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Anyone concerned
that this year’s Osun Osogbo Festival may not hold because of the
passing of the Ataoja, Oba Iyiola Oyewale, on August 4, need not worry.
The people’s festival will hold, and in a grand style.

“Before
colonialism, the Yorubas were democratic. Whenever something like this
happened, the Yorubas had a mechanism in place. I have been asked by
the Osogbo Traditional Council to say we are going ahead with the
festival,” said Jimoh Buraimoh, principal coordinator of the festival,
at a meeting with the press on Thursday, August 11.

Buraimoh, a
renowned artist and high chief of Osogbo, spoke against the backdrop of
fears in some quarters that the festival might be shifted or cancelled
because of Oba Matanmi’s demise. But speaking at the press conference,
Buraimoh assured that the festival will still take place from August 16
to 27 as originally planned.

Special festival

The representative
of the Osun Heritage Council wasn’t the only one who allayed people’s
fears. Ifagbenusola Atanda, executive secretary, organising committee
of the festival, also gave reassurances. The Aare Alasa of Osogbo noted
that though the king is very significant to the festival, Oba Oyewale’s
demise is the king’s challenge to the people to see if they will be
able to hold the festival without him. The people of Osogbo, he
reiterated, will not fail to venerate Osun, as is the custom, though
the Oba has joined his ancestors.

Atanda added that
all earlier announced programmes will hold as scheduled but that this
year’s festival will be a special one to honour Osogbo’s longest
reigning king who spent 34 years and eight days on the throne. What
will make the festival unique, according to Atanda, is a rite of
passage for Oba Oyewale on August 27, the grand finale of the festival.

“It will be a much bigger festival than before. There are lots of things you are going to see on that day,” added Buraimoh.

Asked who will play
the Oba’s role during the festival, Buraimoh stated that Osogbo, like
all Yoruba cities, has a regency system in place. The Ajaguna of
Osogboland, Gabriel Oparanti, next in command to the late king, has
taken over until a new Oba is selected. Though this is the first time
in history a reigning Oba will die before the annual festival,
Buraimoh, Atanda and Ayo Olumoko, chief executive officer of INFOGEM
Limited, the company marketing the festival, assured that it will go on.

Packed festival

The activities for
this year’s festival had earlier been unfolded at a press briefing on
August 5; news of the Oba’s demise broke later on the same day. The
festival opens tomorrow, August 16, with the Iwopopo ceremony, the
traditional cleansing of the town, while a festival sensitisation
workshop holds the following day.

The
Olojumerindinlogun ceremony, involving the lighting of a 500-year-old
16 point lamp, opening ceremony of the festival art exhibition and
inauguration of the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove Management committee –
will all hold on August 19. The fourth Osun Festival Olagunsoye
Oyinlola Golf Competition comes up on August 21. Explaining why the
competition is named after Oyinlola, governor of Osun State, Olumoko
explained that the indigenes of Osogbo did so to appreciate his efforts
in projecting the festival nationally and globally since he assumed
office.

Three events, the
Iboriade ceremony, cultural film show and final of the traditional
wresting competition are slated for Monday, August 23 while the Ayo
Olopon contest and HIV/AIDS promotional campaign, come up the following
day.

Memories of the
late high priestess of Osun, Susanne Wenger, popularly known as Adunni
Olorisa, will be rekindled on August 25 at a sacred colloquium in her
honour, while the Sisi Osun cultural beauty pageant will take centre
stage on the 26th. The winner of the pageant will walk home with a new
Geely car courtesy Hyra Motors while the first and second runner ups
will get a plasma TV and home theatre set respectively.

The grand finale of
the Osun festival itself, to be chaired by Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi of
Juli Pharmacy, will hold inside the Osun Grove World Heritage Site on
Friday, August 27. The rite of passage for the late Oba Oyewale will
also hold the same day.

Some music too

Fittingly, the
festival will be rounded up with a musical concert on the 27th. Bonsue
fuji king, Adewale Ayuba, who is headlining the concert, underscored
the importance of culture at the press briefing of August 5. He noted
that a river that forgets its source will dry up; adding that he will
sing and lecture on the origin and prospects of the festival. Ayuba
also backed Olumoko’s earlier disclosure that there will be corporate
fora next year in the US, Brazil and Mexico as part of efforts to
further sell the festival to a global audience.

Fuji star, Saheed
Osupa who has been part of the festival for a number of years and is
featuring this year, also reiterated his belief in promoting African
culture, at the interaction held on August 11. “I’m a true African man
and will always promote African culture, I will always be original.
Culture is supreme and this is why others have been borrowing from the
Yoruba culture,” he said. The fuji act also decried the desecration of
kings, wondering why presidents and governors are now ranked before
them when they used to be second only to God in ages past. Other
musicians that will feature in the concert holding at the WOCDIF
Centre, Osogbo, include Apala musician, Asindemade; Benny Black; SKUKI
and Sehinde Kenery.

As usual, this year’s festival has a number of corporate sponsors
including MTN, Hyra Motors, MicCom Golf Hotels and Resorts; Star;
Seaman’s Royale and Oak Nigeria Limited. Regional Manager, South West,
MTN, Laolu Osundina, said the theme of its involvement in the festival
this year is ‘Know Thyself’. He also spoke on the importance of
culture, noting that there are heroes of the past that “should be
celebrated and projected for our children to know and read about.”
Osundina said the telecommunications company wants every Nigerian to
know “their culture and tradition so that they can stand tall.”

Chimalum Nwankwo
is a professor of Literature at the North Carolina A & T State
University, Greensboro, USA, and a notable scholar and poet whose
career of three decades has produced five poetry collections and a long
list of scholarly essays. The last of those collections, a 189-page
magnum opus titled ‘Of the Deepest Shadows and the Prisons of Fire’,
was just freshly published when he visited Nigeria from May to June
2010 and undertook a reading tour of some of the country’s
universities, among other literary engagements. He spoke to NEXT about
literary and educational issues, including his controversial charge of
plagiarism against the celebrated poet, Christopher Okigbo.

Could you share your mission to Nigeria and its highlights?

I came to respond
to the invitation of some schools to read and talk about my new book,
‘Of the Deepest Shadows and the Prisons of Fire’. The principal campus
was Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, where there is an ongoing
discussion for a joint MA degree program in English between them and my
base University, North Carolina A & T State University, Greensboro.
I read at Nassarawa State University, Keffi. I spoke comparatively
about education in Nigeria and the USA on [television]; I also read at
the French Cultural Centre, Abuja. I moved on to read at the University
of Nigeria, Nsukka, and Nnamdi Azikiwe University.

What makes your new poetry collection an improvement on previous ones?

A Professor of
History at Nassarawa State University called the work “the best
marriage ever between Literature and History through poetry.” The work
is really more than an improvement because of the new tangent. I was
looking for a metaphoric podium which many different people can see and
enjoy and appreciate. A different kind of politics is at work in the
poetry, a politics of personal commitment and public meaning.

Having been
active as a poet and scholar for about three decades, what do you
consider the attributes of a good poem, especially from an African
perspective?

A good poem places
you on an emotional precipice from which you can look at the world and
the human condition multi-perspectivally—a subtle initiation into
truths taken for granted. The African poet has so much in stock, and
new or potential invention because of the beauty and diversity capsuled
or ingrained in the numerous African modes of reading and knowing the
world.

A fallout
of your recent visit to Nigeria was a publication in a newspaper in
which you reportedly alleged that the poet Christopher Okigbo was a
plagiarist. Some poets and scholars have contradicted that allegation,
including the eminent Niyi Osundare. What is your reaction to that?

I did not know
that anybody of substance contradicted me except Professor Osundare. He
is a seasoned academic and also another well-respected scholar-poet.
Osundare was nuanced in his reaction. He responded like one familiar
with what we all call the Critical Tradition. As for my suggestion of
plagiarism, kindly look at these two poems, and if you have any
godliness in you, tell the world what you see, truthfully. Here is part
of a poem, “For You,” written in the 1920s by the American poet, Carl
Sandburg: “The peace of great doors be for you./Wait at the knobs, at
the panel oblongs./Wait for the great hinges.//The peace of great
churches be for you./Where the players of loft pipe organs/Practice old
lovely fragments, alone//The peace of great books be for you,/Stains of
pressed clover leaves on pages,/Bleach of the light of years held in
leather.//The peace of great prairies be for you./Listen among
windplayers in cornfields./The wind learning over its oldest music.”

Here is part of
Christopher Okigbo’s “The Passage”: “O Anna at the knobs of the panel
oblong,/Hear us at the crossroads at the great hinges/Where the players
of loft pipe organs/Rehearse old lovely fragments, alone-//Strains of
pressed orange leaves on pages/Bleach of the light of years held in
leather://For we are listening in cornfields/Among the
windplayers,/Listening to the wind leaning over/Its loveliest
fragment….”

How many of
Okigbo’s words in the above poem belong to his creativity? I am going
to let readers call the above what they want, but they must please use
their dictionaries and see the meaning of the word “plagiarism.” While
at it, remember that Wole Soyinka, one of our biggest academic stars
ever, referred to Okigbo’s work at another international forum as
“derivative.” Okigbo’s one-time friend and house mate, the really
unsung late great novelist, Nkem Nwankwo, was less gracious; he
referred to Okigbo’s practice as theft. I have nothing more to say
about this issue, but if you are still curious, wait for my full
article on African Writers and the West in the 2008 Harvard University
International Conference publication, which will be out soon.

You started
off writing and lecturing in Nigeria. How would you compare the
experiences of operating at home and in exile as a writer and lecturer?

As a writer,
working at home, my creative impulse is razor sharp. Abroad, I strain
to harmonise audience and resources. Reception abroad is less
predictable. At home I know what will move or send my audience to
sleep. Lecturing is no different. The African young student is hungry
for knowledge and anxious to learn. Abroad, you are a great teacher
when the student is awarded an A, and you are a demonic jackass if the
grade is unflattering.

Are there ways in which writing from exile has affected the authenticity of your work in terms of content and style?

Never! I am a
thorough Igbo man. I hear women and village maidens singing inside me.
I hear the atilogwu and its lilting mesmerising flute as clearly as I
see the sadness of people in want roaming the streets of “home.”
Luckily, some of the songs from childhood which I remember stay fresh
and vibrant in my inner ear. Quite a few, of course, I deploy in some
of my poems.

In your
preface to Of the Deepest Shadows and the Prisons of Fire’, you object
strongly to your being compared with Okigbo “at this stage” in your
career. Was there a stage in your career at which you would have
embraced such comparison, and why?

My first outing,
Feet of the Limping Dancers, imitated everybody from all over the
place: Africa, Europe, America. Comparing my first work with Okigbo’s
is like comparing imitations with an original. That is crazy. And
crazier, at this point when I have generated what I conceitedly call my
own “aerial zone.” Okigbo and the pioneers were the past. We are the
present.

There are hints of
a strong affinity with African/Black heroes and with the radical
impulse, not to mention a thinly veiled nostalgia, in ‘Of the Deepest
Shadows and the Prisons of Fire’. What is the relationship with the
development of your poetic art and sensibilities?

Academics today
say that one should always speak “truth to power.” That is exactly what
it should be. I am therefore, most times, in support of radicals who
challenge a negative status quo. That is the kind of sensibility which
informs most of the poems in this new book. The poet searches for
beauty always but a beautiful world has to house that beauty.

Some
literary critics or analysts may describe your poetry as Nerudismo on
account of what appears to be its dominance by arcane personal imagery.
How would you respond to such a description?

The more
unfamiliar a world is, the more arcane certain things seem. Neruda’s
“Macchu Picchu” and quite a few other poems of his dig deep into the
past in exciting myth-making exercises. I do virtually the same. The
holy tree, ogilisi, features in a couple of my poems. It is an Igbo
holy tree used to mark graves and boundaries and so forth. Nzu, which
I, for linguistic convenience, refer to as “chalk” in my poems when I
speak of “inviolable chalkways,” is another ritual marker. If you
encounter those expressions and objects without cultural understanding,
they become classified as “arcane.” Such habits call for patience and
diligence in a reader. Soyinka’s most powerful plays, like “The Road”
and “Dance of the Forests,” cannot be understood without his Ogun-ism.
Do readers flee because these plays look arcane to the “outsider”? No.
You bend down and study.

What would
you say is Chimalum Nwankwo’s contribution to Nigerian, African or
world literature, his literary or artistic legacy if you like?

Chimalum Nwankwo
is the poet of the aerial zone, the zone of bright lights and of
biggest possibilities. Those possibilities in art must initiate from
the African world. If I meet the West where ever the possibilities take
me, fine. If not, that is because we live in different worlds, powered
by different realities. I am an African poet, in agreement with almost
all the issues raised by Chinweizu and his friends about decolonising
African Literature. I am more inclined to follow Susan Wenger to the
great Yoruba mysteries around Oshogbo or follow Uche Okeke, Obiora
Udechukwu, and Tayo Adenaike towards the silken trails of Uli. I will
follow Soyinka to the great brotherhood where Ogun and Amadioha rule.
If I am not happy with these Nigerian brethren, I will head to Ghana to
read the great poetic psalms in the drums of Atukwei Okai’s ‘fontomfrom
fontomfrom’. African culture is very rich and the diversity means
endless possibilities. When Ezra Pound was laying the foundation stone
for what we call the Pound Era in European poetry, he did not enjoin
Eliot and his friends to go and start astral travel. Pound declared the
European practice jaded, and screamed a deafening “Make it new!” Our
newness steers us away from the stilted and unwieldy cultural chains of
our colonial masters. The African battle cry, our own make it new, is
there in ‘Toward the Decolonization of African Literature’. And it is
very loud and clear. If I use anything from the West, I do it with the
caution of our immortal Mbonu Ojike, after only carefully “boycotting
all boycottables !!!” I therefore do not care about World Literature as
artistic target and legacy. When Chinua Achebe was writing ‘Things Fall
Apart’, I do not believe he was aiming at a World Literature. See where
we are now.

Poetry used
to be the dominant literary genre. But it is now generally regarded as
an endangered species compared to the other literary genres. What do
you think can be done to improve its fortunes and possibly restore its
waning glory?

Police the gates
of creativity. Do not allow charlatans, loud mouths, and half-educated
English teachers to slip by. If you do, the vicious circle continues,
from bad teachers to bad student writers who produce discouraging bad
poetry. Who wants to listen to a bad poet? Or buy a book of bad poetry?

What is your advice to younger poets, published and unpublished?

Make yourself and
your work available for criticism always. Learn to suspend your ego. If
you are better than one or nine professors, never let anybody hear you
say it. Those professors or their friends may be in a position to
destroy your creative career with one secret paragraph of negative
assessment to somebody. Even if your works have won a hundred prizes,
remember what W. H. Auden wrote in his memorial for W. B. Yeats: “The
words of a dead man/Are modified in the guts of the living.”

Why Art?

I fell in love with
art. Art is life and life without art is boring. I can see art
virtually in everything I do. It’s in my family lineage so I got a
share of it. Art makes me happy, focused, and when am so engulfed in
it, I wander if I will survive without Art. I owe my thanks to my
parents for their support. Daddy bought me colours, art materials to
help me nurture this talent. Mummy would exempt me from house chores
whenever was engulfed in it. In school I studied a mixture of art and
the sciences, almost studying Pharmacy. But today I see it as an act of
God that I had the freedom to choose what I had passion for. Art is
contagious and I will transfer the energy through projects with strong
multicultural and environmental themes. The joy of seeing is believing
that the sky is just the beginning.

Training

In 1991, I gained
admission to study painting at the IMT, Enugu. At FGC Ilorin, I won
some prizes in Art collegiate competitions. Having acquired HND in
Painting in 1996, I went back in 2003 to crown it up with a BSC Art Ed.
in Painting, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), 2007.

Medium

I desired to be an
experimental artist as a journey through the world of Art, since
variety is the spice of life .I did not want to be bored, so I tried my
hands in virtually all the media, starting from the pencil, charcoal,
pastel, oils on canvas etc. But today the Acrylics on canvas is gaining
more ground as it is more convenient to achieve the blend of my
technique and the Aboriginal style I implore in my painting.

Influences

Art is contagious,
my trips have influenced me a lot. For example the trip I made to
Toowoomba in 2006 has an influence on my current paintings, though they
do so in an exciting manner that compels the viewer to contemplate, and
to yearn to possess them. More so, a marriage seems to be going on as
the batik making technique is infused into it with the darker
background.

Inspiration

My inspiration comes from poetry, Bible stories, nature and dreams representing abstracts.

Best work so far

I have tried to
balance the elements of a good design in my paintings, and I have my
strong points in works like ‘The Dancer’, ‘Deforestation’, ‘Mother of
Sorrows’, ‘Faces in Sydney’. These are my favourite in recent times.

Last satisfying work

Am yet to discover
any of my works that will be tagged ’least satisfying’, but I know that
one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so I allow my critics to figure
that out for me.

Career high point

I hope to leave
behind a legacy by God’s grace for the foundation of children through
projects with strong multicultural and environmental themes. I wish to
transfer the energy.

Favourite artist living or dead

I do not have any
favourite now, but any artist who does projects to affect lives, the
future generation and contributes to a better environment, I will
acknowledge.

Ambitions

To make an impact
in the society using the work of my hands. To create new ways of
painting, using art to create wealth for needy children. Preparing the
resources we have to be aware of the knowledge God has stored in them
which is yet to be tapped. Sensitising the public that our resources
are not oil and gas, but our children.

Football is in the
air. South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup has ensured that the
ball has landed firmly on the continent. Africa is still under the
spell of football-mania! A new book conceived in the run-up to the
World Cup is now out and, predictably it will be very relevant for
long. Titled ‘Africa United: The Road to Twenty Ten’, it is edited by
Stefan Verwer, Marc Broere and Chris de Bode and, it is a joint
initiative of World Press Photo, Free Voice, Africa Media Online and
lokaalmondiaal; Dutch personnel and agencies based in the Netherlands.

It’s all part of
the old legacy of colonisation that these editors and agencies based in
a small European country have comfortably journalistically pigeon-holed
an entire continent of over 50 countries into one homogenous entity.
The sub-aim of the book is “to enable African journalists make
themselves heard at a moment when the whole world is focussing its
attention on Africa.”

The assembled print
features and photographic documentaries in the book were independently
chosen by the media people assembled and ‘trained’ by the World Press
Photo, Free Voice and Africa Media Online, with the ultimate purpose of
“encouraging these media professionals to creatively produce reports
about football in Africa and to help sell their products throughout the
world.”

Eurocentric

Beautiful and
admirable intentions. The results are interesting and in some cases
quite predictable in that knowingly or unknowingly, a few of the
coverage were deliberating slanted towards perceived Eurocentric tastes
in stories and pictures. That a few of the participants were trapped in
the mindset of deliberating producing ‘sensational’ coverage for the
world media market is obvious! After all, ‘sensational and weird’
stories and photographs out of Africa are always guaranteed to sell
well.

Nonetheless, the
end-result is an innovative book that generally seeks to erase old
stereotypes and in place offer fresher, ‘cleaner’ and more modern media
examination of Africa, football and the ‘very special’ 2010 World Cup!

There are 25 items
in this attractively-produced 200-odd-page book, printed in Hungary.
The reproduction of the colour photographs is exceptionally good, with
true rich colours.

There are 13 features including the Foreword and Epilogue and 12 photographic documentaries on a diverse range of subjects.

Ghettorisation

The Foreword is
predictable in that the editors offer the naive hope that football and
the 2010 World might magically save Africa from its many problems and
provide “an excellent chance to show people a different Africa.”
Unfortunately, next comes a photo documentary ‘Soccer Worlds’ by
Nigerian Andrew Esiebo, in which he unfortunately seems stuck in
glamorising the ghettorisation of football in Nigeria. Is he
deliberately unaware of the academics and middleclass like Adokiye,
Odegbami, Oliseh, Owolabi (to name a few) who are also a valid face of
football development in Nigeria? He is in the uncomplimentary company
of Nikki Rixon of South Africa whose photo study Ghana’s Future Stars
is a grimy study of a village football academy. One wonders whether
Rixon is unaware of Abedi Pele’s successful academy and club in Ghana,
the Ivory Coast Academy that produced the Toure brothers or the Kwara
State Academy that are all world-standard and now rightly world-famous
as well?

Number 9 jersey

There is a
thematically inspired photo study Number 9 by Thierry Gouegnon which
weaves a visual story of the journey of the number 9 jersey of the
Burkina Faso national team. It traces the jersey from the laundry to
the ironing sequence to the owner/playing receiving it in the team
dressing room, adorning it and wearing it on the field of play during a
crucial Malawi-Burkina Faso 2010 World Cup qualifying match. It is no
surprise that the cover photograph of the book is of the owner of the
number 9 jersey, Dagano; after being interviewed by the press at the
end of the match and, then acknowledging fan support with his famed
jersey held over his head between his hands.

Other creative
photo studies show a re-enactment of the activities of one of Congo’s
early and famous female referees, Marie Agnes Makengi Kapinga /Mother
Malou, The Woman in Black and, a study of the official and social life
of Liberia’s Iron Lady, lawyer and current Chairwoman of the Liberian
Football Association since 2004 and Vice-President of the West African
Football Union, Sombo Izetta Wesley. These are by joseph Moura and
Ahmed Jallanzo respectively.

There are, for me,
four outstanding journalistic contributions. The Dream of Twenty Ten by
Thomas Kwenaite is a rollercoaster journey of the emotional journeys of
South Africans as they missed out on staging 2006 to the nail-biting
anxiety on May 15, 2004 as the nation waited with bated breath for the
announcement of the host for 2010. Tadele Assefa dissects the deep
passion of two of Ethiopia and the world’s greatest-ever long distance
runners and multiple Olympic gold medallists – Gebrselassie and Bekele
– for football and currently Chelsea football club. It also toruches on
their aversion and fear of attending live matches because of
‘suffocating’ crowds. Mark Namanya of Uganda writes about Rwanda
strongman and President Kagame’s total immersion while watching
football, his attention to detail, awareness of tactics and amazing
analysis; including his quip to his national team, “I won’t blame you
for losing. I blame you for losing having not tried.”

Jay Jay or juju

Nanama Keita of
Gambia confesses his unbound admiration for Nigeria’s Jay Jay Okocha.
“Okocha caresses the ball with effortless ease and leaves you wondering
whether he has a spiritual pact with the round leather object,” he
writes and then tells about how his long dream of meeting Jay Jay
finally materialised in Abuja in 2009.

Espera G.
Donouvossi of Benin Republic examines juju in African football as the
The Ultimate Challenge for African magicians. There are other brilliant
essays on Drogba’s healing powers through football for war-torn Ivory
Coast, how the dreaded dictator Idi Amin used a visit by Pele to win
favour and calm the Ugandan nation, how the death of members of
Zambian’s national team in an air crash put a ‘curse’ on national
football and the all-important reality of football migration from
Africa to Europe and beyond.

Esiebo redeems himself with beautiful portraits in a study of
Pool/Football betting in Ibadan. And Adolphus Opara’s photo study of
the impact of Mallam Wunti’s small but very productive
football-manufacturing factory in Bauchi rightly deserves the title
‘The People’s Hero’. For sure, the journalists and photographers who
have contributed to this book are in many ways Africa’s media heroes!

Since its inception
in 2004, the Super Story television drama series has been a
viewer-favourite, won awards and other recognitions and is currently
under syndication in several African countries. The series are
non-concurrent with each of them based on a different story that is
concluded at the end of the season. The stories, which are didactic in
nature, portray societal ills and deal with issues pertaining to the
family. They also serve as a window onto the African society from a
Nigerian viewpoint.

Amongst the most
outstanding of the series is Nnenna, which aired in the 2008 season
and, unlike the rest of the Super Story drama series, was especially
popular with children. The story was based on a ghost girl, Nnenna, who
had come back from the dead to haunt those who had unjustly killed her
along with her mother and father.

Twenty-two-year old
Yinka Olukunga, in her debut role, starred as Nnenna with seasoned
actors Alex Usifo-Omiagbo and Shan George playing her father and mother
respectively.

“Before I got the
role I was a model. I have appeared in advertising for Visafone, Dudu
Osun and Lux amongst others. I heard about the auditions for the role,
went for it and I got it,” says the bubbly actress with a casual shrug
of her shoulders.

Although a novice
to acting at the time of portraying Nnenna, Olukunga’s sublime
performance belied her lack of experience. Indeed the accolades she got
from viewers that enjoyed the series and particularly the affection
accorded her by children who now view her as a role model, was so
overwhelming that the series producers, Wale Adenuga Productions (WAP),
decided to do something to show their appreciation.

The Nnenna and
Friends Show, a live variety show/children’s party debuted on
Valentine’s Day 2009 starring Olukunga still in character as Nnenna and
appearing alongside her were other popular characters from the WAP
stable, like Papa Ajasco and Co. and the Soul Sisters.

Interacting with kids

“It is fashioned as
an event where kids get to interact and have fun with Nnenna and some
of their other favourite characters,” explained Eno Kennedy, brand
manager for ‘Nnenna and Friends’.

After the first
event, the show was subsequently scheduled to hold five times in a
year: on Valentine’s Day, Easter, Children’s Day, October 1 – and an
end of the year show towards the Christmas holiday and twice on the
same day. Apart from Nnenna and her friends from WAP, the events have
also featured top-notch music artistes and comedians such as MI, Kefee,
Sound Sultan, Princess and a host of others.

“We have seen an
average of three thousand kids at these events and that’s for each
show.” Olukunga ends the statement with an impish grin that is so
charming in its child-like quality that one can immediately see why
kids identify with her.

But she soon reverts to her brand ambassador mode to explain the main focus of the show.

“Apart from
entertaining the kids, the shows also serve as a talent-hunt,” she
says. “There are dance and music competitions and also plays where the
kids get to take part and display their skills.”

“This is actually
the main focus of the brand Nnenna and Friends,” Kennedy chips in. “We
want to encourage kids to discover and explore their creative talents.
Hence, we have [devised] the show as a sort of launch pad for young
creative people.”

The Nnenna and
Friends Show is currently helping to promote a group of talented kids
called the BIS kids. The BIS kids perform at the Nnenna and Friends
Show and have also featured in other non-WAP events.

Fan club

Still, Nnenna and
Friends are hoping to do more by putting some structure to the
talent-hunt through the yet-to-be-launched Nnenna and Friends Fan Club.

“The Fan Club is an
avenue through which Nnenna and WAP hope to invest in the Nigerian
child by encouraging budding talents in the creative arts hence its tag
line, “Celebrating Tomorrow’s Leaders,” explains Kennedy who goes on to
give a brief outline of its planned activities.

“The Club would
host two-week summer camps where children would undergo training from
professionals in the fields of music, dance and acting. Participants
get to go home with certificates and a chance to feature in WAP TV
shows.

“However, the
exceptional ones would be awarded with scholarships for further
training at reputable schools of dramatic arts both within and outside
the country. There would also be organised tours within and outside the
country and an award show were outstanding kids in the entertainment
industry would be recognised.

“In order to
achieve all this, we are willing to partner with corporate bodies and
individual sponsors interested in investing in the dreams of a child,”
she added.

Nnenna and Friends is currently the only non-product brand uniquely
targeted at children and so far, with its charming front-woman has seen
a rapid increase in following and in such a short period.