The Nation Newspaper

Category: Life – The Midweek Magazine

  • ‘The trumpet moves me spiritually’

    ‘The trumpet moves me spiritually’

    Biodun Adebiyi, otherwise known as Biodun Batik is not only a lecturer in Dramatic Arts at the Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, he is also one of the most outstanding jazz musicians in the country at the moment.  A prominent Saxophonist, Batik participated in the last Lagos International Jazz Festival, where he shared his experiences, high and low moments as an entertainer, teacher and music instructor and more with Edozie Udeze.  Excerpts

    With the stage name of Biodun Batik, the type characteristic of most jazz musicians, Biodun Adebiyi has indeed moved a bit higher in his career.  A thorough-bred saxophonist, he has been into this sort of entertainment for over fifteen years where he has somewhat carved a niche for himself.

    As a teacher and a molder of characters, he finds it easier to reach out to his people via the melodious rendition of music.  “Yes,” he began with an aplomb of gusto in his voice, “I teach music at the Lagos State University where I answer Biodun Adebiyi.  But while on stage, I am simply known as Biodun Batik.  I have been at the music department of LASU for about thirteen years during which I have encountered and groomed so many students.”

    When Biodun is not too engaged with his students, he runs his jazz band, “when you talk of jazz in this part of the world, or the type of music where you have so many instruments – horns and so on.  That is why Femi Kuti, Lagbaja, Professor Laz Ekwueme in his days, all of whom played well.  All these people traveled round the world to play at world jazz festivals.  So, for me, I play African jazz,” he said.

    About his role at the 3rd Lagos Jazz Festival, Biodun was first of all grateful to the organizers for their interest in this genre of music.  “The first edition was in 2008 and I played there.  It was hosted by Ayo Sadare.  And believe me what the guy is doing is great.  Around here, the kind of music he is promoting is not appreciated by many.  Art music, simply put, is music that is not in anyway popular.  This includes Western classical music like jazz.  This also includes Apala music here in Nigeria.  Yet we have the popular ones that the people can always yearn for.  This is a high breed of African, a little bit Western, put together like hippo and all that…  But you see, popular music is popular in principle, theory and in practice.  Popular music attracts the most attention even in all climes of the world.”

    He gave examples with Whizzkid, Davido and the rest whom he described as the rev of the moment.  “The kind of crowd you see here today, if it is Davido or so, it will be more than this.  As a popular music, you only need to do a little advert and people would be here in thousands.  But our own brand of music is for the elite.  It is indeed enlist both in terms of composition and the pattern of presentation.  You must be a real art enthusiast and so to be in tune with jazz music.  It is a music that paints the picture of life through the usage of instruments.  It is to depict the mood and the inner feelings of people.  That is why I said I just feel for Sadare for having the time and the resources to organize this sort of show.”

    Although, to him, jazz music may not be totally Western in terms of origin, Biodun however believes it is a fusion of African percussion.  “Western, African and Afro-Cuban percussion give you the right source for jazz.  They all come together to produce that unique sound that sends people asking for more.  Western instruments and musical form those are the things that come together to give you jazz tunes.  In all you still have the African effect.”

    But must jazz always be made an elitist form of music in every sense?  “Ah, generally, there is no way you cannot make it elitist.  No way.  Let us even talk about some other media, like painting and all that.  Enter where they are doing art exhibition.  All you see are big people, rich men and women.  Hardly you ever see a poor man buying art works.  What will he do with it?  He doesn’t even know the value not to talk of entering an exhibition hall.  This is also the sort of euphoria surrounding jazz music.  So it cannot change, it cannot be made for everybody.

    “At times a jazz musician would be playing, someone like my grandmother in the village would ask; who is this one making noise?  But to the elite, to the informed person, that is good music.  That is why the orientation and appreciation of jazz cannot change.”

    Biodun also elaborated on the role of some traditional instruments that without them jazz ensemble or arrangement is not complete.  “Oh, let me explain this in two ways.  “Historically jazz actually started as an acoustic sort of music.  Acoustic because when jazz music started, some instruments were hard to come by.  So, then, you had double bass, then you have fido bass.  You have trumpet, you have drums, you have banjo.  So, you also have piano.  These are the basic ones that give the rendition its proper blend.  These are instruments you don’t electrical connect to play on stage.  And that was how jazz started.  People like Louis Amstrong, King Oliver, then gave new phase to jazz.  They are the masters of all times.”

    As a trumpet player, Biodun revealed that once he handles the instrument he is in another world.  “Trumpet appeals to me spiritually.  Of course I started from the church.  The oldest instruments, even when you check the Bible is the trumpet.  It was used to fall the wall of Jericho.  That shows you how powerful it is and that is what it does to me when I handle it.  It touches my heart; or moves me both physically and spiritually.”

     

  • Enwezor curates spectacular exhibitions

    Enwezor curates spectacular exhibitions

    Hundreds of knives studded into the ground to resemble spiky flowers; a four-metre wall of battered suitcases; a grainy video of a man choking; the words “Death Love Hate” revolving on a circular neon: these are the first works you see inside Okwui Enwezor’s exhibitions at the Giardini and the Arsenale. Spectacular and unassailable, they announce this curator’s themes and concerns: violence, deportation, oppression, the essential role of language in art. Adel Abdessemed calls his knife-blossoms “Nympheas”, defying lineages of beauty after Monet. In a gap between his trunks and valises, Fabio Mauri has slipped a paper explaining that his work “The Western Wall or the Wailing Wall” references journeys of no return to Auschwitz and modern migrations. Christian Boltanski’s “L’Homme qui tousse” (1969) and Bruce Nauman’s “Life, Death, Love, Hate, Pleasure, Pain” (1983) are classic distillations of claustrophobia and fear heralding a dark, troubling biennale.

    Enwezor, Venice’s first African curator, called for a “parliament of forms” of global contributions. But his own vision is so powerful that he has swept up all voices into an epic display of protest. With lively national pavilions (see below) rising to his challenge, he orchestrates a multi-part chorus which rings out as the most cohesive, authoritative, arresting, urgent biennale for decades.

    For Iceland, Christoph Büchel transforms the disused church Santa Maria della Misericordia into a simulated yet actual environment, “The Mosque” — Venice has never had one — welcomed by the city’s Muslim community. Qibla wall, mihrab, prayer mat facing Mecca are juxtaposed with the Catholic architecture: analogy for layers of history and religion fuelling both progress and conflict.

    For Poland at the Giardini, CT Jasper and Joanna Malinowska record the staging of a Polish opera in a Haitian village, with animals criss-crossing the set, to question cultural identities and colonisation. In the Arsenale, Chile’s Paz Errázuriz explores marginal urban existence in intimate yet formally composed black-and-white photographs of male transvestites in drag make-up in underground brothels in 1980s Santiago: a story of the resilience of secret, unacknowledged lives.

    Against projects of this seriousness, the British pavilion looks the tritest thing in town: Sarah Lucas’s huge yellow sculpted phalluses and torsos with vaginas, buttocks and belly buttons studded with cigarettes, sometimes draped over toilet seats, are embarrassingly puerile and have nothing to say.

    For Enwezor’s show, the stage is set by Oscar Murillo’s giant, black, oil-drenched drapes obscuring the classical columns of the Giardini’s international pavilion, and lending a smouldering smell. The edgy/laconic aesthetic and personal myth of 29-year-old Murillo — London-based son of immigrant Colombian cleaners, he paints with a broom — have made him the market’s hottest currency. Here he inaugurates black as the colour of revolution. It dominates throughout: Adrian Piper’s blackboards repeatedly inscribed “Everything will be taken away”; Glenn Ligon’s black silkscreens “Come Out”; Wangechi Mutu’s caged black nude “She’s got the whole world in her”; Huma Bhabha’s quartet of fraught, totemic black wooden sculptures with staring faces entitled “With Blows”, “With Words”, “Mechanic” and “Against What? Against Whom?”.

    With nonstop declamations of Das Kapital in a central arena — a comically incongruous, popular meeting place from the first hour, when I glimpsed billionaire collector François Pinault and über-dealer Iwan Wirth hanging out there — Enwezor’s was always going to be a stridently political biennale. The current art world is rich, global, self-satisfied, swollen with hype, and irrepressibly smart at co-opting critique. In this it mirrors the capitalist system on which it depends: the market buys, manipulates and absorbs almost anything. Where, then, is the spirit of dissent? Enwezor’s triumph is to explore the multi-faceted ways in which artists young and old are responding to what he calls “the state of things      .              .              .              the exploitation of nature through its commodification as natural resources, the growing structure of inequality and the weakening of broader social contract”.

    Tunisian Nidhal Chamekh, 29, shows a drawing cycle, “De quoi rêvent les martyrs?”; sketches of body parts, animal heads on human forms, guns and batons combined with Arabic scripts and phantasmagorical landscapes in confined spaces: a dystopian record of the upheavals of the Arab Spring. Alexander Kluge, 83, who began his career as assistant to Fritz Lang and was a friend of Theodor Adorno, presents “Nachrichten aus der Ideologischen Antike: Marx, Eisenstein — Das Kapital” (2008-15), a Tower of Babel video montage splicing footage of Russia’s 1905 uprising with talking heads: a lawyer debating guilt and accountability, a pianist hammering out key by key an argument for music’s revolutionary role.

    Charles Gaines’s lyrical crossover of songs, texts and drawings turning on traditional spirituals, “All on Account of the Tariff”, is an unusual poetic rendering of radicalisation. Painting, rare here, is political: Kerry James Marshall’s sonorous “Lovers” and “Playground”; Chris Ofili compressing menace into willowy theatrical figures in “Bending over Backwards for Justice and Peace” and “The Caged Bird’s Song”. After many sprawling junk-and-entropy installations in the Arsenale — Katharina Grosse’s volumes of painted fabrics, soil and aluminium debris “Untitled Trumpet” is typical — Enwezor surprisingly concludes at an octet of colossal, frail, upended naked self-portraits by Georg Baselitz. With gouged eyes and throbbing red members, they recede into inky jet backgrounds against rough walls: the 77-year-old artist still fighting an upside-down, unjust world.

    That the personal is political here is axiomatic; the documentary impetus overwhelming. Isaac Julien interviews Marxist theorists. Hans Haacke proposes a 2015 “World Poll” via iPad. Andreas Gursky’s photographs “Chicago Board of Trade” and “Toys R Us” dissect capitalist strategies. Ukrainian Mykola Ridnyi’s film “Regular Places” chronicles everyday confrontation (“Get the fuck out of here you bitch”) in Kharkiv.

    Political art has never had this level of global visibility, and there is something about this biennale’s gravitas and broad platform that feels inevitable and right for now. Enwezor’s specific reading of art’s social responsibilities is not the only approach to culture, but at this scale and in this geopolitical climate it is an immensely potent one.

     

    •Culled from Financial Times

     

     

  • Port Harcourt steps down in low key

    Port Harcourt steps down in low key

    After its run as UNESCO World Book Capital 2014, Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, last Friday rounded off the year-long programme at the Atlantic Hall of Hotel Presidential with a symposium and a drama performance of Oladipo Agboluaje’s Obele and The Story Teller. But, given the project’s significance, its rich content and colourful opening last year, the closing was an anti-climax of sorts, reports Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME.

    Unlike the huge turn-out of distinguished guests, scholars, top government functionaries and the colourful trappings that characterised the opening of  Port Harcourt as UNESCO World Book Capital in April, last year, the closing last Friday was without spark.

    But for the drama performances of Obele and The Story Teller by Beeta Universal Arts Foundation, the ceremony would have been uneventful. None of the literary scholars from Rivers State hitherto given lots of attention during past book festivals attended. From Pa Gabriel Okara to Elechi Amadi, J P Clark, Kaine Agary, Igoni Barrett and Lindsay Barrett were absent.  Except for the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr Michael West, who represented the Commissioner of Education, no top government functionary was at the ceremony.

    About 90 per cent of the guests at the Atlantic Hall, Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt, venue of the event, were teachers and student representatives from 100 participating schools in the state.

    The main ceremony was preceded by a symposium on how to sustain the legacy of book clubs with Blessing Ahiazu, Promise Ogochukwu, Uzo Nwamara, Onyi Sunday, Chibuke Akwarandu and Bereni Fiberasima as panelists.

    West said the choice of Port Harcourt as UNESCO World Book Capital last year was a function of the contributions of the state government to the growth of education, especially reading culture. He said in appreciation of the honour, the state named one of its primary schools after World Book Capital. “A reading society will always be a progressive one, and it is the only way of transforming from a third world to a first world,” he added.

    He noted that no nation coulddevelop without focusing on education, saying without education, the world will be in darkness. He added that reading and writing are hallmarks of education and that the present administration in Rivers State realised it hence made it a focal point of its administration. “The government made it a point of duty to build libraries in the state to inculcate culture of reading,” he said.

    World Book Capital Project Director, Mrs Koko Kalango, highlighted landmark activities undertaken to commemorate the one-year-reign of Port Harcourt as World Book Capital, which included phased pilot programmes that test ran some of the events such as book clubs, walking books, book donation drive and seed library.

    She disclosed that the Port Harcourt Book Centre is under construction and is planned as a model centre for harnessing and building the knowledge base of the population of Port Harcourt, Rivers State and the Niger Delta. “It sits on three hectares and will comprise a world-class library, a discount bookshop, a theatre, a writer’s residence and an event centre. The centre will be a place for information and knowledge acquisition.  In addition, through its e-library it would take the benefits of the book to the wider society. With sponsorship from Rivers State government and SHELL, phase one of the library block, events centre, perimeter fence and external works commenced last year,” she said.

    About 30 individuals, schools and corporate bodies were given awards for their outstanding contributions to the project. They included Ajibola Agbedeyi, Emilia Walter, Collins Ajanaku, Damiloa Giwa, Justina Ogoloma as outstanding volunteers. Others were Gloria INyang, Joy Thomas, Chukwuemeka Agha, Tolu Frazier, Victoria Nelson and Okereke Chuwkwuemeka.

    The companies honoured were Nigerian Bottling Company, University of Port Harcourt, NLNG, Redeemed Christain Church God (RCCG), House on The Rock, Kilimanjaro, Abundant Life Ministries, Kings Assembly, Shell Petroleum Development Company, Port Harcourt Polo Club, Ignatius Ajulu University of Education and Rivers State University of Technology.

    It will be recalled that for one year, Port Harcourt, served as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Book Capital. That reign ended on April 22, when the city handed over to Incheon, in South Korea, which became the 2015 UNESCO World Book Capital. Port Harcourt, the immediate past World Book Capital City, is the second African city and the first sub-Saharan city to be so honoured.

    The brain behind Port Harcourt’s emergence is Rainbow Book Club, Port Harcourt run by Mrs Koko Kalango, which submitted a bid to UNESCO with the support of the Rivers State government, which led to the city emerging as 2014 UNESCO World Book Capital.

    With the theme: Books: Windows to our world of possibilities, Port Harcourt beat 10 other contenders to clinch the nomination, which many believe has had a catalytic effect on the Niger Delta region. The honour done the city is believed to have helped in creating a band of social change agents who will collaborate and actively participate in building a peaceful, prosperous society having been informed and empowered by reading.

    However, in the last one year, Port Harcourt, which also witnessed some very troubling political upheavals, such as maiming of political opponents, violence and several deaths, contributed its quota to stimulating interest in books and reading around the country. These distractions, especially political change of guards in the state according to observers, may have accounted for the low key closing ceremony witnessed last Friday.

     

    From Port Harcourt to Incheon

     

    On April 23, at the opening ceremony of  Incheon World Book Capital 2015, in South Korea,  Kalango highlighted the many virtues of book and why it continues to be a sort-after commodity in spite of the socio-economic problems that often militate against it.

    “Nigeria became the World Book Capital amid mixed feelings of joy and grief. Nine days before this historic occasion, Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group that believes western education is evil, abducted over 200 schyool girls in Chibok in the Northeast.  It seemed ironical that the book was being brought to focus, against the backdrop of a retrogressive and dangerous movement directly opposed to the ideals of the World Book Capital initiative. Such tragedy, if anything, should challenge us to continue to work to rescue our society from the grip of those who stand against the progress and liberty that education brings.”

    She continued: “The plight of the missing school girls was given prominence by Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate for Literature, Professor Wole Soyinka, in his keynote address at the Port Harcourt World Book Capital opening ceremony, where he called on the Federal Government to ‘bring back the pupils.’ His alarm triggered off the now worldwide campaign with the slogan ‘bring back our girls’. Soyinka’s call for the return of the schoolgirls has been echoed by thousands around the world, including Malala (the girl-child education activist), and Wife of American President, Mrs Michelle Obama.

    “Two days after the Chibok girls were kidnapped, 304 people, mostly students from the Danwon High School, here in South Korea, lost their lives in a boat mishap when the MV Sewol sank just off your coastline. A year has gone by but the pain and agony of these tragic incidents remain with Nigeria and South Korea. In spite of these terrible occurrences, and the many challenges of the world in which we live, the book continues to stand out, the repository of the written word, enabling mankind pass on information, and therefore knowledge, from generation to generation. Today, the book has brought us together as a family, united by a shared thirst for knowledge, linked by the common desire to advance the written word for benefit of the individual, the society and our world.

    “For Port Harcourt, our tenure as World Book Capital has been one of excitement, new discoveries and ‘possibilities,’ which was our theme for the year. We had a rich and varied array of programmes for a wide reach and maximum impact. There were programmes for children and youth, arts and culture, library and community development and deliberate plans for sustainability beyond the World Book Capital year,” she added.

    On the benefits of the project to Nigerians, she said: “It brought education to the forefront of our national consciousness and triggered off more attention to the books in our personal and national life. It also put Nigeria on the world map for achievement related to books – an area where we have unparalleled laurels with authors, such as Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; Chinua Achebe, the author of Africa’s most popular novel, Things Fall Apart and Zainab Alkali. It also shone light on Port Harcourt authors like Chimeka Garricks, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi and Kaine Agary, as well as the younger generation of authors such as  Ben Okri, Chimamanda Adichie, Sefi Atta, Chika Unigwe and Chibundu Onuzo.

    “It showcased Nigeria’s rich literary heritage – our authors and literature and boosted tourism in the sense that as a result of this nomination, we had several new visitors to Nigeria and Port Harcourt in particular. We collaborated with several international partners and as a result of the various programmes they came to Nigeria. Such collaborations include partnership with UNESCO, PEN International, HAY Festival. Also this year, the Port Harcourt Book Festival had more international participation.

    She added: “We have represented Nigeria on the world stage by participating in various international book fairs in Cape Town, South Africa, London, United Kingdom and Frankfurt, Germany. These outings helped create awareness of our literature and encourage discussions around as we also organised discussion forums with Nigerian and African authors.

    “We have groomed writers through the Writers in Residence Programme, which resulted in a publication of an anthology of the 12 authors who participated. We also continue to run writers workshops during the PH Book Festival. Again, we had a writing exercise that involved secondary school students in Rivers State and from around Nigeria. In addition, we organised a national essay competition for students in tertiary institutions. From this World Book Capital year we would have published eight books, four of which are anthologies; two are the products of a writing exercise with children in Rivers State and children from around Nigeria while two are a record of the WBC year.

    “We have promoted Nigerian and African writers by featuring a book of the month in the 12 months of our tenure, and have nurtured artistic talent by collaborating with the University of Port Harcourt to adapt our books of the month for stage performances.

    “We have been able to set up 12 “seed” libraries in indigent communities, such as orphanages, prison, home for street children, home for handicapped children. We have run 200 book clubs in 100 schools in Port Harcourt and through this exercise over 68, 000 books have been donated to the libraries in these schools.”

     

  • ‘Arts not for dullard’

    ‘Arts not for dullard’

    Director General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, (NCAC), Mrs Dayo Keshi, has urged educational institutions to place more emphasis on the teaching of Arts subjects because of the inherent benefits to youths.

    Mrs Keshi, who gave the advice in Abuja at the second Nigeria Arts Olympiad and Taiwan award presentation, said  the creative industry is now made up ot artists who are millionaires.

    She said: “The teaching of Arts should be compulsory in school curriculum, compulsory in the sense that it will be regarded as one of the main subjects that children should be encouraged to take, especially the creative ones.

    “Arts is not for dullard but for those that have interest in it”

    “So if you don’t channel it right, you might even have children who might be frustrated. So, Arts should be one of the main subjects that our children should be encouraged to offer.

    “I see Arts taking over oil as a new source of revenue for  Nigeria in less than 10 years time because the truth of the matter is that it is natural for you to keep focusing on one area of the economy, so long as it is natural.

    “ But the truth of the matter is that great countries in the world, including China, have placed premium on their Arts, so why not Nigeria which has a number of young creative people who should know that this is where we should encourage our people and children. This is an area we need to invest in heavily”she said

    Mrs Keshi urged embassies, high commissions, corporate organisations and donor agencies to partner with the NCAC in order to keep encouraging children to participate in future competitions both locally and abroad.

    She said the contest was organised to promote cross-cultural understanding amongst the younger generation through the use of art and creativity.

    “It is also worthy of note that the NCAC coordinated the competition in collaboration with the FCT Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC and private school owners Association in Nigeria

    She said the art Olympiad with the theme, “My favourite sport was organised by the international Child Arts Foundation(ICAF) Washington DC, USA through a structured school plan where the children were encouraged to break the old stereotype and embrace Artistes-athlete ideal of a creative mind

    At the end of the competition, Ibrahim Mustapha of Holy Child Private school, Dutse, Abuja emerged with the first position,  Abdulmalik Ibrahim also of the same school school took the second position while Tiffany Hezekiah Uraiaku of ANG International School, Rivers State took the third position.

  • FUMAN honours Bolaji Rosiji

    FUMAN honours Bolaji Rosiji

    Former Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) president Bolaji Rosiji has been honoured by Fuji Musicians Association of Nigeria (FUMAN) at its first  Elders Day   in Lagos.

    The award presented to the Heart of Gold singer, by Alhaji Kollington Ayinla, was a token of FUMAN’s appreciation for his support for the elders. As  PMAN president Rosiji organised the first Legend Night. It was a well-deserved honour for Rosiji who was full of smiles as he mingled  with everyone at the event. Top Fuji artiste Pasuma ignited the atmosphere with his stellar performance.

    In his speech, Rosiji  who is also FUMAN patron pledged to join  the likes of Fuji Maestro Alhaji Kollington to make FUMAN a force to reckon with. He supported the elders with equipment and  N100,000 cash.

    He said: “One of the reasons why I am interested in this constituency and indeed other constituencies is because I have a principle and that principle is music, culture and development. They are all intertwined. And also I have always celebrated the elders. Remember the event that we did for Legends of PMAN many years ago, Legend Night that was an expression of that passion for this constituency.”

    “Fuji is the means of communication among our people. We have various forms of music in terms of the Yoruba genre. You have the Apala, Sakara, Fuji and so many other genres but Fuji has become a main movement within that sub-culture. So it is an important constituency.

    Rosiji revealed his plans to do something about indigenous music, not only for the Yoruba genre also in the east and in the north. “I have talked extensively with Danmaraya Jos and the likes. We are losing them. I remember in an assembly of Yoruba musicians; there are only a couple of Apala musicians left. They are all going and this is a genre of music that has brought up generations of parents. So we are trying to see what we can do to revive it. So its music, culture and then we can have development.”

    On PMAN crisis of the Caretaker Committee he said, “In my last count, I think PMAN had about five presidents. So what we need to do is to forget about our personal interest. We have to just shelve personal interest and work for the union. I will commend any effort to bring concerned stakeholders together. I commend any effort like that but we want to see the fruit of that effort. We want to see where it has led us. I’ve been speaking to Kevin Lucciano, he has several challenges and there is no one who is going to take on the mantle of leadership in PMAN that is not going to have those challenges. But what we need now is one PMAN that everyone recognizses and we are still looking forward to that day.

    Asked if he has any plans to run for PMAN president again, he said: “I won’t do that but definitely if there is room for us to help in the monitoring the electoral process I will be happy to be part of that”.

  • Roadmap for Lagos tourism growth

    Roadmap for Lagos tourism growth

    Babatunde Olaide-Mesewaku examines, among other issues, the Lagos State Development plan (2012-2015), which is charting a new road map for tourism growth in the state.

    The core concern of this piece is to make an input into the Tourism Agenda of Mr Akinwunmi Ambode as Governor of Lagos State having made tourism as one of his key agenda. As a Lagosians not only with relevant educational background in Travel and Tourism Management and Museum Studies, but a practicing cultural tourism exponent of over a decade, I feel a sense of responsibility to contribute to the development of my state especially where it concerns area of one’s specialisation and expertise. Moreso, at the moment, there is no discernible policy on tourism planning and development in the state. In addition, the global trend in tourism planning and development has taken a conscious tilt towards Sustainable Tourism. The concept of sustainable tourism has been adopted in such African countries as Ghana, Gambia, Kenya and South Africa – four major growing tourism destinations in Africa.

    What is Sustainable tourism?

    The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) sees the concept of sustainable tourism development as meeting the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social, and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled, while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, and biological diversity, and life support systems.  The concept of sustainable tourism, therefore, implies that in the formulation of tourism development planning policies and the implementation and evaluation of tourism programmes a conscious consideration should be given to long-term economic, environmental, socio-cultural and political well-being of all stakeholders.

     

    Who are the key stakeholders in sustainable tourism?

    The major stakeholders are the governmental bodies, pressure groups, tourism industry, the host community, tourists, voluntary sdector, experts and the media. Striking a balance amongst all these interests in a destination is pertinent. Tourism is an interesting phenomenon because for it to thrive, the ideal conditions are political stability, security, a well-defined legal framework and the essential services and infrastructure ( power, roads, water supply and a suitable environment) that the state is able to provide. These are the window of opportunities for tourism development venture already provided by the Fashola’s administration.

    Why Sustainable Tourism for Lagos State?

    The World Travel and Tourism Council recent reports show that Travel and Tourism’s contribution to the world GDP grew for the fifth consecutive year in 2014, rising to a total of 9.8 per cent of world GDP (US$7.6 trillion). The sector now supports nearly 227 million people in employment – that’s 1 in 11 jobs on the planet. Its growth of 3.6 per cent was faster than the wider economy and out-performed growth in the majority of leading sectors in 2014. The established fact here is that tourism remains the largest foreign exchange earners of any country and the largest employer of labour globally. Its potential to create and generate employment for thousand of jobless youths in Lagos state and thus reduce poverty cannot be over-emphasised.

    In the contemporary socio-economic milieu of Lagos State available statistics show that Lagos is home to 2,000 industrial establishments, 10,000 commercial ventures and 22 industrial estates. Lagos is responsible for 30 per cent of the nation’s GDP; the State accounts for 70 per cent national maritime cargo freight; 80 per cent of international aviation traffic and 50 per cent of national energy consumption. If Lagos were a country in its own right, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $80 billion (2010) would make it the eleventh-biggest economy in Africa.  What is more, Lagos population according to the United Nations projections will be 20 million in 2015 thus making it the 3rd largest city in the world. With these robust statistics that hugely support accelerated development in tourism venture in the State, sustainable tourism becomes imperative as the  appropriate policy to adopt for its implication for the environment, the economy and control of tourism activities.

    With the Lagos State Development Plan (LSDP) 2012 – 2025 having a baseline picture of the state in spheres of Economic, Infrastructure, Social Services and Protection and sustainable Environment; the mega city status of Lagos state with it’s strategy of focusing on Power, Agriculture & Agro-Allied, Transportation and Housing (PATH) to move the state along the path of emerging world economies such as Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa (BRICS), appropriate environmental enablement that naturally supports a booming tourism system and destination is already entrenched.

    Lagos State, apart from being the economic hub of the nation and the West African region, is also the entertainment hub of Nigeria. It is endowed with natural landscape and topography traversed by sea and lagoon waters and festooned with beautiful beaches and waterfronts coupled with its diverse tangible and intangible cultural and natural heritage. All these are unique tourism products that are yearning to be tapped, harnessed and developed for the socio-economic transformation of the state.

    With the socio-economic indices and demographic details enumerated above, Lagos State provides huge domestic market and veritable grounds for ‘explosive’ and rapid tourism development with consequent excessive pressures on infrastructures, the environment and natural resources.  The appropriate tourism type to adopt in this circumstance not only to drive the economy, but to minimise the adverse effects of inherent negative tourism activities by putting in place a mechanism for control, conservation and protection of basic resources and the environment in a destination, is Sustainable Tourism.

    Some of the most important principles of sustainable tourism development applicable to Lagos State for tourism development and destination management are that:

    •Tourism should be initiated with the help of broad-based community-inputs and the community should maintain control of tourism development. A pro-poor strategies should be adopted, especially in the rural areas in which the community people  will be suppliers, producers, workers and decision makers.

    • Tourism  should not only generate, but provide quality employment to its community residents and a linkage between the local businesses and tourism should be established;

    • A code of practice should be established for tourism operations and practices based on internationally accepted standards. Guidelines for tourism operations, impact assessment, monitoring of cumulative impacts, and limits to acceptable change or carrying capacity at the designated destinations should be established;

    • Education and training programmes at both the state and local government levels to improve and manage heritage and natural resources should be established

    The Areas of Policy Focus and Operation in the first four years

    There is the need for the creation of designated tourism destinations in the state with attractive pull factors established. These destinations are better located in rural locality of Epe, Badagry, Ikeja and Ikorodu. This will accelerate infrastructural development in these areas, create jobs and reduce urban migration. Destinations can be countries, or a collection of countries, a distinct state, local government or town or resort, park or areas of outstanding natural beauty or coastline like the Eleko, Lagos and Badagry Beaches. The key features of a tourist destination, which the state will look into, include visitors’ attractions like historical and heritage sites, man-made and natural environment; access or possible provision of access; internal transport network; development of tourist infrastructure and superstructure; and that the destination is administratively possible to plan and manage.

    As one of the major pull factors in the proposed designated destinations, I want to suggest the construction of divisional ethnographic museum in each of the five divisions of the state with a policy to encourage and empower local governments in the state to build their own museums and develop heritage sites within their areas. Other superstructures can also be constructed as part of the pull factors in the destinations. Examples of superstructures are Canadian Tower, Statue of Liberty in US, Brighton pier in London etc. The proposed Badagry Film City project by Lagos state is also an example.

    Development of local and international festivals in the state is key. The Black Heritage Festival should be replaced with IBILE HERTAGE FESTIVAL. The latter has lost all the essence of being a festival as originally conceived. The word IBILE is an acronym for the five divisions of Lagos State: Ikorodu, Badagry, Ikeja, Lagos Island and Epe. Lagosians, for the first time, will regard it as their festival and participation level will increase geometrically.

    To make the festival international such as the PANEFEST in Ghana, the ROOT Festival in Gambia and Vodoun Festival in Republic of Benin, there is the need to create the Lagos State Diaspora Agency responsible for the marketing of the festival and the tourism potentials of the state internationally and seek the cooperation and partnership of International Organisations for tourism development in the state. The Agency will create a healthy synergy with the existing tour operator outfits within the state.

    Tourism departments should be created in all the local governments in the state with principle of Sustainable Tourism as the focus. The functions of this department will include collection of data on available heritage materials or sites in their respective local governments. Create tourists information office; coordinates and implement the state’s programmes on tourism at the local government level; facilitate trainings of stake holders and create a linkage between the tourism sector and the open market in their areas. Resuscitate indigenous technology in visual arts, painting, carving, woodwork, textile, sculpting, pottery, ceramics, weaving and crafts, bead-making etc.

    The creation of a full-fledge Department of Tourism at the Lagos State University for capacity building in this sector is germane. The state can as well develop a partnership with certain international organisations or agencies who are experts in the subject matter for capacity building. These organisations have done it in many African countries, especially the Gambia.

    The role of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture in the state is key and pivotal in the realisation of this entire proposal and its objectives.

     

    •Babatunde Olaide-Mesewaku writes from Badagry.

     

  • Soyinka eyes top UK job

    Soyinka eyes top UK job

    Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka is one of the three candidates for the Oxford professor of poetry, a 300-year-old elected post, seen as the top academic poetry role in the United Kingdom.

    First held by Joseph Trapp in 1708, the professorship, which is second only in prestige to that of poet laureate, has been filled in the past by Matthew Arnold, Cecil Day-Lewis, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon.

    Acclaimed poet Ruth Padel was elected the first woman to hold the post in 2009, but she resigned less than two weeks after her election. She resigned following the revelation that she had alerted journalists to allegations of sexual harassment they made against her rival for the position, Nobel laureate Derek Walcott.

    The eminent poet Geoffrey Hill was elected the following year ahead of nine other candidates. Hill, winner of a host of poetry awards, will complete his five-year tenure this summer, with Oxford graduates due to vote on their choice of his successor next month.

    Candidates need to be nominated by at least 50 Oxford graduates. Soyinka, who writes drama, novels and poetry, and who was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Nigeria during the 1967-1970 civil war, his poems smuggled out on toilet paper, received more than 90 nominations, including votes from writers Melvyn Bragg and Robert Macfarlane.

    Soyinka won the Nobel in 1986 for his “wide cultural perspective [which] with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence”. He will be competing for the Oxford post with Ian Gregson, a poet, literary critic and professor of creative writing at Bangor University who was backed by 54 graduates. In a provocative statement setting out his intentions if he were to be elected, Gregson said he wanted to “address the major issue facing contemporary poetry, which is, nonetheless, the one most shunned in the poetry world: how poetry has suffered, in recent decades, a catastrophic loss of cultural prestige and popularity”.

    “Five hundred years, in which poetry and indeed, the poet played a central role in the culture, are at an end. You could, now, be as talented, but self-destructive as Dylan Thomas, or you could fight a corrosive but symptomatic gender battle like Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, but go unnoticed,” he writes, blaming the shift on the rise of popular culture – including television, which he says “shaped a crucial shift in which the visual took the upper hand over the verbal, and thus, the literary” – but most of all on new media.

    “It is not the content of the internet that’s the problem, but its form,” writes Gregson. “No matter how many poems are mounted on the web, the sensibility it creates is indifferent to poetry. This is a medium ,which ranks words below images, and delivers those images at great speed. It is the opposite of poetry, which, in this context, is made to seem ponderously slow, atavistically verbal, and snobbishly inaccessible.”

    Seán Haldane, a poet, award-winning novelist and psychotherapist who ran against Hill in 2010, is the final candidate, with 51 backers. “Oxford’s professorship of poetry is one of the most famous and illustrious positions in the world of letters, and the chair has been occupied by some of our greatest writers, both poets and critics,” said Seamus Perry, professor of English literature at Oxford. “It has been an honour and a delight to have Geoffrey Hill in the post, and he will be a hard act to follow. I am delighted to have such a strong and diverse list of candidates for this year’s election.”

    The winner will be announced on June 19 . The professor’s duties include giving one public lecture a term, as well as encouraging “the art of poetry in the university”, and are rewarded with a stipend of £12,000 a year.

     

    •Culled from The Guardian of London

  • ‘Keep Jazz music alive’

    ‘Keep Jazz music alive’

    South African Jazz maestro Rashid Lombard is founder and Festival Director of Africa’s biggest Jazz festival, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. For over 20 years, Lombard has remained true to his dream of making Jazz  a major tourism attraction. He is an advocate of music for tourism and empowerment. He also  believes that partnership is key to keeping Jazz and its festivals alive. Evelyn Osagie met him at the just-concluded Lagos International Jazz Festival where he was special guest of honour.

    The arts and culture is an important factor that can unite people in social cohesion that has to do with business because it is part of the creative industry, which like other industries, such as oil, construction and the rest, creates wealth. We must take it seriously. If you look at the Lagos International Jazz Festival (LIJF), look at how many people and service providers that have been employed. There is sound, light, stage, catering, among others. You are creating other jobs. It is part of the bigger economy.

     

    The Arts as wealth spinner  

     

    It’s a huge economy that we have to deal with. It’s like a golf course which is designed for five years. They design it for life. And that’s how the arts and culture is. It is God’s gift to our people in the continent. Our culture and heritage is deep. It goes way back. Take the music, take the blues BB King sings, it comes from Africa. Ali Farka Toure is a multi-instrumentalist. Take Fela, from Jazz music into highlife. There is so much of value in what we have in the arts. I’d stick to the music because that is a sector I work and I found myself in. It is my passion and my life. Music has lots of tourism potential. At the Lagos International Jazz Festival there was a workshop on the tourism potential of Jazz music. The government should begin to partner with musicians to bring tap its wealth. We’ve got the best. It is unfortunate that we are importing more foreign music than exporting our music or playing our music. Also, the cutting of scales is not working in Africa.

     

    Keeping the Cape Town

    Jazz Festival alive

     

    The accomplishment of the festival is hard work. It’s taken a lot of passion and believing in oneself, like the Co-founder of the Lagos International Jazz Festival, Ayoola Sadare. And it takes a lot of honesty to do it right. I am very excited that I have done it. It’s a model that works. I now stay back… they say I have retired. I don’t retire. Artistes and activists don’t retire. I’m just doing things differently. I now impact my knowledge on how you can make it sustainable and give your sponsors, such as government, the corporate world and the citizens of South Africa, something to be proud of.

     

    Success secret of the Cape Town International Jazz festival

     

    The success is about me having  to travel and attended other Jazz festivals, such as the Montreal, Perugia, New Orleans, New Port, Montreaux Jazz festivals, among others, and learning and Africanising it. It has been amazing. The other success is that you must remember that the public will turn on the radio and listen to the stereo. Don’t give him bad sound or bad performance. Content is key. The media is also looking for us to be successful. ‘Is your hospitality and service good?’ ‘Is everything well organised?’ ‘Is the food hygienic enough?’ Safety, security, logistics and information are also important. It is little things like that that is very critical. It is not a rocket science. It’s logic. You deal with media problem. Do you have a media centre here? No. You come to Cape Town, I’ll give you computer, some refreshment, you get beer, some red wine, some white wine, I’ll give you some food, because you got a job to do and you are accredited. Instead of you going to your hotel, I’ll give you facility to file the story that you can churn out. When we then talk about organisation, it means signing people. You are creating professions, careers; that is success. It can be done. I have done it in 17 years. I can get somebody to do it in the next three years.

     

    Replicating Cape Town’s

    success in Nigeria

     

    First is partnership. You have to get government backing – national government, then provincial government or municipal. You also need to get the government departments or agencies, such as Arts and Tourism, Safety and Security, the Police, to be fully involved. Through that the organisation works. The next thing is give it a good programme with a good name like the one you already have – the Lagos International Jazz Festival. But you have to look further what other names you can bring in. The beauty that will bring foreign visitors is that they just want to listen to foreign sounds; so you have an advantage. Content is key: think of bringing in people like Ahmad Jamal, a lot of locals know Ahmad Jamal, you think of getting Jose Mendes. Ask people here: get someone to ask what artistes they would like here – is it Earl Klugh or Kenny G. You can start thinking forward. What that means is that once a year, some towns, taxi, restaurant, crafters etc will be busy and a lot of Jazz guys like to play golf. They can go on excursion somewhere, wildlife. That is how it is done in South Africa. It is a system that it’s going to work out. The partnership must be equal and fair. It is a venture that will impact on the economy and create jobs and empower people especially the youths who are looking for careers. I am talking of putting up events. It can happen; I’m very excited that the first footprints, when I met Ayoola in 2005, was to take on a name like the Lagos International Jazz Festival, is very brave. It puts you on the international radar; they are watching. My people called me telling me about how safe or unsafe Nigeria is but I said, they should leave it, we artistes heal.

    So many years ago when I called George Benson’s manager to play in Rwanda.I designed the Rwanda International Jazz Festival. It failed. I was told there was war in Rwanda, I said no. I am an optimist. I believe it can work. Although I am not very rich or even rich, I’m comfortable and I sleep nice at night.

    The other big Jazz festival in Africa is the Lagos international Jazz Festival. It is registered. We should all just come and support it. Others could be Jazz series, that’s fine but this is iconic. We need an iconic event. And I speak openly to other promoters, keep the music industry alive. We must collaborate. This is an iconic event, I see it flying.

  • ‘Pastors should stop running to govt houses’

    ‘Pastors should stop running to govt houses’

    Pastor Kingsley Innocent is known for his strong views on morals, religion and governance. He is the Senior Pastor of Bible Believing Mission Incorporated, aka God of Talk na do,  in Abia State. In this chat with Evelyn Osagie, he shares his thoughts on the last elections, execution of Nigerians in Indonesia and xenophobic attacks in South Africa, among others.

    On xenophobic attacks in South Africa

    What happened in South Africa is a surprise. It contradicted the tenets of ‘African unity’. We urge our leaders to find ways of reconciling the issue. And even though it may take time to heal, Africa should remain united and in its fight against those who want to divide us because the world is watching. Africa has been looked down upon over the years; we cannot afford to still remain there. As Africans, we should strengthen ourselves and get going.

     

    On executions of Nigerians in Indonesia

     

    Capital punishment is not the best solution to crime in the world. In as much as crime is not acceptable, then capital punishment does not give the opportunity for that soul to be saved.  It is ungodly for any man to issue out capital punishment to another man because he has committed a crime. The same man who has been executed today for committing a particular crime, if given an opportunity to live may even fight that crime better. Oftentimes people commit crime without knowing the implications because of ignorance.

    I once held a crusade and after my ministration, a young man made a clean start from being an armed robber to walking the right path. He had gone into armed robbery without having any choice and wanted badly to get out. But he was told that he was condemned by God, which made him decide to go into it fully. And so, he became a deadly armed robber weighed down with the burden that God would ever forgive him until the day he came to the crusade ground. Interestingly, armed robbers also attend church and crusades! I told him there is hope for him and that God can make his life better. And he can even become a better preacher than I. He gave his life to Jesus and decided that he would never rob again. Today, he is a great evangelist, and has touched lives of other people positively. If that young man was killed before he met me, he wouldn’t have the opportunity of turning a new leaf.

     

    On Chibok girls in Boko Haram’s pen

     

    Recently, the Nigerian military have recovered some women and children that were captured by Boko Haram. I am very optimistic that the Chibok girls would be found and rescued, but it may not be all of them. Some of these girls may have been given away in marriage which is not fair. Some of them may have given birth. God will help us and I pray that such a thing does not happen again. We hope that the activities of Boko Haram will surely come to an end. The painful aspect is that this hope is rather coming a little bit late but it is never late than never.

     

    Expectations of the new administration

    The issue of leadership has been the problem of the nation. It is because our leaders are corrupt that our society is not enjoying what it should be enjoying. It is hoped that the change in government will bring about change in many sectors in the country. There are lots of things to be done by the in-coming administration. The president-elect should brace up for the challenges ahead which we pray that God will help him overcome. He cannot do it alone. We urge him to choose men, who have quality of character, men with the vision of nation-building, and not the old elements who have plunged our country into shame and disgrace over the years.

    The in-coming administration would need to handle security issues properly, for the good of the country. It should also tackle power outage so that we can have 24 hours of electricity supply. Before now, the President-elect, General Muhammed Buhari made great impact on our refineries through the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) . We believe he can still do it again. The issue of fuel scarcity would be a thing of the past, if he can fix our refineries and build new ones.

     

    Failed elections prophesies

     

    The presidential election was an interesting one that shows more than ever Nigerians alive and involved in our country’s growing democracy. The outcome of this election shows that Nigeria is growing and there is hope. And in all these, the church is not silent. I once said there is hope for our nation; and this is the beginning of that manifestation.

    On prophesies made during the period and their manifestations, I would prophesy can’t be wrong because God cannot lie. Whatever God says must come to pass. However, predictions and prophesy are not the same. Predictions may fail but prophesy will not because of the Source. You’d know a prophet, not at the point of prophesying, but when his or her prophesy comes to pass. It is the fulfilment of prophesy that will determine a true prophet.

    I consider most of the things that were said during the elections as predictions. Men predicted and their predictions were wrong. As Nigeria’s democracy continues to grow, a word caution to my fellow ministers of God, let us be careful of what we say and the things we predict. Let us be careful to note when we are talking and when God is talking. You don’t have to lie about your personal opinion and say it was from God. We should not be carried away by sentiments or  situations, but be focused and go back to Bethel, the place of the altar. This is not to discourage pastors from prophesying but to urge us to retrace our steps.

    Like I’ve said Nigerians have proven that change is what they need now. I am hopeful that God will give us the desired change.

     

    On politicians bribing some pastors

     

    The issue is a source of concern and worry.  It is one story that should not be heard of the church. I am very ashamed as well. The reason for this is that too many pastors are running to government houses hence, this whole shame. It is a disgrace that money was given to ministers of God to mobilise votes. It is ungodly; God is not part of this. Our place is the place of the altar. Let us sit down and do what God has called us to do. We are not politicians; the church is not a forum for politics.

    A politician, who releases money because he wants to be elected is simply saying he is not coming to do anything that will better the lives of the people. The church should say no to it, they should stand against it so that our nation can move forward and for our country to be developed the way other countries are.  We should stop running around government officials; rather, we should pray for and tell them the truth. To better our nation, the time has come when integrity, people’s record and capabilities should count. The prerequisite for getting into public office should not be how much money that a person has, but strength of his or her character. The President-elect, General Muhammed Buhari may be a Muslim, but his character, personality and integrity have got him the position. This should serve as lesson to those seeking political offices.

     

    On 2015 elections

     

    I commend the INEC Chairman, Prof Attairu Jega. He conducted the 2015 elections in such a way that we have not seen. Prof. Jega is a true Nigerian, who had a good plan and motive. But his Resident Electoral Commissioners didn’t live up to expectations. They messed up his plans which left the system with some questions to answer. Although the exercise in some place many may say was not completely free and fair due the RECs short comings, it was an improvement on 2011 general elections.

  • A lady of diligence

    A lady of diligence

    Written by the three authors listed above and with a foreword by no less a personality than His Excellency, the Rt. Hon. Gabriel Torwua Suswam, Ph.D CON, the Executive Governor of Benue State, the work is a befitting tribute to the life and career of Chief Mrs. Rhoda Tor-Agbidye. From the first to the last page of the book, she comes out clearly and unmistakably as indeed, a woman of substance, a lady of uncommon and unique qualities of selflessness, dedication and humanity.

    The importance of the study, however, transcends the role model qualities of the iconic and quintessential Lady that is its focus. The work is also a trailblazer in the sense that it represents a rare recognition of the contributions of an individual civil servant to the development and betterment of the Nigerian society. Mrs Tor-Agbidye belongs to this group of people, who are generally anonymous, are often vilified by their political masters, and have for years remained unsung in biographical treatises by academics! Yet they constitute the driving engine that gives the momentum to the implementation of development initiatives in our society. That the focus here is on a woman is certainly an additional applause for the authors.

    Structurally, the main body of the book is very compact and is made up of six closely interested chapters. For the purposes of this Review the six chapters can be grouped into three broad themes which are:

    i)                Early life, family and Education

    ii)               Religious Life and Marriage; and

    iii)             Civil Service Career, Social and Political Life and Public Perception

    It needs to be emphasised though that this division is only for the sake of providing analytical guide, for our perception of the variety of important issues presented in the study, they flow rather seamlessly into each other!

    In the first two introductory chapters the authors discuss the Birth, Upbringing and Education of Mrs Rhoda Tor-Agbidye. It is not deemed heuristic or even necessary to offer here detailed coma by coma review of all the events that characterised those formative years; suffice it for us to note some of the highlights of this period that would, ultimately turn out as crucial determinants of the societal avant garde played by the adult Mrs. Rhoda Tor-Agbidye.

    Inter alia some of these factors as identified in the book by its authors included the unshakable commitment and devotion to the Christian faith by her parents as well as the latter’s determination “to serving the Lord God and to raising children of high moral standard.” These, among others, were traits and values that were to sketch and shape Mrs. Tor-Agbidye’s primary and secondary school days at Uavande Girls and Bristow Gboko respectively. They also provided her behavioural barometer and moral compass at the FTC Kaduna and the Kaduna Polytechnic.

    Other milestones in Mrs Tor-Agbidye’s tireless and rather poignant search for the educational Golden Fleece include Abingdon College, Oxford, the University of Jos, and the Benue State University, Makurdi. At the later institution Mrs. Rhoda Tor-Agbidye has, doggedly, clawed her ways from an MPA to an M.Sc and is currently at the final stages of the Ph.D.

    It is important to observe that these first two chapters are much more than mere chronicles or rhapsodic rendition of the subject’s educational attainments. Here the writers analytical craftsmanship is unmistakable at work as the book in this section also offers incisive perceptions on the place of education in Nigeria’s national development. No less arresting are the identification and analysis of the role of the family in the process as well as the legion of factors that, in concert, have straight jacketed and, subsequently, distorted educational development in Nigeria.

    Discussions of the Religious Life and the marriage of Mrs. Tor-Agbidye dominate the second broad section of the work. Once again, as in the section that preceded it, the three writers used the opportunity to offer highly perceptive insights on both the subterranean and mediterranean variables that have had strong bearings on the subject’s life in these contexts. In summary, these include the expositions on Tiv culture and historiography, the establishment and spread of Christianity in Tiv land as well as discussions on Mrs. Tor-Agbidye’s father, Evangelist Joel Agabi and his missionary works, among others.

    The preceding served as a useful backdrop to the more detailed discussions on the young lady’s budding relationships with, and eventual marriage to the young Dr. Tor-Agbidye, her paramour since their student days at Bristow. Also discussed in detail by the authors is the Agbidyes long lasting relationships with their family friends, Dr. John and Mrs. Joyce Allagh.

    Finally, the section stands for the generous manner in which it is adorned and annotated with family picture, heirlooms that span the gamut of Mrs. Tor-Agbidye’s life from childhood to the present. If indeed, as the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand Words” the rich menu of pictorials presented by the authors are clearly worth more than a million words.

    The last section of the study made up of chapters four, five and six are indeed, among the best in terms of flow analytic skills and communication of points. The first of the three is an assessment of the Civil Service Career of Mrs. Tor-Agbidye. As a prelude the authors presented a well crafted, albeit abbreviated history of the civil service in Nigeria. In focus are its characteristics, functions and challenges. Even the most rabid connoisseur of Nigeria’s Public Administration will certainly find something to savour in the highly and interrogative analysis offered here.

    The above provide useful praxis within which Mrs. Tor-Agbidye’s long career in the public service is situated and evaluated; starting from the early days at ABU, Zaria, through stints with Aper Aku to Dr. Ayu as President of the Senate, the University of Agriculture and to George Akume and the present position of Principal Private Secretary to Governor Gabriel Suswam.

    Through all these as the authors indicate, what mattered most to Mrs Tor-Agbidye was dedication and the rending of committed and unalloyed service the society no matter who is at the helm of affairs. As the writers aptly put it: “inspite of the differences in their personalities, ideologies, style of leadership … she remained committed and was NEVER found wanting at anytime” (p.9b) (Emphasis is mind).

    They posited further that through thick and thin:

                  “Rhoda has been dutiful and diligent on her job surmounting all challenges and displaying resilience, humility and professionalism even under pressures (p.98).

    ·    The role of civil servants in the development process;

    ·    The expectations of the society;

    ·    Political participation;

    ·    Woman participation, sovereignty majority rule, of law, etc.

    Mrs. Tor-Agbidye’s brief incursion into to the murky waters of partisan politics as a PDP causus Chairman in Logo Local Government Area is also highlighted. So also are the legions of humanitarian and philanthropic activities with which she has been involved all her life. The concluding chapter of the book is a presentation of the “views of various peoples, who have encountered and interacted with Chief Mrs. Tor-Agbidye in various capacities and in different places” (p.134). However, we do not believe that much intellectual dividends are these have been so meticulously done in the text. In any case, it is necessary to commend the authors for the wide coverage of opinions gamered. The over 50 individuals sampled represented every sector of the Benue society: former Governor, Permanent Secretaries, Traditional Rulers, Legislators, Judges etc.

     

    Conclusion

    As we stated at the beginning, the book is a delectable and delightful treatise on the life and career of a distinguished civil servant: Mrs. Rhoda Tor-Agbidye. This is done in simple and highly comprehensible day to day language that makes it easy to read, to understand and to digest. Devoid of the usual fuzziness that usually characterize biographical enterprises, here the story of Mrs. Tor-Agbidye, as told by the three writers is straight forward, direct and candid unmarred by innuendos, hidden subjective ideological inclinations and preferences.

    Correctly, the three authors realize that to tell the story in any way is to do gross injustice to the special and unique qualities of the Lady of substance that is the subject of their work. Though the subject of the study is Chief Mrs. Tor-Agbidye, Keghku, Ibi and Ajabu’s study go well beyond mere static narration or re-endition of her life and Odyssey of a distinguished civil servant who stands head and shoulders above others. The work also, in many ways, offers incisive comments and analysis on a wide range of issues that are today on the front burner of Nigeria’s National Conventions. Among others these include political participation, Rule of Law, Gender and role of Women, Equality before the Law and Administrative Reforms, among others. It is against the background of the preceding that the book is a MUST HAVE and a MUST READ FOR ALL: Clearly these is something here for Everybody!