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WRITE Yourself to FAME & FORTUNE!!!

in the

Liteary Star Search contest

for Nigeria’s star writers in the SHORT STORY category

(not more than 3,500 words long)

in the

One Million Naira Grand Prize,

with N300,000 and N200,000 respectively for the second and third best places. The best 25 stories will be published in a collection and entered for competition worldwide, including the Caine & Commonwealth Short Story Prizes

to apply, write a 3,500 word short story (double space typing) and enclose with Three Thousand naira (N3,000) Entry Fee in bank draft obtainable from any Zenith International Bank Plc branch nationwide, and payable (addressed) to Creative Alliance. Deliver by hand or courier service, addressed to:

Creative Alliance Nigeria Limited

(Literary Star Search)

1, Oladosu Street, Off Toyin Street, Ikeja, Lagos

or,

Mail through any NIPOST office nationwide to:

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(Literary Star Search)

PO Box 2442 Ikeja, Lagos.

For further enquiries, please call: 08057712377; 08091031390

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Lagos of the imagination… the writings of Ofeimun, Cole

By Anote Ajeluorou

Lagos. New York. These are the two famous cities that came under intense gaze last weekend in Victoria Island, Lagos. They are cities in which two writers’ creative geniuses took flight. The writers read and spoke about their artistic love affairs with those cities to enthusiastic audiences

It was such a rare and wholesome coincidence that the poet, political theorist and essayist, Odia Ofeimun, and blogger and novelist, Teju Cole, should hold readings the same day in the city that has come to define their respective creative enterprise. Expectedly, Lagos as a city and the absurdity that Nigeria has come represent also featured in their readings and conversations.

  Lagos as a city that has held or captured the imagination of writers of all shades has long been acknowledged. For these two writers also, it holds a special significance and they did not fail to say what it is. Being the city with the largest aggregation of Nigerians and foreigners alike, Lagos continues to excite and repel at the same time. But for such immensely gifted writers as Ofeimun and Cole, Lagos is a celebration of the creative genius and it continues to offer such immense possibilities.

  While Ofeimun has recreated Lagos in poetic idioms and Cole in fivctional mode, the city continues to yield more of its underbelly to willing artists. Cole is returning with a non-fictional work on Lagos after his first novella, Everyday is for the Thief. His new work, Open City, is on another famous city, New York City, where he has resided for some years now.

  At the open space of Cinnamon Café, reminiscent of an open courtyard in a typical moonlight tale session, Cassava Republic Press, publisher of Cole’s first book, had Cole in conversation with Tolu Ogunlesi. However, the courtyard effect Cassava Republic’s Jeremy Weate wanted to create didn’t quite work. The canopy space provided more humidity than expected. Weate had to take off his shirt to leave an inner t-shirt with the Hausa inscription, Bature, whiteman. Although the view ought to take in the proposed new Eko Atlantic City overlooking the ocean, the steamy discomfort overshadowed such artistic, idyllic intent.

Lagos the absurd

BUT it was a steamy session all the same with Cole poking fun all the time. While Cole’s Everyday is for the Thief is based in Lagos, Open City is about New York, and though he would soon return to Lagos, it would be non-fiction, he says.

  For Cole as well as Ofeimun, Lagos is where the creative muse resides. And for its aggregation of all shades of Nigerians and what the country has turned into, Lagos continues to offer writers a wealth of fictional options. Cole asserts, “Lagos is an immensely great city; it was part of my growing up years…” in much the same way as Ofeimun exclaims, “This city, Lagos, made me a poet”.

  But while Cole writes about the minute details of the many misdemeanors, the many illogical things that happen in the city that turn logic on its head, Ofeimun is engaged in the vast political shortcomings of Nigeria, shortcomings that have left the country denuded, and which Lagos so readily epitomises. The city also makes up the absurdity, the illogic that Nigeria stands for, a place where things don’t quite work, even with the abundant potentiality.

  So, Cole says, “I’m drawn to the perplexed aspect of humanity. There’s a fiction of order and stability in our lives, but there are things that don’t add up. Do we say it is well? Absurdity is part of our universe; things are always striving towards order, part of the centrifuge of our universe. That takes serious stuff, of life and things not working smoothly. There’s a little of something that has gone off, which you try to craft up in language.

  “It’s what comedians do, when they push the commonality out of shape, these things everybody sees. They are the things we see that have gone off course. You try to scribble it down before you begin to disbelieve it”.

  Since returning a few weeks now, Cole has had to see a slice of that absurdity in a police checkpoint. A fellow was beaten up apparently for not giving bribe along the Lekki road. So, Cole says that real life events in a place like Lagos, and indeed, Nigeria, could almost read like fiction, and even stranger than fiction. For him also, it is part of writing about Nigeria in ironic ways because reality has been stretched as far as it can go.

  For instance, the recently held National Honours offers Cole a way of looking at Nigeria differently. The honours’ list, he contends, reads like a typical EFCC list of high profile Nigerians wanted for financial crimes.

  For him, shameless, has become a byword by which Nigeria’s leadership operates. In such dire situation in which Nigeria finds herself, Cole argues that the greatest favour writers have towards their country is to be absolutely free to write about these unnerving things. He also concedes that in such situation, a writer’s role is to “bring everybody to a place of productive discomfort; you have to be fearless about your creativity”, with the possibility of bringing about needed change in your society.

OFEIMUN, who read at Lifehouse, Victoria Island, Lagos, says his poetry is rooted in the desperate struggles of Nigerians in their bid to survive the sundry harshness imposed on them by a leadership that has repeatedly failed to deliver on fat promises. So, he insists, in spite of indices indicating otherwise, that Nigeria is eminently a savable country. Ofeimun’s optimism is infectious given the many turbulent years of leadership fiasco the country has undergone.

  “I don’t write poetry that takes people to the clouds,” Ofeimun affirms, arguing further that “there is no art by which to make a statesman wise, and any performance in symbols can change the world. When it is said in relation to poetry, it simply means that we cannot learn anything from written matter. That is really what it means. There is no art by which to make a statesman wise is added to the order that poetry makes nothing happen. I just happen to disagree with this.

  “Any performance in symbols that can change the way we look at the world can make things happen; it can make the statesman wise. But why bother only about statesman? Educating that child who will become the statesman is actually more important than anything in the world. The kind of education you give to a child before that child is 10 years old may determine all the work that child will do in this world.

  “And for me, when a writer sets out, the first act of grace is to capture that child before you discover that child”.

  Perhaps, Ofeimun’s second manifesto as a writer is that literature makes things happen! For a man who studied Political Science, this is saying something of note. But such outlook has enabled him to have a broad view of life, and he effectively availed himself of the much that University of Ibadan could offer by way of extensive reading beyond his training in Political Science.

  Ofeimun’s poems have pelted army generals with stones in their acerbic venoms at the height of military rule. He specifically returned to Nigeria from London to be part of the historic June 12, 1993 Presidential elections presumably won by Chief MKO Abiola. Ofeimun’s concern for Nigeria’s economic health has grown in view of recent economic woes facing Europe, which he says may trigger a second attempt to recolonise or enslave Africa all over again.

  Nigeria, Ofeimun contends, has repeatedly continued to look outwards, even as the rest of the world, especially Europe, is looking inward to solve its economic problems. He blames the perennial distrust amongst African communities, especially Nigeria, where it has blown out of proportion, and the fractious situations on the continent. Such distrust, he argues, was what was responsible for the first enslavement of Africans, where communities warred against themselves to sell Africans to Europeans traders.

  Africa, especially Nigeria, Ofeimun says, is sliding back into the tragic era of 1884, when European powers partitioned the continent into arbitrary, ungovernable nation-states that have since defied cohesion.

  Continuing in his note of optimism, Ofeimun contends that Nigeria can begin to make cars and other products of technology, but he equally asserted that the very fractious tendency of pervading distrust will work against this noble venture and make the country permanently dependent on other countries for its technology needs.

  For Ofeimun also, literature is far more than just entertainment, as he says it must have a purpose and not something that should be taken on mere surface value. And so, he says his first collection, The Poet Lied, which he wrote when he was just 19, “is a young man’s manifesto as a writer; I wanted to be a writer. What is the point of doing something you don’t want to be defined by?”

  Also, it was the time when Wole Soyinka had just been jailed and rumour had it that Soyinka would be wasted by being injected with syphilis. So, The Poet Lied wasn’t just a response to J.P. Clark’s poem, ‘Casualties’ about the Nigerian Civil War, it was also about the huge betrayal that was part of the war in most part of the country, with brother or friend betraying brother and friend. London Letters and Other Poems is about his exile years in London and how Lagos was still very much on his mind as he contemplated the vast ocean and lagoon between the two cities.

  In the collection, A Handle for the Flutist, Ofeimun confronts the military establishment of the 1980s and 1990s and Nigeria’s perennial poor leadership that has stifled growth and development. He says, “A Handle for the Flutist is a declamation of what I think poetry should do… But they will not leave a poet in the people’s republic…”.

  Also, Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, was one personality whom Ofeimun says “captured my imagination very early, and every collection of poetry I did had a Fela poem”. Thereafter, he wrote the poem, ‘Sermon of the king’s horseman’ after Fela died, which he read. He also read ‘Let the lagoon speak’, the satirical piece, ‘London letter’ among other poems.

  Ofeimun’s latest work is on the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Salute to the Master Builder. He says, “It is a collection of all the poems written on and around Awolowo. Christopher Okigbo is one of the poets. Many people do not know that majority of the poems written by Okigbo were responses to Chief Awolowo. It’s difficult to tell my Igbo brothers who are chauvinists that Okigbo actually wrote those poems in response to a man whom many of them do not like.

  “Those who are not chauvinists can read them and see why one of our most exciting poets would write about Awolowo. Awolowo’s political ambitions and his policy orientations were very poetic in nature. When he talked about the dawn, he meant it in the sense that you will actually have day break away from darkness. As you would have noticed in that collection, all the major poets in our literature have written about him. There is a poet who is not there.

  “I wrote a number of poems, some in response to how I was victimised as his private secretary. Many people did not expect me to but it was good to do it as poetry because when I am going to do it as prose it will be a different ball game.

Cole and social media

HE started his literary journey on the internet with a blog that eventually metamorphosed into the novella, Everyday is for the Thief. Although his second work, Open City did not take that route, Cole places a premium on the social media for several reasons; he owes much to it, especially facebook. He testifies to the impact social media, especially its power of immediacy and publicity has had on his writing.

  His started using social media in 1999, when he began writing online and “putting my work out there for people to read. The internet was absolutely crucial. I was in Lagos in 2004 and when I returned to New York in January 2005, I wrote a chapter every day for 30 days on a blog.

  “With social media, you push yourself into instantaneous excellence; it’s an immediate form of reach that grants you instantaneous, real time narrative; it adds value to instantaneity”

  Although social media defined his work, there is a limit to which he would use facebook, for instance, else it becomes an addiction for needless self-exposure. And for an introverted writer like Cole, such exposure couldn’t be healthy, “as it can collect too much of your life. You need to have your own secret places. Boundaries are very important part of your health”.

  Perhaps, Cole’s armour and need for boundary in an increasingly borderless, global village is his introverted nature as a writer. This is a quality his two characters in his two works have in common. Perhaps, it is also what he shares with them as a person, even as he denies painting a self-portrait in them. He says he strives towards gaining understanding of the psychology of his characters, their interiority. Ultimately, it is such books as his that unearths the depths of human emotions and psychology that interest him as a reader.

‘Encourage young minds towards intellectual matters’

By Anote Ajeluorou

From all indications, Nigeria seems bound for a downward spiral. It was what motivated President Goodluck Jonathan to initiate the Transformation Agenda to bring the country back from the brink. Transformation to a new dawn also echoed last week in Lagos at the launch of a book, Rose and Thorns

Specifically, young Nigerians have been urged to take intellectual matters seriously in order to enrich their minds so they could be the vanguard of transformation that Nigerian society desperately needs to haul it from the abyss of under-development.

Chairman of the event, public elations expert and literary enthusiast, Chuddy Oduenyi, told the gathering of men, women and school children at Terra Kulture, Lagos, venue of the launch last Saturday, that poetry like Obiorah Momife’s Roses and Thorns, is an elevated art that enriches, ennobles and transforms the mind for the onerous task of building a better society. He praised Momife for taking the trouble to write poetry, saying, “poetry is the elevated form of literary engagement; that is why the quality of people here is remarkable, people who appreciate poetry.

  “This is why we should encourage the young ones to take to intellectual things. What enriches the mind like poetry is what people should encourage and appreciate. What Obiorah has done is remarkable. Your mind has to be developed to write, to think very deeply; it’s for people with uncommon talent. He has joined the league of immortals like Okigbo, who happens to be the poet’s patron saint. Okigbo remains the most remarkable poet to come out of Africa. Very few things endure in this world like the written expression.

  “What we need is a transformation to a new dawn, the resuscitation of values, and bringing out the things inside of us to contribute to the pool of ideas”.

  Although Oduenyi frowned at the low turn out, he, however, commended the few people who attended the book launch, saying it showed their commitment to the development of the literary art. He also said it would encourage young ones, especially the students in attendance, to appreciate poetry, and added that it was only cultured, deep and elevated minds that appreciated poetry. Oduenyi also charged the audience to support poetry for its future to be bright in Nigeria.

  To enliven the occasion, poems from the collection, Roses and Thorns, were read and performed to entertain the audience. Ese read ‘Bed of Roses’, Adesuwa read ‘Alabaster oil’, Funmi, with drum accompaniment, performed ‘Time’ to a roaring applause, while Gift also performed ‘Peacock dance’. There was also a cultural presentation, mostly drum performance, from the standing troupe of Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture to add spice to the afternoon proceedings.

  Intercontinental Distilleries, makers of Teezers and Finlays Tonic wine, supported the launch with their products.

  To review the collection was Alkazeem Abdulkadir, who flew in from Abuja, with the title, ‘Obiorah Momife: A Symbolic Interpretation of the Paradox of Life’. Rose and Thorns is a collection, which captures some memorable and excruciating moments in Momife’s life. An artist and writer, Momife’s Rose and Thorns boldly confronts some of the paradoxes that characterise life and how best to deal with them.

  According to Momife, Roses and Thorns was “borne out of several pains encountered in my life, the loss of a Job with Nigeria Airways, the frustrations that came afterwards both physically, spiritually, financially and otherwise. Then miraculously, a certain rose sprouted out of what was a desiccated, dead rose flower that had only "thorns" at the time.

  “The message, simply, is that in the beginning you might have love, then comes in pain and sorrow, but with patience and determination and, of course, faith in God, the sun will shine again and will usher in tomorrow with fresh hope for living...”

  Momife said exhilaration was what he simply felt, and then gratitude to Isioma and his children - Somtochukwu, Chimesomma, Ofiligonachukwu, Kamsisochukwu - and his bosom friends, and also to God Almighty, who made the roses to sprout again in his life.

LNG flags off Meet the Author initiative in Bonny Island to promote writers, books

By Anote Ajeluorou

Efforts by small groups and individuals to promote writers and books in the country received a boost with Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) launching its new initiative, Meet the Author campaign recently

The timing could not have been more appropriate, especially in a year that children’s literature took centre-stage in its literary prize. Recently, Mai Nasara, for whom children are special breeds, had just won the huge prize for his efforts in his winning work, The Missing Clock, in the Nigeria LNG Limited-sponsored The Nigerian Prize for Literature.

  Now, beyond awarding the most coveted literary prize in the country to deserving authors, LNG has joined the quest to encourage Nigerians, especially young ones to rediscover the joys of reading books so as to open a wider vista for themselves. The company flagged off its maiden edition of Meet the Author, a reading initiative, last week in Bonny Island, Rivers State, its operational base, where it took children’s author, Prof. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, to motivate the young ones.

  With LNG Primary School located within the well- planned LNG Residential Area in Bonny Island as venue of the maiden edition of Meet the Author event, Ezeigbo spoke to the pupils about reading, and why important it is to read. But these particular children were not new to reading. They had been given copies of Ezeigbo’s children’s book, My Cousin Sammy in advance as text of focus.

  And beyond that, they had read other texts far higher than their age. Their excitement bubbled over as they interacted with the professor of English, multiple award-winning writer and gender expert. They showed their depth of understanding of My Cousin Sammy as they responded to questions and freely gave their views of characters and issues in the book.

  By taking the programme first to its operational base in Bonny Island, LNG’s charity could be said to have begun at home. It was the place for the test-running of a project proposed to travel to most parts of the country in a determined campaign to interest children in rediscovering the joys of reading so as to equip themselves for the future.

  On Friday, Day 2 of the programme in Bonny, the situation wasn’t much different although the scope expanded farther. Selected students from schools within Bonny Island were conveyed in buses to the Ibanise Hall to listen to Ezeigbo, selected journalists and an artist speak to students about the need for them to take reading seriously, stressing that the exercise offered them the best window to view the world outside their limited environment.

  With the theme Readers Are Leaders as guide, Ezeigbo took the young ones through her own life experiences and how she discovered the joys found in books and has since become hooked to books. She wrote My Cousin Sammy, she said, because of a personal experience she had. On a broader level, Ezeigbo told them how the dearth of locally written books motivated her to start writing for her own children while they were growing up, to help them to be grounded in their local culture.

  She said, “It’s good to read foreign books, but you also need to read books from Nigeria about our culture, that way, you learn about other people’s culture by reading about them in books. I wanted to write about our culture, especially the speaking of mother tongue. Those of you who don’t speak your mother tongues start now. Your mother tongue helps you to know your culture, because language is the carrier of culture”.

  Also at Ibanise Hall, Ezeigbo tasked students everywhere to form Neighbourhood Book Clubs as anti-dote to the absence of libraries in schools all over the country. That way, they could exchange the books they have read with their colleagues. She said this in acknowledgement of difficulties Nigerian students currently face in not being able to source needed school materials readily as it was in days gone by.

  The selected students were from Government Girls Secondary School, Finima (Junior and Senior); Bonny National Grammar School (Junior and Senior); Community Secondary School (Junior and Senior).

  In stating the objectives of the project, LNG’s Head, Corporate Affairs, Ifeanyi Mbanefo, may have hinted at the kind of corporate social responsibility (CSR) corporate entities ought to take seriously, which is investing in the future of nation’s young ones. This is especially crucial these days when the nation’s educational fortunes have since nose-dived. Also, LNG’s initiative may seem a masterstroke where role models for children seem limited, especially in a society in the grip of multiple social malaise.

  Although Mbanefo had projected 2000 students in all, a little over 500 turned up. Indeed, there would have been no need for the limited number as the Ibanise Hall was less than half full. Also, organisers would do well to throw subsequent Meet the Author programme open to as many pupils and students that are willing to attend to benefit from the initiative. A particular school should also have been chosen in an area to host the event rather than a non-school environment for greater pupil/student participation.

  Nevertheless, the students showed great aptitude towards the book, My Cousin Sammy, in their intelligent questions and responses. They showed uncommon flair for writing and books with their engaging questions about writing, especially the challenges a writer like Ezeigbo faces, her motivations for writing, the place of talent and hard work in writing, what influenced the writer the most in writing My Cousin Sammy and so on.

  Also on hand to drive home the intentions of the author of My Cousin Sammy was foremost artist and illustrator, Sam Ovraiti. After each of Ezeigbo’s talk with the pupils or students, Ovraiti would coordinate the illustration part, where they represented scenes from the novel, as they understood them. Also, Federal Girls Secondary School, Finima, acted out part of the novel even to Ezeigbo’s delight. ‘Readers Are Leaders’ theme also became a debate topic that got animated contributions.

INDEED, literature and its creators or authors may seem the only ray of hope children are left with to point them in the right direction as they grope their way into adulthood. “We invite them (authors, journalists) just to prove we can find within our country enough unblemished persons the children will look up to,” Mbanefo said. “These are also people we can readily recommend to children as worthy role models… The programme is dedicated to bringing the joys of reading, and indeed of writing, to students whatever their circumstances or background may be”.

  Mbanefo also highlighted the peculiar environment in which Nigerian children operate, an environment of lack that readily inhibit their innate gifts from blooming to their full potentials.

  He stated, “Our main reason for this event is that we cannot run away from the fact that children in Nigeria are disadvantaged…. So we decided to bring these writers to dialogue with students, and in doing so, realise the dreams of many of our young ones… We believe that the best way to get children excited about books is to provide them with opportunities to meet authors and hear them talk about their work, their lives and their views of the world”.

  On Ezeigbo’s virtues as a writer and role model, Mbanefo said, “She is a writer who consistently continues writes beautify stuff. Yours is the true writer’s gift, which enables you to look intently at the world around you, and to see similes and metaphors emerge. You have written beautiful books. And, besides being a good role model, you have a voice everyone respects. So, we want to enlist your help to get our children interested in books”.

  Also, Mbanefo did not fail to highlight the benefits of such a venture to any corporate body (apart from Nigeria LNG Limited) so willing to invest in redirecting the minds of the young ones to the path of education when he stated, “From the standpoint of marketing, there may be a business case for it: Taking literature to children will be line-extension; it makes good economy of scale, gives us lower costs for our emotional brand – The Nigeria Prize for Literature; brings increased goodwill and enhances Nigeria LNG Limited’s corporate image”.

  More importantly, the LNG Meet the Author initiative, as envisioned by Mbanefo and his team, would boost chosen author and the publisher’s economic base as thousands of copies of a selected book would be bought in advance and distributed to pupils and students before the event to acquaint them with its content.

Echoes of Arab Spring Revolution at Lagos book reading

By Anote Ajeluorou

It all started in Tunisia early in the year when youths of that North African country rose against dictatorship, tyranny and bad governance. President Ben Alli was forced to flee into exile. That singular uprising has so far seen the exit of two heads of governments and the tragic end of one, and still rising

REFERRED to as the Arab Spring Revolution, its echo reverberated in Lagos last weekend at the Pulpfaction Book Club’s Book’n’Gauge monthly reading event at Debonair Bookshop at Sabo, Yaba, Lagos. Journalist and writer, Sam Omatseye and Chuma Nwokolo were guest authors at the event and read excerpts from their works. The occasion was the club’s contribution to the on-going effort at energising book reading believed to be on the decline in the country.

  Although Omatseye’s The Crocodile Girls and Nwokolo’s Diary of a Dead African and Memory of Stone are not cast in revolutionary mold, the two spoken word srtistes that performed, Efe Paul Azino and Jeffery Plumbline, expoused strong revolutionary, thoughtful lines that set the audience thinking.

  Plumbline’s ‘Dead President’ traced Nigeria’s tragic history starting from the death of the first Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa, with the first coup by the five Majors that eventually went awry to culminate in a bloody 30-month civil war.

  Plumbline showed the sequence of national failures that had since trailed that death and how the nation’s history has become checkered. Azino, on the other hand, expoused overt revolutionary lines in his new poem, ‘Justice Kidnapped’, which he tested on the audience. He stunned the packed Debonair Bookstore with the freshness and originality of his spoken words, ‘Justice has been kidnapped in my country…’. The corruption, the bad governance, the poor quality followership by the citizenry and all the other anomalies that have worked against Nigeria’s advancement found expression in Azino’s radical poetry.

  He also read his signature poem, This is not a political poem, which has earned him fame as a poet of choice.

  Indeed, the performances capped an already glorious afternoon of literary engagement that was fast becoming the hallmark of a rejuvenated quest for a rediscovery of the book as a national pastime. Following these poets’ performance, the question became inevitable: Could the Arab Spring-type Revolution be possible in Nigeria, where bad governance and corruption are unabating?

  For Azino, what a country like Nigeria needed was to talk itself out of a situation that could bring about such a revolution. However, Azino was skeptical about whether Nigerian youths had what it takes to usher in such violent change of government by standing up and demanding good governance and justice from their leaders. To his own question, he asserted, “I think they (youths) can demand good governance and justice from their government.

  “There’s always a tipping point beyond which their endurance can be tested and tried. I hope we don’t get there. We can get to the tipping point like the Arab Spring thing. But personally, I hope we don’t get there”.

  Azino further submitted that a revolution in a nation like Nigeria would be constrained by tribal sentiments. Rather, he argued that there is a need to engage the system constructively while also seeking personal social responsibility and accountability as possible models to follow.

  Nwokolo, however, argued that the Arab Spring Revolution has been a tragedy that ought not to have happened in the first place, saying, “Revolutions don’t discriminate in whom they claim as victims, including innocent people with the remotest ties to those in power. I don’t want that kind of thing in Nigeria. What happened in Tunisia, where it started was a tragedy.

  “Ben Alli was a revolutionary when he came to power in Tunisia and later became a tyrant; Mubarak was a revolutionary when he also came to power in Egypt. Muammar Gaddafi was a revolutionary in Libya before he became what he later became. Those who are intelligent should first think through things. What exactly do we want as a people? Government won’t get things right; governments never get things right. We need to think about what system to replace the current system with before whatever we do”.

  Nwokolo further advocated that the citizenry should show courage to demand what it is they want from their government, saying the Nigeria’s citizenry showed too much cowardice in the face of the bad governance that threatened their collective existence. He painted the incidence, where a handful of armed robbers usually held motorists to ransom for hours without respite, and argued that such cowardice is what those in power capitalised on to mortgage the future of the entire nation.

  He submitted, “What we need to do is change the way we do things in a transformational way. I have advocated a law that created capital punishment for corporate bodies to be liquidated; that will help solve our problem”.

  Omatseye, on the other hand, stated that the way Nigeria is constituted would make the Arab Spring-type Revolution impossible to organise. He argued that Nigerians were an opportunistic, hedonistic bunch of people that groveled from one extreme in shameless cross carpeting not possible in an environment seriously yearning for a change. He argued that what Nigerians needed was the Egyptian-type revolution that would force the leaders to see the need to change things quickly in favour of the masses.

  For Pumbline, a unionist, aggression, in a revolutionary form, is something to be avoided, as it does not have foresight. Instead, he argued that just as revolution comes in different guises, so also should it be pursued in its different molds, especially in its ideological type. He stated that Nigeria should find a model that best suited her and pursue it to create a better environment for the people.

 

HOWEVER, before the revolutionary talk, issues about the vexatious lack of reading in society took a sizeable part of the discourse. Omatseye believed that the Nigerian society is currently philistinic and opposed to reading and everything book or intellectual. He said he had a father, who had books and was always reading, and he’d talk about the books he’d read to him, and this made him want to read while he was young. He wondered how many fathers did that to their children these days to stimulate them to reading.

  Also, Omatseye ecalled that there were bookstores all over the place while he was growing up and that he used to walk a long distance to get the books he wanted to read. He confessed to having read Thomas Jefferson before he really knew who he really was. He lamented the absence of infrastructure in society, saying such lack create problems for the effective distribution of available books to those in need of them.

  To lighten up the event, musicians like Rubby performed Bob Marley’s Redemption Song and her own single, Okay.

  A book auction was also held to help raise money for cancer awareness. Two books, Teju Cole’s latest novel, Open City and Kenyan’s Bnynvanga Wainaina’s One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir were auctioned in the unusual 1k for Cancer campaign and to support the Pulpfaction Book Club reading events, where each bidder paid the amount he or she bided for on the spot before another person bided.

  

Rain of tributes for veteran broadcaster, Ndaguba

By Anote Ajeluorou

Last Tuesday at the open ground of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Ikoyi, fellow broadcasters, both old and young, gathered to celebrate the passing on of one of their own. Also, the gathering drew friends and family from far and near to say a word or two about Onwa Ikenna Ndaguba, a man for whom accolades poured like palmwine from a fertile raffia palm tree.

  Some of the finest broadcasters from Radio Nigeria were in attendance. Those from its TV counterpart, NTA, also made their presence felt. For all that gathered, the opinion was the same: Ndaguba’s life was one of celebration; not even death could take that away from the man commonly referred as The Master of Ceremony!

  To underscore his prized place in broadcast history in Nigeria, similar events are being held in parts of the country in celebration of a man appropriately described as, The Man… The Voice… The Commitment! Lagos Television station, LTV8, was on hand to relay live the night of tributes dubbed, An Evening of Reminiscences’. Broadcasters Bisi Olatilo and Bimbo Oloyede anchored the evening event.

  To underscore the celebration, moving musical interludes from the Lagos City Chorale directed by Emeka Nwokedi and performance from inimitable Onyeka Onwenu (with Ayo Bankole on the piano) also formed part of the reminiscences for Ndaguba.

  And although the Lagos and South-West axis of the national burial committee, organisers of the event, failed to hoist a banner outside the sprawling FRCN’s premises to advertise the event, the number of eminent persons and fellow broadcasters that turned up was ample testimony to how much Ndaguba touched lives while he lived.

  Former Director-General of NTA, Mr. Vincent Maduka, praised Ndaguba, whose voice was already resonating in Lagos before he arrived the scene in 1972 from Ibadan. Maduka also praised the distinctive quality of selection and training of Radio Nigeria staff that made them to stand out.

  He said, “Ikenna remained till the last a legend. The public sector tends to fall into decay but Ikenna remained and continued to make waves. I hope he made some money from broadcasting. With his talent and skills, he would have made a lot of money in the private sector. Although money is not everything - what he left behind remains. He was the golden voice of the business”.

  Chief Femi Adeniyi-Williams simply described Ndaguba as an icon, a man with whom he moved around a lot while they worked together. When he left for advertising, Adeniyi-Williams said he tried to persuade Ndaguba to join up but he refused, adding, “He was a wonderful man; I simpathise with the family”.

  Another advertising guru, Biodun Shobanjo, said he knew Ndaguba a little over 40 years, and described him as one of the best in the field. He stated, “At the old NBC, you have to be the best to read news, and he was one of the best. I called him ‘my man’. He would be in the studio doing rehearsals 10 minutes before time. He read properly, especially names.

  “He was grade A anchor. He’s done his bit and is gone. The concern now is today’s broadcasters, how they can be like Ikenna, to try and make the best of broadcasting”.

  Another of his contemporary and language teacher at the training school, Bode Alalade, confessed to feeling numbed on getting news of Ndaguba’s death. “He was my good friend,” he stated. “He was the finest broadcaster I ever met in my life. He called me ‘the source’ while I called him ‘follow-follow’. I’ll miss him even in death. Ikenna is not dead; he’s living with us because his legacies will live with us.”

  Veteran broadcaster, Kevin Ejiofor also lent his voice in reminiscing about the late Ndaguba. “A high master of the art of the spoken word; a gentleman in everything he did, how he walked, played tennis,” Ejiofor eulogised. “How can we pay tribute to him? Ikenna brought care and diligence to how he did all things and attracted people of all ages, and was always the centre where he was”.

  Like Shobanjo, Ejiofor tasked broadcasters on making their profession better by forming a body to regulate and monitor standards rather than allowing outsiders without professional know-how to rate practitioners.

PERHAPS, one eminent person whose emotions ran very high during the evening of tribute for Ndaguba was former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku. He knew him for 62 years starting from secondary school when he was 16 and Ndaguba 14. “At 14 Ikenna entered my school, and we were in the same School House,” he told the large gathering. “I immediately recognised the sonority of his voice and his goodness of manners. He was predictable as he did things expected of him. Then he was recruited into broadcasting because of his voice and his eloquence.

  “It always gave me pride when his colleagues worldwide spoke fondly about him from the BBC staff to his colleagues in Malasia. It’s not surprising he’s called ‘The Master of Ceremony’! Diligence is an apt word to describe him; he’d research his materials; he was such a thorough man. When he spoke or read the news, it was more than reading the text before him. You get the impression he was speaking to the subject he’s talking about.

  “For upcoming broadcasters, they should strive hard and emulate the performance of Ikenna. It’s not easy to speak adequately about Ikenna’s record. Those who know me know that I’m not flippant in my choice of words. But Ikenna was one of the greatest broadcasters all over the world. He had a voice you readily recognised. He has joined the few whose legacies we will remember.”

  Another of his contemporaries, Dele Adetiba, described Ndaguba as an accomplished person, who made a success of whatever he laid his hands on; a gentleman who lived without a single scandal to his name. More importantly, he said Ndaguba’s was the passing of an era. And he went on to name the long list of those who had made impact at Radio Nigeria and had since passed on including notable names like Earnest Okonkwo and Yinka Craig.

  Adetiba said he was one of the very few of his era still alive and expressed his fears at the rate at which his colleagues have all succumbed to death.

  For Kelvin Amaechi, Ndaguba was “an embodiment of sartorial elegance” and that his “humility was overwhelming; he was a superstar to me. He inspired you no matter who you were”.

  Former D-G, NTA, Dr. Victoria Ezeokoli, the only lady called to pay tributes to Ndaguba, roused the audience to finer elements of the late broadcaster and the locations of the two foremost broadcast houses. She made no pretensions about what the event was: a moment of mourning for the late broadcaster. She said time had come for people to stop celebrating three score and a half, as it made everyone forget to live longer than they should, otherwise Ndaguba wouldn’t have died yet.

  Ezeokoli affirmed her determination to live much longer. She remarked about Ndaguba’s days at NTA and her first memory of the man during the Operation Feed the Nation launch in the late 1970s, and then the liberation fund-raising launch for South West People Organisation (SWAPO) now Namibia, how Ndaguba performed excellently to gladden her as a Nigerian.

  The broadcaster, whom Maduka dragged from academic to the newsroom, tasked policymakers to consider allowing a free-flow of persons from radio to TV to enhance the two mediums. She quipped at how the two foremost government-own Radio Nigeria and NTA are located in dangerous neibourhoods – one near a cemetery and the other near Bar Beach! She suggested that the two broadcast stations ought to have been in the same location and away from such zones.

  Also to lend a voice to evening proceeding was songstress, Onwenu, who, in spite of the death of her mother, deemed it fit to grace Ndaguba’s evening of reminiscences and also roused the audience in her performance.

  In the few encounters she had with the man, Onwenu attested to Ndaguba’s thoroughness and professionalism and how he showed so much love for young ones. Proverbially, Onwenu said, ‘the day you’re mourning someone else is the day you’re also mourning yourself’ to signify that the evening of tributes was for the late Ndaguba as much as it was for all those in attendance.

  She said, “He (Ndaguba) hasn’t left us; he is with us. I just lost my own mother; I shouldn’t have been here but I felt I have to…”

  Ndaguba’s widow, Carroll, was also in attendance during the event. Her son also performed on the piano.

  Some of those in attendance were Ruth Benemasia-Opia, Sienne Allwell-Brown, Taiwo Obileye, John Momoh, Lola Alakija, Sonny Irabor, Cordelia Okpei, Funke Treasure-Durodola, Jones Usen, Segun Thomas and Femi Akintunde-Johnson.

‘Africa Has Lots Of Expertise That Europe Can Tap From’

By Anote Ajeluorou

Until very recently, Europe’s collaboration with the continent was a one-way affair with Africa depending solely on the West for all its needs. But things have long begun to change, so said the Press and Cultural Attache of the German Embassy in Lagos in a recent interactive session with the media. For Dr. Burkard Weth, the view that changed Africa is always seeking assistance from Europe without offering anything to Europe in return has changed, even in the West.

  Weth stated at the German Cultural Centre, Goethe Institut at City Hall, Lagos Island, that there is a lot of expertise Europe could tap from Africa and be the better for it. “Collaboration with Africa used to be one-way,” he said. “But now, it’s a two-way traffic of cultural exchange because we need their expertise, knowledge, ideas and scholarship”.

  He further explained that Germany’s cultural policy is a steady component of the country’s foreign policy, which aims to represent its strategic interests abroad. Such interests, Weth explained, include “Providing a contemporary picture of German culture and at the same time to create sympathies for Germany and stimulate curiosity for its culture.

  “Today, German policy must brace up to face numerous challenges like the progressive globalisation of the economy, science and culture, the deepening and strengthening of the European Union and the menace to security by terrorism.

  “So, first of all, foreign cultural policy should contribute to the creation of a peaceful world order. It should help to mask the problems, which arise from economic and cultural globalisation thereby reducing conflicts or preventing them whether ethnic, religious or cultural.

  “Secondly, German culture policy is aimed at supporting the European process of integration. So the European Union should not only be seen as a bureaucratic institution, future Europe should become a common public space. So, foreign cultural policy and education policy pursue different purposes.

  “First of all is the presentation of Germany as a country with a varied cultural scene. Second is strengthening Germany as a place for education by the assignment of scholarship to young people and young researchers from all over the world; spreading German language in Europe and all over the world; contributing to worldwide conflict prevention.

  “For example, the construction of schools and a university in Afghanistan, support of the European integration, the preservation of the cultural variety in the world in supporting the restoration of cultural sites in developed countries, and creation of a stable fundamental for international relations for the dialogue of all people”.

  Weth also stated the instruments Germany is using to fulfill its cultural policy at the global level to include such programmes as university exchange, foreign school cultural programmes, linguistic support and cultural dialogue.

  “Here in Africa, the strengthening of the cultural collaboration with sub-Saharan Africa includes a steady representation and structures in the respective partner country,” he said. “Then there’s social and human communication, offer of information, material support and lastly, language courses.

  “We have a lot of institutions with which we collaborate in order to organise these programmes. First of all, our main partner is the Institute. Together with the Goethe-Institut we organise exchanges; and there is academic exchange; we cooperate with DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service and a number of other foundations. These institutions help us to provide scholarships with residences.

  “One basic element is the preservation of cultural heritage. We support the programmes of research of the Nok culture and the preservation of Kano Wall. There are the political foundations, which also offer political education programmes.

  “So, there are a lot of programmes and different instruments which we use in order to show what is going on in Germany, to provide a realistic and comprehensive picture of Germany and to stimulate interest in the country, and for the population.”

WETH also gave his assessment of Nigeria’s culture since he assumed duty over a year ago. He said, “Nigeria has a very diversified culture with different landscapes, ethnicity, languages and rich groups. It’s so amazing; I’m still going to discover Nigeria. I’ve been to Kano, seen the Durbar. Nigeria is very rich and diversified and vibrant; it’s very interesting”.

  Unlike most Europeans setting out for Africa for the first time, Weth said he had a positive image of Nigeria before coming, having consciously read and learnt about the country, saying he had no preconceived notion. He advised, however, that politics and culture should be kept apart as culture has an inherent value of its own, saying, “culture should not be used as political instrument”.

  He stated that the German Embassy is doing all in its power to raise money to get certain cultural projects executed in the country. He lamented that counterpart funding from the Nigerian government had not been forthcoming, which he said has stalled several joint projects already planned.