Oraukwu: Igu Aro, Iro Mmuo, Iwa Ji, et al

(Oraukwu.comOraukwu.com)--Ofala (Igu Aro)

The word "Ofala", as one of those non-indigenous Igbo words, probably Igala derivatives, but more precisely origin unknown, would best be defined as a Royal outing involving communal celebrations, in a carefully planned program wrapped in a grandeur and outpouring of respect, revelry and as established by custom and sponsored by the with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy and safe to say that Ofala festival represents the apotheosis of Eze, Igwe or Obi in Igbo land. The event is used to celebrate in royal fashion the reign of the Igwe unprecedented for its length, its glory, its prosperity and let it be added, its goodness and peaceful tenure.

The Danger in Worshipping the Wrong God

(Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo)--Eureka!

I’m going to found the Empirical Proof Foundation. Our job will be very simple. We will crisscross Africa and collect specimens from every phenomenon that needs further investigation so that we will help establish empirical proof.

Here is a good example: last week, Nigeria’s Sun newspaper published a fascinating story of a young woman who vomited a padlock and gave birth to a turtle right inside a church. The newspaper told the story of the woman, the prophet who made it happen and the congregation who joined in the celebration of the miracle.

Igwe Osita Agwuna III: For the Love of Culture

(Okey Ndibe)-- …It was in that ancient town [of Enugwu Ukwu] that my awareness of the depth, beauty and pageantry of Igbo language, customs and culture was awakened. Every traditional ceremony in the town was marked by an enchanting festive air featuring a parade of hundreds of masquerades of different sorts, sometimes including the majestic Ijele.

Remembering Christmas

(Ruben Abati)-- …[Christmas] was also that time of the year for the reinforcement of family values. People whom you had not seen for the whole year travelled home from their stations to be part of Christmas. You got the chance to meet cousins, make new friends, and sing till you almost went hoarse.

I wasn’t much of a singer or drummer- my friends used to laugh each time I missed a note or a beat and we would spend weeks afterwards mimicking each other. In short, Christmas was real fun. But it was relatively a simple, inexpensive celebration, year after year. Our parents did not have to borrow, or go bankrupt, or agonize, for Christmas to be meaningful.

We got one or two new clothes and shoes: those were the usual Christmas gifts. On Christmas day, after church, lunch didn’t have to be anything extra-ordinary: it was no more than rice and chicken. In those days, chicken was a special delicacy, reserved for Sundays, or special occasions like birthdays or Christmas, very much unlike now that every child acquires the taste for tasty chicken from the womb! On Boxing Day, we either visited friends or stayed home, and played with firecrackers and bangers on the streets. Those children who could not afford bangers were not left out. They improvised with local devices made by blacksmiths. That contraption produced even better effect.

Why History Should Be Taught

(Reuben Abati)-- …I have had similar encounters in more recent times: young Nigerians who do not know the author of Things Fall Apart, and who have never heard of Lord Lugard, Ahmadu Bello, Bola Ige or Kaduna Nzeogwu….

This is one of those self-inflicted omissions in our development process. Close to two decades ago, history was removed from the primary and secondary school curricula as a core subject.The teaching of history also became threatened at the tertiary level, as it got labeled as one of those disciplines that cannot get anyone a job in the oil and gas sector or the banks.

The Muslim Whose Presence Defiled Christ

Source: loonwatch.com

(Pius Adesanmi)-- ...Modees, obviously, is a Muslim. His best friend who was getting married is a Christian. A Muslim was going to be best man in a Christian marriage! The Christian groom and his Muslim best friend thought nothing of this until wedding day and the officiating Pastor somehow caught wind of the faith of the best man and refused to proceed with the ceremony.

It was bad enough for Modees, a Muslim, to have come to defile the body of Christ in his church! To approach the pulpit as the best man in the wedding was adding insult to injury! All entreaties to the Pastor failed. No Muslims allowed here!

The story of this foolish fundamentalist Christian Pastor in Calabar is the story of Nigeria. It is indeed the story of Africa. It is the story of the failure of critical intelligence. It could very easily have happened the other way round. It could have been Modees getting married and his Christian friend being bundled out of the ceremony for defiling a Mosque.

The trouble with Nigeria, the tragedy of Africa, is that in a world of mutual connectivity and global influences and interactions, we have not figured out a way of making whatever we accept from the outside, whatever is forced on us from the outside, sit on the solid foundation of our own worldviews and humanity.

SWAG: Smiling With All-Compassionate God

In the course of my priestly ministry few years ago at Christ the King Catholic Church, Ilasamaja, Lagos, I acquired the sobriquet, “Father Swagger.” I was wont to encourage the warm and friendly parishioners to "ginger [their] swagger for Jesus.” If you heard Nigeria's bell-ringing hip-hop artiste, Terry G, in that phrase, you’re right. Why not. After all, God does move in mysterious ways.

Some people wonder what a priest like me is doing associating himself with swag and popular (if not street) culture. Well if they knew where I’m coming from, they’d understand the why of the association.

First, I’m a Jesuit. And Jesuits find God in all things. As one wise Jesuit once wrote: Jesuits are in the show business showing off for Jesus. Bill O’Malley was writing about his brother Jesuits engaged with the world and working in the media, theater, and cinema. A prolific author of more than 40 books, Father O’Malley is best known for playing the role of Father Dyer in the 1973 blockbuster film, The Exorcist. He is said to be the first Catholic priest to portray a priest in a commercial movie.

Sugabelly, Rape, and Audu's Sons

Anti-rape protesters in Lagos; source: Reuters

(Reuben Abati)--You probably don’t know Sugabelly. I don’t know her either. But it is the twitter handle of a Nigerian lady: @sugabelly, who in the wake of the death of former Governor Abubakar Audu of Kogi State felt the urge to go public with her story. My foregrounding her/story as opposed to his/story, is further affirmation of an earlier submission that Audu’s death is “inconclusive” (The Guardian, Nov 27).

As the rest of Nigeria mourned the death of Abubakar Audu and pondered the implications of an inconclusive electoral process, Sugabelly showed up on social media and started celebrating his death. Her message was that the death of the man was good riddance to bad rubbish. “I feel so amazing”, she wrote. “Like God actually answered my prayers… That’s usually how it is. Powerful people rarely remember the people whose lives they destroy.”

Igbo Hospitality: Kola Nut and White Clay

Bowl of kola nut; source: www.oraukwu.com

“Kola nut, oji (Cola acuminata), and white chalk, nzu, are two of the most frequently used and

culturally important substances in the Igbo world, and both figure prominently in initial hospitality ceremonies crucial to the success of any social or ritual undertaking.

Both substances are regarded as having ritual power, are sacrifices, and function as facilitators of communication between men and between men and their gods. The two substances are different but each is indispensible, and it is difficult to imagine Igbo like without them.

The cultural preeminence of kola nut and chalk has inspired the Igbo to devise special containers for their ceremonial presentation. While these serving dishes are optional and not always artistically elaborated, the substances are mandatory.

Don't Preach to me, Show me Compassion Instead

Pope Francis washes an prisoner's foot on Maundy Thursday in Rome

(Abiodun Kuforiji Nkwocha)--Did I even mention to you guys that I was once a banker? Ages ago.

If I attempt to take all my gist from that side, the stories will never end. I learnt something vital; whenever someone walked into my branch to cash a third party cheque with no ID and the prefix Pastor or Imam was written on that cheque, regardless of the amount, one of my bosses would not honour the cheque.

Introducing Adesua "Sunshine" Etomi

(Shaibu Husseini)--She is nicknamed ‘Sunshine’ and that is exactly what this new acting dynamite Adesua Etomi brings, to any picture she is cast to feature in. From an appearance in her short film, ‘Brave’ to a leading performance in that engaging telling by Royal Pictures Academy, ‘Knocking on Heavens Door’ and the ground breaking television series ‘Gidi Up’, Adesuwa has shown stuff and has proven that she is that actress any good producer should engage if he or she wants an actress who can live a role believably.

Born in Owerri, Imo State to a father who is from Edo State and a mother who is Yoruba, Adesua acts with a lot of depth. She throws herself into a role and makes every role she has played seem as though it was written with her in mind. Indeed, most directors who have worked closely with her since she returned from abroad to join the industry after her university education affirm that she is good and that the humble, friendly and amiable actress who also sings, has brought some spark to the Nigerian stage and screen acting firmament.

Of Gods, Economics, and Power

"Economics and power have always played a large part in the championing of new deities throughout human history. The struggle for authority in early human society with its prize of material advantages, social prestige and the establishment of an elite has been nowhere so intensely marked as in the function of religion, perpetuating itself in repressive orthodoxies, countered by equally determined schisms. 

In the exploration of man's images of essence-ideal, fashioned in the shape of gods, we cannot afford to jettison our cynical faculties altogether. Adapting The Bacchae of Euripides quite... for a production--The Bacchae is of course the finest extant drama of the social coming-into-being of a semi-European deity--I found it necessary to emphasise this impure aspect of the priesthood. 

There is a confrontation between King Pentheus who is properly opposed to the presence and activities of the god Dionysus in his kingdom, and the seer Tiresias who is already an enthusiastic promoter of the god. Here are a few lines from King Pentheus's denunciation:

This is your doing Tiresias; I know

You talked him into it, and I know why.

Another god revealed is a new way opened

Into men’s pocket, profits from offerings,

Power over private lives - and state affairs –

Don’t deny it! I’ve known your busy priesthood
Manipulations.

Wole Soyinka (1976: 12-13), Myth, Literature and the African World

Chiwetalu Agu: Film Character Vs Real Life

(Tofarati Ige)--Popular Nollywood actor, Chiwetalu Agu, often acts the role of a wicked man in movies. And his depictions are so real that many fans believe that is his real character. In this chat with Showtime Celebrity, he explains that the negative reaction of fans towards his wicked roles is what actually led him into acting comic roles. Excerpts…

You seem to have an affinity for comedies; why is that?

I wouldn’t call it affinity. Years ago, I found out that most of the scripts that were brought to me didn’t have comic relief; I was always given roles of a wicked man and I got to understand that most of my fans were not pleased with it. Some of them felt it was something real, and the consequence was that whenever I stepped out in public, I was caught in embarrassing situations.

I then decided to be infusing comic relief even when I’m playing wicked characters because I’m a veteran screen writer. In the early 80s, we were operating in NTA Enugu, which was formerly Anambra Television Channel 50, so the talent is there, and I combined it with the wicked roles they were giving me. The result is that when you are watching me play a wicked role, you will still have cause to laugh, and ease your tension. In fact, I have achieved a lot by doing that.

Nollywood: Shooting for Better Picture Quality

(Samuel Abulude)--The movie industry is evolving and so are its practitioners. In recent times, great movies inspired by creative directors have crafted what is referred to as the new nollywood.

The Nigerian movie industry has without doubt evolved over the years. With new technology and ideas in movie making, Filmmakers and men behind the camera have been part of the process. The film industry that was pioneered by different personalities like Hubert Ogunde, Ola Balogun and others have become an enterprise and the second employer of labour after agriculture. Thanks to the passion and focus of the great brains that wanted to tell the Nigerian story through films.

A Taste of Nollywood's Medicine

Source: irokotv.com

(Judd-Leonard Okafor)--The man in white lab coat runs a blood test and delivers the verdict: the girl is pregnant. The woman in blue scrubs steps out of the theatre, pulls off her face mask and gives the dreaded announcement: I'm sorry; we've done all we can.

Such scenes are easily recognizable in Nollywood, and millions of avid fans eat them up. But they have doctors fuming at the portrayal of medicine in Nollywood. Medical scenes in movies are a constant. Nearly every other story involves a doctor, but it is how movie doctors approach their work that has the Nigerian medical establishment biting its nails.

iROKO Global: Delivering Nollywood to World Audience

Source: iRokotv.com

(Ibukun Taiwo)--African Internet TV pioneer, iROKO, has launched iROKO Global, its global content distribution and licensing division.

The iROKO Global team will license its extensive library of Nollywood films and TV series across Pay TV, Internet TV, In-flight and YouTube channels. From its HQ in London, the division will be partnering with media outlets in key markets, notably the UK, US and France, to license Nollywood films and TV series and develop iROKO branded channels. Leading iROKO Global’s worldwide licensing division is Senior Vice President, Justine Powell, who has recently joined the company from Associated Press, where she was Director of Sales for Europe & Africa.

Nollywood in Search of African Actors

Wale Ojo (Nigerian) and Fatym Layachi (Moroccan) on the set of CEO in Lagos; source: AFP

(Mail & Guardian Africa)--The camera rolls from left to right on a dolly as the actors, go through their lines, a sound operator holding a boom steady over their heads under bright studio lights.

It could be a scene from any film set but Kunle Afolayan hopes “The CEO” could drive change in Nigeria’s hugely popular and prolific movie industry, Nollywood.

“‘The CEO’ represents Africa as a continent,” said the 41-year-old during a break from filming at a luxury resort outside the financial capital, Lagos.

Nollywood and Nigerian Scholarship

Emem Isong; source: pinterest.com

(Isiguzo Destiny)--Nollywood is over 20 years; yet many Nigerian scholars are not keen on using Nigerian films as references for their researches. What is the way forward?

In a survey this reporter took in University of Lagos on 2014/2015 session final year projects students, it was shocking to discover that most of the literary and theatre art students centered their research on creative literature e.g. novel, play, poetry, and literary criticism and there was an overwhelming neglect on Nigerian motion pictures.

Nollywood's Evolution and Staying Power

Nollywood Associations and Guilds 1

Source: afromixent.com

1. Actors’ Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Emeka Ike/Ibinabo Fiberesima, 08033256486, 08062777777
2. Alliance of Nollywood Guilds and Associations (ANOGA), Comrade Victor Ashaolu, 08067314252.
3. Arewa Film Makers Association (AFMA), Aisha Halilu,  aisha.halilu@gmail.com
4. Association of Itsekiri Performing Artistes (AIPA), Prince Young Emiko, 08023213980
5. Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Zik Zulu Okafor, zulufilms@yahoo.com
6. Association of Nigeria Theatre Arts Practitioners (ANTP), Comrade Victor Ashaolu, 08067314252.

The Feminine Mistake

Artwork by Lorna Simpson; source: more.com

(Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)--I first knew there was such a thing as blue mascara because of Aunty Chinwe. She came to visit my mother one Saturday, her braids held sleekly at her neck, her caftan’s silver embroidery gleaming and her lashes the bright color of a crayon. Against her dark skin, they were striking.

“Aunty, your lashes are blue!” I said.

I was 11.

“Yes, my dear. It’s blue mascara,” she told me with a smile. She was always smiling, eyes crinkled, teeth very white.

I liked most of my mother’s friends—funny women, kind women, brilliant women, and there was the one soft-spoken man—but only to Aunty Chinwe would I say something like that. Aunty, your lashes are blue!

She had an air of endless tolerance, of magnanimous grace; she turned every room she entered into a soft space free of the thorny possibility of consequences. With children, her manner was that of an adult just about to hand out lavishly wrapped gifts, not for a birthday or Christmas but simply because children deserved gifts.

I sneaked into the parlor whenever she visited, and sat in a corner, and eavesdropped on her conversations with my mother. Because she drank Fanta elegantly from a glass, I eschewed bottles and began to drink my Coke from a glass. I loved simply to look at her: petite, graciously fleshy, with a dark-dark complexion that made people think she was from Ghana or Gambia or somewhere not Nigeria where beautiful women had indigo skin. At her clinic she gave injections with the gentlest touch.

Raised Catholic, Inspired by Pope Francis

Holy Trinity Cathedral, Onitsha, Nigeria; source: Reuters

(Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)--As a child, I loved Mass, its swirl of music and rituals. My family went every Sunday to St. Peter’s, the Catholic chapel at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. It was full of perfumed people: gold pendants at women’s throats, their headscarves flared out like the wings of giant butterflies; men’s caftans crisply starched; children in frilly socks and uncomfortable clothes. Mass was as much social as spiritual—an occasion to greet and gossip, to see and be seen, and to leave consoled. I loved watching the priests sweep past, all certainty and majestic robes, behind the sober Mass-servers holding candles. The choir sang in Igbo and English, each song a little plot of joy. I loved the smoky smells, the standing and sitting and kneeling, the shiny metal chalice raised high in air charged with magic and ringing bells. The words of the liturgy were poetry.

Campus Love

Nnenna Omali; source: bellanaija.com

(E. C. Osondu)--I’ll tell you about love.

I know more about this four letter word than you’d expect. On an unrelated note, maybe not totally unrelated, I have always had a little pet peeve. You know I have never liked those musical boys groups like Boy’s To Men and Backstreet Boys crooning on and on about love and loving and winning and losing and running away and coming back to love. What do they know? What have they experienced in their young lives? It is a different thing when a battle-scarred lover like BB King is groaning out such a song. You can tell he’s been there and done that, got the scars, authentic scars to show for it and he’s keeping it real y’all.

Anyway, where was I ?

Yes, as I was saying I was chased out of the university that I attended for one year because of love. I had to take the university entrance exams for a second time to get into the second tier university from which I eventually graduated. This particular kind of love was not the whispering kind. It was rather the kind that screamed and grabbed one by the shirt collar and commanded— follow me. My story is a little bow-legged, but I will uncrook it’s leg for you.

Oriki for Onitsha Market Literature

Source: ecx.images-amazon.com

(Ikhide R. Ikheloa)--Someone once asked me to respond to the interesting question: Is Nigerian English the same as Nigerian pidgin? 

My response: There is pidgin and many variants are spoken in Nigeria. And there is English and many variants are spoken in Nigeria. Debating the idea of one Nigerian English is as useful as saying that there is ONE recipe for cooking egusi soup (yes, soup, NOT sauce!). 

There are ways of speaking, and ways of expression that are distinct to various sections Nigeria. And it is often possible to tell where someone is from based on how they handle the English language. Some of the best masters of English are from Nigeria. And some of the worst are from Nigeria. What is mildly hilarious is that it is the latter that usually spends precious time correcting the former. There is something about some Nigerians and the attainment of knowledge or whatever; they like to wear it loudly like a Rolex watch,

Igbo People, Culture, and History

And Okonkwo Goes Viral!

(Pius Adesanmi)--Thank You, Millennials!

Despite sorrow, despite anguish, despite depression over Kogi state, Nigeria, today, I somehow had to find the strength to go and teach that introduction to African literature second-year class.

Discussions came to the cultural and contextual bases of similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech. I take an example from Things Fall Apart:

"During this time Okonkwo’s fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan"

A Shocking Death and the Will of God

Oluchi Anekwe; source: jide-salu.com

(Simon Kolawale)--How do you respond to the electrocution of a promising university undergraduate, a first-class material at that? You can say "it is God's will" — as it is our custom in Nigeria — or you can say that once again, another light has been dimmed in clearly avoidable circumstances.

Oluchi Anekwe, a 300-level accounting student of the University of Lagos, was killed on Tuesday when a naked wire fell on her from an electric pole. Since there was no natural disaster such as a storm, you get the sense that the deadly cable had been hanging dangerously for a while. It was somebody's responsibility, I guess, to maintain those cables. The "somebody" failed in his duty and there are no consequences. Life goes on. We await the next electrocution, the next "God's will".

The Violence in the Sacred

Source: js.emory.edu

(Rene Girard)--“Religion in its broadest sense, then, must be another term for that obscurity that surrounds man’s efforts to defend himself by curative or preventive means against his own violence.... This obscurity coincides with the transcendental effectiveness of a violence that is holy, legal, and legitimate successfully opposed to a violence that is unjust, illegal, and illegitimate….

Religion, then, is far from ‘useless.’ It humanizes violence; it protects man from his own violence by taking it out of his hands, transforming it into a transcendent and ever-present danger to be kept in check by the appropriate rites appropriately observed and by a modest and prudent demeanor….

[Religious] prohibitions serve a basic function. They maintain a sort of sanctuary at the heart of the community, an area where that minimum of nonviolence essential to the survival of the children and the community’s cultural heritage—essential, in short, to everything that sustains man’s humanity—is jealously preserved. If prohibitions capable of performing this function actually exist, one can hardly attribute them to the beneficence of Nature (that good angel of complacent humanism, the last relic of those optimistic theologies engendered by the deterioration of historical Christianity).

Nigeria, Ethnicity, AND Nationalism

Source: tourbrockersinternational.com

(Pius Adesanmi)--Pan-Nigeria does not ask you to forget your ethnic, religious or other identities. It asks you to sacrifice nothing. In fact, pan-Nigeria cannot even exist as a philosophical concept without those differences.

What I want you to know you cannot even be a good Nigerian if you are not a fantastic Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, etc. So start by being very proud of your ethnic and cultural identity and specificity. Then, apply yourself to understanding the history and cultures of your ethnicity’s ancestors.

You see, ethnic hatred in Nigeria is borne out of crass ignorance of the humanism and philosophical generosity of the ancestors of the federating ethnicities.

I have studied the cultures of Africa long enough to understand their deep humanism which should form the basis of an extension of the self into others, a projection into them to respect them in their own distinction and specificity.

So, understanding the story of humanism in your Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani or Ogoni history and culture is the road to the pan-Nigerian humanism I envision. Go back to your folk tales and listen attentively to what happened to the tortoise whenever he undermined the dignity of his own people or of neighbouring peoples.

The fundamental humanism in our ancestral stories is what we have not been able to properly integrate into the modern project Nigeria.

Of Mmonwu and Spirits of the Living-Dead

The Ancestors and the Dialogue of Religions

Source: timeslive.co.za

"My father was a man of few words, and I have always regretted that I had not asked him more questions. But I realize also that he took pains to tell me what he thought I needed to know. He told me, for instance, in a rather oblique way of his one tentative attempt long ago to convert his uncle.

It must have been in my father’s youthful, heady, proselytizing days! His uncle had said no, and pointed to the awesome row of insignia of his three titles. “what shall I do to these?” he had asked my father. It was an awesome question. What do I do to who I am? What do I do to history?

An orphan child born into adversity, heir to commotions, barbarities, rampant upheaveals of a continent in disarray: was it all surprising that he would eagerly welcome the explanation and remedy proffered by diviners and interpreters of a new word [i.e., Christianity]?

And his uncle Udoh, a leader in his community, a moral, open-minded man, a prosperous man who had prepared such a great feast when he took the ozo title that his people gave him a unique praise-name for it: was he to throw all that away now because some strangers from afar came and said so?

Those two—my father and his uncle—formulated the dialectic which I inherited. Udoh stood fast in what he knew, but he left room also for his nephew to seek other answers. The answer my father found in the Christian faith solved many problems, but by no means all.”

Chinua Achebe (2009: 37), The Education of a British-Protected Child

Onitsha, Balconies, and Gists

(Uzoamaka Doris Aniunoh)--I lived in Onitsha with my parents and siblings in a four-story building. My father was the landlord and going downstairs was against his many rules, so I always stayed on the balcony, watching things happen. In Onitsha, the height of a building was an indication of its owner’s wealth. (For some reason, it was mostly the bungalows that had badly spelt signs in red paint that read DIS HOUSE IS NO FOR SELL.) My father owned our building, so it was only natural that we lived at the very top.

Our fourth floor living quarters had four balconies: one in our flat, two in our father’s flat and one separating the two flats.

In Pursuit of Happiness

Source: pintrest.com

“In that Christ had suffered, and had suffered voluntarily, suffering was no longer unjust and pain was necessary. In one sense, Christianity’s bitter intuition and legitimate pessimism concerning human behavior is based on the assumption that over-all injustice is as satisfying to man as total justice. Only the sacrifice of an innocent god could justify the endless and universal torture of innocence. Only the most abject suffering by God could assuage man’s agony. If everything, without exception, in heaven and earth is doomed to pain and suffering, then a strange form of happiness is possible.”

Albert Camus (1956: 34)

The Rebel

When Prayer is Not Enough

Source: informationng.com

More often, Nigerians imply that God is responsible for their desultory condition. Obasanjo squandered something in the region of $16 billion on electric power, only to achieve the magic of a worsened power supply in Nigeria. Rather than offer a sober narrative about the anomaly, he asked Nigerians to pray to God to improve the situation. When we intone “God is in control” or “We’re trusting God” or “In God’s time,” we imagine that we are demonstrating profound piety. In reality, we are putting our infantilism, false sense of sanctimoniousness, and refusal to take responsibility on full display."   Okey Ndibe

200 Million Naira Prayers

Source: senatepresident.gov.ng

"Adamawa State is about to purchase prayers worth N200 million to ward off Boko Haram and other security challenges, according to the chief of staff, Abdulrahman Jimeta. I would suggest they go for a competitive bidding process so as to attract the best prayer warriors money can buy. If the state settles for only Muslim and Christian prayers, the contracts should be shared 50:50 for the sake of fairness. Prayers used to be free, but things have changed with the deregulation of spirituality and devaluation of the naira. Of course, the government has unconvincingly tried to clarify Jimeta's statement. Jokers."

Simon Kolawale

Choosing the Ooni's Successor

(Dele Momodu)--Fellow Nigerians, let me confess that my trip to the ancient city of Ife last Thursday was a most harrowing experience. As a matter of fact, the drive itself was very smooth devoid of the usual hurly-burly on that notorious Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. We set forth on our journey around noon not knowing what to expect along the way. Road travel in Nigeria has defied common logic. You require methods to the malfeasance and madness of our dare-devil drivers. We drove all the way to Ibadan without any major drama of bottlenecks and we thanked God for journey mercies.

The second leg of our journey was from Ibadan to Ile-Ife.

Nollywood: The Genesis, the Motivation

Okechukwu Ogunjiofor was a co-producer, with Kenneth Nnebue, of Nollywood's foundational movie, Living in Bondage. He actually sold the idea of the movie to Nnebue, who financed the film, becoming it executive producer. He became popularly known as Paulo, a character in Living in Bondage.

The Ooni of Ife and Tradition

Source: news punch.org

(Olusegun Adeniyi)--As a first year undergraduate at Ife in 1985, I was confronted with this myth that in the town on which our campus was domiciled, rituals were performed with human beings all-year-round except only on one day. But after Dr. Dipo Fashina (the ever-uncompromising former ASUU president popularly known as Jingo) had put enough sense into some of us (through Philosophy 101) to begin to doubt everything, I asked a roommate, indigene of Ife, whether the story was true. When he replied in the affirmative, I sought to know whether any member of his family had ever been lost to such practices and he responded: “A kii f’omo ore b’ore”.

That saying, crudely translated, means that indigenes can never be used for rituals involving human sacrifice. Of course, I must point out here that throughout my four-year stay at Ife, I was not aware of any incident of a student being lost to rituals. That is not to say we did not hear stories of some “strange” happenings at the period. That perhaps then explains why since the information broke last week that the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade, had ascended into the spirit world, there are stories of people either avoiding travelling to/through the town or of residents going to bed earlier than usual.

Widowhood Rites: The Silent Pain of a Widow

Source: theleaderassumpta.com

(Kinda Delphine)--Few years ago, I was a radio presenter for a women rights program called ‘Every Woman’ (2006) Even though my co-presenter and I were still not very clear what women’s rights is, we somehow managed to hold inspiring discussions on air about gender inequality. On one edition, we got a call from a listener who was sharing her experiences about widowhood rights. She told us of the great love that she and her husband had once shared and how all of that was rub to the mud and she was abused and dehumanized by the traditional rites that her husband’s family put her through during the funeral.

You may not have heard it, but there is something called Widowhood rites in most parts of Africa and maybe in other parts of the world too. These are specific things that the wife of a deceased man has to fulfill but there is no such thing as widower rites. At least I have not heard of it!

When a WIFE dies, society sympathizes with the widower. When a HUSBAND dies, the community starts questioning the circumstances surrounding the death of the man and examine ‘invincible’ motives that his wife may have to kill him. Without any proof or trial, widows are accused of killing their husbands.

Growing My Hair Again, by Chika Unigwe

Source: vowinitiative.org

(Chika Unigwe)--"I am crouching beside the bed, my palms flat on the deep red rug that swallows my sobs. The rug is warm. It is a mother's hand. My posture is--I hope--appropriate to the occasion. My mother-in-law is watching me, her eyes hawk-like even through her own tears. She sniffs and says, 'You're not crying loud enough. Anyone would think you never loved him. Bee akwa!'

She never approved of me. I had an excess of everything. Education. Beauty. Relatives. Hair. Sure to bring any man down. At the thought of my hair, my palms go cold. By this time tomorrow, it will all be gone. I shall be taken to the backyard by group of widows, probably all of them strangers. One of them, the oldest, will lather my hair with a new tablet of soap (which will be thrown away once it's been used on me), and then shave all of is off with a razor blade. I shall be bathed in cold water. Strange women splashing water on me. Cleansing me to make my husband's passage easy on him: a ritual to make the break between us final so that he is not stuck halfway between this world and the next shouting himself hoarse calling for his wife to be at his side when he joins his ancestors.

'You should cry louder. You sound like you're mourning a family pet. You are a widow, nwanyi a! Cry as if you lost a husband! Bee akwa. Cry!'

Discovering Things Fall Apart

Source: reading.cornel.edu

(Chinua Achebe)--"Soon after [an] encounter with my future father-in-law I moved to Lagos to interview for a new position at the headquarters of what was now called the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). The Talks Department hired me to maul over scripts and prepare them for broadcast. A tedious job, it nevertheless honed my skill for writing realistic dialogue, a gift I gratefully tapped into when writing my novels.

In my second or third year at University College, Ibadan, I had offered two short stories, 'Polar Understanding' and 'Marriage is a Private Affair,' to the University Herald, the campus magazine. They were accepted and published. I published other stories during that time, including 'The Old Order in Conflict with the New' and 'Dead Men's Path.' In my third year I was invited to join the editorial committee of the journal. A bit later I became the magazine's editor.

At the University College, Ibadan, I was in contact with instructors of literature, of religion, and of history who had spent several years teaching in England. Studying religion was new to me and interesting because the focus went beyond Christian theology to encompass wider scholarship--West African religions.

Clashing for Foreign Gods on Home Soil

Source: tuesdaywithmorris

"Nnobi has three major institutions--the Catholic Church as represented by Madonna Catholic Church, the Anglican Church as represented by St. Simon's Church, and Chief Zebrudaya Okolo Igwe Nwogbo, alias '4:30.' The Catholic and Anglican Churches are our own Muslim and Christian divide. The Catholic Church would excommunicate a member who allowed his or her daughter to marry an Anglican.

Merely walking into an Anglican church would bar a Catholic from receiving communion until he or she undergoes opipia (atonement). The Catholics run the Boys Scout while the Anglican run the Boys Brigade. Catholic mothers join the M'ambo dance while the Anglican mothers join the Awelenma dance."

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo (2006: 34-35)

Children of a Retired God: Notes from An African Exile

Miracles and Wonders, Faith and Diaspora: On Tope Folarin's Miracle

Source: humboldt-foundation.de

(Aaron Bady)--Read Tope Folarin’s “Miracle,” in its entirety here.

That “miracles” are not real is, I think, a secular assumption that many of Tope Folarin’s readers will share. Some of us might say that we believe in miracles, and we might enjoy indulging in the fantasy of divine intervention, or biblical stories that describe Jesus’ ability to turn water into wine, or a few loaves and fishes into many loaves and fishes. But to turn one thing into another thing is the provenance of medieval alchemy, and we are moderns. We might say we believe in angels, but we tend to put the lives of our loved ones in the hands of doctors, instead of prayer. We believe in science.

Miracle, by Tope Folarin

Source: missoulian.com

(Tope Folarin)--OUR HEADS MOVE simultaneously, and we smile at the tall, svelte man who strides purposefully down the aisle to the pulpit. Once there, he raises both of his hands then lowers them slightly. He raises his chin and says let us pray.

“Dear Father, we come to you today, on the occasion of this revival, and we ask that you bless us abundantly, we who have made it to America, because we know we are here for a reason. We ask for your blessings because we are not here alone. Each of us represents dozens, sometimes hundreds of people back home. So many lives depend on us Lord, and the burden on our shoulders is great. Jesus, bless this service, and bless us. We ask that we will not be the same people at the end of the service as we were at the beginning. All this we ask of you, our dear savior, Amen.”

As the Ooni Retires to the Penthouse

Ooni of Ife; source: informationng.com

(Pendulum by Dele Momodu)--Fellow Nigerians, the controversy surrounding the health status of The Ooni of Ife would have been unnecessary if many of us had understood or respected the Ife tradition. Ile-Ife being the cradle of civilisation is steeped in endless myths and the ancient town parades countless pantheons for about 401 deities who are worshipped all year round. 

Ile-Ife and Benin City cherish their culture and never joke with tradition. They revere their kings and hold on fastidiously to the belief that these kings can never die, they can only retire to the ceiling, a concept that is probably alien to members of the modern generation. This is why it is possible for a powerful king to depart this terrestrial space unannounced for months by the traditional institutions. The people have accepted a system that may seem abnormal to foreigners but not to us.

What has made The Ooni’s case so contentious is because the news of his departure escaped and exploded from abroad and our Ife Chiefs are righteously miffed about the antics of some busy-bodies who seem hell-bent on rendering them irrelevant. This is unacceptable no matter how modern the world as become. Traditions the world over are either kept or wholly jettisoned. There are sacred rites or protocols that are observed and performed by the Catholics at The Vatican. For example, there cannot be an emergence of a new Pope without the appearance of the famous white smoke. It is the same for the Muslims who must search, find and sight the moon before proceeding on starting or ending the Ramadan. Modernity has not been able to obliterate those age-old traditions.