The Nation Newspaper

Category: Arts & Life

  • Masquerades represent lawmakers in my community-Mbanefo

    Masquerades represent lawmakers in my community-Mbanefo

    Prolific Nigerian artist, Emmah Mbanefo, no doubt is among the many Nigerian artists who are known for their exceptional works. He has made significant contributions in the field of visual arts in Nigeria and beyond.

    His artistic works revolves specifically around Igbo themes and symbolic mystery which provide a guide for artists. Beyond the Igbo titles of his works, the meaning behind it is equally of interest and it cut across everyone, with fascinating messages which no one can ignore.

    Mbanefo’s use of masquerades and Igbo titles to communicate his thoughts can be attributed to his Onitsha, Anambra origin. He said: “Masquerades represent lawmakers in my community where I come from. They make law and they repel it. Masquerades served as legislative, the judiciary and the executive arm of government in many communities in Nigeria before the coming of the white-man,” he said.

    No wonder this sculptor and painter most time uses masquerade to convey his messages which invokes mixed feelings of fear and peace. He keeps revisiting the ancestral linage of Onitsha people, as well as contemporary issues in Nigeria with his work.

    In May, 2014, he exhibited about 60 works in a solo art exhibition of paintings and sculptors titled: Wood Hood; at the National Museum, Lagos. “What could Wood Hood mean? The clause “out of the wood” means free at last, of trouble and danger. Perhaps, independent and emancipated, Wood Hood is directly the opposite, both “danger and “trouble” are of a foundation (cause) whose superstructure (effects) are far from goodness.

    “Wood Hood is a sequel to my first solo art exhibition “Ambivalence;” that which makes man intrinsically human, not good, not bad but both. Wood Hood searches for the good, the spirit of humanity.”

    Explaining the titles of his works he said: “Itokili: this refers to being caged in the world of the living. The victim is highly vulnerable and humility could be the panacea. Humility is such a frail and dedicated thing that, anyone who dares to think that he has it, proves by that single thought that he has it not.” Other titles you will come across whenever you see his works are: Akpali: An admirable quality, Oche Igele: An achiever’s seat, Oso-Ogoli: Spiritual race, Anasi: First wife, Otanke: Spy, etc.

    He went to the Federal Polytechnic Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria and worked briefly as a teacher before he established a workshop; Destiny Art Studio in Onitsha, Anambra State, Nigeria. Mbanefor later turned the studio to educational context, taking on a number of apprentices, including ceramic artist, Ato Arinze. He is planning to have a solo show towards the end of the year.

    He was influenced according to him “by encounters with artists such as the late sculptor Okpu Eze, Pro Ben Enwonwu and Iraboh Emokpae.  He majored in Art Education and earned certificate of participation in Art Law, Element of Management, and Insurance for Artist, Principles and Practice of Copyrights and Trademarks with certificate in Creative Enterprise.

  • Not on our lives ! Candidates reject admission into Colleges of Education

    Not on our lives ! Candidates reject admission into Colleges of Education

    Almost half a decade after the government introduced the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, to encourage enrolment into the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, students continue to snub the Polytechnics, while they expressly reject admission into colleges of Education. Medinat Kanabe who interacted with college administrators and high school graduates reports.

    Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). That was in an attempt to find a lasting solution to the problems graduating high school students in Nigeria faced accessing higher education, and especially to even out the traffic of students to the various institutions of higher learning, as against the total preference for universities. The situation at the time had become such that students no longer considered the colleges of education and much less were giving consideration to the monotechnic or polytechnic options. It was either the universities or nothing.

    Even though Egwu did not last long enough in the office to see the policy come into fruition, it nevertheless got the blessing of the Federal Executive Council and promptly took off with the first examination in April 2010.

    The new system according to Prof. Sam Ukpabi, chairman of the examination board was to address the challenges of limited space in Nigerian universities and eliminate the phony rampart the students had inadvertently constructed to limit themselves. He also hoped it would change the history of tertiary education in Nigeria for good, with the youth of the country being the better for it.

    Before then, the situation had been such that JAMB (the Joint matriculation Examination Board) founded 1978 conducted a separate matriculation examination for the universities. That was later replaced with the Universities Matriculation Examination (UME), with the Monotechnics, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education Examination (MPCEME) introduced in 1989 to cater for all other cadre of schools. The introduction of the UTME therefore meant that the millions of candidates seeking admission into all higher institutions will be subjected to the same examinations.

    The new system, according to Prof. Ukpabi, has several advantages, including saving cost, since candidates no longer have to take multiple examinations. They also get to save energy, and there is a greater likelihood of the students gaining admission to at least a university, polytechnic or college of education, rather than wasting at home and waiting for another year.

    Most importantly, he explained that going forward; it will also help in dismantling the long-existing dichotomy between graduates of the universities and their counterparts from the polytechnics/monotechnics.

    Not much have changed

    But have things really changed? Do high school graduates now willingly accept admissions into colleges of education for instance? Or do those whose preference has always been with universities now accept polytechnic or monotechnic admissions?

    A chance interaction with a group of colleges of education provosts during their annual meeting at the  Michael Otedola College of Primary Education,MOCPED Lagos recently, provided the semblance of an answer.

    According to Dr. Ignatius Ezoem, Provost, Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba, the introduction of the UTME has not achieved much in terms of increasing enrolment into his college. Rather, he shocked this reporter with the news that it has actually continued to decrease.

    Even as he acknowledged that he, as a government employee, shouldn’t be criticising government policies; he nevertheless professed that “we must look for ways to address the lapses” that might have emerged there-from.

    He advised that the government should first address the issue of teachers’ welfare and elevate teaching to the level of profession, if indeed they want students to start seeing colleges of education in a different manner.

    “If a teacher is well remunerated and the condition of service is improved, many people will go to colleges of education because they want to be teachers. Right now nobody wants to be a teacher; everybody wants to be a lawyer, an engineer, a medical practitioner, a pilot, but nobody wants to be a teacher. The fear is there.  The age-long thinking that teachers are not well paid, that teachers are the downtrodden in the economy is still there.”

    His position was corroborated by the Provost, Federal College of Education, Zaria, Dr Maccido Mukhtar, who argued that the status quo would remain, “until such a time when government decides to implement teachers’ salary scheme.”

    “What I am trying to say is that you can be a professor but choose to teach in the primary school and get a professor’s salary. And if you decide to teach in the university, you will get the same salary. Once that is implemented and their salary is enhanced, there is no way teaching or teacher education will take a back seat. All over the world, they respect the teacher more than any other person. If you go to Japan, the highest paid salary earners are teachers. And so it is with many other countries; but as far as the rich and influential are concerned here, teaching can go to hell. The question therefore remains, if nobody cares for teaching, what happens to the schools?”

    Dr Bashorun Olalekan Wasiu of Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Ijanikin, also agrees that the population is dwindling.

    The AOCOED provost’s suggestion however is that government should “train teachers for basic education. They might actually be given the mandate of training first degree students. They should be able to award degrees in education. That might be a solution and that might give the opportunity of being able to increase the enrolment and enhance the quality.”

    He also said the fact that they are teachers puts them in better stead to train teachers than the universities. “Students can then progress to the university for their masters and PhD.”

    Another solution, he said is to enrich our curriculum, with entrepreneurship programmes to benefit the students. “The students should be able to come out and be employers of labour when they finish because unemployment is everywhere. If the programme is enriched, students will not feel inferior to the university graduates,” he concluded.

    On her part, Professor Francisca Ladejanu of the College of Education, Ikere Ekiti insists that an average student will always prefer to go to a university, and next to that, a polytechnic. “Colleges of education come last (even on the form) and that makes it more difficult for us to get students that will make them first choice.

    “It is not that colleges of education are not acceptable to students, it is just that they see products of colleges of education as not enjoying the same social status like others in other higher institutions. If teaching profession is made more attractive, then more students will want to come into education.”

    Asked if she thinks candidates are scared of becoming teachers, she said “I don’t think they are afraid; it’s just that everybody wants a good thing. If someone gets something good out of his college of education certificate, the most obvious thing is he would advice others to do same. If teachers are well paid; if they enjoy good standing in the society; then more students will want to come into education.”

    Candidates thumb down for colleges of education

    Benard Clement wrote the last UTME. It was the 20 year-old’s second attempt and he told this reporter matter-of-factly that “I cannot attend a college of education. I wrote UTME last year and scored 189. I could easily have gotten admission into any polytechnic or college of education but I decided to write another exam this year and I will continue to write until I meet the cut-off mark needed to go into the university of my choice.”

    Continuing, he said “In Nigeria, the NCE certificate is not recognised and I don’t want a useless certificate. I don’t want a situation whereby I will waste my time and money going to a college of education and at the end of the day I will be running up and down looking for a job.”

    Another candidate who has written UTME twice and scored 172 and 192 respectively; also told The Nation that he is writing again, albeit in fear that he might not score the cut off mark yet again. Speaking with a dint of regret, Saka Sadiq said: “If I had known I would have accepted the offer of polytechnic admission given me in the past sittings, because I am not sure I will score up to what I want this time.”

    Even then, he insists that “No matter what, I cannot attend a college of education. I can manage to attend a polytechnic but never will I attend a college of education. Even Bsc holders in Nigeria have not got jobs and you say I should attend a college of education, I will not.”

    17 year-old Habibat Rasheed is writing UTME for the first time, but she sure she will not attend a college of education. “The only thing that will make me consider a polytechnic is because it can afford me the opportunity to take a direct entry to the university and I will only do that because I wouldn’t like to just stay at home waiting to write another UTME.” She said.

    Habeeb Abideen however hates teaching, and makes no attempt to be civil about it. “I cannot even touch it with a long spoon. They are not well paid, they go on strike, and they are not accorded the right recognition in Nigeria. I can make the salary of a teacher in one week if I go into business; that is why I want to study business administration.”

    Hope for candidates

    The Public Relations Officer for JAMB, Dr Fabien Benjamin took time to further explain to candidates why it was necessary to introduce the UTME, assuring them that with time, polytechnics and even colleges of education will be on the same level with degree holders.

    He explained that the problem of HND/degree dichotomy and the problem of people preferring degree over polytechnic and colleges of education led to the introduction of the UTME, “to bridge the gap so that we will have the same entry requirement.”

    “If you say that degree is the same with HND and you are giving them different entry requirement, then you have already told them from the beginning that they are not the same. So we want to ensure uniformity, the same three requirements, the same standard, the same, certificate, the same grading and the same consideration.

    “We want to encourage technical education because the polytechnics are established to enhance technical education and if you don’t give these candidates any reason to go to polytechnics or colleges of education, then they will not go.

    “A situation whereby somebody will go to the polytechnic and finish and you come and tell him that he is an educative officer and that a degree is far above whatever he has acquired would not encourage others to attend.”

    Asked why enrolment into these colleges has not increased since the introduction of UTME, Dr. Benjamin said any policy that is introduced must go through a process.

    “The board has taken up a step to unify the entry requirement and what the ministry of education is doing at the top level is to ensure that the HND/NCE dichotomy is completely eradicated. And they are seriously working on it, but it is not a magic wand that you just swing and it happens. It is a process and the candidates are also watching to see how employers of labour will react to this policy. So you’re not likely to get a different reaction from the students or schools, until it gets to the market and the market accepts it,” he explained.

    He also said that one of the measures being considered as an immediate incentive is to have the government make it such that “if someone has an HND, let him go straight to do his Masters. He does not have to do a Post Graduate Diploma first; and if you have an HND and are employed, you should be taken in as an administrative officer and also have the same terminal point with degree holders.”

    That way, he said, students will begin to have positive attitude towards polytechnic education.

    Make degrees minimum qualification for teachers

    Responding to the clamour to make a degree the minimum qualification for teachers, Dr. Benjamin said: “That is part of the comprehensive policy we are talking about. What educationists want to do in Nigeria is for teachers to be able to teach well. You cannot teach what you don’t have and under normal circumstance, people that are teaching are supposed to be the best; and even if other companies are taking less than first degree, a teacher should not be anything less.

    “Government is therefore considering upgrading colleges of education to degree awarding institutions, so that teachers will come in, do their degree programmes and no longer NCE; and even if they do their NCE, they will be able to proceed immediately to do their degree programmes. That will very likely encourage them not to stop at NCE, but go further and obtain their degree.”

    He concluded that “Most people don’t want to go to colleges of education because they think all they would get is an NCE, but if they know that they can be awarded a degree, chances are they’ll go the long haul.”

  • Too late to weep

    Too late to weep

    Title: A Wrong Time To Weep
    Author: Soji Obebe
    Publishers: Emmanuel Publications, Ibadan
    Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

    When psychologists say that the law of retributive justice will always catch up with those whose past are bad, not many people tend to understand this. But in the story of Tinu and Jonas in A Wrong Time to Weep, Soji Obebe takes his time to justify this age-long aphorism. A sequel to his former book entitled The Payback, he concludes the story of Jonas who at the height of his prowess as young man dashed the hopes of many young girls. One of them was Sola, who bore him a daughter whom he also discarded.

    After his many years of philandering, Jonas decided to marry Tinu. For many years there was no issue. Tried as much they could, there was no success. In the interim, Tinu consulted her mother who gave her and Jonas some herbs to drink in order to make them more potent to have children. But Jonas did not take a liking to this. In the end, the concoction as he termed it was thrown overboard and their worries continued unabated

    Even the entreaties by Tinu that they sought the attention of either a spiritualist or a medical doctor fell on deaf ears. After seeking the advice of her bosom friend, Tinu went after her former boyfriend, a custom officer, who later impregnated her. From one child to another, Tinu forced her husband to believe that truly he fathered those children.

    But what was the driving force in the mind of Tinu? She wanted to have children by all means in order to inherit Jona’s many estates littered here and there.

    Indeed, A Wrong Time to Weep stretches Jona’s saga in The Payback, so says the author. Jonas equally tastes the sour grapes of the seed he sowed into the life of Sola, this wonderful lady who bore him a daughter which he disowned. It is clear here that the author deliberately rounds off the tale on the well known epigram of the rejected stone which later became the cornerstone.

    Jona’s fruitless marriage was to show him how to go in search of Sola and get her apology and indeed demand for his child. It is not proper to really reject the woman who sacrificed so much for you, more so when she has a child for you. This is one of the reasons why it is believed that nature or law of karma has set out to haunt Jonas.

    There is too much of heartache in the story. It also exposes and captures some marriages where women go outside to get children for their men. The men would believe that the children are theirs. Like it is usually said in the local parlance, that it is only the woman who can tell the true father of her child.

    When Tinu set out to do her own deed, she did not think of the consequences until it caught up with her. Here, it is an issue she will live with all her life. But did it ever worry her? The twists and intrigues in the story were well taken care of by the author. The presentation is convincing because it is not always that authors get sequels to their stories well knotted out.

    In The Payback, the story is left to readers to deduce its import. However, in A Wrong Time To Weep, the wholeissues are made clearer to the people. It is a book to read to know more about such mundane issues and problems that daily beset families and tend to tear homes to shreds.

    It was after the sudden death of Jonas that the real hanky-panky erupted not only to harass and haunt the children but also Tinu could not comprehend her own action anymore. She was not only distraught deep in her heart; she did not know how to face it. From her confusion, it is easy to finally grasp the total import of the book and why the author set out to write it in the first place.

    Most people in life too should desist from bad friends for, like the English will say show me your friend and I will tell you who you are.

  • ‘Our scripts must reflect our cultures’

    ‘Our scripts must reflect our cultures’

    Theodore Chukukadibia Anyanji is a graduate of Philosophy from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) and also a film producer, director and script writer. An alumnus of the famous New York Film Academy, Anyanji who has won several awards in the industry is based in Owerri, Imo State, but shuttles Lagos, the hub of the movie industry in Nigeria.  In this encounter with Edozie Udeze, he bares his mind on a number of issues bordering on scriptwriting, film directing and productions and lots more

    For the past twenty years or so, he has been holding fort in the home video industry as one of its greatest assets in the areas of scriptwriting, directing and production.  Theodore Anyanji, who has just finished work on his latest offering named Ambulance Woman, a story that dwells so much on the odd sides of what a woman can do, said: “it is not in our culture for a woman to be driving an ambulance and corpses.  In this movie, therefore, you’ll see how Chimamanda, the main character showed her brevity more than a man could.  She did what some men cannot do.”

    Anyanji who goes for high profile artistes in almost all his works says that in doing so, this helps him to draw unprecedented attention to his movies.  In Ambulance Woman, the likes of Ngozi Ezeonu, Harry B, Ben Ibegbu, Ngozi Ebuka and more, were used by him to prove his mettle.  Also in his latest sensational movie entitled Ada Mbano, the script writer infused a different dimension into his story.  “I only want to think differently; to give viewers something that is quite unique and mind bogging.  Can a woman be a mortician, an undertaker?  Yes, this is what I tried to explore in this movie and it worked out fine.  You see, a lot of people would like to wonder to what extent a brave woman can go to dare where even some men may fear to enter,” he explained.

    That, to Anyanji, is one of the issues that a good script writer should be involved in.  “Yes, it depends on who is writing.  Some of our scripts are not well-researched.  I agree with you.  But before I became a script writer, I underwent a tutelage for close to ten years.  It was years when I took many lessons and courses in order to equip myself well enough for the task ahead.  When I wrote the movie, Indian Doctor, I put my personal religion aside.  I wanted to be deep, to let the world see the true concept of the issues I handled there.  In fact, when I finished it, a lot of people thought I had become a Hindu.  The way I dismissed Hinduism, people thought I believed in their tenets,” he explained.

    The idea of doing a thorough research before a script is written has helped Anyanji to carve an enviable niche for himself.  In the home video genre in the country, most big time producers and directors always go for his works because they see in them ideas that are not only compelling, but intriguing.  For him, even though writing could be a gift, yet as a writer there are possible issues and themes and ideas you need to know.  These issues indeed play prominent role in aiding your concept of writing and the profundity of what you produce.  “What about the use of language, creative language?” the writer asked, raising his eyebrows.  “What about understanding what it means to write a good script?  What type of suspense do you create; how do you employ the concept of dialogue and so on?  Most of these ingredients lack in what we have in the home video parlance in Nigeria.  However, most of my works address these concepts in their totality and these indeed are the basic components of good scripts,” he proffered.

    As a writer, Anyanji takes enough time to look at the resolution of the scripts, the storyline itself in order to have not only a convincing story but one people can identify with.  “Yes, you have to understand that there is a thin line between twist and suspense.  Then you need to know how to invent the appropriate characterisation.  Then, thereafter, you look closely at the story itself to see if there is a back-up somewhere.  It is not just about speaking English or writing it to suit some whims, but to apply so more appropriately to produce the necessary results.”

    As a character writer, he pays more attention to his artistes once they are on set, to be able to enable them interpret their roles more proficiently.  “Yes, this is one of the best ways to bring out the whole beauty of what we do to make a story more endearing to viewers.  In all, one character should be different from the rest.  That distinctiveness should be there and well-defined too.  How do you judge a character if he or she is not divorced from the rest?  It is unfortunate that these days you see conflicting characterisation in most of our stories.  This has to change, especially in terms of language and the way it is presented.”

    Anyanji argued also that stories ought to present the cultural history of the people as they truly are.  “This is what we need to have, stories that edify who we are.  The stories have to be objective.  In as much as I know we could have a fiction, but even when a story is told, it ought to have some element, of believability.  It has to be believable.  Now, can people tune in to that story and like it and also relate it to their own culture?  Now, when a story is told and you cannot genuinely relate it to what is happening around you, it is a flop.  Don’t make the story elitist because it would look as if you are telling a story from the Mars.  In all, therefore, the story must affect what we call my affective domain.”

    When therefore a script story is told it must create unalloyed interest in the people; people should be made to like it, mostly due to how it is written.  Anyanji enthused thus: “it is even better when the story is well-presented in a movie and the people can see themselves in it.  However, we have a problem in the industry.  Now, everybody thinks he or she is a script-writer.  They sit down and narrate some story or tell a story.  It took me many years before I decided to become a script-writer.  I went through proper training based on the gift God has already given to me.  Not just one training, but several of it for nine years before I came to the realisation that I could also write very well.”

    Starting out differently, Anyanji delved into creating his own lexicons.  “As a script writer, you have to create your own lexicons,” he averred.  “That and more will shape your success and chances of being who you are.  Even when I use other people’s works like a best-seller, I ask you to give me that licence, that liberty to go ahead and use your work.  That will enable me to relax and tell my story.  You have to respect the writer’s views and that again will not make you to emasculate the story itself.  I should be able to do so well and then have a good movie.”

    Concerning scripts which deliberately have fewer characters in order to save production cost, Anyanji said, “oh yes, it happens.  But if it is based on low budget, I’d do it in such a way as not to kill the central concept of the story or emasculate it.  If the image is not too good, I’ll not do it because it will kill my creativity.  Therefore, professionalism should come into not just the script writing, but directing and producing.  This should affects all facets of the industry, because it is not all about the second largest producers of movies in the world, but giving total credence to the movies.  We need quality works and that is my concern.  We therefore need to preserve our cultures whether we are Christians or not.

    He took a swipe at the quality of plays and novels being produced now and said that they are not as good as what the older generation of Nigerian writers were able to do.  Yet, he believes that if given the opportunity, he could go on ahead to put Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God or There was a Country into movies.  “These are fantastic books with deep narrative techniques.  If they are done in movies the world will enjoy them”, he decided.

  • Artist shows concern for mentally ill women

    Artist shows concern for mentally ill women

    Seventeen fascinating abstract paintings by Nengi Omuka in her ongoing solo art exhibition portray what she called “A State of Mind,” inspiration by a “madwoman I saw in Ibadan.”

    Omuka’s empathy for the number of mentally ill women roaming the streets is interpreted in most of the works on display at Omenka Gallery, Ikoyi, Lagos. “I am very concerned about the amount of madwomen we see on the streets. That is where the state of a mind thing came from. The first madwoman I saw in Ibadan dressed very beautifully in ankara and she still had her hair dishevelled, so the hair was kind of showing her state of mind and it concerned me that a woman has gone into this state and I wondered about where she came from and what made her got into this state.”

    Omuka said: ‘I am basically drawing attention subconsciously, it’s not like I can go to the street and protest but what I can do is paint. This is something that concerns me; this is a personal thing and I am doing a whole lot of painting series on mentally ill women.”

    She presents this in a piece she titled: “Who be You?” she composed her impression with total care through colours and shades. You could deduce from Omuka’s works that she loves green a lot.  Many among the seventeen works have a touch of green while about three are produced with various shades of green, one such as Green Scape. “I situate bodies in spacing; sometimes I separate the body from the space. For example, Together Forever has no spacing but it has a space, the red background serves as the space. This piece is a scape, it could be water and it could be anything.”

    Her abstract works are neatly done and can be mistaken for a print. The exhibition opened on Saturday, March 21 and will run until April 8.

    This Rivers State artist who lives in the United Kingdom hinted that she “gets a lot of questions from people about my works because they are abstract and not immediately understandable.”  When asked what genre is her art, she said, “I feel surrealism, expressionism, realism, impressionism, all these isms were from something very past and are from the West. I don’t want to weigh myself with theirs; my works are Nengism (laughs); that is what they are, it doesn’t belong to any genre.”

    Art to her “is not just about things that are happening outside; sometimes it could be something that happened within you. That is what my paintings are.”

    28 years Omuku is also a sculptor. She has been painting and sculpturing for eight years and bagged a Bachelor degree from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (UCL). She is being represented in Nigeria by Omenka Gallery.

  • AVOA sanitises voice sector

    In order to reform and regulate the voice-over industry, the Association of Voice-Over Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA) has stated that the organisation will no longer take it likely with non AVOA member who engages in voice over practice.

    The president of the association, Mr Ehi Omokhuale, made this known recently in a press statement in Lagos.  Omokhuale said any organisation that employs the services of unregistered AVOA members will be sanctioned. The aim of the reforms, according to him, is to improve the standard of voice-over practice in the country.

    Omokhhuale used the medium to plead with individuals and corporate bodies who engage voice-over artistes to support “the efforts of AVOA in rebuilding a formidable professional national body capable of delivering quality services. With the understanding of and cooperate of our clients, this ugly trend will stop.”

    He intimated that the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) “inaugurated a committee on the reforms on Wednesday, December 22, 2010,” and   AVOA was formally registered as a member of APCON on November 28, 2014, “to streamline, sanitise and effectively coordinate the activities of the professionals engaged in voice over practice.”

    Names of registered members will be sent to APCON, Omokhuale said, adding that ‘the doors of AVOA are open to persons who intend to make a living “as a voice-over artiste. He urged that unregistered voice-over artistes to go to any AVOA office nationwide and register.  “AVOA is a body of professionals registered under the Incorporated Trustees of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Our members provide voice work on broadcast advert materials, Interactive Voice Response, Ring Back Tones, Computer Software, Documentaries, Cartoons, Radio Drama and other voice-related works in the advertising and allied industries.”

    However, Mr Isaac Moses, a member of AVOA who was present during the press session, said anyone who goes against the law of the AVOA will be warned by their lawyer the first time, “the second time you will be fine and third you will be prosecuted. These are the three punitive majors we will be taking.”

  • Foundation calls for entries

    OYASAF Foundation and UFUK Dialogue Foundation has called for entries from artists and photographers for a photography competition titled: Colours of Harmony, which will hold in April at Abuja.

    Selected works will be exhibited in a travelling exhibition. Deadline for submission is April 6.

    According to the organisers, the competition is the second collaborative efforts at promoting Nigerian art.

    The first collaboration between the two foundations was titled: Art For Peace: Paint African Values. It resulted in a travelling exhibition of works of 13 artists in Abuja, Ethiopia, Istanbul and New York.

    This second is a photo competition of different parts of Nigeria, depicting the togetherness and cultural co-existence in our diversity. The photography competition will explore Nigerian culture, diversity and relationship of the different aspects of Nigeria’s cultural lives through the lenses of Nigerian photographers. It will be followed with a travelling exhibition in Nigeria, Turkey, United States, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Benin Republic and United Kingdom.

    Each participant is expected to enter a maximum of 4 images of their choice with a 600 word description of each photograph being submitted. Fifty works will be recommended by a jury in Lagos for the Abuja photo competition. Submission of  passport photograph of each applicant, submission of filled out form accompanying the works submitted per artist, submission of detailed biography per artist, submission of details of each photograph submitted indicating, title, dimension and year of production.

    All entries must be of three megabytes in JPEG or JPG format, at least 300dpi per photograph, digital format and submitted online to our contact e-mail address: oyasaf2000@yahoo.com

    Participants should indicate the suggested price per artwork and the edition number of each photograph being submitted.

    The five prizes will be given out. They are: first prize N250, 000, second N200, 000, third  N150, 000, fourth 70, 000 and fifth N50, 000.

     

  • Winners emerge in SLCF series

    Following its call for entries into the Splendid Literature Series last August, winners have emerged for Splendid Literature Series Competition.

    The winning entries for the 2014 Splendid Literature Series Competition are Nnamdi Momah’s The Journey to Nigeria, Izuchukwu Udokwu’s Life in Broken Piece, The Taming of Ekwensu by Ezechukwu Emmanuel Amarachi, Uchenna Ofili’s A Time Machine Surprise, Lesson for Fathers by Elijah Faith, and winning story in the Junior Category is Chibuihe Obi’s Emelda.

    The competition, which was established by the Splendid Literature & Culture Foundation (SLCF) for young writers of children’s literature, has become a yearly affair since 2013. According to its organisers, the winning stories would be publish in an anthology and the writers would have public presentation of their works, with readings, book signing and tours arranged for them. They added that each writer would receive royalties for their works.

    SLCF’s founder, Mrs Mobolaji Adenubi said the competition is part of its efforts at encouraging young Nigerian writers of children’s literature, resident in Nigeria, within the age range of 11 and 21 to produce imaginative stories that will entertain, enlighten and educate children, as well as encourage them to think in novel ways.

    The judges of the 2014 competition are Mr Dagga Tolla, poet, musician and past Chairman of ANA (Lagos); Ms. Sola Alamutu, Winner of the ANA/ATIKU ABUBAKAR Prize for Children Literature in 2004 and the Executive Director of Children and The Environment, CATE; Mr Folu Agoi, lecturer at the Department of English, Michael Otedola College of Primary Education (MOCPED); Noforija, Epe, adjunct lecturer at Lagos State University (LASU), Vice President of Nigerian Centre of PEN International and past Chairman of Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos Branch.

    “SLCF aims at ensuring that books written by young writers for children readers satisfy parents who continue to buy books for their children, and meet with the necessary standards of interest, development, moral regeneration and enlightenment of the children who read them. The Foundation also runs an annual Creative Writing Workshop for young writers during the long vacation. The Foundation now has a website: www.splendidfoundation.com,” Mrs Adenubi said.

  • ‘Help save my son’

    ‘Help save my son’

    You can help save the life of three-year-old Fatai Owolabi who was born like every other normal baby. The mother gave birth to him without complications but problem began after she was discharged from hospital. The child has  to be flown to abroad for special treatment in order to live a normal life.

    Fatai was diagnosed of Cerebral Palsy at the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) in Ikeja. He requires about N4.8million for special medical treatment in Indian.

    His father, Sulaimon Owolabi told The Nation that Fatai cannot talk, sit or stand. According to him, Fatai does not eat or take breast milk but sometimes takes some fluid. He said he had gone to many traditional medicine practitioners, spiritualists and churches seeking solution to the problem. He stated that he had spent all the money he had on the boy’s health, yet there is no positive  result.

    He said he sold his piece of land to raise money to secure adequate treatment for the child.

    He lamented: “I cannot even calculate or say exactly how much I have spent on him. I have been on this matter since his birth and I didn’t know it was a medical issue. The problem the boy has is from the brain and the doctor said it is called cerebral palsy and that we need to fly him out for special treatment, and that will cost us N4.8million.”

    He is, therefore, appealing to the Lagos State Government and other good spirited individuals to rally support for him to raise this sum of money to enable him take his son to overseas for treatment

    “I started carrying him about for help, some gave us stipend, some did not respond to our request at all. Even the Governor of Lagos State, Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, who saw the boy promised that he would help us. He sent someone to us but we are yet to hear from him,’’ he said.

    On how the problem started, Owolabi narrated: “The mother gave birth to him a normal delivery and after about five minutes he cried but when we took him home the following day he could neither cry, take water nor breast, his eyes began to go up. We took him to hospital where he spent about a month and half and when they discharged him to us we felt that the problem was over, but after three months we expected him to respond, but he couldn’t respond to us”.

    “The mother began to get worried but I tried to calm her down urging her to still examine him for some time but after the sixth and seventh months he couldn’t respond even to the call of his name that was when I started looking for solutions

    The Chief Medical Director of LASUTH, Dr. M. A. Salisu, in a telephone call confirmed that Fatai was diagnosed of Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy of moderate severity. In addition, the boy suffers from sensory deficits, including visual, hearing and speech impairment.

    In a report presented to The Nation, Dr. Salisu said that management of the boy’s condition would be long-term and would involve the use of medications, rehabilitative procedures and expected inter-current illnesses. It is recommended that he attends the paediatric neurology clinic bimonthly.

    For donations, an account has been opened with GTBank with  the Account Number 0140780425.

  • ‘Bintu is meant to teach moral’

    ‘Bintu is meant to teach moral’

    Kabirah Kafidipe, producer, BINTU, a new film about a lady, who was raped by her close friend, has described her BINTU as a very touching story capable of influencing the youths in moral upbringing.

    She said the desire to write the story started in 2011 when she read about the experience of the victim of rape. “Today, we chose to premiere the film because the industry is tough. In the past 20 years my sister and I have been trying to prove that we are no stranger to the industry,” she said at the premiere of BINTU in Lagos.

    The 100-minute film packaged by Karfy Communication Concepts Limited is about a young lady who got raped by a very close friend at a time she was trying to see that her sick mother gets off the sick bed. So, the story is about layers of crises that lust, rape and other related vices often caused.

    To Kafidipe, the film is about a simple every day story told in a captivating way. She disclosed that the story was adapted from a real life incident where a girl got raped by a close friend but had difficulty narrating the experience to her family members. She maintained that the film is meant for all categories of persons since it is preaching moral adding that she got the support of veteran actor Dele Odule to realise the production.

    She said:  ”It is about how a lady can be careless and not mindful of what they do when they are with opposite sex. Sometimes, men when they like us, they are so lust that they could get out of control. So, the guy has affection for a lady but to the lady, they are just friends, and she trusted him. The guy lost control and raped her and she could not get out of that trauma.”

    According to her, she decided to reproduce the story in a film format because it was a terrible encounter for the lady, which many ladies also get into and usually cannot explain how it happened.  She said that after she heard about the event, she started writing the story in 2011 but was not very sure if to shoot it at that time because she never wanted to be a producer.

    On her experiences while shooting in US, Kafidipe said: “In America some people wanted me to shoot it and I almost did it then before returning home later in 2011. But in 2014, when I traveled to America, friends started asking me again when the shooting would be done. It was then; I felt we could do it. So, with supports from friends, we put heads together and invited a veteran, Dele Odule, to join us in Chicago and we produced it. And I actually loved the outcome. I am going to travel back to America because we are going to be celebrating it there.

    “It was not easy at all because we had to make it as nice as possible and was not out to compete with anybody, I was just trying to make a good film. So, you can imagine what making a standard film can take from you. However, the crew members were very supportive. We are all youth, we put heads together and with the support of uncle Dele Odule we were able to achieve this much. We started the shooting in the United States and we brought it back home to complete.”