Ikenga: The Strength of the Right Hand

The Reel and Real Women of Nollywood

(Tam Fiofori)--In the early 90s, when Nollywood was less than a decade old, I had in a three-part study characterised it as “providing instant fame for the girl and boy next door and instant fortune for a hybrid of producers.” Nollywood was a phenomenon which in its development had minimal links; technically, professionally and ethically with the older Nigerian Television and Celluloid-film industries. It set its own standards, which sadly, were based on the business ethics of its principal financiers, electronic equipment traders turned producers/marketers. These basically uncultured traders with limited education shaped and called the shots in Nollywood, driven by the desire for huge profits from little financial, aesthetic and cultural investments.

Kate Henshaw: Revisiting Nollywood Journey

(Funmi Johnson, Vanguard)--Since making her Nollywood debut on the set of 'The Sun Sets' in 1994, Kate Henshaw-Nuttal has come a long way to becoming a popular brand in the Nigeria movie industry…. She shares her experience in the movie industry, married life and of course, sexual harassment in the movie industry. 

You look great, what is the secret?

(Laughs) I just try to work as hard as I can. And when ever I find time between six and nine o'clock in the morning, I'm in the gym for my massage and facials. As a women who is eye of the society, it's important I do this because, my body is my workshop.

7 Reasons African Female Directors Rock

(Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN)--African cinema is booming. The continent is awash with creative minds with a flair for storytelling who are bringing life to local stories and sharing them across the globe -- from gripping thrillers and intensely-emotional dramas to celebrations of musical heritage and biopics.

We spoke to seven great female directors from Africa to ask them what they love most about their work -- and why you should too.

Imagining Jesus' Obituary 2000 Years Ago

(Sam Roberts)--Sam Roberts, an obituary writer for The New York Times, imagines how, given the facts available then, his predecessors might have reported the aftermath of an execution in the Middle East one Friday two millennia ago.

Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean carpenter turned itinerant minister whose appeals to piety and whose repute as a healer had galvanized a growing contingent of believers, died on Friday after being crucified that morning just outside Jerusalem, only days after his followers had welcomed him triumphantly to the city as “the anointed one” and “the Son of David.” He was about 33.

For a man who had lived the first three decades of his life in virtual obscurity, he attracted a remarkable following in only a few years.

His reputation reflected a persuasive coupling of message, personal magnetism, and avowed miracles. But it also resonated in the current moment of spiritual and economic discontent and popular resentment of authority and privilege, whether wielded by foreigners from Rome or by the Jewish priests in Jerusalem and their confederates.

Still, Jesus had been preceded in recent years by a litany of false messiahs. He followed a roster of self-styled prophets who promised salvation and, with their ragtag followers from separatist sects, cults, and fractious rebel groups, were branded as bandits by the governing Romans, ostracized by the ruling priests as heretics in a period of pessimistic apocalyptic expectation, and already lost to history.

The Madman by Chinua Achebe

(Chinua Achebe)—He was drawn to markets and straight roads. Not any tiny neighborhood market where a handful of garrulous women might gather at sunset to gossip and buy ogili for the evening’s soup, but a huge, engulfing bazaar beckoning people familiar and strange from far and near. And not any dusty, old footpath beginning in this village, and ending in that stream, but broad, black, mysterious highways without beginning or end.

After much wondering he had discovered two such markets linked together by such a highway; and so ended his wandering. One market was Afo, the other Eke. The two days between them suited him very well: before setting out for Eke he had ample time to wind up his business properly at Afo. He passed the night there putting right again his hut after a day of defilement by two fat-bottomed market women who said it was their market stall. At first he had put up a fight but the women had gone and brought their men-folk—four hefty beasts of the bush—to whip him out of the hut. After that he always avoided them, moving out on the morning of the market and back in at dusk to pass the night. Then in the morning he rounded off his affairs swiftly and set out on that long, beautiful boa-constrictor of a road to Eke in the distant town of Ogbu. He held his staff and cudgel at the ready in his right hand, and with the left he steadied the basket of all his belongings on his head. He had got himself this cudgel lately to deal with little beasts on the way who threw stones at him and made fun of their mothers’ nakedness, not his own.

Nollywood: Redefining African Filmmaking

(Norimitsu Onishi)--Sitting on a blue plastic stool in the sweltering heat, Ugezu J. Ugezu, one of Nigeria’s top filmmakers, was furiously rewriting his script as the cameras prepared to roll. “Cut!” he shouted after wrapping up a key scene, a confrontation between the two leading characters. Then, under his breath, he added, “Good as it gets.”

Naming Nollywood

(Norimitsu Onishi)--Back in 2002, on a phone call to an editor, I was trying to explain that I’d been working hard, really, during a visit to Lagos, my favorite city in West Africa, the region I was covering at the time. I’d spent a few days hanging out in the district of Surulere, which had emerged as Nigeria’s moviemaking capital. It seemed filmmakers were busy shooting on every street corner, frantically churning out what were then called home videos. 
Young would-be actresses and actors came from all over the country, wanting to be discovered. Over hot pepper soup and Gulder beer at Winis, a hotel that served as a studio and the site of never-ending parties, producers and directors told me with typical Nigerian ambition and bravado that they were building the new Hollywood. I even flirted with the possibility of playing the role of an evil white man, a bit part in a production called “Love of My Life.”

It’s like Hollywood or Bollywood but in Nigeria — Nollywood! I told my editor. A few days later, my article appeared on the front page, under a headline that christened the world’s newest movie powerhouse: “Step Aside, L.A. and Bombay, for Nollywood.” Fourteen years later, Nigeria’s movies have won fans across Africa and the African diaspora worldwide, and they are known to all as ... Nollywood.

Nigeria and the Trouble with its Church

(Ijabla Raymond)--“There is a lot wrong with the church in Nigeria today - Pentecostal pastors are in competition with themselves to accumulate wealth from the tithes and offering of their members; some will stop at nothing to exploit the desperate situations of our people to enrich themselves including making bogus claims about faith healing, paying dodgy characters to fake miracles on stage, making fuzzy pronouncements which they call prophecies, giving patients false reassurances and encouraging them to stop taking their medications with devastating consequences; some pastors own private jets bought with the tithes of their members some of whom cannot even feed their families; many of them sleep with their vulnerable female members who come to them for help.

“A medical doctor would lose their licence to practise or could even get jailed if they did that to their patient, but somehow our society has different standards for religious institutions and their leaders. Pastors have god-like statures and a cult-like following, which can overwhelm their naive members; and this often stops members from speaking out against sexual or psychological abuse. One thing we can learn from history is that when accountability is lacking, then a culture of abuse, corruption and exploitation becomes entrenched in a society and its institutions e.g. the sexual abuse of teenage boys by Catholic priests.

“… Personally, I am not convinced that religion makes people good; indeed, believers are guilty of every sin that their holy books accuse unbelievers of. This is about accountability, a quality that is grossly lacking in Nigerian society. It is the reason there is a church on practically every street but our country consistently tops the list of the most corrupt nations of the world….”

Decolonizing African Religions

"The last and most important pitfall for the Christian student is his belief in one God and the assumption which rises from it, namely that Africans must also have a High God. It is this assumption which has led Evans-Pritchard to interpret the numerous deities of the Nuer as refractions of God, and Placid Tempels to arrange the so-called 'life forces' of the Bantu in a hierarchy at the apex of which is the supposed High God. This also explains the preoccupation of many writers with some half-forgotten deities which are described as no longer interested in the affairs of men, and yet, they are called the High God. The aim of the study of African religions should be to understand the religious beliefs and practices of African people, rather than to discover the Christian God in Africa."

Okot p'Bitek (2011: 52), Decolonizing African Religions

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.