Nigeria Content Online

Learning a new
language is like entering a desert with blindfolds. You have no
knowledge of what to expect. There are sand blasts and wind gusts from
every side, yet you keep trudging along. That is a mild description of
my road to learning French. The only tool I took with me was fun. I
wanted to have fun on the journey. Fun here translates into: ask
questions.

Why did I decide
to learn French?

First, it was the desire to have a mastery of another
language. Well, learn something different from the known. Having spoken
English, Yoruba and a bit of Pidgin for a great part of my life; it is
a bit boring, don’t you think? A part of me thought: wouldn’t it be
great to gossip in another language? Wouldn’t it be absolutely
interesting to maneuver two world languages well, to hit their heads
together as if in a duel?

Yoruba and English
are languages that just stumbled on me, or was it I who stumbled on
them?

Bottom line is, I do not really understand or appreciate the
process of learning them. For Yoruba, I grew up in a Yoruba-speaking
environment, my parents speak my native Ijare dialect at home; and yes,
I studied Yoruba as a subject in school. For English, the imposed
lingua franca, it was spoken at every other place: school, on TV, with
friends. Despite this, my mastery of both languages has been questioned
at different times. My Yoruba can only take me through basic survival.
Yet, among young people of my age, I am a pro. And please don’t ask me
to do “ayan ogbufo”, or proverbs, in my native Yoruba language. I do
not speak any accented English; you know, the kind of English spoken at
fashion shows and on many radio shows these days: British accent in
conflict with American, you get me?

I may have studied
English throughout my university years, yet to get a PhD someone thinks
I need to take a Test Of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL) or
Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Someone thinks my English needs to
be assessed. Trouble is, my Yoruba tongue always gets in the way of my
English tongue, especially with the ‘H’ factor. I do not much
appreciate these languages because I more or less grew into them. It’s
different with French. Maybe it’s just my way to consciously master the
process of acquiring a new language.

Learning French is
like forcing an old man who has eaten all his life with the right hand
to use the left. It is forcing that part of my brain that thinks in
English to process thoughts in another language, a strange one. The
process is a tough one, one that has taken discovering similarities and
differences between the familiar (Yoruba and English) and the strange
(French). The road has been filled with questions. This desire for
answers earned me the name ‘Madame Pourquoi’ in class. It literally
translates to ‘Madam Why?’ For every rule, I ask, “Why?” Why do I have
to force my tongue to roll upwards whenever I have to pronounce ‘R’?

Why does French genderise everything?

For crying out loud, it’s a
thing; why personify it? We are in a language class, not a poetry
class. Why should a crowd of women with a boy be addressed with the
masculine plural “ils”? Often, I get answers like: that’s how the
French do it and you are here to learn French the French way. I still
wonder, how can I learn French the French way when I am not French? I
will never be, anyway.

‘Madame Pourquoi’ is about these questions, not some theoretical
postulations. Every other week, I hope to take you along with me into
my confused world of speaking French the French way. Follow me on that
blurry road where thoughts in English merge with the French and a
Yoruba accent. Welcome to my world of blindfolds.

Mudi Yahaya’s
photography exhibition ‘The Ruptured Landscape’ came to a close with a
talk by the artist at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Lagos on
April 30.

Aside from an
opportunity to interact with the artist, Bisi Silva, curator at the
CCA, said the talk was intended as an avenue to see how Yahaya’s work
is highlighting new directions in art. She added that it was an
opportunity to get a better idea of his methodology and trajectory.

Yahaya refers to
his work as conceptual photography. He said of the exhibition, “It’s
about what we’ve become after colonialism and trying to explore
postcolonial identities that have emerged in black and diasporic
spaces.”

On display on the
gallery walls were images of men and women in various states of nudity.
Some of the photos were very striking, disquieting and almost grotesque
but they all expressed deep significance which the artist remarkably
elucidated.

Woman as subject

‘Black Woman
Unplugged’ is a series of photographs of the back view of a naked black
woman, leaning against a white wall, in different symbolic poses. “She
tries to negotiate how to break the wall,” said Yahaya, speaking of the
wall as some sort of barrier.

Asked why he chose
a woman to communicate the message, he replied, “When you talk about
identity, it leads you to sovereignty… So, her body is a sovereign
being. We are also looking at the source of production. The woman is
where it all comes out from. When you talk about the black female body
being objectified, I flipped it. Here she is the subject and not the
object.”

Another series
depict a naked and pregnant black woman. One of the images show her
bearing the paper cut-out face of a white man. There is distortion here
as her hands look masculine, and Silva and other participants seemed to
notice this.

In reply, the
artist said that he purposefully used lenses that would cause the image
to be somewhat distorted, hence the seemingly masculine hands of the
subject. “The ruptured landscape means things that have evolved or have
been distorted. So I am talking about different aspects in this
landscape and space we are in in Africa, that have been affected by
different stimuli, philosophy, culture, media. So we see little pockets
of different forms of identity that speak out,” he answered.

Hybrid versions of Christianity

In another series,
the artist uses a male subject, a naked man holding an antelope head to
his groin. According to Yahaya, each of the antelope horns represents
the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible.

“It’s about the
issue of sexuality and the challenge between the African church and the
Church of England. The Church of England says we now allow gay priests
and gay marriages,” he explained.

He added that,
“You can see the subject here; he is sort of tense and struggling with
some sense of sexuality and he is hiding behind the Old and the New
Testament. We received Christianity from the West and we now have
hybrids versions of Christianity.

“We received an
identity from the West. We were told to adjust the parameters and we
say no. Every image here is an identity that is hiding behind
something,” Yahaya said.

History of violence

“In all
postcolonial spaces, it’s an irony or a coincidence that the experience
after colonialism is usually civil war. Our identity is tied in
violence and we expect it. Elections are coming and we expect violence.
Our identities are scarred with violence,” he said, while discussing
another series images focusing on a bloodied man.

There are streaks
of bloody tears on his face and on his chest the words ‘I love Nigeria’
are inscribed in blood. According to the artist, “We die in the process
of loving this country.” Yahaya explained that all the images are named
after films that deal with tolerance.

The title of one
of the photographs, ‘Do the Right Thing’, takes its name from a Spike
Lee movie and shows a woman’s face with streaks of blood and bruises.
“You can see her, she has been badly bruised. So many things are wrong
and in Nigeria – they say a woman cannot bail a man out. ‘Do the Right
Thing’ is an identity in this space as well,” said the artist.

The artist turned
his attention to the image of a bare-chested bearded man holding a
bloodied knife: “Because you see him with a beard and a knife, if you
take ten Nigerians, eight will say he is a Muslim, but the truth is
that he could have been a Jehovah’s Witness,” he said.

“He could just
have killed a chicken. He could be a Cele priest or anything, but
because we identify violence with Islam, you see an image like this and
you assume it is Boko Haram,” he added.

Yahaya’s images all embody a system of semiotics that go beyond the
nude figures and bizarre images to explore strong social and political
issues.

US-based filmmaker,
Olamide Maarore, is set to become one of those changing the face of the
indigenous movie industry with his debut film, ‘Aina’, which he wrote,
produced and directed.

He describes the
soon-to-be-released film as an “intelligent modern-day drama about
working professionals, the choices they make and the consequences they
suffer. A ‘Sex and the City’ meets ‘Jerry Maguire’, set in an urban
city.”

In this interview
with NEXT, Maarore talks about his movie and canvasses for sponsorship
to get it premiered, among other things.

Tell us about yourself and your training as a filmmaker.

I was born in
Lagos. I went to England while I was young and then the US in my late
teens. I love the arts and I understand the incredible importance of
art in society. I’ve always wanted to be in films since I was a kid. I
am also an Africanist. After all these years in Los Angeles, I decided
to come here and start making really good quality films which will
portray Nigeria as a sophisticated country and also to inspire people;
to project Nigeria as not just villages and hungry people but as a
sophisticated country.

I started out as
an actor in high school. I was the class clown. I attended the
University of Southern California. I decided to go into filmmaking in
the nineties because I didn’t want to continue to be typecast for the
stereotypical roles for black men in Hollywood. I didn’t want to play
the prisoner, the gangster, the killer, the rapist; all those
stereotyped roles. When I went for auditions, it was the same. I was a
criminal, a drug dealer or I was running from the police. Those were
the only roles that I got. I started working in productions and doing
everything to learn. I have worked as production assistant, light
assistant, camera assistant, director, gaffer, anything; any position
in the film industry, I’ve basically done it.

In 2008, I decided
it’s about time I start. I wanted the films I make to have social
relevance, to be shot in Africa and to tell the African story from the
African perspective. I didn’t want to leave it up to white people
anymore to be telling our stories. Each time they tell our story, it’s
always ‘Blood Diamond’ or ‘Hotel Rwanda’. So I thought that, with my
expertise, my creativity and my passion, I could come here and do
something. So I started writing a script. Came to Nigeria in 2009, took
a lot of the Nigerian nuances, influences, went back to LA, rewrote the
script very well, came back in late 2009 and started holding auditions.

You used fresh faces in ‘Aina’. How did you pull that off and why?

We did
advertisements everywhere in Nigeria. We sent out flyers, even to the
North. It was very important not just to do what everybody does: “Let’s
put (Genevieve) Nnaji and we’ll have a successful film.” No. You’ll
never cultivate new talent. The guy who studies theatre for four, five
years has no hope if everybody is using Nnaji. We did auditions in New
York, Accra, Calabar and London. Screen acting requires that you are
there, not just knowing your lines. I didn’t think choosing famous
Nollywood actors would work. And there is also the problem of ego. They
wouldn’t want to succumb to training and I am interested in cultivating
new faces.

Our cast are
average-looking Nigerians because we were looking for authenticity. Mr
Nigeria, Kenneth Okolie, is in the film and also Tony Akposheri, who is
the only old actor we used. Our lead actress is from Senegal. There are
some love scenes in the film and Nigerians don’t do that so we had to
cast somebody who wouldn’t mind. You don’t change the story for the
actor; you change the actor for the story. If we had gone Nollywood, we
would have had to change the story for them. I have tremendous respect
for Nollywood and what they’ve done so far. As a matter of fact I came
here to work with them. But to the marketers I say: you’ve made your
money. Now let’s make greatness. I think they could do [it] with
standard films, understanding story structure as well as acting for
screen. All these things are vital. We have to move from mediocrity to
greatness. We need to get our films into the Oscars, Sundance, Cannes
because this is what will put us on the map. I think they’ve gotten
hung up on the money. The marketers need to see the vision and invest
in great talent.

What makes ‘Aina’ different from the average Nollywood film?

It is a
well-written story. After writing, I sent it to a story consultant to
go through it. We paid attention to narrative. It’s a very romantic
slow drama. The story is about women and we portray them as modern,
young, vibrant Nigerians. We used fresh faces and it is 100 percent
shot in Nigeria. It has world value, in that it is a human story. This
is our way of launching the renaissance of new Nigerian moviemaking. It
is nicely shot and the costume is pro-African. We decided to shoot the
movie here because Nollywood shoots about 3,500 films a year and people
see these films and ask, “What kind of film is this?” It is sad that
our films are not respected outside our viewership. Our films are
popular outside Nigeria but [they are] not respected anywhere. My
friends in America buy Nollywood films because they want to laugh at
the shortcomings of the film. I want to prove to the world that we can
do what we want right. It was important for me to shoot this film here.

How long did it take?

Two months,
everyday, for shooting, but the whole production process has taken
about two years. The story took me a year and half to write – six
months for pre-production, four months for auditions, and we are on
post production at the moment.

What was the experience like?

It was the most
difficult thing I have ever done in my life. The logistics of making a
film in Nigeria is hard. Accessibility of locations, commitment of
crew, availability of equipment and the lack of inspiration from the
people you are working with because they do not believe you can do it,
were just a few of the challenges. I got scammed at different times. It
is doable but very difficult. There were so many times I wanted to give
up.

And the picture quality: did you bring in equipment from the States?

We brought in all
our equipment. Filmmaking is not all about the camera equipment alone.
We achieved the quality we did because we planned it very well. Every
person in the production process has their role to play in making the
film come out great. In Nigeria, one person does everything. I
initially wanted to use Nigerian equipment but we were scammed. We had
to ship in cameras and also hire foreign crew. We spent all we had. We
used Hollywood standard in this movie, in everything from
cinematography to lighting. We didn’t cut corners.

What was the cost of making this movie?

I really do not
want to reveal the detailed cost but it was quite expensive to make.
And that is why we need sponsors to help us get the movie out. My
problem in Nigeria is that I do not really know anybody. I left the
country first in 1979 and came back some time ago to bury my mother. We
are looking for sponsors, for the premiere of ‘Aina’ and our next
project.

Any suggestions towards improving the Nigerian movie industry?

There are many
professionals who are capable of doing great work. However, one of the
problems is that the creative part of the industry is being run by
non-creative people who are only there to make money. We need to switch
the pattern and say [to them]: “Hey, you want to make a movie, let me
do it. You go and market.”

We can also
improve by focusing on doing the right thing. I am inspired by Africa’s
greatness and potential and I want to see that day where a Nigerian
filmmaker goes out there and wins Best Director or Best Picture.

Are you using indigenous soundtracks for the movie?

Sadly, we are going
to use foreign soundtracks. Everybody we talked to here in Nigeria
wanted us to pay them heavy money instead of them seeing it as us
giving them a platform to be heard. Even for the costumes, I had to go
to the market, buy ankara and give tailors to sew. None of the popular
fashion designers around we approached gave us the time of day.

Do you have any other upcoming projects?

Our next project is
an action thriller, but we need money for it. We’ll be auditioning for
that in August/September this year. It will do wonders for Nigeria.

Organisers took the
excuse of this year’s Black Heritage Festival being low key a bit too
far at the festival symposium on Wednesday, April 27. The seminar, held
at Freedom Park, Lagos Island, started over two hours late and recorded
a low turnout.

BHF consultant and
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, however, attempted to rationalise the late
commencement of the programme. He attributed it to “post-election
euphoria or depression, depending on the side you are,” in reference to
results of the previous day’s governorship polls that were being
declared.

The festival
consultant touched on the theme of the festival, ‘Animating Heritage:
The Lagos Experience’ and broke it down for those who may have been
puzzled by its meaning. He disclosed that he was overwhelmed by the
concept of turning “a place of despair and hopelessness” into Freedom
Park, the first time he stepped inside the former Broad Street Prison.
He, however, added a caveat, noting that “I should be careful not to
tar prisons as negative places,” in reference to political prisoners
who don’t find prisons to be places of hopelessness. Kongi noted that
instead of their spirits being broken, political prisoners are
strengthened by their ordeals in prisons. Soyinka, who delved into the
history of the park, cited the examples of nationalists including
Herbert Macaulay and the sage, Obafemi Awolowo, who were imprisoned
there but emerged even more determined.

He expressed
happiness that the prison is being converted and that he found it
striking that “the performance stage is on the exact spot where the
gallows used to stand.” He added that “the most poignant aspect of this
(conversion from a prison to park) is that prisons can be turned into
animating spaces.”

Awolowo’s curse

Theo Lawson, the
lead architect in charge of the conversion, spoke on ‘Freedom Park: A
Restoration of the old Broad Street Prison’. He told the gathering that
he conceived the idea of turning the prison to a park 12 years ago from
a workshop with students. He said the students helped with the idea
before he submitted a proposal for the project to government.

Lawson discovered
while researching the prison’s history that it was first built with mud
and thatch in 1872 but that the colonialists, who had earlier
established a constabulary to keep nationalists in check, decided to
rebuild it with bricks in 1875 because of the then-prevalent fire
outbreaks. The bricks were imported from the UK at a cost of £16,000
that same year the colonialists were hard pressed to spend £6,000 on
education in the colony.

Some other famous
inmates of the prison include Adeyemo Alakija, Michael Imoudu, Lateef
Jakande and Awolowo, who reportedly cursed the ground upon his release.
The prison was shut down shortly after Awolowo’s release and no one
occupied it for 30 years. Lawson explained that what further lengthened
the prison’s abandonment period was that both the federal and state
governments didn’t want it, until the Lagos administration eventually
took it over.

Rational and emotional

Lawson said he had
no problems converting the prison when work started because it already
had natural elements of a park, including a lot of trees. He disclosed
that he was motivated to embark on the project for two reasons: the
rational and the emotional. He noted that Lagos Island needed a park
for relaxation because it was over-developed and over-populated, with
no green areas. However, Lawson rather overstretched his argument by
comparing Freedom Park to historical slave sites like Elmina Castle in
Ghana and other colonial forts. The designer also highlighted the
park’s benefits, including encouraging healthy living and complementing
the Green Lagos project of the government.

Reacting to the
non-availability of a car park for the recreational area, Lawson said
branded motor tricycles (Keke NAPEP) will be provided to serve the park
from Tafawa Balewa Square and Marina. He disclosed that there is
already a car park opposite Island Maternity able to contain 50 cars.

Lawson further
disclosed that he tried his best to contact a living inmate of the old
prison but was thwarted by poor documentation at the Nigerian Prison
Service, Ibadan, where records of the prison were transferred when it
was shut down, and the National Archives. He however disclosed that he
met a former staff of the prison named John Ogundare, who told him more
about the old Broad Street Prison.

Deji Rhodes, a
lawyer and one of Lawson’s collaborators who handled the Nigerian leg
of the research, confirmed that getting old records of the prison has
been a herculean task. He said he is yet to get information on any
former inmates but that he is still working on it. Lawson weighed in by
disclosing that they are collaborating with some agencies in the UK to
get materials about the prison.

One of the
permanent secretaries in the Lagos State Ministry of Tourism and
Inter-Governmental Affairs, Sewanu Fadipe, enjoined Lawson to replicate
the old prison, to maintain the theme and originality. However, Lawson
maintained that the concept was to create a park merging history with
recreation. He added that relics they have been able to salvage from
the site, which had earlier been allocated to four developers, will be
in the museum. He noted that while it will be impossible to restore the
prison to its former state, plans are afoot for a virtual library about
its past in the park’s museum.

Fadipe, who rounded off the session, reiterated the importance of
the annual celebration and assured that, “We will drive this state to
the next level with the Heritage week.”

I was a boy once.
In Catholic boarding school. I survived the experience, I think. The
boarding school I attended as a little boy in the 70’s would be deemed
a place of abuse here in the West. Our parents thought we were getting
an education. I was about to turn 11-years-old when I started Form One.
I had skipped Primary Six because I passed the concessional entrance
examination to a highly sought-after secondary school. My mother felt I
was too young to leave the nest. My father would have none of it; once
I scaled the interview, I was sent off to go spend a nerve-wracking
five years in this school about an hour away from the city where we
lived. I did not like it, I missed my mom a lot and I just wanted to go
home.

Our boarding
school was organised around several ‘houses’, each of which
accommodated dozens of boys. There was a hierarchy of juniors, seniors
and prefects. The seniors lorded it over the juniors and the prefects
lorded it over everybody. There was an infirmary where the sick went. I
was a frequent visitor to the infirmary because malaria was my constant
companion. There was the local hospital, Zuma Memorial, owned by the
late legend, Christopher Okojie. If you had a bad case of malaria, you
went to see Dr Okojie, a compassionate but stern father figure. Many of
us would be dead today without his pioneering work. There are several
myths and tales about the good doctor. Like: this day student went to
see Dr Okojie and when he asked what he’d had for breakfast, the yeye
boy recounted imaginary stuff he’d read about in books. “Em, nothing
special sir, eggs sunny side up, two slices of toast, crumpets,
marmalade and tea!” Well, he proceeds to vomit right there and then,
come and see miracle of Galilee: hot toast and eggs sunny side up had
turned into long coils of eba and okro!

There was a
student riot. We did not like the food. The tea was weak; coloured
water, we called it. This one evening, some hot heads decided we had
had enough of the abuse. We all marched to the teachers’ quarters
chanting something revolutionary along the strains of “Beasts of
England! Beasts of Ireland!” We had been reading George Orwell’s
‘Animal Farm’ in class. We all headed to the senior tutor’s house, the
most hated man in our universe, just in time to see him flee into the
woods half-dressed. The police came and we were herded into the dining
hall where our ring leaders read the list of our demands: we wanted
bread, real tea, tins of sardines, really important stuff that would
stuff our stomachs. We also wanted the beatings to stop. And yes, no
more exams, we really, really hated those. We ate well that night. The
next day, all our ring leaders were sent packing. They never came back.

Once, our dinner
goat escaped from where it was tethered, and I have a vivid memory of
all of us chasing this cowardly goat. We caught and ate it, of course.
Juniors served the food. We got the food from the cooks and served them
in numbered dishes. The seniors always demanded more food than we were
able to provide. Once, one senior got enraged that I served him the
bitter end of yam. He chased after me as I raced away in terror and he
broke my ankle by kicking me off the ground like a soccer ball. There
were many things that happened to little boys in those hostels. Sexual
abuse by older boys was prevalent. Stubborn boys like me who fought
back were beaten or severely punished for not toeing the line. Even in
those days, I was a fighter.

Kerosene lanterns remind me of the pain of darkness. Our principal
was an Irish priest. We lived in mortal fear of him. He was built like
an angry boxer. Lights out and we had to go to bed. We preferred to
continue reading with the aid of kerosene lanterns. In his white
cassock he moved around like a spirit, you never knew when he would
steal behind you and make mincemeat of you for some infraction. There
was always an infraction; it was the Catholic Church. He was powerful.
He could beat a little boy into a pulp. For all these reasons, we
called him Akhu, the Powerful One. Akhu would surprise a little boy by
climbing into a dorm’s window and if he caught the boy reading, he
would lift him up with one arm and pummel him to sleep. The boy’s wail
would be carried from dorm to dorm: St Andrew’s, St. Mary’s, St.
Augustine’s, St. Joseph’s – these houses were named after saints. We
would hear the plaintive wail of a boy warning of the coming hell. “The
Powerful One is here! The Powerful One is here! Hide your lamps!!”
Dominus Vobiscum. Let us pray.