ARTS EXTRA
THE NATION ON SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2014
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Abuja celebrates ‘Arrow of God’ at 50
•Prof Chudi Uwazurike and Dr Jerry Agada
•Pupil from School for the Gifted performing Arrow Of God
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S the train of the eight-city celebrations of the 50th anniversary of late Prof Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God continue to travel across the country, Abuja and Lagos will not be left out in the literary festivities. While Lagos will be holding its version today at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where Emeritus Prof Charles Larson from Washington DC, USA will be the keynote speaker along with other eminent Nigerian scholars, Abuja has already held its. The Abuja literati commemorated the book’s anniversary with a Children’s Carnival held at NTA Arena. It featured drama sketches, quiz and dance dramas centred on the novel. A major highlight of the event that thrilled the audience was a dance drama by pupils of the School for the Gifted, Gwagwalada. The performance, drawn from the novel, was focused on the taboo committed by Oduche, one of the sons of the chief priest of Ulu,
By Evelyn Osagie
Ezeulu, when he imprisoned the royal python. It earned them first place of the dramatic performance category. The audience watched with amazement as a box was dropped with some violence on the ground, with the lid flinging open to the let the royal python out. With bated breath, the audience saw the royal python, slither out of the box and made its escape, albeit drawn by a thin, almost invisible thread by one of the dancers, to the thunderous ovation of the fear-gripped audience who had thought it was a real python. For young post-primary school pupils, it was no doubt an ingenious theatrical stunt that would not fail to leave a lasting impression in the minds of the audience. Chukwuemeka Obi-Obasi, Ikeogu Oke and other Abuja-based artistes also thrilled the audience. While Obi- Obasi, a fast growing young performance poet gave life
to Isaac Ogezi’s The Warrior’s Homecoming, a tribute to Achebe, Oke read two poems from his children’s poetry collection, Songs of Success. The event was chaired by a Member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Prof. Chudi Uwazurike, who gave a brief opening remark. According to him, the development of education at the grassroots, i.e. the primary and post-primary stages of education, would help improve the present moribund reading culture in the country. He commended the Achebe Foundation and the members of the National Organising Committee of the Arrow of God @ 50 celebrations for involving the secondary schools’ pupils in the eight-city literary fiesta. Prof. Jerry Agada, former President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and ex-Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, also lent his voice to the clarion call that “we must catch them young.” The event had 350 pupils from 10 schools that qualified for the knock-out phase of the quiz competition in attendance. They were there with their teachers. The School for the Gifted emerged winner of the final stage of the competition based on
Etching their names in gold Title:
Giants of History (The making of our world) Author: Lateef Aderemi Ibirogba Publishers: Sage, Lagos No. Pages: 322 Year of Publication: 2014 Reviewer: Sanya Oni HOMAS Carlyle, the Scottish writer it was who stated that “The history of the world is but the biography of great men”. Lateef Aderemi Ibirogba, journalist, advertising practitioner, politician and currently Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy must have taken this to heart when he set out to write the book aptly titled Giants of History (The making of our world). The 322-page book, a biographical sketch of some 150 personalities is an important compendium – albeit a short one – on the lives of these remarkable individuals that have not only impacted massively on the vast canvas of human existence but have left indelible inks in the sands of time. Ibirogba’s subjects, although a blend of the ancient and the contemporary, are in a sense truly giants as they are trail-blazers. Their lives are as remarkable as they inspirational. If the world now stands in awe of the cutting edge technologies that have revolutionalised travel, work, pleasure and even the beverages we consume, it is because of the invaluable work of these giants who dared to challenge the scientific orthodoxies of their days, going as far as laying the foundation for subsequent breakthroughs that the world now knows. These are truly leaders in ideas, humanities, service, law, economics, governance, and activism; individuals who made history by venturing into uncharted terrains for personal glory and as a consequence helped to expand the frontiers of humanity’s collective achievement. Among the pack are those who fought oppression, tyranny and
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injustice in all forms and manifestations and so ended up etching their names in gold. Humanity is today richer not just by the breathless pace of their ideas and inventions, but also by their commitment to the discipline of inquiry, and their endless striving to enhance the quality and dignity of the human person. What Ibirogba has done through the book is present the lives of these individuals in simple strokes. Individuals like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Archimedes, and Galileo –who through relentless inquiries defied the orthodoxies of their days. Great inventors like Marcus Pollio – the world’s first engineer; the Chinese Lun Cai who invented paper; the German Johannes Gutenberg who invented printing and in so doing supplied the catalyst for scientific revolution. Others like Blaise Pascal who invented the mechanical calculator, Thomas Edison who invented the electric bulb, Isaac Newton, the great mathematician who established the laws of motion and thermodynamics; James Watt whose improvements on the steam engine marked the turning point in industrial revolution in Great Britain; Alesandro Volta who invented the battery, not forgetting George Stephenson, the man who built the first railway and Steve Jobs who revolutionalised the world of Information Technology. Not forgetting the trail-blazers in the medical sciences like Hippocrates – the ancient Greek
physician acknowledged as the father of the medical profession; Louis Pasteur for his revolutionary findings in vaccinations, Alexander Fleming, the biologist who discovered the anti-biotic penicillin; Florence Nightingale for her pioneering role in nursing. And of course, the greatest writer of all times, William Shakespeare; James Hadley Chase, inarguably, the king of thriller writing; Chinua Achebe probably the continent’s best-read writer, and Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate. So also are lives of leaders like Winston Churchill, J.F. Kennedy, Ayatollah Khomeini, Nelson Mandela; Kwame Nkrumah, Fidel Castro – and not least Adolf Hitler – leaders who at various times impacted the world. The reader will also find the book a compendium on Nigerian leaders past and present – individuals who have contributed and are still contributing to the shaping of the Nigerian state. Giants of History is however much more than mere excursion into the past. It is also a window into the future – of the limitless possibilities available to those who would dare to be different – for themselves and for our world. Clearly, this is the central theme of the book – something that should resonate with the youth and those dissatisfied with the status quo. Ibirogba’s book is a welcome contribution into the discussion on the infinite possibilities of our future – our universe.
the celebration text with Regina Pacis and Government Secondary School as first and second runners-up. Peace and Unity School, Suleija, could not participate on the grounds of its late arrival to the venue. Government Secondary School, Garki and Regina Pacis emerged second and third positions of the dramatic performances on the novel. Other guests in attendance included the Chairman of the National Organizing Committee (NOC), represented by Mallam Denja Abdullahi; Oronto Douglas, represented by Mr Michael Afenfia; NTA Managing Director, Chief Ifeanyi Ileogbunam; the competition judges: Messrs Jide Atta, Spencer Okoroafor and Mrs Joan Orji, among others. Abdullahi praised the efforts of the local organising committee led by Halima Usman and the sponsors of the eight-city fiestas. The carnival came to an end after the presentation of awards and certificates of participations to schools by Chief Ifeanyi Ileogbunam and other dignitaries. The train of celebrations comes to Lagos today. The event will hold at the.
Ten memorable quotes of Gabriel García Márquez 1. “Crazy people are not crazy if one accepts their reasoning.” Love in the Time of Cholera 2. “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” One Hundred Years of Solitude 3. “But if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.” Love in the Time of Cholera 4. “A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame.” Writers at Work 5. “I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of Him.” Love in the Time of Cholera 6. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, General Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” One Hundred Years of Solitude 7. On Fidel Castro: “A man of austere habits and insatiable illusions, with an old-fashioned formal education of cautious words and subdued tones, and incapable of conceiving any idea that is not colossal.” Article in honour of Castro’s 80th birthday in 2006 8. “The only difference today between Liberals and Conservatives is that the Liberals go to mass at five o’clock and the Conservatives at eight.” One Hundred Years of Solitude 9. “The year I turned 90, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.” Memories of My Melancholy Whores 10. “I say extraordinary things in an ordinary tone. It’s possible to get away with ANYTHING as long as you make it believable.”