Category: Arts & Life

Four writers have arrived at the Ebedi International Writers Residency in Iseyin, Oyo State, for the May/June 2016 edition of its programme.

The all Nigerian writers are Muriola Awosemo, Abdullahi Lawan Kangala, Okwudili Nebeolisa and David Ishaya Osu.

Born in Awosemo obtained the Bachelor of Arts degree in English Studies at Obafemi Awolowo University and later a Diploma in Journalism of the International Institute of Journalism, Abuja. His published works include a novel, The King Of Boys, two volumes of collections of short stories; Telling Tales and The Colour Of Love and children’s books; A RIDDLE FOR YOU, WHAT ABOUT AIDS,FOX JOE JUNIOR and SOMETHING HAPPENED. He also has two published memoirs titled An Eye Witness and The  Story  Of MY Eye.Muriola Awosemo has served the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) as an elected official at both the state and National levels. In addition to mentoring Iseyin students in the areas of fiction and short story writing, Muriola hopes to work on his forthcoming books; ADULT TREE and VILLAGE RADIO during his stay at Ebedi Residency.

The second writer, Abdullahi Lawan Kangala, is a Kano-based writer who currently writes in Hausa and English. Born in 1986 in Makarfi Local Government of Kaduna State, Abdullahi is a full member of the Community Development Group at the American corner in Murtala Muhammed Library Complex, Kano. He is also the coordinator of the Hausa Forum of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Kano State branch. He has recently completed work on his yet-to-be published books: Komai ta Fanjama?, Ture ka ga Tsiya, Gwabnatin Yaudara, and Da Ruwan Ciki?.  During his stay at the residency, he will be at work on his new novel, Sakamakon Fade, and will be polishing his collection of five English short stories. In addition, he will teach Iseyin Students the rudiments of Hausa Poetry, Songs and Folklore.

David Ishaya Osu, born in 1991, is a graduate of Urban and Regional Planning. A native of Nasarawa State, his works have appeared in: Eureka Street, Atlas Poetica: A Journal of World Tanka, Birmingham Arts Journal, Off the Coast, The Kalahari Review, Vinyl Poetry, Grey Sparrow Journal, RædLeaf Poetry: The African Diaspora Folio, A Thousand Voices Rising: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, The Cadaverine, The Bombay Review, Ann Arbor Review,among other international publications. David is a board member of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation. At the Ebedi Residency, Ishaya hopes to complete work on his debut poetry book; THE SECRETS OF UNDERWEARS as well as conduct workshops for Iseyin students on Spelling and Poetry.

The fourth writer, Nebeolisa Okwudili, is a Nigerian writer whose works have featured in Ambit Magazine, Word Riot, Saraba magazine, RedLeaf Poetry, African Diaspora Poetry Folio, Yuan Yang Journal, Kalahari Review, and in national dailies.  A Chemical Engineering graduate of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, he won the inaugural Jalada Prize in poetry and also won third place in the 2011 ASiS International Writing Competition in the poetry category. In addition, he was also shortlisted for the 2014 Raedleaf Poetry Competition in the international category. Nebeolisa who hails from Anambra State, will also delight Iseyin students during his residency with a workshop on Poetry and Drama in addition to completing work on his debut Novel entitled; The Spirit House.

In its 6th year of operation, the Ebedi International Writers Residency has hosted more than 60 writers from Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Cameroun, South Africa and Ivory Coast. It is a private initiative for Writers to complete their on-going works free of charge in a convenient environment. In return, the residents are expected to mentor Secondary School students in Iseyin and environs in any area of Creative Art convenient for them.

The Residency currently enjoys the support of the Belgium based organization Arts Moves Africa (AMA) in the provision of free air tickets to its foreign applicants, the Lagos based Literamed Publishers for the publication of quality works from the Residency as well as the Wole Soyinka Writers Residency, Abeokuta, Ogun State in the co-hosting of Ebedi Residents.

Obi of Onitsha Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe is building a world-class museum in his domain to promote African art as a key development resource. 

Obi of Onitsha,  Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe has unveiled plans to build a world-class museum named after his direct royal ancestor – Chimedie. The groundbreaking of the project was performed penultimate Saturday by Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano in Onitsha.

This brings to two world-class museums being built by the individuals. Last  June, Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Foundation founder Mr Yemisi Shyllon donated 1,200 artworks (at current valued) and seed money worth over N2.2 billion to the Pan Atlantic University (PAU) in Lagos for the establishment and running cost of Yemisi Shyllon Museum for 15 years.  Shyllon said the gesture was borne out of the family’s desire to leave lasting philanthropic legacies. He said he is majorly providing funding for the museum and running it for 15 years before the university will then solely fund the museum.

The Chimedie Museum, Onitsha is to serve as a centre of excellence for the development and promotion of African art, and to help create a future in which African art achieves greater relevance and sustainability such that it becomes a key development resource.

The monarch, who also marked his 75th birthday as well as 14th anniversary on the throne on the day, launched the museum as a private endowment for the benefit of the public.

The museum, which was designed by Architect Theo Lawson, the creator of Freedom Park in Lagos, will start up with the monarch’s personal collection of modern African artworks numbering over 1200 at the present time, and amongst the finest collections of visual art in Nigeria; all his royal paraphernalia and those of his predecessors that may be available, including photographs, music and video recordings, apparels, jewellery and ornaments as well as historic documents and research materials, including the digital copies of the entire academic materials built up by Prof Richard and Dr. Mrs Helen Henderso, who devoted their entire academic life to the socio-anthropological study of Onitsha.

Speaking at the launch, which had dignitaries including the Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano in attendance, the Obi of Onitsha said the museum would make Onitsha and the entire Anambra State destinations of choice for business, tourism and leisure.

He said: “It is our intent to build an edifice, which will become a reference centre for our history and culture, relating the past with the present for the benefit of the future.  For instance, it is from the hundreds of museums around the world that we derive most of our knowledge about life in ancient Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire, China, India, and Nigeria, among the world’s great civilisations.

“The big difference with Nigeria is that we have not cared to preserve our heritage, the best of which now reside in foreign museums, where we and our future generations will painfully visit if we must know about our past. Today’s event is the beginning of a private journey to reverse that trend for Onitsha Ado N’Idu, Anambra State and, to some extent, Nigeria.

“The museum that we are about to launch today is named after Obi Chimedie, my direct royal ancestor.  Chimedie was the son of Eze Aroli, who was the son of Obi Chimaevi, who was the son of Ezechima, the founding father of Onitsha Ado N’Idu. My more immediate ancestor, Orezeobi, was the first son of Chimedie. Having taken so many generations and a few hundreds of years for the descendant of Orezeobi to mount the throne of Ezechima, we thought it appropriate to name the museum after Chimedie, the father of Orezeobi”.

The Obi of Onitsha noted that the Chimedie Museum Trust Foundation had been duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission as a not-for-profit independent trust and a board of trustees would soon be constituted.

He also said the land for the museum had been allocated in his name by the state government and he had executed an irrevocable Deed of Gift conveying the land to the Chimedie Museum Trust Foundation.

The monarch added that the museum will be a centre for education and enlightenment on the history and culture of Onitsha and Igboland.

“The museum will in due course be linked with one of our universities and become a Centre for Onitsha and Igbo Studies. Our daughter and distinguished academic, Prof Nkiru Nzegwu, of the State University of New York in Binghamton, New York has painstakingly built up a bibliography of over 500 sources of published materials on Onitsha and related subjects. The museum will equally acquire such materials over time to become a research centre,” he said.

Obiano, who performed the foundation-laying ceremony, was full of praise for the initiative and noted that the museum would help his administration in its bid to develop tourism in the state.

Meanwhile, the Chimedie Museum Trust Foundation is engaged in discussion with the University of Nigeria, Nsukka to endow a prize for an annual award for creative excellence to a graduating student of the Department of Fine Arts. The Chimedie Museum will also continue to host the annual Oreze Art Exhibition during Ofala Onitsha Festival.

Sam Omatseye’s A Chronicle Foretold is an illuminating collection of 77 pieces of his columns for The Nation newspaper. In this book, Omatseye is less of a prophet and more of an irate, lyrical and powerful describer and interpreter of political and social realities of our country. Like Roger Resenblatt of Time magazine, one of his role models in journalism, Omatseye believes that History and Literature are important ingredients of excellent writing. So his head is an archive of so many quotes from hundreds of fascinating books he has read. Give it to him: Omatseye has a good mind. His constant bellicosity, his unfailing punditry, even his moral righteousness may offend some delicate sensibilities but he says in ‘‘Feeding the Monster’’, one of the pieces in this book, that he will continue to state his point as his conscience propels him.

Combining passion with anger, Omatseye wrote eloquently of the locust years in which Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was Nigeria’s president. Although he does not tell us whether it was General Muhammadu Buhari or Nuhu Ribadu that he voted for during the 2011 presidential election cycle, Omatseye certainly did not vote for Jonathan because he wanted a president of executive gallantry, a man of vision, a man of competence, a true transformational leader and someone who would sow the seeds for the wise men and women of the future. Jonathan, in his reckoning, possessed none of those virtues. When he was declared the winner of that election, Omatseye observed that Nigeria had voted in a killer by instalment in  Nigeria. He predicted that the value of the naira would depreciate in a few years, that the country would be more divided along ethnic, religious and class lines than ever before. As time unfolded those predictions came to pass.

This book is called A Chronicle Foretold because of the accuracy of his predictions. As he said in ‘‘Northern Mob, Southern Bias’’, it did not take extraordinary perception to see this coming. The consequence is a nation gasping for breath. If Nigeria is a living dead, it is largely because of the shameless looting of its kitty by Jonathan and all the thieves around him. The author railed against these people. He went after Diezanni Alison- Madueke and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala whom he described as dames of subsidy. He punctured their arguments on subsidy removal with facts and stinging words. He took us through the ways and means of fuel importation and how the country was ripped off by Jonathan, Alison-Madueke and their thieving gang. He observed that if forensic auditors had done their job properly, they would have discovered fake bank receipts, fake bills of lading for products.

Since the NNPC had become a cesspool of corruption, why should it not be dissolved as Mallam Nasir El-Rufai one suggested? In a debate with El-Rufai which is one of the side comments in one of the essays in this book, Omatseye contended that the problem was not NNPC but us. If we scrapped the NNPC and formed another corporation, he said, we ran the risk of reincarnating the scam. His words: ‘‘NNPC did not materialise out of MARS. The leeches in its entrails are Nigerians. We need to purge Nigerians of our greed and impunity and set a standard for transparency before deciding on what step to take on NNPC’’. In other words, great institutions make a great country.

Which is why Omatseye argued for the need to have an independent and virile judiciary, an army free of the manipulation of the politicians, a police force imbued with respectability, massive investments in human capital through high-ranking schools. The debasement of judiciary under General Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr. Jonathan could only happen in a sick country, he said. Using the open fight between the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloysius Katsina-Alu and Justice Ayo Salami, President of the Court of Appeal, as a good example, Omatseye observed that a hallowed chamber of law should always have dignity. He quoted William Shakespeare to support himself: ‘‘If correction lies in the hand that committed wrong to whom shall we complain?’’

You cannot have a good society when judges are hands in glove with looters, election riggers and other criminals. Under Jonathan, the Army and the Police became tools of tyranny. Omatseye, after his reportage of the shabby treatments of the opposition figures like Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Adams Oshiomhole, Lai Mahammed etc by the Army and the Police, then asked: ‘‘ The question for us to ponder is whether we have an army with a state or a state with an army? An Army with a state is one where the soldiers are in charge but could not act as though they run a civil society. A state without an army refers to a system where civilians are in charge with soldiers as tools. In a society where soldiers have been part of our lives for over a generation, we find it difficult to distinguish between the civilian politicians with martial virtues or a soldier with civilian bona fides. So, we have the modern day version of indirect rule. Jonathan is taking full advantage, and capsizing our democratic virtues. The civilians are in power but they allow the police and soldiers to take charge on their behalf’’.

The soldiers and the police took charge on behalf of many politicians in PDP who were described by Sam Omatseye in intemperate language. He condemned Jonathan’s Azonto dancing at a time that the country was lamenting the kidnapping of the Chibok girls. He called Chief Tony Anenih an impostor, Governor Olusegun Mimiko he described as witlow of the West, Chief Segun Oni as the apostate with the phony Awo cap. Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, Sambo Dasuki, and Doyin Okupe he labelled as three unwise men. Ayo Oritsejafor, Gbenga Daniel, D.S.P Alamieyeseigha, Bukola Saraki, Godsday Orubebe, Patience Jonathan, E.N. Wike, Sullivan Chime and a few others did not escape his barbs.

Any time Sam Omatseye was in his partisan, abusive mode, and this was quite often, he poured on his political enemies acidic comments. His best descriptions, his loud praise – songs were of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, M.K.O. Abiola, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola,  Kayode Fayemi, Adams Oshiomhole, Babatunde Raji Fashola, Kashim Shettima, Aminu Tambuwa, Rotimi Amaechi, Godwill Akpabio, Emmanuel Uduaghan, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and, of course, many other writers whose works he quoted from approvingly.

The book is not only about Nigeria. It is also about the author – there are stories here of his life and career. It is about other places too. I’ve just mentioned Nelson Mandela among the notable people he wrote about. Indeed, he treated Mandela unfairly in one of the two essays on him as he found him guilty of divorcing his unfaithful wife: Winnie.Omatseye’s logic astounds me in the light of Mandela’s story of the incident in his enchanting memoir, Long Walk to Freedom.

He celebrated the Arab Spring which swept dictators like Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi out of power.  He then observed: ‘‘I looked at our firmament and our immediate future and I did not see the crowd in Tahrir Square in Tafawa Balewa Square, or in Eagle Square. Rather, I see a nation full of dreamers who prefer dream to change. Nigeria is not Egypt, and we cannot have any such ferment, any such civil rage in the near future. Revolutions are good, but the people must want it first’’.

Sam Omatseye’s concern for the masses of our people was well articulated in his essays. He was an advocate of the poor in our schools. He was sympathetic to the weak and the vulnerable in the hospital where they were too wretched to pay. He wrote feelingly about helpless Zaharau Babangida whose father turned into an enemy because of poverty. He wrote sympathetically about Fahat Fahat, one of the soldiers fighting the Boko Haram insurgents without weapons. He wrote passionately about villagers who were displaced from their homes. He wrote with sadness about victims of bomb blast. By and large, Sam Omatseye’s higher purpose in his essays was to fight an egalitarian society. It is in this fight that part of the integrity of his writing lies. The necessity for creative, ennobling imagination, in the way we run our economy, the way we run our politics, to build a great future is at the heart of  A Chronicle Foretold.