All is set for the 2022 edition of the Olokun cultural festival holding in Lekki, Lagos State.

The festival is billed for the 26th and 27th of this month. The 2022 edition of the annual festival is geared towards promoting African culture and also using the festival as a tool for economic empowerment.

The convener of the festival through her Olokun Foundation, Princess Lara Fashola, while speaking during a press conference, said culture if properly harnessed, can help grow the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria and the African continent as whole.

Fashola, who is a cultural ambassador of the African Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) and priestess of Olokun spoke on the annual festival: “It is a cultural festival celebrated throughout Yoruba land and the Diaspora. The main purpose is to unite our people and the whole world and to showcase the cultural value and heritage of our dear people.

”The festival which has been held since the 90s, is organized by the Olokun Festival Foundation and has become so popular that tourists now marks the date in their calendar. It has promoted tourism and cultural value chain to the world and makes African cultural rank with potential promises. It is high time all hands are put on deck to transform it into a major economic activity. This requires a conceited effort, time and attention of every African.

“The theme for this year is: “The role of African culture in the promotion and development of young Africans.” It is very timely in the light of the present situation in the country. My position is that if culture is properly harnessed, it will increase the GDP of Nigeria and the entire African continent.

”There is need to enlighten our youths to take their destiny into their hands. They should take due advantage of the continent’s rich cultural diversity to develop themselves economically. The promotion of our culture in Africa should have impact on the way we view life. However, contrary to this, in Nigeria, our culture has been pushed aside for foreign cultures in terms of food, languages, entertainment and fashion.”

She said the festival plays an important role in the lives of the people as it is pushing African culture and tradition in the forefront.

Reead Also:PRINCESS LARA FASHOLA: Why I sacrificed my marriage to serve Olokun goddess

She said: “Promoting the Yoruba culture through the Olokun festival has come to mend the gap by showcasing our culture through the best way possible with our local cuisines, music, fashion, folklore and others. As a cultural ambassador of the African Union Economic, Social and Cultural Council, Nigeria (AU ECOSOCC), my job is to support the work of the regional body which is to promote creative unity and solidarity between African countries and the people, and also to defend African position on issues of common interest.”

”Fashola also commended the AU ECOSOCC, Nigeria for its support saying the festival is in line with the Aspiration 5 of the AU Agenda 2063 meant for the future, and accelerates progress towards continental unity and integration for sustainability of culture and heritage, growth, trade, exchanges of goods, services, free movement of people, and capital through establishing a united Africa, and fast tracking economic integration.

“The aspiration, which is in progress, is fundamental to our growth as Africans, and if this is properly harnessed, it will surely take our continent to where we want to be in future. Ambassadors and high commissioners from African and other countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Malaysia, France, China, America, Spain, Britain, have been invited to come and be part of this year’s event. “Events include cultural events, ewe recitation, dance performances, inspired African shows, display of Africa artifacts, live band of contemporary African music, and many others,” she said.

IN “Instrument of Immortality,” the opening Dante’s type long poem, in Umar Yogiza Jr’s first collection, Instrument of Immortality, the author-like narrator asserts:

“I am the hidden; the unseen throat /in the voice, invoiced in life’s edge.” He’s a poetry in a grave of glass / and the gray tool of immortality, “i am the timeless timekeeper/ of life; and when i am long gone/ i’ll leave with you a living testament/ like a trail of worlds that outlive me,”.

The road lead down to a capricious cliff: death is the peak of life’s immortal poem, a ghost editor that proofreads the breath that leaves to outlive eternity; there’s no friend or foe in the grave when I was a child I envied grown-ups I thought to grow up was to know everything,” & he noticed that reasons are less sufficient.

“Sometimes love is an eye devoid of passion/ it looks at no one yet focuses on everyone”.

In 2,216 lines, 247 stanzas of a single poem– ‘Instrument of Immortality’, the young uncelebrated poet pours everything worth writing out: Yogiza Jr. sculpted his immortality perfectly in the world literary museum: “what is there to write that has not been written? what is there to come that has not come?9

He said, he writes without patronage/ or laid down tradition/ who is he to satisfy your reading tastes? /if his book bore your wit/ pass his book onto the wit of another/ it would be more alluring in their trust / he had no reputation to risk / no past to expose/ and your best or worst can no longer claim him.11

Like the poet Umar Yogiza Jr, the narrator of ‘Instrument of Immortality’ also stayed in Mpape; a suburb of Abuja, Nigeria, where: he swears to spray you his whole: purified, petrified and absolutehatred / falsehood strapped to his passion, illusion and blissful / endless obsession.18 “Instrument of Immortality” aloft Yogiza’s genius for articulating potpourri vulnerable handiwork of fate’s ups and downs: daily bitterness, anxiety, strives, etc. into a poem, mindless of the poetic ethics.

The emotions opened and closed the ‘Instrument of Immortality’ interrogates mortality and immortality: What are the dispossessed cheapest, commonest and easiest tool of carrying their immortality across generations without falling for numerous pits of history? What’s the cost of unburning one’s condemned fate without a scar?

After thinking that Yogiza Jr. has exhausted his ideas in the single long poem: instrument of immortality, that spans into 70 pages, 2,216 lines and 247 stanzas, he cowed every piece of sense in you, every piece of understanding in you in the second part of the collection: “singing in a bonfire”. Here is the narrator who resembles the poet interrogates what he meets and what he’ll be leaving: his flesh and memories, not in careless and angry tone like in the poem instrument of immortality,

He watches “slow as night & day pass one another” what becomes of him pilling unredeeming, like patches of clouds, fate does not care about his faith nor holiness

nor what his eyes, ears, emotions took in, he interrogates further, “can this infinite world be ordinary mazes?” Everyone “coming with worries, and going with worries” “oh sweet death,” he said, “the only real unclaimed”“certain,” he’s hers he concludes “waiting”.

Emotions after emotions, Yogiza shoulders his brokenness and all that of people who cannot speak with sincerity. His iron courted interrogation penetrates his sister’s age he mounts to the grave gate of North where the doorkeepers: soldiers and terrorists recites poetry of blood, from a sordid Kuje prison where a poet emerged to where he stands and the Sunday morning where he can feel the cold hug of loneliness and the cowed songs of bitterness, from lost on arrival in the lost the brother whom death finally broken to the bad of good intention and the calm and silent road that has seen it all where Yogiza feels the hope, fear, sorrows, and weakness of the road.

In the world’s events that according to Yogiza’s plain English coexists, he’s the language of the story in-between (born in the mine town of Baking Ayini, Central Nigeria) the poet’s tone intercedes between the rocks and trenches that helps nurture him. He articulates globally: animism, mythicism spirituality, Abrahamism, paganism, thoughts, nature, artificial etc., all have a stage in their performance.

And Yogiza’s prose like poetry of not using Capitals pillared this collection. He sincerely pulled down the regalia of his faith and suspended the tenet of his origin in each poem, “i have no place for me in my thoughts” he attests. We understand that the poet comes from a disadvantageous side of the Nigeria, a place with less or worse opportunity to be anything useful. He said, “my kind don’t come this far” often “ends as military recruits or fancy place cleaner” and “grave is the only tomorrow that’s closer and cheaper to them. Each poem is extensively sculpted with different emotions. In “Revelation of Wilderness” – Yogiza think:

in his mind he’s once lived he thinks in his mind i once died his hello, only grave answers

he lives, in a country where religion corrupts everyone’s minds.

The tasks of writing your unsayable is conscience tasks that every venture. From “these budding minds”: have you not killed with your eyes when Boko Haram killed with bombs schooling your sight into shrines on the oceans of self-acclaimed deities have you any peace in your swim when the water has lost its serenity have you not sipped from the pains of those who lost their loved ones even the returnees with artless babies of terrorists are below our conditions through these doors of new transition our remission is dying with poisons?

Between the crimes of the past and forgiveness, Umar Yogiza built his tent of poetry with the fire of razed homeland. In “reoccurring mistakes,” when forgotten relics are meant for us we invest all our  hard work and knowledge into correcting the selfish mistakes of wasted past who gamble our present with their immortal fame.

While the poet tries to unfasten the hell from his head, one is fastening from his feet” “one way wanderer,”: the angry clouds dart north with heaving heart when rain was smiting the egos between them.

Depiction of burning memories of a poet jammed between past, present, and the future of a country and continent he cares so much about, Yogiza carries the weight of every sufferer in his country: born as faith bond-slave I broadcast my pain afraid to give myself to fate’s have-not delights I broadcast my freedom to you I free myself of the sordid pains of  heaven paradise hell-fire I am a sanctuary I am a cloister.

Like the pilled of earth rolling to the strength of a bulldozer, Yogiza’s poem juxtaposed between the physical and supernatural, mindless of age-long faith and tradition without remorse. I still recall names but can’t recall my childhood memories, so he closes his instrument of immortality with a poem of where he grows up, “Giza here he came tattered on his knees / how can he leave you the best part of him? / he remembers her soft torso / & hope his tardiness to make a poem of/ her is forgiven / he’s aloft in her odyssey / he goes far; but every beauty he sees is her / he comes before Giza’s pagan gods: agyekadamoga / akpalla, ankuri, jukwei/ egbaa, kesa & akuki; the vision his time. Ogu the tree in Giza that has seen so many generations is gone, he can’t fight further, his chuckleshas surrendered his rotten bitterness.

AGATHA Adeshigbin is the CEO of Jedidahs Grand Services and convener of the decorator’s summit and she has done a lot to make the sector more lucrative, vibrant and attractive as well as compete favorably with their counterparts in other parts of the world.

At the second edition of the Summit it was a gathering of who is who in the sector and an opportunity to brainstorm on how to make things better and mentor upcoming decorators.

So, what inspired Adeshigbin to go into the sector you ask? “Before now, we attended different Summits and it was like a one size fits all. Here you see caterers, decorators, cocktail, ushers and different stakeholders in the sector. You attend those summits and see that sometimes you come out with nothing”.

The crux of the matter was that they were not getting the desired feedbacks and information that should take them to the next level in the business. “This is because it is not tailored towards your own kind of business. However, the decorator’s summit is tailored for decorators. So, that was what informed having this summit. It has been awesome because of the testimonies that we had from the event last year”.

Scroll down memory lane and she takes you through her experiences during the first edition of the summit and the fall outs. “We had it at the NUT Pavilion. It was during the COVID-19 period and we were very strict about the number of people that we had but had a full house. We didn’t have online participation because we had three practical sessions in floral, balloon artistry and decoration pop up making.”

She continued: “So, we felt that it should be something interactive and you learn more by seeing what the facilitator is doing. That way you can ask questions and learn better. If you are watching online, response time would be slow because of internet. It was therefore best for people to experience it firsthand. We also offered physical mentorship”.

 

The conversation moves on to talk about the criteria for participation, lessons learnt and the achievements. “Last year, we had 70 people with COVID restrictions in place. This year, the number increased and we had over a hundred people. There has been an increase, there has been awareness and they appreciated the Summit and what it offers them”.

Like every sector, it comes with its challenges but the most important thing is to carve a niche for your brand, be creative and maintain proper standards. “The industry is porous and we have had people that do not know anything about decorating calling themselves decorators. Even though we do not segregate, we help you, mentor you and groom you to become what you say that you are.”

Adeshigbin opines that it is a lucrative sector but unfortunately the government has turned its eyes on the sector. “It is no longer for dropouts as they used to say. It is now something for people who want to add value and receive value. There are lots of challenges , this include policies, difficulty to access funds , high interest rates and when you need to import the interest rates , staffing issues and a whole lot .The country is not friendly to entrepreneurs”, she informed.

You want to know how she got into sector and Adeshigbin takes you down memory lane.  “I studied Microbiology and after NYSC I had worked a bit, started my family. I practiced for a bit, did some other things. I was in Abuja at that time and my family was in Lagos and I was in Abuja. Then, my husband felt that we should all be in Lagos and it was a bit difficult to get the kind of job that I would have wanted to do. So, someone in our church, Daystar Christian center then told my husband that I should come and learn this while I was still looking for a job. I started, found a job, did the job but my passion was still here and so I left the place”.

What was the experience like at the beginning? “Like every startup you had difficulty getting clients, accessing the right tools, and getting people to believe that you can actually do the job. So, I started out doing a lot of free jobs just to make people know that I could do it”

Quitting? “Several times but I then looked at why I came joined in the first place. I love creativity and it inspired me. So, if I want to quit, it would say go back. There is a whole lot out there, please check out which is your passion. If you love creativity you can come into the sector and pick a sector and go for training, don’t just jump in. Mentorship is very important”.

Title: How I Killed Suicide

Author: Umar Yogiza Jr

Reviewer: Suraj Attahiru Attahiru

 

“Memories talks aloud mindless of the moment, mindless of the mental state of mind” Umar Yogiza Jr’s book— ‘How I Killed Suicide’, is an exploration into the being of depression, the power of its pondering noises and silences, and a step by step into workable resistance; a tool of molding a safeway out of this odd, hostile world’s endless demands.

Ingrained in Marxism school of thoughts, the poet’s mixed interrogation in prose and poetry has a penetrating elegance, stewed with uncontrolled thunderstorm that bare the damage done by chronic depression, suicidal thoughts– its ineffable silent symptoms and how it keeps on killing the young talents: “The first day I almost took my life was when rambling voices in my head became too loud to bear, reaching a crescendo that shot me off into isolation – talking and counter talking to myself – receiving all manner of commands to kill myself or disappear more. I became helpless when one of the voices bombarded me with questions I had no answers to, viz; am I a success? How can one define my life in a single word in my absence? What will I be remembered for? How will I be less regarded as a poet when I am no more? Will the lid covering my ‘fraudster status’ be upturned? Would people see the worthless personality that’s ‘the me’ I see every day in the mirror? It was the most terrifying moment of my life, and restlessness was the word. My ability to focus on a thought for just a second disappeared. Every thought dies at its birth. My existence was summarized as a huge mistake. Terrible voices wishing me dead never relented -one repeatedly reminded that, people who know me as a failure, only pretended not to have a knowledge of it. Whenever I was meant to carry out a task or progress on an idea, I would be overwhelmed by another –like, wanting to sleep, read, write, watch a movie, etc. Somehow, thoughts of wanting to be the richest man on earth dawned. If I was thinking of going to a construction site where I used to work, other issues will fight for attention. How can I possibly do all things, be everything, and be everywhere at the same time? I must be a fool –another voice from the void chides me. I was totally broken down and gripped by the cruel embrace of death, found everywhere I stepped my toot, posing as a sweet home to a better living.”p.13-14

Umar Yogiza Jr, a young poet, damaged by early fame, expectations, and trapped in the self web of piercing reality and dark assuring imagination achieves a mastery of delicate tone, on the second part of the book, the poet struggle to narrate the beginning: “penetrating with moments that shocks and bites one’s attention: “the shrill voice in my head, trained me/in the art of dying, I only failed as an artist/on the verge of dying…/overlaid by chronic despair/throat-gripped by rope, ready to give up/the one on the stage happened to be me/traduced by sordid expectations/brightened by erratic hopelessness.”p.20

“/the remote control of suicide is not/in what one lost or gained from life/but on many things crumbling fast as packs of cards/”p.21

The conceit that pillared this book is of Danteism. Yogiza presents a plausible symptoms of chronic depression that every creative is trying hard to either hides or denies into our consciousness. The quieter state of depression and suicidal thoughts and dangers, especially when young writers and poet are busy dying as genre of art: “there is a time in my mind when/the road into sanity is unclear, I run/I run, to destroy the scale/of balanced madness and creativity/door into my heart besieged/by fresh images of horror and darkness/running from confirmation of lies/claiming to prefigure my mortality”p.27

Umar Yogiza Jr honed his dark decisions making in his lowest moment till they glint with fearful facts and unsayable insight. Fate has no balance in its scale, no right moment! We often forget that everything about us vanishes! The world will outlive us and we come from nothing! Bring nothing, and are going into nothing out of this world: “I have watched real people run run/and run with neither map nor/reposing destination/only to forget pieces of themselves behind/I dont want to run anymore/ I met a traveling physician in my sanity/a trained schizophrenia/every step taken leads to bitterness my dream/wanes-sickened and exhausted”p28

Umar Yogiza, gives us a wrenching tale of sordid mental war, and of the struggle of living under the threats of mind imperial unseen bullets. In this book, the translated the metaphors languages of lust, lost, fears, grief the roots of conflict that supply them nutrient: “Finding this world unsafe, I took up arms in my mind to defend my journey through to other sides of life, I wrestled in boiling pains without a mapped-out plan. I began an aggressive search for a spiritual fate to hold on to but giving up my life mattered most -feeling that only death would give me a kind of peace my mind was imagining so it seemed. In a flashback, my past failures, pains and tragedies returned to my head ata swoop, my sanity would gasp, searching for mythical clues amidst the whistles, drums and darkness clattering in my ears. I saw my failures and that of others, mistakes and losses, grand mysteries- I lost the courage to ask questions. I heard the usual last payers said to the dead before being lowered to mother carth, I saw a decorative casket raised shoulder-high, I wished it should be me”p14

Underneath the soul of every young creative, in Nigeria, Africa or anywhere else in the world, there is a hungry innocent tired curiosity, thirsty for success and urgent understanding of so many things. If all the young poets in Nigeria who embraces suicide as the only option could have the opportunity of reading this book, I believed their lives could have been spared. This is a story and short short poems motored by the confrontation of suppressed-dark-unasked, anxiety, lost, and grief in the emotional landscape of the mind.

Title: Soludo: Solution by Disruptive Thinking in Anambra

Author (edited): Chuka Nnabuife

Publishers: Anambra Newspapers Printing Corporation, Awka

Year of Publication: 2022

Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

 

THE articles vary from opinions to features, all eulogizing the Governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo.  The write-ups dwell principally on his programmes; on the promises he had made to Anambrarians during his campaigns.  The different ideas, ideals, projects, programmes, innovations, et al, he intended to bring in to make the state not only a model, but one of the foremost in the history of mankind are highlighted.

The articles bristle with life, dripping with renewed infusions of vigour and vehemence to ginger Soludo on so that his slogan of Soludo-solution will bear fruits ad infinitum.  The title of the book is a clear signal and indication of what Soludo believes in – Soludo:  Solution by Disruptive Thinking in Anambra.  Edited by an art scholar and journalist, Chuka Nnabuife, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Anambra Newspapers and Printing Corporation, publishers of National Light, Awka, with foreword by Paul Nwosu, the State Commissioner for Information, the Soludo ideals are made into a sort of movement of disruptive change(s).  The issues raised are a pointer to what to expect from his administration in the next few years.  The fact that the collection of articles were made into a book within this shortest possible time is also indicative of the level of resilience in the Soludo-solution team and the whole of Anambra State.

As a matter of fact, the title of the book is derived from one of the earliest lectures Soludo delivered in Abuja soon after he was elected governor.  Entitled The Purpose and Price of Disruptive Change, Soludo told the young graduands of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, Abuja, that they as the young ones can equally transform their society if they so wish and are really bent on doing so.  Reported by Chuka Nnabuife himself, he entitled the article: Africa urgently needs to heed Soludo’s call for disruptive change.  The underlying factor remains that for a society to seriously move away from the mundane to the modern, there has to be committed and disruptive paradigm shift both in thought process and actions.

This is so because it is clear that things have gone awry in almost every facet of this generation (page 17).  This is manifest in people’s attitude to personal and social activities and for Soludo, time to change that tendency is here as Anambra is set to take the lead.  It is not just moments to make verbal, verbose promises, it is time to get down to business, attacking those issues or tenets or precepts that do not augur well for the state, for the well-being of the people.  It is time to push aside or pull down obstructions in order to make inroads for civilization, for modernity to take its proper place.

Each article zeroes down on a different template for the governor, sports inclusive.  While some are on issues of political reforms, others are on social, economic and other tendencies to transform the state.  It is noted however, that on the economic front, the governor is taken head-on on his promises to the people.  It is a way of re-awakening, reminding him of the things he said he would do and those the people also want him to perfect to make life better for all.  Some of the articles emanated from the weekly editorial meetings of the National Light, the state owned newspaper.  Each writer was assigned a different topic to handle to its logical conclusion.  In the end, the depth of seriousness, the level of commitment shown by the writers also point towards disruptive solution for a new Anambra State.  For instance, the foreword by the Commissioner for Information Paul Nwosu hit the nail on the head.  He said: “The governor (first) went to Okpoko slums to dare dirt and murk.  He would not bow the knee to the idolatrous so-called unknown gunmen striving in vain to foist a reign of insecurity on the state.  They are being routed by the minute…”

But Nnaibuife, almost short of terming this era a revolutionary moment, inferred: “revolutions are not just radical developments that quake society, or force out change of social order they are not always violent…  Revolutionary transformations in governance and social equations are better achieved through non-violent but not lesser-keen collective quest of a people to evolve to higher grounds”.  This comes with clear understanding of what they are in for as well as what the land, thereafter, will no longer accept.  This is the Soludo-solution mantra for a disruptive change, well orchestrated and engineered to benefit the society, the people as whole.  Anambra is in for a good time.

For a futuristic change to come, there must be some serious disruptions to the status quo – old things must pass away for new ones to take their proper places.  Soludo is an apostle of such belief and approach, for to him if one does not pursue a dark skinned goat in the day time, it will be difficult to see it in the dark.  And so this brings us to Uzor Maxim Uzoatu’s article aptly entitled It’s morning yet on Soludo solution day.  He said: “My title is borrowed from Chinua Achebe’s book of essays entitled Morning Yet On Creation Day…  Yes, “a popular mandate always comes with great expectations…  Expectations need to be matched with the hard realities on the ground….  At the visionary level, Soludo banks on the plans, values, passion and accomplishments of some of Africa’s liberation-cum-independence leaders such as Julius Nyerere, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, etc….  Therefore, “Soludo’s early morning feats are already ennobling pointers to a rewarding Solution Day for Anambra State, the Light of the Nation”.

Uzoatu goes on in another article entitled What Governor Soludo means to Anambra State.  In it, he enthuses thus: “Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo is a man of destiny.  He did not hide it from anybody that he wanted to become the Anambra State governor.  The job has now met him.  Soludo came upon the saddle of Anambra State governorship fully prepared…  Soludo exemplifies the unique Anambra essence of education and enterprise”.  And so the made-in-Anambra work ethic of excellence that Soludo solution preaches and practices is an idea whose time has come, whose era synchronizes with a man of vision, totally given to the resuscitation of a people’s dream to be the first among equals.

Divided into sections, the book has articles in varied forms and themes by other writers.  Some of the authors include Izunna Okafor, Chigozie Anueyiagu, Ray Udeagbara, Okechwukwu Anarado, Juventus Okoli.  Others are Onyedikachi Anyaonyeabor, Michael Nnabuife, Joe Anatune, Chris Aghanya and more.  Each article pierced and pried into the Soludo solution melee meant to re-address the Anambra situation, the Anambra mandate.

Above all, the reactions of some prominent Anambra citizens on the Soludo disruptive mantra also lend credence to this book.  Such people as Innoson, the Amesi monarch, even Governor Okowa of Delta State, show how deep and profound the mission to turn Anambra around has become.  In some of the editorial comments, The National Light comes hard, but constructively and objectively on the way forward; on issues to be tackled forthwith.

Some of the editorials, like in most cases, are agenda setting in tone, tune and pointing front and back on many plausible and acceptable ways to move on ahead.  Even then Nnabuife and Co have to be commended for having produced the fastest book in the history of any governor known and unknown.  Some areas of the book however, where errors appeared should be avoided in the future.  Otherwise, the book came out forcefully to reinvigorate the never-say-die-attitude of most zealous professional and seasoned journalists.  Ditto: Chuka Nnabuife and his team.  When you read this book, your attitude, approach, imagination and all, about change will be re-ordered and reset.

Lagos, Nigeria August 2022 A hush fell over the gallery. Not from silence, but from reverence. From August 8th to 15th, within the curated walls of the Event Culture Centre on Victoria Island, Lagos, photographer Chidozie Maduka unveiled something extraordinary: a series that doesn’t shout, but sings softly. Its title? “Nchekwube.”

A single word in Igbo. A vast emotion in translation: hope.

This was not an exhibition in the traditional sense. It was a meditation a quiet but powerful journey through the stories we often overlook. A child’s wide eyes lifted to the sky. A father’s worn hand steady on his son’s shoulder. The joy of bare feet in a river, the faith embedded in a farmer’s hands planting tomorrow. These moments, stitched together by Maduka’s lens, wove a tapestry of endurance, memory, and belief.

Chidozie drew guests into stillness. It invited pause. Viewers wandered the space not as spectators, but as participants many teary-eyed, others whispering to one another about their own fathers, their own rivers, their own seeds sown in hope.

There were no grand declarations. No elaborate stagecraft. Just frames of truth tender, unfiltered, grounded. The photographs spoke in tones of earth and sky, of dusk falling over the village, of early morning sounds before the world wakes. Nchekwube held space for the intimate resilience of the everyday African life. It was, in its essence, a love letter to those who endure without applause.

Curator Adaobi Nnaji described the collection as “a spiritual experience disguised as an exhibition,” and it was hard to disagree. A centerpiece of the gallery, the “Tree of Resilience,” allowed visitors to hang handwritten hopes on branches a forest of dreams rising gently, word by word.

Collectors were quick to respond, acquiring works before the week was over, while cultural figures and artists lingered, reluctant to leave the world Maduka had conjured.

For Chidozie Maduka, this show marked not just a career milestone but a conversation with community. “This work is for the people I grew up with. The ones still holding on. The ones who never gave up,” he said quietly on opening night.

And as the lights dimmed on the final evening, what remained wasn’t just the memory of images it was a presence. A whisper. A promise: that hope, in all its quiet power, still lives here.