Category: Life – The Midweek Magazine

With the theme: ‘African Cinema and the Supernatural’, scholars and filmmakers from across the world gathered in Kwara State to chart new ways of advancing the African Film Industry. Evelyn Osagie reports.

As oil price continues to dwindle, scholars have urged African governments to look into other sectors for the continent’s advancement.

One sector that has remained untapped is the Film Industry, which, the scholars described as “untapped goldmine”.

While calling for better frameworks and support, they urged governments at all levels to tap the wealth in the Film Industry, which holds the key to unemployment and economic empowerment.

They made the submission at a three-day conference on African Cinema industry organised by the Kwara State University (KWASU).

With the theme: African Cinema and the Supernatural,  the conference, which had as keynote speaker United States’ scholar, Prof Ken Harrow of the Michigan State University, US, brought scholars and filmmakers from across the world. It also featured Prof Jonathan Haynes of the Long Island University, US; Anouk Batard, Research Center of Social & Political Sciences, University of Toulouse, France; Prof Kole Omotosho; Prof Frank N. Ukadike from Tulane University; Tunde Kelani; Zeb Ejiro; Lancelot Imasuen, among others.

Aside the deliberations, some epic films and documentaries were screened, such as Kelani’s Dazzling Mirror.

KWASU Vice Chancellor, Prof Abdul-Rasheed Na-Allah, is an ardent believer in the rich potential of the industry. In fact, according to him, his university is resolute on becoming a major centre for the study of film and culture. And so, the conference, which is in its second edition, is part of its moves to achieving its vision. Through the conference, he said, the university seeks to explore the cultural and social dimension of the film industry so as to help in its development, adding that the university has also established “the KWASU Film Village which would work closely with its School Performing and Visual Arts to enhance its objective”.

Prof Na-Allah said: “We realise that our cinema, popular Nollywood, does not and cannot exist in a vacuum, but as a part of the global cultural practice. This is why in 2010, when we held the first edition, we have brought fine body of international scholars to KWASU; and another body of film and culture experts to KWASU today for the second edition. Our aim is to make the KWASU Conference on African Cinema global and yearly affair.

“We seek to bring theory and praxis under one roof and to inculcate in our students a holistic creative and scholar impulse. As part of the drive to make KWASU the centre for the study of culture in the Nigerian University school system, we will move our ambition a step further. With your help, we plan to establish the Centre for Nollywood Studies, which will be one of the finest places to study the Nollywood phenomenon.”

In their presentations, the scholars and filmmakers highlighted the role of the supernatural in the development of African cinema. According to Prof Onookome Okome, compelled to account for it social relevance and authority, Nollywood has been subjected to moral and social scrutiny by cultural mediators of African art from different quarters, especially from the intellectual class in Nigeria. “Before the screeching voices of these mediators made their presence known in the popular public, the State has promulgated a number of official policies to regulate the audio-visual industry. The earliest was of course the Cinematic Ordinance of 1914, which was revised by in 1997 by Nigerian Film Corporation Act. Since the formation of this Act, which is actually a revision of the Ordinance of 1914, a number of Government agencies were inaugurated to help policy the cultural sector and the projects they give to the public. These include the Nigerian Film

Corporation (NFC); the National Film and Video and Censor Board (NFVCB) and the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC),” according to Prof Okome.

On the backdrop of Okome’s observation that a session, tagged: Policing Nollywood: What is to Be Done, was held. It provided a forum for these governmental institutions to lay bare to the public their activities and methods of policing cultural productions in contemporary Nigeria. It featured the top executives of the National Film and Videos Censors Board and the Nigerian Film Corporation, including Prof Hyginus Ekwaazi; Ejiro and Kelani.

While observing that the Motion Picture Industry is “a combination of art, amusement and business, Prof Omotosho urge Nigerian filmmakers to bring these three aspect to bare in the movies, saying it would help to further develop the industry. According to him, lack of attention to the art and business aspect of the industry has led to the lack of modernization of the themes of Nollywood.

He criticised the preoccupation on money-making, human sacrifice, rituals, saying it reflects the “refusal of rulers in all the aspects of modern Nigerian life to modernize and move forward into the 21st century”, while calling for the involvement of academics in the film production.

He said: “We limit ourselves and our possibilities when we limit ourselves to the products of Nollywood as the totality of the Nigerian filmmaking effort. If we add the journey of the Nigerian film Industry from stage script to film or by way of television production to the picture painted from the quotation of Jonathan Haynes, one of the first academics to critique the film industry in Nigeria in an article “Structural Adjustments in Nigeria Comedy: Baba Sala”, published in 1994, the quotation above, the present linkage of film criticism to literary criticism would be clear.

“Academic critics are not particularly involved in the production process of the Nigerian film, but are at home in their area of literary criticisms. Our film studies must look at the work of artists such as Olaiya Adejumo (Baba Sala), the two shorties: Chinedu Ikedieze (alias Aki) and his playmate, Osita Iheme (alias Pawpaw). It should be of interest to Nigerian filmmakers that Pawpaw has teamed up with the greatest maker of funny films in South Africa, the Afrikaaner filmmaker, Leon Schuster, to make some incredible movies for the South African market.”

Prof Harrow’s paper entitled: Witchcraft, Movies, and the City: the Old and the New, touched on the relationship between the notion of witchcraft, African cinema, and the African city. According to him, the cinema, witchcraft, and city are linked, saying each changed in conjunction with the other as the city changes, the urban notions of witchcraft do too, along with the cinema, while criticising the notion of witchcraft in African films. He compared the two different generations of cinema, focusing more on the earlier period prior to 1990. “To answer the question of the relationship between magic and cinema, I turn to the city where both took up their residence, where notions of witchcraft and the movies were defined and thus were born.”

In his paper entitled:  The Supernatural in Nollywood Films: Multiple Logics, Prof Haynes said that from the moment when the first Nollywood films were condemned as full of “rituals” and “juju,” the prevalence of the supernatural has been taken as a hallmark of Nollywood. According to him, the supernatural appears in many different forms and tends to function differently in various film genres.

“What is most characteristic of Nollywood is to deploy multiple logics at once in the service of its moralism, overlaying mutually reinforcing systems of religious belief, culture, psychology, plot structure, and generic form. This keeps the supernatural closely tethered to issues of individual, social, and political morality. Unlike in, say, the Indian “mythological,” the focus is on life in this world, in a human community. In general, Nollywood stages debates on pressing issues rather than taking a particular side.

“Nollywood’s elastic spirit of non-contradiction should not be dismissed as commercially-driven pandering to the widest possible audience. It parallels the founding contradictory ideology of the Nigerian state, the alliance between a modernising central government and traditional rulers deriving power and legitimacy from indigenous spiritual forces. And it carries forward some of the most profound traditional African values: tolerance, ecumenicalism, negotiation, compromise, and consensus.”

While noting that a famous peculiar and even typical feature of Nollywood movies is their ending with the mention “To God be the Glory”, Batard’s paper, Variations on Nigerian movies’ ending “To God be the glory”, focuses on the significations, the functions and the uses of such an appreciation which may also be read as an invocation. “My survey based on quite a number of movies’ endings shows that “To God be the glory” may not occur as systematically as popularly claimed by the publics of Nollywood’s “imagined community” – the ones who not only make, watch or reject, hail or criticise, but first and foremost discuss the Nigerian movies. As a matter of fact, I have noticed that as the Nigerian film industry has been going through a (de)legitimation process, the producers who try to distinguish themselves from the bad reputation of an industry based on quantity rather than quality and who want to be seen as professionals –

who are also the better educated and more transnationalised ones aiming at theatrical and worldwide releases – deliberately omit the credit “To God be the glory”; “Not because I am not a Christian or I am not religious, but because it has some kind of bad connotation (…), it commemorates the end of a bad movie, or a bad script”.

Book review

Title: Harnessing God’s Grace For Business Success
Author: Deacon Iyke Kanu
Reviewer: Evelyn Osagie

Publisher: E.T.Ola-Bola

Pagination: 116

Iyke Kanu is an ardent believer in the wonder-working grace of the divine.

For him, along with salvation, a Christian is presented with the grace to succeed in all things, such as in business and career.

He is not one to take the grace of God for granted. He emphasises on the need for the Christian to put his/her purpose-driven faith in action. He posits that believers can succeed in any from business to career if they leverage on the grace of the divine.

In his book, Harnessing God’s Grace For Business Success, Kanu focus is on how business-oriented folks can draw from the power of success embedded in God’s grace.

“You can harness God’s grace only through personal development. Unlike in the real world where you are asked to concentrate on your areas of strength, in the spiritual world it is the opposite. Apart from being born-again, you have to identify your personal strengths and weaknesses. You have to work on your areas of weaknesses to improve yourself spiritually…to achieve great success in business you have to be very close to God,” he says.

The 116-page book contains nuggets on how to utilise God’s grace and put faith in action to bring about success in business. Although his nuggets are not new, using biblical and real-to-life examples, Kanu creatively elaborates his points in an engaging manner that the reader is able to understand and follow. Alongside a healthy spiritual relationship with God, Harnessing God’s Grace For Business Success is also canvassing proactive business principles.

The book is divided into two parts with each side having four chapters each. The first deals with all that is needed to start and sustain a successful business, while the second touches on the spiritual side of the matter.

However, the author has classified his nuggets to a success business through God’s grace into under seven chapters, with an additional chapter that bears a conclusion of his postulations.

Kanu begins with a background on his voyage into writing the book. According to him, the idea first came up in 2012 when he was asked to deliver a speech at the Men’s Convention of The Christ Royal Family Church. “After the convention, I was overwhelmed by the burden to share my experience as a businessman…The reason for the topic was because ordinarily, I consider myself to be a product of God’s grace,” he says.

After defining the concept of each word in book’s title, Kanu, in Chapter One, begins with the need for one to “Overcome initial fears of starting a business”, saying “one must be strong-willed”; “identify a business one is passionate about; undergo apprenticeship and personal development”; “cultivate the habit of saving”; “start small, grow big”.

After Overcoming initial fears of starting a business, in Chapter Two, the author canvasses on the importance of starting one’s own business; and goes on explain how one can manage ones business in Chapter Three. He says a prospective entrepreneur should start by “registering his/her business”; “choose a good location; “write a business plan”; “employ qualified and competent hands”, among others.

And when one has started, to young entrepreneur, the author has this shocker on Page 48, Chapter Four, “Many of the successful businessmen or businesses that exist today have failed at different points in their histories but bounced back”, adding that “Statistics have shown that only 20 per cent of business is common, bouncing back from failure is also a common thing”.

To check such phenomenon, Kanu calls for financial discipline, integrity, preparation for the unforeseen, etc.

In the second half of the book, he touches on how managerial principles and wealth multiplication,

He concludes thus: “Grace is not automatic; it does not just fall on people’s lap. Success is a prize with a price tag. Being a believer in business is therefore about “using the skills and God-given gifts; working hard; conducting business with honour and strong consideration with others; praying about decisions, etc.”

No fewer than 100 pupils converged on Abednego Montessori School in Ketu on the outshirts of Lagos, for a summit organised by the Morna International Children’s Foundation (MICF) in partnership with Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF) to commemorate the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse (WDfPCA), some of the children relived their experience. JOKE KUJENYA reports.

IT was a bright and sunny Wednesday morning. The no fewer that 100 school children sat under a canopy, wearing yellow-coloured T-shirts with the inscription: “Say No To Child Abuse/Assault”.

The, messages touched some of them personally. Others, they were there because they were invited.

It was interesting watching them asked questions such as “What is child abuse?” “How can a child be abused”? “What is assault”.

Setting the tone for the day, some of the convener, Mrs Bukola Afolabi-Ogunyeye, chairperson of Morna International Children Foundation (MICF),  said “for a better Nigeria, we must focus on the children because there are many wolves out there taking their innocence for granted.”

Mrs Afolabi-Ogunyeye, a trained facilitator against child sexual abuse, a member of National Children Advocate Centre in the United States, (U. S.) and an author , address  “Every child is born innocent. They are born to be loved, to be protected, to learn and to grow. This maxim thus makes the matter of child sexuality a medical and moral concern. Thus, at no time has any society taken the issue of child abuse, assault or molestation lightly. In the extreme, it is a criminal case”.

For the children with ages ranging from  five to 13  to learn and share with their peers how to escape the male violence there, especially men that want to abuse them. They also had a rally against all forms of child molestation.

Real life encounters

For a few minutes in an enclosed setting, some of the children were encouraged to share their stories with this reporter.

Starting from Nkechi, 9, (not real name), she said it was her maternal uncle, that defiled her many times before he eventually relocated. She said she was afraid to tell her parents or anybody because she was always  alone with him. Whenever she returned from school every day then, adding she said he began by always telling her how beautiful she is adding that she could always confide in him.

Next were Kayode and Bola (9),   were caught playing with their genitals inside the school bus. During a counselling,  Kayode in tears said he learnt sex  from watching pornography movies. He said, his parents watched those movies while he sat in without being asked to leave.

Kemi, 5, said she was sexually abused by their Security Guard severally. “He told me not to tell anybody that he was only playing with me and that I must not tell anybody. But one day, I told my mummy and the guard was sacked by our landlord”.

These are just three of the  stories as the other children were too shy  to speak with a stranger.

Many  parents who had earlier been asked  to allow their children tell their stories declined because of what they called the ‘shame’.

Mrs. Afolabi-Ogunyeye noted that some of the cases were not often properly handled, adding that in the case of Kemi, she had counselled her and the girl seems to be doing well. She added: “Kemi is always very curious, paying rapt attention each time instructions were being passed to them in their school. I got to know her when she was in Basic 6 and I had asked all of them to close their eyes while inquiring if any of them had ever been sexually abused or still being abused. That was how they all began to open up to me and I gained their confidence”.

Mrs Afolabi-Ogunyeye noted  “Physical abuse occurs when a guardian or caretaker allows or inflicts non-accidental physical injury that causes a substantial risk to the child’s physical well-being and health.

“This is why a day as this was dedicated to the creation of awareness about child abuse with focus, more on sexual abuse. “She said in 14  years ago, the Women’s World Summit Foundation (WWSF)  launched the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse (WDfPCA ) to alert governments and civil society organisations (CSOs) across the world to play active roles in respecting Articles 19 and 34 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which uphold their right to live a life free of violence and abuse, including sexual abuse and exploitation.

“Sadly, cases of child abuse still abound being perpetuated by ‘mad men’ in every place. This is why we have taken our 19 days campaign to churches, mosques and schools to Ikosi and Ketu all within Ikorodu environs and in Lagos State”, she said.

MICF vice chairman, Mr Peter Pamisi said his organisation became involved in the 19 days campaign to show the need for a world where children are respected and protected from abuse. He said that was why his group nurturing and empowering children on their fundamental human rights.

Mrs Afolabi-Ogunyeye urged the children not to allow anyone to touch their buttocks or cases them in secret, asking them to report  such activities to their parents.