Austria-based Nigerian artiste, Nkechi promotes African values abroad

In this interview, Adjekpagbon Mudiaga takes a periscope of Austria-based Nigerian cultural dancer, Nkechi Oruko Obuna. She shares her experiences in Austria and why many African youths are Eurocentric among other issues

You look like a young lady in her early thirties, but you said you are above 50 years. Could you tell me the secret behind your youthful look?

 I usually feel ashamed about myself whenever I am asked this particular question. Personally, I feel I am old. My young outlook may be because I live and think positively most times. My life motto is “just be as happy as you can always.”

How long have you been in the promotion of African cultural dance? When and where did you start dancing?

Ha ha ha, I had a crazy Dad whom my siblings and I was always singing and dancing with. Dancing is part of my family culture.

I cannot exactly say when I started promoting African cultural dances.  But I started paying more attention to my culture and tradition about 25years when I migrated to Austria. In summary about 25years ago I started a self evaluation in terms of the major roles my culture and tradition play in my life.

What led to your travelling to Austria and why did you choose Austria as your base to promote African cultural dances?

Marriage brought me to Austria.

It was not a choice to promote African culture in Austria. It was a question of self identification. Austria is a cultural country. I am indebted to the Austrian governing system that allows all inhabitants the freedom of expression.

This free existence exposes everyone to free acquisition of knowledge from each other through pollination of cultural ideas among other things. The fact that they love their culture  make them also seek to know about other cultures which helps them to identify people who can offer them further cultural knowledge; hence, I was identified.

Apart from Nigerians, are there other Africans supporting your dance ideology in Austria?

I am sorry to say that my cultural ideology is not accepted by many Nigerians in Austria because they think it is devilish. But few years ago, some Nigerians living here (Austria) started having a different opinion about it when they understood that a Nigerian entertainment company employed me to do a cultural project with my concept of cultural dance.

How are you surviving with just performing only African cultural dances in Austria?

Apart from dancing, I do a normal cleaning work to earn a steady income, health insurance and pay tax. I also have a registered African organisation known as Eleje Music and Art which could be contacted at www eleje-am.com.

African dance performances are just part of what I do generally. In conjunction with my team, we also engage in educative African projects such as hand crafts, preparation of different types of African foods, and creating music with traditional Instruments, dancing, and so on and so forth. We work with other world cultures to improve integration in the country. I paint and design cotton clothes including costumes. I am an activist that is strongly in support of protecting the interest of foreigners in Austria.

The Austrians have their own culture too. Are they embracing your introduction of African dance into their society?

Austria is very rich with culture practices. They love and practice their culture while identifying with the cultures of other nations. They embrace other cultures including African culture.

What is your opinion about Austrian culture compared to other European countries like United Kingdom and France, the two major former colonial masters of Africa whose cultures rubs on Africans a lot? Are Austrians as cold or introvert like the average white British person towards Africans?

Different nationalities need to resuscitate, identify and value their respective cultures, not only that of the major colonial masters. Unfortunately, many Africans have abandoned our rich cultural practices by embracing various unknown European cultures.

Ha ha ha, one laughable aspect is that the average European culture is as cold as winter.  Europeans are very conservative. Some are also very ignorant about Africa. Dark brown Africans are as warmly and friendly as sun shines daily, in contrast to whites who are usually cold like winter; perhaps as a result of their natural habitat. But I admire their tendency of being patient in doing things orderly. Our major differences arise from our different cultural backgrounds. Our differences notwithstanding, we must learn to live together despite our differences.

Have you been invited by any Austrian institution any time to perform African dances during a ceremony?

In Austrian school scheme, each school must do a project with other cultures yearly. I visit different schools often to educate and perform with them.

You came to Nigeria during the 2016 yuletide season and you travelled to different parts of the country, performing African cultural dances. Was it meant to reawaken Nigerians interest in cultural dances or what?

The Natty Entertainment is an outfit based in Lagos that employed me to work with then with my cultural concept. This concept includes - dance theater and production of documentary films about our olden days life values and art works.

The project is aimed at helping to reawaken the young generation’s knowledge about the useful and valuable aspects our olden day’s forgotten cultural practices.  It is objectively meant to enhance self identification to improve the self confidence and pride of our youth in African culture.

It requires a lot of funds to embark on travelling to different geopolitical areas of the country. Did you finance your journey to all the places you visited or an individual or corporate organisation sponsored you?

My employers paid about 90 per cent of the total bill. I hope that they will succeed in getting sponsors from companies for my subsequent visits to Nigeria and other projects in the pipeline because transportation is very expensive.

The fact that it is an educational cum cultural project, we need the real facts by visiting every culture we are working with for us to be able to defend it. We visited Ebonyi, Enugu, Ogun Lagos, Nasarawa states and Abuja, to learn about their lifestyles and existing olden day’s cultures.

Have you been invited by any Nigerian institution like the department of creative arts to teach their students the commendable drama dances you perform?

No Nigerian institution has invited me yet. I have not been expecting any invitation because I am not known in Nigeria as an artiste, until I make myself available often to Nigerians.

Which creative arts department have you introduced your style of cultural dances to in Nigeria tertiary institutions?

I am yet to do so. My employer should be able to decide if it is necessary to do so. I don’t think I may have time to collaborate with any creative department in Nigeria because I already have more than enough schools in Austria I am performing with.

The average Nigerian youth is very Eurocentric about foreign music and dance. In what ways do you think the youth can be enlightened to embrace African cultural music and dances in this jet age?

It is not only the Nigerian youths that are Eurocentric, the adults too are. We, the parents, are failing in our duties to raise our children culturally not only about cultural dances but living habits too.

To educate our children about African cultural dances, we should start from our respective homes to schools. Never forget that our dances are simple body stories. We should start from reviving the act of telling folktales to our children at home, just like our own parents did with us in the old good times.

Do you have videos of your performances that can be broadcasted on television from time to time to promote the commendable cultural dances you are engaged in?

I have videos but a company, government or philanthropic individuals heed to sponsor its broadcasts.

How is your family, especially your husband supporting you in your chosen career of cultural dances?

I have been a divorcee for over a decade. I think he felt I am just too loud for him. My children are fine and giving the best support any mother like me could need. However, an artiste life is somehow lonesome as you need time to meditate and create new styles for your audience but it is also enjoyable. This self identification is based on individual differences and preferences.

Your children are never seen dancing with you, though you seem to be popular on social media. How many children do you have and which of them is also embracing your cultural dances profession?

I have four children. My two girls dance with me. It is their choice to live as dancers. I don’t think I am popular on social media. I only catch fun with my facebook friends.

How do you spend your leisure?

My use my leisure to practice art works such as painting, designing clothes, and making beads. My relaxation is what I refer to as my ‘Tanking-energy-time.’ It is my ‘lazy time’ when I need to be alone.

END

Karmic debts, reward of honesty, perseverance

Title of book: Betty’s Magic Shoes

Author: Iwuoha Juliet

Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

Iwuoha Juliet’s debut novella, Betty’ Magic Shoes dwells on the petty jealousies that exist among little girls as they grow up into adulthood, showcasing both negative and positive traits common among women.

The central character is known as Betty Patrick, who lives with her single mother, Mrs. Patrick. She is a 12-year-old primary six pupil of Bright Future Primary School, Owerri, the setting of the story. Betty is bow-legged and this is used to mock her by some of her classmates and the recalcitrant Edith, a bully and jealous daughter of the school headmistress, Mrs. Dorcas.

According to the author, “Edith hated Betty so much because Betty had exposed her twice while she was copying and asking others for answers during exams. For that reason, she promised to make life miserable for her in the school.”

Edith lives to her word as she makes Betty’s school life sorrowful. Betty finds herself in the webs of sadness as Edith gangs up with other timid girls in her class to bully and tell lies against her. She is punished for offences she did not commit.

Backed by her mother, Mrs. Dorcas who is equally mean like her jealous daughter, Edith, the pains of Betty increases daily like waterfall rushing into a bucket. Betty is frustrated and decides to go home alone through a lonely bush path one particular day. She incidentally meets an injured and tired old man along the bush path. She helps to treat the man’s injuries, and receives a pair of shoes that has magical power as reward from the man.

Betty uses the shoes to wish for whatever she wants except money which the shoes cannot provide. With the aid of the magical shoes, she wins athletic races competitions both at her school and Royal Primary School’s inter-house sports’ events. This makes her very popular as she is honoured with awards and scholarship to study abroad. Her mother shed tears of joy as Betty leaves for America. All the previous sorrows they had gone through are forgotten.

Meanwhile, Edith and her biased mother, Mrs. Dorcas who is the headmistress of Bright Future Primary School, reaps their karmic debts when Mrs. Obata, the school proprietress discovers the atrocities of both mother and daughter against Betty. While the daughter is asked to wash the school toilet all through the remaining days before the school vacation for holidays, the mother is demoted from headmistress position to an ordinary teacher level.

Miss Glory, who has been Betty’s very encouraging and caring class teacher, becomes the new headmistress after Mrs. Dorcas’s demotion. Edith and her mother are ashamed and stop coming to school thereafter.

The moral from the story is that, there are some bad mothers who support their ill-bred daughters to bully other kids at school or at home. Hence, such wayward daughters grow up to become nuisance to their classmates and other people in the society. But on the long run, there is always a day of reckoning for every good or bad thing anyone engages in as time ticks.

The spirit of perseverance to succeed by being law abiding, peaceful, hard working, kind and truthful in the face of different types of persecution, are the hallmarks of Betty’s success, which the author seems to beam on.

The story is quite interesting as it is full of tears-generating situations from the eyes of an emotional reader, and also engenders joy as evil people are punished, while the oppressed receives justice and reward at last. Though, no mechanical noise is noticed in the book, there are some typos and syntactic noise that requires correction before reprint.

Iwuoha Juliet is a screen writer and actress.

A Call For Unions Positive Change

By: Aigbokhaleode K. Asimiafele, a retired Deputy Director of the Nigeria Council of Arts and Culture. He has authored several books, which includes a book entitled “The Nigeria Book of Names and Meanings.”

Let me begin by thanking our constantly courageous men and women of Nigeria, for their determination of living and surviving in the sun or rain over the years during tough military regimes and civilian administrations till date.

Our honest call for change should start from our trade unions because Nigeria Trade Unions and their leaders have failed workers. I love the spirit of comradeship, but not as it is currently being handled in our country. I support Leo Trasiky’s philosophy of socialism, which this article anchors on. Many Nigerian comrades never study anything but wear the garments of comrades just to bamboozle others and exploit the message of defending workers.

All Nigerian Trade Unions have failed themselves and their workers in the struggle for their rights. The principle of workers union and comradeship is brotherhood in joy and sorrows as it were and should be, but no longer exist in reality for years.  When a worker saves part of his salary, he is saving for the rainy days. In our situation, this is not the case. Why should a worker not be paid salary for three months or more, with no hope, and their unions close eyes to the pains and sorrows of their members?

A Nigerian worker who starts work and becomes a union member pays his check off dues for thirty five years. What happens to the check off dues at his exit from service? One can see the injustices the so called trade unions impose on their members. If ten thousand workers pay check off dues of one naira monthly, how many millions will it amount to? Seventy per cent of such money is supposed to be saved while about twenty per cent will be used for the running cost of the union.

This is the ideal thing to do; but in Nigeria, trade unions are the most ignorant about trade union matter as Nigerians remain the most under paid workers on earth. According to Thomas Payn, “a poorly paid job is a poorly performed job”. European nations pay living wage as opposed to what obtains in Nigeria.

Check off dues is not money that unions’ leaders should be sitting in the comfort of their offices and expend on Annual General Meetings, annual executive elections, buy cars, build big houses and keep fat banks accounts for themselves.  There is a slogan that says “change starts or begins with me,” but as a matter of fact and urgency, change should start with the executive members of trade unions in Nigeria; otherwise, they are fooling themselves.

As check off dues are savings for rainy day, it is essential to go down memory lane and audit the accounts of all trade unions from 1980 till date, and bring all the guilty executive members to book, to save our nation from such mass exploiters acting as union officials. Inspite of the International Labour Organisation act of “no work no pay,” the union still hold on to the rule of strike and come back to demand for salaries of members from employers, yet they have not been held accountable for members check off dues for decades.

Perhaps, many labour leaders have forgotten the tenet of their philosophy of comradeship that forbids a fellow comrade to be in pains, or suffer injustice or penury while you are quiet. Many labour union officials now act like many Nigerian politicians who sell their souls and minds to injustice, by compromising the interests of their members to the management of many organizations, by allow their member to be sacked or dismissed from service most times, without taking any drastic action.

A painful phenomenon now is the unpaid salaries of workers for months and years, while unions’ officials do nothing meaningful to make the employers pay. They eat, pay for medication, their children go to school, afford medication and so on and so forth.

However, check off dues enables union officials to immediately place workers on half salary to take care of their families. If it is not in the mandate of the trade union act, it is sinful to allow it to continue as it is harmful to justice and fairness.

In Britain, in the days of Prime Minister Margret Thatcher, when coal miners were on strike, their union placed them on half salary. Please, do not get me wrong, because, if Nigerian trade/labour unions leaders are not corrupt, they should have invested the billons that accrues from workers annual dues and ensure that when workers retire and exit from the union, they should be given not only a hand shake but cheque from their check off dues. This brings about some salient questions such as; who owns the check off dues? Where is the investment? Where is the profit for the owners of the check off dues? Who is fooling who?

It would be nice if all the labour unions could cross check their usefulness to Nigerian workers. They should start paying the unpaid workers for months to enable their children feed, go to school, pay children’s school fees and medical bills, etc. I think it is honourable to do this to alleviate the suffering of workers and their children. Of course, if they fail to do so henceforth, it is necessary to start auditing the various books of trade unions from 1980 till date, if we must seriously uphold the slogan, “change begins with me.” It is time for our unions to lead with good example. The Nigerian government should make an announcement by deregistering them to make all trade unions subject their books and accounts for proper auditing. If not, workers should ignore the check off dues until they are told what benefit accrues to them as part of their age long savings.

In conclusion, all Nigerian trade unions should start taking care of their members, and stop the constant calling of the common man and woman for strike, instead of playing to the gallery by marching with them on the street with stress. We must start telling ourselves the truth and do the right things to enable us to template our change positively, by living a life of good comrades.

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Fundamental Rights Enforcement: Is Balogun Business Association superior to Federal High Court order?

The conduct and operation of some markets Association officials when there is misunderstanding among their members makes one wonder whether they are above the rule of law.

No association is recognized unless it has been fully registered, clearly stating its aims and objectives for the benefit of its members and the society at large. It is therefore surprising when some executive members of a market association such as the Incorporated Trustees of Balogun Business Association took laws into their hands and locked up the shops of one of their members, Mr. Chimezie Ezere, while claiming that they obtained a court judgment that empowered them to do so.

Challenging the illegal lock up of his shops, Ezere, through Apeiye Becon’s Chambers, Notary Public of Nigeria, wrote a petition to both the Chief Judge, High Court, Ikeja, and the Deputy Sheriff, High Court, Ikeja, Lagos, against the President of Balogun Business Association, Trade Fair Complex, Ojo, Lagos.

Seeking reliefs for Ezere, the applicant’s legal adviser, Apeiye Becon’s Chambers avers that the conduct and action of the respondent, Balogun Business Association, locking up the applicant’s two shops known as Shop B 010 and B 019 Yobe Cluster situated at Balogun Market International Center for Commerce Complex, Trade Fair Complex Badagry Expressway, Ojo, Lagos since July 22, 2016, deny the applicant’s right to own and control his properties (the shops and the goods inside) amounts to a violation of the applicant’s Constitutional right granted under Section 44(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. The chambers also demand for claim of damages by the applicant against the respondent for the unlawful lock of the aforementioned shops.

Based on the petition written by Apeiye’s Chambers, it has been discovered that, the action of the Balogun market association president is illegal because it is not based on any court order. The statement of the facts’ shows that on the 22^nd of July 2016, a kangaroo court official came to execute a purported Court Judgment in the market; and the conduct of the so called court official warranted the applicant to demand to see the Court Order ordering the market association to seize his goods, but the court official could not show any part of such order from a court.

Ezere, the applicant being a peaceful and law abiding citizen allowed the official who claimed to come from High Court of Lagos State, Ikeja, to perform his duty, but findings later reveals that the official was from Igbosere, not Ikeja.

The two numbers of the Balogun Business Association Task Force keys used to lock up the shops are B.B.A. Task Force M417 and B.B.A. Task Force L54, which the applicant snapped their photographs and attached to the petition and marked as Exhibit A and B.

It is in this vein that Apeiye Chambers placed a motion on notice at the Federal High Court in the Lagos Juidcial Division Holden in Lagos, with suit number FHC/1/15/114A/16 on the 25^th of August 2016, asking the Court to declare the action of the respondent (Balogun Business Association president) null and void as it amounts to a violation of the applicant’s constitutional right granted under Section 44(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended. The suit further seek the honourable court to mandate the respondent to pay the sum of N10 million (Ten million naira) as damages to the applicant; and also demands an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondent, its privies or any of its members acting on its behalf not to further infringe in any manner whatsoever on the applicant’s constitutional right, amongst others.

It is however appalling as investigations show that contrary to the claim of the Balogun Market Association that the sealing order of the shops is from the High Court Sheriff who came for the execution, the Sheriff denies knowledge of sealing of the shops and posited further that there is no Court order to warrant such. This makes one wonder whether the president of the Balogun Business Association is superior to the Federal High Court in the Lagos judicial division that has ordered the opening of the shops, as the shops are still locked till date. Is the president of Balogun Business Association now an authority to himself and disobeys a superior court order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? What is happening?