The Nation Newspaper

Tag: hooked

  • Hooked to a ‘gentle giant’

    Hooked to a ‘gentle giant’

    Former Miss Elizabeth Yewande Awoliyi, a social media strategist and online manager for Genevieve Magazine got married to her heartthrob and Managing Director of Seabrook Construction Services Limited, Tosin Osho, last Thursday. The event was held at The Summit Event Centre in Ikeja, writes NNEKA NWANERI

    Nigerian-born Elizabeth Awoliyi,an online manager  of Genevieve Magazine went to England when she was eight. She returned to Lagos in 2012 . She shared her story of how she met her beau a United States- born Managing Director of Seabrook Construction Services Tosin Osho, the eldest of Mr Kayode Osho’s children.

    Elizabeth said: “I was at my friend’s bridal shower; at some point, I mentioned that I was single. About three people offered to hook me up with someone.  Tosin was the best man and we got talking almost immediately on whatsapp and we haven’t stopped talking since then. I first met him a week after the ‘hook up’ when he invited me to have lunch with his uncle and brother.

    “I fell in love with Tosin immediately I met him and he made his intentions quite clear. The day I knew I loved him was when an incident occurred that I thought he would scold me, but he just  reprimanded me with love.”

    She also expressed her admiration for his gentility. “He is a gentle giant that wants no trouble. He is the opposite of me-cool, calm and collected.”

    The young Osho reiterated what his wife said.  Tosin has a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management degree from the University of MD-Eastern Shore.

    “I was somewhat hesitant and shy at first but after seeing her pictures, I took the bold step. Then we met up with friends and family shortly after X-mas to attend a live concert. From her energy that day, I was thinking of how to know more about this lady not to minding her British accent. From then on, my day was not complete if I did not speak with her or send her voice notes on Whatapp.

    He went on: The day I knew I fell in love with Liz, I recall, was that evening we were to have a dinner together. But naija factor ended it  up as a group outing, which was fine. During the night I was really so intrigued with Liz-  her whole persona and the way she carried herself. The real selling point was how my family accepted her. I was just thinking to myself about her amazing nature and is it too early to share my heart-felt feelings? Well I did take a gamble, and put my feelings out there, conveying to her my emotions and she was taken aback, but most importantly she was receptive to them.

    He spoke of what a strong and intelligent woman she is and her great communication skills. “She really is a straight shooter and doesn’t mince her words. That attribute is very essential especially, in a new relationship of any sort,” he added.

    Last Thursday, in Ikeja, Lagos, their family members, friends and well wishers adorned in aqua- a light shade of green dresses, to celebrate with the new couple as they took their first step into marital bliss. They watched the lovebirds seek the blessings of their parents during the traditional ceremony.

    There was music, dance and enactment of friendship from many who came from far and near – Ilesa in Osun State where the bride hails from and Ekiti, Tosin’s hometown, to grace the occasion.

  • Sunshine Stars Bayo Adigun is hooked

    Sunshine Stars Bayo Adigun is hooked

    Sunshine Stars defender Bayo Adigun quit bachelorhood to marry Olasunbomi Komaiya in an elaborate wedding in Ibadan on Saturday.

    Adigun’s proud father, former Leventis United star Bunmi Adigun graced the event.

    Adigun has played for Shooting Stars and also overseas in Japan and Albania.

    The defender got a super wedding gift when his club beat visiting Giwa FC in Akure on Sunday to regain their leadership of the Nigeria league after Enyimba failed to win at struggling Bayelsa United.

  • Ifunaya and Charles hooked

    Ifunaya and Charles hooked

    Ifunaya Clariet Anih, daughter of Sir and Lady Philip Anih, got married to Prince Charles Ebosie, the son of High Chief and Lolo Ebosie.

    The wedding ceremony was held at St Peter Catholic Church, Ajao, Lagos. and guests were entertained at Neniv and Events Centre, Lagos.

  • Ezinne Ihejiahi hooked

    Ezinne Ihejiahi hooked

    EZINNE, the beautiful daughter of former Managing Director of Fidelity Bank, Reginald Ihejiahi, is off the single shelf. She tied the nuptial knot with her heartthrob, Adefolabi Akanbi Ogundoyin, in London last weekend.

    It was a close-knit family and friends affair at Rosewood Hotel, venue of the event, but the wedding by no means lacked no luxury. The couple had their classy family wedding introduction for last year contrary to popular perception that the bride’s father may be unable to pull off a fairytale ceremony worthy of his name and that of his late wife in the absence of his wife.

    He reportedly worked round the clock to ensure that the event met up with the taste of his late wife if she were alive. The brilliant banker expended every effort in conjunction with other family members to make a bold statement that, even in death, the image of his late wife, Ugochi Rosaline, still looms large.

  • Students hooked on hookah

    Students hooked on hookah

    It is a common sight in the Arab world and in highbrow clubs and hotels. Hookah, an exquisite smoking device, is used by the well-heeled. Some students have joined this exclusive club. They take delight in inhaling and puffing smoke from the device. HABEEB WHYTE (Nigerian Law School, Abuja campus) writes.

    t is a beautifully designed object. The affluent use it to cool down, puffing smoke from their mouths and nostrils. In the Arab world, men sit in circles on a mat in the open, the object before them. It is also common in highbrow clubs and hotels. Hookah “is a cool way of smoking”, so say those who use it.

    The device has found its way onto campuses, where student-smokers take delight in using it. To them, it is bye-bye cigarette, welcome hookah.

    But Hookah (or shisha, as it is popularly called) is enjoyable and hazardous. Hookah is a single or multi-stemmed apparatus for smoking flavoured tobacco in which the smoke is passed through a water basin before inhalation. For smokers, the experience and enjoyment are nothing compared with the satisfaction derived from smoking cigarette. From the thickness of its smoke and its tobacco content, Hookah is seen as the favourite of smokers, who derive pleasure in puffing dense clouds of smoke from their noses and mouths.

    The apparatus comes with four major components – a bowl, pipe, hose and smoke chamber- which are set up by smokers. This is unlike a cigarette, which is lit effortlessly.

    An average Hookah smoking session lasts more than 40 minutes, in contrast to cigarette, which burns out in a few minutes. However, in an hour-long of smoking hookah, smokers consume about 100 to 200 times the volume of tobacco in a cigarette.

    Also, the chemical composition of tobacco in a cigarette and hookah are different. The charcoal in hookah causes the tobacco, which is mixed with other ingredients, to be heated at a lower temperature, in contrast to a cigarette, where the tobacco is burnt at high temperature.

    Since smokers consume higher tobacco in Hookah than in a stick of cigarette, it is believed hookah is hazardous to health. Despite the health consequence, student-smokers are gradually changing from cigarette to tobacco-rich hookah, spending thousands to buy the instrument.

    A complete set of hookah is expensive. The least affordable electronic hookah goes for N2,100, compared to a stick of cigarette that sells for N10.

    In 2005, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that water-pipe (hookah) smoking poses a serious health hazard to smokers and people around them. The body said hookah is not a safe alternative to cigarette smoking.

    But student-smokers are not deterred by this warning. A single hookah is enough for a group of 10 to smoke tobacco to their satisfaction. Some smokers claim hookah is good to keep the body warm during the cold. But in all weathers, the instrument is not far away from student-smokers.

    To the surprise of many, hookah smokers are not limited to male students; female undergraduates also engage in it.

    To Abu Bakre, a student of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria, Kaduna State, hookah is the best way to smoke. “I smoke it whenever I hang out with my friends. We catch fun, smoking it together. I love the gum and mint flavour a lot. I smoke it twice in a week. It has made me stop smoking cigarette and I am happy about it. I used to exhaust a pack in a day but now, I prefer hookah because of its flavour.”

    To relax, Solomon Ebiaku, an HND II Accounting student of Moshood Abiola Polythecnic (MAPOLY) in Abeokuta, Ogun State smoke hookah. He said the instrument comes with a different smoking experience. He said: “It is something that I do once in a while. Although, some people smoke it daily but personally, I see nothing bad in it. Whether I smoke hookah or not should not be anybody’s headache. I believe I have rights to my privacy. Hookah has helped to reduce the number of cigarette smokers among students. Cigarette is cheap and harmful but hookah is expensive but reasonable.”

    In some campuses, hookah is not readily available to students. They only have opportunity to smoke it in clubs and hotels.

    With N1,000, you can enjoy hookah 100 times more than the way you enjoy cigarette, Supo Laniyan, a 500-Level Agriculture student at the Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State said.

    “The only thing that is disturbing is the abuse. Normally, the bottom container is meant to be filled with water but students now fill it with gin and rum. Also, the flavour is meant to be inhaled without being mixed but smokers here have devised means of mixing it with weed and other hard drugs. This distorts the concept,” he said.

    According to Ibrahim Salako, an ND II Civil Engineering student of the Federal Polytechnic in Ilaro (ILARO POLY), Ogun State, hookah smokers are deceived by its sweet flavours. “The bottomline is that hookah smokers die faster than people who smoke cigarette because carbon in hookah is equivalent to 200 sticks of cigarette. So what makes hookah less harmful?” he wondered.

    Abimbola Solola, a 300-Level Sociology student of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), said: “Hookah is dangerous to our health, but the manner students are getting addicted to it is worrisome. It has become an everyday thing on campus now.”

    Odunayo Whyte, a 300-Level Business and Education Studies student at the Federal College of Education (FCE), Abeokuta,said he learnt about hookah when the photogragh of a female smoker went viral on the social media.

    He said: “I discovered that students who smoke hookah are being influenced by people who are supposed to guide them. It is now everywhere on campuses today. We even have hookah competition, where students in various schools post their pictures on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to compare thickness of smoke. This is reality of ill in our society.”

  • How I get viewers hooked to my music videos—Nodash

    How I get viewers hooked to my music videos—Nodash

    Years after leaving urban music channel, NIGEZIE, Adekunle Adejuyigbe better known as Nodash has gone on to establish himself as one of the most promising music video directors on the scene. He speaks about his experience with music artistes and how he is able to make his productions one of the most exciting to watch on screen in this interview with AHMED BOULOR.

    AT what point in your career did you leave NIGEZIE and what exactly was your brief while you were still with the outfit?

    I was directing and editing for a certain period before I began to supervise things on the beat.

    What was the experience like?

    It was wounderful and mind broadening; I always knew I was going to end up on TV. That was one of the reasons I went to NIGEZIE to get the needed experience before I ventured into full time directing.

    It seems you knew where you were going from day 1?

    If you say so…Before I was employed at NIGEZIE I had a stint at NTA where I also sharpened my production skills.

    What’s your ultimate target?

    Doing major movies is my ultimate target and I wanted to contribute my own quota towards the development of the movie industry by doing movies that tell stories.

    What major movie productions have you been part of?

    Quite a number of them… I have been part of movie productions such as Journey to Self and The Young Smoker.

    Did you have kind of qualification in the area of directing?

    I studied as a director and the easiest way to answer such as question is by borrowing the lines of Quentin Tarantino who says “I didn’t go to film school but I went to the movies”. We live in a world where all the information you need is just at the touch of a button. Information is always available for those who seek it; but while I may not have any kind of qualification in directing I have studied harder that most people who went to school to study directing.

    Are you just restricted to shooting movies?

    That’s the beauty of what I do; I do shoot music videos too and I shoot them like I am shooting a movie. Whenever I shoot a music video I have it at the back of my mind that the lyrics written by artistes are mostly borne out of personal experiences and I try to capture that experience with the videos that I shoot. There is a story behind every song and I always ensure that I interpret music video like movies.

    How do you switch between doing music and movie productions?

    I don’t see a difference from my perspective and I ensure that I always try to tell a story through what I do. I see both activities as telling stories. Once there is a story to tell, the cameras will keep rolling.

    What informs your visual productions?

    The basic thing for me is that people are usually bored sometimes and my aim is that any visuals churned out by me should be able to entertain the viewer for the time it is been aired. I try to engage and entertain the viewer for the time my works are on air and telling visual stories is really one way to capture the attention of anyone who watches your works. They key is getting on the emotional side of the viewer; I try to make them cry, laugh and sometimes scare them.

    How difficult is it working with music artistes on location?

    I have not really had any issues with artistes; I think the reason is that, I try to prepare the mind of the artiste by sending him or her a script before-hand. I try to be as organised as possible and that involves me doing my home work so I don’t overburden myself when it is time for me to shoot the video. Generally, artistes are not as crazy as most people term them to be. They paid for the job to be done and no artiste would want to be unruly or not be at his best behavior when shooting a video.

    While interpreting your script what do you look out for?

    The first thing I try to determine when shooting a video for an artiste is to try to determine the brand of the artiste. I have discovered that a lot of artistes lack that basic ingredient; they don’t know how to project their brands, that’s if they have any in the first place. Whatever video I shoot for an artiste must interprete the brand of the artiste; then it must be entertaining. People must be able to see and identify with the artiste through his or her brand. That’s the problems of most music videos we have now; they seem not to be a connection with artiste in question. You see 10 different artistes from 10 different backgrounds shooting videos that are similar. That’ the trend nowadays and I think it is unfair to the viewer. For each video, each individual has to come out distinctly.

    Is that fact not because most artistes are crazy about the commercial aspect of their works rather than the artistic aspect?

    I completely agree with that assertion; people run after what has already worked for the other artistes. We also like following the bandwagon in this part of the world too; but I try to do something different. I try to create something new…

    Which is more tasking: shooting music videos or movies?

    Movies take a longer period of time and it is more involving and engaging to get it done. It takes a lot of time from pre-production to the production stage itself and post-production. Music videos are quite shorter but they are both tasking depending on the angle that you look at it.

    Which pays better?

    It depends on the budget; there are movies that have crazy budgets and there are also music videos that have crazy budgets too.

    What would make you reject a production job?

    I’ve had cause to reject some jobs and what would make me reject a client’s job is when the material is not encouraging. That’s when an artiste doesn’t have any message to interprete or to pass across; most acts do not make anything out of their lyrics and it will be very hard to interprete whatever they are singing through a music video.

    What home work should an average artiste do to ensure he gets the best out of his or her music video?

    First the artiste must have good music to push out there; the artiste must also have a brand to project. I consider shooting music videos and movies as an integral part of the society because whatever we put out there influences the society. The artiste must have something tangible to put out there.

    What are you working on at the moment?

    I am working on a whole lot of stuff and I also handle jobs for corporate bodies. I have a lot of movie scripts to develop and music videos to shoot and I wouldn’t like to give the names of the artiste for confidentiality reasons.

    What do you consider your best production?

    The next one…

    What places your works apart from other competitors in the industry?

    Most directors don’t direct because I am yet to see a director that tells stories the way we tell stories. We try to interprete the artiste through our productions while also ensuring that the viewer is entertained.