SUPER EAGLES forward, Emmanuel Emenike, was missing in action for Spartak Moscow’s game with table toppers Anzhi Makhachkala on Saturday.
According to the official website of the red and white, the Nigeria international forward suffered a back pain on his return from international duties with Nigeria. Thus, he did not travel with the 18 – man squad to the capital of Dagestan.
Emenike, it would be recalled, has bagged in four goals in eleven appearances in the Russian topflight this term.
This book is targeted mainly at the youths. In a society where people, particularly the young, find it difficult to know where to start from in life early enough, it is proper to begin on time to point the way forward for them. This is the basic concept and goal of this book.
The title of the book, 35 years old – Never a fool at forty, shows the author, Chile Ndukwe, chiding Nigerian elites and the society for not showing enough leeway to the younger ones. This is why, in her reckoning, poverty is ever on the increase in Africa.
Why is Africa regarded as the Third World and incidentally the most underdeveloped continent in the world? There is no true and convincing paradigm to encourage people to start out early in life. For many young people who do not have the right background and conduct, it may be difficult to finally make it in life.
Education has to be the first basis of foundation for everyone. It is the proper benchmark to prepare for the challenges of life. Education is the key, in the words of the author. On page 6, she makes it very clear: “Some young people have not truly understood the role that education would play in their lives.”
She went on: “Being in school is seen as merely a routine or a necessity than as a tool for economic and social empowerment. In most cases, the true essence of education is grasped as one matures in age and that may be after raking in some poor school certificate grades due to wrong perception.”
Although life itself is a game, but it is a game that should be taken seriously so that much progress can be made before one turns forty. People have to build themselves for the future. And people should know on time how to handle life and be on the way to the top. Time, as it is often said, waits for nobody. This is what the author highlights and says that for those who want to be big, it is better to start early, with more poignant zeal and aspiration.
This is why she handles the chapters under different titles. This is obviously to make it easier to understand. First, you should correct the errors of the past. Do not allow what happened to others to happen to you. Second, picture yourself in the future and what you intend to achieve. Then set goals, set targets, empower your mind. Be your own person, and try not to be a fool at forty.
There is no food for a lazy man. So go to work. Think deep and creatively about who you want to be and start on time.
The excitement was high penultimate Saturday as the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Kaduna State chapter, held its annual October Lecture. The event, which was held in collaboration with the Kaduna State University, KASU, had as theme, ‘Literature and the Developing Nigerian Political Culture’ and featured as guest writer, Dr. Wale Okediran, former president of ANA.
According to the chairman of the chapter, Mr. Usho Smith Adawa, the Lecture was instituted and co-hosted by the ANA chapter and Kaduna Writers’ League, KWL, in October 2006. “The Lecture was borne out of the need to create a space for writers, academics as well as policy makers and members of the public to discuss the various ways through which literature can enhance the growth and development of healthy societies,” he said.
Delivering his paper titled, An Overview of Nigeria’s Prose Fiction, Dr. Alexander Kure, highlighted the prose tradition in Nigerian literature and extolled Okediran’s “dexterous use of alternate narrative techniques of the first-person narrator and the omniscient narrative in an engrossing, suspense-filled and highly informative manner to portray a nation in dire search of its lost soul” in Tenants of the House.
Highlight of the event was Okediran’s reading from his latest novel, Tenants of the House. Though a fictional work, of particular interests from the audience were the political intrigues, the money-politics and moral decadence that have found its way to the legislative chamber. The question and answer session that followed was very engaging as the audience wanted to know if the stories were real, and what motivated the author to write such a book that took a swipe at Honourable members which he was a part of. His straight answer was that the book is a work of fiction based on the antics of some of his colleagues in the House.
In his remarks, the chairman of the occasion, Col. JIP Ubah, a patron of the chapter, said the Lecture was timely and a worthy exercise at this time when the nation is in dire need of direction. With writers as spokesmen and spokeswomen of our collective memory, he said, Nigeria needs literature as a developing nation.
Okediran was born in April, 1955, in Oyo State, qualified as a medical doctor from University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1980. He worked in government and private hospitals, before veering into private practice in 1987. In 1999, he went into politics and was appointed Chairman, Oyo State Hospitals Management Board. He later contested for a seat in the Federal House of Representatives, where he represented his constituency from 2003 to 2007. So far, he has over ten books to his name. They include The Boys at the Border, The Rescue of Uncle Babs, Dreams Die at Twilight, Strange Encounters, and Tenants of the House, which is a fictional account of some of the happenings in the National Assembly of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
The event which was attended by writers, students and dignitaries from Kaduna State and beyond included dignitaries such as the state’s first lady, Mrs. Amina Ibrahim Yakowa, who was represented by Mrs. Naomi Kish Adamu, wife of the Kaduna State Commissioner of Justice, and the Vice-Chancellor, represented by Dr. Hauwau Evelyn Yusufu, Director, Consultancy Services.
Edozie Udeze writes on the visit by Federal House of Representatives Committee on Culture and Tourism to the parastatals in the Federal Ministry of Culture and Tourism which didn’t seem to create any impact
The recent visit by the culture and Tourism committee of the Federal House of Representatives to the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC), the National Theatre and the National Troupe of Nigeria, did not only serve as an eye opener in terms of the level of understanding of cultural matters by the lawmakers, but how the federal government has chosen to invest and show interest in the sector.
The oversight visit was led by the deputy committee chairman on culture, Alhaji Abdulmalik Usman, accompanied by Abbas Machika both of who said they stood in for the chairman who was on an official assignment somewhere. However, none of the two made any remarkable statement or impact that will help to move the sector forward. Not only that, Abdulmalik was in a hurry to conclude the visit and get back to Abuja, he couldn’t even give one serious official position of the government on the state of culture in Nigeria. This stand, to the surprise of many culture reporters, indeed set minds wondering as to why the Federal government has over the years deliberately decided to stifle the sector of enough funds to run its affairs.
At CBAAC, Professor Tunde Babawale told the committee why the Centre was set up after the 1977 2nd World Festival of Arts and Culture which was held in Lagos. He explained that the relics of the festival are kept in safe custody on behalf of other countries of the world that took part in the event. But beyond that, CBAAC is the only parastatal in the Culture Ministry with an international mandate to project and propagate Pan- Africanism in its outlook and content.
Babawale, whose department has practically become immobile financially in the past few years, took the committee down memory lane on the programmes they have done since seven years with the meager resources provided by the government. “We try to do the much we can with the little allocation given to us. We have seven outreach centres across the nation, yet we do not have enough overhead to cater for all our needs. It has been very difficult to have some things done due to shortage of funds,” he said.
Babawale went on to appeal to the committee to raise the budget of the Centre in next year’s budget. “Please, I appeal to you to use this opportunity to look into the plight of CBAAC, so that we can effectively discharge our statutory mandate not only to Nigerians but to all the Blacks wherever they are. As at now, we are the least in the budget in the ministry, yet we have a lot of international official responsibilities to discharge.”
Although Abdulmalik promised to ensure that the financial situation be looked into by the committee, the promise did not sound convincing to many. He said: “We should have proper value for what is ours. This is why we will like to take care of CBAAC. We can see that this is a serious parastatal and it needs funds to continue to run its affairs. We know that this Centre has an enviable record. Therefore, we will ensure that the funding of the sector is increased in the next budget,” he said.
At the National Troupe of Nigeria, which the committee deputy – chairman mistakenly called the National Trip, it was a different ball – game entirely. There, there was no time to tour the artistes’ hotels and assess some of the facilities that needed urgent government attention. The reason was that they were running out of time. For this reason, a sketchy stage dance was performed to tease them. Even then, Abdulmalik and co did not have the patience to savour the beauty of the dances. After an interval of ten minutes or so in the hall, he signalled for a stop.
Addressing reporters thereafter, the committee deputy chairman opined that the culture sector be allowed to be more private-driven. “This is why we have an oversight visit which is part of our official assignment as law-makers. We have also seen that the National Theatre is in a very bad shape. Many things need to be fixed and we will see to all that soon,” he said.
All said, these promises sounded hollow and familiar. For many years now, these issues have been raised and brought to the attention of the federal government. Each new culture minister and House committee members will come and make tall and high-sounding promises, yet none has been fulfilled. This was why many received this last one with some level of skepticism and doubt.
Which images would represent seven days in the life of a city, its people, soul, and energy? Answering that question was perhaps what organisers of the third edition of the LagosPhoto had in mind when it chose as its theme, ‘seven days in the life of Lagos.’
As usual, like the past two editions, the photographers generated a wow effect in portraying the different sides of the city of Lagos.
In Makoko Now, 12 photographers, videographers, and journalists took boat rides, visually documenting scenes of Makoko, an ancient fishing slum community of stilted shacks right on the lagoon. On the photographic voyage to Makoko, which was recently demolished by the Lagos state government, were Aderemi Adegbite, Tunde Adegboye, Kehinde Sangonuga, Medina Dugger, Maja Flink, Joseph Gergel, Jane Hahn, Hauwa Mukan, Bayo Omoboriowo, Zemaye Okediji, and Olayinka Sangotoye.
Guerrilla performer and founder of Crown Troupe of Nigeria, Segun Adefila, also exhibited too. And his images takes his fans backstage where all the practice and sweat is a daily grind. His troupe had earlier performed at the Black Light Project, an exhibition of photographs, words, and graphic novels held at nearby Federal Government Press, and documenting West African civil wars by photographer Wolf Bowig and novelist Carlos Mendes. Adefila’s image, Streets as a stage, aptly fits the routine of performers in the city.
And referring to the rowdy seconds of ‘se were’ which means ‘be crazy’ in Yoruba language, that goes on at the Afrika Shrine, Ikeja, then one’s likely to understand why Dutch photographer Judith Quax and organisers thought it fit to feature the Shrine. Visiting the Afrika Shrine last year, Quax said of the experience; “I thought it was going to be rougher, but, I loved every minute.” Chantal Heijnen also joined her in the Fela Kuti odyssey by staging Fela Kuti.
Bunmi Adedipe in Waste to wealth captures a man sleeping behind a dumpster, a common sight of many labourers in Lagos, while Alafuro Sikoki’s 2 minute photo theatre, the imaginative locations – a bus, a bus shelter, that serve as business sites to both photographer and client.
Akintunde Akinleye detailed the activities of sand excavators in a series termed, Lagos Sand Merchants while Kelechi Amadi Obi also participated, exhibiting Family, a series of portraiture comprising a black man, a cacucasian woman, and a black child.
Hans Wilschut, Benedictte Kurzen and Andrea Stultiens worked around the theme Lagos Enlarged. With bold imageries, these photographers reduced mega-sights of Lagos to large frames. For instance, Wilschut’s photo (Sealed Property) of the Bank of Industry ruins on Broad Street when it collapsed is breath-taking.
Putting the show together was artistic director Stanley Greene, Azu Nwagbogu, and Caline Chagoury.
With exhibits in eight different venues of Lagos, LagosPhoto2012 is ensuring many Lagosians take a minute, and pause to see everyday scenes, frozen.
While the grand opening held at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, exhibitions simultaneously take place at the African Artists Foundation, Nimbus Arts Gallery, A White Space, Omenka Gallery, The Federal Government Printing Press, and the Kalakuta Museum.
Also, outdoor exhibitions showing in a maze-construct Lagos of many sides and phases will hold at Muri Okunola Park, Victoria Island, Falomo Roubdabout, Ikoyi, and UBA Park, University of Lagos.
Creative Alliance, organisers of the grassroots literary contest, Literary Star Search, has announced the eight shortlisted writers for the Literary Star Search contest. Here, in no particular order, are the eight writers, whose short stories have impressed the three-man jury – (Tade Ipadeola, Ayodele Olofintuade and Terh Agbedeh).
The entries include Chasing Lizards by M.S.C. Okolo, The Woman Without a Name by Bode Asiyanbi, Mother by Bonaventure O. Chukwu, Bank of Nigeria by Buhari A. Sulaimon and Echoes from Bariga Local Government by Soyemi O. Isaac. Others are The Oodua Code by Kayode Ketefe, The Wailing Drum by Kurotmunonye I. William-West, and Hiding in a Cupboard by Obinna Udenwe.
A statement by its spokesman, Mr. Seun Jegede, said the final three writers for the one million naira prize money will be made known at the end of the month when the judges would have made a final decision. The award is scheduled to hold on a date yet to be decided in November.
THE STORM brewing from Chikeluba Oforedu’s transfer to Turkish club 1461 Trabzon is growing by the day, as sources reveal that Enugu Rangers are infuriated that they were riped off N27m from the full value of the loan deal.
allnigeriasoccer.com sources revealed that reports in the Turkish media disclosed that the value of the loan fees was 160, 000 euros (about N33m).
However, the agents that facilitated the deal had told Rangers International that the deal was worth $50, 000, (about N8m) out of which they had already paid $40, 000 (about N6m) to the Enugu State owned team’s coffers.
When news of the true value of the loan reached Oak Zeel FC President, Okechukwu Omeje and the club’s legal representatives Activity Chambers, they quickly contacted Rangers to find out if they were aware of the true value of the loan and our sources say that once it dawned on Rangers International that they had been taken for a ride and defrauded by the agents they swore to get to the root of the case.
According to the source, all efforts by the Rangers boss to reach the agent Lanre proved abortive as the agent refused to pick the chairman’s call.
The metaphor of a moving train is a strong one in literary history as it evokes charting through a determined path; questing for a different reality and journeying to discover new frontiers. In the filmic medium, the train and the train station has been a much favoured setting to enact and re-enact solemn or happy arrivals and departures. The picture of a lone passenger with a luggage waiting for a train to arrive or coming too late to catch a departing train and wistfully looking at its rear is one that never fails to connect with the human spirit.
It is therefore dramatically refreshing to encounter the new play, Cantankerous Passengers, from Patrick Adaofuoyi Ogbe, which is largely set inside a train coach on a journey to one of the furthermost parts of the nation, Maiduguri, which in our recent history has become a hotbed of strife and insurgency. The title of the play itself gives an inkling of the medley of people, voices and dispositions that make up the dramatic world of the play. The confine of the coaches of the train is a metaphor for the geographical Nigeria while the characters cut across the different shades of ethnic groupings, classes and socio-religious persuasions that can be found in the country. The journey itself can be interpreted as that being made to discover our nationhood. The playwright’s intent appears to be to highlight the expected cacophonous outcome when such divergent persons are confined within the same space, the train coach, albeit the nation-space Nigeria.
Dialogues and repartees in the play between and among the various characters mirror the reality of the nation that has since the start of her journey in 1960, been unable to “speak with one voice” as they say. Some of the characters in the play who carry direct ethnic reference by means of identification such as “The Tiv Man,” “The Fulani Man,” “The Old Yoruba Man,” and “The Igbo Man” all behave as stereotypical of similarly perceived roles in the referential world of the play. By this it may seem the playwright is merely interested in regurgitating the fault lines in our journey towards nationhood but a close reading of the play reveals a nobler objective. That objective is dramatically sustained by the character of the “The Professor” and “The Corps Member” who beyond acting out their peculiar idiosyncrasies, throw up critical questions and mediate in the resultant conflicts of the divergent occupants of the train coaches. Through these two characters, who are consistent in intervening in the actions around them, the reader gets to understand that rationality and positive actions devoid of primordial sentiments are requisite tools for successfully charting the journey towards true nationhood.
The metaphor of the train journey(railway transportation) itself employed in the play and its actual national history of a glorious beginning and gradual descent into decrepitude parallels the Nigerian story of hope at independence and the eventual unraveling of such hope in the difficult march towards nationhood. Railway transportation, though a colonial creation used in funneling resources from the hinterland to the coast to service colonial industry, also played intricate roles in uniting the various constituent ethnic groups in Nigeria via trading. The cantankerous passengers in the train at a point in the play actually abandon their divisive discourse when it became known that the train is heading towards disaster with the loss of the driver who mistakenly took an overdose of sleeping pills. This awareness of the imminent collective destruction as a result of lack of leadership or any kind of steering in a way unites the groups towards a search for solution. The solution came in the form of “ a new man…at the helm of affairs in the train driver’s compartment,” steering the train away from listlessness and derailment. Does that say something about Nigeria?
Since a play as a text is always considered as unfinished until performed, it will be necessary to briefly dwell on the production possibilities of Cantankerous Passengers. The major setting, inside a moving train, may appear unachievable, but from the playwright’s directorial notes interspersed within relevant sections of the play’s six scenes, the reader’s and a potential director’s appetite is wetted for a possible production. With the accomplishment in the area of technical theatre today, it will be very possible and quite interesting to recreate the mood and setting of a life changing train journey on live stage. The language of the play is assured, simple, apt for the characters and not descending into verbosity as common with some plays of similar nationalistic concern. The theatrical picture presented by the text of the play is one that will be amenable to radical re-interpretation in the hands of an imaginative director, considering the scope, twists and turns of the Nigerian story being told.
WITH REPORTS rife in the media of an impending call up to the Super Eagles, Chelsea of England loanee to ADO Den Haag of Holland, Kenneth Josiah Omeruo has declared his readiness to don the country’s senior national team jersey if given a chance.
Omeruo has been very pivotal to his club’s impressive start to the Dutch Eredevisie League season and recently helped the Flying Eagles to the Africa Youth Championship(AYC) ticket after a 4-2 aggregate victory over Amajita of South Africa.
In a chat with SportingLife the former U17 international noted that he would welcome his invitation to the Super Eagles having been called up before under the previous coach, Samson Siasia.
“I will be thrilled to play for the Super Eagles if given a chance. I am not a total stranger to the senior national team having received a call up before. Ahmed Musa combined the Flying Eagles with the Super Eagles I can also do the same too,” Omeruo said.
Omeruo was in the last U20 team that exited the 2011 FIFA U20 World Cup in Colombia at the quarter final stage after a 3-1 loss to France.
SUPER EAGLES’ stand-in goalie, Vincent Enyeama has disclosed that Maccabi Tel Aviv showed enough seriousness to have him in their fold while Hapoel Tel Aviv, his former club kept mute about their desire.
Enyeama in a chat with SportingLife in Calabar recently stated that he chose Maccabi despite being city rivals to his previous club because Hapoel have had their quota for foreign based players occupied while his present on loan club came in manhunt to get him.
“I didn’t have a reason to go back to Hapoel because the players at the club had filled up the five foreign slots and Maccabi needed me. Hapoel has goal keepers and did not demand for my recall so I went to where I will be able to get games that I clamoured for in France,” he said.
Reacting to the demonstrations from Hapoel’s fans of his alleged betrayal of one-time club, Enyeama stressed that he stayed calm and never cared about the fans’ backlash but concentrated on his next target-which is to do well for Maccabi. “I am a professional. I stayed calm and calculated and moved on to do my job because I don’t care about what happened on the streets,” the former Enyimba goaltender said.
The Cross River born player who was the skipper when the Eagles got a ticket to next year’s Africa Cup of Nations slated for South Africa at the expense of Liberia’s Lone Stars expressed his delight at the nation’s qualification which he recalled was a bitter pill to swallow last year when the country’s hope for a place in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea was truncated by the Syli Stars of Guinea in Abuja.