The Nation Newspaper

Category: Arts & Life

  • Honeywell donates to orphanage

    Honeywell donates to orphanage

    Honeywell Flour Mills Plc has reiterated its commitment to positively impact on humanity by giving back to the society through effective Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Managing Director, Honeywell Flour Mills PLc, Mr Lanre Jaiyeola noted that company would continue to support good cause in the society, especially those that have direct impact on human development.

    He spoke during a visit to some orphanage homes in Lagos where the company donated its products, equipment and cash.  The event also coincided with the Children’s Day celebration where the company sponsored a jolly train ride with children of select schools in Lagos. The train ride, which took off from Ebute Metta Station went through Oshodi, Ikeja, Abule Egba to Ijoko and back to Ebute Metta.

    Jaiyeola who described the trip as a delightful experience for the children, said Honeywell will continue to seize opportunity to make its impact felt in the society, listing such opportunities to include support provided sporting events, entrepreneurship programs, vulnerable groups, etc. “It is our own way of adding value to the people that we believe should have needs within the society, and our own way to alleviate poverty, suffering in the land”, he said.

    Among beneficiaries of latest gestures are the SOS Village, Isolo, Little Saints Orphanage and Bethesda Home for the Blind.

    Executive Director, Marketing, Mr Benson Evbuomwan said: “Every good organisation should have a corporate social responsibility on its objectives because we cannot do anything without the people we are serving. Everything is not just about buying our products, we should also be seeing to be improving the welfare of the people we are serving. We should be giving back to the community and there are so many ways we have been doing that”.

    At the orphanages visited, the founders and administrators were full of praises to Honeywell commending it for the humanitarian gesture, while also listing their areas of needs that require further attention. Common among their challenges include the need for more funding, renovation and building of new structures as well as more support from the government, individuals and corporate organisations.

  • For Women of Owu

    For Women of Owu

    With Women of Owu, a play by Professor Femi Osofisan forming part of the texts for secondary schools students for 2011 – 2015 sessions, the management of the National Theatre, Lagos, has decided to bring back the programme, Schools Dramatised Literature texts. This is to help them improve the standard of literature in their exams and also expose students to the core values of drama. Edozie Udeze writes

    Over the years, students offering Literature in English in School Certificate Examinations and University Entrance Examinations have found it somewhat difficult to come to terms with some of the texts recommended for use.  This has made it impossible for some Literature students to really understand the depth of the books and what literature itself portends.

    Owing to this fact and more, the management of the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, in collaboration with a group of artistes have decided to put on stage one of the recommended books for this season.  The book is Women of Owu written by Professor Femi Osofisan, foremost Nigerian playwright and academic.

    Women of Owu is an African retelling of Euripides, in which the playwright uses a rhythmic mix of choruses, songs and dances punctuated by individual stories of woes, agonies, wars and so on to delve into the historic account of the people. It is a thought-provoking account of how the combined forces of Ife, Oyo and Ijebu invaded and pillaged the ancient city of Owu, killing all the men and children. In leaving only the women alive, they found a voice in the Erelu, a woman who rose to stand solidly behind her people. Her strength was driven by the solidarity she got from the other women who indeed chose to defy the allied forces, calling them ‘cursed men who had no dignity for human essence’

    In an interview with The Nation, Biodun Abe who is the handler of the drama project, said, “our concern is borne out of the fact that literature is a core subject for students seeking to offer courses in Arts and Humanities in Nigerian universities. In response to the need to aid the students’ understanding of the texts and consequently improve their results, we have chosen to revive the Schools Dramatised Literature Text and Book Fair. Women of Owu is a text in the syllabus for 2011-2015 academic years.

    “We discovered that over the years, most of these students did not quite grasp the profundity of the texts. We looked at the results that have already been posted, especially by the Lagos State, and we discovered that the results were less than excellent performance. To us, that is not good enough. So what we are doing is beyond entertainment. We intend also to impact on the society in the area of raising the standard of the would-be leaders of tomorrow”, he said.

    When the approach was adopted before, the results during those years were quite better. When the students watched the characters on stage, they were able to identify with them and even got to know the story deeper and better. And since drama is all about life on stage, the reality of the stories and the people involved in it, came closer to the students. “That enhanced their understanding of the text better”, Abe said.

    He continued, “then we want to be more creative with the script this season by organizing, at the end of every performance, an interactive session between we, the organisers and the students who watched the drama. They will field questions and we will attend to them. We will solve also some literature questions and there will be more interaction because we would have taken them beyond what happens within their classrooms.”

    In doing this, the Theatre management wants to involve a group of tested artistes who can give their best on stage by bringing out all the essentials of Women of Owu. Sina Ayodele, a teacher of Literature at the Lagos State University, Ojo and who is a member of National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP), will spearhead the stage. While the venue will be the National Theatre, the technical crew and other stage matters will be provided by Abe and his team.

    The play is an emotional drama where women, after being subjected to series of sufferings, preferred to take their fate in their hands. Their power of protest and resolve resembled the stubbornness exhibited by the Aba women in 1929, when they told the British colonial masters that they could not pay tax. In the play, the women spoke with one voice: they gathered together to give strength and succor to one another. It has been described as a powerful evening of theatre, mesmerising, rhythmic and ever-bourgeoning. The event happened in 1821 or thereabout when these forces laid a siege on Owu for seven years. Initially, Lawumi, their goddess had given her approval to the siege, saying that the rulers of Owu were becoming too arrogant and unapproachable.

    However, with the desecration of her shrines and those of Obatala and other forms of destruction unknown in history, she became angry against the invading forces that she also invited Anlugbua, another Owu deity to join her in the destruction of the allied forces. Henceforth, the intrigues that unfold give the drama a special blend, thus making it one of the most successful stage dramas on women historic issues in Nigeria.

    “I will destroy them,” Lawumi boasted, “because they too (allied forces) have no regard for me. Just imagine, when they set the town on fire, desperate men and women ran to my shrine for protection. But do you know these allied forces, the very soldiers I gave total support did not spare them! Can you believe the insult! Yes, of course the fugitives were Owu people and so were enemies, but so what! They had run to me for refuge! Me, their ancestral mother! But no, the allied soldiers did not care for that! They seized them all!! Even Princess Orisaye, Obatala’s vestal votary, was literally dragged out of my hands without any of the soldiers protesting. Then, to cap the insult, look! They have set fire to my shrine!” She was addressing Anlugbua who, on his own part, agreed that time had come to inflict the proud Ijebu, Ife and Oyo soldiers with an everlasting confusion, suffering and agony on their way back.

    In the process, therefore, Lawumi beckoned on Esu, the chief mischief-maker, Obatala and other gods and goddesses to begin to perfect strategies to make this journey perilous, tortuous and horrendous. “I want their return journey to be filled with grief”, she said. “Human beings”, she reiterated, “it is clear, only learn from suffering and pain. Already Esu has promised me, there’ll be such confusion at every crossroads…till human beings learn that gods are not their plaything.”

    On their part, Erelu and her princesses were determined to foil the plans of the enemy to make them slaves. She resolved to the end never to be subjected to such a trauma. She said, “A father can only chew for a child, he cannot swallow for her. If only you had read your history right, the lessons left behind by the ancestors! Each of us, how else did we go except by the wrath of war? Each of us, demolished through violence and contention. Not so? But you chose to glorify the story with his! Lies!, our apotheosis as you sing it is a fraud…”

    Then she slumped on stage and died. This was even before the allied forces could perfect their final plans to whisk her and others away.

    With a deluge of dirges to synchronise with the pitiable condition of the women, the play indeed harps on the power of words as epitomised and espoused by the womenfolk. With their utterances, supported with innuendoes, pregnant with meaning, they were able to harass the generals almost out of existence. Erelu’s final words to others summed it up – “Go, go into the forests, I cannot help you. No one can. You are going now into years of wandering and slavery. As the penalty for your wasted lives. Perhaps afterwards you would have learnt the wisdom of sticking together and loving one another…”

    Osofisan has written over 50 plays and to date, he still remains Nigeria’s most dramatised playwright. Some of his works have even been commissioned by renowned theatres in Europe and America and across the world. That is one of the reasons why this project is essential so as to make the impact more engrossing and outstanding. After it is shown at the National Theatre, it can be taken to other states depending on the interest shown by the government. The idea is to ensure that majority of the students have the opportunity to watch the play.

  • Into the heart of Zimbabwe

    Title: Can we Talk and other Stories
    Author: Shimmer Chinodya
    Publishers: Heinemann African Writers’ Series, London
    No of Pages: 154
    Reviewer: Edozie Udeze

    Shimmer Chinodya, the author of Can we Talk and Other stories, was the winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1990.  In 2000 Can we Talk and Other Stories was also shortlisted for the Caine Prize in Literature.  To date he is regarded as one of Zimbabwe’s most prolific and ardent writers.  He is known to write with deep wits, using puzzling titles and themes to tease the resolve of readers.  For this and more, his works have come to dominate literary circles in not only Zimbabwe, but the whole of Southern Africa and other parts.

    He writes with a peculiar zeal aimed mainly at unearthing the socio-political and economic situations in his immediate surroundings.  His penchant for social issues, and the attention he particularly pays to important problems of the common people are some of the themes he tackles in this collection.  It is book of 11 short stories ranging from his childhood days to teenage years then to his adulthood in which he traces these stages to show a society where issues of race, vitimisation, inequality, tribal lineage, parental care and otherwise, government’s attitude to the citizenry and so on, manifest brazenly.

    His power of description exposes a lot about the terrible situation in most African societies.  In his first short story in this collection entitled Hoffman Street, he begins this way: “Our house was blue.  It was not the end of the street.  At the front there were banana trees and sugar-cane.  At night the bananas shivered and shook.”

    “There were ghosts in the banana.  I dreamt about the ghosts.  One of the ghosts had a sword.  One night the ghost stabbed me with his sword and I died.  Then I woke up.  Mother was lighting the candle.  She gave me a cup of tea and a scone.  Then she said, go back to sleep.”

    This is a story of a little boy growing up in a family of many relatives, each trying to dominate his attention.  But the boy tries to learn from each person – his father, mother, uncle, cousin, all, on how to live and manage sensitive issues that matter in life.  A very persuasive story, it teaches a way to be a wise child in a polarised environment, how to be a nice and responsible boy in the home front.

    Using the boy as the narrator, Chinodya depicts a typical family to the fullest and the boy is allowed to learn through the exemplary lives of his people.  “Then mother said to Kelvin and Dorothy and me, you’re too small to hold the baby.  Then we went out to play.”  Playing outside in the dirty fields and using the company of his peers to climb the ladder of life, proves the age-long aphorism that the child behaves true to his age.

    In another story captioned the Man who Hanged Himself, he tells the story with unbridled suspense.  It is the story of a ‘crazy’ teenager who finds himself in a ‘crazy’ society and then endeavours to do ‘crazy’ things to prove that he is a strong, smart and brave boy.  The Matroko Bush is a symbol of funny happenings in the neighbourhood where Bhudi Edwin lives.  His strange habits, however, often baffles his cousins and other relatives.  At eighteen years of age, he finds himself between the age of maturity and innocence.  In order to distinguish himself from the rest who are much younger than him, he begins to indulge in all sorts of mischief.

    He invents stories to impress his younger ones.  He also finds it convenient to enrich them in areas of local wisdom.  To a large extent, the children try to stomach his stories, line, hook and sinker.  But the story of the man who hanged himself in the forest of Matroko somewhat becomes an eye-opener to reveal the real Edwin who himself has suddenly grown into a murderer, a ‘terrorist’ and a little criminal,’ a suspicious character, sort of.

    Eventually, when the true story is discovered by other equally inquisitive children, the real Edwin is also unmasked.  Is he really the man who killed the Matroko man in the bush?  Does he have any excuse not to inform the police or government officials that he saw the man dangling on a tree with a rope tied on his neck?  Why is he evasive and secretive?

    On page 19, the author brings the events leading to the discovery of the true killer of the Matroko man nearer home.  “As I was looking around the place (bush) I detected a bad smell, then I almost stepped into a day-old mound of excrement.  Stepping back, I spotted the last irrefutable evidence – a set of footprints in the dust, pacing away from the mound, round the two soft marks in the dust and the circle of Pafa trees and then heading in the unmistakable direction of the township.  Size 8 tenderfoots”.  And, of course, Edwin’s size fits the description of the footprints and the boots.  Then, what other evidence do you need to reveal the real culprit?  Here, indeed, lies the very unmistakable power of the prose style usually employed by the author to make his stories stick in the conscience of his readers.

    In Going to see Mr. B. V., he situates the story of Indian shop owners in Zimbabwe who have come to occupy an essential part of that society.  They use all sorts of cunning habits and wisdom to do business and cheat the people to their marrows.  B. V. Wholesales is a departmental shop long known for its habitual tendency to hoodwink the people.  In all his dealings with the people, B.V. shows that business does not have to come with a mixture of friendship and pleasure.  This is what young George has just discovered as his father, one of the employees of B.V. sends him to the man.

    The other stories that can easily capture your attention are:  Among the Dead, Snow, Bramson, Can we Talk and more.  Each story reveals a lot about the author and why, indeed, he is considered a master story-teller in Southern Africa.  Since short story telling is a different craft in the prose genre of literature, Chinodya is world’s apart from his contemporaries.  He knows the style, he rummages in the proper usage of prose to tell his tale.  He has mastered how to create the necessary story ideas to suit the short story genre.  And his style of telling them draws you gradually into the fold.  Now, you’d like to be part of the story and then begin to imagine the circumstances and promptings of the story.

    It is within this context that the book is viewed.  And in 154 pages, it is a book that readily offers you the opportunity to travel through the pages to Zimbabwe, to Southern Africa and into the heart of the author.

  • The scribblers and their style

    Book: Lost For Words
    Author: Edward St. Aubyn
    No. of pages: 261 pages
    Publishers: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
    Reviewer: By Michiko Kakutani

    In recounting the story of his semi-autobiographical hero, Patrick Melrose, in a series of interlinked novels (“Never Mind,” “Bad News,” “Some Hope,” “Mother’s Milk” and “At Last”), Edward St. Aubyn established himself as a dazzling writer with an utterly distinctive voice. The harrowing story of Patrick’s life — from being raped at 5 by his monstrous father, to his years as a heroin addict, to his achievement of a measure of perspective and peace in middle age — was simultaneously heartbreaking and funny, devastatingly sad and cuttingly acerbic: painful experience transmuted into art through beautifully hammered, aphoristic prose.

    His new novel, “Lost for Words,” is a very different sort of book: a satirical romp that showcases just one octave of Mr. St. Aubyn’s keyboard of gifts: his Waugh-like talent for comedy and his unsparing eye for people’s pretensions and self-delusions.

    In the Melrose novels, the world that Mr. St. Aubyn so expertly skewered was the high-altitude one of British aristos — preening, narcissistic and obsessed with class. In “Lost for Words,” it’s the world of literary politics — preening, narcissistic and obsessed with status.

     

    More specifically, the object of satire here is book awards: most notably, the well-known Man Booker Prize, depicted in barely disguised terms as the Elysian Prize. British newspaper writers have suggested that “Lost for Words” is actually a riposte or act of revenge on the part of Mr. St. Aubyn, noting that his critically acclaimed 2006 novel, “Mother’s Milk,” was a front-runner for the Man Booker Prize that year, only to be passed over for “The Inheritance of Loss,” by Kiran Desai, and that his similarly acclaimed “At Last” did not even make the Booker’s 2011 longlist. (In a twist the author might enjoy, “Lost for Words” has just been awarded the 2014 Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.)

    Both the judges on the panel for the Elysian Prize and the hopeful authors of submitted books are sent up here with a light, wicked hand reminiscent at once of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark. The chairman of the prize committee is an obscure member of Parliament named Malcolm Craig, who accepts the post out of boredom with his day job and the hopes that it might secure him “a decent amount of public attention.”

    “We want to take the marginalised, and the politically repressed voices from the periphery,” he says, “from what we might call the Outer Hebrides of the literary scenes, and bring them center stage.”

    Another judge, Jo Cross, is a high-profile columnist who writes about her husband and children, and who values books with “relevance” to her own readers, above all else. Then there are Tobias Benedict, an actor who’s too busy touring the country playing Estragon in a hip-hop adaptation of “Waiting for Godot” to read most of the submissions; and Penny Feathers, a former member of the Foreign Office who now writes cheesy thrillers. The only judge with anything resembling legitimate literary credentials is an academic named Vanessa Shaw, regarded as an elitist and defender of the old guard for prizing old-fashioned good writing.

    As for the novelists, they’re an equally self-deluding lot. Sam Black, the author of “The Frozen Torrent” — “a bildungsroman of impeccable anguish and undisguised autobiographical origin” — is obsessively in love with the beauteous and seemingly unattainable Katherine Burns, another writer, who is enraged with her editor and lover, Alan, who through some terrible mix-up failed to submit her novel (“Consequences”) to the prize committee and instead sent in an Indian cookbook (“The Palace Cookbook”), written by the regal aunt of another Elysian Prize aspirant, a wealthy panjandrum named Sonny from India, who believes that his magnum opus, “The Mulberry Elephant,” is destined to win world recognition.

    Among the novels singled out by the judges as top contenders for the prize are: “a harsh but ultimately uplifting account of life on a Glasgow housing estate,” titled “wot u starin at” (which sounds like a bad parody of an Irvine Welsh novel); Tobias’s favorite, “All the World’s a Stage,” a novel by a young New Zealander, writing from the point of view of William Shakespeare; “The Enigma Conundrum,” a page turner about the Enigma code-breaking operation during World War II, which gets a definite thumbs-up from Penny; and “The Palace Cookbook,” which is championed by several of the judges as an ingenious, postmodern confection — not the cookbook it so obviously is.

    Mr. St. Aubyn has a lot of fun giving us samples from these novels that underscore his gift for mimicry and parody, while at the same time charting the political alliances and alliances of convenience that develop among the judges as they jockey for position and influence, extracting — and trading — promises of support as if they were Iowa caucus voters, not judges of literary merit.

    American readers might not get all the inside dishing and digs — for instance, that Penny Feathers appears to have been modeled on Dame Stella Rimington, a former director-general of MI5 turned thriller writer, who was the chairwoman of the 2011 Man Booker prize committee. But Mr. St. Aubyn writes with such twinkling comic verve here that the reader couldn’t care less about possible real-life antecedents.

    And while “Lost for Words” doesn’t have the depth or resonance of Mr. St. Aubyn’s Melrose novels, it’s not meant to. It’s simply an entertaining cartwheel of a book with a glittering razor’s edge.

     

    •Culled from New York Times

  • ‘How a pastor made me an amputee’

    ‘How a pastor made me an amputee’

    An Abeokuta based pastor allegedly shot Azeez  Adeboye, a student and phone repairer.  The accused is allegedly boasting that nothing will happen to him because he is highly connected. Taiwo Abiodun reports

    The  case between  one Azeez Adeboye , 28, a National Diploma Two Accountancy student of the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta  and one Pastor Olalekan Taiwo of The Redeemed Christian Church of  God (RCCG), Abeokuta resumed again  last Thursday, June 5, 2014 in a suit filed before an Abeokuta Magistrate Court 2 sitting in Isabo  area  of the city.

    The plaintiff, whose right leg had been amputated  as a result of gunshot fired by the accused, had  previously narrated  on March, 6, 2014 how he was shot by the accused, Pastor Olalekan Taiwo  on September 11, 2011, while on his way home after the day’s work.

    In the court last Thursday, the argument as to whether the pastor should be charged for attempted murder as the Investigation Police Officer accused Olalekan of or that the charge sheet should read infliction of injury came up while the Chief Magistrate, M.A. Akinyemi, asked the lawyer to the plaintiff/witness to make up his mind on what to charge the accused for.

    The magistrate then  gave 15 minutes to the lawyer to deliberate on the issue with his client. After the deliberation, the lawyer came back to inform the magistrate that the case should be treated as grievous injury inflicted on his client. He also wanted the case to continue and not settled out of court.

    The prosecutor, Mr Sunday Egbejale, called witnesses – the medical doctor, Oloko Mazeed who operated on the plaintiff at a state hospital. The doctor was put in the witness box to give an account of what he knew about the plaintiff/witness. According to the doctor the plaintiff/witness, Adeboye, was brought to him with his right leg battered with gun  shots, full of gangrene while he had lost pints of blood as he later gave him pints of blood in order to  save his life and to  stabilise him before  the surgery was performed on his leg.

    The doctor further narrated how the plaintiff’s leg was eventually amputated due to its worsened condition. The medical doctor tendered all the hospital case files and reports on the treatment. The counsel to the accused also cross-examined the medical doctor.

    The next witness that mounted the witness box was Morufudeen  Sharafat , the traditional native doctor who claimed to have removed six pellets from the plaintiff ‘s leg. He admitted that the plaintiff was his patient and that he removed six pellets from his leg but when he discovered that the bleeding was too much and he could not handle it, he quickly referred him to the hospital.

    The pellets were tendered in the court as exhibits.

    The magistrate, however, adjourned the case and further hearing to October 22, 2014.

    Speaking later to The Nation on Sunday, the plaintiff narrated how he suddenly became a one-legged man, limping and using crutches as a result of the brutality which he allegedly suffered in the hands of  the said man of God who took him to be an armed robber despite the fact that he showed him his school’ s identity card.

    He said on September, 11, 2011 around 8:45 in the evening, he was in the company of his two brothers, Ola Adebisi and Tunde Solidiq Yusuf. They were coming from his shop where he used to repair phones, and they were going home. They were all on a motorbike. They were stopped at Onward Street, Elega Area, around Bodelude. He said they met two men who sat under a tree. The men asked them to disclose where they were headed for, and they told him they were going to their house at Fadama.

    Adeboye also claimed that he and his brothers also  showed to the two men the two packs of Indomie, sachets of water and eggs they had earlier bought .

    The two men, according to Adeboye, “insisted that we were already late in the night.”

    He related further: “It was at this juncture that the accused, Olalekan, whom I discovered was a Pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God  started calling us thieves, insisting that we were on a robbery mission. I thought he was joking at first. Later he became serious and I brought out my student’s identity card  containing my matriculation number 08010327 , but he was still not convinced As this was going on, the pastor told his partner not to let us go and he went  inside to bring his gun. I pleaded and begged him that we were not thieves and I even told him to contact our in-law, Alhaji Adeniji, who lives in the vicinity,  and that my brother could call  him to identify us  or they should chain us till the following morning and take us to the police station.

    “But while saying this and pleading, the accused had come back with a double barrel gun and pointed it at me. Again, I pleaded, begging him in the name of God and all prayers that came out from my mouth, pleading to him not to shoot me. He refused to listen to me and said he had shot many like this as I would not be the first victim. He cocked his gun and shot my leg at a close range. I fell down writhing in pains. As this was going on, two Okada riders ran into us and held the man’s shirt that he would not escape.  The pastor ran home and brought some liquid for me to drink. Later, I was taken to Shalom Hospital at 71, Ilugun Road, Mokola, Abeokuta, where the doctor said he  he could not treat me  since I was shot at a close range. Then I was taken to a traditional herbalist who specialises in removing pellets. And he was able to remove only six pellets from my leg.”

    He was later taken to several hospitals where he was rejected. He was eventually taken to the state hospital at Sokenu, Ijaiye where he was put through days of intensive care and blood transfusion. When he was taken to the theatre for operation, it failed because the impact of the gunshot had damaged his leg. The doctor then advised that my leg should be amputated.”

    He said he spent about one year in the hospital and his family footed the bill along with a landlord on the street. The accused, he said, only visited him twice and did not turn up again. The accused, he also said, had not paid a cent of his hospital bill, and has been boasting about that he would be set free”

    He lamented: “Whenever I wake up and see my amputated leg, I feel like committing suicide. In fact, every day I wake up and see my amputated leg, I weep.

    “My colleagues are not happy seeing me like this. My girlfriend has run away, our relationship ended when the leg was amputated. I had stopped dreaming of my HND, I have only ND in Accounting .I bought one crutch for 18, 0000.”

    He said he attempted to commit suicide twice when he was feeling pains in the hospital. In his words: “I woke up and took a knife to kill myself but my mother suddenly woke up and saw the knife in my hand and took it.”

    He said the gun used by the accused, which had been tendered in court, has no license.

    The next hearing has been fixed for October 22, 2014.

  • My first encounter with Achebe, by Tambuwal

    My first encounter with Achebe, by Tambuwal

    Speaking literally, where did House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal first meet the late Prof Chinua Achebe? At the State House; university or the late author’s Ogidi, Anambra State hometown? None of these places. He first ‘met’ the late Prof Achebe in secondary school. Tambuwal spoke of his first encounter with the late literary icon when the 50th anniversary celebration train of Arrow of God stopped in Sokoto. Are there lessons for Nigeria to draw from the book? Yes, say guests, reports Evelyn Osagie.

    Nigeria was not left out in the world celebration of the 50th anniversary of Arrow of God, a  novel written by the late Prof Chinua Achebe.

    The book is being celebrated across 71 countries. The Nigeria leg held in eight cities – Ibadan (Oyo STate), Otuoke (Bayelsa), Abuja (Federal Capital Territory), Lagos, Awka (Anambra), Port Harcourt (Rivers) and Sokoto.

    Although the month-long celebration may have ended, its memory lingers.

    As in other cities, the one-day Sokoto event featured intellectual discourses, music, dance and drama. The  trying times Nigeria is going through, especially the abduction of  over 200 school girls, dominated discussions. To discussants, it is not too late to learn from  the book, if the tragedy of bad leadership that befell its main character, Ezeulu and his  community, is to be avoided.

    The event took place at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University.

    In attendance were the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal; the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji; the Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto Diocese, Revd Fr Matthew Kukah, who was represented by Revd Fr Victor Mordi; Senator Ahmad Muhammed Maccido; Ambassador Bolere Ketebu, who serves as in Ireland; Chairman, House Committee on Disapora, Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa and Sokoto State Commissioner for Information Danladi Bako.

    For Tambuwal, the event brought back fond memories of his university and secondary school days. Achebe’s contributions to national development through his works like Arrow of God, he said, has not only immortalised him but also ensured he lives on in the minds of many worldwide.

    “Just like many other Nigerians of my age group, I first met the late Prof Achebe through his books way back during my secondary school days. My interaction with this great Nigerian continued over the years through his many valuable contributions to the nation’s literary, political and social discourse in his many literary submissions. I also saw him as someone who was eager for Nigeria to attend high levels of democracy and governance. He also discussed albeit in a fictional way, the challenges of leadership and governance and how the abuse of both can lead to catastrophe.”

    Praising the organisers for  celebrating the icon and his ideas, the Speaker expressed the hope that, like him, others would borrow a leaf from the book’s lessons. Tambuwal said: “It is my hope that those of us who by the grace of God are today saddled with the noble duty of steering the ship of this great country will learn from the characters in this well accepted novel. This is more so in a year when members of the National Confab are looking for ways to salvage this great country of ours. More so as we prepare to decide on those who will take over the mantle of leadership of our country come 2015.”

    Revd Fr Kukah said Nigeria is the way it is because those at the helm have failed to heed the warnings in the late Achebe’s writings. While observing that the issues in the book remain germane 50 years after it was written, he urged leaders to hearken to the voices of the masses if they intend to remain popular and relevant. “Then as now, the themes he threw up, the troubling sense of turning and turning in the widening gyre, with the falconer not hearing the falconer, its consequences continue to confront us with evidence that we are learning very little as we witness things falling apart. Our political class can learn one or two things from this book. Ezeulu went against his people for his selfish interest, and that was what led to his downfall.

    “It is unfortunate that our nation did not heed some of the lessons in his writings, and that is why we are in the state we are today. The lesson here is that African leaders and politicians, nay, Nigerians, in this era of Boko Haram, must understand that it is their neglect of the common good that has opened the floodgate of our pain and suffering. It is time for us to retrace our steps before sunset,” Revd Kukah said.

    Noting that the teachings in the book can bring about the resolution of the problems facing the nation, the university’s Vice Chancellor, Prof Riskuwa Arabu Shehu, said this informed the school’s hosting of the event.

    Dr Ahmed, who gave the keynote address, said the book serves as guideline on leadership. “I am happy that this event took place when we are having the national conference. The mistakes that befell Ezeulu can be used as a guide to leadership, and, most importantly, our leaders should do what the people want.”

    Mrs Dabiri-Erewa said it was expedient that the leadership should get it right. She called for more women in politics, charging Nigerians to take back their rights to power by trooping out in large number to vote. “If every leader knows that one vote counts, they would sit up.And if the leadership gets it right, the followers will follow suit.”

    Ketebu, a former President of the National Council of Women Society (NWCS), said it is unfortunate that many Nigerians, especially the womenfolk, prefer to stand on the fence.

    To the women, she urged: “We seem to take a lot of things for granted. If you see power lay your hands on it.Women make up a large number of the critical mass of essential stakeholders in development.”

    In addition, she called for more proactive projects such as the quiz competition organised that held during the event, saying it is a way of reviving the dwindling reading culture in the country.

    “Since our children are not reading, fewer jobs are being created. I hope the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) can use the opportunity of this celebration to kick-start a revolution in the literary sector. I also want to see more of the quiz competitions, since it is one of the surest ways we can actually encourage our children to be reading more.”

    Other guests included Dr Kabir Ahmed of the Institute for Legislative Studies, National Assembly, Abuja; former House of Representatives member who doubled as the Chairman of the National Organising Committee (NOC) for the Arrow of God at 50, Dr Wale Okediran; a retired Permanent Secretary in the Presidency and author, Dr Bukar Usman; Vice-President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Mallam Denja Abdullahi and ANA, Sokoto Chapter Chair, Mallam Kabir Assada, among others.

    Okediran expressed joy over the successes of the eight-city events, adding that they were geared towards reviving the reading culture in both young and old and eliciting national discourse on governance and leadership through the novel across the country. “As we celebrated the Arrow of God milestone across the eight cities, including Sokoto, we are used the opportunity to engage our scholars to dig deep into the book and bring out issues that could be used to foster national development. We are really glad by what we have seen so far. It also gave us the opportunity to emphasise the need to bring back the reading culture among our people, especially among school children.

    “That is why we organised a quiz competition based on the book for secondary school students in all the cities. I know all the success witnessed here today is chiefly because the late Achebe was an alumnus of this institution, having been awarded an honorary doctorate degree in 2009. I particularly praised the efforts of the university and members of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) led by Prof Asabe Kabir Usman towards a successful event,” he said.

    The quiz competition saw Zainab Busari of Nakowa International School came first, while Aisha Abdulkadir Mulid, also from Nakowa International School came second, and Jahu Nimeti Ekondo from Federal Science College, Sokoto, came third. The day ended with a staged adaptation of the novelby the university students.

  • Rally for Sofowote

    Rally for Sofowote

    A photography exhibition held at Freedom Park, Lagos, attracted eminent Nigerians. The fundraising event, RAYMOND MORDI writes, has rekindled hope for the continuation of the treatment of Motunlayo Adefunke Sofowote, a multi-talented philanthropist, who is recovering from cervical cancer in Germany.

    rom landscapes of mountains to trees, clouds, flowers, buildings on expance  of woodlands, birds in flight, sunset, and animals in action close-ups. All these were captured by Mrs Motunlayo Adefunke Sofowote, 67, in still pictures showing interesting facets of life in the world. The photographs were put on display at a one-week exhibition that ended on Sunday May 11.

    The exhibition, which took place at Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos, was put together by a group of friends of the beneficiary, Adefunke Sofowote Cancer-Fighting Fund Team. It was a subtle appeal to raise N35 million to continue the medical treatment of the ailing impulsive amateur photographer and founder/president of Glowing Channels Foundation, who is  in a German hospital battling with cervical cancer.

    In a terse foreword to the exhibition brochure, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said it is the duty of all to ensure that Mrs. Sofowote’s memorable photos do not turn prematurely memorial.

    His words: “That memorable photos turn prematurely memorial? This is what we are all in common duty bound to prevent.”

    What is particularly interesting about the pictures is that majority of them were shot during this illness.  The pictures were taken over a period of time and in different countries and continents.

    According to Charles Ayo Dada, a member of the Adefunke Sofowote Cancer-Fighting Fund Team and coordinator of the exhibition, a few of the pictures are dated 2006 and 2010, but  majority of them were taken in 2012 and 2013, when she was already afflicted by the ailment. Similarly, in the midst of her battle with cancer on her hospital bed in Lubeck, in the northern part of Germany, she has written a book, her fifth book, titled “His Wondrous Presence: A Peep at His Greatness.” Indeed, Mrs. Sofowote indicated in a transcript of a recording published in the exhibition brochure that no matter the severity of the pain and the agony, “I shall remain happy, I shall remain cheerful, I shall remain committed in absolute confidence, in trust, of the Love of the Almighty Father.”

    With careful composition and appropriate lightening, she was able to produce a stunning record of beautiful photographs, which capture the beauty and fascination of nature in almost every conceivable guise. As Ajai-Lycett aptly puts it, “With this collection of photographs, Funke the naturalist, by force of will and thought, illustrates how everything in nature contains all the powers of nature, is made of one hidden stuff.” With this, Ajai-Lycett enthused, the photographer bears witness to the interconnectedness of the universe, which man as a creature is part and parcel of. “And so, here we are, at this exhibition, being entertained to a graphic realisation of the infinite abundance of the universe and how wonderful and comprehensive is the plenty of the Divine Universal Mind,” she added.

    Mrs. Francesca Emanuel also noted that the title of one of the photographer’s poems, A Peep at His Greatness, is the thematic chord that runs through the entire collection. Her words: “Combining visual content with poetry, she suggests to us that we contemplate the complexity, wonder and vastness of nature, either in its detail or in gross, and realise how insignificant we may seem as part of a Greater Whole. Yet as humans with the ability to think, to contemplate these things, to consider them philosophically and spiritually, Motunlayo reminds us that therein lies a manifestation of the Almighty in the Everyday.”

    In a way, the pictures at the exhibition looked very much like paintings. Dada says such effect is the hallmark of a good photographer “because photography is also art when you take it to a very high level.” He noted that Mrs. Sofowote obviously has a heightened sense of beauty to be able to capture such rare moments that would have eluded a lot of people. “First and foremost, she was able to capture such rare moments through the lens of her spirit before allowing the camera lens to capture it,” he told The Nation, adding that basically that is what happens to a painter. His words: “First, a painter would visualize his subject and sees with his inner eye something worth capturing, before putting it down on canvass or some other medium. In photography, the person taking the shot must be able to recognise a unique moment and capture it for everyone to see.”

    The idea of the exhibition was conceived in January by Mrs. Sofowote on her hospital bed in Lubeck, Germany. By that time, the need for a large pool of fund to finance a crucial aspect of her treatment had already become palpable. As a sensitive and considerate woman, she did not want a situation where she would be going cap in hand, begging for money without giving back anything in return. “Even though many generous donors had already latched into the idea of donating towards her treatment and her extended stay in Germany, it is more prestigious for her to give back something in return, so that there would be balance. Even if what she is giving is disproportionate, at least she has made an effort to reciprocate,” Dada noted.

    But, the Adefunke Sofowote Cancer-Fighting Fund Team  started planning for the exhibition mid February. The effort was succesful in spite of the fact that photography is not widely considered as a form of art yet in this part of the world. Though a group of artists such as Uche Edochie, James Iroha and photographers like Sunmi Smart-Cole have made photography very appealing, with their pioneering efforts in that regard, the idea is still novel in Nigeria. As a result, the Nigerian art collector would feel more comfortable relating with an original work of art more than he would relate with photographs as a form of art. This is perhaps due to the fact that a photograph has the potential of being replicated, so it can be argued that it is almost semi-craft.

    The exhibition, which took place under the theme, ‘She Lives On!’ attracted eminent Nigerians, including the wife of the Lagos State Governor, Dame Emmanuella Abimbola Fashola, Prof. J.P. Clark, Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, Olusegun Ajanlekoko, Prof Duro Oni, Dr. Abayomi Aiyesimoju, the Fadesewa of Simawa, Oba Gbenga Sonuga, Taiwo Ajai-Lycett among others.

    Leader of the Adefunke Sofowote Cancer-Fighting Fund Team, Dr. Lateef Adewale Ogunbadejo said Mrs Sofowote chose the theme of the exhibition. By choosing to float the exhibition under the theme, ‘She Lives On!’, Dr Ogunbadejo, who is also the Medical Director of Aniyun Hospital, Gbagada, Lagos, noted that Mrs. Sofowote probably sees the possibility of her own experiencing being used to fight cancer for others in the future.

    The ailing Sofowote has spent the last 16 years providing succour for the needy and less privileged, through her charity, entertainment and merit-recognition organisation, Glowing Channels Foundation. The 67-year old woman is a bundle of talents. She is a writer, singer, motivational speaker, administrator, organiser, trainer in corporate practice and etiquette and an impresario.

  • Museum collections make connections

    Museum collections make connections

    The theme of this year’s International Museum Day Celebration is Museum collections make connections, which is a reminder that museums are living institutions that help create bonds between visitors, generations and cultures around the world.

    The interpretation of this theme is that museum collections, which represent the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, are vehicles for or means of communication to its visitors.

    Little wonder that the President of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the umbrella body for museums and museum professionals all over the world, Prof. Dr. Hans Martin Hinz while emphasising the significance of this year’s theme said that “museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples”. This assertion is particularly instructive and relevant to the state of the Nigerian nation before the civil war when the people’s ignorance made them frown at cultural practices and material culture from certain geographical areas which tended to undermine the unity of the country. But with the adoption of the Federal Government policy after the civil war to have, at least, a museum in each state capital, there has been a change of mentality, attitude and widening of horizon through exhibitions of admixture of museum objects from different parts of the country to make a statement that there exists cultural affinity amongst the Nigerian tribes though tongues and tribes may differ.

    With the proliferation of museums in the country, there has been an explosion of connection facilitated by museum collections through exhibitions, educational study materials etc. in our various museums. The corollary of this is that more people are being edified and informed and thereby demystifying the stereotype beliefs held about people who do not belong to the same cultural group. What is more, the museum exhibitions have been able to bring to the fore the similarities in Nigeria’s cultural heritage which has helped to douse intolerance and suspicion and bring about peace and mutual understanding among peoples of diverse culture.

    Museums serve a variety of useful purposes. As professional repositories of tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, they have become firmly established in societies. Among other things, they are particularly suitable environments for the collection, preservation and interpretation of objects of every kind. This in turn, makes them valuable sources of information for reference and research. In the area of information explosion, museums can and do speed up the process of acquiring information because collection of original objects invite discovery and pull together threads of what is known. Thus, museum collections are an especially valuable and veritable avenue of international communication in a world of many languages and dialects as well as widespread illiteracy. This is because the visitor, through the displays is urged to see what he knows or does not know, to know what he sees, and in the process he may discover he knows more than he thought he had known or that he knows nothing. In this way, ideas buried in the mind come forth to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of learning.

    Museums as the treasure houses of human race store the memories of people, their cultures, their dreams and aspirations. The increasing importance of resurgent national, regional and local identity where museums can serve to reflect objectively change and continuity in traditional cultural values and development is of critical significance in museum development. Museum collections have a key role to play in providing an understanding of identity and a sense of belonging to a place or community. In the face of immense and often painful cultural change in many countries owing to colonialism, museums through their collections can provide a valuable sense of connection by preserving the past, capturing the present, serve as a spring board for inspiring the future, projecting culture and tourism.

    Museum collections are also vehicles for cultural exchange among nations in a world divided by phoney cultural barriers and restrictions. Museum collections have been able to bring about cultural exchange among the nations of the world.  Following the International Council of Museums recommendation on the exchange of cultural property in 1976 for museums to encourage cultural exchange between nations in the face of stiff opposition to the return of cultural property or its restitution in the case of illicit appropriation to its countries of origin championed by UNESCO, tremendous success have been achieved in this direction which has helped to douse tension on the volatile issue and bring about mutual understanding and enrichment of cultures. A few examples will suffice here. In 1979, Nigeria went into cultural exchange with Hornimann Museum, Forest Hill, London through exchange of Nigerian objects prominently ere ibeji (twin statuettes) in return for Nigerian past currencies when she wanted to stage an exhibition titled “Money in Nigeria” curated by late Prof. Ekpo Eyo, the then Director of the Federal Department of Antiquities and later Director General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments. The cultural exchange profited the two countries to the extent that it did not only enrich their collections spanning the time of the loan but also broadened the understanding of visitors to Lagos and Hornimann museums and by extension facilitating access of both countries to material culture that would have been inaccessible and which were not available in their respective collections.

    But more importantly, museum collections have in recent times become an instrument of cultural diplomacy arising from the connection they facilitate. This is not surprising because museums are the only institutions in the world that employ the use of objects as universal language for communication. It is against this background that many museums, especially in the third world countries, have begun to use objects in their collections to speak to members of the international community with a view to understanding them better as well as correct certain misconceptions about her peoples. The bronzes of imperial Benin, the Nok terracottas, the Igbo Ukwu bronzes, the naturalistic Ife bronzes and terracottas, the Tsoede monumental bronzes, the Owo terracottas, the Ikom monoliths to mention but a few have become Nigeria’s cultural ambassadors and even a show window to the outside world. They speak, not only to Nigerians alone, but to mankind and in so doing have helped to shape international opinion about Nigeria.

    A good reference point of how museum collections can be an instrument of cultural diplomacy can be gleaned from the exhibition titled “Treasures of Ancient Nigeria: Legacy of 2000 years” which toured Europe and America in the 1980s for about six years. Decades of European scholarship had portrayed Africa as a man without a past, no history, no art and no science and consequently relegated to the dim world of stone age culture and folk art which they dubbed as ‘primitive’ because knowledge of it was confined to wood sculptures which are known not to last for more than one hundred years in the tropics. The import of this misconception was that these objects were made by persons with no artistic training and residing in cultures of a low order of social development. Owing to this lack of knowledge of different facts of African art which has robbed Africa of its rightful place in the artistic hierarchy of the world, the exhibition under reference was able to debunk certain misconceptions widely held in Europe and America about African art. The exhibition, everywhere it went, attracted multitude of international visitors not only by their intrinsic beauty but also by the revelation that Nigeria’s art tradition is as old and rich as those that constitute the hall mark of European civilization. The exhibition was able to extol the universality of man and his creativity which the Europeans had completely ignored in their myopic arguments.

    Against the backdrop of this year’s IMD theme, it is my considered view that the celebration calls for a sober reflection and stocktaking both on the part of the management of the museum institution and the supervising government ministry. They need to ponder over some pertinent questions in view of the low ebb to which the establishment has sunk over the years since the departure of the ‘fathers’ of the museum service in Nigeria which terminated at the glorious epoch of late Prof. Ekpo Eyo, the first indigenous Director of the Federal Department of Antiquities and Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments. These include, but not limited to, whether the primacy and integrity of the museum collections are still being maintained in terms of care and use of collections, ethical consideration for museum collections, selection of dictated personnel and putting the right pegs in the right holes, relevant staff training and development, vigorous research work across the country and publication, settlement of antiquities vendors, pursuit of aggressive educational activities in all museum stations just to mention a few. These, to my mind, as someone who has seen it all in the museum service, are mind-boggling questions begging for answers.

    There is no gainsaying that things have gone awry in the National Commission for Museums and Monuments; a situation that calls for urgent surgical intervention to stem the tide of decadence.

    In fact, my heart bleeds anytime I x-ray the state of the present museum service in Nigeria which had experienced what I can refer to as Eldorado during the times of Kenneth C. Murray, Bernard Fagg and late Prof. Ekpo Eyo. May their gentle souls rest in peace. It is for this reason that I consider the IMD theme of this year’s celebration as not only auspicious but also contentious within the context of the Nigerian museum service today. If our museum collections must continue to make connections as ICOM experts, the malaise that is inherent and destroying the Nigerian museum service today must be addressed for the benefit of mankind because our heritage speaks not only to Nigerians alone but all humankind. Remember that a good museum is assessed by its collection.

    Except for the regimes of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo when he was the Head of State and Executive President respectively, it is unfortunate that successive governments in Nigeria since after independence have always treated cultural matters with a wave of the hand. Whereas culture is the fulcrum of any meaningful development of a nation for in the words of late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the celebrated Afro beat musician, “if you do not know where you are coming from, you will not know where you are going”.

    Government should pay more attention to her cultural facilities by way of empowerment to enable them carry out their statutory responsibilities. The status and standing of many countries today is to a large extent measured by the attention they pay to their cultural facilities. International tourism and the widespread economic gains it brings now represent a major reason for investment in museums.

    Therefore, realistic support for museums in terms of adequate resources to allow for effective staff training and development programmes, proper standards of collection care and management, timely restoration of monuments such as Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture (MOTNA), and other monuments and sites high quality facilities of different sizes and a commitment to seeking new audiences through well considered marketing programmes is essential if the museum service is to flourish to the benefit of the country and mankind. A stitch in time saves nine!

     

    •Akanbiemu is Resident Curator, Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta

  • ‘Insurgency is product of bad governance ’

    ‘Insurgency is product of bad governance ’

    The whereabouts of the over 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls remains unknown, 51 days after their abduction. In this chat with Senior Correspondent Evelyn Osagie at a literary event in Ikenne, Ogun State, the Editorial Board Chairman, The Nation, Mr Sam Omatseye, spoke on this issue and others.

    Do you see what is happening now, especially the insurgency, as a repeat of history going by what happened before the Civil War?

    The insurgency is a more complicated issue. The insurgency is a product of bad governance, especially in the North, over a long period of time. It is a product of Nigerians moving into a psychology of self-help. In Nigeria, we have been helping ourselves with so many things: we have been helping ourselves with water, electricity, education, transportation, accommodation and employment. We have been in a situation where individuals have been involved in a lot of self-help. Violence is also another manifestation of self-help. They are using violence to get whatever they wanted. And they seem to be dangerously committed to it and getting away with it.

    This is what has led to the kidnap of the 276 girls at Chibok. Even at that the government’s immediate reaction did not show leadership. The president has not inspired anyone: he is acting as though there is no emergency. He went to dance Azonto when mothers cannot find their wards that were taken by randy bigots. We don’t have a country and we are just pretending.

    It appears that the future is bleak and Nigerian youths are worried. Where do we go from here?

    Nigerian youths today are very irresponsible. When we were students in the university, if this kind of abduction happens, the whole country will shut down. University students now do not act as though the kidnapped students belong to their generation. What are they doing with their time? They are involved in “yahooyahoo” and all kinds of resort to self-help and so on.

    In those days, for matters that were not even as grievous as this, we’d shut down the country. We made sacrifices because we knew that the country belongs to us.

    Over 200 youths are missing. The only people protesting are elders. Where are the young people? We have seen the mothers protesting across the country; what are the young people doing about the abuse of their own generation?

    Youths are suffering from self-abuse. I am not saying that the youths are the only ones responsible for this problem. My generation created the problem for the present generation. After protesting and showing the sense of responsibility when we were young, we got into position of powers and we have forgotten the values that we fought for. But the younger ones need to regenerate themselves; that was what we did when we were young. We separated ourselves from our leaders and parents and said: “we wanted a society that was better”.

    Don’t you think their reaction is a result of their disillusion towards a country that seems not to care about their plight?

    Then, the youth need to fight for themselves for what is right for the country and for s better tomorrow.

    What do you think of the North’s positions on revenue allocation to be reduced to five per cent and on separation of power?

    Reducing the oil revenue of oil producing states to five per cent does not bear relevance to the fact that the people who own the oil are supposed to have their oil. In a true federal state, those who produce should enjoy it. When you are producing 100 per cent and you are only getting 13 per cent, it is an insult to the people who are producing the oil. And still some are saying that the 13 per cent is too much. I think that such statement was very provocative and irresponsible. It does not really pursue any agenda of national unity or national sensitivity.

    That the North funded the civil war was even a false claim. They created the Civil War. On what resources did they fund the war? At the time of the war, Cocoa was booming in the South-west; we had rubber and farm produce in the East and in today’s Niger-Delta, where there was already oil. We had groundnut in the North then, which was just a subset of our large natural resources. But to say that the North funded the civil war is untrue.

    They did not even know how to fight the civil war. The North is a vast territory with a lot of natural resources. But their leaders are building a feudal state of hunger and exploitation of resources.

    Some say the conference is dead on arrival, others say its a repeat of what others, like the ‘Oputa Panel’, sought to achieve. What is your take?

    The conference is just an opportunity for some to fret out emotions. There is nothing going on there that is unique. We don’t have a national conference. We don’t have a real template for what we are to do. Watch out for what is going to happen with all the discussions that happen there! As always, it is going to amount to nothing. It is just a place for people to vent emotions, arguing over resource control, devolution of powers.  Do the people who are there even represent Nigerians? They were handpicked by the elite to discuss elite’s problems. Does the ordinary man have a say on who is there?

    Even the journalists did not know who were there to represent them. I am a top editor in Nigeria, but I had to know much later who would be representing the Nigerian Guild of Editors. That place is not representative of anybody. It is just a group of people coming together to collect N4 million a month and then waste our time.

    Sir, what advice  would you give to best curb insurgencies?

    We need to hold France to account.

    Why France?

    During the time of Charles de Gaulle, all French-speaking countries in Africa, except Guinea, went into an accord to get protection, economic co-operation and all sorts of agreements to subject themselves, even though they had Independence, under the French government. France has an overwhelming influence over the French-speaking countries in Africa. If we want Cameroun to work with us and they are unwilling, we need to hold France responsible internationally, in fact blackmail them, if the need be, internationally and make them do to Boko Haram, in those place like Cameroun and Chad, what they did in Mali to wipe out the insurgence there. They can do it if they want to; but we need a leadership that understands geopolitics to do that.

    Having said that, if they say Boko Haram is outside Nigeria, and that they operate outside and run inside, when they are inside, what have we done to hold them in? It is one thing to say that a rat spoils what you have in your kitchen. Why not block where the rat is coming from? Even at that, you have to know how to deal with the rat when it comes to your house because that rat is already under your control. The same logic should be applied when dealing with Boko Haram.

    Imagine the scenario where men went to school and abducted over  200 students; it is not like having just a few students taken away in a private car. It was like a convoy. How did that happen in a state of emergency? It’s like vehicle after vehicle, moving through town. How did that happen in a state of emergency? Have we answered that question? Did we have to wait till the world started shouting before we could understand the brunt on our national ego or before spurring into action. We are just not serious.

  • Nigerian artists’ works break London auction sales record

    Nigerian artists’ works break London auction sales record

    From May 20 to 22, the British arts community held top flight art events-auction, tours of Tate Modern Gallery, Buckingham Palace and dinner in London to mark Nigeria’s centenary celebration, reports Assistant Editor (Arts) Ozolua Uhakheme.

    EnowNed Nigeria artists’ works were the toast at the London Bonhams auction, Africa Now. Prof. Ben Enwonwu’s 1976 master piece, Princess of Mali and Yusuf Grillo’s Woman with Gele broke auction sales record.   Princess of Mali led the pack with the highest price of £92,500 followed by Woman with Gele  that fetched £80,500 against a pre-sale estimate of £30,000 to £50,000. Also, Grillo’s The Flight went for £62,500.

    Both works of Grillo were described by director of Contemporary African Art at Bonhams, Mr. Giles Pepiatt as ”undoubtedly the finest examples of the artist’s work to appear in the open market in the past decade. But, the organisers said the Africa Now auction, which featured other African artists resulted in sales of works by Nigerian and Ghanaian artists especially totalling in excess of £1million and saw new world record prices for 10 different African artists.

    Other artists auction records included a graceful sculpture by Bunmi Babatunde (£31,250), a 3D triptych by Peju Alatise (£17,500), a market scene by Ablade Glover (£15,000), a chair made of decommissioned weapons by Goncalo Mabunda (£10,000), a coffin in the form of a Porsche by Paa Joe (£6,500) and paintings by Amon Kotei (£9,375), Aboudia (£9,375) and Uzo Egonu (£9,375).

    Bonhams Head of Contemporary African Art, Hannah O’Leary, commented that ‘since our inaugural Africa Now auction five years ago, this market has gone from strength to strength. While artists from at least 15 African countries were represented, the top prices were reserved for the best pieces by the Nigerian Masters, which seems appropriate for a country celebrating their centenary and that recently became Africa’s largest economy’.

    The celebration also attracted some of Nigeria’s great writers to London’s October Gallery for an exploration of the country’s creative future tagged Nigeria Now: Innovation and Imagination. The writers at the literary evening included  Associate Professor of creative writing at George Mason University, regular Guardian UK reviewer and author of Waiting for an Angel, Measuring Time and Oil on Water,  Helon Habila, Nkem Ifejika, BBC World Service reporter and presenter, Chibundu Onuzo, the youngest woman novelist ever to be signed by Faber and Faber, winner of the Betty Trask Award and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and Commonwealth Book Prize and Ike Anya, a Nigerian public health doctor and writer.

    Others were Ike Echeruo, an investor focused on Africa, a Co-founder and Managing Partner of Constant Capital, a leading African investment firm, Abidemi Sanusi, an author, photographer, budding film-maker and founder of Ready Writer Ltd, Abemi’s novel, Eyo, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 2010, Feye Fawehinmi, works in financial services in the UK for the past 8 years, Zainab Usman, a doctoral candidate in International Development at the University of Oxford and  Jude Anogwi, the artist behind the installation piece on the event invitation. Jude is director of Video Art Network and is currently working with the British Council in collaboration with David Dale Gallery, Glasgow as part of the Glasgow 2014 cultural programme for the Commonwealth Games.

    The literary evening was chaired by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, an independent editor, critic and broadcaster whose work has appeared in British newspapers including the Guardian, Independent, Observer and Telegraph. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to the publishing industry.

    Minister for Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, representatives of the UK government, the British Council and the Nigerian High Commissioner to the UK, Dr Dalhatu Sarki Tafida were at the events, along with many other government officials, culture enthusiasts and business personalities.

    Chief Duke considered the power and impact of a nation’s culture on its place in the world, saying: “Nigerian art and culture has proven to be our commonwealth. It defines the endurance of our harmony as a people. It strengthens the resilience of our creativity and provides the bedrock of the definition of who and what we are. It is the greatest collateral upon, which we must build the future of our great nation and rekindle the faith of our people.”

    The three-day programme began with a tour of the Tate Modern Gallery on London’s South Bank, with particular focus on the Meschac Gaba Museum of Contemporary African Art exhibition.

    Interestingly, Her Majesty the Queen of England has a long history of appreciation of Nigerian art, and of the work of Ben Enwonwu in particular. In 1957, he became the first African to be commissioned to sculpt her.

    So, it was a singular honour for guests to be given access to the Queen’s private collection at Buckingham Palace to see some of Enwonwu’s finest works.

    Pride of place among them was Rising Sun, a bronze representation of the Igbo practice of saluting the rising sun in honour of ChiUkwu, the Great Spirit. Bonhams notes “the noble figure is considered the pre-eminent expression of what Sylvester Ogbechie describes as ‘the aspirations of the Nigerian nation and Enwonwu’s personal intercession for its survival and growth’.

    A small-scale version of the famous work mounted on the façade of the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos, the current lot is one of Enwonwu’s most significant sculptures. The title Anyanwu (eye of the sun) invokes the Igbo practice of saluting the rising sun as a way to honour ChiUkwu, the Great Spirit.

    Enwonwu’s Anyanwu is commonly cited as among the artist’s most accomplished works, not only formally but also in terms of its positioning in Nigerian cultural history.  The sinuous bronze form is a masterwork of sculpture. The figure represented in Anyanwu is the powerful Igbo earth goddess Ani. In his depiction of the goddess, Enwonwu extends his exploration of the spiritual and elemental facets of womanhood – a theme prominent throughout his career.

    The first Anyanwu sculpture (1954-5), made for the National Museum, Lagos, was so popular that another was commissioned for the United Nations headquarters in New York (1961). Moreover, a smaller version, including the current lot, was cast in a small number from two different molds.

    Recalled that the late Ben Enwonwu once said: “I will not accept an inferior position in the art world, nor have my art called African because I have not correctly and properly given expression to my reality. I have consistently fought against that kind of philosophy because it is bogus.”

    The organisers noted that the events of Nigeria @ 100 have demonstrated the ‘power of Ben Enwonwu’s words as the Bonhams auction proved his point. Culture is at the heart of the way people perceive one another, and it is this that makes it such a powerful tool for diplomacy and advocacy. Nigeria @ 100 demonstrated clearly that when the Nigerian art community has the opportunity to ‘express its reality’ it can be a powerful tool in strengthening the alliance between Nigeria and the UK’.

    Among guests granted rare access to the Enwonwu collection were the Chief Duke, Director General of National Museums and Monuments Mallam Yusuf Abdallah Usman,  the General Manager of the National Arts Theatre, Alhaji Kabir Yusuf,  Chairman, Heritage Council,  Igho Charles Sanomi II and Funmi Ogbue, editor-in-chief of Fascinating Nigeria Magazine.