The Complete Idiot’s Guide To The National Conference

On Thursday, August 5, 1999, I read a published article titled,“Obasanjo’s not Enough: National Conference, Please!” In it the author screamed that Obasanjo was not enough. He asked Obasanjo to please give us a National Conference. In the article, he even called Obasanjo “fresh air.” Imagine!

Fourteen years later,President Goodluck Jonathan, on his own, is now calling for a National Conference. He is acknowledging that he is not enough and neither is his National Assembly. In January of 2000, I read another article, “Who’s Afraid of a National Conference.” In it the author tried to address the fears of those who are against a national conference.
While I do not endorse Jonathan’s conference, and do not have the confidence that he has the political will to pull it off, it doesn’t in any way negate the need.
As the debate on the National Conference returns to the national discourse, I present again the 1999 and the 2000 articles. It’s surprising that almost fifteen years after, despite opening the tallest hotel in West Africa, we have not moved an inch the thing around our neck.
I still maintain that the ideals of Nigeria have not been tried and found wanting; instead they have been found difficult and left untried. The National Conference is one encompassing way to set the stage for trying the ideals of Nigeria.
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Gloom, despair and despondency are some of the moods no one wants to see return to Nigeria. Nigerians seem to cherish the upbeat and promising atmosphere that came in with Obasanjo. It appears as if the proverbial silver lining is already in the sky. Daily, surprising news clips are coming out of Nigeria. Finally, it looks as if the giant is getting off the mud. But when you look deeper, you will see that Obasanjo's fanfare is all but over. The opening show has been performed and the honeymoon is past. Gradually, the traditional cracks that bring about pessimism, insecurity and fear are re-emerging. If nothing is done to arrest this crack up, it would get to a point when it would swallow us all.

As part of a discussion group on the internet,I punctuated an optimistic discussion on the way forward with a series of questions. I asked the discussants the following questions: Why hasn't Obasanjo made public his declaration of assets? Why is no one condemning THE NEWS magazine for not acknowledging that the ABUJA MIRROR actually broke the Speaker Buhari story? What role is thestructure of Nigeria playing in the difficulty to reduce corruption? Has anyone cared to think of what would happen when Obasanjo leaves? And these killings going on, are they just noises of democracy or a sign of bigger trouble in the making? Can true democracy ever survive if we have no true federalism? Is Africa's problem really that we don't have severe living conditions (eg. weather, natural disasters ie earthquakes etc) to confront, which would have made us think deeper?
My fellow discussants who were more interested in plump business opportunities and possible political goals if the media could wipe out the old breed for them, suddenly went on vacation from the message board. All of a sudden no one wants to think ahead. The dreamer trait in most of us seemed to have taken over our consciousness. No one wants to ask the big question. No one wants to think the big thought. Most of us seemed comfortable at that micro level of ‘thinking about the next election rather than the next generation.’
Whatever it is that we did which led to the emergence of Obasanjo as Nigeria's President is like jump-starting our junk Nigerian car. For this Nigerian car to reach a respectable speed, for it to weather the democratic storm ahead, it needs a different energy level. The National Conference is the only means through which such could be accomplished. Allowing the current democratic experiment to be carried on at this pace is to subscribe to incessant tuning up of this Nigerian car. The National Conference is the only way to change the car’s engine without having an inevitable engine knock.

In 1992, something monumental happened in Zango-Kataf. For the first time in many decades, a minority group resisted the domination of an external majority group. The imposition of Sharia Law and Emirate rule over a community that ought to be a nationality of its own sparked off a riot of unprecedented magnitude. Zango-Kataf, a miniature of Kosovo was crushed by Gen. Babangida. General Lukwat was put in jail. But the anger and the disenchantment remain. To the minority people of Zango-Kataf, patriotism to Nigeria will only be attractive when Nigeria first cares about them.

Today, there is both inter and intra ethnic skirmishes going on all over Nigeria. From Aguleri to Takum, from Bali to Karim Lamido, from Ile-Ife to Kafanchan, from Warri to Shagamu. And then Kano. For those who can see, these disturbances are pointing at the need for us to address the National Question. It should not be wished away. One of my fellow discussants suggested that if we all develop the Nigerian Stock market and invest in it, we would have less time to think of the things that divide us. But it is not just a matter of our material poverty. Even the Canadians are dealing with the same question.
By the very nature of our country's formation, these lines of conflicts are expected. The colonial masters brought together different nationalities based not upon their homogenous nature but for administrative convenience. Since independence, we have been searching for the solution to this false nationhood. In 1996, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu planned a coup with the intention of turning Nigeria into a confederate state. In 1990, Major Okar planned a coup and excised some states out of Nigeria. In between, we have gone through three Republics, heard the voice of the Ogonis and killed Ken Saro Wiwa. Yet, some Nigerians cannot see the National Question.

There is a National Question when citizens of the same country do not have the same rights in their homeland. There is a National Question when some citizens of a country are not free to live in peace anywhere they so wish. There is a National Question when some citizens of a country are not able to get permanent employment in some parts of their country. There is a National Question when Cultural Rights, Social Rights, Economic Rights, Civil Rights and Political Rights of some citizens of a country are being trampled upon.
I know the idea of a National Conference sounds radical to many Nigerians. To some, it is a recipe for disaster. That, of course, is not the truth. I will attempt to present here the reasons why I think we need a National Conference. In subsequent essays, I will try to explain the nature of the Conference I am proposing.
In an interview, during his lifetime, Chief Bola Ige stated that Obasanjo is laying the foundation for democracy. Which is an acceptance that what we have at present is short of being a democracy. But how do one lay a foundation for a new structure while living in the old structure and construction is taking place on the same spot? The foundation has remained untouched. And so are the things that have made our nation shaky from the very beginning.

I have always compared what our colonial masters did to the baptism of a child. When the kid grows up, it is his responsibility to be confirmed. Confirmation is a chance for the kid to accept, reject or modify all the vows his parents undertook on his behalf when he was a child. The confusion we are currently in has a lot to do with our refusal to pass through the process of confirmation. Another analogy is that of couples who are living together without wedlock. The conservatives would say 'living in sin'. Going by that definition, we Nigerians have been living in sin since that fateful day in 1914 when Lord Fredrick Lugard amalgamated the Northern and Southern Protectorates and let his girlfriend call it Nigeria.
That was how our nation was born -born without a purpose and without the consent of its citizens. The National Conference in effect would be a forum for us to confirm the vows the colonial masters undertook on our behalf. It would give Nigerians the chance to find a purpose for our country; to understand our differences, and to promote those things that unite us. It would be a chance for us to get married; sign on the dotted line, and say those 'I dos' to those 'You promise....' oath.

The National Conference will provide a forum for the federalists, the anarchists, the separatists, the activists, etc to come together and present their grievances, their fears and their hopes. Out of the chaos would emerge documents that would strengthen our Nation and give meaning to its structure and purpose for its existence. But most importantly, it would relieve the British of further blame for our existence and give us one less object to blame for our failures. The Americans stopped blaming the British the very first day they declared their Independence after holding their conference. Let’s go to the National Conference and declare our Unionhood and stop blaming the British, too. Let’s put our fate in our hands from that day forward.
Let’s find something to fall back to in time of crises. The Nigerian constitution is not strong enough to play the part of our safety net. It has been yanked out several times by our military boys that it lacks all symbolism and myth necessary for it to play the role of our back bone. Let’s come up with a document signed by and agreed to by all the Nationalities that make up Nigeria. Let it be our Declaration of Unionhood. Let it be our own Declaration of Independence. Now is the time to negotiate such a document. No group would be negotiating out of fear. Neither would any group have reason to fear to negotiate.

It doesn't matter if it takes us two years to agree on the final document,after all the British are not approaching. Let it mark the birth of a new Nigeria- a Nigeria where we all had a say on the kind of country we want,how power and resources should be shared. Let’s create that sense that we are all in this together. Let’s establish trust. Let’s develop and agree on our own Bill of Rights. That is theonly way to overhaul and legitimize the military constitution we currently have.

There is no investment Nigeria would make in itself that would be bigger than this. Calling for a National Conference would be Obasanjo's greatest legacy. It would help Nigeria jump into a different energy level. There is no better atmosphere for it than now. It would strengthen our fragile democracy and create a lasting solution to the weakness in our 1999 constitution.Now that there is a wind of change is the best time for the conference rather than when chaos begins. Let’s lay a strong foundation for our country and set a good example for the rest of Africa.

Many commentators have called the whole idea of a National Conference noisy and dangerous. The whole concept is nothing more than a conference of people selected from various parts of the country and representing every interest group. In some ways, it looks pretty inconceivable that such a conference will effect any change. Many have argued that it would be a mere waste of time like previous constitution drafting assemblies have been. But the mere picture of representatives of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria entering a building with the single goal to renegotiate their deal with Nigeria would make a powerful statement.

If, for instance,the conference adopts a political system that puts little premium on power at the center, it would go a long way to dilute the tension that continuously boil in Nigeria. Of course, there is no other place from which the Nigerian dream can emerge than such a conference. Many have argued that senators and members of the House of Representatives can do whatever the delegates to the National Conference can do. But that is totally out of place. Members of the national assembly are simply politicians. Very few of them think beyond the next election. Meanwhile, the issues that the National Conference would tackle are issues that would concern the unborn generation of Nigerians.
It has been said that Nigeria would have disintegrated had there been a known formula for its disintegration. It therefore follows that this search for our true form and unity must continue. It is not our fault that we inherited a weak nation. But it is ours if we remain in it. Celebrating over this little breeze of fresh air that Obasanjo brought shows how short-sighted we are. We have done that enough to know when history starts repeating itself and the price starts doubling.
Nostradamus, a French astrologer and physician who predicted accurately the First and Second World Wars also predicted that Queen Elizabeth of England would die in 1992. The year came with enough problems that could have caused the Queen at least a heart attack but she survived 1992. It has been said that her survival was not unconnected with some questions concerning Nigerian Nation which she alone could answer. According to the proponentsof that thought, the Queen would soon be required in Nigeria to present papers where autonomous communities of Nigeria handed over their sovereignty to the English Colonial government. If she could not, then we shall kick off the National Conference with an annulment of all that the English did by saying..."When in the course of human events…
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Who is afraid of a National Conference?

There are three groups of people currently associating themselves with that corporate entity called Nigeria: those who believe in the necessity of a National Conference: those who couldn’t care less about any form of a National Conference, and those who are afraid of a National Conference.
To those who believe in the necessity of a national conference, they are the choir of which I am a member. They are currently singing off the tune, without harmony or rhythm. They have a lot of work to do if they want their idea to become a mainstream idea. In trying to find an answer to Nigeria’s flaws and its antecedent poor performance, they have raised a lot of questions that only they can humbly answer. To them, I remind that no change worth its onionsever comes easy. People will fight and resist any attempt to change the way things are. The task is to persist in that demand and to refine, articulate and explain the issues involved to the unconverted.
And now, to those who couldn’t care less about National Conference probably because they want to maintain the status quo or because they have become so cynical about change and possibility of genuine reform I ask that they not close their eyes because a bad person is passing else, they will not know when a good person passes. Giving an ear to every idea for our national development should be one of the requirements of good citizenship. Sitting there, watching things happen or wondering what is happening is no way of contributing to our national discourse.
I will however dedicate this piece to those who are afraid of a national conference. This group could be divided into two: those who see the need but not the possibility of its success and those who do not see the need and are afraid of its consequences.
The National Conference as being proposed is a Conference of all the interacting forces that make up the country we currently call Nigeria. These forces include nationalities, labor groups, professional groups, non-governmental organizations, etc. The goal of the conference is to find a way to smoothen the friction that results as these forces interact. It is this friction that has been a cog in the wheel of Nigeria’s progress. It is hoped that at the end of the conference, a suitable lubricant can be found that would be applied at the appropriate joint or points of interaction such that the wheel of the nation will run smoother.
The opponents of the national Conference who see the necessity but are wary of the modality are people who quarrel over the composition of the conference or the name it is called. These people would rather debate whether it should be Sovereign or National. They would rather quarrel over what a nationality is and on whose mandate the conference would be convened. Sometimes, the debate going on looks like the rancor which often mark the beginning of negotiation between groups like Israel and PLO. There is a fight over where the venue should be, who should be there, what kind of food should be served, who should shake whose hand, and who should sit beside whom.

If we agree that there is the need for a National Conference where matters fundamental to the Nigerian nation should be resolved,then working out the modalities of such a conference cannot be too hard. On the order hand, if we argue that there are democratic institutions that are in place where such issues could be discussed, then our understanding of the issues in question varies.

Take, for instance,the idea of decentralizing power where states or regions or zones would have to acquire more autonomy. How could the national assembly as it is currently constituted or even the constitutional review committee handle such a heavy weight issue that would affect the lives of millions of Nigerians, including those yet unborn? The issue of determining the kind of association the different people who make up Nigeria desire is beyond the current mandate of these career politicians. Bear in mind that the underlying goal of this conference is to give all the different forces in Nigeria the chance to contribute to the creation of a New Nigeria. A New Nigeria that we all are responsible for. A New Nigeria that we all agree to. A New Nigeria that we all molded.
The Nigeria we have now started with the Nigeria our forefathers living in bondage of colonialism negotiated in London. It later degenerated into a Nigeria that our military conceded to the Nigerian people. So, we have never had a Nigeria, our own Nigeria. A Nigeria negotiated by the free Nigerian people who are not under any duress of any sought. That is the Nigeria we sort through the National Conference and not a Nigeria that will answer to one oppressive force or another lurking in the dark.

The career politicians who are currently in the National Assembly voted in by the Nigerian people do not represent the vision of this Nigeria we intend to create. Being a product of the imposed Nigeria, they have no moral authority to represent, neither do they have the interest of theNigerians who are agitating for a New Nigeria. Passing the issue of the National Conference to these politicians is like sending something bigger than the cricket into the cricket’s hole. Waiting for another four years to try and vote in the right people who will tackle the issues in question amounts to denying the reality of Nigeria’s flaws and the flaws in the current system that will always produce its own kind.

So, what should be done?

If we agree that there is a need for a National Conference and that the National Assembly is ill-equipped to handle issues of that sort, then we proceed to iron out the modalities of such a conference. The conference is not, should not and must not be a cover for any group to break away from Nigeria. The negotiation is solely aimed at making Nigeria work better. Those who are clamoring for a means to attain their own country would have to find other means to achieve that.
Here are the suggested modalities for such a conference:

Being that the present administration is not interested in convening this conference, individuals who are interested in Nigeria’s advancement would have to lead the way. Proponents of this Conference will go to the grass-root level within all interest groups eager to participate and initiate the discussion.

Wole Soyinka and other national proponents of this conference could meet with interested members of, say, the Igbo nationality and together they travel to the heartland of Igbo land and educate the populace on the essence of the conference. With the necessary support provided, each clan, each village, each town,each local government within every negotiating unit will, turn by turn, come together and discuss the kind of association they want with Nigeria.

The same process would be repeated with every negotiating unit, be it a NGO or a trade union. Each group will articulate their position. Upon completion, each unit will take their agreed position to the general conference where the final negotiation with other negotiating unitswill take place.
Still using this example, the. discussion begins in the clan and afterwards moves on to thevillage, then onwards to the town. By the time it gets to the local Government area level, a leader who can best articulate the positionof the town would have naturally emerged. The same with the local government area and the state and then the nationality as the case may be. At the end of the discourse within a negotiating unit, three or four representatives will carry the position of the unit to the General Conference. It would be left for the negotiating units to decide on how to select these representatives. In any case, their job is not more than taking the position of their unit to the General Conference for final negotiation.It is expected that regular consultation with there presented will continue as the negotiation proceeded.
It is expected that this process will take upwards of one year to be completed. In the mean time, the Presidency and the currently elected officials will continue to carry out their duties. When the final agreement is reached and a document of a Declaration of Nationhood is ratified by all the negotiating units, then a New Constitution for a New Nigeria would be written based on the principle embedded in the Declaration of Nationhood. With this New Constitution a new election would be held and a New Nigeria would be born. This way, nobody will have to surrender his or her mandate or power to anyone else. The current elected officials would have served their term. A referendum would be used to adopt the new constitution and dissolve the old National Assembly and all the other structures of governance as was contained in the old military drawn constitution.

This arrangement, refined more and more would be able to answer every question in the hearts of those who are afraid of a national conference. For instance, if there were 250 nationalities in Nigeria, and another 50 negotiating units drawn from professional groups and NGOs, the General Conference would have 300 negotiating units. With each unit represented by three or four delegates, the General Conference would not be as rowdy as many fear. In any case, representing a unit does not require several people speaking for the unit since the position of the negotiating unit had been articulated previously by the unit. This again makes it irrelevant as to how many delegates would represent each group and whether it should be decided on the bases of the group’s population.

It is clear that some of the fear currently entertained by Nigerians over the National Conference is mainly due to the caliber of the people who champion it. When an issue as sensitive as this is championed by people who have never belonged to anyone elsebut themselves or people who think they are more Nigerian than the rest of us, it raises a genuine concern. But we should not kill the message because of the messenger. We should not throw away the baby with the dirty water. Instead, we should enter the arena and take control of the steering.

Nigeria today is at a crossroad. As the preacher says, it is either we repent from our sinful ways and be born again or we continue along this way and end up in hell. From Biafra to Odi, we have been visiting one purgatory after another. Our story will continue to be the same until we muster the courage to overhaul our whole structure. Those who fear to negotiate, usually find themselves negotiating out of fear. Once we were taken to London to negotiate. At another time, we were taken to Aburi. None of which gave the Nigerian people exactly what they wanted. It is time for us to bring it home. And there is no better time than now-now when nobody is forcing us to do so. But if we miss this opportunity, one day, the United Nations will convene and moderate one for us. Then, those of us who are still alive will walk into the conference room limping and in shame.

5 young music video directors giving Clarence Peters a run for his money

Clarence Peters during Toni Tones ‘I know What You Like’ Video shoot. The director holds a monopoly when it comes to shooting music videos. But there are some upcomers who would love to see that change… Photo: Toni Tones

Clarence Peters has pretty much strong-armed the music video game. But times are changing and there are new kids on the block who are ready to challenge him. Here’s NET’s list of the new men behind the lenses.

Adasa Cookey is one newbie in the game stirring up things nicely.

1) Adasa Cookey-  Although he has a background in telecommunications, Adasa Cookey ditched the corporate world for entertainment. He hit pure gold in 2012 when he directed a music video for then little known Burna Boy. ‘Like To Party’ was one of the freshest music videos of last year and launched Adasa Cookey’s career. He hasn’t looked back since then having worked with DJ Xclusive, D’ Prince, Samklef, Ketchup, Splash and others

Little is known about Ani James. a.k. a Aje because he hardly grants interviews

2)    Aje- Another music video director on the heels of Clarence Peters is Aje.  His named popped up on the radar when he directed Rayce’s smash hit ‘Roll’ in 2011. He followed it up with Durella’s ‘My Life’ in the same year. His hard work paid off in 2012 when he directed Sinzu’s ‘Carolina’. The video was a huge hit but the best was yet to come. His big break came when he shot Brymo’s ‘Ara’ which many critics called the music video of the year. He has gone on to shoot big music videos such as Davido’s ‘Feel Alright’.

Matt Maxx with rapper Phyno during a video shoot

3)    Matt Maxx- Matt Maxx is the newest of the bunch. His first mainstream music video appeared on TV screens last year when he directed Coco Ice’s ‘If You Don’t Know’. His work on her music video must have impressed Olamide who recruited the new director to shoot two of his music videos ‘Voice of the Streets’ and ‘Stupid Love’. That gave him the big break he needed. This year he directed D’Banj’s ‘Don’t Tell Me Nonsense’ video.

Moe Musa has become one of the most sought after Nigerian music video directors even though he is based in the UK.

 4)    Moe Musa-  Moe Musa is a newbie when it comes to directing music videos in Nigeria. With only 5 years experience, he has shot music videos for some of the biggest stars in Nigeria. His first notable work came out last year when he directed the EME video ‘Get Down Tonight’. His career blew up from then. He has since directed videos for Wande Coal, Iyanya, Ice Prince, Fuse ODG, Seyi Shay, May D, Dr. Sid and others. Moe Musa is now one of the most sought after music video directors in Nigeria even though he is based in the UK.

Olalekan Buari a.ka. Unlimited L.A

5)    Unlimited L.A- Unlimited L.A whose real names are Olalekan Buari started handling the camera in 2008 under the tutelage of DJ Tee. L.A isn’t just your average music video director as he prefers to call himself a cinematographer. He shot his first video in 2009. He directed Blackmagic’s ‘Rainbow’ in 2011 and ‘Repete’ the following year. His big break came this year when he shot Sean Tizzle’s ‘Sho Lee’ four months ago. The video to the hit single put Unlimited L.A’s name as one of the most promising music video directors. Since then he has shot videos for other Nigerian stars including Tilla Man.

'Omosexy': The biggest film star you’ve never heard of

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, aka 'Omosexy’, is the queen of Nollywood. She’s appeared in more than 300 films, pulls in 150 million viewers for her reality-television show and has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Actress and singer, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde Photo: KATE PETERS

She scores a zero on the Hollywood Richter scale. She has never starred in a major motion picture. Her most recent film, Last Flight to Abuja, means nothing to devotees of Netflix and LoveFilm.

When she sat next to Steven Spielberg at a Time magazine dinner earlier this year he didn’t know her name. Yet Omotola Jalade Ekeinde was attending that dinner because, like him, she had been honoured in Time’s 2013 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Alongside Kate Middleton, Michelle Obama and Beyoncé.The star of more than 300 films, Omotola – or “Omosexy”, as she is known to her legions of fans – is bigger across the African diaspora than Halle Berry.

Her reality-television show, Omotola: The Real Me, pulls in more viewers than Oprah’s and Tyra’s at their peak, combined, and she is the first African celebrity ever to amass more than one million Facebook “likes”.

When I meet her for the interview in a photographic studio in south-east London she is still recovering from getting mobbed by her Afro-Caribbean fan base in a nearby Tesco. “They practically had to shut down the store when people recognised me,” she says. “I actually got scared.”

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Omotola is one of the biggest stars in Nollywood, the low-budget, high-output Nigerian film industry that churns out more English-language films than Hollywood or Bollywood (1,000-2,000 a year). Some have cinematic releases, but most are for the straight-to-video market.
When I watch her Stella photo-shoot from the sidelines it is immediately apparent that everything about her is BIG. Big body, big hair, big personality, big laugh: she comes across like Oprah’s sister.
She is here with her own film crew, who are recording for a future episode of her television show. Which means there is also a big, superstar delay – three hours – before our interview can start.
Many of her fans think her real name is “Omosexy”, she tells me, laughing, when we finally get to speak, but it was a nickname given to her by her husband, an airline pilot.
“He bought me a car back in 2009, and that was the plate number,” she recalls, speaking with kinetic, girlish excitement, rattling off sentences in fast, extended flurries.



^{Omotola in Last Flight to Abuja}

 
“All my cars have special plate numbers, like Omotola 1.” When I ask how many cars she has, she laughs again, with embarrassment. “A few.” When she first saw her personalised licence plate she was horrified. “I thought, 'Oh no!’ It sounded cocky.
As if I was telling everybody, 'I’m sexy!’ Y’know-wha-I-mean?” She punctuates her sentences with this phrase, which she reels off as a single word.
The 35-year-old star has been acting since she was 16. Most recently she starred as Suzie, a passenger freshly spurned by her adulterous lover, in an aeroplane disaster movie, Last Flight to Abuja, which was the highest grossing film at the African box office last year.
Her breakthrough role came in 1995, in the Nollywood classic Mortal Inheritance, in which she played a sickle-cell patient fighting for her life. Since then she has established a staggering average of 16 films a year.
I put it to her that she must be the most prolific actress in the world. She laughs and shakes her head. “I am sure there are people who have beaten that record in Nigeria. Trust me.
It is easy to turn around with straight-to-video movies. It is the fashion to shoot until you drop, night and day. You have to remember that we are on very low budgets, so there is no time to wait.”
Nollywood began fewer than 20 years ago on the bustling streets of Lagos. Its pioneers were traders and bootleggers who started out selling copies of Hollywood films before graduating into producing their own titles as an inexpensive way to procure more content for a burgeoning market.
The traders finance the films (the average budget is £15,000-£30,000), then sell copies in bulk to local operators, who distribute them in markets, shops and street-corners for as little as £2 each.



^{Posters for just three of her 300-plus films, including Ties That Bind and Amina} 

 
The financial equation is problematic, with endemic piracy, issues over copyright and a lack of legally binding contracts.
Even so, what started as a ramshackle business is today worth an estimated £320 million a year, and rising. All this in a country that still lacks a reliable electricity supply.
What is the secret of Omotola’s appeal? “I don’t know,” she says, shrugging. “I wish someone would tell me! People can relate to me, I suppose. They feel as if they know me. A lot of my audience has grown up with me.”
At the same time, in a country that is heavily defined by religion and tradition, it helps that she is seen as a stable role model – a God-fearing woman who has been married to the same man for 17 years, and balances her work-life with bringing up four children.
Omotola Jalade Ekeinde was born into a middle-class family of strict Methodists in Lagos. Her father was the manager of the Lagos Country Club, while her mother worked for a local supermarket chain.
She has two younger brothers and was a tomboy, fiercely independent. “I used to scare boys from a very young age. They found me too much, because I knew what I wanted and I’d boss them around. In those days my mother would joke that I would never find a husband.”
As a child she was closest to her father. “He was a different kind of African man,” she recalls.
“He was very enlightened. He always asked me what I wanted, and encouraged me to speak up. He treated me like a boy.” He died in a car accident when Omotola was 12, while she was away at boarding-school.
“I didn’t grieve,” she says. “When I got home people were telling me that my mother had been crying for days, and that, as the eldest, I had to be strong for her and my brothers. I didn’t know what to do, so I just bottled everything up.
It affected me for many years afterwards. I was always very angry.”
Omotola would later play out her repressed grief on camera, using it as an emotional trigger to make herself cry whenever scripts called for it. But this soon created other problems.



^{Omotola and family} 

 
“The director would shout, 'Cut!’ and I’d still be crying,” she recalls. “I could bring the tears, but I could not control them. In the end I had to stop using that technique.”
At the age of 16 Omotola met her future husband, Matthew Ekeinde, then 26, in church. He was so keen on her that the day after their first meeting he showed up at her house unannounced.
“He soon became a friend of the family. He was almost like a father figure,” she says. “He’d drop my brothers at school and stuff.”
Ekeinde proposed when Omotola was 18. Initially, Omotola’s mother thought her daughter too young to marry, and asked Matthew to wait, but he refused. “She was really shocked,” says Omotola.
“She said, 'If you want something badly enough you wait for it,’ but he said, 'If I want something I take it.’ He was very, very bold. It was one of the things I found fascinating about him.”
They had two wedding ceremonies, the second of which took place on a flight from Lagos to Benin. “He’s amazing. If I weren't married to him I couldn’t see myself with anybody else. I’m a handful.”
Ekeinde has become a reluctant poster boy for a new kind of African man.
“A lot of men come up to him and say, 'You’re a real man – I can’t believe how you deal with it all.’ He also gets a lot of invitations from various bodies to speak about how he copes as a modern Nigerian man in a relationship with a powerful working woman.”
Omotola’s ascent to the Nollywood elite began the same year she met Ekeinde. She was modelling at the time. One afternoon she tagged along with a model friend who was attending a film audition.
“She didn’t get the part, and she came out and was very sad,” says Omotola. “Then she said, 'Why don’t you go in and have a go?’
I said 'OK,’ and went in and got the part. My friend wasn’t happy. That was the end of our friendship.”
Omotola has somehow also found the time to release three albums. And then there is her charitable work. “First and foremost I actually consider myself a humanitarian,” she says proudly.


^{At the Time 100 Gala with Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis} 

 
She started in 2005, working with the United Nations as a World Food Programme ambassador. She now has her own foundation, the Omotola Youth Empowerment Programme.
“I have a lot of young people writing to me, feeling disillusioned. There’s so much injustice in Africa, and people’s lives being trampled on. The foundation was designed to give voice to these people.”
Her own voice has been greatly enhanced by the success of her reality-television show. It is the first show of its kind in Africa, watched by 150 million people across the continent. “
A lot of women say to me that I am their role model and example. They say, 'If Omotola can do it, I can do it.’ I also get a lot of fan letters from men that say, 'You are the reason I allow my wife to work, or pursue a career,’ because they see that I am married and that I am doing both.”
Omotola is now one of the most powerful people in what’s being called the “new Nollywood”, a fresh chapter for the industry, characterised by better scripts, improved production values and cinema rather than DVD-only releases.
But there are obstacles for the new Nollywood, not least the fact that Nigeria only has seven major cinemas, and that ticket prices are way beyond the reach of most citizens.
Nollywood’s biggest problem by far, however, is that its films – including Omotola’s – are still not very good. Theirs is a fuzzy, low-budget aesthetic in which histrionic acting combines with often ludicrous plot lines.
The films drown in melodrama, and many scenes are unintentionally comic. Production values and the rigours of plot and character development are dispensed with in the mad rush to complete and distribute.
It’s akin to half-cooking food to feed impatient mouths, and the results feel like first drafts. Nevertheless, African audiences don’t seem to care, as long as the films are cheap enough for a downtrodden public desperate for escapism, and they feature their own home-grown stars on screen.
So, what does the future hold for Omotola?
She recently made her American debut, in a television drama, Hit the Floor, opposite the R&B star Akon. Does she see her future as Nollywood or Hollywood?
“I’ll just go with the flow. We [in Nollywood] want to collaborate, we don’t want to leave. We are hoping to be the first film industry that will pull Hollywood in, instead of them pulling us out.”
This may not be such a crazy idea, as Hollywood sees the amounts invested in Nollywood, plus a potential audience of over one billion Africans (155 million in Nigeria alone).
Would she like to work with Spielberg? “Oh, please, let it be!” she says, clasping her hands together hopefully.
“Please! Everything happens for a reason.” I ask her if she took Spielberg’s number at that Time dinner. “Hello? I wouldn’t be African if I didn’t, now would I?”

Road to Nigeria’s Revolution

  By Seyi Olu Awofeso

Nigeria is bogged on a fork on the road but now fumbles a choice between peace and justice.
In its 53-year history, not once has that choice been so stark, as the now blood-soaked country can’t move forward without deciding it. On December 8th last year, the country’s former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku, direly put Nigeria’s un-employment figure at 75 million people, comprising mostly youths.
Interpreted in  terms, those hard done by in Nigeria without a job and a means of livelihood therefore exceed the whole population of six (6) African countries put together, namely, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Senegal, Liberia and Sierra-Leone, whose combined population of 73 million, is less than the 75 million un-employed people in Nigeria alone.
As the Nigerian State rapidly loses legitimacy for this inability to consequently plan or care for its denuded populace, Nigeria’s laws are now as defiled as they are defied by the country’s growing apathetics.
Indeed, looking in from outside, there’ll hardly seem to be any law in Nigeria anymore. Pistols and revolvers are, for example, publicly sold at the Lagos beachfront on a cheap to any willing buyer who feels angry enough to want to kill or maim somebody, despite that the possession and bearing of arms is criminally prohibited in Nigeria, where paradoxically, gunshots continue to shatter the silence of each night on the Lagos mainland, before the corpses of those robbed or assassinated are later picked up for burial each morning.
“I am afraid - and you know i am an army General, “ said ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo on 27th July last year, “and when a General says he is afraid, that means the danger ahead is real and potent. The danger posed by an army of unemployed youth in Nigeria can only be imagined.  There is absence of serious, concrete, realistic, short and long term solution to youth unemployment. Nigerian youths have been patient enough. This patience will soon reach its elastic limit. Nigeria will witness a revolution soon, unless government takes urgent steps to check growing youth unemployment and poverty,” Obasanjo said.
For Nigeria to decide its choice, its government has to firstly forgo the dalliance of official thefts, such as the ₦1.2 trillion representing 25% of the national budget stolen from its federal treasury last year through counterfeited bills of lading used for oil subsidy re-imbursement claims. But so far, the evidence of that dalliance being forgone in Nigeria is not obvious. On the contrary, since January last year when mass protests forced the issue and caused a probe which later un-earthed this ₦1.2 trillion theft, no government official has been named or arraigned as criminally answerable.
A former Lagos State governor, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, later took a second look at Nigeria virtually un-ravelling amid such eye-watering thefts, of which he himself is strongly suspected as linchpin, and said “The situation our country is in today is both sad and unacceptable. We are like a people without a leader, a country with no trustworthy men at the helm of affairs, and a nation now lost at sea. Our leaders must commit to a better country, not tomorrow, but beginning now – today, because time is not on our side and the continued patience of the people may no longer be guaranteed.”
As it is, the country’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, is the one most Nigerians expect should resolve Nigeria’s sclerosis, but he’s rather swatted that assignment off with alibis. “I am the most criticised president in the world,” he’d recently said, ruefully, before throwing up his hands and asking if Nigeria ever had good roads, schools or hospitals before he took office on May 29th, 2011, which only got bad thereafter solely by his personal fault.
But just in case the sceptics were still heard of hearing, President Jonathan then all but declared Nigeria un-reformable in its present anomie, even if that meant eating his words for having promised the country’s transformation at his 2011 presidential campaign. “The whole of Nigeria society has failed”, President Jonathan, said deadpan last month June 15th.
“When you look at Nigeria today, we are deceiving ourselves; pastors are deceiving members, members are deceiving their pastors, husbands deceiving their wives, and the wives deceiving their husbands. Parents are deceiving their children and the children in turn deceive their parents. Soon, we would have a whole nation of people deceiving each other,” President Jonathan further intoned in a declarative tone.
The pioneer Editor of Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper, Muyiwa Adetiba, would later on put it more pointedly. “The conclusion seems to be inescapable in Nigeria that what we have as leaders in politics, business and the civil service are common thieves in high places,” Muyiwa Adetiba said. “The rot is so deep that stealing is now in the family system, in the religious system; even in friendly and social clubs. Everybody is looking for somebody else to steal from. The day our leaders decide they don’t need James Ibori’s kind of wealth or Cecilia Ibru’s kind of property acquisition, that a good name is better than material acquisition; and that leadership at the end of the day, is about people and leaving a place better than you met it, is the day Nigeria will begin a positive walk into sanity and propriety. Until then, Nigeria is just a nation of common thieves,” Muyiwa Adetiba added.
How then can a country officially declared at presidential level as characterised by deceit, implying thievery and frauds, ever start on the road and succeed at reversing its 75 million un-employment crisis to become a praline place on earth for its citizens to live in comfortably?
“Only a bloody revolution can save Nigeria,” said Professor Ben Nwabueze, in January, when he threw away his bemedalled gown as Nigeria’s foremost constitutional lawyer in favour of a physical revolution as the only solution. Corroborating Nwabueze’s renunciation of law - as the means to resolve a pandemic crisis of official thefts, if those stealing Nigeria blind are the state officials who can’t be expected to apply the laws of thefts to themselves - Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, himself a famous lawyer, said “there can never be a meaningful election for progress until a revolutionary change firstly resolves Nigeria’s theft and corruption crisis.”
Both lawyers likely saw the further futility in placing their hopes for change on the same perpetrators of government-level thefts who only coyly select their own members and dress him up in false robes as the messiah, for the duped populace to choose one, but all to the same effect of a make-believe to look like change but ending up as more of the same thing.
“We are actually overdue for a revolution!” said Kano ex-federal legislator, Dr. Junaid Mohammed. “What is wrong with us having a revolution here in Nigeria? Unless, of course, you belong to those who are stealing government money or you have something to hide. Then of course you should be afraid of revolution, because after the revolution, there is what we call revolutionary justice. They will get you, corrupt people, and shoot you. In fact, if they shoot just 500 corrupt people, Nigeria will be a much better place and God will forgive them”.
Well, perhaps so, since the capacity of the Nigerian state itself is putatively seen to be withering away, at least according to the country’s past Chief Justice, Dahiru Musdapher, who said on December 20th last year, that, “our capacity to investigate, arrest, prosecute and convict those found guilty of contravening the laws of Nigeria is evidently weak and compromised. There is no objectivity in national discourse anymore. Our slide into anarchy has assumed dangerous dimensions, beyond the capacity of our security agencies to deal with the menace effectively. Boko Haram insurgency, political violence, corruption, nepotism, tribalism, indiscipline, abductions, and kidnappings, armed robbery, murder and extortion, bombings of places of worship and of innocent Nigerians - are all indicators of a failed State,” the ex-Chief Justice of Nigeria had said.
On that point, foreign countries are agreed that the Nigerian state is withering away.
“The situation in Nigeria remains fluid and unpredictable”, said the U.S State Department on December 20th last year. “In light of the continuing violence, extremists may expand their operations beyond northern Nigeria to the country's middle and southern states. Crime is a risk throughout Nigeria. Home invasions also remain a serious threat, with armed robbers accessing even guarded compounds by scaling perimeter walls, following residents or visitors, or subduing guards to gain entry to homes or apartments. Armed robbers in Lagos have also accessed waterfront compounds by boat. U.S. citizens, as well as Nigerians and other expatriates, have been victims of armed robbery at banks and grocery stores and on airport roads during both daylight and evening hours. Law enforcement authorities usually respond slowly or not at all and provide little or no investigative support to victims,” the American government’s statement concluded.
By not thinking, Nigerian governments at all levels have slept-walked into the grips of revolutionary pressures without any easy means of escape. For once official thefts broke the bonds between the government and the people, the genie was let out of the bottle. And because theft spawns theft, the cycle of vendetta in Nigeria is bound to be un-ending as it extends to the wives and daughters of corrupt government officials, whom the people now target in vengeance for rape and ransom.
A blogger writing on the internet last year on December 30th, Paul Omoruyi, pithily described the Nigeria’s national condition today as follows: ““It is no secret now that Nigerians hate their rulers; but when Nigerian “prayer warrior” masses now start to curse and pray for the death of their rulers, then there is a crisis. There is always euphoria and jubilation whenever a member of the Nigerian “thiefocratic class” (i.e.; President, Governor, Senator, House of Rep member, Minister or local government chairman) dies. For example, when the plane of Governor Danbaba Suntai’s of Taraba State crashed, i placed a call to several friends i considered somewhat “God-fearing” and decent. The first response i got from each and every one of them is “make them all die, we are praying for the next one to die”.  Many Nigerians in recent times have so become accustomed to cursing their rulers that before you have a five-minute discussion on the state of Nigeria with them, they would have cursed the ruling class more than a hundred times. There is now justifiable but unprecedented hatred for the ruling class like never before in the history of Nigeria”.
Without a doubt, once a society degrades to this low point of organized hatred that Paul Omoruyi has described, and with guns and explosives so easy to buy and bear, nothing but revolutionary justice can push it back from the precipice of the abyss into which Nigeria is looking at the moment.

…………………………..Seyi Olu Awofeso is a Legal Practitioner in Abuja

OJB, THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND HIS PLEA FOR HELP.

By Charles Novia (A veteran film maker)

I first met OJB way back in 1991 in a small studio situated at Klegg Street, Ojuelegba which was known as ‘Klass Digital Studios’. In those days, whilst I was an undergraduate at the Universityof Nigeria, Nsukka studying Dramatic Arts, I was also intent on exploring my innate musical talents to sing, compose,arrange and produce tunes. ( Perhaps ifI wasn’t into the film industry, I would have been a music producer/artiste butI think starting my record label almost ten years ago helped ventilate the positive energy and love I still have for that sector.) Klass Studios was a small but very important recording studio then and had a unique assemblage of future artistes who would book studio sessions and have their songs wonderfully produced by the very talented duo of Eddie and MacIver, two brothers who were quite adept in musical technology and arrangement. Klass was owned by the soft-spoken Victor Okhai, now a film Director and a movie resource person and though he might not have realized it then, his studio was grooming future major players for the music and movie industry way back then.
I recorded over 12 songs in Klass Studios which never got to be releasedby the dominant labels then ( and not because they were not good, thank you very much!) but because in those days, unlike today, the music business was run by the major recording companies: Premier Music, EMI (later called Ivory Music) and Sony Music and there were competing spaces for young up and comers then. Besides, I was singing an enhanced genre of Afro-pop made popular by Mike Okri while Reggae music was the dominant genre back then. I remember numerous visits to Premier Music to submit and check on my demo tapes for results, not to talk of countless visitsto EMI and Sony Music for same purposes. Then, at the Premiere Music reception in Satellite Town (now being used by NIRA CD manufacturing company), I would be among many young and aspiring musicians waiting with bated breath for Pa Chris Ajilo (then the Artiste and Repertoire Manager of Premiere Music) to come out and give his verdict or call you in tohis office for talks. Truly, Simon Cowell is an angel compared to those tried andtested music executives when it comesto giving verdicts on demo tapes.
I remember one funny incident in 1991in that company; one young chap had sent his demo for evaluation and we all wee also waiting for our turn. Pa Chris Ajilo came out of his office, frowning.
‘Who’s Rasta Hiroshima?’ he barked
A mildly bleached-skinned young lad jumped up.
‘I am, Sir’. He replied. Pa Ajilo waved a cassette angrily at him.
‘You call this music? You call this trash in this tape music? This rubbish that hasgiven me a headache just listening to it?’ Pa Ajilo fumed and threw the cassette at the alarmed young Rasta. He stormed back into his office. The dampened young man mumbled in embarrassment as he picked the cassette from the floor amid a few sniggers from some of us. I could not help wondering then how someone could even call himself a name as weird as ‘Hiroshima’ back then. If I had known that people were going to call themselves ‘weirder’ names in future, I would not have bothered. Then, I was simply called ‘Charlie Dee’ during my musical days.
Pa Ajilo called me into his office. I wentin with a beating heart faster than the drum beats in my ‘Track 5’ on my demotape; a song I wrote titled ‘If I could fly…’.
‘Young Man,’ he said in gentle tones. ‘You have good songs. I like your songs. But you sing a brand of music which we don’t think would be very commercial. You sing like Mike Okri. Popmusic is not a seller these days. Changeyour songs to reggae and we will see how to sign you on, possibly’. He said.
The headstrong Charlie Dee would have none of that. I loved reggae music but how was I to throw away myunique compositions such as ‘Be my Chickito’, ‘U be my Miss Nigeria’, ‘Shake bodi’ ‘Never too young’ and the cheeky‘I’m in love with your daughter’ to startsinging reggae versions? Never. I went to Sony Music and Uncle Laolu Akins, the A & R head there, told me; ‘we can’t have another Mike Okri competition here. Try EMI’. I got to EMI and the amiable Ms Tolu Gaye, their A&R, listened to my songs and said ‘You have promise. We will work with you but you need some training. You may have to do back up vocals for Captain Sunny’. She introduced me to one of their new acts who just released an album then and was singinglike Sonny Okosun then ; Captain Sunny who would later be known as Sunny Neji! Academic callings made me suspend my musical ambitions to face my studies and all those plans went to sleep.
Years later in 2005, as CEO of November Records, I would meet Pa Ajilo who was the General Manager of Performing Musical Rights Society (PMRS) and I reminded him of what he told me fifteen years earlier.
‘I can’t remember, my son’ the seventysomething year old veteran said ‘but look at you today! A record label owner! It wasn’t an easy thing to be a label owner those days and I am sure its not easy today. Just be focused, myson. God will guide you’ he said and prayed for me.
I will write about my musical trudge from the past as time goes on but whydid I digress a bit from OJB? Because I want us all to have a glimpse of what itwas to be a musician in those days, thestruggles and frustrations and hopes which many had and never achieved in those days. OJB was part of it.
One day, while I was mixing my demo with my Producer at Klass Studios, this handsome young man came in and greeted everyone. He listened to my song and started harmonizing and ‘bending’ the vocals. ‘Bending’ was quite popular those days in pop music; think Boys 2 Men.
‘Sing it this way’ he told me.
‘My guy, I know the limits of my voice. Make we leave am as I sing am please!’ I gruffly replied, annoyed that someonewould just walk into my session and ‘bend’ my fine lyrics.
The fellow was quite good-natured about my reply and laughed it up. He stayed and helped in the mixing, free of charge. That fellow was OJB. Thereon, I would bump into him at thestudios most times and we would discuss the music industry in Nigeria passionately and he would express his frustrations at how the record companies wanted every young man tosing reggae. Apparently, he had sent his demos to all of them.
Another young man who used to cometo the studios then was a guy named Paul. He walked into my session one day and listened to my tracks as they were being mixed. He gave a couple ofobservations in a soft-spoken tone and I corrected some lyrics based on his advise. Then, he played me a demo of his. I was blown away. It was so futuristic and out of this world, way back then in 1991! That young man called Paul later became a huge star and we all know him as Paul Play Dairo today.
Years later, I would reconnect with OJB, Paul Play and Sunny Neji and memories of the ‘struggling years’ would be brought up. Those were actually ‘paying your dues’ years for all of us.
OJB has seen it all. He has slaved and toiled to make the Nigerian music industry great. He has produced many artistes over the years and has been a solo artiste himself with hits such as ‘Searching’, ‘Pretete’ and others numerous to mention. He produced Tuface’s ‘African Queen’ and other songs for him. He has produced Faze, Azadus, Goldie, KC Presh, Slam, Nomoreloss and so many I can’t even remember. OJB has etched his name into the annals of our musical history. Sadly, because we have a skewed system in Nigeria, the Producer never gets royalties from their hit songs. If the structure was well-grounded, the royalties from ‘African Queen’ alone would have made OJB a billionaire! Alas,that is not the case.
I will not talk about why the big artistes right now haven’t raised the full amount for OJB, except to say that at times like these the reality of the lies which musicians live comes to the fore. When their PR agents assail us with their latest cars and houses and endorsements, I hope those same PR agents would be willing to beg us to save them when the chips are down and they are no longer the ‘reigning’ stars.
OJB need our donations for a kidney transplant. Most of all, he needs our prayers. I know what it takes for a grown man to plaed for help. I have been there. Most of us have been there. The dude wouldn’t have wishedthis on himself but he just has to plead for us to save his life. We enjoyed his music. Lets just donate whatever we can to help the genius make music again after he gets well.