Shelf Life: Akwaeke Emezi

BY RIZA CRUZ

ELLE

KATHLEEN BOMANI / ILLUSTRATION BY YOUSRA ATTIA via ELLE

The National Book Award finalist and author of Dear Senthuran and Bitter takes our literary survey.

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

Expect to hear even more from Akwaeke Emezi this year, starting with Bitter (Knopf Books for Young Readers, out next week), a companion novel to their debut YA novel, PET, a National Book Award finalist. Their first poetry collection, Content Warning: Everything is out in April, and their first romance novel You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty will be released in May. Screen rights to the latter were bought by Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society attached; Emezi will be an executive producer.

Born and raised in Nigeria, the NYT-bestselling writer and video artist moved to the U.S. at 16 and now lives in New Orleans—their house has an Instagram account (@shinythegodhouse) as does their Devon Rex cat, Gus PonPon (@gus.ponpon).

The Igbo-Tamil Emezi is a Gemini, was a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree; graced Time’s cover as a Next Generation Leader for their memoir, Dear Senthuran; considered becoming a nun; once wrote six blogs simultaneously; went to veterinary school and has a degree in nonprofit management and public policy from NYU; can’t write in cafes because of the noise; named their garden Emmeline; appeared in Jay-Z’s 4:44 video; and got an Artist Formerly Known as Prince symbol the day after he died.

Likes: Rotimi Fani-Kayode art, soca music, Bolden skincare, black groundnuts, gold ceilings, fruit stands (mangoes to eat with sweet soy sauce and guavas are favorites), clothes that feel like pajamas, cacti. Dislikes: coffee, writing essays.

The book that:
...shaped my worldview:

Of Water and the Spirit by the late and great Malidoma Patrice Somé introduced me to the concept of decolonizing reality itself and taught me how to center indigenous African realities, which was foundational to my own body of work.
…currently sits on my nightstand:

I just started In Sensorium: Notes For My People by the brilliant Bangladeshi writer and perfumer Tanaïs, and so far, it’s an incredible and evocative text that I can’t wait to drown in.
…I’d like turned into a Netflix show:

The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty would be absolutely phenomenal on screen! It’s a brilliant series about djinn and royalty that the author once described as “a fantasy homage to the medieval Islamic world.”

...I last bought:

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi, because she is a literary legend and the worlds she writes are always so special.

…I recommend over and over again:

Under The Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta is a classic piece of literary fiction reminding us that queer people are a real and vital part of all our histories.
…has a sex scene that will make you blush:

Anything by Katee Robert, but particularly her Dark Olympus and A Touch of Taboo series. Whew!

...fills me with hope:

I’m pretty jaded about the world, so when I read the Brown Sisters series by Talia Hibbert, those books warmed my heart because I got to see Black femmes who were in chronic pain, who were neurodivergent, and who didn’t fit white supremacist beauty standards being loved and loved fiercely.

…made me weep uncontrollably:

All About Love by bell hooks is a deeply necessary and utterly devastating book that can reshape your life in the best way if you let it. I think I had a meltdown by the second chapter.

…should be on every college syllabus:

Oreo by Fran Ross is a satirical novel written by a Black queer woman and published in 1974. I consider it an indisputable genius-level text that should absolutely be taught widely.
...I read in one sitting, it was that good:

The Tensorate series by Neon Yang, and yes, I read the entire series in one sitting on a plane. It really is that good.

…I swear I'll finish one day:

I have chronic pain caused by muscle spasms from C-PTSD, so multiple people recommended The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, but I can never finish it because it contains accounts of trauma that are honestly too disturbing for me to take in.

Bonus question: If I could live in any library or bookstore in the world, it would be:

I think this one is a classic, but Belle’s library in Beauty and The Beast. Technically, it might be the Beast’s library, but as a kid, that was the absolute dream.

Who’s Afraid Of Igbo Nation?

BY JOSEPH USHIGIALE

As the race for the choice of a geopolitical zone that would produce the next President gathers momentum, the thrust of the debate is defined by three pillars of argument: equity, numerical strength and qualified detribaalized nationally accepted Nigerians regardless of race, religion etc.

Let me begin from the last criterion for obvious reasons. Nigeria is bedeviled almost by insurmountable problems and currently hanging on the precipice of insecurity, unemployment, high inflation, diminishing standards of living, kidnapping and banditry and other sundry criminal activities.

The thinking is that, Nigeria is passing through these harrowing experiences because of past and present bad leadership. To stop this recurring phenomena, stakeholders are beginning to discuss new ways to throw up a credible and visionary candidate that would be accepted pan-Nigeria. A candidate who would take Nigeria as his constituency regardless of where he comes from or his religion. This is the current thinking of a section of the political class.

The second consideration is to throw the race open to every qualified Nigerian. In the end, who ever can muster majority votes will carry the day. This is essentially the beauty of democracy which is built around the ideal that it is of the people, by the people and for the people.

In Nigeria where the north alone has 19 states including the federal capital which is predominantly populated by northerners, the north alone has a commanding lead of 20 states ahead of the south which has 17 states.

This position is canvassed by a coalition of 75 northern groups under the aegis of the Northern Consensus Movement (NCM) which claimed that the north has a population of 120 million, with additional 40 million Fulani people to close at 160 million

The NCM president, Awwal Abdullahi Aliyu is confident that the next Nigerian president would be a northerner.

“We are ready for it. We believe in democracy. We know politics is a game of numbers. We know leadership is by ballot box. Leadership is by PVC, leadership is by election and that’s why we are calling our people to come out enmasse to get their PVCs.

“The 120 million northerners should get their PVC. The 40 million Fulani should get their PVC. Put together, 160 million. We will elect another fresh northern president by February 2023,” he stated.

Figures credited to the National Population Commission census of 2006 still records Nigeria’s population at 140m with the north having 75 million while the south recorded 65 million people.

Now those kicking against this approach argue that relying on the numerical strength of your bloc to win a presidential election engenders winners takes all and does not build a cohesive and united country.

This set of people arguing against the use of numerical strength by a dominant group to control power rather seeks inclusiveness built around compromise and consensus. They are the ones seeking the consideration of equity in building political alliances.

The foundation of this argument lies with the consideration that while the north has been in leadership position for decades through military and civil rule, every zone in the south except the South east is yet to lead the country. The nearest the region could boost as proximity to the corridors of power was during the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) when late Dr. Alex Ekwueme was vice to Alhaji Shehu Shagari.

According to unconfirmed sources, the military struck in 1983, when it became apparent that Ekwueme would emerge President after Shagari’s last term. So, who is afraid of the Nigerian President of South east extraction? The north unarguably has a phobia for the Igbo because of the audacity of Chief Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu to declare a sovereign state of Biafra.

In the union that culminated to Nigeria today, it does appear the Igbo were endangered species from the get go. The Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello speaking with a foreign journalist then accused the Igbo of inordinate ambition. According to him, “if you hire an Igbo man as a laborer, tomorrow, he would want to become head man.”

He stated then that under his reign, no Igbo would be employed in his One North enclave. To him, rather than employing an Igbo chap, he would hire a foreigner on contract and pay him to do the job. His reason was that he had to preserve those opportunities that are reserved for northerners only.

It is not surprising that that the Sardauna’s philosophy has endured to this moment and has been elevated to state policy. Today, notwithstanding the federal character policy, the north has taken over every viable parastatals, ministries unchallenged.

Again nursing the same sentiments that greeted Ojukwu’s launch of Biafra, President Muhammadu Buhari while speaking on Arise Tv interview said the group, Indigenous People of Biafra who are like a dot in a circle have continued from where Ojukwu stopped would be dealt with summarily.

“So that IPOB is just like a dot in a circle. Even if they want to exit, they’ll have no access to anywhere. And the way they are spread all over the country, having businesses and properties. I don’t think IPOB knows what they are talking about language that they understand. We’ll organise the police and the military to pursue them,” the President assured.

Given these scenarios, the Igbo feel alienated and marginalised, they do not see themselves as part of Nigeria especially several decades after the civil war where no victor and no vanquished was declared, a section of the country still would not accept them back into mainstream politics. But why?

After General Yakubu Gowon declared the end of hostilities and no victor no vanquished, the Igbo had expected to be reintegrated into mainstream politics. And indication that it was not going to happen manifested immediately after the end of the war following the enactment of certain laws targeting them.

Igbo people believed as it later turned out to be that some of the laws enacted after the war were made to disenfranchise them in Nigeria. For instance, the Public Officers (Special Provisions Decree no. 46 of 1970): With the Decree many Igbo officers who participated in the civil war on the part of Biafra were summarily dismissed or compulsorily retired. This was against the earlier directive and assurance to the world by the Head of State that all officers would be reabsorbed to their former positions before the escalation of hostilities.

From the economic front, the Banking Obligation (Eastern States Decree): Banks in the Igbo region were made to pay all account owners a flat rate of 20 pounds independent of what they deposited in the banks before the war. The same with the Indigenisation Decree of 1972: With this law, Nigerians were given an opportunity to get involved in the country’s productive enterprises. Igbo people, because of their post-war situation, feel they were not ready for such exercise and were alienated from the nation’s economy.

In Rivers state, there was the Abandoned Property Policy by the Alfred Diete Spiff administration. This policy of confiscating properties in the Rivers state by the state government was seen as an economic attack on Igbo people, who fled the state during the war. Igboland, which used to be one of the three major regions of the country, became the region with the least number of states of the six geopolitical zones in the federation till this day.

Now let us also not forget that in addition to losing their means of livelihood, abode, entire life savings, over 3 million Igbo lives were lost during the civil war. By any form of punishment, the Igbo have sufficiently paid the supreme price for the civil war. The current hiccups perpetrated by MASSOB and IPOB are reactions to the punitive actions of the powers that be to continually rub it in and subjugate the Igbo to second class citizens in a country that they are equal partners in.

Let us be clear, I am not an Igbo, even if I was, I would be proud of my rich heritage which is what the Igbo parade. The Igbo come from a long history of struggle, enterprise and self determination. How many people know that long before Nigeria was amalgamated by Lord Lugard in 1914, the Igbo had already organised themselves into a nation state seeking self determination from the colonial masters?

According to the Blackpast website, an Igboman was the first to propose an Independent Igbo nation state in 1865 about 39 years before the amalgamation of what will later be known as Nigeria. It was neither Mungo Park nor Christopher Columbus, his name is James Africans Beale Horton.

Horton who was born in 1835 was the first to publish and send to the British government his proposal titled, “The EMPIRE OF THE EBOES/HACKBOUS/HEEBOS/IBOES/IGBOES/EGBOES, with the Requirements Necessary for Establishing that Self Government Recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons, 1865: and a Vindication of the African Race.”

His proposal included a concrete plan for a Self-governed independent nation, an army, currency, Support for modern civilization and economic empowerment. You can imagine where the Igbo nation would have been today had the British granted this approval.

A corollary of all this is that the Igbo remain a very formidable ethnic group that needs to be accommodated and given a sense of belonging. Rather than fanning this needless fear, Nigeria indeed stands to gain more from Igbo enterprise and ingenuity.

For instance, if not for the sentiments and hatred for the Igbo, Nigeria would have benefited more, curated and improved on the major technological groundbreaking breakthroughs recorded by Biafran in the area of refining, construction, bomb manufacturing etc.

It is about time we reduce the tension especially in the South east, IPOB is no threat to Nigeria or the federal government except that they have been given unwarranted and unnecessary attention. The use of a sledge hammer to kill a fly produces negative outcome. It is rather better to adopt a political solution to douse the tension.

Finally, as parties jostle to produce the next President, 2023 presents a golden opportunity for Nigerians to support the only zone that is yet to lead the country. There are innumerable safe hands in Igboland to guide Nigeria to Eldorado. Fear of secession is needless and would evaporate forever the day an Igboman is entrusted to lead the country and that time is now.

INTERVIEW: Tips From A Black Expat: Making Friends And Mental Wellness While Solo Traveling

BY AMARA AMARYAH

Nkem Chukwumerije. Image via Travel Noire/Nkem Chukwumerije

Meet Nkem Chukwumerije, a solo traveling Expat, building community and relationship to self while wandering the world. As a writing coach, writer, workshop facilitator, and podcast host, she is fascinated by all things language, self, and human relationships and carries this with her in her solo traveling habits. In this interview Nkem shares with Travel Noire her experiences and tips on making friends and staying rooted while solo traveling.

1. How did you start solo traveling?


I was 19 and a sophomore in university. During that holiday break, I’d traveled to Nigeria with my family with plans to stay longer than the others since my school’s break was about 5 weeks. My dad was living in Nigeria primarily at the time, so I thought I’d spend most of my time with him while my sisters, mom, and brother all went back to their homes.

When my dad was off doing his thing, I’d head to the corner store for some chocolate (classic Nkem) and I soon figured out I would need to be sure about my identity walking into these places, or interacting with anyone.I didn’t have my dad there to enter before me and be the big Igbo man people instantly respected. I soon figured out I was more American than I’d realized, and this identity sort of clung to me (or perhaps I clung to it) until I finally moved overseas, initially to South Korea.


Between that first experience in Nigeria and the one in Korea, I’d traveled solo to Jamaica and Italy, with other trips where friends either tagged along or I’d gone to visit friends I’d made in other countries. Later I lived in Abu Dhabi and then Mexico.

I’m currently in Porto, Portugal, having followed an interest to have a longer-term European experience as a sexy late-twenty-something, as I like to call it.





2. What are some of your favourite ways to make friends while solo traveling?


My favorite way to make friends anywhere, at any time is to be so into me, publicly, and see who I attract. You can’t cultivate personal community when you’re in isolation. And I had plenty of moments in isolation; also moments with people I didn’t care about being with, in situations I would have rather not been in, just to hopefully make friends.

When I moved to Abu Dhabi, I quickly picked up learning to play the guitar, and my guitar became my friend, which ended up being a foundational part of one of my romantic relationships during my time in Abu Dhabi.



While in Abu Dhabi, I heard about a wellness center offering yoga, spiritual healing, things I naturally felt drawn to. So on my birthday, I attended a heart chakra healing session, and my perspective was blown open.



It was yoga and art and the group was soft, loving, open, creative, sensitive. I felt like I had been walking down the wrong path for so long, but if I were to turn my head, away from the shadows and into the light, my people were there sitting in a circle, with cinnamon tea, talking about the intricacies of their lives. All I had to do was change course. And so I did.

My time in Mexico was completely magical because it was spiritually centered. At this point, I’d quit my job and decided to go on somewhat of a sabbatical, like I’d seen people I’d met during my travels doing. What would it look and feel like to travel somewhere and stay for not 5 days but 5 weeks or even 5 months?

I also wanted to focus my energy on cultivating community through the wellness-through-writing platform I run Wellspringwords. I’d already started the digital anthology nearly a year prior, but then began a podcast, and had dreams of hosting writing workshops online and in-person. I was dreaming, but finally in a space to see these dreams through to fruition while I traveled around Mexico. And let me say, aligning myself with Wellspringwords’ mission really helped me attract and gravitate toward the right people in that phase of my life.

While here in Portugal I have to lean on the ways I created and join the communities that worked in my last two locations. It’s a different environment with people coming from different places. But everyone has a heart, so that is what I try to connect with.



3. How do you stay grounded while solo-traveling?


This has been a tricky one for me. Grounding was one of the elements I focused on heavily at some point during my time in Mexico. I had been in Puerto Escondido and then I moved to Mexico City and things changed — I was wearing pants and shoes, for one. But there was also structure to my days, structure to what I wanted to begin doing with Wellspringwords.

I’d been in an ongoing year-long yoga teacher training program, so I counted that as one of my tools; my guitar was always never far — another tool. Dance, another tool, and my most effective medicine, along with using words to translate my heart’s call through writing.



As a highly sensitive person and empath, an environment can make or break my vibrational state, so I sought elements that would create a home space that felt like a sanctuary all day — for me that meant incense, light smelling candles, low lighting, sweet tunes (usually soft jazz), my favorite books nearby, food that felt delicious and fresh.

I had all these tools and practices, plus more, at my disposal. I was tasked with discovering how to integrate them into my life in ways that felt natural, nurturing, and supportive; rather than prescriptive, like some wellness to-do list, which is part of the over masculinization paradigm many of us are actively divesting from.

I had to learn not to routinize my life so that I wasn’t institutionalizing myself and losing my freedom. I had to realize that to live life as my life wants to be lived is to still myself and feel, intuitively, what feels the best at this moment? What is most meaningful right now? Between these options, which will serve me to the highest degree? The courage to be grounded in our truths comes from following intuition.



4. What do you look for in a community/support system while traveling?


At this point in my journey, I’m looking less and feeling more. I’m tuning into my intuition and using my psychic abilities to know if a person or group is right for me for the moment. This requires me to be highly knowing and accepting of myself and all my isms; all the narratives at the forefront of my consciousness, laying filters on how I see and interact with the world.



I know that I desire to love, to empower, to share in enthusiasm and sincerity… so these are the types of people and communities I seek. On a surface level, as a solo traveler in a new country, it can be enticing to schedule daily coffee dates with people from dating apps and Facebook groups just to make sure I’m putting myself out there — and some of these meetings can lead to great relationships or opportunities.

But I mustn’t engage blindly or from a place of fear or scarcity. In periods of personal transformation, we know what loneliness feels like, so we seek companionship to counteract that. But what if we remembered that we have always been supported during loneliness, by ourselves and those around us, this would help us see that we don’t have to seek connections from fear of rejection, but rather from a place of love, authenticity, heart, and true support.

5. What are some lessons you’ve learnt about caring for yourself while traveling?


I suppose the biggest lesson, that I have to remember daily, is that caring for myself cannot be routinized. It has to adapt to my changing energy. Because of my innate openness, my ability to set and honor boundaries is one of my most important skills, that I’m consistently honing. Just because my aura is open and I attract a lot, doesn’t mean it’s all bad, and doesn’t mean I need to create brick wall boundaries.

Caring for myself in ways that feel organic and sustainable requires unending grace; and sometimes that grace looks like loving discipline. I’m doing the best I can with the tools I have.

Rochas Okorocha Is Not My Leader, Not My President

BY KENNETH UWADI

Rochas Okorocha

Vultures are evil birds that are always available, and are at their best, nodding their ugly heads in sadistic happiness, only when the news is about death, decay and the resultant availability of flesh. Former Governor of Imo State and the Senator representing Imo West Senatorial District, Rochas Okorocha on Monday 31st January 2022 formally declared his intention to run for president in the 2023 general election. Okorocha announced his ambition at an event held at the ICC in Abuja. He said he remains the best leader to unite and bring Nigeria together. He said he was the most qualified of all the aspirants jostling for the exalted office of Presidency, going by his antecedents in social empowerment investment across all the six geo-political zones of the country. For me the gathering at the ICC Abuja by Rochas Okorocha and his cohorts is the gathering of the vultures.

The essence of any leadership position is to use one’s experience to work for the good of the overall majority, to create enabling environment for the survival and development of a just and balance society, a society devoid of rancour and unwholesome practices, a society that is free of corruption and bigotries, a society that is built on trust and sincerity of purpose and indeed, a society where ethnic and religious differences does not matter. A leader of any type ought to be honest, truthful, reliable and steadfast. And if we need a good leader for Nigeria in 2023, then Rochas Okorocha is not my Leader and not my President.

It is sad to observe that this former governor of Imo that caused severe havoc to the State’s socio-economic and political advancement and made the State to be walking on crutches, that amputated the state by his corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency is the one staging a press conference in Abuja and declaring his desire to extend his evil, havoc and heavy devastation to the entire Nigeria. May God save Nigeria from vultures in positions of leadership planted by the descendants of Serpents in alliance with some negative internal forces feeding fat on the flesh of the people. Some so-called leaders are worse than vultures; they feed only on living human flesh. They mercilessly corner the resources meant for the development of the entire society for themselves, their families and friends, while the helpless poor masses are left to waste away, dying needlessly of hunger, avoidable diseases and extreme suffering.

These shameless and empty leaders are ruled by extreme greed, short sightedness, deep folly, Corruption and other base considerations like tribe and religion. They lack the knowledge, foresight, patriotism, tact and diplomacy needed to build a modern, organized society. They have become totally besotted by extreme luxury and other paraphernalia of office. They enjoy using the best industrial products of the developed world and like moving about in their fine/well planned cities, but would never think of replicating the good things they use, see or observe in these places in their own societies. Yet, Nigeria is well, if not better, endowed with all the relevant natural resources than some so-called developed world. Okorocha is not my Leader, not my President, I abhor corruption! It deprives the world of resources needed for common good or greater good for all Nigerians. Because Nigeria is dear to my heart and because Nigeria is where my heart is, the mention of Nigeria and corruption in the same sentence riles and agitates me inordinately.

My President in 2023 must possess the ability to think on his or her feet, in addition to possessing local knowledge of Nigeria’s many ethnic regions and their peculiar problems. He must be a good team player, communicator and strategic planner, capable of influencing international opinion through a well orchestrated programme of economic diplomacy. He must have a sound knowledge of the workings of the oil sector, and must be committed to a programme of opening up and creating other revenue streams for the country, especially from the agricultural, steel and other neglected sectors. My President must have on top of his or her agenda the provision of basic social amenities for Nigerians, the rebuilding of dilapidated infrastructure, reduction of poverty as well as the improvement of the quality of life of Nigerians. He must make it possible for Nigerians to experience the true dividends of democracy.My president must have a university degree. He should be able to carry all Nigerians along in the formulation and implementation of government policies. My President must not have previous cases or allegations of corruption against him. He should be willing to demonstrate a track record of selfless service, either from years of working in the private or public sectors. He must not have a background in profligacy and dalliance. He must be a morally and ethically upright personality who should also function as a role model to Nigerians.

Chiedozie Ogbene: I Was Meant To Be A Doctor but that Didn’t Work Out As Planned

Rotherham United’s Chiedozie Ogbene celebrates at the full-time whistle. Image: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images

BY GAVIN CUMMISKEY

IRISH TIMES

Before Rotherham United there were stints at Brentford and Exeter City. Before Limerick FC there was Nemo Rangers. Go further back and find an eight-year-old Chiedozie Ogbene leaving the Enugu state in Nigeria’s interior to catch a flight from Lagos to a place called Cork.

Nursing is the profession that allowed the Ogbenes to settle in Ireland. “Both my parents are nurses. Dad is still practising in CUH in Cork.” Elder brother Uche Ogbene recently joined the family business. “I was expected to be a doctor but that didn’t work out as planned.”

Seriously, Dr Ogbene was the original plan? “Yeah, I always wanted to follow the medical side. I went to a further educational college in Cork to study sports injuries to understand ‘why do I get injured?’ I didn’t go to university but I think we are all interested in human anatomy in the family.

“I am just grateful that my football career took off, but education is something I still look at as really important for your mental health and planning because football is going to end.”

Memories of being raised in Nigeria are hazy yet never fully fade for the first African-born Republic of Ireland international.

“I just remember running around with cousins in the street. Back then I didn’t play a lot of football, just watched my brothers play in a sandy field. I never had interest really. It was when I moved to Ireland and started playing street football with my neighbours, that’s when I took it up.”

One of those neighbours is current Shelbourne and Ireland player Saoirse Noonan. Life in the Grange suburb of Cork, from the time Ogbene arrived in 2005 until signing for Brentford in 2018, are devoid of the horrors suffered by other African families who have struggled to settle in less-welcoming communities.

“I didn’t have great English but I didn’t feel left out as a kid. When you get older, as a teenager, people bully but they don’t know you, really. I didn’t have any trouble, didn’t have too much racism. Saoirse can tell you when we used to play out in the park, we all included each other playing tag rugby or soccer.

“I had a great childhood in Cork, honestly.”
‘Dad worked really hard’

At home the Ogbenes remain as Nigerian as they are Irish in the community.

“My dad worked really hard to get us where we are,” Ogbene explained. “It wasn’t an easy route to Ireland. He had to work, study and go to different countries like Kuwait before he was accepted into Ireland. There were so many journeys he had to go through for me to have the easier route.

“But also, I am grateful for the people in Cork who helped me. They could have made my life difficult but they just saw me as their own.”

Naturally, Igbo remains the family’s first language.

“My parents always pushed me to make sure I improved my English, they always wanted to hear it, but they also want us to remember where we come from, and the culture is something we take huge pride in. I’d come home from school and would switch to Igbo. My girlfriend Sandra used to come around and she would be looking at me, ‘I hope you are not talking negative about me!’”

The Ogbenes sound like Irish immigrants in America or Britain, holding tight to their identity amid a rapidly changing, multicultural society.

“Our household is quite Nigerian dominant. That is just something in our DNA. That is something that my parents and brothers and sisters take huge pride in and hopefully we pass it on to our kids; to share the cultural differences of being Irish and Nigerian because it is important to know where you come from.”

Ogbene’s head-spinning first year on the international scene concluded last November with the 24-year-old saluting Irish fans during a sticky affair in Luxembourg.

The 3-4-2-1 system was malfunctioning. As the attacking trio struggled for cohesion, with Ogbene’s pace drawing as many fouls as a League One promotion scrap, Adam Idah was withdrawn on 62 minutes. The arrival of Jason Knight nudged Callum Robinson further forward and suddenly the matrix clicked.

Shane Duffy’s header made it 1-0 but 20 matches into a tumultuous new era for Irish football, Stephen Kenny’s team needed more than another escapology act from the giant Derry centre half.

As Luxembourg chased an equaliser, Ireland calmly counter-attacked until Jeff Hendrick over-played a ball for Ogbene wide right. Maxime Chanot tried and failed to shake him.

“In training, we press because when you press you don’t give the opposition time to pick a pass,” said Ogbene. “So I lost the ball but – like for Rotherham – we press high and the first reaction was to get the ball back. That’s what we worked on before the game so I knew when I pressed everyone else was going to follow. It only takes one guy to kick it off.

“So I pressed. I only showed him one way because I knew he wanted to come inside. When he tried to take me on I was able to nick it. Jeff was in the right position. Knighty went into the box and I could have stood there and got my breather but all the games I have been playing have me well conditioned, so I kept going. Happy I ran into the box, instead of being lazy. Just gambled and Knighty cut it back for me.”

“Magnificent goal by any standard,” went Ronnie Whelan on commentary as Ogbene scooped Knight’s back heel into the net. “This is the stuff we are talking about. That is evolving.”

The evolution has temporarily stalled as Ogbene, Knight and Hendrick disappeared into the labyrinth of English club football. Hendrick, despite some commanding nights for Ireland, has only played 13 minutes of Newcastle United’s winter slide towards the Championship. Drop down two divisions and Ogbene is flying.
Professional football career

His pursuit of a professional football career was high risk, even foolhardy, after rejecting the elite sporting route laid before him by the GAA in Cork. In 2015, he pulled out of Nemo’s under-21 county football final replay to play for Cork City against UCD in a regular season under-19 match.

“Yeah, it was a big risk but I felt in my gut that I had to take it. If I stayed with Nemo Rangers and played Gaelic football it would have been easier to make it because obviously it is only played in Ireland and I was quite good at the sport. A lot of people knew I could go to the next level and they were giving me the pathway.

“But I wanted to be a footballer. I was just 17 when I made the decision. It was a difficult time for me because I looked at the people at Nemo Rangers as family.”

And you had kicked 1-2 in the drawn final?

“Yeah, it was a big shout to let that go but I am glad I did.”

For a time he effectively became his own agent – Glenn Corcoran handles negotiations now – approaching Limerick FC manager Martin Russell and later Rotherham boss Paul Warne to avoid even a hint of misinterpretation.

“I was just not stopping. At the time at Cork City I was not offered the right contract and having made a lot of sacrifices, like not going to college, and Cork City were very good at that time so I didn’t see myself playing games, nor did I hear the right words from the manager that I would get the opportunity.

“So I trusted my gut. It was nerve-racking making these calls at age 18 or 19, but honestly if I had go back I’d do it again.”

That might wash in the League of Ireland, but switching from Brentford to Rotherham in 2019 was supposed to be handled by the middle men.

“I have a close friend who suggested I go to a Rotherham game. And when I was there I just decided to introduce myself to the manager. Contract talks at Brentford were kind of at a halt so I just wanted to make it clear that I was serious about the move.

“The manager mentioned to me that he didn’t sign me because he wanted me, he signed me because he knew what type of person I was, having shown up to that game. He knew he was signing a good human being. He always reminds me of that.”

Speaking of good human beings, when did Kenny come into your life?

“I think he tried to sign me for Dundalk but going to Brentford was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. Last year, during my knee injury, he rang and said he would like to bring me on board to the national team. I was quite shocked. My agent [Corcoran] played a big part in speaking with Stephen, making sure he knew I was interested in declaring for Ireland.”

Despite FIFA erecting some highly questionable barriers for an Irish citizen born in Nigeria, Ogbene came off the bench in Budapest last June. Five caps later, he has three wins, two draws and two important goals from Ireland’s 10-nil aggregate return.

“I feel like nothing has come easy for me. I have always had to work hard. At youth level in Cork I was never the best player, I never played for the ‘emerging talent’ team or the Cork schoolboys. I always wanted to get to the level so I trained harder than everyone else.

“I would never let anyone get above me. The most talented players are treated differently, and I would have been on the receiving end when I wasn’t being treated nicely and I would always smile, I would always be happy. That comes from my mum.”
Seven-year anniversary

South Yorkshire was frozen over last week, so Ogbene could celebrate a milestone with his partner Sandra as Rotherham United’s rock-hard pitch mercifully interrupted League One’s two-match-a-week grind.

“Secretly I hoped the game against Lincoln would be called off as the right wing back role is taxing on the body,” said Ogbene, in mock conspiratorial tones over Zoom. “A lot of mileage up and down so when you play Saturday-Tuesday you feel the fatigue. You are not as explosive as you want to be.

“Also, it is our seven-year anniversary.”

Doing anything nice? “We have to! She was going to be watching a football match. . .”

Ideally Rotherham are promoted in May as League One champions and avoid a play-off slog. This would ensure his hamstrings make the Nations League in June, where four matches in 10 gruelling days include separate trips to Armenia and Ukraine (presuming a Russian invasion can be averted).

The outbreak of a third World War hindering the flow of Irish-Africans like Gavin Bazunu, Andrew Omobamidele, Idah and Ogbene into the Ireland team would fit neatly into the madness of the Kenny era.

“We all have one agenda – to win for the nation,” said Ogbene of this new look Ireland side. “And, at the same time, you are doing your family proud. We came to Ireland, to a different culture, different surroundings, and the way I have been accepted really did bring tears to my mother’s eyes. You see how people treat her in Cork. She feels famous. It is really nice for her to feel included in the society.”

All Welcome At monthly Mass Celebrated In Igbo language

Men and women from the Igbo Catholic Apostolic gather once a month for Mass, fellowship and Nigerian food and music. Image via the Catholic Star Herald

BY E. JULIET NJOKU

CAMDEN, NJ (CATHOLIC STAR HERALD) -- Igbos from the Eastern region of Nigeria, one of the three dominant tribes in the multilingual and multicultural country, gather at noon every third Sunday of the month at Saint Francis de Sales in Barrington to celebrate Mass in the rich Igbo language accompanied by spirit-filled liturgical Igbo songs and music.

The Igbo Catholic Apostolic (ICA), which was inaugurated on Nov. 19, 2017, under its first chaplain, Father Mike Ezeatu, is grateful to its host parish, Saint Rose of Lima in Haddon Heights, and then-pastor Father E. Joseph Byerley for giving the ICA a place to call home for monthly worship. A true expression of the parish mission of St. Rose of Lima, to love God and others.

ICA is proud of its mission to evangelize and foster a faith community that embraces the heart of Jesus, guided by the Holy Spirit, to strengthen family units, with a focus on guiding young children and youth to be firmly rooted in the Catholic faith expressed in the Igbo language and culture of their parents and for their liturgical and ritual formation. ICA is guided by the vision to model a vibrant, loving and supportive family faith community that is warm and welcoming to all in the usual Igbo culture.

This sense of community is truly felt in the efforts of the men and women’s group who rally support for members in times of joy or sorrow. The ICA encourages youth to be involved in the liturgy and engaged in giving back to the wider community through service.

The youth are also organized to participate in diocesan and national programs, with some attending the 2019 National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis. The ICA dedicates a special Sunday each year to celebrate the various educational milestones of the youth. This day is filled with joyful youth activities and gift awards.

During the global shutdown, the youth coordinator organized and engaged young people in various faith-focused Zoom events and prayers, ending the year with an online Nativity story and caroling event during the 2021 Advent season, which featured many of the youth as announcers, narrators and singers.

As Igbos, we enjoy coming together and celebrating our rich culture and Mass traditions here, and every opportunity of gathering with family, friends or neighbors is typically a celebration. It is therefore not surprising that a feast with Nigerian delicacies is shared after every Mass. The eating and dancing serves more than nourishing our bodies, it strengthens our brotherhood/sisterhood and builds the bonds of friendship between the old and young alike.

The ICA is very grateful to Father David A. Grover, pastor of Saint Rose of Lima Parish, who in true spirit of encountering Jesus and evangelism, responded to the invitation of Father Francis Oranefo, current ICA chaplain, and makes an effort to join ICA for the monthly Mass and feast. His presence fosters a great spirit of acceptance of the ICA community and a warm and indescribable joy among its members, who feel truly blessed by his spiritual support.

A Sunday evening Adoration organized by Father Oranefo once a month enhances the ICA’s spiritual formation. Members pray the Rosary together as a community, presenting their personal and family petitions, and intercessions, and receiving blessings and benediction.

In the spirit of a true missionary community called to reach out to others with the richness of Christ’s love and fellowship, ICA’s vibrant choir participates in the annual diocesan Black History Month Mass and other invitations to sing in cultural choir events in the Diocese.

The ICA community was glad and blessed by the presence of Father Vincent Guest, coordinator of the diocesan Black Catholic Ministry Commission, who joined the community to celebrate last year’s annual Mass of Family Thanksgiving, which featured a procession of families bearing different kinds of gift offerings to give thanks to God.

The ICA community invites and welcomes all in the Diocese of Camden to join us in worship, to experience the liturgy expressed beautifully in the Igbo language with soulful, spirit-filled songs!

Dr. E. Juliet Njoku, youth coordinator, ICA, Barrington, is a member of the Black Catholic Ministry Commission, Diocese of Camden.

INTERVIEW: ‘The Igbo Apprenticeship Scheme Could Be Repositioned To Help Nigeria’

BY CHIJIOKE J. IREMEKA

Uche Nworah

Chief Uche Nworah, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS), Awka, Anambra State, is the convener, National Summit on Igbo Apprenticeship. In this interview with CHIJIOKE IREMEKA, he speaks on the Igbo apprenticeship scheme and how the scheme could be repositioned to help Nigeria as it battles various issues, including unemployment, banditry, and ethnic agitations among others.

Pondering on the Igbo apprenticeship, what is this scheme all about? Where and how did this culture come about?

The Igbo apprenticeship scheme is an entrepreneurial model where an entrepreneur takes an apprentice and teaches him or her the rudiments of a particular trade for an agreed period. On completion, the entrepreneur gives the apprentice seed capital to set up his own business.

Having said that, there is no recorded history of how long Ndigbo have been practicing the apprenticeship scheme. What is obvious is that it is majorly indigenous to Ndigbo and over time, has become part of their culture and tradition. It falls within the ‘self-help’ ideology, the ‘in-group’ philosophy, which found wider acceptance amongst Ndigbo after the Nigeria/Biafra civil war when Ndigbo were stripped of their savings and money in Nigerian banks and given only 20 pounds in exchange for whatever amount they may have in the bank, pre-civil war.

As the Igbo proverb goes, ‘Onye ajulu adiro aju onwe ya’ (if people reject and deny you, you should not deny and reject yourself) Ndigbo then set about rebuilding their businesses and communities, carrying friends, relatives and associates along. Individuals, age grade system, town unions, Iyom, Nze na Ozo and other traditional Igbo societies rallied round in this regard.

This determination to succeed with others also finds expression in the Igbo mantra of ‘Egbe bere ugo bere’- Live and let live, ‘Onye aghana nwanne ya’- leave no one behind along the journey of economic success or along the journey of life.

This meant that people that could already stand on their feet business-wise after the war had to recruit apprentices to serve them or to work with them in their businesses and trades, after which the apprentices (boi-bois) are settled (Idu uno) by their masters to start their own businesses. That way, the wheel of economic progress and development continued to grind in the South East and in other places where Ndigbo sojourn.

You recently conceived the National Summit on Igbo Apprenticeship under the theme: Repositioning The Igbo Apprenticeship Scheme for sustainable Economic Development. What does the event intend to achieve?

The objective of the organisers (Anambra Broadcasting Service in partnership with Awka Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture) is to bring to the fore at this time, the Igbo apprenticeship scheme. We believe that it could be repositioned to help Nigeria as it battles various issues including unemployment, banditry, and ethnic agitations among others.

There is a saying that the idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Adopting the Igbo apprenticeship scheme by both the federal, states and local councils will help provide economic opportunities for our young men and women.

We are also hoping to see how perhaps, as part of the repositioning of the scheme, the apprentices could get local higher institutions to validate their apprenticeship as is done in some parts of Europe. The apprentices could be awarded credit hours in areas like Marketing, Business Management, Customer Service, Leadership, Accounting etc for trade apprentices, or similar credit hours for those learning a skill such as mechanical, technical or other skills.

This is because on a daily basis in their masters’ shop, they are learning the practical aspects of these disciplines. We envisage a situation where perhaps, by the time they complete their apprenticeship; the apprentices will receive some certification, a diploma or so. This will greatly improve their self-esteem and encourage them further along their entrepreneurial journey, as against the situation where many of them go through life with the toga of being an illiterate. This is despite the life and practical lessons they have learnt as apprentices for several years.

We are imagining a situation where for example, there could be a national agency regulating such apprenticeship schemes. The agency will be responsible for a national database, and an apprenticeship exchange where aspiring ‘boi-bois’ will register their interest, and prospective ‘Ogas’ will register their willingness to absorb them. This will help in standardising the scheme. There will be guarantors etc.

An insurance scheme for ‘boi-bois’ could be introduced to enable them access start-up grants should their ‘Ogas’ fail to settle them when they complete their apprenticeship. The ‘Ogas’ will contribute towards such an insurance scheme and receive refund of the premium they have contributed if they fulfill the terms of the apprenticeship.

We have over time also noticed abuses in the Igbo apprenticeship scheme. There have been reported cases of apprentices overstaying the agreed period, or the ‘Oga’ refusing to settle the ‘boi-boi’ as agreed. These acts give the Igbo apprenticeship scheme a bad name. We are hoping that these and other associated issues will be discussed at the summit and solutions proffered.

What will be the focus of this event? Does it have to do with manpower development or wealth creation?

Both the keynote speaker, High Chief (Dr.) Obiora Okonkwo, Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, and the high powered panel of discussants will X-ray the Igbo apprenticeship scheme, bring out the positives while also recommending areas that should be improved upon for the scheme to continue to be relevant in the 21st century.

We will also hear from successful individuals that have passed through the scheme and listen to their experiences etc. A more successful model of Igbo apprenticeship scheme will lead to human capital development and guarantee wealth creation.

 
Could you speak on the impact of the scheme on the young Anambrarian vis-a-vis the manpower development and wealth creation the system has attained over the years?

We may be having the summit in Anambra, but we are not only targeting Anambra youths. Our targets are the millions of Nigerian youths all over the country. The event will be streamed live and will also be uploaded on social media platforms for wider access and participation.

We hope to be able to encourage our youths to re-think and adopt this Igbo model of apprenticeship, learn a skill or trade under someone’s tutelage for an agreed period, and qualify to be given seed capital by the ‘Oga’ on completion. This is surely a better model than the present trend of our youths getting involved in all kinds of ‘get rich quick’ schemes to get rich.

Recently, ESUT Business School, Enugu, indicated interest to research on the Igbo apprenticeship scheme. What has necessitated discussions on this scheme in the recent times?

It’s not only ESUT Business School, some other business schools in the world, including Harvard, have also in the past done one study or the other on Igbo apprenticeship. People are coming to the realisation that the time has come for us to look inwards and re-discover economic and entrepreneurship promotion models such as the Igbo apprenticeship scheme that have continued to make the Igbo economy strong, and Igbo people stronger with little or no government support.

It is a fascinating model of enterprise development where an entrepreneur agrees to take under his or her tutelage potential competitors. He or she at the end of the apprenticeship also goes ahead to fund the start-up who almost immediately begins to compete with him or her within the same jurisdiction of business.

Such healthy competition should be studied and promoted. We want to re-start a national debate and discussions around it with a view to repositioning the scheme and making it better and stronger.

How has the Igbo apprenticeship system helped in the development of South East?

The scheme has not only helped in improving the economic fortunes of Anambra state, but those of several other states and countries where Ndigbo sojourn. Take Lagos State for example, if you go to Idumota, ASPANDA, Ladipo, Trade Fair, Orile and such other large markets, you will see Ndigbo working hard in their various shops; you will also see the ‘Ogas’ and their ‘Boi-Bois’- apprentices.

Those ‘boi-bois’ today are the ‘Ogas’ of tomorrow. By the time they complete their apprenticeship, they will be ‘settled’ by their ‘Ogas’ to start their own businesses. The cycle continues because when they start their own business, they will in-turn take under their wings another set of ‘boi-bois.’

They will build factories, rent or buy lands and properties, invest in the towns and states where they trade, and also at home as Ndigbo believe in the ‘Aku luo uno’ philosophy – taking part of their wealth home. That’s how Ndigbo collectively contribute to the socio-economic development or industrialisation of the towns, states and countries where they reside.

We are a sojourning race. Unlike what some people say, to create hatred against Ndigbo, we bring economic and other values wherever we go.

How would this scheme leapfrog the economy of South East to attract development in the region?

The Igbo apprenticeship scheme has helped in reducing unemployment in the region as it informally provides employment to thousands of youth in the region.

We believe that if we can make the government and other relevant stakeholders, including the higher institutions, development partners etc, to take more interest in the scheme with a view to adopting it and promoting it further, more successful entrepreneurs will be created and their economic activities will fast-track development not only in the region but also in the country.

Seeing the Igbo apprenticeship scheme as the soul of their businesses, how does it make business concerns owned by Igbo people more sustainable?

Sustainability is another discussion altogether and is not the focus of the summit. However, we believe that at the summit, some insights will be shared on that because we are beginning to see that Igbo businesses don’t usually continue after the founders pass on.

We can name many businesses, which were giants in the 70s, 80s and 90s owned by Igbo men of that era. Most of those businesses are no more. Several reasons have been advanced for that. However, we will focus mainly on Igbo apprenticeship at the summit.

------THE GUARDIAN

INTERVIEW: The Ebo Sisters On Debuting Their First Feature Film At Sundance

Adamma Ebo. Image via Voyage LA/Ejime Productions

BY NADIA NEOPHYTOU

Nigerian-American filmmakers Adamma and Adnanne Ebo are premiering their debut feature film Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul, starring Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown at the Sundance Film Festival.

Growing up in Atlanta’s Nigerian community, the church played a big part in the lives of Adamma and Adanne Ebo. So it’s no surprise the identical twin sisters, who founded Ejime Productions (twins in Igbo) together, centered their first feature film around the subject of religion.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul is making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, with Adamma as writer-director and Adanne as producer, alongside the likes of Regina Hall and Sterling K Brown, who star in the film, and Daniel Kaluuya. The film is a satire on for-profit religion, exploring a couple, played by Hall and Brown, who run a Southern Baptist megachurch trying to manage the aftermath of a scandal.

Both sisters were selected as Sundance fellows for the Episodic Lab in 2019, and Adamma was also chosen for the Sundance Screenwriting Intensive with a feature film. Based on a short film that Adamma wrote as part of her thesis while at UCLA, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul has been picking up rave reviews and is one of the hottest titles at this year’s fest.

They both spoke to OkayAfrica about making it and how their Nigerian background influences the work they make.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul tackles religion of the Southern Baptist kind, but are there any similarities with how religion plays out in Nigerian culture that you wanted it to speak to as well?

Adanne: Yeah, it's not that different. It feels extremely similar. It's very performative. It's very big. And it also has some of the not-so-great parts where people want you to abide by certain rules and not question anything as you go along the way. A lot of unchecked power.

Was that the reason why you wanted to make this film – to check that power, so to speak?

Adamma: Yeah, to encourage people to do that and not to be afraid to question things, for sure.

You made the short film, Honk For Jesus, as your thesis project, Adamma. What made you realize it would be good as a full-length feature?

I actually wrote an early draft of the feature before I even made the short and so the feature existed in a different capacity. It was a lot different before I made this short, and I decided that a short would be great as a proof of concept to this crazy movie that's doing a lot of weird stylistic things and tackling a subject matter in a way that, and with a tone that, people really aren't expecting or aren't used to it; with characters people aren't super familiar with, largely. So the feature came, and then the short, and then many, many more drafts of the feature!

As you mention, the film straddles a few genres, it’s a mockumentary, and there are elements of drama and comedy – how did you work on getting the tone right?

Adamma: It felt pretty natural. It's the type of media that I like – things that run the total gambit and that take risks, totally, and finding the humor in or around things that aren't ordinarily funny. I just made sure that whenever we were doing something comedic, to make sure that there were instances of darkness, and whenever we were approaching something darker, making sure that there was a bookend of comedy that doesn't necessarily relate to the subject, but just lightens things just a little bit, and make sure that it flows in and out.

As twins who work together, what’s your relationship like? Do you get on the same wavelength pretty easily? Do you think of things together?

Adanne: Yeah, it feels as similar as our regular relationship. Because we were born a partnership and we don't have any other siblings. So this is really the only sibling dynamic that we know. And it just feels more natural to do things together than not. So working together feels seamless. It almost doesn't feel like I'm working with another person.

Adamma: It just feels like an extension.

Getting Sterling K. Brown and Regina Hall for one's first feature film is quite a feat. What did they bring to the production?

Adamma: Immense skill and and really ready to do the work and to be scrappy on this like super low-budget independent film. They bought this feeling of nurturing, that they were really, really invested in me, as a Black woman, writing and directing my first feature, doing it in the middle of a pandemic. They were just incredibly nurturing and really there, on a familial level almost, like, they felt like family and really, really wanted me to succeed and did everything they could to help me succeed.

Adanne: And they're also producers on the film. Yeah, were they, you know, they watched cuts and gave notes on various cuts. They were really integral in helping to shape what became what y'all saw on screen.

Your production company is called Ejime -- how much does your Nigerian heritage inform who you are while you’re working and living in Atlanta and LA?

Adanne: I think it influences how and what we create…

Adamma: And how we say things – our voice. How we write and present ourselves and present our work as filmmakers. Nigerians are special people.

Adanne: They’re saucy.

Adamma: They’re saucy! The way that they communicate is…

Adanne: It’s sharp. It’s biting.

Adamma: Yes! And that's probably a big part of why we're attracted to the type of film and filmmaking that we are, is because of that. Conversations with our father and our grandfather and our grandmother, his siblings, our whole extended family, if you're an outsider looking in, it can seem like a heated argument, but we're kind of just talking or having fun.

Adanne: Like a sport.

Adamma: But we like that biting nature, heavy critique – Nigerians will critique you, they’re not shy with that. and I thought they were very critical. They're not shy with that. Probably a lot of why we're attracted to that type of voice is because of our Nigerian background.

You have a lot coming up in terms of film and TV projects, setting yourselves up as a dynamic duo in Hollywood – what are you most excited about?

Adamma: We have our next feature film lined up and so we're gonna put that one together. We wrote that one together, and so we're definitely excited to put that out into the world. Then we have a couple of television shows in development that we are also excited to put out into the world. So we're working. We like being creative. This is fun!

-------------------OKAY AFRICA

Obi Cubana: From Grace To Grace

Obi Cubana

BY MAJEED DAHIRU

Through a mutual friend, I met Obi Cubana for the first and last time at his Ibiza restaurant sometime in 2008; a year before the opening of his Cubana night club in 2009. I was publishing a soft sell magazine that was focused on making celebrities out of the bourgeoning Abuja businessmen, politicians and entertainers. I felt that the celebrity scene in Nigeria was overtly dominated by Lagos “boys” and “girls” whilst Abuja with a lot of success stories were grossly under reported and not well celebrated.

One of such success stories was that of then 33 years old Obinna Iyiegbu, aka Obi Cubana. Long before he recently became world famous, Cubana, who was fondly called “Okpole” by his friends and associates, was a successful food, entertainment and hospitality entrepreneur. His flagship business was the popular Ibiza restaurant, bar and night club. Ibiza is located on the very busy Porthacourt crescent of Garki Area 11 in the heart of Abuja city.


After many years of selling street foods from open parks and gardens to neighbourhood corner shops, Cubana, a political science graduate of University of Nigeria Nsukka, who chose entrepreneurship over paid employment, opened his Ibiza restaurant on a plot of rented land in Abuja sometime in 2006. Starting on a temporary structure of wooden frame, which was covered with plain roofing sheets on a floor that was barely covered with chippings of gravel, there was nothing so attractive or special about Ibiza restaurant except its food.

At Ibiza, Cubana and his team of dedicated staffs offered to the eating public the best of culinary services with specialization on the very rich cuisine of Nigeria’s south east region. Assorted dishes like Abacha, Nkwobi, Isi ewu, Ukwa, Ji akukwu nni, Utala na ofe nsala, ofe olugbu, ofe ora, ofe akwukwo, etc., were readily available on demand during the day and night. For lovers of sea food, Cubana introduced the innovation of “point and kill”: any specie of choice from his large pond at Ibiza and it will be served hot on a dish in quick time.

Ibiza was and is still one of the most popular destination for Abuja night crawlers as in addition to the food, all manner of drinks and alcoholic beverages are readily available on demand. The opening of Ibiza restaurant coincided with a period of relative economic prosperity in Nigeria, massive infrastructural expansion in Abuja and a boom in the housing construction sector of Nigeria’s federal capital city.

With an annual GDP growth rate of 6% in 2006 and general improvement in the economy at the time, there was a substantial restoration of Nigeria’s middle class with a reasonable margin of disposable income, many of whom resided in Abuja. With the surge in Abuja’s urban population, Ibiza became for many a kitchen away from their mother’s kitchen at home, where their cravings for the most delicious and sumptuous native Nigerian delicacies are served.

In addition to the prevailing clement economic climate at the time, Cubana along with his well-motivated staffs worked very hard to build, sustain and expand his customer base by his continuous innovation through massive reinvestment into his business to give it a competitive edge in the food and hospitality industry of Abuja. Also, Obi’s reputation as an amiable, humble and generous young man attracted massive good will and well wishes from people across the country.

These qualities combined to transform Ibiza from a shanty vendor to a food, entertainment and hospitality edifice, and Cubana from a tenant to the landlord of Ibiza premises. It was this phenomenal success story that led me to the young business man and seeking to feature him on the cover of the second edition of my magazine.

However, my meeting with Cubana wasn’t as fruitful as I had hoped. Whilst he received me warmly, Obi Cubana was a bit media shy and appeared more pre-occupied with quietly growing his business and we bade each other farewell on a friendly note and promised to keep in touch. By the following year when he opened his Cubana night club on the highbrow Adetokunbo Ademola crescent of Abuja, I knew I saw Cubana’s today; yesterday.

It was Cubana’s night club that separated Abuja men from Abuja boys due to its exclusivity and class. Before the opening of Cubana, it was a common happenstance for a “Daddy” who was supposed to be away on a business trip to “Lagos” to bump into his young “brother in law” who was supposed to be in school, in a night club. Obi’s Cubana solved this problem by meeting the need for privacy and fun for this category of high profile night crawlers.

Once again, Obi’s Cubana will make the difference by becoming the place of choice for Abuja’s super rich, middle age night life patrons away from the glare of their children, nieces and nephews. Therefore, when some people expressed doubt about the legitimacy of Obi Cubana’s money, after the carnival like burial ceremony of his late mother in his home town of Oba, Anambra state, where naira notes of different denominations rained, some of us who knew him before the Oba event didn’t have such doubt.

Like every one of us, Cubana is not without sin. But the notion that behind every wealth is a big crime may not always hold true in every case. Cubana is not the richest man from Oba, Anambra or even Nigeria. He is simply a manifestation of the Igbo philosophy of “onye nwere nmadu ka onye nwere ego” [he who has people is richer than he has money]. Cubana’s charity begins at home with family, friends and the general public.

And what played out at Oba was an open show of love and support in appreciation for a successful young man who remained level headed, kind and genuinely generous despite his astronomical economic rise. Judging From his humility and friendly association with people of different status [both high and low] including those that are lower than him in terms of material possessions, Cubana also personifies another Igbo philosophy which says “onye kakwam akolamu onu” [he that is richer than me should not mock me].

And for those who understand Igbo cosmology, Cubana’s phenomenal blow out after the Oba burial carnival from obscurity to global fame and subsequent his rise from grace to grace is actually an answered prayer of a dying mother for her beloved son who spared nothing to make her comfortable and happy in her life time. He has never been interested in spotlight. In fact, before his mother’s burial, only close friends and business associates knew the big masquerade behind the Cubana brand.

Cubana has been making entrepreneurial strides behind the scenes. The much-talked-about burial of his mother brought him out of his “hidden” because a golden fish has no hiding place. A lot of naysayers who doesn’t understand Obi’s success story started ascribing the tag of “overnight success” to him; as if he emerged from the blues. But Cubana has truly paid his dues to build the Cubana brand to what it is today.

-----------------------THIS DAY

Chukwuma Soludo: Time To Rebuild Igbo Politics

Charles Chukwuma Soludo. Image: Twitter

BY UCHE UGBOAJAH

 ucheugboajah@gmail.com

A few days ago, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the governor elect of Anambra State released the list of members of his transition committee. In that list were names of very distinguished Nigerian men and women from all walks of life and beyond the geography of Anambra State. The quality of the membership of that committee to be headed by Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili has set the entire Southeast buzzing for the right reasons. For many, Soludo even before being sworn in has offered a dizzying peep into what to expect from him as governor of arguably the most prominent state in Igboland. That Igbos were grinning from ear to ear after Soludo’s victory at the polls was not for no reasons.

The quality of governance and leadership in the Southeast has dropped significantly at least in the past eight years and the evidence of the repercussions therefrom are littered all over the Igbo political ecosystem.

Clearly, this is not the best of times in Igboland of Southeast Nigeria. A part of the country largely known to be one of the safest in the past has lately become one of the most dangerous places with its consequences on livability today. Instead of the famous buying and selling in the cities of Onitsha, Aba and Orlu, the amazing fabrication of motor spare parts and other technological effervescence in Nnewi, the cool and enlightened ambience of Enugu, the entertainment and jollying in Owerri, what obtains in the major cities of the Southeast today is the destruction of lives and property. The orgy of violence started with the renewed agitation for a separate country by some young people, under the auspices of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) headed by the fiery Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

When Kanu started out with his group, many people in Igboland were not bothered for a few reasons. First, their anger against the country Nigeria is mightily justified.

The kind of marginalization or even outright neglect of the Southeast region in the governance of the country over the years is inexplicable. Since the civil war ended up until now, it is difficult to point at a few federal government presences anywhere in the region. To add to that, it was as if the system was stacked against the young people in the Southeast. From the 80s many bright Igbo chaps (including Nnamdi Kanu) with high JAMB scores could not be accepted in any Nigerian university because of what Oby Ezekwesili as minister of education termed, the funneling syndrome. Unfortunately, there were even fewer federal institutions in the region, being part of the systemic marginalization. Thus, there were too many qualified candidates for limited admission spaces in universities. How do you expect to command loyalty from young Igbos in Nigeria when they saw that their 270 score in JAMB could not guarantee them admission in a Nigerian university of their choice while they watched their counterparts from other regions, especially, the North comfortably accepted with scores below 200? Even after managing to fight through school, the odds get even higher for them in securing jobs even against less qualified fellow citizens.

Perhaps, the second reason many Igbos did not pay attention to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB group in the beginning was due to the fact that they were non-violent. To many, especially those who experienced the nastiness of the civil war, the young people were merely romanticizing with war. But all that changed when the Federal Government resorted to a very muscular response to these young people. As many of them began to be mowed down in scorched-earth military operations under a very intolerant Buhari government, it was a no-brainer that these young people became increasingly more agitated. When government decided against facts on the ground to declare IPOB a terrorist group, it appears that in conformity with the psychological theory of labeling, the group has apparently owned up to that identity. The Southeast has thus degenerated to a war zone today with killings and destruction of both public and private property attributed to “unknown gunmen”. As government continues to point fingers at IPOB, the group has consistently insisted that it knows nothing about the attacks claiming that the government is using its security operatives to deploy violence in the Southeast just to justify its tag of “terrorists” on them.

Yet, it is important to recognize that IPOB is not only fighting the Federal Government; it is against any form of constituted authority in the polity – be it state, local government or traditional authority. Beyond that, IPOB in a significant manner has become a metaphor for the failure of politics and political leadership particularly in the Southeast. In any discourse on terrorism in the Northeast and the growing banditry across the Northwest, one factor that experts continuously highlight is the presence of large swathes of ungoverned spaces. In the case of the Southeast, it is not difficult to see that what we have is the presence of ungoverned states, not spaces. The way IPOB has seized authority from the governors in the region, issuing orders and expecting compliance can only confirm this assertion. The governors appear powerless, helpless and clueless on how to confront the emergent security problems in their region beyond running to an even more clueless and vengeful Abuja.

When governors of other regions in the South were brainstorming on how to secure their peoples, what did the Southeast governors do beyond mere hand-wringing and empty pronouncements? For example, the so-called Ebubeagu outfit they claimed to have set up to confront insecurity in their region only exists in their infertile imagination. Even in the larger forum of Southern governors, many of the Southeast governors do not consider the Meeting important enough; they prefer to see it as an anti-Buhari gathering and would rather send their deputies anytime they meet probably to spy for Abuja. Indeed, the governors in Igboland today appear to be lacking in inspiration; they are diffident, vacuous and jejune in their policies. Yet, it is proper to clarify here that not all the governors are equally yoked. A couple of them from the old Anambra may not be as terrible as their other colleagues.

Whatever the governors are, they are products of the nascent Igbo politics.


Before the civil war, politics in Igboland was a nobble service which attracted decent men and women whose only goal was to improve the life chances of their people. It was not for the nouveau riche or people of questionable background as today. The Azikiwes, the Mbonu Ojikes, the Mbadiwes, the Okparas, the Akanu-Ibiams, the Ikokus, the Mokwugo Okoyes and their like were all great men of high intellect and integrity who stood for the interest of their people. Sadly, the civil war dealt a deadly blow the Igbo body politic. Although the brilliance of the oasis of men like Sam Mbakwe concealed greatly the negative impact of the civil war on Igbo politics during the interlude of the Second Republic, it did not take time for the decay to front-load in the quality of governance in the Southeast since 1999.

Yes, there is this argument of how the Igbos quickly and admirably recovered from the devastation of the war and rebuilt their land as if the war was merely episodic. Even then, the question remains, at what cost? Our politics and society have been broken by that unjust war levied on our people. Before the war, Igbo value system was primarily based on honest hard-work, knowledge, and community spirit.

After the war the near absence of opportunities appeared to have driven our people to far flung places within and outside the country in search of lucre and survival lacking in the eastern landscapes. In this quest for survival, many Igbos ended up outside Igbo land doing all manner of businesses both dignified and undignified. Some of them even ended up as contractors supplying all manner of products when they are not pimps to big Alhajis and even sissies all in the name of succeeding. The way the immediate post-war Nigeria was organized, for an Igbo man to get any contract or big job from the Federal Government, he had to submit to the suzerainty of perhaps an influential northerner. It was that bad. And you must have heard Chief Arthur Eze for instance, justifying recently, his loyalty to the northern establishment by claiming how all his wealth was by the grace of northerners who favoured him with contracts.

This economic incarceration of the people of the Southeast after the war has profound consequences on post-war Igbo politics, especially now. One of such consequences is the lack of autonomous capacity of Igbo politics. What this means is that many political decisions that will affect Igboland unfortunately are taken outside of Igboland. These decisions include who becomes governor of an Igbo state, who is appointed minister from Igboland and who represents Igbos at the senate, among others. I am sure you listened to how Senator Orji Uzo-Kalu said in an interview that General Babangida told him in 1999 that he wanted him to go to Abia State and become a governor. And only very recently, after Imo people had voted their choice of governor, the powers that be outside Igboland hiding under the judiciary disrobed them of their sovereignty and installed a governor they never voted for. These are just a few examples. But the most worrying consequence of this lack of autonomous capacity of Igbo politics in a democracy is that you now have governors, ministers and senators in Igboland who do not owe any loyalty to the people but to the external forces that propel them.

When last did you hear a governor in the Southeast defending the interest of his people as Nyesom Wike daily defends the interests of Rivers people? How many Igbo ministers in President Buhari’s cabinet had lifted a voice over the unrest in their region? Instead, you will hear a governor questioning the right of a citizen who doesn’t own a car to ask question about a flyover being constructed with his tax money. You will also probably hear another governor recite repeatedly like catechism how the insecurity in his state is “an attempt to bring down the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.” Yet, another will bore you with stories of how he loves President Buhari and how they share a father and son relationship – forgetting that federalism is not a father-son relationship but a brother-brother relationship.

Lest we forget, Peter Obi did a fantastic job as governor of Anambra State and for sticking out his neck to serve only the interests of Anambra people he was “impeached” by the ‘bridgeheads’ working on the promptings of outside forces. He also stood his ground to ensure that Willie Obiano succeeded him as governor in line with the zoning principles of the state. Obiano can have all his sins forgiven for having the presence of mind to support a strong character like Chukwuma Soludo to take over from him. An inherently bad governor would rather have his son-in-law take over from him the way Rochas Okorocha planned in Imo State. But the story in Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo and Abia states in the past eight years reeks of near collapse and absence of governance. Is it, therefore, any surprise that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has moved in to fill the vacancy of leadership existing in the South-East?


Yet, there is renewed hope in the Southeast. Soludo is coming! Although elected to govern Anambra State, this great character is expected to provide leadership in the entire Southeast by a domino effect. He is well educated; he is not one of the roughnecks that have been troubling our region. He knows his people and his people know him. He may not solve all the problems, but in Soludo, Anambra people have provided the entire Southeast the ground to rebuild its politics. In electing Soludo, Anambra is telling the entire Southeast that background checks are necessary in choosing our governors, senators, and other representatives. Yes, it is important that those who present themselves for elective positions in the Southeast going forward must show evidence of sound education and untarnished record of service in the public or private sector. Interestingly, many of those who contested the last Anambra gubernatorial election satisfied those conditions unlike in Imo State where the nondescript appear to be having a field day since Governor Achike Udenwa. And it is showing in the poorer quality of governance in the eastern heartland.

In 2009, I had a chance meeting with Professor Soludo when he ran for governor under the PDP. I told him in the office of the political adviser to the PDP national chairman that I would prefer to see him run for President. I went ahead to support his candidature then with a Guardian opinion piece titled Anambra: Who is afraid of good governance? Even today, I am asking in a more general sense, who is afraid of good governance in the South-East?







In a couple of months Soludo will be sworn in as the next governor of Anambra State. As he mounts the saddle, he must remember that he is carrying the hopes of not just Anambra people but the entire Southeast region. He must equally understand that there are many cynics and naysayers lining the roadside and offering prayers and sacrifices for his failure if only to prove that good education and solid background alone are not sine qua non of good performance in government.

Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo must disappoint all the roughneck politicians in the Southeast and post an excellent performance. In doing so, he would be laying the foundation for the rebuilding of Igbo politics and pointing the trajectory to Igbo political renaissance. In Soludo, Igbos are reaffirming their belief in the age long philosophy of politics and good governance, “Onye Uru Anaghi Achi Obodo.”

INTERVIEW: KELECHI NWANERI: USING CULTURAL SYMBOLS TO TELL STORIES

BY NJIDEKA AGBO

Kelechi Nwaneri. Image: Youtube

Every work of art that Kelechi Nwaneri puts on display has a unique feature- the use of uli, nsibidi, both ancient forms of communication to tell stories.

His interest in reviving the culture has earned him the attention of international art enthusiasts including a place in Ted Lasso. Guardian Life speaks to him about his career switch, Ted Lasso and NFTs.

You studied Agricultural Extension and are now an artist. Let us in on your interest in the arts.

I became completely interested in Arts in my 3rd year in the university after I decided to be an artist. A lot fuelled this decision, but mostly because I knew I had the basic talent to draw. I was firstly drawn to Pencil Hyperrealism. Over time, I started to find all forms of art interesting.

One thing that particularly strikes art enthusiasts is your use of Igbo iconography. Can you shed more light on this?

The intention has always been to find a way to always leave my identity in my work, a feel of Africa, Nigerian and Igbo. Use of symbols like Uli and Nsibidi and several cultural ideas in my work helps me achieve this.

In hindsight, did you see yourself doing this full time? Will you say that your degree has influenced some of your works?

Not until my third year, I never thought about being an artist as per time or full time. I wanted to be a Pilot when I was little, then a Doctor when I was in Secondary school, but I ended up reading agriculture and now I’m an Artist. I think my immediate environment always influences my work more than any other thing.

In what ways do you think your work has created an impact on society?

Having my work featured in a TV series like “Ted Lasso” (Season 2, episode 11) has drawn the interest of people to my work to the marks and the Igbo culture eventually especially with projects like “Myths” already completed. As you may also have noticed, that Igbo Iconography can’t be easily missed when observing my works.

What is your most important work and what makes it tick?

To me, “Carry you home” (2019) is my most important work. Not just because of the way it was used in “Ted Lasso” but because of what it means to me. That point in that painting was the end sad and beginning of better times for me.

Whose work inspires you the most?

I get inspired by different artists at different times. Picasso, Van Gogh, Kerry James Marshall, Dali, Uche Okeke, Yinka Shonibare, and the list goes on and on.

With the coming of age and appreciation of the arts, what is the future of the preservation of African vis-à-vis Nigerian stolen and ancient arts?

As rightly said, I believe art from the continent is receiving the biggest attention at the moment and this has seen the rise of several institutions across the continent that aim to grow and preserve the arts. Places like Zeitz Mocaa, South Africa, Black Rock, Senegal, Yemisi Shyllon Museum in Lagos all serve this aim and with this projected growth, I’m certain that more institutions and individuals that share this same goal will spring up. I’m believe all art that was stolen during the colonial era will be returned in due time.

What is the future of the creative (art) industry, NFTs?

Personally, I don’t think NFT is the future of the creative art industry. Although they are so important now and are here to stay, I don’t think they are here to replace anything or are the future of anything. To the best of my knowledge, it is just using digital Art that is put in a system that allows you to earn and grow earnings from it and it is a thing of its own. I love the idea of being able to animate and digitalise my work; it gives me fresh approaches to saying my stories. This is the idea about NFTs I appreciate the most.