay down the law," Mamane laments.
"We are all Muslims, Christians," says the man who wants to found "a school to teach people freedom, love of life. Living together is what we want."
Source: AFP