The Nation Newspaper

Category: Arts & Life

  • Inspiration through documentary

    To motivate people, an evangelist, Banji Adesanmi, and his team have created Inspaya TV.

    It is a documentary television programme which will begin airing on July 1 on local and international channels.

    On why he started the programme, Adesanmi,  said: “I am like an accidental preacher. Unlike many people, I cannot say I got ‘the call’. However, I noticed that whenever I spoke, I always moved people, many of whom were older than I was.”

    For the duration of its first season, the television programme will run for  30 minutes and will be presented by Adesanmi, who is also called Evangelist Bee. Then the programme will go on to feature the inspirational story on its itinerary, while it will conclude with the evangelist answering questions sent to the programme.

    The stories or chronicles (as the case may be) will be told by the subjects themselves and will be corroborated by individuals who witnessed as the subject travailed to overcome or subdue his or her rigours. All the stories, noted Yemi Awosanya, the producer, will go through thorough vetting before they are selected for airing.

    For the first season, 13 episodes have been prepared, including the story of a mother of five suffering from sickle-cell anaemia, the story of a man who fell from a bridge at Maryland in Lagos, and the story of a middle-aged man who overcame a drug addiction he had been afflicted with since he was in primary school.

    All the videos are also shot in High Definition (HD) and Awosanya recalled that the picture quality is one of the first compliments people pass when they preview the videos. To achieve this, he mentioned that they also had to create a studio where they could produce optimally, as well as the apparatus needed for such productions.

    Awosanya added that while they had completed production for the first season, the second season will comprise international stories. “We are already working on getting stories from outside the country,” he said, adding: “So you can see that it is not just a Nigerian thing – it is a global thing.”

    Meanwhile, Adesanmi claimed that the aim was not just to tell the stories to entertain people, but also to inspire and give people hope. “It is not just story-telling; it is inspiration providing. It is a TV show aimed at inspiring everyone. At a time like this when things are tough, seeing other people’s stories can serve to give people hope,” he added.

     

     

  • ‘I usually arrive at my titles before I begin to write’

    ‘I usually arrive at my titles before I begin to write’

    The book, My Name is Okoro, comes with its own uniqueness in dissecting the facts of historical happenings that affected the nation in the turbulent years leading to the civil war.  It is a story that has shifted attention away from the norm.  In writing the book, Sam Omatseye was deliberate in his choice of approach, using the voice of the minorities to mirror the events as they unfolded.

    What motivated me

    He said, “two significant events informed my going into this book: they spurred me on.  They are Half of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Tragedy of a Victory by General Alabi Isama.  Both telling stories from different points of view, Alabi Isama’s is perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the events dwelling on the Nigerian side.  His is not a work of literature or fiction.  It is a combination of facts of history, with an autobiographical background.  So I discovered that he told a lot of the minority story but he did not reflect the sensibilities of the minorities.”

    Even though Isama took a deep sweep from the federal point of view, telling the harrowing story of a tragedy, Omatseye nonetheless chose to go deeper to fish out elements that situate some of the events in the hub of the Niger Delta.  The theatre of war, the killings and harassment of majority of the peoples of the Niger Delta thus formed the core values of his narrative.  “Isama’s was not intended to tell the minority story.  It happened that his own tour of duty took place mainly in the minority areas of the country.  He mentioned Sapele, some riverine areas and then Akwa Ibom and parts of the present day Cross River State and Rivers State.  These were the areas he covered and for me it is just the story of the war events.”

    However, the story of Hall of a Yellow Sun, in the reckoning of Omatseye seems to have given undue attention to the massacre of the Igbos.  Therefore, it appears they were the only single ethnic group affected by the pogrom and by extension the vagaries of the war.  He enthused, “It is an unabashedly Igbo version of the crisis to the extent that she diminished the point of view of the other point of view.  It was as if the whole actions took place around the Igbos and ended up only trying to deal with the Igbos.”

    The war story

    In order to bring this story to its elemental value, Omatseye chose the name Okoro to create a little confusion, and a deeper suspense.  Samson Okoro is an Urhobo man whose name though pronounced differently somewhat sounded Igbo.  This creation forms part of the confusion that added to the dangers faced by the minorities of the South when the pogrom commenced.  Before then, it was hard, if not impossible to decipher between the Igbos and most of the minorities in terms of physical build, orientation, attitude and behaviour.  And mostly, the Northern urchins and miscreants perpetuating the orgies did not care to know any differences.

    Samson Okoro unfortunately found himself in this trauma and fought tooth and nail to extricate himself from it all.  His name was a give-away while his accent and exposure to America were his saving grace.  Henceforth, a story is born and the narrative has a twist that inflicts pains, sorrows, love, hate, confusion, intrigues and outright audacity in the minds of readers.  So, Okoro becomes a metaphor, a symbolism and a bridge between the Igbo, the minority and the entire nationhood where mere nomenclature and place of origin of a person often hampers rather than safeguarding his life.

    So looking at both the war account, emphatically on the pogrom and other sequences of the crisis as they affected the other side, Omatseye succeeded in re-creating history with deep fictional tendencies.  It is a story built around families and personal sentiments and sensibilities.  It is about personal losses, regrets, high and low moments of not only the combatants, but those, who, even far away from areas of the battle fronts were made to groan, grit and grind.  In this war account, the author gave a deeper spectrum of events; he delved into the inner-consciousness of the people to render accounts of strife, torture, turmoil, forbearance and colossal wastages.

    Omatseye who until the idea of My Name is Okoro came to him, did not know he would write a book on the Nigerian civil war of 1967 – 1970, explained that the idea of Biafra and war had been fascinating to him.  After all, up till date, the episodes of the World War II are still generating ideas for more stories.  So also is the American war of independence and the exigencies of Apartheid South Africa.

    Omatseye decided, “I remember when I was in secondary school and I read for the first time the speech made by General Ojukwu, declaring the war.  He made a long speech saying the war has started.  May God save us all.  I saw a real danger in that speech even though I was not in the throes of it.  I saw the real danger and I wondered how it was then in the war enclaves.  I also had experiences of the war because I was in Lagos then.  There was a day there was commotion and the teacher asked everybody to go home.  It was a war situation quite all right”…

    So, based on these childish memories of the crisis and some other fascinations imbued in the mind of a writer, Omatseye set out to give a comprehensive account of a faction.  Taking the theatre of crisis from the North to the West and to the minorities of Warri and Sapele, he went deeper into the foyers of the Igbo enclave.  He chose his characters carefully and meticulously not just to fit into the roles they had to play, but to also spell out the innocuous sentiments of pride and place.

    As a child, what flashed through the mind of Omatseye in the streets of Lagos was like a whiplash.  Even then in the early years of the crisis his own father, an Itsekiri man was mistaken for an Igbo man.  Only rescued by the hand of providence, but young Omatseye grew up to often recount and remember that episode.  So the name of John Fox, Samson Okoro and others have to come in to give the novel its best forte.  It is a unique recourse to history, to tell the story as a way of balancing an era that seems to be dominated by one-sided stories.  Here, then, is Okoro, the confluence of Nigeria.

    My balancing act

    “The mission is not basically to tell the minority story, it is to tell the story”.  Omatseye informed, “It is the story of the war.  You can see the story from the Igbo points of view.  It is a comprehensive story of an era; an era of crisis and trouble in the history of a nation.  You see the story of Igbo lady called Nkechi with the spirit not to yield.  You also see the story of Udeze one of the lead characters who wanted to impress his mother.  He went to war to impress his mother.  He ended up not even fighting, but going everywhere in battle.  He didn’t have the mother to show his valour when the war ended.  His mother did not survive the war.  He felt a sense of loss because in the end he lost everything”.

    Like most people in the heart of Igboland when the war ended, Udeze was in a dilemma, asking himself why the need for the war.  This was why he had to go look for his mother’s grave or whatever symbol it was, to lay his Biafran uniform with a smart military salute.  It was basically to give that honour he had nursed while the war lasted.  As an author, Omatseye spiced the story with romance, love affairs and scenes that depicted the inner-minds of those who could not control their libidos even when death lurked nearby.  These scenes were purposely invented to show the other side of the human person that crisis does not necessarily stifle emotions or keep in abeyance  the urge to procreate.

    In other words, the story of Udeze and the story of Okoro are the two knots that tie all the characters together.  Okoro was married to Udeze’s sister Nneka and together the two occupied the centre-piece of the narrative.  There is now a link between the Igbo majority and South-South minorities.  It was intended to show the link between these two areas before time and even till date.  With all the characters connected to Samson Okoro, it became easier to connect with the sequences of the narrative and their believability.  It is an approach that is not only unique but model and inspirational.  It tells of an author very vast, versatile and immersed in the act of story-telling.  A vivid narrator, Omatseye is also a poet, dramatist, essayist and public commentator.  He is given to his own peculiar way of presentation and analysis very profound and deeply routed in articulation and dissemination.

    Flourishing style

    Writing for him is a natural way of life, an innate urge he cannot ignore or suppress.  “Yes, the book is imaginary faction.  That’s what I’ll call it.  It is, however, basically fiction.  There were lots of marriages between the Edos and Igbos before time.  Therefore the reflection of this in the book shows a lot of socio-cultural link among these people.  And so when the Hausa-Fulani began the pogrom in the North, a lot of people from across were taken to be Igbos.  The story is the story of Nigeria.  It is also the story of all the non-Igbos married to Igbos, who by the time they came back from the war had begun to speak Igbo.  It was the language they needed to survive the war.

    “Yes, there was also the story of an Itsekiri man who was running away from the scene of the pogrom, who kept saying, I am not Igbo, I am not Igbo.  I am from Mid-west.  But they used a stick to stop him.  The man fell down.  There were many scenes like that.  And the book is now to open up those scenes where the minorities were dealt with.  I don’t think I was carried away the way I told the story.  All the ideas were portrayed deliberately.  Where it seemed so, it was to tell that the anger of the Hausa was still carried into Biafra.  The way the Igbos pronounced toro also gave them away.  This was one of the ways the Hausas identified the Igbos, that’s if they ever had the time to ask you to identify yourself before hacking you down.

    “Of course, I usually arrive at my titles before I begin to write.  However, this one was particularly difficult to get, I mean My Name is Okoro.  I had to go into a collaboration with a friend to get it.  Initially, I gave a title that did not show the minority perspective.  The guy said, don’t use that title; it doesn’t fit the book.  This book is tied around this man, this Okoro.  Then I said I would title it Okoro but he said no, that is not yet appropriate.  He then suggested I am Okoro, but in the end, we arrived at this title, My Name is Okoro which best describes the intentions of the novel.  It took me a while to begin to write because I was doing many things then.  I have written a play, and two volumes of poems.  I have done two books on politics and then I was distracted by the 2015 elections.  All these delayed the coming of My Name is Okoro.  It is a book I wrote in bits and starts.  I’d write today, then in two months I won’t write.  Then a friend of mine would say oh, won’t you go back to that book again?  Then I would go back.  But when the elections were over last year, then I said it was time to concentrate.

    “When I wrote, I wrote with speed and then here we are.  I’d say it took me a period of two years to accomplish it.  At times too it is good to give space because it gives you time to reflect.  It did for me.  I did a lot of research; I spent money to get materials.  I also listened to people’s stories; their war experiences.  Not all of them were contained in the book, but they helped.  The greater part of the stories came from the Igbos.  Yes I moved to prose because it gives me time to be more expressive.  You know poetry has a lot of discipline and you constrict words in a few lines.  It makes you flourish.  In drama, you have a sense of action, you create the scenes in the minds of people.  In it, you start to create things.  This is my second novel; the first is The Crocodile Girl which I am reworking at the moment.

  • A riff for Benson Idonije

    A riff for Benson Idonije

    The Asiwaju of Nigeria’s Social Music Commentators (First published in 2009, this piece is re-presented here with slight modifications as part of the activities marking the 80th birthday of the griot of our Republic of Music)

    I read Benson Idonije’s recent piece, ‘Remembering Eddy Okonta, the Obi of Trumpet’(Guardiannewsonline  Wed. March 25, 2009) with a feeling of delight and deja vu. Delight because virtually every Idonije article on highlife leaves me with a feeling of exhilaration and gratitude; deja vu because his writing brims with such valuable information, such detailed anecdoting and sense of history that almost invariably leaves his reader with the conspiratorial exclamation: ‘oh I have been here before!’ Indeed, music and the melody of its history are Idonije’s province and passion, and he has an inimitable way of taking us with him even through a historical landscape that is clearly outside our temporal ken and making sure we experience no sense of unfamiliarity there. I have yet to encounter any other commentator on modern Nigerian music with the panache and effortless mastery that have come to characterize an Idonije commentary on Nigeria’s social music. Which is why virtually every essay of his attracts me with the irresistible force of an Eddie Okonta trumpet or the riveting riffs of a big-band jazz ensemble.

         In numerous well written, well informed pieces orchestrated in danceable prose, Mr Idonije tells the story of Nigeria’s social music with the disarming authority of a participant-observer, chronicler and commentator.  With the incisive meticulousness of an insider, and the engrossing fervour of an aficionado, he explores not only the hearable flesh of the music but also the diverse and often chequered histories of its creators and the theory (or theories) behind their practice. Frequently and assiduously, Mr Idonije trains his focus on music as art and profession, vocation and special calling.

         Without a speck of doubt, as far as music is concerned, Idonije is a Benson of all trades and master of all. Though highlife remains his starting point and frequent point of return, he has written with equal familiarity about jazz and blues, and seems to operate on a first-name basis with the phenomenal practitioners of these genres, invoking Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong and John Coltrane, Duke Ellington and BB King as though they were his next-door neighbours. And when he talks about the great Ghanaian highlifers, ET Mensah and Jerry Hansen and their influence on Nigerian highlife, you marvel at the ease with which this music commentator crosses borders on the scent of powerful melodies.

         And within the Nigerian space, which notable musician has he not brought to our notice? Which of the musicians’ respective (and often distinctive) styles has he not analysed for the education and appreciation of the listening public? Idonije seems to know the provenance of the various genres of social music in Nigeria and the productive interactions among these genres. He makes us hear and dance again to the evergreen melodies of Bobby Benson, Rex Jim Lawson, Victor Olaiya, Roy Chicago, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Osita Osadebay, Adeolu Akinsanya, I.K. Dairo, Victor Uwaifo, Comfort Omoge, Orlando Owoh, Tunde Nightingale, Ayinde Bakare, Ebenezer Obey, Sunny Ade, Haruna Isola, Ayinla Omoowura, Dan Maraya Jos, Dele Ojo, Dele Abiodun, Orlando Julius. Under his gaze, at his prodding, the evergreens assume a more sonorous depth and richer resonance. The ‘oldies’ transform into eternal ‘goodies’. A whir of guitar, a saxy blare, a raunchy roar of the tuba, a phrase from an old lyric, the choreographic dexterity of an old dance-style, all live and throb in Idonije’s melodiously illuminating commentaries. Beyond the dance hall, Idonije wittingly or unwittingly highlights the role of music as glue in the crevices of a notoriously fractious Nigeria.

         Memory and desire, regret and nostalgia: a Benson Idonije essay wakes us up to these feelings. Old tunes return with a needed suture on our fractured nerves, an urgent balm on contemporary wounds. Old places, old events, old faces, old jokes, old laughters, old tears . . . are here again, striding gingerly through the corridors of memory. The mere mention of a name conjures up an avalanche of back visions and impressions. For those of us now approaching our autumn years, who knew Nigeria in the 1960’s, Eddy Okonta (the specific subject of Idonije’s current article) has come to signify more than a mere name. For how can we hear ‘Okonta’ without remembering the man who blew the trumpet so loud, so long, so lustily that you thought he was never short of breath? Which member of my generation can forget in a hurry the wondrous way Okonta staples such as ‘Oriwo’, ‘Abele’, ‘Peewee’ commanded us to the dance floor and got us to spin and swing, and sway; our utter vulnerability to Okonta’s powerful rhythm; the endless hours we spent toasting him as Nigeria’s leading trumpeter while some of our colleagues would rather put that crown on the head of Billy Friday or Victor Olaiya or Rex Jim Lawson.

         How can we talk about Eddy Okonta without remembering Ibadan City in the 1960’s when the Obi of Trumpet ruled the roost at Paradise Hotel (where Femi Johnson’s golden skyscraper now stands), a time when a slew of night clubs made night life in West Africa’s largest city such a rollicking delight? How can one forget the healthy rivalry between Okonta and fellow highlife veterans such as Victor Olaiya and Roy Chicago? (The fabulous Rex Jim Lawson was in a class of his own!). How can we forget the way we ‘pub-crawled’ from dusk to dawn in those days without the morbid fear of armed robbers or kidnappers who lurked ominously in the urban darkness?

         But I digress. This is a piece on Benson Idonije, the Asiwaju of Nigeia’s Social Music Critics, the man who makes sure we never lose the memory of our sound – and sense. Just before my talk at the CORA-organised ‘Soyinka at 70’ forum in July 2004, I asked Jahman Oladejo Anikulapo (Sunday Guardian’s editor and indefatigable culture activist) jocularly but pointedly: isn’t it time we published a collection of Idonije’s essays? I repeat that question here and now with the hope that one of Nigeria’s numerous publishers will be ready with an answer before the next blare of Eddy Okonta’s unforgettable trumpet.

  • Liadi is new Dance Guild president

    Liadi is new Dance Guild president

    Dance Ambassador, Adedayo Liadi aka Ijo Dee Saturday emerged new national president of the Dance Guild of Nigeria (GOND), the association of professional dancers in Nigeria.

    The election, which held at the Artists Village, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, had delegates from across the country and was conducted in a free, fair and friendly environment.

    Liadi replaces Steve James, who had been in the saddle for nine years.

    Chairman of the caretaker committee of the guild, Diai Josephine Awele said the election was long-awaited, long-overdue and a new beginning. She admitted the past docility of the guild, which saw the last executive council, staying for almost a decade, as against the constitutional two, and said this is an opportunity to resuscitate the guild and steer it away from its past anarchy and autocracy.

    Chairman of the electoral committee, Nissi George read out the guidelines to the contestants, after which it was manifesto time and then the election proper.

    At the end of the open-secret ballot election, Dayo Liadi, who contested for the post of presidency unopposed emerged winner. Diai Josephine Awele (Delta State), who had served as chairman of the caretaker committee until the election, emerged Vice President, while Lovette Otegbola (Osun State) emerged Secretary.

    Other elected officers include, Terkura Adaa (Benue State) Treasurer, Biyi Boyede (Lagos) Financial Secretary, Ajibode Tairu Ajibola (Lagos) Publicity Secretary, Jemaima Angulu (FCT) Director of Special Duties and Johnbull Nwenni Henry (Plateau) Chief Whip.

    The new president promised to be a listening president and work with his team of EXCOs to move the guild to the next level.

  • How picnickers court death on beaches

    How picnickers court death on beaches

    With the recent death of two University of Lagos post-graduate students at a Lagos beach resort, Nigerians are calling for standard safety measures on beaches across the country. But beach workers are also alleging obstinacy on the part of picnickers, as Gboyega Alaka found out on a visit to the site of the last mishap.

    JUST a couple of months ago, the name Elegushi was in the news for all the right reasons. Its charismatic young monarch, Oba Saheed Ademola Elegushi, Kusenla III celebrated his 40th birthday amidst pomp and glitz. It was also an opportunity to draw attention to the prosperous Ikate-land and its environs along the ever-developing Lekki peninsular stretch, as the media literally beamed its prying eyes on the monarch and his kingdom.

    In the last two weeks, the same Elegushi has however been in the news once again, but this time, for the wrong reason. Two fully blossomed University of Lagos Master’s students of International Law and Diplomacy lost their lives in a blast of oceanic adventure, and the whole nation is outraged. Adesola Ogunmefun, 27 who worked as personal assistant to a commissioner in Ogun State and Funmilayo Odusina, a 24-year-old HR manager of a top Lagos firm had gone to the Elegushi Private Beach Resort, Ikate, Lekki with a group of friends to celebrate their friend, Bolu’s birthday on June 5, but got caught up in a rogue wave which pulled them under. The three ladies were actually having fun on the edge of the sea- not swimming, when the unfortunate incident happened. The third lady, the celebrator however survived after they were rescued by ‘lifeguards’ on watch at the sea.

    The incident has generated so much heat and bad press, so much so that a movement #shutdowneleguishibeach#savelivesatthebeach arose on the social media, which the real media couldn’t but pick up.

    But what went wrong? The beach has for as long as possible kept a clean mortality slate, according to many who are familiar with the beach, including the Olisa of the kingdom, Chief Moruf Adisa Sanni Elegushi, who told journalists a couple of days after the incident that there had never been any record of death on the beach prior to this incident.

    However, part of the allegations being put at the doorstep of the beach operators and managers is that lifeguards were not on ground and that enough measures were not put in place. Many have also asked why red flags were not placed on the beach, as is done in sophisticated beaches across the world, to indicate that the tides are too strong for anyone to swim. Some even wonder if all the owners of the beach are interested in are the gate fees and parking fees. Picnickers pay as high as N1,000 to access the beach and varying sums for parking. Going by the number of traffic the beach generates, this should run into hundreds of thousands of naira every weekend and millions during public holidays and festive periods, and should have been enough to employ enough well-trained lifeguards and coastal policemen, who would forcefully ensure no stubborn picnickers endangered themselves? They also wonder why the beach management could not provide emergency medical services, insisting that the ladies’ death was needless and a huge loss to their parents.

    Elegushi family respond

    The Elegushi Royal Family has however stated their own side of the story, giving a detailed narrative of how the ladies met their untimely death at the beach.

    Said Prince Anofiu Olanrewaju Elegusi, a special adviser to Lagos State Governor on transport and an indigene and foremost chief in the kingdom, security awareness has always been a thing of priority on the beach and this particular occasion was no exception. He said “On this particular day, we had already placed a red flag, which indicates that no one is allowed to go near the water. Some of our lifeguards, who normally ride on horses around the beach, had even cautioned the ladies to stay away from the water, but they rebuffed the guards and insisted on swimming.”

    Continuing, Prince Elegushi said the ladies insisted they could take care of themselves and as such were left to enjoy themselves in the water “until that moment when the high tide wave happened, which made the girls fall into the water.”

    Even then, he insisted that the ladies did not die in the water, as they were immediately rescued by the eagle-eyed lifeguards on duty and rushed to a nearby hospital, where two of the three rescued ladies eventually passed on.

    He empathised with the parents of the deceased, saying “we mourn with their families and we’ve already reached out to them and supported them with the burial rites.”

    He said the management of the beach will be more cautious in the future to forestall any such occurrence, but frowned at the media reports that said the girls died on the beach.

    He also said the family had suspended activities at the beach to assist the government (police) in their investigation.

    Odusina’s sister reacts

    Meanwhile, Odusina’s sister, Bukola has lamented the absence of safety measures and emergency facility at the beach, stressing that this would have prevented her sister and her friend’s death.

    She said the family has taken Funmi’s death in good faith, but lamented the fact that avoidable deaths occur on our beaches every week. While arguing that shutting down the beach for a few days would not bring her sister and her friend back, she recommended that the government inspects beaches across the country and ensure that adequate safety precautions are taken, going forward.

    She regretted that her beloved sister died with all her lofty dreams of becoming a “philanthropist, an ambassador and mechanised farmer” without realising any of them.

    Discordant tunes at the beach

    A visit to the beach by this reporter confirmed that activities had indeed being suspended, as the usually bubbly ocean stretch was deserted, save for a few guys on horses. This reporter couldn’t confirm if they were indeed lifeguards, as they all virtually declined answering any questions.

    A visit to the White Atlantic Bar/restaurant, where the ladies and their friends were said to have been partying and having fun also yielded little result. A few of the attendants on ground claimed they were not on duty that afternoon while another said they only started working at the bar after the incident.

    A deaf/mute gentleman, who may be in his early twenties however volunteered to ‘speak’ with this reporter. After making it clear he was deaf/mute, he brought out a note-pad and started a conversation. He said he is a friend to one of the guys who were arrested after the incident and that he only came when he learnt that he has been released, only for him not to meet him on duty.

    Asked if his arrested friend worked on the beach as lifeguard, he said no; but that he worked at the gate. He also said he is not aware that there are lifeguards on the beach, but admits that there are swimmers. He could however not say if these swimmers are duty-bound to rescue drowning picnickers.

    When asked if this reporter could take away the note-pad on which this conversation took place, Kareem quickly picked it up, closed the page and  demonstrating that he would not like to be arrested and handcuffed like his friend.

    As this reporter left the bar to continue his fact-finding, he caught a glimpse of Kareem, clearing some used plates in the bar and settling down to wash them. So much for a one-off visitor.

    ‘The girls were stubborn!’

    One very visible feature of the Elegushi beach would be the stacks of boulders neatly arranged into the sea from shore. These surely look too artificial to be natural, so this reporter used it as a bait to start a conversation with the few guys  on ground. They explained that the stones were arranged to break the waves and ensure that monster waves lose their steam by the time they get ashore. They said it is part of the safety measures the management of the beach put in place, as soon as the beach began attracting picnickers and tourists.

    Why then did the recent incident happen? Weren’t there lifeguards who could have saved the girls? This reporter harmlessly shot at his new audience, fully aware of the possibility of losing them, once they identify him “as one of those nosey journalist.”

    One of them, a dark bulky guy said “The girls were stubborn. They were told to beware, but they shouted that they could take care of themselves and were even ready to start a fight.”

    He said the beach has lifeguards and asked rhetorically that “If there were no guards, who were those that rescued the ladies?”

    Another member of the group, a dark slim guy said “The truth is that customers (picnickers) are generally stubborn. The beach has its danger time and on this particular afternoon, red flags were planted all over, to indicate danger; or what do you think red stands for? But the girls insisted they were okay.”

    He said some people would come to the beach with toddlers and insist on playing with them in the water against advice. He therefore advised that picnickers should understand ability to swim in a swimming pool is not a license to jump into the sea, as both are not the same.

    He insisted that this particular beach is well managed and that the death of the two ladies was just an unfortunate occurrence that they wish never happened.

    Asked to confirm if indeed the beach has been shut for commercial activities, the bulky guy said “Yes, it has been shut for a week, as a mark of respect for the departed souls.”

    The pressure mounts, nonetheless

    The pressure has however continued to mount nevertheless. About one million people have supported a petition started by friends of the ladies on Twitter and Instagram to get the government and other stakeholders acting, to forestall future reoccurrence. The group, which calls itself “friends and colleagues from Covenant University,” where the ladies did their degree programmes before proceeding to the University of Lagos for their master’s are calling for the institutionalisation of safety measures by the government as a prerequisite for the operation of beaches for picnicking and tourism.

    Going into the future, they are demanding that professional lifeguards be on standby; so also a fully equipped standby medical and rescue team. This they believe could have kept the ladies alive, as the distance between the beach and the hospital also contributed to their death.

    They also insist on “active coastline monitoring personnel” and an “alarm system to warn visitors of potentially dangerous incoming tides.”

    These, they say, are basic operating standards of beaches around the world and believe Nigeria should not be different, as “all lives matter.”

    They reiterated that they do not hope for the petition to end as another trending hashtags, but hope for real change “to allay the fears of other beach lovers.”

    The petition was signed “International Relations & Political Science Class of 2011, Covenant University, Nigeria.”

    The police respond

    The police have also swung into action. Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Dolapo Badmos told reporters last week that the command had arrested two managers of the beach in connection with the incident and that they were undergoing interrogation. She declined to release their names but said their identity would be made public if they are found to be culpable.

    She also said investigation is ongoing and that the command would visit the scene of the crime to assess safety devices and measures put in place.

    Beaches of death

    In 1992, students of the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, LUTH and their counterparts on the Akoka campus took over a whole stretch of the Third Mainland Bridge, causing heavy traffic gridlock as they held procession for their dead colleague, Kunle Olawale, whose corpse was being driven in a hearse to his last resting place. Olawale, a Year Four medical student had died at the then popular Eleko Beach, also on the Lekki stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, after he and his colleagues had gone picnicking. The young man, who was set to graduate as a doctor in just two years, was said to be a bubbly promising chap and his death had drawn so much ire and emotions.

    That long procession and the inconvenience of the traffic gridlock inevitably registered Olawale’s death as one of the earliest amongst the litany of deaths that have characterised Lagos beaches over the past two decades or thereabout. Unfortunately, beyond the naming of a building, Kunle Olawale Complex after the deceased at LUTH, Idi Araba, the action of the students apparently attracted little effort from the different authorities, as beach deaths, especially amongst the youths literally rose up the graph steep.

    In May 2013, Ndubuisi Chidi Brown, an Economics student of Covenant University lost his life while having fun with his friends at Takwa Bay Resort in Lagos.

    Brown, who also practised photography as a hobby, was said to have left the campus on legal exeat for a photo-shoot in Lagos, but never returned. While having fun with two of his friends at the beach, a strong wave suddenly came ashore and literally dragged Brown and his two friends away. In the end, his two friends survived, but Brown didn’t, not even with the effort of one of his friends, said to be a good swimmer. He had to let go of him after it became apparent that he was going to drag him down the bottom of the ocean. The third of the trio made it, though initially unconscious, but Brown had disappeared. His body was recovered the following day, swollen and badly bruised.

    16 washed away at Eid-el-Fitri

    None of these however compares to the tragedy that struck on Saturday, August 19 2012, when no fewer than 16 people were said to have been swept away by a monstrous wave at the Kuramo beach during the Muslim Salah celebrations.

    Known for its orgy and amorous activities, the beach was flooded with people and activities and the wave was said to have swept off 11 traders in a boat, four picnickers and a diver in one fell swoop.

    Residents confirmed that the unusually high waves usually happen once a year and flood the whole beach, including the illustrious Adetokunbo Ademola neighbourhoods, as far as the magnificent Eko Hotel & Suites. The fact that they hardly know when this will happen and the nation’s poor meteorological services however means it always took the people by surprise.

    The above incident was similar to another that happened three years earlier in 2009, September 22 to be precise. On that occasion, which was also an eid-el-fitri holiday, ten persons drowned at the now banished Lagos Bar Beach, when a giant wave suddenly surfaced at the shore, taking most of the frolicking picnickers by surprise.

    Other picnickers looked on helplessly, as the victims, who apparently were not swimmers, were swept away by the heavy waves.

    A police report later said that four of the ten victims were rescued.

    The lucky ones

    Some have however been lucky, escaping alive by the whiskers like the four rescued above. One of them would be Ifeyinwa Okereke, who was rescued from the vicious grip of the Lekki beach waves during this year’s New Year celebration. Okereke had been swimming alongside her friends around 6.45pm on January 1, when suddenly a heavy wave came and was literally taking her away. She was saved by one of her friends, Chidinma, who tugged at her underwear, slowing down the power of the wave until help came in the form of a man whom Okereke said called himself “Uncle Sam.”

    Said a visibly grateful Okereke, “It was in the process of attempting to remove Chidinma’s hand from my underwear that I lost balance. The wave swept me away. I thought I was going to die. One man who identified himself as Uncle Sam was the person that rescued me.”

    Okereke had joined other youths to have fun at the 9ja Eco Music Festival held at the beach on that fateful day.

    The attraction

    According to Clement Akpan, who claims to be a student in one of Nigeria’s private universities, the main reason youths throng beaches to hold parties is because of the amorous activities they are able to indulge in. Otherwise, he wondered why students wouldn’t just hold their birthday bashes in town, where they would be exposed to little danger or threat to their lives.

    Said Akpan, “Why would I want to go and hold a party at the beach where I will get dirty and worn out, when I could hold the same party in the cozyness of my parents’ sitting room? Any friend who feels the safety of my parents’ sitting room or compound is not good enough would be gladly excused. More of the time, it is because of illicit romance and sex that they go that far.”

    Another respondent, Racheal, a born-again Christian and student of the Obafemi Awolowo University corroborated Akpan’s point, saying beach parties are always veils for sinful relationships, and vows that she would never be part of it.

  • ‘Global Fund controversy, wake-up call for NACA’

    ‘Global Fund controversy, wake-up call for NACA’

    The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) was recently in the eye of the storm over an indictment for mismanaging grants disbursed to it for AIDS intervention in Nigeria by Global Fund. Its managing director, Prof. John Idoko however stated in this interview with Frederick Adegboye that the agency’s only failure was in oversight administration  something he ascribed to a systemic weakness.

    How would you react to the seeming indictment of NACA by Global Fund of mismanaging funds disbursed to it for AIDS intervention in the country?

    The Global Fund issue is like a wakeup call for us, let me start from there. It appears many people don’t understand what the issues are. There are two issues; there is an audit report which is like something that is done in every institution, then there is an investigation which is trying to look at the issues of fund misappropriation etc. But they all relate to NACA because NACA is the principal recipient. And the way the Global Fund works is like this: funds are given to us as principal recipients. There are three principal recipients for HIV; NACA, ARFH and Society for Family Health. We are like conduit pipes through which money flows to the sub-recipients; the sub-recipients are the ones who disburse money to the facilities that I may call the sub-sub-recipients. But the entire responsibility to oversee everything down the line and ensure we meet the outcomes of the various programmes lies with NACA. That’s the introduction to what has happened.

    An audit was conducted through all the systems from NACA, to the sub-recipients, to all the facilities; and we have over 1000 facilities providing comprehensive HIV and AIDS services throughout the country. The most important things that were observed were that there is a systemic weakness through the system in our procurement supply chain, in data and programme oversights. In the central medical stores, we had some issues like expired drugs and inventory manifest. We noticed for example that in some facilities, specifically in Akwa-Ibom and some other states, data was not captured for a couple of months. We also noticed that in some of those facilities, doctors were not recording the information on clients as clearly and as completely as they should. That is one example. There were also stock-outs because the logistics management information was not being properly captured. In NACA itself, we had issues with documentation of supplies that were bought for us. They buy the supplies for us and we are supposed to collect the information from those who bought them. To be specific, the Global Fund serves as the invoices that we receive and we are to take custody of it; the proof of delivery was not just enough. All these relate to systemic weaknesses because the central medical store is operated by the Federal Ministry of Health, and we all know the store has a lot of challenges.

    How do you hope to tackle this?

    Going forward, we have said that we will ensure that inventory is properly cared for. We will work with the states’ logistics units to ensure that we have proper documentation of drugs movement, so that we don’t have such issues again. As far as data is concerned, we also want to ensure that we have dedicated data clerks to the level of secondary, if possible primary health care. In NACA itself, we have done a lot of restructuring even before the report came out. Our procurement is weak and the issue we have is that we didn’t provide enough oversight. We are also ensuring that infrastructures and data storage are improved upon by the use of electronics, and increased staffing, especially the logistics unit. We have just restructured our Global Fund team.

    The second issue which I really don’t want to comment so much on is the fact that there was fraud in the Department of Planning and Research of the Federal Ministry of Health. They are our sub-recipients.  The issue we had was that we didn’t provide enough oversight. Although we wrote some management letters, they didn’t respond. But we should have taken it further than that. EFCC is investigating, and I’m sure that in line with the strong principles of this government, all those who are found guilty will be prosecuted.

    What measures or strategies are you putting in place to ensure that there are no new infections by 2030?

    Well, let me correct that. It is not that there will be no new infection, but HIV will cease to be an epidemic or major public health concern. Since we don’t have a cure, there would be infections but it won’t be in the magnitude that we have now, where lots of people are going down with HIV. The strategy is very simple, and it has already been laid down by UNAIDS: ‘strategy of 909090’. It shows we need to identify up to 90% of people who are diagnosed with HIV and then link them up to treatment as we are already doing. If we can ensure that 90% of those who are positive get treatment; the last 90 is ensuring that as we treat them, they are suppressed biologically. That’s the point where when we take their blood, there is no virus in the blood, but there is still virus in the body, in some hard-to-reach places. That is the strategy. Now, how do we go on with this strategy? In the last three to four years, we have zeroed down on states that have more burden than others. And we know from the epidemiology of HIV in the country that 12 states and the FCT are responsible for over 60% to 70% causes of HIV, so we have put our energy and focus on those states. We try to put more emphasis on LGAs that have more HIV burden. We have also gone to look at key populations; looking at men who have sex with men, female sex workers, people who inject drugs, long truck drivers…. The micro of it is to treat as many people as possible. So the main aim is not only to give treatments, but to prevent it as much as possible through public counselling and awareness, which is the major obstacle of the strategy 909090. We also look at stigma, which is the major reason people will not go for test or treatment and so on. We also have gender issues, especially young, adolescent girls. We need to go after them and make sure they are protected. And you know about the issue of PMTCT. Finally, the guideline is ‘test and treat.’ With all these in focus, HIV will be decimated.

    How well has the national anti-stigma law been disseminated?

    The anti-stigma bill was approved by the former president in 2014 and became adopted in 2015. We have disseminated several copies to states’ agencies for the control of AIDS. We shall be working with them to ensure that they are distributed to civil society organisations, government institutions and private sector organisations. Aside that, some states have also passed their own version of the law.

    Coming from a university community whose HIV programmes were once adjudged the best in the country, would you say you have enjoyed the job? Have you had occasions to regret taking up the job?

    The answer is both. You know what they say about sweet and sour soup. What is sweet about it is that when I left my former job in Jos to come here, I came with a vision. The vision was to ensure that we decentralise comprehensive HIV services from teaching hospitals and big hospitals, down the line to state government hospitals, comprehensive primary health care centres and primary health care centres. And I think that to some extent, we have achieved some of that because the Ministry of Health, NACA and all our partners work in a way that each general hospital has a cluster of primary health care centres. So to some extent, I have enjoyed being part of putting all these together. Despite all the challenges we are having with Global Fund, there is really no institution near us that can operate in a global form. When I came in 2009, there were only 10 SACAs that were agencies, the rest were committees. Under my tenure, everything has changed; all of them have become agencies and the funding and services have increased. Despite the challenges, Global Fund has also expanded and the funding has increased. When I came in 2009, there were between 34,000 and 35,000 Nigerians who were benefitting from Global Fund services, but now we have over 150,000. I brought in more research such that it is now dependent on evidence and that is what has given us the leap in the last three to four years. There are also downsides; the government structure is weak. Secondly, it is not easy to coordinate so many players; we are coordinating government institutions, civil societies, communities, partners and private sectors. And then there is tension between all of them. Funding is also an issue; up till now, we depend heavily on donor funds, and donor funds are unpredictable and not sustainable.

    How can government take full ownership of HIV programmes in the country, considering that “donor funds are unsustainable”?

    I think government is already doing it; it’s just the pace. When you say government, it has to be government at the federal, state and local government level. The federal government has stepped up but they need to step up more because over the last four years, the funding for HIV has improved and increased, though not as substantial as we’d like it. But the commitment from the government at the centre is better than what it used to be. However, we do not see the same commitment in most of the states and local governments. We need to work as a team to carry out advocacy to these levels of government. Nigeria as a huge private sector also needs to support; we’re talking about resources  not just money. Resources are people and other things we can find at community level. We also need to be innovative. We have seen countries come up with taxes; taxes from cell phones, airlines, tobacco etc. Some people have even suggested that money transferred from abroad be taxed, to improve the health of the nation.

  • The courts and injustice to MKO Abiola

    The courts and injustice to MKO Abiola

    justice is the will of the strong and while the strong does what he likes, the weak suffers what he must. This is the most appropriate way to describe the case of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election, under the military. The military, the strong, did what it liked while MKO Abiola and indeed, those who voted for him, the weak, suffered what they must.

    What seems to have escaped the attention of many in the political impasse that followed June 12, 1993 Presidential election is the role of the courts played in the annulment of the election by the then Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, and how the courts were manipulated to deny Abiola justice in the electoral matters before them shortly before and immediately after the annulment.

     

    Abiola, the Aare Ona Kakanfo:

     

    Before the 1993 Presidential election, Nigerians would recall that there was a sensational case, which involved the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III, and the immediate past Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, over the announcement by the Alaafin to install Abiola as the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland. The announcement was given the widest of publicity. A day was fixed for Abiola’s installation. Because Abiola was a popular international business man, guests from all over the world had started arriving for the installation.

    But just two days before the installation, the late Ooni filed an action at an Oyo High Court, claiming that the Alaafin had no right whatsoever to install Abiola as the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland. He (Ooni) coupled it with a motion ex-parte asking the court to restrain the Alaafin from installing Abiola as the Aare Ona Kakanfo.

    In law, an ex-parte motion is one in which one can get an order without the knowledge of the other party. Somehow, Oba Adeyemi got wind of the fact that a motion ex-parte had been filed. Hitherto, I have been Oba Adeyemi’s lawyer in the supremacy tussle between Oba Adeyemi and Oba Sijuade. So, the Alaafin contacted me. I proceeded to the court, filed a formal application to search the court’s file from where I obtained a copy of the paper filed by the Ooni and thereafter filed a counter affidavit. This was a novel one because it has never happened like that before.

    The case came up a day before the installation. It was the case of the year. The court rejected Ooni’s prayers and so Abiola was installed as the Aare Ona Kakanfo the following day with pomp and pageantry.

     

    June 12, 1993 Election:

     

    It is a notorious fact that the June 12, 1993 has been adjudged as the freest, fairest and most credible election in the annals of elections in this country. All the same, it is now a well-known fact that Abiola’s electoral victory did not go down well with the military. This naturally led to many court cases filed on the matter, which ended up at the Court of Appeal in Kaduna.

    It is important to note that two days to the election, Hon. Justice Bassey Ikpeme of the Federal High Court, Abuja, in a rather bizarre manner, had delivered a nocturnal ruling around 9.15 pm to the effect that the election could no longer continue, one of the reasons that emboldened former Military President Ibrahim Babangida to annul the election.

     

    Abiola appealed Justice 

    Ikpeme’s decision:

     

    Before going into the nitty-gritty of the Appeal at the Kaduna Division of the Court of Appeal, it is apposite to note that Justice Ikpeme’s ruling was patently wrong on all fronts, particularly as the enabling law had provided that the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, was the only one empowered by law, to stop the election. This was the beginning of a series of acts of omission or commission, using the courts to manipulate the duplicitous annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election to the consternation of many locally and internationally.

    Abiola had briefed the late Chief Roimi Williams, SAN and my humble self to fight the case for him. Both on points of law and facts available, we were sure to win.

    Immediately the case came up at the Court of Appeal, Kaduna, the then President of the Court of Appeal, the incorruptible Hon. Justice Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi, because of the peculiar circumstances of the matter, did not want anyone to know, who among the Justices of the Appellate Court would sit to hear the Appeal. And so, he empanelled 10 of his best Justices of the Court of Appeal and gave all of them the records, even when it was only five that would sit to hear the Appeal. He simply did not want anybody to interfere in the matter because of the importance and the sensitivity of the matter. Justice Akanbi remains one of the most diligent men of integrity that have ever adorned the Bench in this country. No wonder, he was the first Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).

     

    On hearing date:  

     

    On the day of the trial, Chief Williams was not in court and so, I led a team of 30 lawyers. To me, based on the law and on the facts of the matter, we believed we would win the case for Abiola. We went to court with several relevant authorities (law books). But before the Judge sat, Chief Phillip Umeadi, SAN, representing the Federal Government, came in late. When he saw the formidable team of lawyers I brought to court as well as the volumes of authority that we brought, he asked rather derisively that: “Afe, what are you doing with all these lawyers and volumes of authorities?” I replied that: “But you know that hearing in this case has been fixed for today and we are here to do justice to the matter at hand.”

    But he replied that the case could not go on as there was no lis before the court to which I answered, let us wait and see!

    At the mention of the case, I announced my appearance for Abiola while Umeadi announced his appearance for the Federal Government and told the court that he wanted to make a preliminary objection. The court allowed him and he said: “My Lord, there is no lis before this court because the election had been annulled.”

    In my reply, I summited to the court that such a pronouncement cannot be through oral statement, but that it should be through a Government Gazette. After all, all the Decrees by the Military Government were always gazetted.

    At this point, Umeadi applied for a short adjournment. It is important to note that up to this point in time, there was no Gazette. The court granted his oral application for a short adjournment. When he came back few minutes later, he was armed with a Gazette and so he renewed his application, which he supported with the Gazette which he was flashing with relish. The court had no choice than to admit the gazette in evidence. The court then asked for my opinion now that the Gazette had been tendered.

    I instantly became disturbed when I saw the Gazette because I was alarmed that a Gazette could be procured in a matter of minutes. I had no choice than to admit to the fact that there was no lis before the court. In my reply, with tears in my eyes, I said, rather courageously that “this is the saddest day for the judiciary in this country and the beginning of a journey the end of which no one knows”.

    The over-crowded court dispersed in audible murmurings! What happened that day has continued to hunt us to this day. The court was denied the opportunity of hearing the case. Abiola, his lawyers and his teaming supporters became helpless before the court of law.

    Twenty-three years after I made that statement, we are still on that journey. Today, we have to contend with all manners of contentious issues like the problem of Boko Haram, which has been getting worse with the incursion of herdsmen into the polity and the attendant blood bath they have consistently inflicted on the country as well as the militancy in the South-South part of the country because we allowed ourselves to miss that golden opportunity in 1993.

    At the international level, the price of oil, the only source of our national income, has fallen drastically. Many of the states of the federation have not been able to pay salaries since the beginning of the year . People, as a result of their not being paid by their employers, have resorted to petty larceny, including stealing of pots of Amala and eating it with palm oil! A ludicrous situation indeed!

     

    • Aare Babalola is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and founder of Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado-Ekiti

     

  • WAKAA! goes to London

    WAKAA! goes to London

    Bolanle Austen-Peters (BAP) Productions will be taking its play, WAKAA! The Musical, to London. This was made known at a recent press briefing at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    Supporting the temporary translocation of the production are MIXTA Africa, MTN, Bank of Industry, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nigerian Ministry of Information and Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, TV Continental, Africa Magic, Ebony Life TV, Africa Movie Channel, Beat FM, Waka Now, Arik Air, and others.

    The play has been staged severally in Nigeria with success. It embodies an affecting satirical representation of the Nigerian socio-political clime, and it also explores the peculiarly woven web of intrigues and treachery, which people spin in their lives daily.

    Austen-Peters said it was by popular demand that the musical was heading to London and that it has the potential to boost cultural diplomacy and promote Nigeria’s cultural heritage abroad.

    On the importance of taking the production to the English stage, Austen-Peters said: “It is historic. We represent us, as Nigerians at our best and we also create jobs for the young ones. There is a lot of cultural exposition; the best of which we will be showing. We have tried to create a berth for our people.”

    Meanwhile, Toyin Osinulu of MIXTA Africa said: “We are sponsoring this production because it is an original African export. Our support is well aligned with our strategy for the Diaspora market. There is a very strong African presence in London and we want to use this medium to reach out to them about the opportunities back home.”

    Echoing this sentiment was Babatunde Faleke, Regional Co-ordinator of the NEPC, who said: “There is a foreign exchange deficit and people may not know it, but one of the ways we can boost our currency is through export. Not just export of products, but export of services. BAP productions is doing just that because through them, we are exporting entertainment.”

    On a similar trajectory, Chinelo Mbonu of Waka Now said: “Our support is in line with a new initiative, which we launched in partnership with Ebony TV called destinations Africa where we foreground African ideals, heritages, and places that should be visited. With our support to this production, we are trying to show that Africa is beyond impoverished children. We are trying to promote African culture.”

    Lindsey Oliver, Chief Commercial Officer of Continental Broadcasting Service, representing TVC News, said: “TVC News is keen to promote the performance to not only the Nigerians in the United Kingdom, where we have broad coverage, but also to everyone all over the world. We are keen to promote more performances that showcase African culture.”

    The play will be staged from July 21 to 25 at The Shaw Theatre, 100-110 Euston Road, London’s West End.

     

  • Perceptive creativity in the intellectual cosmos of Dele Jegede (1)

    Perceptive creativity in the intellectual cosmos of Dele Jegede (1)

    The intellectual cosmos of Dele Jegede resonates with two interlocking motifs: the artistic imagination of visualisation and the cerebral articulation of scholarship. For him, art defines his stratosphere and his creative galaxy is propelled by both theoretical and studio activism.

    Jegede is one of Nigeria’s few artists/scholars, who never shied away from making critical commentary on sensitive social issues. However, the acerbic penetration of his visual and intellectual remarks is often cushioned by his amiable disposition to life. He understands perfectly the need for the artist to attract his audience with affective rhetoric while delivering potent messages. He, thereby, engages dynamic cultural and aesthetic motifs such as humor, ambivalence, paradox, and parody in order to creatively assert his authority.

    An artist of exceptional talent and intellect, Jegede bagged a First Class Honors degree in Fine Art at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1973. The visual arts curriculum in Nigerian Universities concentrates on art practice and didn’t encourage specialisation in art history at the bachelor’s level. Only recently did a few art departments start graduating students with Art History major. However, there was adequate provision for theoretical courses in both the humanities and social sciences to nurture art graduates in scholarship.

    Nuanced Art History Curriculum

    The art history courses in most Nigerian universities in the 1960s and 1970s were limited in scope and did not include contemporary African art. Nigerian historians were very few and were mostly trained abroad. Their focus of research was mainly on traditional African art. It was, therefore, convenient for the curriculum designers to exclude the emerging areas of the more recent African art history.

    In the case of the available courses such as Egyptian art and Western European art, the narratives celebrated European creative supremacy over that of the others. Most of the reference books were written by Eurocentric scholars, who out of bias, considered African art as primitive.

    African scholars of the 20th Century such as Sheikh Anta Diop of Senegal, however, through scientific research, established that some Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs were indeed, Black Africans. Cornelius Adepegba, an Africanist art historian, also identified similarities of form and content between Egyptian art and Sub-Saharan African art thereby, reinforcing the fact that Egyptian civilisation is typically African. It was against this backdrop of Eurocentric art historical scholarship that we must locate Jegede’s determination to become an art historian in spite of having a robust career as a popular cartoonist and a venerable painter in Lagos, Nigeria.

    Jegede obtained M.A and PhD in 1981 and 1983 respectively from the Indiana University, Bloomington, U.S.A. His doctoral thesis, perhaps the first on contemporary African art, was supervised by Roy Sieber, a reputable American professor of African art. The continuing relegation of contemporary art of Africa, especially by some ethnocentric scholars, warranted Jegede and a few others to still courageously assert their allegiance to the Africanist perspective in art historical discourse. This is in spite of their allegiance to the West because of their career and residency in the U.S.A.

     

    Galaxy of Duality

     

    Jegede’s milestones are marked by humanistic notion of dualism. His bilateral approach to life is oftentimes symbiotic rather than disparate. His latent talent and creativity find lucid expression in visual arts, poetry and insightful essays. He successfully assumes significant recognition both as an artist and a scholar. Apart from his simultaneous engagement as artist/scholar, Jegede’s worldview is enlarged by his academic training both at home in Nigeria, and abroad in the United States (US). It is this duality of artist/scholar worldview that shaped his active career in Nigeria and the US.

    The notion of duality is equally expanded by his Diasporic citizenship, having relocated   to the US in the 1990s. Paradoxically, his heart never left Africa, especially his homeland Nigeria. He maintained constant physical and psychological return to Nigeria, thereby validating stories of socio-political interests. He constantly subjects his consciousness to the continuing cultural dynamics in Africa. His interrogation of trans-cultural realities of the African–American historiography afforded him a robust perspective on the colonial and post-colonial struggles in contemporary Africa. His activism is evident in his critical and sociological dissection of topical national issues through his cartoons, paintings and well-researched essays.

    With a deep sense of history, Jegede partitioned contemporary African art into two streams, namely: the Formal and the Informal Schools. The formal school represents the artists that had the academic mode of training, while the informal school represents those who developed their creativity from workshop centers and the apprenticeship system of training. His seminal doctoral thesis is the first major work on modern Nigerian art, a milestone that departed from the usual recourse to traditional African art studies.

     

    Septuagenarian Strut

     

    Jegede attained the septuagenarian status in 2015 and was adequately celebrated not only in the US where he has sojourned for decades, but more significantly in Lagos. The three-day event for “Jegede at 70” in Lagos included colorful opening ceremonies, with creative performances and lead papers from three foremost Nigerian intellectuals. There was the open academic conference and bazaar-like confabulation of creative activities that culminated in a group exhibition in his honour. It is difficult to remember any living contemporary artist or art scholar that was so well celebrated with so much panache in Nigeria. This exhibition can thus be seen perhaps as a continuation of the celebration; an icing on the 70th birthday cake.

    The two major areas of focus of this exhibition, according to Jegede, are “Celestial Aesthetics series and the Boko Haram Imbroglio”. While the first is introspectively personal, the other is expressively nationalistic. The interpretation of the exhibition themes conforms to his humanistic philosophy that expresses reality in contemplative binaries.

    Art is better appreciated when there is a basic understanding of what inspired the forms. Content of art is therefore a major criterion in art appreciation. It is important to briefly analyze the context of Jegede’s themes. The first is rooted in severe personal loss and stoic self-recovery while the other is on the traumatic after-effects of Boko Haram attacks with paradoxical comical contemplations.

    Visualising Memory

    It was Ali Mazrui, the erudite professor that quoted William Wordsmith’s definition of poetry as “powerful emotions recollected in tranquility.” Mazrui was justifying his first short novel titled The Trial of Christopher Okigbo, which he wrote in 1971 after the untimely death of Christopher Okigbo in 1967 during the Biafran war. Jegede’s anguish was intense even if disguised behind his sagacious gaze when on the 23rd December, 2011, he lost his beloved son Ayo. He bore the grief with stoical equanimity. The devastating loss however left a gaping vacuum in his heart, which he continually fills with visual and poetic metaphors.

    It is therefore instructive that a few years thereafter, Jegede’s emotions were sufficiently conditioned to ruminate over personal and national losses thereby culminating in the production of robust visual illusions and realities that further define him as a master aesthete.

    While explaining the concept behind the Celestial Aesthetics series, Jegede noted that the paintings represent his fascination with terminality and infinity. They were to draw attention to what he described as “cosmic vastness”. This is a conscious and subconscious reaction not only to the physical realities of the universe, but also to the ecstatic rhetoric behind life and death. Beyond the incomprehensible depth of the earth’s geological diversity, there is the infinite vastness of the Solar System where global secrets lurk.

    Religion has paved fluid pathways in the arid desert of human imagination, and human contemplations have adduced spiritual presence to the shrouded essence of the universe. With binocular vision, it is possible to perceive metaphysical entities. It is even assumed that the abode of all departed saintly souls is in heaven—a blissful haven located in spatial infinitum. Having contemplated on the origin and the magnificence of the universe, Jegede’s artistic mind therefore indulged in the visuo-spatial poetics of cosmic realities.

    Celestial Aesthetics

    The Celestial Aesthetic Series shares formal affinities with the paintings exhibited in his 2011 Peregrinations solo exhibition in Lagos, Nigeria, in which he explored issues relating to environmental pollution in the Niger Delta region as a result of crude oil spillage. He also examined the resultant armed militancy of the Ijaw Youths who protested the lackadaisical attitude of the Nigerian government towards environmental safety.

    In Peregrinations, Jegede matched visual forms with thematic relevance by employing stylistic and content correlation. In depicting the oil spillage and the pollution that devastated the Niger Delta land and rivers, Jegede used marbling effect to create liquidized features. He used colordrips to run over the canvases thereby generating pictorial fluidity. He tamed out recognizable forms that defined his chosen themes. This sub-style is equally present in the current exhibition and can be seen in the Boko Haram series.

    However, the works in the Celestial Aesthetics series have less defined images because the central preoccupation of Jegede was to depict the “inexhaustibility and prowess of cosmic vastness”. It is also instructive that while the paintings in Peregrinations exposed earthly problems, the celestial series celebrates the eternal glory of the Milky Way and its galaxies. Employing a masterly manipulation of the marbling technique, he turned the color-splash accidents to deliberate designs by conditioning the marbling to generate volume and void schematic splashes into discernable images.

    He appropriated the ambivalent volume and void effect of the color splashes into deliberate visual illusions that depict infinite depth of the heavens. Jegede used the Celestial Aesthetics series to elevate human imagination from mundane realities into the esoteric realm of celestial escapism. He lured our mental sensibilities to appreciate prophetic possibilities of life thereafter by conjuring colors with varying degrees of intensity and value. In Celestial Aesthetics Series 1, the dark night skyline became effervescent with sparkling dots of brilliant tones. Speckles of tinted hues illuminate the depth of the heavens and thus animated the spatial constellation.

    Celestial Aesthetics Series 1 is particularly interesting because it allows associated cultural imaging of Jegede’s creative mind. He seems to have extrapolated the chromatic taxonomy of the Yoruba and appropriated the emotive relevance of color symbolism. In Yoruba palette consciousness, all colors are classified into three generic groups namely dudu (darkish), pupa (reddish) and funfun (whitish). This chromatic connotation accommodates all cool and warm hues including the achromatic black and white colors. Jegede used his knowledge of Yoruba visual and verbal poetics to explore color symbolism in Celestial Aesthetics Series 2. He applied blue, red and white which are major colors in the chromatic lexicon of the Yoruba to articulate and contextualize the thematic relevance of the painting.

    It is therefore plausible to associate the emotive content of the painting with a popular Yoruba dirge often chanted by the bereaved while lamenting the loss of a beloved. The chant rendered in Yoruba can be translated to English thus;

    “He who knows the blue touraco

    Mourn the death of Indigo

    He who knows the red wood cock

    Lament the demise of cam-wood pigment

    He who knows the cattle egret

    Empathize with the transition of white chalk.”

    The above Yoruba dirge conceptualizes grief in colors by personifying some beautiful birds with comely plumages as visual metaphor for cherished personalities. It was perhaps the above dolor that prompted the use of blue, red and white colors in Celestial Aesthetics Series 1. The series of paintings were done by Jegede in memory of Ayo, his beloved son whose sparkling sun set so suddenly.

    Although there are more discernable facial forms rendered in flaming red and mauves of blue and purple, Celestial Aesthetics Series 2 is similar to Celestial Aesthetics Series 1 both in form and content. Jegede created depth of spatial illusion by painting glowing cloudy images that dissolve into space. A close look at the pictorial surface reveals series of painting techniques that crystallize into sparkling and colorful visual wealth. Jegede elevates color far above form in the celestial series in order to prick our affective domain and therefore allow us a peep into the inner crevices of his emotions. We hereby witness the enormous potentials of creative imagination that an artist wields when “emotions are recollected in tranquility”.

    The Boko Haram Insurgency

    The Boko Haram series is the second strand of Jegede’s creative exposition. While the first is celestial in concept, Boko Haram series is based on earthly experiences where defined forms were used to illustrate and express temporal emotions. The paintings and drawings in Boko Haram series are formally characterized by precise expertise in draughtsmanship. Jegede seems to pointedly display excellent painterly attributes and profound understanding of pictorial composition. He appreciates the necessity of using illustrative forms to clearly depict the theme and sub-theme of Boko Haram, which has become a scourge in the history of Nigeria.

    As a social commentator, Jegede’s visual activism found appropriate expression in painting and drawing the unfortunate terror activities and the devastating mass displacement of people following Boko Haram’s invasions and attacks. The members of the Boko Haram group are self-acclaimed Islamic Jihadists that pretentiously hate and fight against Western education and civilization. The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria came with disastrous terror attacks in most parts of the North-eastern Nigeria. Many villages and towns were completely sacked with houses bombed and razed down. Women and children were violently kidnapped and enslaved while farm products including herds of domestic animals were looted and confiscated. Cities and suburbs including Abuja the capital of Nigeria were bombed with heavy human and capital casualties. These dastardly acts led to unprecedented migration of people from the Northern part, especially the troubled-spots to the relatively safer central and Southern Nigeria. The Internally Displaced People (IDP) became refugees in their own country. They suffered hunger and were emotionally traumatized with many children and the aged losing their lives.

    Jegede’s witty impulse as a cartoonist manifested while dealing with the social problems caused by Boko Haram insurgency. In the IDP series, he lessened the burden and tension of the havoc by introducing comical interventions in paintings such as Internally Displaced Politician and Internally Displaced Police (Rofo Rofo Fight).

    The Internally Displaced Politician is a political pun played on the immediate past President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Dr. Goodluck Jonathan whose tenure witnessed the peak of the Boko Haram terror activities. Indeed, the unabated escalation of insurgency during his presidency was a major factor that led to his defeat and the ousting of his party from the leadership of the country. Jegede painted Goodluck Jonathan wearing a tattered bowler hat and looking despondent with a jaw-in-hand pose. A dark bird perched on the tip of the hat with ominous premonition. The worn-out hat symbolizes agony of defeat and the trauma of political displacement.

    A white dove that connotes peaceful handing-over of the presidency roosted on the shoulder of the man whose lonely figure is silhouetted against a reddish background. The painting satirizes the reign of Boko Haram terror and the agony of displacement suffered by the people. It castigates Jonathan’s leadership and holds him responsible for the consequences of his actions and inactions.

    IDP (Internally Displaced People) is typical of Jegede’s early advanced compositions with excellent painterly renditions. The displaced people are depicted with loads on their heads migrating to unknown destinations. The human figures seem to levitate in spatial vacuum since the pictorial field was rendered in birds’-eye view. The composition is very rich in palette considering the variety of receding green tones used to paint the foreground and background. The figures and especially the head-loads were made dynamic by the colorful hues used in defining the forms. The painting looks enchanting in formal presentation despite the unmistakable thematic discomfiture.

    There are more thematic and formal pranks played by Jegede in order to enrich the exhibition. He engaged excellently rendered pencil drawings to highlight the plights of people who experienced displacement in works such as Internally Displaced Persons and Generation What (Selfie). Using large paper surface, he explored the impact of digital and sophisticated information/phone technology on the older generation who are generally considered ‘analogue’ in thinking. The two elderly displaced people were snapping themselves in the ‘selfie’ style; thereby asserting their ‘youthfulness’ in spite of the trauma of migration and age.

    In this exhibition, Jegede reconciles the theory and practice of art through a dynamic interplay of cognitive and psycho-motor series. A versatile scholar who has distinguished himself as a researcher into contextual aesthetics he is sensitive to the nuances of artistic production and appreciation. Having survived the tough and slippery paths of creativity and scholarship for over four decades, Jegede has sufficiently mastered the principles of his trade and can therefore generate fresh strategic template for aesthetic considerations.

    His humanistic philosophy constantly translates to multiplex visions that are often rendered as visual activism. He parodies the state of the Nigeria nation and wittingly draws attention to the ills of the society. With uncanny visual and verbal poetics, Jegede speaks to the core essence of living. He entices the audience with profound technical skills in writing and painting and delivers his messages in coded comical punches.

    In this septuagenarian strut, Jegede’s emotional contemplations are revealed through his articulation of abstract concepts that are converted into visual reality. He referenced memories by addressing the physical vastness and the metaphysical depth of the universe in the celestial series. He continually demonstrates patriotic concerns on Nigeria national issues despite his dual citizenship as a bona fide resident in the United States of America. He captures the enervating effects of Boko Haram insurgency and forecast the rot and profligacy of corrupt officials that hindered the defeat of terrorism in Nigeria. He reminds us of the albatross around the non-release of the kidnapped Chibok girls in one of the paintings titled Boko Haram (Bring Back Our Girls). He reconciled the two painting styles used for the exhibition by rendering the head of the perturbed Chibok girl in naturalistic approach, while treating the trunk of the girl in abstract expressionism peculiar to the celestial series.

    It is plausible to observe that Jegede has upheld to a large extent his revolutionary manifesto declared in the brochure of the 1986 exhibition titled Paradise Battered. He had solemnly pledged to do nothing else than use his art for social and political activism. The Celestial Aesthetics series stands out as an emotional visual dolor that equally elevates the soul as much as the avowed expressive radicalism.

     

     

  • Ugwuanyi lauds Life In My City trustees

    Ugwuanyi lauds Life In My City trustees

    Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has expressed delight at the activities of the Life In My City Festival (LIMCAF), a private initiative that promotes creativity among Nigerian youths. The Governor, who hosted members of the Board of Trustees of the festival at his Lion House office in Enugu, urged the board to keep him informed about the progress of their preparations for this year’s special anniversary edition which will end on October 29.

    The  courtesy call was led by the board Chairman Elder K. U. Kalu, a former Chairman of Union Bank and Managing Director Skoup,  accompanied by Chief Loretta Aniagolu a member of the Governor’s Economic Advisory Team and Principal Partner, FIT Consult, Chairman of the State Council for Arts and Culture, Dr. Obiora Anidi; a Chief Lecturer and Head, Department of Graphic Design IMT and Art Director of the Festival, Mr. Ayo Adewunmi, CEO Artsaels Ltd Mr. Tayo Adenaike, Mr Chuka Orji, son and representative of the Founder of Life In My City, Chief Robert Orji and Mr Kevin Ejiofor, a former Director-General FRCN and Executive Director of the Festival.

    The trustees briefed the governor about the aims, objectives and vision of the festival which is not just a youth empowerment project but also a burgeoning national and international art and culture tourism destination and therefore a future source of significant contribution to the GDP of Enugu State and Nigeria.

    In a presentation, Mr. Kevin Ejiofor explained that this year’s edition would be the 10th anniversary of the Festival at which past winners and donors and other specially invited prominent guests were expected.

    He spoke on past winners of the festival’s overall prize who are now significantly advancing their careers in various ways. Such winners he said, included Mr. Olamide Oresegun the Festival’s first overall winner in 2007 as a student at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos and Ngozi Omeje now a Phd student at the University of Nigeria who also later won the Nigerian Breweries National Art Competition.

    Mr. Ejiofor disclosed that LIMCAF was now seeking a working partnership with the Institute of Management and Technology Enugu to become the intellectual home of the festival as it now seeks to deepen and broaden its impact in contemporary art in the Nigerian and international art world.

    “Enugu State young artists have won the overall prize at four of the nine editions of the Festival so far,” he added.

    According to Ejiofor, the festival has hosted some high profile art personalities in its panels of judges including professors of art in premier institutions in Nigeria and Africa, internationally renowned gallery operators, contemporary art scholars and promoters, high profile studio artists such as Jerry Buhari, Chike Aniakor, Kunle Filani, Bisi Silva, Frank Ugiomoh, Ayo Aina, Muhammed Muazu, Tony Okpe, Obiora Anidi, Nsikka Essien and Jacob Jari.

    “There have also been academic papers and other such contributions during some of the earlier editions of the festival by highly learned academics including Pita Ejiofor, Ola Oloidi, Chike Aniakor and Kryzd Ikwuemesi, with external support from Obiora Udechukwu, Mor Faye (Senegal) and Akwele Suma-Glory (Ghana) among others.

    “The Photo Africa contest for young African photo artists under 35 years of age was added to the festival’s portfolio in 2012 and has since attracted entries from not less than 18 African countries with jurors drawn from Nigeria, South Africa, Australia including such renowned photography experts as Tam Fiofori, Timipre Amah, James Iroha, Emeka Egwuibe, Piere Duffour (France), Margie MacClelland (Australia), and John Fleetwood (South Africa),” he said.

    He noted that the most interesting development in recent years is the endowment of prizes by prominent families, individuals and institutions including the Justice Anthony Aniagolu prize, the Pius Okigbo Prize, the Centre for Contemporary Art prize, the Mfon Usoro Prize, and the Thought Pyramid Art Gallery Prize among others.