Amaka Igwe: Doodle for Nollywood Icon

(From Google Doodle) - Amaka Igwe’s 57th Birthday

"I will give you all I have, so you can add it to what you have and be better than me."

–Amaka Igwe

Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Nigerian-raised, Brooklyn-based guest artist Data Oruwari, celebrates award-winning Nigerian writer, director, entrepreneur, and producer Amaka Igwe on her 57th birthday. Igwe helped transform the Nigerian film industry and built a media empire from the ground up.

Uzoamaka ‘Amaka’ Audrey Igwe was born on this day in 1963 in Port harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. At an early age, Amaka showed deep interest in the performing arts, as she organized her school's variety shows, taught performance dance, as well as wrote, acted, and directed plays.

During her postgraduate studies, Igwe started focusing on theater and what she considered to be her first gift: writing. She developed her first television series screenplay, Checkmate, widely considered the best Nigerian soap opera of the 1990s.

There is Nothing Like "Money Ritual"

(By Abimbola Adelakun) – There is nothing like ‘money rituals’

The gruesome murder of the Lagos State University student, Miss Favour Daley-Oladele, by a self-deluded young man in pursuit of an illusion of “money rituals” is saddening. According to reports, Favour’s boyfriend, Owolabi Adeeko, had allegedly connived with a pastor, Segun Philips, who promised to make a potion that would magically draw money for Adeeko and his mother. Now that they have been busted, the pastor claimed the ritual failed because “the spirit did not bring any money.”

I am uncertain if he genuinely believed that money would magically surface or he was merely making things up for the press, but here is the truth: There is nothing like money ritual. There has never been, and there never will be.

There is nobody that claims that “money ritual” is real that can also substantiate it. The evidence people tender about its efficacy is typically reportorial, or some fantasy they picked up from home movies. Meanwhile, Nollywood filmmakers too have never seen money rituals work either. What they rehash are urban myths and similar tales. Nobody, I repeat, nobody can make money come out of thin air or conjure it from another location.

Priests, Pastors, Prophets, & Politics of Prophecies

(By Immanuel JamesIbe-Anyanwu) – Mbaka’s god and the future of Imo

There are two consistent attributes of the Mbaka god. It is an arrogant god that forecloses commentary, hence the warning that those who will criticize the Catholic priest over this new year prophecy, will attract divine wrath. Gods are like that though—often demanding unquestioning credulity. But because critical intelligence is also a divine gift, I do not believe God gave it to us not to use it. Besides, unlike Mbaka, I am from Imo State, the constituency whose destiny is being purported for change; I should therefore be free to discuss my fate.

Second feature of the Mbaka god is that it loves the APC. Mohammadu Buhari, it once declared, would transform Nigeria. In fairness, Buhari has truly transformed Nigeria, but in reverse. “There will be more hardship in 2020”, Mbaka’s god assures again, which is consistent with the Buhari prophecy of 2015: Buhari has so far transformed Nigeria into grievous hardship, but will do even more this year. 

Hope Uzordimma, 4th runner-up in the state’s last guber poll, will become Imo Governor this year, says the Mbaka god. Hope is “an agent of salvation” who would “restore the dignity of that noble land”. This is at least the third APC prophecy largesse blasting through this curious oracle. Which raises two fundamental concerns.

Nollywood's Vision 2020

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