It was a feast of ‘cook your own food’ experience at the hot plate restaurant of Oriental Hotel, Lekki, Lagos as fragrance experts recently gathered for the maiden Seinde Signature partners’ dinner and awards.

The dinner is coming after a year Seinde Signature, a world-class fragrance studio premiered at the 11th floor of the hotel.

MD/CEO Siende_Signatures, Mr. Seinde Olusola said, “This is like an interactive session with our partners which are majorly wholesalers. People register to become our wholesaler; we don’t just sell to anybody. This is because we aren’t doing business the way everyone does business. And the award to the  Scent Store is just a token of appreciation for the level of business, belief and faith they have in our brand.”

MD/CEO, The Scent Store, Motunrayo Adebo said the lockdown, which became necessary all over the world due to the rising cases of COVID-19, gave fragrance stores in Nigeria more visibility and attention, as fragrance lovers could no longer travel outside the country to buy fragrances.

Read Also: SEINDE OLUSOLA: I’m chief servant of my company

“You know with the  COVID-19 and the accompanying lockdown, nobody could go out to buy perfumes. So people were searching online for places in Nigeria where they can buy perfumes. This has really helped those of us in perfume business and Nigeria, by extension,” she added.

Adebo who also won the ‘Seinde Signature Top Trade Partner’ in the first half of this year, noted that the fragrance industry in the country has really improved compared to what it used to be 12 years ago when she started.

“With the perfume museum innovation as brought by Mr. Seinde, it has opened Nigeria to niche brands, and is really going to get better than this. Nigeria is really taking its place in the global fragrance business, and the Covid-19 has been an advantage.”

As the first of its kind in Nigeria, Siende_Signatures boasts of over 1000 carefully selected fragrances from the best brands and perfumers all over the world.

It was a symbolic statement against the COVID-19 virus when the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Ltd held a banquet in honour of the 11 authors shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature (NPL). EVELYN OSAGIE reports that the 11 authors are gunning for the $100,000 (N50 million) prize.

The race is on for the Nigeria Prize for Literature (NPL). And 11 books are gunning for the mouthwatering $100,000 (N50 million) literary prize, founded and sponsored by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Ltd. The books made the list out of 202 entries on prose fiction, received for the prize. Although this year is focusing on prose, the prize rotates yearly among four literary categories – prose fiction, poetry, drama, and children’s literature.

And as has been the ritual preceding the announcement of the prize winner, the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) and NLNG treated the top authors and the literary community to a sumptuous literary banquet, tagged Book Party.

The book fest, which was the  12th edition, celebrated authors of last year’s competition which, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had to be shifted to this year. All COVID-19 protocols were observed at the event.

It was a hybrid gathering that brought together writers, thespians, filmmakers, book aficionados and others, physically at the Eko Hotel, Lagos and on Zoom.

The books shortlisted for this edition, include In The Name of Our Father by Olukorede Yishau; Mountains of Yesterday by Tony Nwaka; Imminent River by Anaele Ihuoma; Your Church, My Shrine by Ikay Ezeh; Neglected by Lucy Chiamaka Okwuna and The Return of Half-Something, by Chukwudi Eze.

Others are Give Us Each Day by Samuel Monye; Delusions of Patriots by Obianuju V. Chukwuanyi; The Girl WithThe Louding Voice by Abi Dare; The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia; and The Colours of Hatred by Obinna Udenwa.

The feast began with CORAs Secretary General, Mr. Toyin Akinosho, reading an excerpt from Phebean Ogundipe’s Up Country Girl, after the introductions by CORA Programme Chair, Mr. Jahman Anikulapo.

With the mind of taking the book to the community, this year’s party, according to  Akinosho, was to be a symbolic gathering, to make a statement that the virus would not defeat the pursuit of a noble cause such as the NPL.

“We know of podcast recordings of conversations between authors and moderators; we are aware of mailed excerpts of new books; we know of grand launches. But nothing beats a book reading; an event at which an author sits and discusses his work with readers in the room. Whoever wins the prize is the most literate Nigerian in the year of his winning. On the street, today, $100,000 will deliver N50 million. The prize money makes the competition as keen as some of the most-prestigious literary prizes on the planet,” Akinosho said.

Although that is quite some significant amount of money by anyone’s account, CORA sees in it an opportunity for the creation of an entire economy around the book trade, Anikulapo said.

Reiterating NLNG’s commitment to promoting literature and writers, NLNG General Manager, External Relations, Mrs. Eyono Fatayi-Williams, said the NPL to date had recorded well over 2,200 entries and celebrated 12 winning works. It runs concurrently with the Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism, which carries a monetary value of N1 million (also sponsored by NLNG), for which four entries were received in 2020.

The party, according to her, would help to promote the reading culture, especially among young Nigerians, engage relevant publics in literature, academia, and the media and stimulate public interest in the selected works and the NPL.

She said: “Although the competition was truncated last year following the restrictions occasioned by the pandemic which hampered submission of entries within the allowed window, this event provides me some sense of relief and upliftment, knowing that the Nigeria LNG-sponsored literature and science prizes are back on course after COVID-19 pandemic stalled the call for entries for the 2020 edition of the competitions.

“The Book Party has assumed a life of its own in the administration of the prize, as it showcases to Nigerians the top 11 books for each competition year.

“We still found the courage to organise the Book Party, given the huge derivable value that connecting hearts and minds offer our creative thoughts. The prize has also contributed to popularising Nigerian Literature in the global literary community: today, Nigeria can showcase works that portray excellent writing, editing, proof-reading, and publishing in Nigeria and this promise to get even better as we continue to promote The Nigeria Prize for Literature.”

The event also featured music and book readings done with such theatrical resonance by some of the leading actors on stage and screen, such as Charles Ukpong, Tina Mba, Francis Onwochei, Achalugo Ezekobe and Bimbo Manuel.

The 11 authors fielded questions in an interactive session moderated by Mr. Rufai Oseni of AriseTV, who engaged the writers on the journey into the world of writing and the book production process that made it to the contest.

Mba read Neglected by Okwuna and Dare’s The girl with the Louding Voice. Ukpong read an excerpt from Monye’s Give us Each Day and Nwaka’s Mountain of Yesterday. Dramatist and biker, Ezekobe read from Yishau’s In the Name of our Father.

Responding to questions by Oseni, The Nation newspaper’s Associate Editor, Yishau, who is also one of the shortlisted authors, recounted: “I wrote In the Name of the Father when I was 24 years old but I kept it for like 15 years. The usual writer’s doubt and the likes stalled me from publishing it. I gave it to some friends, they read and said it was good but, somehow, I wasn’t convinced until 2017, I decided to send it to Tony Kan.

“I remember the SMS I sent to him was ‘please, read this for me, if you think it’s good for the trash can, tell me and I will gladly throw it into the trash. He said to me, ‘Yishau this is good, well done’. So, as you can see it was published and here we are today.”

Worried by the increasing plunge in the prices of petroleum products and its attendant impact on the nation’s economy, the Director-General National Council for Arts and Culture  (NCAC), Otunba Segun Runsewe, has raised the alarm on the need for Nigeria to drive its economic diversification process using the rich resources in arts, culture and tourism. He warned against over reliance on oil, which he said, is not sustainable.

He noted that the dwindling revenues from oil have made it highly imperative for Nigeria to pursue a sustained process of economic diversification, ‘if we must attain the much needed economic stability and development.’

Otunba Runsewe who spoke on Beyond the oil economy: The diversification option for Nigeria in Lagos at the weekend, noted that it is clear to all that Nigeria can no longer continue to depend solely on crude oil exportation, adding that with the rich and diverse cultural resources of Nigeria and given the abundant tourism resources, it stands to reason that if Nigeria as country must diversify its economy, it must look outside crude oil which is the current major foreign exchange earner and focus on arts, culture and tourism as one of the key players in its  economic development.

“The near total dependence on crude oil exportation as the source of Nigeria’s  Foreign Exchange (FOREX) earnings, Runsewe stated,  has greatly slowed down the pace of development in other sub-sectors of the economy such as agro-allied industry, manufacturing, solid minerals and the service industry, among others,” he said.

He however,    noted that for about five decades, crude oil exploration and exportation dominated Nigeria’s economy, adding that while other oil producing countries use crude oil revenues to develop and strengthen other sectors of the economy, the reverse is the case in Nigeria.

“It would appear that the discovery of oil in Nigeria has come with its attendant woes. This is because the Nigerian oil wealth has tended to becloud our sense of initiative and economic vision, while promoting a national culture of unbridled corruption, laziness, opportunism and primitive acquisitive tendency.

“Apart from the effect of near total neglect, the oil economy has had on other critical sectors, the fluctuation in the world prices of petroleum products has continued to pose great threat to the stability of our economy, thus making effective planning on a sustainable basis extremely difficult,” Runsewe said.

According to him, the fluctuations in oil prices in the past years are enough reasons to diversify the economy from oil to arts, culture and tourism. He said Nigeria is one of the most culturally diverse nations of the world with over 250 distinct ethnic groups; each with unique culture, cultural products and assets has the capacity of sustaining a robust tourism industry and driving the process of socio-economic development if adequately harnessed.

“For a nation as large as Nigeria with rich and diverse culture, one festival per state would go a long way in attracting tourists into the country thereby contributing to the development of the economy through spending in hotel lodging, patronage of local cuisines, transportation, and purchase of arts and crafts products among others. He identified Nigeria’s film industry as one of the fastest growing in Africa and that the increasing popularity and patronage among African countries make the industry a potential foreign exchange earner for Nigeria.

He added that what is required is for the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board and other regulatory agencies to ensure that the quality of contents of the products, the country’s rich cultural heritage and sell the best of Nigeria.

Runsewe observed that with adequate funding, assistance from government, more appropriate packaging, marketing and promotion, the Nigerian film industry will contribute significantly to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“The implication of this is that the ripple effects of tourism can be seen in every sector of the society: economic, social and environmental. It is, therefore, clear that if we get tourism right, it will not only engender sustainable economic growth, it will also lead to the creation of employment, eradication of poverty and empowerment of the people both the educated and the skilled, the uneducated, unskilled as well as the semi-skilled members of the society,” he said.

He charged stakeholders in the private sector to work with government institutions in the sector to drive the process of developing the sector.

Eleven years after an unsuccessful attempt at the repeal and re-enactment of its Establishment Act, the management of National Gallery of Art (NGA) returned to drawing board last Friday in Lagos to chart a new path. This second attempt, which is in partnership with Society of NigerianArtists (SNA) according to the Director General of NGA, Mr Ebeten William Ivara is to harmonise the different positions of NGA and SNA before moving to the critical stage at the National Assembly.

In 2010, the bill scaled the first and second reading at the House of Representatives before it got scuttled at the public hearing due to disagreement between NGA and SNA.

Speaking at the inauguration of the Joint Working Committee on the harmonisation of NGA’s Establishment Act for Repeal and Re-enactment, Ivara said this is a fallout of the stakeholders meeting convened by NGA last December to chart a new course for the agency. He noted that the consensus was that NGA must be armed with the right tools to face the challenges of the 21st century. “This means reviewing the act establisbing it….NGA has to transit from a service oriented agency to that of revenue generation,” he added.

Members of the committee include Dr.  Simon Ikpakronyi, Director, Curatorial Services, Ngozi John-Uyah, Director, Documentation and Monitoring and James Irabor, Technical Assistant to the DG, President, Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA), Oliver Enwonwu, Vice President West- elect Dotun Alabi and General Secretary and Vice President East- elect Archibong Bassey.

This time, issues to be harmonised by the committee as term of reference include the inclusion or otherwise pf a representative of SNA in the committee on embellishment, inclusion or otherwise of SNA as repsentative in the committee of  Artists Royalty, retention or review of art embellishment levy of 2 percent cost of construction of public buildings or bridges, extension or otherwise of embellishment levy of 2 percent to private buildings with construction cost of N10billion and above, desirability or otherwise of the National Gallery of Art Endowment Fund given the wide-reaching effect of the embellishment levy and other recommendations as may be beneficial to the visual art sub-sector..

According to Ivara, once the bill is passed into law, the benefits will include engaging visual artists in urban and rural areas productively almost all the year round to produce at works for the purpose of art embellishment alone as well as residual income for artists from royalties. Other benefits are explosion in studio practice, increase in visual art practice, entrepreneurship and mentoring, release of the much needed fund to reposition visual art as a viable discipline for young people to embrace, visual art will contribute to Nigeria’s GDP, and the building of gallery edifice in Abuja and other geopolitical zones.

Founder TAFAS Art Gallery, Chief Timothy Adebanjo Fasuyi urged Federal Government to increase the funding of art to enable NGA to purchase artworks. He also called on Federal Government to enact an act establishing a national artists body to regulate and control the practice of art.

To the outgoing President Society of Nigerian Artists Mr. Enwonwu, a new NGA establishment act will without doubt make NGA a revenue generating organisation, encourage public and private  sector partnership in funding the visual art sector, enhance the relationship between NGA and SNA, support artists through the sponsorship of exhibitions, publications, residencies and workshops.

“Importantly, the bill is only one of such welcome projects that will resuscitate the partnership between the SNA and NGA. Others include the annual independence exhibition to celebrate the best of Nigerian art and our rich cultural heritage,” Enwonwu said.

Former President of SNA, Mr. Kolade Oshinowo praised management of NGA for the initiative, but decried the poor state of art in national collection, which he decribed as very bad. He also expressed worry over the seeming doldrum and fatigue that have taken over the visual art sector in recent time, noting that once upon a time, NGA was very vibrant hosting  major events such as ARESUVA, Art Expo among others.

Among stakeholders at the inauguration included Kolade Oshinowo, Dr. Kunle Fulani, Dr. Bolaji Ogunwo, Prof Bruce Onobrakpeya represented by Mr. Mudiare Onobrakpeya, Dr. Simon Ikpakronyi, Mr. Dotun Alabi, Mr. Kolawole Olojo Kosoko and Mr. James Irabor.

After the success of its maiden event, the Quramo Festival of Words (QFest 2021) will be headlining industry best at its second edition.

Lined-up for this years event are Prof. Ahmed Yerima, Femi Odugbemi, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Dike Chukwumerije, among other creative voices.

With the theme: Transcendence: Words Defying, the  event, which is in its second edition, will explore its theme through poetry, book chats, panel discussions, film and more. The festival is being organised by Quramo Publishing.

According to Mrs. Gbemi Shasore, Executive Publisher, Quramo Publishing, and convener of QFest 2021: This years theme is apt, as it captures the struggles of creatives who, though amongst the worst hit and the most stifled, during and after a pandemic, are constantly seeking meaning and restoration through all the traditional and alternative modes of creative expression that words allow.

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“With the popularity of Podcasts, Zoom, Instagram, Club-House, WhatsApp, and many other virtual platforms for expression, words have taken on different forms; from written texts to audio documents and visual texts, as such, this festival will explore the effectiveness of these new forms in the age of clampdowns.”

As its tradition, the winner of Quramo Writers Prize will also be unveiled at the festival, QFest 2021 festival director, Iquo DianaAbasi, said.

“In 2020, the festival had the  theme: “Creativity Reset: The Future of Words”, as a way of interrogating the adjustments resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, globally. From social media bans to worsening inflation, brain drain and numerous killings across Nigeria and Africa, Quramo Festival of Words, QFest will look at a dynamic range of human issues in the throes and aftermath of a pandemic, and how different artists explore these issues and cope with the harsh impacts of the pandemic on the creative industry, according to DianaAbasi.

One of Nigeria’s most influential modern artists and art teachers, Prof Yusuf Grillo is dead. A statement by Otunba Babatunde Grillo announced the passing away of the patriarch, who died in the early hours of Monday, August 23, at the age of 87. According to a statement, the first President Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) died at the Gbagada General Hospital in Lagos state after a ‘brief illness’. He was buried at the Atan Cemetry, Yaba on Monday according to Islamic rites.

Grillo, who was a prominent art teacher at the School of Art, Design and Printing, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos before his retirement, trained at the Nigerian College of Arts and Science Zaria (now Ahmadu Bello University), and was a member of the Zaria School, a society founded in 1958.

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Born in 1934 in the Brazilian Quarter of Lagos, Yusuf Grillo went on to become one of the most influential figures in Nigerian art.  After studying extensively in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, Grillo became the Head of Art and Printing at Yaba College of Technology, a post he retained for over 25 years.

During this period, he has received a number of public commissions; his mosaics and stained glass can be seen in churches, universities, government buildings across Lagos, and most recently at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja Lagos.

Prof. Grillo is one of the most famous stained glass designers in Nigeria with his work adorning some of the biggest church buildings in the country. In particular, his works adorn the windows of St Dominic’s Catholic Church and All Saints Anglican Church both in Yaba, Lagos.

Title:  Living By The Script

Author: Deji Ajibade

Reviewer:  Oyeyinka Fabowale

Publisher:  The Roaring Lion Newcastle 2021

Pagination: Pages: 1105

How can one make the most of life and existence?  This encapsulates some of the serious existentialist questions that assail men at some point in their lives. It does not matter whether they are rich or poor, famous or unknown. While celebrities, ‘successful’ business or career people with well-paying jobs often feel deep within them dissatisfaction and a yearning still to be fulfilled, in spite of being apparently rich and comfortable, those who consider themselves not so privileged envy and put themselves under strenuous pressure to be like the former, unaware these ones would probably gladly trade places with them for a promise of truly happy and fulfilled life.

Both parties should probably read Living By The Script. The book, written by Deji Ajibade, a clinical psychologist, counselor and player in the financial sector, is a bold attempt at helping the reader make sense of life and live a vibrant, satisfying life of purpose, contentment and bliss. In it, Ajibade bursts a lot of myths and clears up misconceptions and limiting notions about life and living, sharing insights that can help men make oysters of their lives. He serves his prescriptions in capsules of clear, concise and logical instructions spread over 10 chapters of the 105-page book.

The author opens the book debunking the conventional notion that equates happiness with man’s ultimate goal in life. He describes it as illusory. According to him, most people, in fact, lose or sacrifice their happiness in pursuit of happiness as they forgot to consciously experience and enjoy what the present or the process had to offer, while they chase fame, fortune, material possessions or pleasures only to be disappointed that their accomplishment does not bring enduring happiness, making them to hanker for even more.

“It’s like we are filling a bottomless pit in our soul. As such, we find ourselves in a conundrum of persistent dissatisfaction,” Ajibade says.

Contrary to this view, Ajibade states that happiness is an intentional decision – a choice that takes a renewal of mind and a reorientation of our thought processes that require an understanding of certain patterns that make us unhappy and reconfiguring our perceptions towards them.  He lists some of the factors as worry, comparing oneself or situation to others’, ingratitude, lack of exercise/unhealthy living, misguided pursuit of materialism, hanging around negative persons, playing the blame game/being fixated on being in control, neglecting set goals, fear, dwelling on the past, seeking validation and lack of sleep/relaxation.

Chapters 2 and 3 talk about the ‘more’ trap and the need to strike a balance between ambition and contentment, counseling individuals not to sacrifice time and attention that should be invested on the essentials of life particularly family and relationships for insatiable material craving. In these chapters, he demonstrates the delusions in thinking that one would become happy when he postpones self-gratification, seeks perfection, fulfills ambition and assumes being ‘bigger is better’.

Chapter 4 asserts that life offers meaning and fulfillment only when a man finds and strives to fulfill the purpose of his existence. However, he is quick to point out that this does not imply dreaming up a particularly big or spectacular thing that will have a tremendous impact or attract us fame as most ambitious people delude themselves, but “…the ability to do the seemingly little things with a touch of excellence and selflessness, and the ability to create purpose out of that.” This, he says, calls for a mindset shift from trying to derive “…meaning from what we do to making what we do meaningful”. Such purpose is not specific or static and can be created and fulfilled at whatever age.But to give wholesome fulfillment, it must be tied to adding value to others and not self- glorification.

Though, challenges are inevitable and integral part of life, the author assures the reader he would always overcome vicissitudes, melancholy and depression if he finds something worthy to live for and pursues it with passion. This does not mean focusing on that major thing that brings us fame or makes us rich, but could be multiple things such as – family, pets, spouse and children – outside of that are equally essential but often taken for granted. Since our purpose evolves just as our understanding of who we are and what we want, the possibility of bliss and fulfillment to be derived is infinite, Ajibade reasons.

The rest of the chapters contain tips on mentoring, how to tame one’s personal weaknesses, which he calls ‘foxes’ that undermine a person’s potential, as well as principles he needs to surmount hard times and positively transform his life from mediocre level to the zenith of vibrancy and fullness!

This is one book that you will find useful in trying to comprehend, adjust and cope with the puzzles and challenges of our present time. Besides its rich ideas and thoughts supported with quotable quotes and illustrations drawn from the lives and experiences of icons in diverse fields, its other value is in the simple, clear and accessible language with which Ajibade explains issues.

With the inspirational, empathetic and overtone of his discourse, Ajibade shows he is both a teacher and a healer. His concern to see the reader benefit from his knowledge is evident in his frequent urging and emphasis to put it to practice.