The Nation Newspaper

Tag: experience

  • ‘The triumph of hope over experience’

    This administration can avoid being the object of nature’s derision, and let its word be its bond

    The triumph of hope over experience’, was the comment of our erudite Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) about a man who was said to have remarried immediately after the death of a wife with whom he had been very unhappy. Obviously, some people learn from experience; and some, from experience, never learn. But, whether we learn or not, nature continues to teach us. Take the simple matter of time: it ticks on, no matter how you literally hold back the hands of the clock. Take also the seasons: they change no matter how much you want to hold them back. Seasons come, seasons go; governments come, governments go; only the universe remains.

    Enough of our philosophising, dear reader; we are talking today about the sudden, some would say even unnecessary, postponement of Nigeria’s general elections. I am having trouble understanding it; but then I generally have trouble understanding anything because the people around me have all agreed that I am somewhat slow to comprehend things. I think they had to hold a meeting on the subject or something. I am still scratching my head on why it took them so long to come to that realisation. Anyway, I am so slow it took me a long time to know my left from my right, my friend in my enemy, and that what I took to be a creeping plant giving off hisses into the air in my garden was really a green snake looking for sunshine.

    I must confess though that the postponement took many of us by surprise. There I had been, believing that the word of the government was its bond. There is an unwritten code that says that your word is your bond. That code has guided many for centuries. I remember growing up in a community where this word-bond agreement ruled the farms. If a farmer needed extra hands on his field, he did not go to hire. No sir, he simply asked his fellow-farmers to leave off farming their own field and attend to his own needs for the two or three days he might need them. And they often did, barring sickness. The unwritten law was that should any of his friends ever require his services, he would willingly abandon his own needs and meet that one at his point of need.

    Thus when the government gave the word that the elections would hold as scheduled, we took it to be its bond also. Alas, not so! We had no way of knowing that the word belonged to the government while the bond might belong to us. Imagine a farmer being left holding a bond in that fashion, after having given his own time and energy to develop his fellow-farmer’s farm, only to be told that the time chosen was no longer convenient, particularly in view of the fact that the weather is not under any man’s control. Like that farmer, I am still holding the election bond in my hand, much to my chagrin and definitely not to my pleasing, or even Jega’s. Indeed, the postponement has made nonsense of all our personal programmes which we all, to a man across the nation, strenuously strained to postpone just to make sure that, should movements be restricted, no important thing would suffer during the elections.

    I do not want to go into the reasons for the postponement, contrived or not. I’m only interested in what effects it has on me. The first thing that struck me was the question: don’t the rest of us count? Is it possible for all of us who constitute the electorate to be as negligible as all that and maybe more? The story is told that someone remarked to his father, at his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, that the said parents never seemed to fight. His father replied that they sure had their many battles, like any other couple; it was just that sooner or later in the fight, one of them would realise that he, the man, was wrong. That is one version.

    Another version has it that the man replied that early in the marriage, they had decided that in order to avoid all conflicts, he, the man of the house, would take all the big decisions while the wife, the woman of the house, would take all the small ones. In the fifty years of being together though, the man found out that there had not been one big decision to take. That was why the union had lasted for so long.

    The reason that we the electorate don’t count much in electoral matters should be the subject of a treatise for a political scientist, but not for us here. You and I must nevertheless be struck by the deep, deep irony and amusement in the situation. If you possess this knowledge, my friend, you possess a great thing indeed – that the land belongs to the people; the instruments of governance belong to the people; the power deriving thereof belongs to the people; therefore the state belongs to the people. My friend, I congratulate you for knowing this; not all of us do. You see, at critical and crucial moments, most government functionaries think it nothing to yield to the temptation to use the same state against the people, or to forget them altogether. Now, say news reports, there are soldiers circling people’s houses. When will we learn?!

    Naturally, it never works, mostly because the protection of the people against such misuse is writ large in nature. Take the example at hand. Postponing these elections is not really to the people’s liking: the people did not ask for it; the people did not want it; the people still do not understand it. The thing just went right over the people’s heads. That just gives one the feeling of déjà vu, does it not, and makes one rather tired.

    Let’s take one or two government functionaries who have gone over the people’s heads like this and have rued the action. At the height of his power in France, Louis XIV was said to have claimed, ‘L’Etat c’est moi (I am the state)’, and as he was dying in 1715, he was claimed to have said, “Je m’en vais, mais l’Etat demeurera toujours (I depart, but the state shall always remain)”, while Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, also absolute monarchs, departed via the guillotine. The June 12 saga in Nigeria is still fresh in the collective mind. The then president singlehandedly cancelled an election that was said to have been the freest and fairest to date in this country. I believe that president is still smarting from some of the consequences of not respecting the owners of that election, the people. The State remains, always.

    Experience, they say, is the best teacher. Of course, no one can singly go through every experience that he needs to learn from. That is why we have history and literature books. That is why we have others. That is why we have visions. That is why we have our religions. History, literature, visions and religions tell us what nature has always made clear: the land belongs to its maker. This in effect translates to the fact that nature has ways of correcting the errors of mankind when he attempts to play God. Nature does so because it knows that sometimes in the heart of some unknowing ones among us, hope triumphs over experience.

    We tend to think that the people before us were unlucky or they got it wrong somewhere. It must be different with us, just like motorists who come on the scene of an accident and then speed off. Tch, tch, feed in the same data, use same method and expect different results? This administration can avoid being the object of nature’s derision, and let its word be its bond.

  • Thieves experience in rhymes

    Thieves experience in rhymes

    As a literary biographer, who had been writing short stories and poetry, it was an easy transition for Mnguember Vicky Sylvester to write a memorable historical novel based on the Tiv Uprising of the early 1960s following Nigeria’s political independence.

    In fact, Long Shadows encompasses the Tiv experience of interaction with the colonialists from WW I through WW II and later involvement in divisional and regional politics in the young Nigerian nation through the first military coup to the civil war that began in 1967 to its end in1970. Sylvester writes a hybrid novel, partly historical and partly fictional, which recounts the Tiv experience through the actions of characters reflecting some known figures such as Joseph ( Suswam) Tarka and others during the tumultuous period.

    With this novel Sylvester inscribes minority discourse into Nigerian/national and regional political experience. So often does one hear or read about what majority groups do in history but it is refreshing that here Sylvester does something different by registering in a compelling narrative mode not only Tiv resistance to oppression, discrimination, marginalisation, and exploitation but also the search for plurality and fair government in the regional dispensation of the time. The novel also proffers a vision of what other ethnic groups can imbibe for a free, fair, and just society.

    Long Shadow begins in a captivating manner with resistance to the tax of two pounds and six shillings imposed on Tiv men, with the Damkor raiding and humiliating Tiv men, quite unlike in Makurdi and other areas where non-Tiv live and where the tax enforcement is not pursued with such vigor. While a tax to develop the area would have been a good thing, according to a leader like Suswam, they feel this tax was exploitative and discriminatory; hence the resistance, which further led to the highhanded local government police attack of Tiv villages. Suswam and other Tiv men also resist imposing a Tor Tiv on them from Kaduna as the NPC was trying to do. In one of such raids on a Tiv village, a Native Authority police attempts to rape Torkwase and she ingeniously killed him with an iron rod. The persecution of the Tiv intensified after the formation of the UMBC, a party of minority groups in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, as opposition to the NPC in the Northern Region. The UMBC, led by Suswam, allied with Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group, the predominant party in the Western Region. The new party focused on education of the young ones. The Tiv also created a Suswam Brigade to counter the influence of the Sardauna Brigade.

    The narrative later focuses on Jime, son of Hemba who has been discriminated against, and who belongs to the UMBC with others in the party, lost his regional government job. With the discrimination, exploitation, and oppression of Tivs at divisional and regional levels, Jime and others took the Tiv cause to fight for. With many Tiv people being killed through attacks apparently organized by the Damkor and the Sardauna Brigade on Tiv towns, men and women mobilize to fight back. Feeling the safety of his family threatened, Jime flees to Jos and asks his wife, Ayima, and the children to join him later through a clandestine network assisted by a Catholic priest. Jime gets a job in Jos in the tin mines and later steals into Makurdi to take his wife and children from a secret rendezvous. By this time, Suswam was gravitating towards the NPC and lukewarm to Tiv matters because he wanted to enlarge his political base in the North so that he could vie for a national position. The story ends with the end of the civil war (1970) with many Tiv men joining the army and the sick Jime about to leave for England for treatment.

    Long Shadows is a historiography of the Tiv people, their origin, and migration to their present abode. They are a people who cherish bravery and honor; hence they “die standing.” One of the most moving episodes in the novel is how Agbo, a Tiv clan head, was humiliated (75). The reader is forewarned that Agbo would soon join the ancestors. Then Agbo’s wife, Mnguhemen, prepares food with poisonous mushrooms for him to eat and die in sleep rather than leave him to hang himself (77-78).

    With a sharp mind and very keen sensibility, Mnguember Vicky Sylvester portrays full-blooded characters that are so realistic that they appear like people with whom we share the same society. The writer succeeds in not only making history real but also makes the actors of that history living people who have the same character traits we have. Suswan, modeled on J.S. Tarka, comes out very alive from history. The Middle Belt politician is a versatile leader of his people and forms the opposition to the NPC. He aligns with Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group because he wants his people to have education.

    Jime, Hemba’s son, carries the torch of the middle generation (his children the younger/third generation). While he is an individual, he represents the Tiv resistance in a middle ground—not violent like Gums and Biri but unswerving in loyalty to the Tiv cause; unlike Suswam who changes. He is a good husband and father involved in the struggle to win rights for his people. We see him closely and his flight to Jos reflects the dislocation of families resulting from the resistance. His wife, Ayima, is fully portrayed as a caring mother and a loving wife. A seamstress by profession, she holds her forte during the calamitous period when her husband is not around. She combines gentleness with emotional strength.

    Two other characters that stand out in the novel are Gums and Biri. Gums is used to forment violence to keep the Tiv Uprising in the news. Biri, the ugly one whose name literally means monkey, is violent and commits heinous crimes in the name of the uprising. Sylvester uses his character to show the extent to which a good uprising could be hijacked to needless bloodletting. He is the hatchet man whose actions Gums describes as bestial. In the end, he falls victim of revenge, as the man whose wife he has killed kills him.

    Mnguember Vicky Sylvester is an accomplished storyteller who uses her narrative resources to tell the story which flows on like a tumultuous river towards the ocean. Her major narrative technique is suspense. One example is when Gums, before the raid on the market, “had sent word to the Ameer and the Igbo transport union leader in Gboko through their representatives that it would rain that Ikyurav market day” (124), a password for violence. Another interesting suspense is in the statement that “Agbo will soon join the ancestors, perhaps tonight” 77) after being publicly humiliated. One expects him to commit suicide by hanging but the wife provides him a more honorable death by preparing for him a food of poisonous mushrooms which kills him. Ayima’s flight to Jos with the assistance of Fr. O’Connel is also suspenseful as the reader fears she may be caught. She escapes narrowly from being caught by the catechist.

    There are also flashbacks to give depth and background to the story. Chapter 8 narrates how Hemba, Jime’s father, died. Jime was about to fetch water from a well and the memory came back to him. Sylvester absorbs oral tradition to tell her story. Much of this occurs when Suswam visitsVandeikya (160-161) with the use of traditional salutations, proverbs and axioms.  Vicky Sylvester has the power to make episodes memorable by their significance. One of such is when the Tiv soldiers returned from WW II and they were being welcomed back home; others received a handshake and the Tivs were given sticks that were again taken from them to avoid shaking hands with them. It is instructive that Jime’s father refused the stick and handshake.

    Long Shadows uses the Tiv Uprising as a window not only to view the world of conflict and uprising but also women’s response in such a period. Sylvester demonstrates feminist tendencies in the novel with the examples of Torkwase’s killing of the potential rapist and Dooshima beating her husband to show that Tiv women defend themselves. The women also meet to discuss how they should respond to the violence around them. Ayima’s care of the children and daring escape to join her husband show how active she is. The female characters thus exercise their agency and do not just stay passive and be victims.

    Long Shadows is not just a historical novel but a saga of Tiv trials and triumphs over decades and throws into relief the contrast between then and now. The novel reminds us of problems still common in the Nigerian polity. Only resistance, Sylvester seems to espouse here, makes a people throw off the yoke of oppression, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization and become a free and dignified people. The novel is very interesting to read as the writer uses narrative ploys to propel the story to accelerate to a climax at the height of the Uprising when there was much violence culminating in the civil war. The Nigerian civil war ends and Jime is to go abroad for treatment. The small prints need to be improved upon in the next edition,. However, Mnguember Vicky Sylvester has accomplished a marvelous task in making us re-live a period of Nigerian history that we should now try to avoid under a 20th century democracy. This is a book that enriches our sensibility and I enthusiastically recommend it to everyone to read.

     

  • My experience with Messi — Oshaniwa

    My experience with Messi — Oshaniwa

    Juwon Oshaniwa speaks on his World Cup adventure, his encounter with Lionel Messi plus several other issues including his possible transfer from Israel. Excerpts…

    Juwon it’s been a while, how are you?

    I’m great, thank you very much for asking. I’m fine.

     Alright then, we will start with your World Cup experience. Not every player plays at the World Cup, but you have. What was it like?

    Yeah, thank you. It was a great experience for me, and I loved every bit of it. There’s this special feeling about playing at the World Cup, which is best experienced than explained but all the same, it was very nice being at the World Cup. Playing against the best players in the world isn’t always easy, but it’s a learning curve for any young player. I’m grateful.

     You played all of Nigeria’s World Cup matches due to Elderson Echiejile’s injury. A lot of people would be interested to know what the motivating factor was for you, because not so many actually did expect you to play as well as you did.

    As a player you have to be prepared at all times. Mentally, physically, you just have to be ready because you never know when the opportunity will come. So for me, it just wasn’t out of the blue because I was prepared for the opportunity, I never stopped working hard and I never stopped believing in myself. That’s the good thing about always being prepared, because opportunities could come at any time. Mine came, and the coaches believed I could do the job and I got it done. That was it for me. I’ve always prayed for my time to come and when it came, I used it well.

    You mentioned the coach (Keshi), how much of an influence was he in you having a good tournament?

    He’s a great coach, really. Seeing him alone inspires confidence and you just want to go out there and get the job done. There wasn’t any particular individual session I had with him, but he kept mentoring and inspiring us as a team which really psyched us up. He is a very good coach and his words are always encouraging. Remember he is a former captain of the team; he’s got the charisma to lead an army to any battle and we the players appreciate this. We are always challenged to go one step further which is a good thing and I enjoyed every bit of it.

    Let’s talk about that first game against Iran. Nigerians were very disappointed with the result and how the team played. What was your reaction as a team after that game, were you disappointed in yourselves?

    No, never. Never. We were never disappointed and by the way, why would we? We knew every team at the World Cup would be difficult and the Iranians weren’t any different. Of course we expected to win the game, but it just didn’t happen. Yes I know a lot of people criticized us after the game, but you also know Argentina only managed to beat them by a lone goal. So, never were we disappointed, never. All the 32 teams that played at the World Cup were good teams, and capable of winning any match and we knew this. It felt bad not beating Iran, but were we disappointed in ourselves? Never.

    Alright, so let’s talk about the Argentina game, and precisely about Lionel Messi. You came in direct contact with him and you somewhat excelled. You must be proud, aren’t you?

    Of course, yes. Messi is a great player and playing against him alone is a big honour. I felt very great playing against such a great player… (Cuts in)

    …Did you feel intimidated?

    (laughs)…no no no no, I wasn’t, no I wasn’t (another laughter) I just played my game, even though I knew he would be a difficult opponent but it never scared me. Like I said, it felt great playing against him, but I was never intimidated. If I were, it would have shown in the way I played.

    The round of 16 game against France was a game Nigerians felt you should have won, but you didn’t. Do you share the same sentiment?

    Yes, I do. We went into the game with so much confidence but I’d say we lost our concentration. That was the difference between both teams on the day. We were the better side on the strength of play, especially in the first half and I felt we deserved a better result. But maybe, that’s how it was destined to end, maybe.

    And finally, you’ve always talked about your desire to play in a bigger league and in a bigger club. Has playing in the World Cup raised your stock in the transfer market?

    Yes, most definitely it has. There are a few offers on ground, and they are discussing with my agent but I can’t disclose any of them now. We just have to see how things play out, and move on from there. I hope things work out well.

    Thank you very much Juwon

    Thank you too.

  • My experience as a trial actor

    Having reported activities of the Nigerian entertainment industry for a decade, I have partially been involved in its art, to the degree that it gives me an insider’s perspective, as a reporter. Serving on the board of some movie award schemes and participating in talks that are meant to shape the industry have not only increased my camaraderie with stakeholders, they have helped in the relative depth with which I now understand, analyze, interpret, opinionate and foretell circumstances.

    However, one aspect of the pack which is considered the hatchet man’s job is the review of movies from a critic’s point of view. Years back, a film marketer came to my office, crying over a review we did, believing we were being unfair, to say the least. He is a Yoruba man, and so when he spoke to me in my language, almost in tears, his emotion betrayed that perception that dubbed us as sadists, and as some would say, enemies of progress. He lamented over how much the movie cost him, and if he would ever recoup his investment judging by our negative review.

    I have visited movie sets and seen all the pieces that were eventually cut and put together to make the final release of the home video. And I bet that, how perfect a film will turn out, depends largely on how beautiful each piece is, in a way that they won’t turn ‘the coat of many colours’ to a rag.

    My review of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ has never been positive. It is more painful when you consider how much was sunk into that project which, with all the touted UK-film propaganda, is yet to get a distributor since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, last month. And I tell you, a lot has to do with the foundation and orientation of the director, no matter how much money is at the disposal of the executive producers. No film director can give what he does not have.

    Therefore, my quarrel has never been with low budget films, but with the creative lapse that is brought to bear on some productions. And I am just going to excuse the cast and crew members of a movie and possibly ‘hang’ the film director in my final analysis. After all, it is the director’s story, told in motion picture.

    My friend, a former journalist and film marketer had invited me to his movie set. I had all the time, because it was my leave period. Some of the top actors on location thought I had come to spy on them; they are usually wary of a journalists lurking around movie locations, where they (cast and crew) talk and play freely among themselves after each scene wrap.

    It was a low-budget film and for some reasons, the lead actor could not make it to location. After some downcast moment, my friend turned to me, asking if I think I could face the camera. He was apparently frustrated that he didn’t think it twice that a rookie would be just more than a risk on his project. He couldn’t afford to lose time and days as the hotel bills and other expenses were being incurred. I told him I couldn’t. Then he got slightly angry and showed it through sarcasm: “But you know how to criticise, ehn? For once, you should have come in front of camera light and see what actors go through… you should try it and see if you will not frail out..”

    I collected the script and was looking at it, during which he and his director had some time to chat. I could tell they were considering their chance with me. So when my friend drew nearer again, he said in a persuasive voice; “guy, I know you can do this. Think of what it means to act alongside this actress (yeah, the lead female is a big cross-over thespian). This could be your chance you know…” he went on and on. At that point, I already told myself that I could handle it, recollecting my days in secondary school, playing the police lover-boy roles like you would find in some Indian movies. All I did was to call my wife and prepare her mind. As always, my wife said to me that she believe I am capable of handling anything. She agreed that I should give it a shot, oblivious of the session of kisses that the role required.

    It was a shoot across the weekend, and the stress of repeated takes increased my boredom. Soon, this ‘play thing’ became tedious and I began to imagine how much the artistes were being paid and if I could endure doing a job like that. Of course, it was a typical Yoruba film production and only the lead actress received about 200 percent above what other actors were paid. I bet you, she is the highest paid in that industry. But you could tell that in all, the actors enjoy doing what they have chosen as a carrier.

    But me, did I get paid for this unsolicited job? The answer is no! But to further safe the face of my friend, I won’t tell you how much was promised me as ‘fuel money’ and whether he has finished paying it till date…. Permit me to sound him out on this last line, and see if he wouldn’t be mad at me. This movie resumes shortly… if only you understand my language; watch out for part 2!

  • Lagos, Cross River, Ogun may experience flooding

    The Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Anthony Anuforum, has said Lagos, Cross River and Ogun states may experience flooding.

    He urged the governments of the states to take precautionary measures.

    Speaking with reporters in Abuja yesterday, Anuoforom said the states mentioned are among vulnerable areas, where “there seems to be water stress in the Northwest”.

    He said: “The Standard Precipitation Index shows the nature and condition of soil moisture. We are carrying out the same exercise and keeping a watch on the vulnerable areas. The areas in red or brown are the areas where there seems to be water stress.

    “But I appeal to you not to raise a false alarm. We are monitoring the situation and it can be scientifically explained. The explanation is that the rainfall has not quite stabilised.

    “Infact, in some of these areas, we are yet to reach the onset stage of our prediction of January 15. It shows clearly that the raining season will start late in June, so it is not surprising that the soil moisture in those areas is showing water deficit.”

  • ‘My experience in Nigeria has changed me’

    ‘My experience in Nigeria has changed me’

    She talks about hopping on buses to Lekki, Obalende, Ajegunle, Ikeja, and Ogudu. No big deal. She preaches a message of an alternative to violence and deploys environmental education to youths in Lagos State. Still no big deal. But, when the person in question is a white American woman on a nine-month Fulbright Scholarship grant, it raises eyebrows. Enter the world of Erica Licht. Joe Agbro Jr. had an encounter with her recently.

     

    THE media has a lot of negative stories about Nigeria,” Erica Licht says. “I choose to ignore them. I want to come to a place and create my own understanding of a place. My friends and family can think what they want but they support me though. They are happy for me that I’m pursuing the work I’m doing.”

    Licht also dismisses the hardship of moving about in Lagos and the ‘danger’ it portends to foreigners. Development of youths is what keeps her rocking. The Africana Studies graduate of Vassar College, New York, who works independently as a researcher, youth development professional, applied for the Fulbright Scholarship specifically with Lagos, Nigeria in mind.

    She says studying Africana Studies was due to a need to fill a gap “that I felt was left out of my education as an American growing up. And the other key part of my work and study is with criminal justice, looking at criminal justice reform using alternative methods.”

    Speaking on how she settled on Nigeria as we nestled in the library of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, in Yaba, Lagos, she says, “I had never been to Nigeria before, although I had studied it a lot in school both in Urban Studies and in Africana Studies and in Geography. I have been to Uganda in 2007 on a community project. But I have lived in Kingston, Jamaica for a year from 2010 to 2011. And there is a lot of interesting connections between Jamaica and Nigeria that have propelled my interest in coming here.”

    “A lot of Jamaicans look to Nigeria as the source of their heritage. Politically, socially, Nigeria has really set the stage for the rest of the continent. And it is Lagos that really interests me. I’m interested in cities where there is a large population of youths.”

    She says: “I’m interested in what strategies are taken to address youth and violence. What’s working and what’s not working. And my interest is in bringing the environment composition to see what that can do.”

    Previously, she worked in Kingston, Jamaica, and in Bronx, New York where she taught environmental education to urban youths.

    The title of her Fulbright project which she designed is called Outdoor education as an alternative to incarceration for urban youths. The name of the youth group is You and I Teach Each Other or simply UNITE. Arriving Nigeria in September 2012, she hit the ground running. “I got to see a lot of Nigeria,” she says. “I went to Enugu the second week after I came to Nigeria to lead a workshop for the Alternative to Violence Project which was one of the co-partners. My two partners in bringing me here are the Lagos State University (LASU) and the Alternative to Violence Project.”

    The same work took her to Kaduna where she led a workshop for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on setting up a community resilient network. She did the same workshop in Abeokuta, Ogun State. From Kaduna, she also visited Jos, Plateau State to see a friend.

    Describing her visit to Enugu and later on Calabar by bus in which Nollywood movies were shown throughout as fun, Licht says, “the whole bus became a community for a day.”

    But her pet project of working with Lagos youths would only commence about five months later. In her head, the programme was done before reaching Nigeria. But, due to cultural differences and advice from her partners and friends, it took about five months to make her programme Lagos-specific. Initially, she had planned to make environmental educational have more focus, but, one of her partners, Onyinye Onyemobi at Alternative to Violence Project (AVP), convinced her to include the criminal justice bit and have the youths interact with police officers directly.

    “That was a huge influence on the programme,” Licht discloses.

    Simultaneously, she was also designing a weekly radio programme on Unilag FM called Justified Nature which she started in the first week of January. On the radio show, her major challenge was on the need to play and the type of music to be played. The director of the station reminded her that she had to play music to appeal to their audience. “It really made me think,” Licht enthuses, “not only about the music. But, I changed the name of my website, www.justifiedoutdoors.com to www.justifiednature.com.” According to her, the word outdoors does not specifically refer to nature which is what it’s referred to in the US. And she adds, “I tried to speak more clearly on the show so people can understand me.”

    By February, UNITE kicked off by having weekly meetings with about 90 youths at three centres: Ogudu, Ajegunle, and Lagos Island, in Lagos. At Ajegunle, she worked with an existing youth NGO, National Youth Council in Awodi-Ora Estate. At Ogudu, it was with students of the Ogudu Senior Secondary School, while at Lagos Island, the meetings held at the Adeniji Adele Police Station and consisted police officers and youths in the area.”

    At the meetings were semi-formal exercises and yoga which sought to create a leveller. Each person even gets a nickname to correspond with their names. In those circles, she is known as Eclectic Erica. No doubt, it is a fitting name because of the many things she is; youth development activist, radio show host, jewellery designer, and spoken word poet.

    “Each group is fundamentally different,” Licht intones. “In Ogudu, there are secondary school students and are 14 to 18 years old. It’s mostly girls but there are three boys. At Ajegunle, they are about 18 to 25 years old, split about 50-50 gender-wise. In Lagos Island, it’s a mix, some are younger, in their 20s, some are in their 30s, but all identify as youths. So, each group has a different effect on me.”

    The Lagos Island group held each session with the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Monday Agbonika, in attendance while she led the other two groups to visit police stations in their neighbourhood. This was to ensure interaction between the youths and the police. Describing the experience of the Ajegunle group, she says, “that was a huge triumph. No youth group had ever visited the police station in Ajegunle. The DPO didn’t know how to deal with us. But, in the end of the day it was great.”

    In addition to that, she organised a field trip for each of the groups to the Lekki Conservation Centre. “They loved it,” she enthuses. “The youths loved it, the police loved it. Each group had different and similar reactions.” She says the trip spurred some of the participants to wanting to recreate what they saw there in their own community. “Those things,” she says, “included the clean air, the co-existence they saw of things living together in balance and in harmony, how trees and animals are living together, and then the freedom the animals had to move around.”

    She informs that the youths and police also liked the way the guides at the centre took them and showed them around. “There were things they couldn’t have known and the guide needed to show them and tell them about the place. That was how they wanted their communal leaders to be.”

    The trip was a leveler, according to Licht. “It had nothing to do with nature,” she emphasises, “but just being on the trip, we were all equal. We all sat together at the same picnic table. And we all ate the same meal.”

    Building trust

    According to her, trust is very important in dealing with different classes of people. “It’s not just Oyinbos that don’t go into Ajegunle.” Also, every upper-class Nigerians from Ikoyi, Yaba, VI, Ikeja; no one is going into Ajegunle for any reason. They (Ajegunle) don’t have attention like the rest of Lagos.”

    Hence, she says part of what she hopes her work will do is about building such relationships.

    To her, Ajegunle in Lagos is like the Bronx in New York. “It’s in the context of a big city but it’s on the side. The only reason you’ll go there is if it’s your destination.”

    Living in Brooklyn but working in South Bronx, Licht made a long and hectic commuting which saw her pass Manhattan, one of the wealthiest places in New York. The commute would prepare her for own initiative, UNITE, in Lagos.

    And while some foreigners may think Lagos is dangerous, she thinks otherwise. “It’s not dangerous,” she states. “It’s stress. Like getting on the bus, dealing with bus conductors, arguing over N10.”

    Having been in such situations, she says, “I want to be taken seriously. I want them (bus conductors) to know I know the price. And it’s my N10.”

    She adds; “One of the reasons it is easy to lose it here (in Lagos) is that you’re so stressed, hot, and tired. And there is little personal space.”

    However, she believes her overall experience in the country has been incredible. “This experience in Nigeria has completely changed who I am,” she states. She likes amala and gbegiri soup, moin-moin, roasted plantain, and corn and coconut. On the music scene, the Fullbright scholar likes Naija hip-hop and declares she likes P-square, Sunny Ade and that she’s also a big fan of Omawumi. And being a spoken word artiste, she also engaged with two groups; Freedom Hall, which is an open mic session, and Word Up.

    Organising the whole workshop which had assistance from various organisations including the Lagos State Security Trust Fund, Erica describes it as an intense period. She says, “I played the role of the curriculum developer, facilitator, organiser, planner, plus the secretary and the finance person, I handled every single letter for this programme. And you know how much work that is!”

    Speaking at a presentation at the United States Consulate General in Lagos, to signal an end to her programme, participants were full of praise for her work. According to Kehinde Balogun, a participant at the Lagos Island group, “the training on alternative to violence changed my thinking regarding physical confrontations and fight. I knew I would have engaged in many fights if not for the training I had.”

    While Licht would be sorely missed by her friends and those people she has touched, she hopes that through her partners, such as Monday Agbonika, the DPO at Adeniji Adele Police Station, UNITE continues.

  • My own experience with Achebe

    LIKE millions of others, my only contact with the late Prof Chinua Achebe was through his books. I cannot tell whether I read Things Fall Apart as a junior or senior secondary pupil, but I know for sure I read a portion of the book on Ikemefuna, the captured boy he adopted, that was published in my Intensive English textbooks for JSS1 or 2. I can also vividly reading a portion of another of his novels, Arrow of God, published in one of the textbooks.

    What I really enjoyed about reading his books was the way it explained the Igbo culture, their food, proverbs and way of life. For me, it was like stepping into a world far removed from the Yoruba background I had growing up.

    I have read some of the tributes written by both Nigerians and foreigners about this great man and I am immensely proud that such a man is from the same country as myself. Despite the negative publicity Nigeria has in international circles because of underachievement, fraud, and lately, insecurity, we are currently enjoying a glow because Chinua Achebe fulfilled his purpose in life.

    He is popular today not because he is known as a man of means – with houses, cars and oil wells in his estate – but because he used his pen to tell the African story the African way. Through his effort, he inspired a new generation of African writers. I have not written any novel so far, but I can also say I was influenced by the great writer. He was one of the many authors I read who moulded my writing skills.

    Like Achebe, I hope many of us will develop our talents and help our nation develop. Like the great man, I also hope our influence will extend beyond the shores of Nigeria and even the continent of Africa so the world knows we are not inferior.

     

  • South African experience

    South African experience

    Professor Abiodun Salawu, a former colleague at The Punch newspaper, used to be a Mass Communication lecturer at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, University of Lagos and later Ajayi Crowther University.

    I was, however, surprised to hear that he relocated to South Africa some years ago considering that there are not enough mass communication scholars to teach in Mass Communication departments in the country’s public and private universities.

    Following his recent appointment to Mazisi Kunene Chair at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, I had an online interview with him during which he spoke on his experience living and teaching in South Africa.

    Why did you relocate to South Africa?

    I relocated to South Africa because of the better infrastructure in the country. Today, it has the best infrastructure on the continent; certain aspects of these, some people call world class. The research environment is also an attraction. There are motivations and facilities for research.

    What is the difference between being a lecturer in South Africa and Nigeria?

    This goes back to my last statement. The infrastructure and facilities are there to enable you do your work without much hassles. Colleagues in the sciences appreciate this better as they require certain equipment and facilities in their laboratories to do their work. For us in the humanities, we appreciate more the abundant online resources that we have to do our work. Provision of basic office facilities is also appreciated.

    What do you miss about Nigeria?

    I miss the culture of our people. I miss the culture of respect for elders, of appreciation of good deeds, of communalism and of industry. I miss listening to high standard Yoruba on certain radio/television programmes and movies. I also miss our foods – amala, ewedu, yam, fried plantain etc.

     How would you describe living in South Africa?

    It is a more organised living.

    What should Nigeria learn from South Africa?

    Nigeria can learn organisation of higher education from South Africa. Research is a priority in South Africa and there is huge provision of funds to facilitate, motivate and incentivise it. Many of our colleagues in Nigeria do not have (regular) opportunities to attend international conferences, but this is what an average lecturer in South Africa takes for granted.

    We can also do better with little or no disruption in our academic calendars as a result of staff strikes. Since I came here, I have not heard of staff (either academic or non-academic) going on strike. May be, we can just say such is rare here. Of course, there are grievances but they hardly result into industrial actions. I guess we need to find a way of managing conflict in our public institutions. This requires sincerity. The campuses in South Africa are much more peaceful than our own campuses. The fear of student cultism is remote. Even when students go on strike, it is not usually prolonged; and the grievances may be about lack of study loans. There was a time when students at University of Fort Hare demonstrated and one of the things they were demonstrating about was lack of internet in their residences.

     

    Full interview on : staging.thenationonlineng.net/category/online-special/