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When I heard of the
death of Basil Davidson, the great historian of Africa on Friday July
9, I was overwhelmed by a deep sense of personal loss, of a kind I had
not felt for many public figures since the assassination of Thomas
Sankara, the charismatic leader of Burkina Faso, in October 1987.
Although I never met Davidson, I had always thought of him as someone
to know in person. So deeply did his magnificent work speak to me I
often imagined I would write about him in this manner: a free-flowing
appreciation of his work, in grateful acknowledgement of what I learnt
from him, and just as often I imagined the piece of writing as an
account of a meeting.

About ten years
ago, I inquired about him from a British publisher I had met at a
conference, who told me that the historian now lived in an infirmary
and that his hearing was impaired. I was in graduate school at the
time, and had few opportunities to travel to England, out of pocket, so
I bid my time. While living in Portugal a few years ago I made serious
attempts to arrange a meeting and even had encouraging signals from
some quarters, but the encounter did not happen. After this I resigned
myself to the reality of never seeing him, and knowing how grown in
years he was—95 at death—I accepted that his passing would be
devastating, but not surprising. (The writer Kole Omotoso, who put me
in touch with some people who knew Davidson, said that though the
historian had lost much of his hearing his mind remained very sharp.)

He was the
preeminent historian of Africa; there is no debate over that. He was an
intellectual driven by a genuine passion and rather common decency to
record the past and the evolving present of the continent in all its
complexity. And he did this undeterred by the two cautionary roadblocks
most writers on this subject usually face. He evinced a readiness to
focus on the entirety of the African continent, and a willingness to
write about present historical events without a fear of being adjudged
hasty by posterity. In a field where scholars routinely argue that the
continent is too large to be spoken of as a unit, he wrote book after
book that touched on every part of the continent, sometimes on every
country, always looking for common thematic trends in ancient and
contemporary history. When he wrote about the rise to power of a
soldier, he was less bothered by the undemocratic route taken or how
soon the man of power would unravel than by the soldier’s actions as a
patriot. His stance is this salutary on the first, on the second, the
records are mixed.

A socialist

Davidson was born
in Aldershot, England in 1915 and became a soldier in the Royal Army,
seeing Second World War action in the Balkan theater. This experience
would feed into his work when he finally decided to write about Africa,
but before and after the war, he published several novels, about which
very little is known in part because they were published before he
discovered his great subject, which is amply and memorably recorded in
his essayistic but scholarly writings. He was a socialist, that is, a
political human being operating with the conviction that the modern
state ought to be in a position to supervise the redistribution of the
common wealth in such a way that excess is checked and each human being
has enough.

This orientation as
a socialist shaped the way Davidson approached African history. He was
a materialist in the sense that he believed that things are, that they
matter in specific verifiable ways, and that material forces in which
humans act as agents shape the course of history. His view of African
history frames everything he wrote about the various periods or events
in the continent’s long experience, but it is stated most explicitly in
the opening part of Africa: A Voyage of Discovery, the eight-part
documentary film he produced in the mid-1980s in collaboration with
Nigeria’s National Television Authority, NTA. Positioning himself
outside the frame and speaking from somewhere between Egypt and the
Sudan, Davidson said that African history did not start with the
continent’s contact with Europe. It had an impressive past comparable,
and in some cases superior, to Europe’s, and it was the Europeans’
violent incursion through the slave trade that ruined most of the
physical and the psychological aspects of that history. The duty of a
decent man or woman of letters, as he added in Black Mother, his study
of the Atlantic Slave Trade and slavery first published in 1968, is to
explain the present in terms of the past, to produce history, not
propaganda, which aims at just the opposite.

Africa in Modern History

In my opinion his
most important work is Africa in Modern History, published in 1978,
which both summarizes and demonstrates the themes of his work, using
the circumscribed context of Africa’s encounter with modernity to look
at the continent’s problems and prospects. The continent is big, to be
sure, and contains numerous multitudes, but through Davidson’s elegant
prose, lightened with irony and constantly powered by a deep
understanding of human abilities, this enormous complexity is rendered
accessible in beautiful passages in which the currents of history
passes from Mansa Moussa to Samory Toure through Herbert Macaulay to
D.D.T. Jabavu and Sol Plaatje. He shows how the fall in the value of
gold in the mercantile world of late Renaissance Italy was complexly
responsible for the maritime revolutions in which commerce in human
beings became the business of the day.

In all this, his
greatest investment is in African agency, the belief that Africans are
capable of making and do make their own history. His work constantly
pays homage to those of Africans who were his contemporaries—Kenneth
Dike, Adu Boahen, Festus Ade Ajayi, and Saburi Biobaku. He was a
personal friend of Kwame Nkrumah; Amilcar Cabral took him into
confidence as the documenter of the revolution in Guinea Bissau.
According to political insiders, his advice was decisive in the
Nigerian government’s 1975 declaration of support for the MPLA in
Angola, when Cold War arm-twisting might have weighed things in favour
of Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA.

Given his interest
in African agency, he tended to look kindly upon moral reprobates who
happened to be in power: having been privy to General Olusegun
Obasanjo’s support for MPLA, he would write positively of Somalia’s
Mohammed Siad Barre and later of Ibrahim Babangida, but Master-Sergeant
Samuel Doe unraveled too quickly to deserve his kindness.

Basil Davidson, historian of Africa, will be remembered for as long as people continue to generate ideas about the continent.

Akin Adesokan is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at
Indiana University, Bloomington, US. He writes this from Lagos.

The play, ‘Who is
Afraid of Wole Soyinka?’, with a generous dose of humour and
exaggeration, sought to bring to recall, the dark, turbulent times
following the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections;
and the subsequent assumption of power by General Sanni Abacha, after a
coup d’état to overthrow the interim government of Chief Ernest
Shonekan.

A day before June
27 at Terra Kulture in Victoria Island, Lagos, Theatre @Terra producer,
Wole Oguntokun, had at a BookJam event objected to Abraham Oshoko’s
statement, accusing Nigerians of sweeping issues under the carpet.
Oguntokun cited the works of several Nigerian writers, intended solely
at keeping issues firmly in the consciousness of the Nigerian populace.

It was, therefore
no surprise that with ‘Who’s Afraid of Wole Soyinka?’ Oguntokun
achieved just that. The note of reflective reminiscence was palpable
among the members of the audience, who were reminded profoundly of the
situation which the country had years ago emerged from: the black
goggled General, who bared to all, the ambition of enthroning himself
as the ‘life ruler’ over Nigeria.

Oguntokun dedicated
the performance to the memory of late Kudirat Abiola, whose daughter,
Hafsat, was in the audience. The play was preceded by a short humorous
sketch, which depicted the vacuous and narcissistic attitude of a
number of Nigeria’s political office holders.

Loose Cannon

Enter Daniel Loose
Cannon, played by Sola Iwaotan. Loose Cannon opens the scene as a poor
US immigrant who begs, with relatively little success, on the streets
of New York. Rather than return home with the shame of failure,
however, he prefers to keep eking a meagre living in this manner, as he
ponders “How can I go home? They’ll ask what I made of myself,”
illustrating how entrapped many Nigerians in Diaspora might be; unable
to return home with no evident success. Loose Cannon’s audience in the
play, however, somewhat unsympathetically, respond, “You’ll say you got
an LLB BL, bose lo lose bo (you came back just as you left).”

The next scene,
most surprisingly, has Loose Cannon back in Nigeria, now planning the
political campaign of the incumbent dictator, who is embroiled in a
plot to succeed himself. Loose Cannon, heading an organisation, BLADDER
(Body of Love Asking for Democratic Determination and Reform) solicits
the support of musicians, jounalists, traditional rulers, and an
effete, senile politician, in the person of Lukwu Merije, a
not-so-subtle indication of a real individual, one might guess.

Daniel Loose
Cannon, back as the fast talking upwardly mobile youth, quickly makes
an effort to organise the ‘stroll in September’, also an obvious
portrayal of the ‘two million man march in March’ planned by Daniel
Kanu on the platform of YEAA (Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha); or
Youth Earnestly Ask for Him (YEAH), as in Oguntokun’s play.

Anachronistic distortion

The play chronicles
the activities and state of affairs, which culminate in the death of
the dictator just after he has garnered political support in and
outside the country. The only clog in the political ambition of the
General or ‘Oga’ as he is called in the play, is his one nemesis – the
Nobel laureate Soyinka, the merest mention of whose name reduces the
general to screaming fits of terror.

Oguntokun, in a
brief departure from the familiar historical plot, incorporates a new
millennium perspective, as the general, in anticipation of his
successful transition from military head to a civilian ruler, is
courted by Barrack Obama, David Cameron, and Nicholas Sarkozy, among
other present-day world leaders – an effort, which resulted in a
slightly anachronistic distortion in a plot for which all other
inferences had been historical.

The most impressive
performances of the play, undoubtedly, were recorded through the
characters of Oga and his sidekick, Tafa, played by Kenneth Uphopho and
Precious Anyanwu respectively. The two actors exuded comfortableness in
their characters; and had their acts, along with their Northern
accents, down pat.

Incorporated
between the play’s acts was a slideshow of images associated with the
struggle for democracy. Photographs of democracy icons such as MKO and
Kudirat Abiola, accompanied by images of destruction and strife, were
projected while ‘Se na like dis’ by Wande Coal played in the background.

Felled by an apple

The play ends,
predictably of course, with the death of the general to the elation of
the populace, who rejoiced at how “Common apple kill Oga”; and the
disappointment of mercenaries such as Misty the musician, who had been
promised political appointments.

Also noticeable was
the ambivalence of Lukwu Merije, who had, in the course of the plot,
never made a positive input in the realisation of Oga’s ambition.
Instead, he was a prophet of doom, who repeatedly communicated the
impossibility of the General’s ambition with statements like, “I’ll see
you when you get there… if you ever get there.”

Though the play
should have ended on a jubilant note, with the country’s emergence from
the unyielding grasp of the dictator who had plundered its coffers and
persecuted its populace. It instead employed a mournful anticlimax, “In
the cycle of life, strange beings sometimes come to power… pray
earnestly that a new dawn breaks over our land” – which no doubt is
inspired by the current state of affairs of Nigeria, a country which
has still not managed to wade through the murky waters of bad
leadership.

Bogeyman Kongi

Little, however, is
seen or heard (by way of characterisation) of the Nobel Laureate, whose
name encourages an interest in the play, as Soyinka is employed,
instead as an invisible bogeyman, who though embodying the only check
for the excesses of the dictator, is kept well out of sight.

The play
incorporates an insight into the Nigerian culture by way of music,
dance, slang, and language. Also worthy of mention is the attention to
costume and props, as the actors’ attires, save Lukwu Merije’s,
enhanced charaterisation. The theatre acoustics and voice projection of
artists also worked together quite remarkably.

The staging, though
laudable, would have been even more commendable if it lost some of the
exaggeration of speech and action, contained in the scenes, and
substituted those with more historical fact or imaginative fiction.

International
theatre actor, O.T Fagbenle, who was in the audience, extolled the play
as a good chronicle of Nigeria’s history, but remarked on the seeming
unnecessary length of some scenes. In his words, “I think that each
scene should move the plot forward, and if I find my thoughts drifting
away from the performance before me, then a scene isn’t doing that; and
ultimately, can be cut from the play.”

‘Who Is Afraid of
Wole Soyinka?’ was part of the ongoing fourth annual season of plays on
the Nobel laureate to mark his birthday.

History was made on
July 13, 2010 in New York City when Femi Kuti, Nigerian musician and
son of the legendary Afro beat king finally went to see the critically
acclaimed Broadway show, Fela! He had been holding out on visiting the
show until he got the assurance that it would be brought to Lagos. “I’m
very proud of what I saw,” Femi said.

“This shows that
the fight is still going on,” an emotional Femi explained, when invited
on stage and introduced by Sahr Ngaujah, the Tony Award-nominated actor
who plays Fela in the show. Femi, who is currently on an international
tour and performed at the Lincoln Centre with his band, the Positive
Force the previous night, added, “Africans should have been the ones
who bailed Haiti out.” The audience was treated to a few more words of
wisdom as Femi continued, sharing his disappointment about the
continent’s leadership and economic progress. Femi then joined the cast
of the show in singing part of his father’s song, Gentleman, before he
left the Eugene O’Neill Theatre for a reception with a group of
Nigerians living in New York.

Standing in the
midst of cameras at the soirée, he recounted Sahr’s visit to Lagos,
explaining that the Broadway actor had wanted to get his family’s
blessing. Femi said that he wanted them to be confident in themselves
regardless of his opinion. “I am very proud of what they are doing,”
the musician said, visibly moved by the depiction of events he had
witnessed, such as the military raid of his father’s compound. “I cried
several times during the performance,” he admitted. “I was a boy of
about fifteen or sixteen when some of the things happened, now I am
getting close to fifty.” His grandmother, Funmilayo, died as a result
of the injuries sustained during the attack.

When asked what he
thought about the criticism levelled by some Nigerians that his
father’s lyrics as sung during the production had been changed, he was
quick to explain that the show’s creators did so to make it more
accessible to the audience of Americans.”What has Nigeria done for
Fela? Nothing.” Fela! is produced by Steve Hendel, an American who came
across Anikulapo-Kuti’s music and fell in love with Afro beat. He has
never visited Nigeria. However, as a result of his efforts, many people
in the US now have a clearer portrait of one of Nigeria’s most famous
sons. The show chronicles the life of Fela and his artistic and musical
journey, exploring some of his main influences. It also highlights his
relationship with his mother, Funmilayo, educating the audience about
her work, her teachings and her legacy.

The Broadway production opened on November 23, 2009, with star
power, fuelled by hip-hop mogul Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Academy
Award-nominated actor Will Smith and his wife actress Jada
Pinkett-Smith, the show’s executive producers. The premiere was
attended by Hollywood and music stars such as director Spike Lee and
legendary actor and musician, Harry Belafonte. It is still not an
uncommon occurrence to run into icons such as Madonna or Mick Jagger at
a regular Thursday evening performance. The hit show was nominated for
a record of 11 Tony Awards this year and has attracted some of the most
diverse audiences ever seen on Broadway. It is scheduled to open at
London’s National Theatre in mid November. Hendel, the show’s producer,
has also said that he plans to take the show to Lagos.

Major Zimbabwean
author, Tsitsi Dangarembga will be reading alongside writers Madeleine
Thien, Unoma Azuah and Helon Habila at the sixth edition of the popular
BookJam @ Silverbird, which will hold in Lagos on July 24.

Dangarembga, a
novelist, filmmaker and activist published ‘Nervous Conditions’ as her
debut novel in 1988. The book won the Commonwealth Writers Prize
(African Region) in 1989; and was listed as one of the Best 100 African
book. Almost twenty years later, in 2006, she published ‘The Book of
Not’, a sequel to Nervous Conditions, which traces the life of her
fictional character, Nyasha, as a much older woman.

Madeleine Thien,
winner of the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, is the author of ‘Simple
Recipes’ and ‘Certainty’. Unoma Azuah, author of ‘Sky-high Flames’, won
the Flora Nwapa/Association of Nigerian Authors award and teaches
English in Tennessee. The quartet of writers is completed by Helon
Habila won the Caine Prize for African Writing (2001), for his short
story, ‘Love Poems’. He later published his first novel, ‘Waiting for
an Angel’ to great acclaim; then followed up with his second novel,
‘Measuring Time’, about a set of twins, Mamo and Lemano, who go on to
live very different lives through Africa’s many conflicts. Habila new
novel, about the Niger Delta, ‘Oil on Water’, is set for release in
August 2010.

The BookJam, which holds monthly, incorporates book readings by
featured authors, as well as discussions, musical performances, poetry
and a raffle draw for participants who purchase books. The next edition
holds at the Lifestyle Store, Silverbird Galleria, Victoria Island,
Lagos – starting at 3pm on Saturday, July 24.

The late poet and
dramatist, Esiaba Irobi, is among 11 writers that have made the initial
shortlist of the 2010 NLNG Prize for Literature.

Irobi, author of
poetry collections including ‘The Colour of Rusting Gold’, ‘Hangmen
Also Die’, ‘Inflorescence: Selected Poems, 1977- 1988′; ‘Nwokedi: A
Play’, and ‘Why I Don’t Like Philip Larkin’ made the list with his
‘Cemetery Road’.

The play had
previously won the World Drama Trust Award for Playwriting in 1992.
Irobi will be following the footsteps of late poet, Ezenwa Ohaeto, who
shared the prize in 2005 with Gabriel Okara if he eventually wins.
Irobi died on Monday, May 3, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

Also on the list,
which contains eminent Nigerian dramatists, is Ahmed Yerima, former
Director General of the National Theatre/National Troupe of Nigeria,
and a past winner of the Prize. He won the 2006 edition of the Prize,
which is also for drama like this year’s with ‘Hard Ground’.

Renowned
playwright, Akinwumi Isola, is also on the list released by the judges
after five months of assessment of entries. His ‘Belly Bellows’ is
nominated. Other works on the list are ‘The Killing Swamp’ by former
Managing Director of Daily Times of Nigeria, Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo;
‘Perfect Mothers’ by Uduak Akpabio; ‘Leopard Woman’ by Philip Begho,
who is also a past nominee; and ‘Ata Igala The Great’ by Emmy Unuja
Idegu.

The others are
Zaynabu Jallo’s ‘Onions Make us Cry’; Ziky Kofoworola’s ‘Queen
Ghasengeh’; Irene Salami-Agunloye’s ‘Idia, The Warrior Queen of Benin’
and Uwem Udoko’s ‘Broken Pots’.

Members of the
Literature Prize Committee, led by its chair, Theo Vincent, will hold a
press conference on August 11 at Oceanview Restaurant, Victoria Island,
Lagos, at 10am to apprise the public on developments with the Prize.
Other members of the committee are Ayo Banjo, Charles Nnolim, Phebean
Ogundipe, Munzali Jibril, Dan Izevbaye, Zaynab Alkali, Rasheed
Abubakar, Ben Tomoloju, Abubakar Gimba and Joop Berkhout.

Judges who screened
the about 92 entries received for this year’s prize, which is for
drama, were theatre scholars, Dapo Adelugba, Kalu Uka, John Illah,
Tanimu Abubakar and Mary Kolawole. The Prize rotates annually amongst
prose fiction, poetry, drama and children’s literature.

The winner of the Prize will be announced on October 9, 2010 at the
Grand Award Night holding in Lagos. Managing Director of the NLNG,
Chima Ibeneche, will deliver the keynote address at the occasion while
veteran Nollywood actor, Sam Loco Efe, will be the special guest of
honour.

When Nse Ikpe-Etim
played Omoze, fiery wife to a philandering husband (the usual suspect,
Ramsey Tokunbo Noah) in the 2008 Emem Isong hit, ‘Reloaded’, little did
she know that the character would fetch her instant fame. She
immediately struck a chord with viewers, especially the female folk,
who responded with empathy.

Not only is
‘Reloaded’ her most talked about movie to date, it earned her a
nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the African Movie
Academy Awards (AMAA) a year later (Funke Akindele won the award, for
‘Jenifa’). After a 13-year hiatus from the scene, the leggy actress
bounced back with a sterling performance which, in her own words,
surpassed her expectations. “I had an opportunity to see the script
before anyone else, so I knew about the story line,” she says of
‘Reloaded’. “It was not the role I wanted, but when I was given [it], I
only prayed that the director (Isong) will not have my head because I
knew I was really rusty. I had not done anything in a while, but I
guess I delivered. Then I did ‘Guilty Pleasures’.”

The ambience of the
Swe Bar & Lounge on Lagos Island, where this impromptu interview
holds, is serene, with only pockets of people in some corners, yet the
Akwa-Ibom born actress does not go around unnoticed. As soon as she
steps in a few fans recognise her and then a male fan walks up to her,
hugs her, and says, “Oh, you are so beautiful!” Embarrassed, she
mutters “thank you.” At first glance, she does not come across as an
‘in your face’ actress, yet a conversation with her is a roller-coaster
ride, as her assertive nature and storytelling prowess kick in.

Daddy’s girl

As the first child
in a close-knit family of 6 children, the actress was at an early age
entrusted with the responsibility of looking after her younger ones. “I
learnt to read at an early age because my daddy would not let me read
what girls my age were reading, so I grew up really early. I started
reading Sidney Sheldon when I was about 11 or so. I had one doll; I
also had a dog and a canary. I grew up reading books much more than I
watched TV.”

As a child, she
knew she would end up in the arts but her banker-father, like many
Nigerian parents, would not hear anything of that because he wanted her
in the sciences. Ikpe-Etim was a step closer to reading her dream
course – Theatre Arts – after her father’s death, but she still had one
more hurdle to cross: her mum, a teacher.

“My mum filled my
Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) form for Law but I tore
it up, went to my dad’s friend, and begged him for money (told him I
didn’t have money to buy JAMB form). I bought the JAMB form, and then I
filled in Theatre Arts (laughs). Mum found out a year later; I was
already studying Theatre Arts at the University of Calabar (UNICAL).
There was nothing she could do, but she has been supportive.”

Nse enters Nollywood

As one of the few
actresses who starred in the early Nollywood flicks, Ikpe-Etim’s foray
into movies began in 1995 upon graduation from the university, when she
appeared in ‘Venom of Justice’ as an extra. She was then cast in ‘The
Scars of Womanhood’ – as an extra, but as a friend to the lead actress,
Kate Henshaw. Ikpe-Etim later featured in other movies, including
‘Rampage’ and ‘Inheritance’, before she left the scene in search of
bigger challenges.

The search

As a self-confessed
perfectionist, the actress has spent her life searching for greener
pastures in various disciplines. She tried her hands out at banking but
left because, “It was a bit too much and stifling for me, and I
couldn’t handle it. I was in banking for three and half years; in two
banks.” A love for fashion then led her into the fashion industry “as a
back end.” “I sewed lots of things, clothed men for a while, and worked
for an establishment as their brand and marketing director, and then I
left.” With a childhood love for cooking, Ikpe-Etim turned her culinary
expertise into an income generating business, launching a catering
outfit in Abuja.

Now back in the
Nollywood fold, she’s convinced this is where she belongs. “I came back
to the industry two years ago because I think I had tried everything
and found out that my heart and soul lay here in Nollywood. After
‘Reloaded,’ I discovered that I should come back to Nollywood. I was
literally forced to do the role by Emem Isong, so I did it. She was
like ‘you want me to call someone else from Lagos when you are here in
Abuja? (the movie was shot in the Federal Capital Territory). It’s up
your street…’ So I did it.”

Steamy roles

During her active
years, Eucharia Anunobi was dubbed Nigeria’s Sharon Stone on account of
her steamy roles. These days, she seems to have found a match in Nse
Ikpe-Etim who fills such roles convincingly. Laughing, she recalls her
infamous swimming pool and parlour romance scenes with Ghanaian actor,
Majid Michael, in ‘Guilty Pleasures.’

“I believe that as
an actor one must realise that you need to get into characterization
properly. I decided that I have to steal from different styles of
acting, so I stole a bit of Stanislavski and so I just go into it with
situations and emotions within me, and bring them out and I used them
for my scenes. It only gets difficult to interprete if you put them
into your mind and say: “my society”. So, as an actor, I have to give
my best.”

Thoroughbred

Nse seems to be
living out her childhood love for acting these days, with a high regard
for Italian movie legend, Sophia Loren (the first actress to win an
Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance). She would stop
at nothing to reach the zenith of her career. For budding actresses who
wish to play her in real life, she has some tips: “You would have to
live with me because I am not the girl next door. Sometimes, I am
called a ladette.”

Not every script
tickles her fancy, and she says she wouldn’t jeopardise her good name
and professionalism for anything in the world. “I don’t feature in just
any movie. I look at the construction of the script, I liaise with the
director on how he wants the story to be interpreted, and then if I am
in tune with the story, I give it a shot.”

The stage will
always be the first love for Nse Ikpe-Etim, born under the horoscope
sign of Libra. “There is no feeling like the stage because you feel
like a demigod, and you so can’t afford to make a mistake. If you do
make a mistake, better make it look as though you are acting. In a
film, you can just swing it because the director can say: cut.”

Lesson learnt

The actress says
she has learnt from the school of life which, according to her, is the
best place to gain knowledge. As this interview comes to a close she
shares with me the greatest thing she has learnt as an actress. “I have
learnt to accept my mistakes, accept me for me, live with my mistakes,
and just move on with the times.”

Our daughter
Ominira is at it again. She conned her mom into buying what my wife
thought was a cloth napkin. She is now wearing it proudly and
threatening to go out to dinner dressed like that. Mom asks her with
disbelief: “Is that a dress?” And Ominira looks at her mom with
disbelief [eyes roll!]: “Mom! It is a dress! You bought it for me!” Mom
wails: “It is too short! I thought I was paying for a napkin! You are
not going out looking like that” And Ominira wails: “Mom! I am going
out looking like that! See, (stubborn, unreasonable daughter lifts up
alleged dress) I am wearing shorts underneath!” Ominira gives me a
desperate look with gorgeous eyes I cannot say no to: “Daddy! Say
something! I can’t believe this!” This is the part that I don’t like,
where one of the combatants, usually the guilty one, invites me to
referee. I don’t like confrontations. Especially since my word doesn’t
really count. In our household, mommy is always right.

I look up with
trepidation while at the same time avoiding my wife’s furious gaze. The
dress looks fine to me. It doesn’t look too short, sure you can see her
legs, thighs, shoulders, arms and neck, but everything else is almost
covered. I actually like the dress. The colours complement her skin
very nicely. And her flip flops add a classy touch to the dress. Our
princess is pretty tonight. I don’t see the big deal here. We have a
problem, though: If I take our daughter’s side, I will be in the
doghouse by myself for a very long time. I don’t like sleeping by
myself. I really miss my wife when she is not talking to me. But then
if I take my wife’s side, I am dead to our daughter. She will say all
sorts of hurtful things that American teenagers say to their dads when
they don’t get their way. And then there will be a long period of
silence from this strong-willed princess. I really miss my daughter
when she is not talking to me. What to do, dear reader?

Olodumare! A light
bulb flashes in my head. I will say nothing. Brilliant. I have a good
reason to be quiet and stay out of this matter. I am home sick today. I
will go to the bedroom and face my own issues. I cough miserably and
quietly excuse myself from the living room. I hurriedly pack up what is
left of my dignity and flee the war zone. Unfortunately this brilliant
approach to conflict resolution satisfies none of the combatants. Each
side is furious at me for not taking a position, most preferably
theirs. My fleeing behind becomes the target of unnecessary roughness
with both sides temporarily united to thinking hurtful things about me
and expressing deep suspicion that I may not be sick after all (gulp!)
plus what kind of husband, or father avoids conflict, blah, blah, blah?
Well, I am thinking, as I race to the bedroom; that was nice, I have
reunited mother and daughter again. As I get to the bedroom door, I
hear my daughter, fearless one, she who never withdraws her head from
the jaws of a ravenous lioness: “Mummy, Emily and I are going to
dinner! Do you have cash? I have no money!” Then, I hear my
long-suffering wife, “Olorun ma je! This child will not kill me! How
many times have I told you never to go out if you are broke? Hear me,
we are not Americans, you cannot be eating out every day as if you are
a rich American!” Then, “Mommy, do you have cash…?” I gently shut the
bedroom door.

Life as a father is dangerous, especially with a child like Ominira.
She is always getting me in trouble. I do not remember all this wahala
when I was young. I come from a very rich family in Nigeria which meant
that outside of school uniforms, we got new dresses for Christmas.
These dresses were usually bought out of my mother’s “pocket money”
which meant that our sartorial needs were in unfair competition with
our mother’s: aso ebi, shoes, handbags and her monthly “isusu”
contribution plus a bottle of Guinness Stout (our mother maintains to
this day that Stout replenishes her blood cells). To make the dresses
last all year plus more, my mother would decree that Obioma De Tailor
(“Trained in French!”) should make the lengths as long as the muddy
floods of Benin City’s roads would allow. I wore one pair of trousers
from the age of ten until I was twenty-one. I still have my platform
shoes. I exaggerate not; look at my old pictures on Facebook. These
children do not know how lucky they are. Oh, by the way, Ominira went
out to dinner that evening, dressed in the offending napkin. Her mother
gave her money for dinner also. Moral of the story: never get between a
mother and her daughter. There will be only one black eye. Yours.

A programme on
Swiss national television, ‘Rundschau’ (Back to the Roots), features
five celebrities who have roots in other countries; and shows them
going back home to reunite with their families and learn more about
their origins.

According to its
presenter, Sonja Hasler, ‘Rundschau’ is a socio-political documentary
that was conceived to educate the immigrant-wary Swiss about so-called
‘foreigners’ in their land. “Some Swiss feel that most migrants in our
country are there just to profit from the system,” says Hasler, “so by
taking these celebrities back to their home country and documenting
their interactions with the people, we hope to show that these migrants
do add value to our country.”

Coming back

One of the latest
celebrities to be featured on the programme is Swiss pop star, Nubya,
whose roots are in Nigeria. Tailed by a film crew which included the
presenter, a cameraman, and her sister Katherine, Nubya visited Nigeria
as part of the documentary. Though very popular in Switzerland and
Germany, almost nothing is known about Nubya here in Nigeria.
Interestingly, she is sister to Uche Eze, creator of the entertainment
blog, Bella Naija.

I found out about
Nubya and her potential visit to Nigeria via the cameraman, Mitja, who
happens to be a friend, and caught up with her at Tribeca Club,
Victoria Island, where she was scheduled to give her first ever public
performance in Nigeria, which would be filmed by the Swiss film crew as
part of the documentary.

Nubya’s real name
is Nnenna Eze, a name she seldom uses in Switzerland, as it posed
something of a security risk there. “I don’t use the name at all in
Switzerland. I am just known as Nubya,” she says. But now, she sees the
‘Nnenna Eze’ as one way of getting closer to “her family”- here in
Nigeria.

The singer’s family
moved to Nigeria almost immediately after her birth in Switzerland. She
moved back to the European country, which she calls ‘home’, with her
mother at the age of two. Her father, who has long remarried, hails
from Enugu State.

“I have visited
Nigeria often since [the age of two], mostly to visit my father’s
family,” she says. This is her tenth visit to Nigeria; her first as a
performer.

Music and me

Nubya’s interest in
music was first piqued, when as a teenager, a friend gave her a Whitney
Houston record. “It was beautiful,” she says of the listening
experience, “and led me to take [singing] lessons.”

She did not
immediately think of being a singer in any professional sense. “I just
did [the lessons] for myself.” Her training in music had really started
much earlier when, at the age of seven, she started to take piano
lessons. “It is sort of the custom in Switzerland for a child to learn
how to play a musical instrument,” she explains, “so when my mom asked
which one I wanted to learn, I chose the piano.”

After high school,
she moved to New York where she studied jazz music for one year at the
New School. These days, she is known as a pop singer but Nubya still
declares an undying love for jazz and the great names of the genre,
like Ella Fitzgerald. She also swears by Soul and Blues singers like
Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder.

After her year in
New York, she returned to Switzerland to study Economics for three and
half years at the University of Basel before dropping out to focus on
music. “I was singing while schooling and as I slipped more and more
into music, I decided to quit school to concentrate on it. I intend to
go back some day,” she says with a laugh.

Nubya started her
musical career as a back-up singer and member of the concert choir for
Swiss musician, Bo Katzman. In 1997, she performed at one of Celine
Dion’s concerts in Switzerland as part of the choir. Her big break came
in 1999 when she opened for Whitney Houston before 12,000 people at a
concert at the Hallen Stadium in Zurich. She recorded her first album,
‘From the Bottom of my Heart’, that same year; and then took a hiatus
to a makeover/variety show, ‘Cinderella’, which aired on TV3, a private
Swiss television station.

Although the show
featured live performances by singers, Nubya in her role as host, never
got to perform. This was a bit trying for her and she soon left the
show to go back to her music. She released her second English language
album, ‘My Wish’ in 2002, followed by a third album sung entirely in
German, ‘Auf Meine Weise’ (In My Way) in 2005. Her fourth album, ‘Love
Rocks’, followed in 2007. ‘Love Rocks’ was basically an album of covers
of songs originally performed by various artists, including Prince,
Beatles, Ray Charles, Kiss, and AC/DC – “But we added our own style to
the songs,” says Nubya.

Her next album is
scheduled for release in February 2011, and with this one, she hopes to
finally penetrate into the Nigerian market. She declares her love for
contemporary Nigerian music and musicians, especially the duo, P-Square.

“It feels great
being home and I would really love to come back, stay longer, and do
stuff with Nigerians. I would love to collaborate with P-Square,
D’Banj, and Asa,” she enthuses.

Her representatives
are current talking with “some people” here, to ensure her upcoming
album would be marketed and promoted in Nigeria on release.

Warm welcome

On the image of
Nigeria and Nigerians in Switzerland, Nubya says it is not entirely
good. “There are very few, mostly drug dealers, who portrait a very
poor image of themselves and hence give a bad name to the majority who
are really working hard at decent jobs.”

She talks about
being ‘black and Swiss’ before she became famous, and says it was not
easy. “I used to get the odd looks when I go into shops, people
thinking you are just there to steal something. Now that I am a
celebrity, it is much better, of course. Still…”

As she made ready to get on stage, one wondered the kind of
reception the Swiss pop star would receive from her ‘home-based’
audience. Still, knowing Nigerians and their love for all things “our
own”, I was sure that the reception of the Nubya and her forthcoming
album would be much warmer and far less cautionary than the ones that
inspired the documentary that brought her back to her roots.