The Celebrities Read Africa

The event was the third instalment of celebrity Read Africa at Terra Kulture and I was bent on beating the stigma of African Time. By bypassing the BRT buses and danfos, I arrived the event venue at exactly 3 pm atop an okada piloted by a happy-faced Fulani youth not long past his teenage years.

Thinking the event would already be in full swing at about that time, I hurried into the Terra Kulture library and was shocked to find it sparsely occupied. I looked towards the large wall clock on the far wall of the room to ascertain that I had not somehow arrived earlier than I thought I did. I didn’t.

Understanding then dawned; I had given up on African time, but most of the continent still hangs on to that mentality. Not to worry, I looked around the room, discovered Onyeka Nwelue among the early birds, and spent the next hour with him and another young Nigerian talking about the golly in Ghollywood.

My interesting discourse with Mr Nwelue set the tone for a very exciting evening that finally kicked off at about four with commendable poetry readings and music by upcoming acts.

Onyeka Nwelue opened the reading floor, rendering a thought invoking reading from his debut novel ‘Abyssinian boy’.

The organisers, who thoughtfully replaced absent advertised celebrities Kaffy and  Modele with TV and radio presenter Kachi Nochiri and actor David Nnaji, averted a potential low point.

The duo went ahead to give very impressive renditions of the respective texts they chose to read from. For Kachi, it was a narrative poem from Ayo Arigbabu’s short story collection ‘A fist full of tales’. While David read from Chimamanda Adichie’s ‘Half of a yellow sun’.

Their well-received renditions paved way for another high point of the evening, the reading by the only advertised ‘celebrity’ present, Tosin Martins, who wowed everybody with not just his dramatic reading of Dapo Adeleke’s novel ‘Thrills and trials’ but also the intellectual nature of his interpretation of it.

Tosin Martins was the revelation of the evening as his exhibition of a sound, very intellectual mind, caused many who previously thought Nigerian musicians are hardly intellectual to rethink their position.

After him came Harrysong, who performed, to the admiration of everyone, what he called an impromptu song he began working on just a few minutes prior. Adewale Orishade, a poet, read from his new poetry collection ‘Sad Nectar’. The poet Olulu performed to spoken word poems, then Chinelo ended the day’s performances with a Martin Luther King styled rendition of her poem ‘Utopia’.  

Another high point of the evening was the engaging discussion session between the celebrities and the audience. This discussion session brought out sides of the celebrities that the audience obviously knew little about as patriotism was exhibited in diverse ways. By the time the third instalment of celebrity read Africa came to a reluctant close at about 6:30 pm, I was feeling very elated for having being a part of this. Yes, the celebrities came and this time, they read Africa, so very well.  

Time to bite back harder

Weeks ago, while seeking creative stimulus on television, I chanced upon an American programme, one of those life-of-a-very-rich-brat formats that are becoming very popular these days.


This one centred on an eighteen year old girl who came home to receive what she termed the worst news of her life - a forced visit to Africa (it was actually Kenya) as a birthday present.

My grouse is not with the programme title (though ‘Exiled’, is a rather harsh name for a holiday to the Kenyan Savannah) but with the way, the producers conveniently skipped most of modern Kenya - minus a beat up Land Rover and a khaki wearing guide. The editor cut off all references to modern Kenya, leaving just a sparsely populated Masai village, whose natives paint their round earthen huts with cow dung - a point the teenager made sure to stress when her rich dad called her via satellite phone.

Another sore point is with the subtitles. The native guide in the programme, a tall, beautiful Masai girl inappropriately named Josephine, who spoke clear, just slightly accented English, had her words subtitled, while the nasal sounding American teenager, whose words seem to drawl forever, made do without subtitles.

Anyway, I took solace in the thought that the use of subtitles probably meant Americans cannot understand clear, well-spoken English. Perhaps I am propagating a stereotype here but what else does the constant use of subtitles when African speakers are concerned denote?

However, as we all know, double standards are hallmarks of the great western experience.

One would have expected Josephine to be invited to partake, even if briefly, in the ‘good life’ when her American guest went back home, but, expectedly, nothing of such occurred. The American girl went back home to tell about the horrors she faced during her five-day stay, further subjecting an already badly informed society to more miss-education .

Time and time again, I have come across condescending stereotypical opinions about Africa and Africans in the western media. I used to excuse these statements, believing, erroneously, that the writers did not know enough about Africa to form an opinion about the topic they chose to spotlight, when in truth, these writers were following a cultural script that sends every negative image about Africa to the top of the list without recourse to factuality.

I was so set in my belief that human nature makes it imperative for people to seek knowledge about the unknown, that a thirst for knowledge inherent in man makes discovery possible.

Well, I believed wrong. For the West, knowledge about Africa, when not linked to profit making, is generally constrained to stories about despotic leaders, child soldiers, wars, epidemics and recently, mass rapes. Even knowledge about economic potential exploited from Africa is usually left to the annual reports of western multinationals involved in the exploitation.

Sometime ago a friend pondered on his Facebook status about the common perception by westerners that Africa is one country. The answer, which I am sure you would have grasped, points to an institutionalised apathy to knowledge outside the western sphere of influence.

Thankfully, I was not one of those that bought into the Obamamania that swept this planet a few years ago.
Africans, even more than the African Americans, saw in that man’s ascension a sign of the acceptance of the African into the scheme of things.

They forgot that Obama, raised within the safety of his white mother’s family, would naturally feel more affinity to that race, hence, the little impact of his government on the perception of Africa on the global stage.

The battle to get Africa more respect in the western media should be an all-inclusive one. Let us shout to the high heavens when we feel aggrieved, let the African American media spare Africa more coverage; let their celebrities visit more, and not just our game reserves, let their writers counter the negative images that the west seem to feed off. Only by doing such can they find relevance in a society that begrudges them their blackness. An African American posting a picture of starving children in Somalia beside that of poor welfare African American kids in a quest to explain why she is proud of her ‘good fortune’ for being born American smacks too much of self loathing and the culture of ignorance we are talking about.

We in Africa should also do more to sell ourselves. We have to start believing again, to look beyond the toga of bad leadership and embrace a more positive outlook to life, if for nothing, then for the fact that the western world needs us more than we need them.

There is really nothing to be ashamed of in being an African, we may be poor by Dollar and Pound standards, but as Eric Donaldson said, ‘‘the progress you make is not about how rich you are’’.

Before we dismiss EFCC’S list

Image via Wikipedia

I read with interest, not just the list of ‘corrupt’ politicians recently released to political parties by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), but also the comments posted to the web by others who read the list before me and felt like venting.

For most of the commentators, the grouse is not the amount of money – staggering by the way – that those who made the illustrious list are alleged to have pilfered from our collective pocket, but with the EFCC, for having the temerity to conceive of such ill-thought-out-list in the first place. They barraged the commission for allowing itself be a tool in the hands of politicians who want to keep perceived opponents from challenging them in the polls.

The leaning of most of the commentators did not come as much of a surprise, for I have come to associate my countrymen with that unequalled ability to look but see very little, an ability that stems from an uncanny compulsion to defend those who common knowledge depicts as the chain holding our collective will in perpetual enslavement.

While it is not my intention to hold brief for EFCC, I however find something fundamentally wrong with Nigerians who allow themselves be constantly beclouded by politicians and their antics. A say this because the EFCC rightly called the list and ‘advisory’ one. As such, the list as presently constituted, is supposed to provide information about individuals who have cases to answer in court, to political parties that may want to field them in the 2011 general elections.

True, these individuals remain innocent until proven guilty. However, one thinks it is in the interest of the political parties and the electorate to know the status of people who might be interested in public office. On the other hand, if we all pander to the argument that asks that they remain unnamed, if elected, wouldn’t some guilty ones (again) enjoy the immunity that comes with political office, thereby defeating the aims and objectives of the EFCC.  

I don’t know, but it seems we as a country have become so used to corrupt leaders that thoughts of not having them in power elicits in some a mild kind of madness.

I believe the EFCC is bent on preventing the situation highlighted above and should be commended for having the will to draw up the list as it is.

As for those on the list, I doubt if they have any reasons to worry, if they are innocent, for the innocent have no reason to fear the law. However, something of import should be said here, cases against some of the accused that would have been concluded a long time ago, continue to drag as they (the accused) continue to use every available legal loopholes to prolong it. It is instructive to note that, had they allowed the cases to run at a natural phase, they probably would be free men now.

I do not really know any of these people on a personal basis, perhaps with the exemption of Ndudi Elemulu, who I was opportune to meet while serving as a NYSC member in his home town and Chimaroke Nnamani who held sway over my home State Enugu for eight, perhaps, not very productive years, so I will not presume to know the strength of their moral character. That said, I gladly leave decisions about their guilt to the law courts. However, I dare to state that anyone with a sense of decency would have fought tooth and nail to clear a good name, not fight to postpone the outcome of a case that seeks to clarify just that.

Nigerian politicians seem to lack positive ambition, not that they are not ambitious in other ways, as they seem very interested momentary gains. Most are willing to grab what they can without recourse to posterity. I usually cringe, when I recall the euphoria that greeted the emergence of Chimaroke Nnamani as governor of Enugu state in 1999. I was among those who saw the young medical doctor as a breath of fresh air. I believed, with his charisma and education, that he would ascend to the national pinnacle after serving Enugu state, but I believed in a dream that probably did not believe in itself as Chimaroke, the EFCC claims, went on to steal N5.3 Billion from Enugu state’s coffers and effectively constrained  himself to the dregs of Nigerian politics. I am yet to hear of a bill the supposed senator sponsored in the years he has so far spent in the that not-very-much hallowed chambers.

As for Elumelu, I really cannot say. For a young man whom I recall, as chairman of the House Committee on Power, seemed to embody the new Nigerian spirit, especially during the public hearings for his power probe, a EFCC indictment for corruption does all kind of harm to his image. Like I said before, I know him too sparingly to be a better judge of his character, but I still feel the disappointment of believing in his star too. I hope the allegations against him turn out to be false, so we don’t get to ask of him, “where is our money?”

Let all those in the list have their day in court. They should stop running away and clear their names as Fani-Kayode is trying to do, and if they cannot, they can always swallow their collective pride and follow the Lucky Igbinedion, and recently, Ibru example – Plea-bargaining, that great gift the law provided for criminals everywhere.

My thoughts on the current Niger delta crisis

Stumbled on an opinion piece  I wrote at the height of the militancy problem in the Niger Delta last year. Think it is still relevant...

My thoughts on the current Niger delta crisis

A whole lot have been said on the Niger delta crisis, governments have come and gone but this situation have persisted, for too long government and Nigerians have been held to ransom by a faceless group of so-called freedom fighters and militants. They have killed, burned and kidnapped hundreds of people and have recently effectively turned Nigeria into a kidnap haven only second to Mexico.

The money that has exchanged hands in the course of this crisis is enough to address the issues raised by the so-called militants. Granted, the oil explorations have caused untold hardships and environmental degradations, also the dividends of the crude is diverted to other well connected pockets while the goose that continues laying the golden egg is left root in abject poverty of want.

The so-called militants moved from being that to terrorists long ago. I believe that it is the lack of political will that have allowed them to thrive, that and the meddling in governance by greedy politicians and business men, who in my opinion should be lined up and shot. To move forward as a country we need to take our destiny into our hands and do away with all the money loving politicians and terrorists gabbed in the toga of freedom fighters.

I say destroy all the camps, capture all the leaders and find out from them who their godfathers are (yes they all have godfathers in Abuja) and let them all face the justice of the gun.

Why give them clemency to loot, steal, and then kill again? Why allow their godfathers to further subjugate the Nigerian nation? Why create a ministry to siphon more money into already heavy pockets.

Now we hear they killed some army officers in an unprovoked attack. Why won’t they attack soldiers when the government invites their leaders to Abuja for lunch and dangle a very big carrot of clemency before their painted faces.

We should see these boys for what they are, jobless youths who took the path of crime to earn a living that rivals that of senators. We should also see their political and businessmen sponsors for what they really are, mean mindless men who are so deep in corruption, they organize the oil bunkering that is ongoing while they lie back in posh air conditioned offices, sipping French wines.

I am tired of hearing the same sad story, I don’t want to pander to their whims and allow my nation suffer, I don’t want to wait anymore to let the truth be known, I want to make a difference and make sure it works, not hoping it works. Let’s move forwards together and allow this season of madness pass for ever.

As for the so-called militants, I am tired of their constant threats and kidnappings, I am tired of their constant killings and disruptions of oil flow by blowing up pipelines, I am tired of their blatant hypocrisy.

They are not the only wronged parties in Nigeria. If they must know, any Nigerian who is making do without good roads, constant electricity, portable drinking water, a good job and decent housing, is also missing I action.

Ok now, let us all rise up to bomb Nigeria! Stupid!

As for the army, I am sorry it took the deaths of senior officers for you to rise up to your responsibility, but the deed is done and any right thinking person will tell you to weed out the rotten eggs and not bomb entire communities in the search for elusive militants, whose sponsors obviously eat and dine with the powers that sent you to war.

For the oil companies, I think it is time we drive all of you out and find indigenous companies that can do your job. Oh! You think we cannot. Mind you, it is our people that work for you; I bet they know the job terrain better than your expatriate staffs in air-conditioned offices.

Thinking about it, I could not find a foreign oil company operating in America, abi them self no get oil? Shell na dutch company abi? How many oil Holland get?

As for the political class we have now, I have said before that, they should all be lined up and shot! With the exception of the very few good eggs amongst them anyway, only it will be very hard to know them since the system always find a way to corrupt the virtuous, see how Dora don dey miss yarn!

What am I doing? Well…I am writing a comprehensive novel set in the Niger delta. I have given it the title Rivers of blood. I am looking at all the possible situations and people, I will not spare anyone and I will kill all who needs killing while staying with the story. I will look at arms smuggling and the bunkering, I will look into environmental degradation and its effects on the locals, I will talk about the love lives of the militants and the people they kidnap, above all, I will tell a tale that is as truthful as fiction can get. I hope that it will open people’s eyes to the truth, but I will not take up arms to fight my government…yet.

N/B

If you are safely anchored in an air-conditioned office, drive around and air conditioned car after waking up in an air-conditioned office, I doubt if the reality of a stuffy mosquito infested shack will readily come to your mind. If it does, it is probably as a shivery horror that is someone else’s nightmare. How wrong can I be?

Ranting for Africans

It was my intention, this morning to write a flash fiction about the coming independent anniversary for Myne Whitman's naijastories.com.

But as I browsed through the day's news and took in some opinion pieces in a Lagos based newspaper, I suddenly realised how much we as a people have drifted, carried away by what I see as an ill blown wind, fanned by an overreliance on western opinions.

First, I read a piece where a woman, way into her fifties by her picture's reckoning, speculated about the coming of what she saw as a new fad, a first of its kind; denim jeans cut to fit the African woman's waistline. Timely, she says of it, but then she went on to complain about the route it took - from the west via China - and bemoaned it for not being African enough, as if trousers were ever African in the first place.

I was about to consign that experience to the dustbin when I was drawn to another article, this time the accompanying photograph placed the writer, also female, somewhere between late twenties and early thirties. This time the topic was food and she was complaining about our local foods, which she said she abhores because of the high calorie content. I would not have picked issues with her had she not gone on to reel out healthy food lessons that she obviously copied from a western fashion magazine, more or less calling diets that kept our forefathers strong and healthy, poison.

I would have screamed aloud if decency allowed it.

However, I actually let out some curse words (sub vocalised anyway). We seem not to know it, but our society, our Africanness, that thing that makes us whole, is slowly fading away and the painful thing is that we are doing nothing to fight this trend.

Yes, a society is supposed to change with time, to evolve.

This may or may not mean assimilation with another culture. In our case, there is little assimilation going one. Truth is, what we have is a one-way thing, with our culture being suppressed and overshadowed by imported values. Our gods are mostly dead, starved of the worship that all spirit beings need; our dances are mere show things; our customs are being shoved into the dust bag of history by youth who deem them too local and outdated, even as they embrace those of another, believing them to be new age, pristine.

I talk not for talk's sake, but to draw our eyes backwards, to return our souls to those days when we sought very little, when in harmony we breathed with the land we live, not the degeneration that people call modernity. Imagine, an African woman calling African food poison, all because a doctor who has never breathed a lungful of African air told her so.

We might not have the resources of the west, but we still have, or should still have, our head firmly on our shoulders. How can anyone say garri is poison, or call palm oil an artery clogger?. The fact that some of you have forgotten how to live in harmony with the earth does not mean the earth has changed.

I will tell you what the poison is. The poison is easy living, from air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices. From comfy couches at home to comfy swivel seats in your offices. The poison is those lumps of dough you buy in your high-class fast food stores. The poison is the lack of exercise that is big money's gift to you. The poison is processed sugar that you stock you refrigerator with. That is the poison making 

Africa fat, not our traditional cuisine.

As for fashion, well...a woman above forty really should have little or nothing to do with fancy jeans and whatnot. It is this misplaced fashion sense that has turned our young ladies into scarecrows. Yes scarecrows, with fake fingernails, fake hair, fake skin tone, fake eyelashes, fake lips, fake bosom held in place by padded bras and the like and fake accents.

We are not just losing our selves to this new elite-driven-western-hobnobbing, but our souls too. These days it is more fashionable than not to espouse ideas by the likes of Paris Hilton and the Kardashian sisters. Our ladies make their lifestyle choices based on premiums set by a society that is continually seeking to recreate what is already perfect. We try to dress like the western media tells us is best, mostly without recourse to our weather conditionality; we force our feet into extra high heeled shoes, regardless of the discomfort inherent in our mostly unpaved roads.

Africa, we need to wake up before it is too late. We should be exporting new ideas to the west, not embracing their junk. Now is the time to start, why don't we all start by not rubbing those foul smelling relaxers on our hair?

Note/

This piece was published in the passion for fashion page of Next newspaper on October 3, 2010