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Being a patriotic
yet pragmatic Nigerian, I ‘Never Expected Power Always’ during the one
month duration of the World Cup in South Africa. But my patriotism took
a beating when during Nigeria’s first match against Argentina and
Nigeria’s crucial last match against South Korea, it rudely dawned on
me that I should ‘Never (have) Expected Power Anytime!’

Just as
unexpectedly our dear Super Eagles disgracefully turned out to be Super
Chickens (stage fright?) on the world football stage, I was more than
reassured that the ‘Power Holding Company of Nigeria’ would always live
up to its true name! As sure as night follows day, I will still get my
fat bill from PHCN for my excessive consumption of electricity during
the entire month of the 2010 World Cup!

Well, life goes on
in Nigeria, or ‘Naija’, as the younger hip generation have warned me to
rebrand our dear land of wingless Eagles, and one-time flying
Elephants!

My faithful
companion was the bass drone of my over-worked generator, until Osho,
the master-technician-turned-sound-conductor changed the generator’s
pitch to a manageable tenor purr. However, whenever there was a live
broadcast of matches from SA2010, the steady buzzing sound of vuvuzelas
immediately overwhelmed all other sounds around me; even the
commentator’s voice, and most times the referee’s whistle, and it
became an instant decision on whether to turn down or cut off the sound
of the transmission. Most times, I watched matches without the
accompanying sound.

The vuvuzela

Like it or not, the
vuvuzela is the sound of SA2010! It might also well become the new
sound of South Africa itself and many other sporting events worldwide;
unless sports organisers have the guts and anti-noise courage to say
‘no’, like Wimbledon has emphatically done.

For me, vuvuzela is
a sound of noise which, some ‘sharp’ social scientists now identify as
the new symbol and living proof that Africans love noise when they are
having a good time! Definitely, the multi-thousands of football fans
blowing their vuvuzelas at SA2010, particularly the South African
football fans and citizens, were having the ball of their lives for
successfully hosting against all odds; and, in appreciation of their
brave boys, Bafana Bafana.

The decibel level
of 90,000 vuvuzelas when Bafana Bafana ‘rightly’ scored the first goal
in the opening match of the SA2010 World Cup, was the highest
earthquake-inducing noise imaginable at a sporting event. When Mexico
equalised in the second half, the vuvuzelas were not as loud and after
the match, the South African goalkeeper made the odd observation that
it did not feel like they were playing at home since the vuvuzelas were
not loud enough throughout the match to inspire Bafana Bafana.

Most visiting teams
simply hated the sound of vuvuzelas. The horrid sound, they claimed,
prevented them from communicating with their teammates during play, and
their coaches concurred that they could not shout out instructions over
the din, which also made players lose concentration. FIFA
diplomatically appeared to consider a ban, but then overwhelmingly
approved the use of vuvuzelas.

Uninspired Eagles

Vuvuzelas had
infiltrated Nigeria during the FIFA 2009 Under-17 Championships. The
Nigeria Football Federation supposedly gave out many to Nigerian fans,
but obviously they didn’t fancy blowing their lungs out all in the name
of supporting the Eaglets.

My neighbour’s
teenage ward let the entire area know he had a vuvuzela when he let out
a few blasts of its sound just before the vital Nigeria-South Korea
match. When Nigeria scored, he let loose ecstatic vuvuzela bleats. When
South Korea came back strong, the absence of his vuvuzela sound
smoothly blended into the graveyard silence that suddenly enveloped the
entire neighbourhood!

The vuvuzelas were
subdued when Uruguay beat South Africa in the group stage, and they
became a whimper when the Bafana Bafana exited the competition. And so,
when huge competing sounds of drumming and flag-waving singing from
thousands of rival fans filled Pretoria stadium during the crunch match
between Spain and Chile, it refreshingly sounded as if another and
older aspect of support for football teams had finally infused SA2010.

Who knows, if the
vuvuzelas were not overbearing and had let our world-famous Supporters
Club continuously drum, sing, and blow their trumpets, they would have
inspired the Eagles to fly sky-high to victory!

Interestingly, a
South African freedom fighter of old expressed his displeasure that
intense inspired singing and dancing, which had motivated the struggle
to victory over apartheid in the past, has now been replaced by the
vuvuzela. He should have added that the soul sound of Soweto where
Mandela was welcomed from jail and where the showpiece Soccer City
stadium of SA2010 now stands, was the penny-whistle, the driving force
of Kwela and South African jazz music.

Actors and cheats

Live images of
SA2010, television close-ups, cut-aways, live action, and replays were
a feast of human emotions and sports intrigues. They confirmed that
football players are actors and cheats, as well as rough and brutal.
The calculated cynicism of hardcore football players and fans who brag
that football is a man’s game was laid bare and raw!

I noted, amongst
many, the antics of the Chilean player who deliberately dug his studs
into the knee of his Spanish opponent as they both rose from a fall.
Unfortunately, the referee was right over them and as the Chilean
feigned innocence by shrugging and opening his arms, the referee
promptly rewarded him with a yellow card.

Then there was the
Ivorian who made a real meal of Kaka’s slight shove on his chest; by
clutching his face, falling and reeling on the ground. He was rewarded
by the referee showing Kaka a red card and sending off the dangerous
Brazilian striker. Ivory Coast still lost 1-3 to Brazil!

Of course,
Nigerians all over the world are aware of Kaita’s recorded moment of
madness when his intent to stamp his Greek opponent was rewarded by a
red card and sending off. Nigeria lost! A close-up replay clearly
showed the elbow of the French midfield player, who was eventually
red-carded and sent off, firmly planted in the cheek of the South
African defender as they both went for a header in front of South
Africa’s goalmouth. Bafana Bafana deservedly beat a Henry-captained
ragged French team 2-1; throwing them out in the first round of SA2010.

Who says there is no law of karma in football? The Republic of
Ireland’s sports press gloated the next day after the inglorious exit
of France. They printed huge images (also seen live on television as it
happened) of Henry deliberately palming the ball in the last-gasp move
that led to France’s goal that eliminated Ireland from qualifying for
SA2010.

Twelve-year-old
Temilorun Oguntoyinbo, the Drummer Boy, plays the Gangan drum with the
dexterity of a virtuoso. clutching the drum rhythmically between his
flank and underarm while tapping its face with his drum stick and
fingers, his expression is solemn as he makes the drum speak the
language of the traditional Yoruba.

Born to a musical
mother, Titi Oguntoyinbo, who is hailed as the Queen of Highlife,
Temilorun says he started playing the talking drum when he was five
years old. He bought his first drum with money given to him by his
mother, with whom he performs at shows on occasion.

A JSS 2 student of
Fortune College, Ikotun, Lagos, Temilorun speaks with a maturity
noticeably contrasting with his age as he mentions the different types
of drums he can play, namely: Iya Ilu, Gangan, and the modern drum set.
He also recalls trying his hand on the Sakara and Bata drums. Asked
about his influence towards playing traditional Yoruba drums rather
than the newer drum sets, he said he learnt to play it watching a man
in his church choir and taking lessons from him occasionally.

The budding
musician plays for his church, his school and for events where he is
invited to play. When asked if he has a manager, he responds, ‘I’m
still young’, and says his mum currently manages him; while Nigerian
classic music promoter Femi Esho gets him events from time to time,
such as the Tunde Fagbenle book launch where he played recently. Asked
how he juggles his craft with his studies, he says he knows he has to
work hard to become something in life; and he hopes to study Human
Kinetics at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, because it involves
sports.

When hailed as an
expert, he denies this as he says simply, “I make mistakes too”, though
from an audience’s point of view his performance appears perfect, he
admits to knocking his fingers with his drum stick on occasion such as
in the beginning of the act this writer viewed. “Drumming is hard”, he
says, “your neck, shoulder, underarm and hands hurt a lot.”

Drums are however
not the only instrument he’s skilled at, as he plays the flute and
admits to preferring that over the drum. In the future, he plans to
deviate to playing the flute publicly and he mentions Yemi Sax, popular
saxophonist as his role model. Born into “a united polygamous family,”
he says his father is rarely at home and he seeks counsel from his
older brother, Lekan, 28, in the absence of his father.

Temilorun Oguntoyinbo’s other interests include football, in which
he plays mid-field position, basketball and computer games. This young
talented boy of many interests, kindly gave this reporter a discount,
offering to accept ten thousand naira to play at an event instead of
his usual charge of twenty thousand or more because, according to him,
he is young and he doesn’t need a lot of money; and also because “we
are now friends.”

On Tuesday, June 29, the Korean Cultural Centre in Abuja played host to 20 primary schools from across the Federal Capital Territory to celebrate the winners of its first drawing competition. The centre organised the event to mark 30 years of diplomatic ties between Nigeria and South Korea.

According to Jeong Sun Suh, director of the centre, the competition had called on students to submit drawings exploring the relationship between the two countries. Out of hundreds of entries, 30 finalists were chosen, which will be on display in the centre’s exhibition hall for the next three months.

Korean ambassador to Nigeria, Young-Kuk Park, was on hand to present the awards, though some schools were not available to receive their prizes as they arrived late.

The gold prize winner went home with N20,000, while the four silver medallists received N10,000 apiece and the five bronzes won N5,000 each. Every awardee, including the consolation prize winners, got notebooks and poster colours.

Reactions

The centre had called on the National Gallery of Arts to help judge the contest and this led to some controversy. Some schools complained that the competition’s rules were vague and that many students’ works were unfairly disqualified.

In her remarks, Perpetua Onyejekwe of the National Gallery of Arts explained the winning criteria.

“We disqualified so many entries because it was clear that many were assisted by art teachers,” she said. “The National Gallery is a neutral body, without sentiment, and we gave [prizes] to those who got what we actually wanted.”

Despite the anger, most of the attendees were happy with the results. A few students even sneaked out of the ceremony to celebrate noisily in the hall after they received their prizes.

Sarah Hosea, a parent, noted that the competition had given her child an avenue to express himself, though he did not win any prizes.

“It is part of learning,” she said. “This is a part of the handiwork that will give him a job as an artist in the future.”

The gold winner, 10-year-old Jidechukwu Ilokobi, of Festival Primary School, also looked forward to a future in art.

“I want to be an artist,” he said. “As for the money, I’m going to give it to my parents and I am going to give the prize to my school.”

Until next year

Though organisers had planned on a small-scale ceremony for 50 people, over 100 attendees crowded into the centre’s exhibition hall and many continued to arrive as the ceremony progressed.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Park said that this year’s ceremony was only the beginning. He noted that the competition was the first hosted by the centre and promised a smoother event next year.

“This is just another effort to lay the groundwork to strengthen the ties between our two countries,” the ambassador said. “We will continue this and we will raise the next edition.”

Four out of the
nine films shot during the Babylon International film development and
training workshop held in Abuja last month, have attracted financiers’
attention at the Cinemas du Monde Pavillion, Cannes International Film
Festival.

With their success
at the forum, ‘The Land’ by Funke Oyebanjo and Sebari Diette-Spiff;
‘Wahala’ by Farouk Lasaki’; ‘Letter to the Prof’ by Chike Ibekwe and
Jide Bello’s ‘My Brother’s Sin’ have qualified for production funding.

Babylon
International 2010 was supported by a number of organisations including
the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), Media International of the
European Union and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg Germany, Scenario
Films (UK), Script House (Germany) and Play Film (France).

Film professionals,
Albly James, John Akomfrah, Tony Dennis, Lina Gopaul, Femi Odugbemi,
Juergen Seidler, Gareth Jones, Nathalie Valentin and Afolabi Adesanya
were the script consultants during the workshop.

The 2010 Babylon
International programme was launched at the Berlinale, Germany in
February with a script development workshop that brought filmmakers
from Europe and Africa together. It allowed participants to network on
how to forge links across the two continents.

Reacting to the
development, Managing Director of the NFC, Afolabi Adesanya, expressed
happiness that the four Nigerian films were selected out of several
other entries. He added that partners and consultants to Babylon
International were also happy with the development. Adesanya reiterated
that more Nigerian films will compete confidently with others on the
global stage if filmmakers adhere to “doing things right”.

In a related
development, one of the four selected films has won another award.
Chike Ibekwe’s ‘Letter to the Prof’ won the Best Film Prize at the just
concluded 14th Ecrans Noire Film Festival in Cameroun. His ‘Eternal’
also shared the Golden Screen Best Film Prize with ‘An Unusual Woman’
by Burkinabe director, Abdoulaye Dao. Ibekwe got funding for the film
from France.

Ibekwe, however, is not the only beneficiary of international
sponsors. Kenneth Gyang, an alumnus of the National Film Institute,
Jos, will receive support from the Hubert Bals Fund in Netherland to
produce his film ‘Confusion Na Wa’. The film will be distributed in
Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Gyang had previously worked as
director on the BBC’s ‘Wetin Dey’. He also produced and directed the
‘Finding Aisha’ series.

The Nigerian Film
Corporation (NFC) has called for entries for its 2010/2011 annual film
essay competition. Submission of entries for the competition with
‘Film: A Tool for Socio-Cultural Integration and Tourism Promotion’ as
its topic, will open on July 1 and close on August 31, 2010.

A statement by
Brian Etuk, head, public affairs of the NFC explained that the topic
was chosen to promote Nigeria’s tourism potentials to the world.

The competition,
Etuk disclosed, is open to people aged 18 and above only. He added that
staff of the corporation and members of their family, are exempted.

Essays to be
considered, Etuk noted further, must have a minimum of 10 pages and a
maximum of 15 pages. They should be typed double space with Calibri
font type, 14 point size and on A4 paper.

Hard copies of entries can be submitted to the headquarters of the
NFC at 213T, Liberty Dam Road, Jos, Plateau State or its offices in
Lagos, Abuja and Kano. The NFC’s Lagos office is located at the
National Theatre Annex while its Abuja office is on the First Floor,
Shippers Plaza, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja. NFC is within the State secretariat
in Kano. Entries can also be sent by e-mail to md_nfc@hotmail.com

Dear Father, he began.

J Mensah was
drafting a reply to the letter from Kojo’s principal. He raised the
wick of the paraffin lamp and drew the blank sheets of paper closer to
the brightened copper glow, bemused as it threw the shadow of his
bespectacled head in a grotesque oblong on the wall. The house was
silent at last, the area around the dining table where he sat stood in
partial shade. The children were asleep, huddled on mats on the cold
floor; now and then a sleepy chest revved with cough.

Father George
Fraser’s cursive Latin-sequined prose resounded in J Mensah’s head with
all the sonority of a Sunday morning hymn. With paternal relish he
recalled the phrases about Kojo being an outstanding student who had
time and again repaid the attention of his teachers; a young fellow of
undoubted promise who Fraser would have no hesitation in recommending
for a scholarship when the day arose eventually deo volente.

The reek of
fermenting cassava frothing in clay vats at the backyard wafted citric
through the window and J Mensah longed for a shot of scotch to dull the
whiff. In his father’s time, a life such as he now lived and one such
as he hoped for his son lay beyond dream. Chosen as a boy for a
Presbyterian school education, he had risen gradually in Her Majesty’s
service. He commanded deference and admiration, solely on the strength
of a Presbyterian school education and a gradual rise in Her Majesty’s
service. In his mind’s eye he saw Kojo – official-looking, achievement
embodied, almost regal in wig and gown, like the young England
returnees whose photographs he had seen in the West African Pilot. It
could be a life without precedent in their family.

Two years earlier,
Kuffour, his nephew, had left Fourah Bay College and sailed for
Liverpool en route to beginning a medical degree at London University.
Much to J Mensah’s puzzlement the boy had gone incommunicado for the
first year, only to resume contract with a brazen telegram requesting
an urgent transfer of a hundred pounds sterling because SITUATION
CRITICAL. Where did the twerp think he would pluck that sort of money
from? Certainly not from the cocoa plantation. This year the crop was
promising to be poor. A blight had set in, charring the yellow pods
that jutted breastlike from the trunk. At best there would be a few
dozen bags; not up to the usual yield. And there was one more thing to
worry about: Nana, the girl.

She was the
daughter of Mr. Reeves’ housekeeper Obi, and after the first evening
when he saw her J Mensah had made discreet inquiries. She was tall,
nimble-limbed, dark, with quiet enigmatic eyes. Obi’s means and
ambitions did not stretch to giving her a formal education but she had
doubtless been instructed in the fine wifely arts of cooking, cleaning,
and submission. As yet there had been none of the traditional preludes
to matrimony; no visits with bottles of White Horse and kolanut; no
delegation of relations hinting in that oblique, flowery way at the
obvious. J Mensah knew he had to get around to all of that soon.

The other day he
had brought Mr. Reeves from the District Treasury over to the house at
close of work. As they drew up in the Mini the scene was suddenly abuzz
with children jumping excitably, ostensibly at the sight of their
returning Papa.

– These all yours? Reeves had asked wryly, as he stepped out of the car.

– No ….not all of them….. nephews, nieces, that sort of thing, J Mensah had replied.

– I see, Reeves said, with a nod.

Reeves hadn’t
pressed the matter further, so J Mensah let it rest there, not inclined
to reveal that he was the father of thirteen children. Reeves was
patting the smaller children on their heads and pulling a cheek here, a
nose there J Mensah was uncomfortable, and in as menacing a tone as he
could summon he warned the children not to put their dirty hands on the
man’s shirt.

– I always say family is important. And your people…. Well, you really do extend your families now, don’t you?

J Mensah grinned,
certain there was an edge to what seemed like faint praise. But he
understood that the man could mean no offence. With his portly step,
thinning black hair, permanent stubble chin and fondness for
suspenders, Reeves was by far the most urbane of the insular pink bunch
that made up the district English gentry. On occasion he would ask J
Mensah up to his plinth balanced bungalow on Mission Hill. There, in
the evening sibilance of the avocado trees they would sip sundowners.
Obi would be kept on his feet all the while, ferrying a steady supply
of Reeves’ finest Scotch. When Obi appeared, staid and stocky, jangling
tray in hard, Reeves would chuckle: “Not exactly a gentlemen’s
gentleman Obi, but then again neither am I, ay!”. And then he would
light another Dunhill and return to regaling his guest with talk about
his childhood, his days in India and elsewhere in the service of what
he called “The British Vampire”

They said you could
never tell; could never be too sure with these oyibos, but J Mensah
presumed there was pith and core to the acquaintance. It was Reeves
after all who had taught him how to drive when he decided a year
earlier to splash the proceeds of a cocoa windfall on a Vauxhall. They
went out to the football pitch at St. Patricks College, where Reeves
had a friend among the iron-fisted Irish priests who ran the place.
Behind his cassocked back Reeves called the man Padre Picasso because
he was an avid watercolourist, whose real name was Seamus Flanagan.

The students came
out in their blazers and ties to watch as J Mensah learnt to manouever
the gear and steering and brakes, Reeves at his side, the Vauxhall
chugging away like an outlandish white insect gorging itself on grass.

On hearing that J
Mensah’s son was due to write the finals, it was also Reeves who
suggested that Kojo come up the hill and use his library, winking at J
Mensah and remarking; “Let the boy dust my tomes. I should be surprised
if he managed to get any swatting done in that kraal of yours.”

So when the rest of
the family was trudging the muddy pelt of road that led to the yam and
cassava plots, children wielding hoes and matches, women expertly balancing basins on their heads, Kojo would dress up neatly and wheel his father’s old Raleigh up the hill.

The library
consisted of one ceiling-high mahogany shelf, stacked top to bottom
with bound volumes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Conan Doyle and Kipling.
There were also the Britannica volumes, pages teeming with revelation.
Kojo was especially fascinated by the illustrations of prehistoric
animals, hard to imagine as the phantasmal forebears of the antelope,
perhaps the mangy-dog. About the books there hung the faint odour of
vintage dust. There was a desk and a wrought-iron chair in the room;
several photographs hung from the walls, flecked with damp: Reeves as a
young cherub, sitting between a bewhiskered man in a top hat and a
pleasant-faced, plump woman in a frilly dress and bonnet. Also, a
picture of Reeves and his chums beaming proudly, a Bengal tiger
prostrate at their feet, mahouts on an elephant in the background

Reeves was usually
gone by the time Kojo arrived the house, so he was let in by Obi.
Occasionally, too, a young girl named Nana would be on hand to give him
entrance, demure and elusive, disappearing almost immediately into the
quarters reserved for the housekeeper and his family at the back of the
bungalow. Kojo would go straight to the polished desk and begin by
working on his précis, selecting a piece from Nuttall and Turner’s
African Passages. Sometimes he would fall into a light drowse, from
which he would be jolted by the chime of the grandfather clock, or the
shrill cries issuing from a nest-festooned mango tree at the side of
the house.

One such day he
started awake to the receding rays of sunlight streaming in through the
slats of the window. It was nearly six o’ clock. He had to get home.
His throat was dry from thirst, and he had got through the day on a
meagre breakfast of akara and pap, shared with his siblings.

Obi was away from
the Reeves residence that day, so he and Nana had been the only two
around, even though as was customary she hadn’t made herself seen all
day. Gathering his books into the raffia satchel, he made his way
through a dim corridor which led onto the sitting room and out the
front door. A bedroom door was open, and a diagonal of light lay on the
floor, orange and webbed

Kojo happened on
the scene before there was time to retreat into the shadows: Reeves was
entwined on the bed with a girl who was unmistakably Nana. Black and
pink legs spliced in sweaty coupling; the mosquito net had slipped its
mooring on the four-poster.

They broke their
embrace when they saw him. Reeves drew away and got up, chest rank with
hair. He said nothing and Kojo looked away instantly, conscious only
that behind him Reeves slammed the bedroom door with a force that shook
the frames of the house Kojo clutched his satchel tightly in
nervousness. He hadn’t known what to expect and Reeves had probably
been under the impression that the boy had gone home.

Stricken now with
panic over the consequences of his trespass and discovery, Kojo hurried
out through the front door and sullenly past the avocado trees with the
last of sunlight drizzling through their leaves. The sight of the river
seething with phosphorescence, always a delight to him, now failed to
detain his gaze. And in his hurry to leave he had accidentally
forgotten to put back the copy of Othello he had been reading before he
fell asleep.

J Mensah noticed the mask of worry on Kojo’s face when the boy returned from his day at Reeves place.

The boy had offered
a desultory greeting on the verandah as he ate his fufu and melon soup
and gone straight into the house without another word. If there were
anything the matter he would get to hear of it sooner or later. Kojo’s
tacitly acknowledged position as his father’s favourite son meant that
he was treated with infinite forbearance, but it certainly did not pass
without comment the following day when he refused to make his daily
journey up the hill to Reeves bungalow. He skulked about when the women
and the other children were going off and didn’t seem to be acting with
any sense of urgency.

That evening his
father was forced to confront him. And then it all came out. J Mensah
sat quietly through the nervous, stuttered narration, only becoming
visibly moved when his son blurted out the name Nana.

Are you sure of this? J Mensah asked, staring his son in the face curiously.

Papa, would I lie? I carry my two eye see them! Insisted Kojo.

J Mensah nodded
thoughtfully and waved his son away. Liaisons like this were not
exactly a rarity in Kabala, and there were fair-skinned, kinky-haired
children to show for it, even though the European fathers had sometimes
taken off and left their local mistresses in the lurch. But how could
this be happening to him?

The next day at
work Reeves picked up a hint of frost in J Mensah’s reply to his
chitchat, none of the usual warmth. But he imagined that anyone with
four wives and thirteen children had a right to feel burdened every now
and then, the weight of obligation like a python-heavy press on the
shoulders.

– Say, what been
happening to Kojo these days? Haven’t seen the chap around for a while.
Everything alright? Reeves chirped cheerfully.

J Mensah muttered
some words to the effect that Kojo had taken ill with fever and had to
be treated with a remedy that Reeves knew must consist of bits of leaf
and bark, a proper witches brew. Fortunately for J Mensah the white man
hadn’t seemed to sense a lie, in the event of which he would have
resorted to his catch phrase: “come out of the bushes”. This was the
phrase he mused when pressing for elaboration, meaning you should stop
beating about hiding behind a thicket of obliquity.

J Mensah could not marry the girl again, not after this Obi would
have to understand. Reeves of course had acted in total ignorance of
the girl’s connection to J Mensah. There was nothing to forgive,
because only anger sought placation and J Mensah was no longer angry.
He would ask Kojo to return to his studying and tread with greater
caution in the event of open doors. This was one of the many
inscrutable, inevitable things that happened between men, and Kojo
would grow to understand.

Was it bad
conscience about her colour, or a desire to assert pride in her race
and face, that led the Queen of Sheba to declare, “Nigra sum sed
formosa”? The line is telling- “I am black, but comely”- and lends
itself to both these interpretations; as if royalty and wealth were not
enough to ensure her esteem; as if she needed the refuge of her beauty
to escape the ghetto of her skin. None of this, of course, could have
mattered to Solomon, fair-minded sage and seducer, committed as he was
to building a large and racially diverse harem and lineage.

In our time colour
has mattered, nowhere more so than in America, where the theatre of
race has repeated itself for four centuries as suffering and tragedy.
Long before Michael Jackson morphed into a white man, and Barack Obama
entered the White House, there was another charismatic and talented
figure who sought to transcend race. Anatole Broyard is less well-known
today than the singer or the President, but at one time, at least in
America, his name too was “musical in the mouth of fame”.

He has been the
actual subject of an essay by Henry Louis Gates, and a memoir by his
daughter, Bliss Broyard, as well as the presumed model for Coleman Silk
in Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain. Gates’ profile, the first to
appear, conveyed in its tenor the suggestion that Broyard had sloughed
off familial roots that were entirely black. Things were far more
complicated than that, and during his lifetime Broyard managed, to an
extent, to shield the details of his heritage with a natural bodyguard
of Caucasian- looking hair, skin, and eyes. The Broyards were descended
from a French soldier who came to America in the eighteenth century.
Intermarriage with mixed race women had produced a line of Broyards who
could pass for white, as Anatole’s parents, and eventually himself,
chose to.

One of the more
startling revelations in the biographical accounts concerns the fact
that Anatole Broyard’s two children had grown up unaware of their
father’s racial dissembling. His wife was Norwegian, and knew of his
family history; it was she who pressed him, to little effect, to
disabuse the children of their perceptions. He found any number of
reasons to put off disclosure. As he lay dying in 1990, Anatole Broyard
called his children to his hospital bed and hinted at a certain matter
he wanted to reveal. Even then he could not bring himself to speak, and
it was ultimately his wife who broke the news to their children.

This sheer
incapacity, or unwillingness, to tear off an elaborate veil of identity
prompts Gates, in his essay about Broyard, to call him “the
Scheherazade of racial imposture”.

The Broyard case
reveals just how fraught and futile can be the effort to untangle the
single, shining thread of individual identity from the knot of race,
genes, gender, cultural heritage, and vocation.

Anatole Broyard was
born into a society in which, like many others, the colour of one’s
skin improbably assumes a moral quality; it could be the virtue that
recommended one for social privilege, or it could be the vice that
damned one from birth. Broyard’s parents chose to pass for white when
they arrived New York from New Orleans because it was the only way they
could secure proper employment.

What Gates saw as
Broyard’s “racial imposture” could not have been gratuitous. Nor was it
without its cost. Anatole Broyard might have been, as T.E. Lawrence
said of himself, “a standing civil war”; and the victims of that
lifelong inner unrest were not only the darker-skinned siblings and
relatives whom he chillingly broke off contact with [and who appeared,
to much perplexity, at his funeral] or the blacks about whom he could
be bizarrely scathing, but ultimately the man himself. His writing
hand, exercised no doubt by the work he did for the New York Times,
seems to have been mysteriously inhibited, foreclosing on the full
fruition of a literary talent whose early offerings had bred
expectation in admirers.

Yet for all his
unwillingness to salvage any relics from a rejected heritage, from the
ghetto of his past, there were those who saw in his gait and physical
tics a distinct African – American air. The body may only go along so
far with its own evasions.

The ironies and
nuances which surround colour in our world were visible in the sequence
of events that brought Barack Obama to the American presidency. His
entire campaign persona was calibrated to give the impression of an
eloquent and outraged citizen, not, mind you, an eloquent and outraged
black citizen. But the mere sight of this biracial candidate was enough
to evoke the grim history of white injustice and black rage, with all
its implications. His demeanour may have been reassuring to many white
Americans, but there were some in the black community who felt that
Obama’s psychic share in their tortured patrimony was minimal at best,
and that his physical share, owing to a Kenyan father and a white
mother, was nil.

George Berkeley
wrote that “to be is to be perceived”. The strange workings of being
and perception were brought home to me in a peculiar manner. A few
years ago I encountered, by chance, a man with whom I had been at
university. We were participants at a two-week event, and over that
time renewed our acquaintance amid much bonhomie and reminiscence. One
day, quite casually, he revealed that when we were at university he had
disliked me fiercely because he thought I looked Igbo.

For some reason he
did not explain, the Igbos had incurred his enmity, and I, with my
Igbo- looking skin [if such a thing exists] and my Igbo circle of
friends, was guilty by resemblance, if not in fact.

To hate, after all,
is human, but I found his past, secret animus somewhat ridiculous
because of its tenuous connection with anything that I had actually
done, any act that had struck and inflamed the flint of his tribal
grudge. On my own part I thought it would be logical for me to dislike
him not for being from his tribe, or for being squat, bald and
potbellied but for being talkative and crude.

The human eye
trained in recognizing difference is nothing if not the window of
discontent, of dissatisfaction with another, or oneself. This is a
world not only of mirrors but also of other people’s eyes. Among black
people, among Nigerians, the tendency has been to adapt to the judgment
of other people’s eyes, to derive our sense of being not from anything
inherent and authentic, but from what the overt and insidious catechism
of the white West. How else to explain the legion of black men and
women with bleached skin, with blonde wigs and blue contact lens if not
as individuals seeking to escape the perceived ghetto of their skin by
being aesthetically beholden to the ideal beholder?

Going beyond
sartorial imitation, beyond acquiring a foreign language- none of which
I carp against- to actually attempt to usurp the legacy of white genes
defies comprehension. Self contempt has many guises.

All of the foregoing invariably serves to illustrate a sense that by
creating societies where colour is a crucial emblem of difference and
individual worth, by persisting in judging a mind by its cover, we are
condemned to making, and acquiescing to, wholly untenable distinctions
between amateur and professional human beings.

Renowned scholar
Julius Ihonvbere is to deliver this year’s edition of the Centre for
Black and African Arts and Civilization’s Public Lecture Series. The
lecture, titled ‘Reinventing Africa for the Challenges of the
Twenty-First Century’, holds at the Afe Babalola Hall of the University
of Lagos on July 22.

A political
scientist and lecturer at the University of Port Harcout, Ihonvbere, is
a recipient of over 20 awards of recognition from various organisations
in and outside the country. These include the Ambassador for Peace,
awarded in 2009 by The Interreligious and International Federation for
World Peace; and the Order of Officer of Niger. He is also founder of
the Ihonvbere Foundation, which is established to address issues such
as the empowerment of women, youth and the physically challenged as
well as the implementation of literacy projects within the country.

The forthcoming Annual Public Lecture is one of many interactive
programmes organized by the CBAAC for experts, scholars and students to
exchange ideas on issues of importance to Black and African arts and
its development.

Several
culture organisations have concluded plans to convene an international
conference on ‘Slavery, Slave Trade and their Consequences’ to be held
at the Royal Park Hotel, Iloko-Ijesa, Osun State, from August 23 to 26.

Partnering on the
conference are: The Centre for Black Culture and International
Understanding, a category II UNESCO Institute owned by the Osun State
Government; the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization
(CBAAC); the Pan African Strategic and Policy Research Group
(PANAFSTRAG); and the Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National
Orientation.

The sub-themes of
the conference, according to a statement from the Central Planning
Committee headed by Abi Derefaka, are: ‘Historiography of Slavery and
Slave Trade’; ‘Regional Perspectives on Slavery and Slave Trade’;
‘Globalisation and New Forms of Enslavement’; ‘Enslavement and Global
Africa Diaspora’; ‘Slave Market and Routes’; ‘Monuments, Relics and
Tourism’ and ‘Reconciliation, Reparation and Rehabilitation’.

The conference,
which will feature eminent academics including Toyin Falola, J. F Ade
Ajayi, E.J Alagoa, Paul Lovejoy, Felix Chami and Bolanle Awe, is
expected to explore fresh areas of schorlarship on slavery and the
slave trade. It is also expected to expand extant literature on the
theme as well as open up new avenues for research.

A number of
individuals and organisations have started identifying with the
conference. Governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola has promised to
support the forum. Oyinlola, while receiving the report of the
Committee on the planning and execution of the conference, noted that
it is “important and necessary within the context of preserving our
history and documenting our experiences.”

He disclosed that
Osun State decided to host the forum because of its role in the
cultural space of Nigeria, Africa and the world. He also welcomed the
fact that the conference will coincide with the Osun Osogbo
International Festival.

Edmund Mukala, a
UNESCO official, noted that the conference is strategic and important,
given Nigeria’s position in the slave trade and emancipation efforts.
The UNESCO programmes specialist said this after attending the meeting
of the Planning Committee as an observer.

He added that
UNESCO sees the conference as an extension of the Slave Route Project
that the world body has been working on for 15 years. Mukala said that
UNESCO’s support for the conference is an indication of the commitment
of its Director-General, Irina Bokova, to ensuring that the activities
of the Slave Route Project are revived and reinforced worldwide.

He added that the conference coming on the eve of the commemoration
of the 2011 UN International Year for the Population of African
Descents will provide an avenue for the formulation of a clear plan of
action in their favour.

Cassava
Republic, in association with Stepping Stones Nigeria (SSN), a
non-governmental organisation involved in efforts to sensitise the
public about child rights issues in Nigeria, is releasing a children’s
book on ‘child witches’. ‘Eno’s story’, a book written by Ayodele
Olofintuade and illustrated by Bolaji Liadi, is expected to be launched
in September.

‘Eno’s Story’ is
the story of a young girl who lives happily with her father until the
day he disappears in an accident. Eno’s uncle accuses her of being the
“witch” who has supposedly caused her father’s death. Subsequently, the
young girl goes through many struggles before moving in with other
children who have also been stigmatised as “witches” and sent away from
their homes.

The moving story of
Eno incorporates humour, while depicting the sad story of child rights
abuse and the protagonist’s courage in making the best of a difficult
situation. Targeted at young readers, Eno’s story is intended to
educate children about how organisations can help endangered youngsters
who find themselves in situations such as those faced by Eno in the
book.

SSN has also
partnered with director, Teco Benson to produce ‘The Fake Prophet’, a
film about unscrupulour church leaders stigmatising children as
‘witches’. The film was exclusively screened at the Korean Cultural
Center, Abuja, last week.

Gary Foxcroft, Programme Director of Stepping Stones Nigeria,
emphasised the need to train judicial, executive and social welfare
teams on child rights issues, adding that “There is also a great need
for the Federal Government to further strengthen its cooperation with
civil society in enhancing the protection and promotion of child
rights.”