BY THEIR DANCE STEPS WE SHALL KNOW THEM - a flshback

During my graduate school days we had this public lecture series that ran once every month. It was called 'Professional Seminar'. It involved inviting an expert guest- speaker who presents papers on a choice subject in his or her professional field . After the lecture , there was often the usual interaction session with the students on the subject matter. In those days, unless for some unavoidable reasons, I made sure I attended the sessions.

But of all such seminars I attended, one particular session stood out on my mind, it was a lecture by a renown Nigerian musicologist and educationalist, the late Professor Sam Akpabot. What made this session unforgettable was this brilliant dons choice of subject and his method of presentation. It was a highly interactive session from the start to the end, and was packed with humour. The title of the lecture was 'The psychological impact of music and dance on a people'.

The college auditorium was full as usual with students and lecturers. We did not realise that Professor Akpabot came to the lecture with some simple musical instruments stuffed in his pocket. On mounting the rostrum, immediately after introducing the subject, he took out a rattler from his pocket and started rattling it, and then he asked, 'what will be your reaction to this kind of sound, anybody? Immediately, without a thought,I started to ululate. Of course hundreds of staring eyes got fixed at me, and I felt like, 'oh my... what did I do? suddenly Dr Akpabot stopped the rattling and excitedly shouted 'That's is, that's it, who did that, could you please stand up' I jumped on my feet and the entire auditorium resounded with loud applaud. It felt good.

From that moment, the lecture gained momentum. It was full of interesting information about the beauty of diversity, which is Nigeria. From this lecture I learnt that the way we walk has a lot to do with the way we dance and the kind of music we play in our community. If you consider the footsteps of an average African American, you will get the point more clearer. For instance Professor Akpabot drew an analogy on the connection between the way the people from the three main ethnic nationalities in Nigeria dance and the general perception of the attitude attributed to them by their fellow countrymen.

Hear him. "When the Yoruba people dance, they dance with pride, they practically swell up, trying to look larger than their size. The men let the sleeves of their 'agbada' flow down giving the dancer a sense of strength and princely look. He will seem to be saying 'Hello! check me out' The women on the other hand show off their back side, they also constantly tie and untie their upper wrapper cloth as they dance." According to him, this attitude the Yoruba portray while dancing speaks dozens about the general perspective of the ethnic group as a people who love having a good time. A people who use every available opportunity to showcase their pride and beauty and possessions. And a people who will first try to use boastful threat to scare away intruders, before taking any other actions.

For the Hausa-Fulani ethnic nationalities, the learned professor demonstrated the way they dance. Their basic dance step according to him was - one step forward, one step backwards; One step forward, two steps backwards. This is repeated several times as if they are undecided on what will be the next move, then suddenly they will jump up, but still standing at the same spot. He said that if you compare the space used by the Hausa/Fulani dancer during his performance, with that of the Yoruba dancer, the Hausa/Fulani dancer would have used less that half of the space covered by the Yoruba dancer.

Their dance moves according to him is in tandem with the perception of the Hausa/Fulani as a people who watch events very carefully for a long time before making a move. They prefer to stay within the limit of what they know, and will take the next step only after a long and satisfying consideration, that is, if they decide to move at all.

And finally on the Igbo he had this to say, "they dance in every direction, jumping gyrating, writhing, breaking every boundary, even into the audience. They even move objects within the arena, pointing and making faces to imaginary challengers.

This according to him also goes with the general perception of the Igbo ethnic nationality as a people who are all over the place. A people who approach everything they do with aggressive interest.

I am sure that if we extend this theory to the remaining ethnic nationalities that make up our great country, we will find related results. The same goes if we use the test on any other nationality anywhere in the world.

I will also like to use this medium to pay tribute to great minds like the late Professor Sam Akpabot who contributed a lot in the education of the youths of our country Nigeria, he also did a lot of work in the arts especially music. His great musical 'Opera Jaja' which was a national success in the late 70s and the beginning of the 80s comes to mind. I do wish someone in that field will revisit that work for a possible reproduction.

Having said all that, I will like to present you this short entertainment before I leave. A video of Igbo cultural dance featuring the Enugu State Cultural Troupe. I shot this video in March 2005 during an Easter entertainment program at a popular eat-out and entertainment outlet in Enugu called 'Bush House'. Enjoy

Are Most African languages and culture Facing extintion? - a case for the Igbo language and culture

In recent times there has been a lot of hues and cries about Igbo language and culture facing imminent extinction. To me I believe that those making such assertions are not far from the truth. But then again, it requires an extensive research to know how deep our Language and culture has been eroded. The problem mostly is that it is difficult in present times to find among Ndiigbo, dedicated academics who will make out time and do thorough research work like their predecessors. Pioneers like Professor Kenneth Dike, Professor B. N. Okigbo Professor A. E. Afigbo Professor Donatus Nwoga, Professor Emmanuel Obiechina, professor V.C. Uchendu, Professor Ben O. Nwabueze, F C Ogbalu and the rest did extensive work on Igbo people and most of the information and other data we have regarding Igbo today were works of these great men. If Igbo language and culture is dying, we need to know what aspects, and at what rate it is being eroded. We need to have an idea of the factors and circumstances responsible for it. This is the challenge I throw to present day Igbo academics. They have to create a dedicated group of experts to lead us in finding a way out of this seeming danger. It is also the duty of all the Igbo groups both at home and abroad to initiate some action and delegate experts to find solutions. These groups should be more proactive by looking inwards rather than concentrating mainly on political issues as if that will solve all the problems of Ndiigbo. In other words, the Ohaneze, WIC and the rest of such apex groups should prove themselves by looking inwards, and finding solution to the problems related to language and culture of Ndiigbo.
I want to make it categorically clear that I am not solely holding the above-mentioned groups as the only ones the onus of salvaging Igbo language and culture falls on, no, that is not the case. It is the duty of every Igbo person at home and in the diaspora. It is the duty of every Igbo parent to pass on the folktales, folk songs, history, moonlight games, and of course Igbo language to their off springs, for its perpetuation. The demand I am making on the Igbo academics is for them to create a solid ground for a worldwide campaign among the Igbo people on the issue. Stating clearly the facts with clear data, and warning about the disastrous result if something is not done, I believe this will motivate people into action.
Before I conclude, I will like to draw on the words of The Igbo erudite, professor Emmanuel Obiechina in his presentation during the famous Ahiajioku lectures in 1994 in his lecture titled ‘NCHETAKA: THE STORY, MEMORY, AND CONTINUITY OF IGBO CULTURE, “ The story is at the heart of the understanding of the Igbo culture and the Igbo mind. It has been a mighty force for the conditioning of the personality and defining of a vision of life. In the past the Igbo mother had been the custodian of the humanizing process that enable the Igbo child to absorb the values that prepared it for participation in adult complexities”. Then he added this note of uncertainty. “Now, we run the risk of losing this important formative influence, and I fear, this loss will lead to loss of cultural memory and an abandonment to a life of rootlessness”.

Today the fears this great Igbo mind envisaged over a decade ago has caught up with us, but what thing the great professor did not envisage was that apart from Igbo culture dying from our inability to pass on simple but all-important things like stories that nurtured us, we have also failed to pass our mother tongue to our younger generation. As if these were not enough, we have, with our own hands, and out of zealousness towards foreign cultures, destroyed a whole lot of the symbols of our culture, our shrines, together with the stories, songs, music, musical instruments, poems, festivals and artefacts that go with them.
Taata kabu gboo. It is still early to act.

Starlet Cradle - a Christmas special

First of all, a big shout out to everyone in this Yuletide season. As expected I have been thinking hard on what to offer during at this time of celebration , something with which to brighten the celebration of the birth of Christ. It took days and weeks of thinking, and nothing came up until last weekend when I stumbled into some old works of mine. And did that sweetened my heart? I bet you it did. Now, you must be wondering what it was I stumbled into, I will tell you. I was looking for an important document and couldn't find it, I checked everywhere it should be, but to no avail. You know how it feels. You go looking for something in places you were sure the object you are looking for will never be. Well that was what happened to me, I looked into an old shoe box full of old papers, a shoe box I have not touched for years. But at a point I forgot what I was searching for, for the box started yielding some interesting papers; Old letters, drama scripts, personal notes, poems and so on. One of the papers contained a drama script written by one Mr Tony Ozoalor.

Now, let me briefly tell you about this gentleman. Tony Ozoalor hails from Ngwo in Enugu state of Nigeria. I first knew him when I was a college student. At that time he was a tenant in my fathers house in Enugu. A very genial fellow, jovial and friendly to all. That was the much I knew of him then. Years later I was to find out another side of this gentleman, his intelect. He is well gifted with the use of words be it English or Igbo. He is a creative writer as well as speaker. His writing ability covered a wide spectrum, from prose to poetry, even speaches. Indeed I still do not understand why he did not publish many of his works. I can only remember one which he co-authored, "One Hundred Quotable Quotes and Poems of the Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. by Nnamdi Azikiwe and Dons Eze and Anikwe, FI and Tony Ozoalor ..." It is also possible that there are other published books by him I am not aware of. He is really a very talented person. He wrote short plays, stories and poems, that were published in many Nigerian newspapers. I also learnt that at a time he was the speach writer for one of the military governors of Enugu state, I do not remember which one it was. He retired as the zonal public relation officer of the NITEL Enugu zone.

His script that I found was a drama script he wrote which, I was supposed to produce for the program 'Radio Theatre', one of the programs I was handling at the time. Unfortunately due to the austerity measure in the country at that time I was not able to use the script until I left the shores of Nigeria. How the script ended up still being with me, beats me, but surely, the find made my day. It made my day because I quickly remembered that Mr Ozoalor also featured prominently in my other program 'Poetry Time'. Many of his beautiful poems were featured in the program. Among some of the copies of my old productions that are presently with me, is a Christmas poem he wrote that was aired in December 1987. I searched for it, found it, and will like you to listen to it, hoping that it will brighten your Christmas

The program was presented by Oseloka Zikora, one of many gifted and well trained announcers of that time. I must admit that the standared and quality of most of present day voices heared over the Nigerian airwave are not encouraging. There is the need to improve standard through training and selecting trainable persons for the job, not just anyone. I guess this may be the topic of my next post.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Listen to Starlet Cradle

THE IGBO GRIOT

Whenever the word griot is mentioned ones mind races to the old Mali Empire, where griot or Jali tradition is prominently established as a cast. This does not mean that the concept is peculiar only within the regions of old Mali empire where in this modern time we have countries like Mali, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea Conakry. The
griot tradition is found all over Africa in one form or another. In Nigeria for instance, the tradition exists in all the ethnic groups that made up the country. In the Northern part of the country, among the Hausa, Fulani, and other tribes of the north, a well established court musicians and custodians of the peoples art, and folk ways existed. And today there are modern griots from that region to confirm this. Great griot like Maman Shatar is a good example. In the Western part of Nigeria, the home of the Yoruba there had been court musicians, historians and praise singer also. The Yoruba poetry 'Ewi' is a specialty of the Yoruba griot. They use it to covey historical events like wars and actions of great sons and daughters of the land. These days you still find a continuation of this practice. Among other ethnic groups of Nigeria like the Igbo,Edo, Kanuri, Izon, Efik, Tiv, Igbo and so on, this tradition exists.

Griot Tradition Among Ndiigbo

Among the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria the griot culture is a bit different. Different in the sense that the Igbo do not have kings, so the idea of a court musician/historian never existed. Despite this situation, the oral tradition system was well established. There existed individuals who took up the duty of perpetuating the peoples tradition through songs, poetry, and other art forms. 'Igbu Avu' for instance existed among the northern Igbo of Enugu, Nsukka and Abakaliki axis. It is a form of oral epic poetry that traces the generation of an individual’s family, while at the same time giving vivid report of events in the lifetime of each of the ancestors, and the role they played therein. The Igbo Poet 'Ogbu Avu' carries out this duty during occasions, especially during the mourning of the dead. His repertoire brings out different forms of reaction from his audience depending on the message he conveys. They heave sighs and shook their head when certain names are mentioned, in remembrance of the life of the subject in the rendition. People can sometimes get carried away that they would not know when they for instance jump over fences in excitement as great deeds of their ancestor is narrated, or they may express their joy through shouting the traditional Igbo greeting ‘Cha-Cha-Cha Ibenyi Kwenu! to which the crowd responds 'Iyaa! This will be followed with what the Igbo call 'Ida Iya' in which the subject excitedly runs in one direction, raises one of his legs high, and brings it down with a bang. His leg hits the ground with a corresponding ‘Iyaa’ from the crowd. This reoccurs in succession as many times as he repeats the act. This is an importance form of art in the Igbo society, a functional art. It acts as a source for empowering group identity and solidarity.

Apart from the role of the poet 'Ogbu Avu' certain Igbo Masquerades are specifically assigned the griot role. Some perform 'Igbu Avu' as they enter the arena or someone’s compound. The 'Inyinya agba oku’ masquerade of Udi people of northern Igbo is a good example. During festivals like the 'Aju' of Udi, the Inyinya Agba Oku masquerade visits homes of people, as it gets to the entrance of a home it starts from there to call on the head of the family, informing him that he has arrived to his abode. From there he starts giving short excerpts on the family lineage. This excites the members of the family; the males in this case as women are not supposed to see the masquerade and would go into hiding when it approaches a home. The male members in their excitement starts the 'Ida Iyaa' act. For the masquerade this is a sign of welcome. When this is done it will then enter the compound and give a full 'Igbu Avu' performance which often feature the history of the clan and important events, including the role played by the ancestors from the linage of the host in their life time. Another griot masquerade example is the 'Icheoku' (Parrot) masquerade. It is called so due to its talkativeness. Icheoku is commonly found among the Orumba, Izuogu, Isuochi surroundings.

The Modern Igbo Griot
Even though this form of art has been down - played nowadays due to unavoidable changes that swept through the Igbo society, some modern artists still maintain the griot trend in their repertoire and thus can be referred to as modern Igbo griots. Some of the known Igbo artistes that deserve this title includes artistes like the great Akunwafo Obiligbo , Okonkwo Asaa, alias 77, Area Scatter, Gentleman Mike Ejeagha, Ilezulike.

I have put together some works of these modern griot for you enjoyment.
Ama Ndi Aneze/Akunwafo Obiligbo
Ilezuluike
Uwa Amarala/Area Scatter
Mike Ejeagha/Ka Esi Lee Onyeisioche

THOSE GREAT NIGERIAN RADIO AND TV CLASSICS; WHERE ARE THEY?

When I think back to the days as a young producer with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN in Enugu, I relish the opportunities I had to meet and interview a lot of people, most especially great Nigerian musicians like Victor Uwaifo, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, Onyeka Onwenu and so many others. Among the numerous programs I produced was the one called ‘Artiste of The Week’, a one-hour artiste personality program that featured different artistes every week. I often wished I could listen to any of those productions again. I made attempts to find any from the FRCN archive without success.

This brought to mind the issue of our preservation attitude.

I can vouch for the FRCN establishment that it had a well-established archive in its music library department. I have used them in those days. Also in the early eighties when I was still a staff of the corporation, it was made sure that highly rated programs were saved in the archive. I also remember that we once had a program called ‘Vintage’ which featured vintage programs. It once featured one of the earliest radio drama series in Nigeria ‘The Adventures of Sheki-Sheki, and Alawo, a hilarious drama about the adventures of a ‘Bolekaja driver and his conductor. This was the creation of non other than our director then, late Mr Ralph Opara, in the 60s when he was a young producer,
The re-run of this vintage material brought joy to a lot of people, especially older ones whom the program took on a memory trip, back to the days when things were better. I am also convinced that all other older radio and television houses in Nigeria preserved most of their highly rated productions. I do hope that NTA for instance has intact programs like ‘Village Headmaster,’ excerpts from key live shows like ‘Bar Beach Show’ and so on. I also do hope that drama series like ‘Cock Crow At Dawn’, ‘Icheoku, Masquerade, Samanja and numerous other classics of the past are safe somewhere, and one thing I keep asking myself sometimes is why they do not run these programs once in a while. One aspect of the western media I admire very much is the pain they take to make sure that materials are preserved and later broadcast for the benefit of the future generation. It gives a special feeling to watch a drama or music program that was popular say in 1950 for instance. It gives an instance on the way of life at that time, the mood of the people, their values and so on. The old people will remember their youth, the younger ones will ask enthusiastic questions, they will understand better how their society evolved, and will be more proud of who they are. But why is it not the case in our society, why are our old programs not being re-issued?

Apart from the classic radio and television programs of the past, there were films the preceded them. My father had told me with pride about a documentary captioned ‘Sunset In Udi’ or something like that. Where is it today? All the pre independence and early post independence documentary films made by the film division of the Ministry of information, where are they. I remember one I watched as a child in the 60s, I do not know the title, but it was on the new Nigeria after independence and featured the highlife musician E C Arinze. Here in Europe materials in black and white, even as far back as the era of silent pictures are still used as materials for regular television programs. Classics like the works of Charlie Chaplin feature regularly.

My fear is that most of our classic audio and video materials may have been lost, either in parts or as a whole. Despite the fact that our archival, our preservative culture may not be well developed, there are other more dangerous factors that may have aided the disappearance of such materials.
Here is one classic example. At a particular time in the mid eighties, Gen Ibrahim Babangida introduced ‘Austerity measure’ an era of untold hardship for ordinary Nigerians. Every other month featured waves of entrenchment of workers, creating a high level of job insecurity. Salaries were not paid on time, and no one was sure when his pay check will be in his pocket. It was a devastating time for everyone since it was a new experience. I remember in those days in Radio Nigeria Enugu we usually get essential commodities from the then Kingsway supermarket (ironically one of the big supermarket chains killed by ‘austerity’) These commodities were peak milk, sugar, washing soap and so on. These commodities were so scarce that even if you had the money, you will not find them, unless you are connected. It was a situation reminiscent of the days of the old Soviet Union. If you walk the streets those days, you will find queues here and there. People join such queues even without knowing what it is all about, Only knowing that therehas to be something edible at the other end. Every government office also had its own arrangement on how to lay hands on the essential commodities.
For us at the FRCN, we were getting things once in a while through some arrangement made by the welfare department of our workers union. People were malnourished at that time. Some even got sick and died. We had mango trees in the compound of the broadcasting house, and each day during work hours, senior officers will order their messengers to climb tall mango trees to pluck mango for them. I remember one occasion when one of such messengers fell off a mango tree and was lucky to break just a few bones.

If the Austerity had such impact on the daily lives of the workers, imagine therefore what negative impact it had on their jobs. The whole system of production in the radio house at the time went upside down. As a producer, I was running some budget especially for the two drama programs I produced, Radio theatre, and ‘Ayakata’ a fifteen-minute drama sketch. Due to ‘Austerity, there was no funds to run these programs. I could not hire actors or scriptwriters. There was no money to pay them, but you are expected to produce a new program. We were allowed to repeat programs once in the month. In those hectic days I became a scriptwriter, actor and producer all in one. We created a kind of in-house help system where every producer uses the talent of another to produce his program; even secretaries and messengers became artistes. Now, how about the tools needed for the job, especially magnetic/ celluloid tapes that were commonly used in those days. These were nowhere to be found. People where hiding the few they could lay hands on. As the situation got worse, producers started cleaning old programs so as to record new ones. Tapes where so scarce that everyone was locking up their tapes in their desk compartment as they could be easily cleaned for use by others. No sources of recorded tapes were spared in this process, including the archives. This was a nationwide situation, from NTA headquarters to all the zones. From FRCN Lagos to all the zones, and of course all the state radio and television houses. Now you can understand my fears regarding the safety of our great radio and television classics.
All said, I still do sincerely wish my fears are not true, that at least some of these wonderful classics are safe somewhere. I do also wish that the radio and TV houses realised how important it is to re-issue these classics once in a while.

I found some old cassette tape in my store house by accident, and to my surprise one contained one of my old programs, Artiste of the week. This was a special edition released in December of 1986, containing excerpts from selected artistes from previous productions. Those featured in this edition are – One World, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe, and Onyeka Onwenu. It gives me pleasure to sharethis interview with Oyeka Onwenu with you all.I hope to post more when I finish digitalizing them. Peace!

Listen to an excerpt from one of my programs at Radio Nigeria Enugu in the 80s,Artiste of the week' featuring Onyeka Onwenu.

African Youths Love Their Roots and Culture

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Watch and get entertained

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A young lady entertains folks at a post wedding party. Her elder brother a medical doctor had his wedding the previous day in the commercial capital of Nigeria, Lagos. Relations of both bride and bridegroom travelled all the way from the eastern part of the country to witness the great occasion. On the morning after the wedding, they gathered for breakfast at the home of the newly wedded, and the party continued. A lot of young Africans still appreciate and participate in their cultural arts even though a steady erosion of African cultural heritage is still going on. The condemnation, degradation and destruction of African ways of life by European missionaries and colonialists in the past, and overzealous African religious extremists of the present is still having advert negative effects on African culture. Many great African dance performances, theatricals, music, folk tales, rituals and festivals are today extinct. Also innumerable quantities of priceless artefacts has been destroyed, and are still being destroyed by ignorant religious extremists. All these notwithstanding, seeing young people like the girl in this video digging this particular dance style of the (Waawa) Igbo of Enugu state of Nigeria gives the joyous impression that after all, all is not lost.
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Inine is an Igbo folk song that tells about a young motherless girl who was being maltreated by her step mother. She was practically turned into a housemaid. She did all the house chores while her siblings do nothing. One night, her little half-sister was thirsty and asked for some water which she gave to her. But her stepmother was infuriated by this just because she fetched the water herself from far away 'Ogba springs. It was past midnight and she sent her out to get back that cup of water from 'Ogba'. The way to the spring is far from the village and is known to be prowled by wild animals and spirits at night.The poor girl had no option than to carry out her wicked stepmother's foreboding. As she walked through the forest path she ran into all kinds of spirits, both good and bad ones, and she sang to them this lamentation.


The song is the musical part of an Igbo/Nigerian folk story rendition. Among Africans, story telling is a complete theatre performance where the master story teller mimics all the characters in his story. He or she uses all elements of theatre to create effect and drive home the massages in the story. There is often musical part in the stories such as this one. In the African theatrical set-up, there is no hard line separating the performer and his or her audience. For this reason the songs in the stories are often in a call response arrangement, giving the listening audience the chance to participate by singing the response part of the songs.

Inine is interpreted here By Ike Chime, renown broadcaster/artiste, and backed by the GoodPeople band of Finland. The song can be found on the cd 'Rainbow Dreams' on Naxos World lable.



Ike Chime