Power generation has increased by 40% – Barth Nnaji

A major power grid

 

Lagos – The Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, says the nation’s current power generation is 4, 400 megawatts, representing more than 40 per cent of the expectation in 2012.
Nnaji disclosed this on Monday at the opening ceremony of a gymnasium built for workers at Egbin Power Station in Lagos.
He said that the power generation had increased by more than 40 per cent since President Goodluck Jonathan was elected in May, 2011.
“So, this is a tremendous achievement for the president and the government to have improved power supply that way.
“That is why you see people all over the country saying there is availability of power and that they are receiving power now better than before,’’ he said.
Nnaji said that Nigerians should not bother about the amount of power generated, stressing that there were many things to show for it.
He said that discussions were going on between government and electricity workers union in respect of their severance packages and salary increase.
It will be recalled that the minister, had on Feb.17,  said that the nation could achieve 9,000 megawatts by December.
Nnaji had also said that the country was losing 1,500 megawatts of electricity due to gas shortage (NAN)

Rwanda change Eagles match venue

THE HEAT IS ON: Nigeria coach, Stephen Keshi dishes out instructions to his wards, ahead the Rwanda game

 

THE 2013 Nations Cup qualifier between Rwanda and Nigeria will not be played at the Amahoro Stadium, but a smaller facility also in the capital city of Kigali, officials have disclosed.
Secretary general of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Musa Amadu, informed that he has been officially communicated by his counterpart from Rwanda FA that the February 29 match will be played at the Stade Regional de Kigali.
“We have been informed that the match will be played at a different stadium because the Amahoro Stadium is under renovation,” Amadu disclosed.
Further  investigations have revealed that the new match venue is more compact and has a capacity for 22,000 fans and, like the Amahoro, has an artificial pitch.
It is also the home ground of the country’s biggest club APR.
The Amahoro Stadium, on the other hand, is Rwanda’s national stadium and has a bigger capacity of 30,000.
The Eagles should therefore now expect to play in a noisy, crammed arena with the home fans playing as the 12th man for the Amavubis.
In the meantime, the Eagles began getting set for the heat they are expected to encounter on match day in Rwanda by training in Abuja by 1.15pm local time Monday.
The tropical heat will also mean the artificial pitch is hot and so make the players’ boots also unbearably hot.
The training lasted for about two hours with the players expressing their readiness to fight for victory no matter the discomfort they may face.
”Guys, bear the heat because Rwanda would be hotter than this on the match day,” warned Keshi as his players struggled with the early afternoon heat.
“This is your business and you must be good and ready.
“Una no say the Rwandans wan show us say they fit survive their heat, we must show them too say as Nigerians we fit cope for any weather.”
Kano Pillars midfielder Gabriel Reuben said he was getting set for the encounter and was sure that his teammates will get used to the weather before the team jet out to Kigali.
Striker Sunday Mba and goalkeeper Chigozie Agbim spoke in similar vein, with a strong conviction that the only thing on their minds is victory in Rwanda.
All the 19 players in camp took part in the initial light work-out save for the Heartland pair of Bathlomew Ibenegbu and Kabir Umar, who were excused because they both featured in the Nigeria Premier League clash against Rangers Sunday.

2015 presidency: Jonathan warns politicians against meetings

President Goodluck Jonathan listens to a speech during the closing ceremony of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Summit in Abuja on February 17, 2012.. AFP PHOTO

 

By Henry Umoru
ABUJA — PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, warned politicians interested in 2015 presidency to stop holding political meetings to that effect forthwith.
Jonathan spoke at the 58th emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee, NEC of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday, saying he would sack any of his political appointees seen to be engaged in such meetings henceforth, stressing that such meetings were totally uncalled for. He said such moves were not only too early, but distract those in government from governance.
Jonathan spoke against the backdrop of reports that although the president and  governors were yet to spend one year in office, some people had started positioning themseves for their offices. He, however, said such meetings should be discouraged as Nigerians wanted to see the dividends of democracy rather than endless electioneering campaigns.
He also said as the party prepared for its ward, local government, zonal and state congresses that would culminate into a national convention, the PDP must move away from the culture of imposition of candidates by electing their officers democratically.
The President, who stressed the need for unity in the party if the president, governors, members of the National Assembly as well as members of the state Houses of Assembly must deliver dividends of democracy, said the people want to see roads, hospitals, infrastructure, water and not a situation where party members engage themselves in shadow boxing.
He then urged members irrespective of their positions, to respect the party or face being sacked using the African National Congress, ANC, of South Africa example .
“Let me also plead with us that those who are interested in the general elections in 2015, I have noticed that some people have started some meetings. It is too early to hold meetings. You people can see that from the electoral laws and the constitution, INEC normally declares (such contests) open. The idea is that people who were elected into offices as governors and President must be given time to work.
“A situation whereby a governor has not even stayed for a year, the President has not stayed for a year, you start harassing people for 2015 is another way of saying everything is election. There must be time to work.
“At the federal level, if you are holding a political office and I notice that you are involved in meetings for the  2015 election, I will ask you to leave and go and hold your meetings, because that meeting is too early and government must not be distracted. Nigerians are interested on what we put on ground for them, not how many elections we conduct and win.”
Party’s unity
On unity and discipline among members, Jonathan said: “Let me use this unique opportunity to charge all of us, at all levels, whether you are operating at the federal legislative council level as a president, vice president and ministers or at the National Assembly or at the states, at the governors or at the state Assemblies and indeed the party, that all of us belong to one party— one PDP family.
“We are supposed to have one manifesto, one pledge, irrespective of the positions we hold. Ours is to make sure that the PDP succeeds; the governors succeed, the President succeeds, that is the only way we can say that the PDP, as a party, has succeeded.
PDP NEC fixes congresses,  convention dates
Meanwhile, the PDP NEC, yesterday, approved dates for the congresses and the National Convention, with ward congresses taking place March 3, local government congress, March 5; state congresses March 12 while the zonal congress takes place March 21 with the National Convention on March 24 just as the present National Working Committee, NWC members who had their tenure in office slightly extended will hand over between March 26 and 31, even as the next NEC meeting was fixed for February 29.
On the forthcoming congresses and National Convention, the President said,‘’I will also use this opportunity to plead, being at the centre with the party chairman, we are privileged to hear more and we know that we are just going in for election now to elect our party officials and I plead that from the ward congress to the National Convention, let us insist that people are elected democratically.
’’Let us begin to move from the culture of imposition, because if we let our party elect officers of the party, then of course we are sure that primaries or general elections in 2015 will also be democratic and of course the general elections will also be free and fair.
’’As a party we have been able to develop that culture, the presidential election is the election that is number one election in the whole country- every party will want to produce a president first and foremost, because of the status that goes with the ruling party, because it is the party that produced the president.

’’We exposed ourselves to free and fair elections and because of that the world is happy with us; so we have to develop that culture even in our own local elections, at the ward, local government,states,zonal and of course, the national levels.”

While congratulating the governors who won recent governorship elections in their respective states, the President said, ‘’Let me join the acting Chairman to congratulate the governors of Kogi, Adamawa, Bayelsa states  and also the members of the party from these states and indeed the leadership of the party. Of course,the governor of Sokoto state will join us during our next meeting.
Among those who attended the meeting included President Goodluck Jonathan, Vice President Namadi Sambo, Senate President David Mark, Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu.
They also included Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha,  Chief Tony Anenih,Dr. Amadu Ali, Senator Barnabas Gemade, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, Senator Ken Nnamani, Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, Chris Uba and Hassan Adamu,
Governors of Delta, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom, Kogi, Bayelsa State, Rivers; Plateau; Gombe and Sokoto states  among others also attended.

Murdered banker: I saw husband’s hands soaked in blood, guard tells court

 

Arowolo...By Abdulwahab  Abdulah, Oamen Areguamen & Arji Donald
LAGOS—The trial of Mr. Akolade Arowolo, alleged to have killed his banker wife, Titilayo, last year continued, yesterday, with the security guard to their residence, telling the court that he saw Arowolo on the fateful day with his hands soaked in blood.
The security guard, Mr. Saidu Husseni, who was led in evidence by the state Director of Public Prosecution, Mrs. Olabisi Ogungbesan,  informed  the court that he saw Akolade washing blood off his hands while urging him to hurriedly open the gate and that he did not return to the house the same day.
He said: “I saw him cleaning his hands which was stained with blood and he told me to open the gate quickly so that he can drive out.”
Husseni told court that he later saw a blood soaked cloth and some irons stained with blood near  Arowolo’s apartment in the four storey building.
Meanwhile, the court admitted as exhibits, the kitchen knife, which was allegedly used to kill the deceased, four mobile phones and photographs taken by the police at the scene of the murder.
Arowolo, is standing trial before Justice Lateefat Okunnu on a one-count charge of murder. He was alleged to have stabbed his wife to death on June, 24, 2011, at their Akindeinde Street, Isolo, Lagos.
Husseni, the fourth prosecution witness in the case, said he was at home on the day of the incident when Akolade and a friend earlier drove into the compound at  mid-day and spent about an hour in his apartment before leaving hurriedly in his Honda Accord car and did not return to the house on that day.
The fifth witness, Mr. Titus Ogbonna, from Homicide Section, CID, Yaba , Lagos said he led the investigation after the matter was transferred to them from Aswani Police Station.
He said: “When we got to Aswani Police Station where the accused vehicle was kept as exhibit, we observed that there was blood stains on the wheel steering, the driver’s seat and on the floor of the driver’s side.
“We also discovered a N100 note stained with blood on the floor of the car, which was recovered and kept as exhibit.”
He said a police photographer; Gift Eneche, took photographs of the car and at the Arowolo’s residence, when the team later visited the place for further investigation that same day.
The matter was adjourned till March 20, for continuation of trial.

African Disneyland? A Response to the New York Times Review of "Fela!" on Broadway

Social-activist international music company based in New York City

Posted: February 24, 2010 04:07 PM

By Ezra Gale
The following is written in response to Charles Isherwood's article on the Broadway musical "Fela!" in the New York Times on Sunday, January 28, 2010.
I took a special interest in Charles Isherwood's critical review of "Fela!" not only because I recently saw the show -- which is set at Fela's Lagos, Nigeria nightclub the Shrine -- and not only because I have been a devotee of Fela Kuti's music and life story for years, but also because in 2006, I had the unforgettable experience of traveling to Lagos, Nigeria with my band, Aphrodesia, where we played at the Shrine with Fela's son, Femi.
Mr. Isherwood is to be commended for thinking so critically about the musical. Race is, as he notes in his opening paragraph, an incendiary topic, and those of us involved in any debate on it too often devolve into knee-jerk 'reactionism,' often fed by notions of political correctness and white guilt. Mr Isherwood's thoughtful, lengthy critique in a major American newspaper should be taken by fans of afrobeat and of the musical as the highest compliment (he is also right to urge everyone -- as I emphatically do as well -- to go and see the show for themselves).
That said, Mr. Isherwood is wrong on the major themes of his article.
He's right that "Fela!" the musical isn't perfect. The plot is weak, and character development almost nonexistent. The plot could be accurately summarized as "Fela says he's leaving Nigeria, then he changes his mind." And although we are witness to the development of Fela's life through flashbacks, there are no meaningful changes in the portrayals of the major characters through the passage of the show, as is often the case in Broadway productions.
But -- and it's a big but -- that's not the point. "Fela!" is instead a raucous, bombastic, thrilling and at times touching show that transports the audience to a specific time and place -- Fela Kuti's Lagos nightclub, The Shrine, in the late 1970's. I am no Broadway musical expert, but I believe the show's positioning of a radical figure like Fela as the hero, its use of Afrobeat, a previously little-known, stubbornly funky and uncompromising music, as the score, and its celebration of strikingly non-Broadway ideas of showmanship, such as African dance and the inclusion of the audience, is groundbreaking for the Great White Way. In essence, "Fela!" brings a new theatrical and musical tradition to Broadway, and Mr. Isherwood mistakenly judges it by his own standard.
One of Mr. Isherwood's major complaints, for example, is with the look of the show. In crafting a musical that looks (and sounds, thanks to the expert recreation of Fela's music by a band that includes members of Antibalas) like Fela's Shrine, the creators of "Fela!" have built a set that Mr Isherwood dismisses as an "African Disneyland." Yet I found the set design to be one of the most transporting and authentic elements of the show. I should point out that the Shrine I visited and played with Aphrodesia was not the Shrine of the musical -- that Shrine was bulldozed by the Nigerian government soon after Fela's death in 1997. Rather, the Shrine we experienced was Fela's son Femi's recreation of his father's nightclub, in a different neighborhood of Lagos, which he calls "The New Afrika Shrine." But although the building is different (much bigger, and, we were told by more than one Nigerian, with a much better sound system), by all accounts the vibe and feel of the place is very much the same. And so I can only assume that the set of "Fela!", looking much like the Shrine I saw, nails the look of the original Shrine. Mr. Isherwood writes that the set is covered in corrugated metal and "African gee-gaws." Yet I wonder if he is familiar with the clash of cultures that make up the world of Lagos and much of West Africa, where African religious and cultural icons mesh with appropriations of Christian symbols and elements of western culture. Walk down the street in Lagos or Accra and you will find shacks housing businesses with names like "God is Great Beauty Salon" and "He Is Arisen Electrical Shop;" women in traditional cloth dress sell bags of water next to men in business suits talking on their cell phones. It is this world that gave birth to the Shrine, and so while "Fela!"'s set design may have looked contrived to Mr. Isherwood, to me it looked strikingly authentic. At the New Afrika Shrine the slapdash construction of corrugated metal was covered with objects like a giant map of the world with Africa colored in red and a giant slogan that read 'Movement Against Second Slavery;' one corner held a religious shrine to Fela. I can only assume the objects that decorated the walls of the original Shrine held a similar significance. An African Disneyland? No, Mr. Isherwood, that musical was named "The Lion King." This is simply Africa.
Entrance Gate to the Afrika Shrine, Lagos 2006 (Photo by Ezra Gale)

Another of Mr. Isherwood's complaints is that in walking and dancing among the audience the performers have broken the "Fourth Wall" that normally places performers on stage and audience members in the seats. I'm not enough of an expert on theater to say if this sacred separation of performer and audience is a European construct; I can say though, that the 'call and response' format of much West African music -- so integral to Fela's music and deeply influential in much of today's pop music as well -- is rooted in the involvement of everyone present. A singer 'calls' a phrase or sentence, the 'response' comes from everyone. Music in West Africa often serves a much more universal function than it unfortunately does here in America, where we are bombarded with background music nearly every minute of our day. As I found while I was there, there are songs to telegraph the news from the next village, there are songs for cooking fish without too much salt, and, as Fela proved, there are songs for calling your government a bunch of thieving oligarchs. All of these songs are meant to include the listener in a way that I would guess stands out from Mr. Isherwood's previous Broadway experience. It is to this tradition that the practice of sending the dancers and performers among the audience, and of asking the audience to sing, and to dance, as "Fela!" does, belongs.
I think Mr. Isherwood's critique reveals more about himself, and by extension white American attitudes towards race and Africa, than he does about the show. He accuses the show of 'fetishizing' the exotic with flashy song and dance, and yet I'd guess there's nothing exotic about the song and dance in the show to most West Africans, and certainly not to the ones in the mileu portrayed in "Fela!" In tagging the music and dance in the show as belonging to a 'spectacle of African culture' that he says tilts too closely towards 'minstrelsy,' Mr. Isherwood makes the mistake he accuses the show of making -- he assumes that the 'ecstatic' music and dance in the show is somehow beneath the dignity of these characters (it reminds me of the argument that music should be taught in schools because it helps kids with math, to which my response has always been, 'Really? Maybe we should teach math because it helps kids with music'). I think the music and dance in the show is portrayed, accurately, not as light entertainment in service of some higher goal, but as that higher goal itself. And not incidentally, the music and dance (including the beautiful Nigerian women dancing suggestively all night long) portrayed in the show is pretty damn close to the Shrine as I remember it.
Fela!, Eugene O'Neill Theater, New York 2009

  Women of Niger Diocese join in a thanksgiving dance(Photo: (c)CMS/Jeremy Woodham)

With 10,000 people celebrating the

 

Mr. Isherwood seems to believe the emphasis on music and dance is exploitative, but I'd bet Mr. Ishwerwood dinner at Sardi's that not a single one of the approximately 150 million-plus Nigerians, given the chance to come to Broadway and see the show, would leave the theater feeling exploited. I bet they'd feel proud that this part of their culture and history was being so lovingly crafted and performed in front of such a mainstream American audience every night. I am reminded of my own experience in West Africa. We were a white band, playing African music, in Africa. Before we left we were bombarded with well-meaning concerns from friends about whether the Africans we met would be insulted by what we were doing, whether they would see us as exploiting their culture. But our experience once in Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria was the opposite -- people were almost universally thrilled that we were playing their style of music, that we had taken the time to learn it and that we obviously loved it so much we had traveled all the way to Africa to play it and learn more. The questions of authenticity, exploitation and cultural stereotyping and racism that had confronted us faded away as we met Africans who were -- rightly -- proud that their music and culture was strong enough to make such an impact on people on the other side of the world. We encountered a much more nuanced (and refreshingly blunt) view of race as well- of course, there is black and white, but there are many shades of each. For me, Mr. Isherwood's critique represents these type of questions -- well-meaning, but naïve as to what really constitutes the difference between exploitation and respectful tribute.

Mr. Isherwood says it "seems odd that the only character other than Fela Kuti who has any sustained dialogue is an American." Actually, it's not odd: it's appropriate. Fela's music was as American as it was African -- a synthesis of James Brown funk, American jazz and African Rhythms. And that "brash woman" whom Mr. Isherwood declines to name was Sandra Izadore, who, meeting Fela when he lived in Los Angeles in 1969, introduced him to the politics of the American Black Power movement and the Black Panthers, forever changing his life, music and politics. Far from being the "festive window dressing" Mr. Isherwood accuses the women of Fela of being portrayed as, Ms. Izadore comes across as strong and independent in the musical. Fela is entranced by her, he woos her simplistically, and receives a stack of Black Power literature in return (this portrayal of Ms. Izadore seems correct -- I've had the privilege of speaking to her by phone once; she still lives and works in LA, working with community organizations and occasionally producing Afrobeat-themed concerts with local bands like the excellent Afrobeat Down).
I will leave for elsewhere a discussion of Fela's problematic attitudes towards women (seek out Nkiru Nzegwu's essay on this in the excellent collection of scholarly articles about Fela, Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway). But the sexuality that Mr. Isherwood seems to find gratuitous and degrading from Fela's backup dancers and wives in the show (and it was clear to me that they were his wives in the show, perhaps Mr. Isherwood went to the bathroom during the scene when he marries them?) is an accurate portrayal of Fela and his son Femi's show. The sexuality from the dancers is undeniable; it's also proud, and I believe here again Mr. Isherwood is imposing his own views and standards unnecessarily.
The "Wives", Afrika Shrine, Lagos 2006 (photo by Ezra Gale)

Mr. Isherwood discounts the political context given in the show by saying that "you learn more about the sociopolitical situation by reading the newspaper headlines in the video projections on the set." Actually, Nigerian soldiers' raid on his compound and the murdering of his mother by them is the main dramatic episode in the show. This event -- a reference to the Kalakuta Raid of February 18, 1977 -- is put in its proper context as a reaction to Fela's outspoken criticism of the government's corruption. The episode when Fela was jailed for marijuana possession, but released after several days for lack of evidence (the creative details of which make for one of the more entertaining passages in the show, and which yielded his classic song, "Expensive Shit"), appropriately portrays a government furious at his dissent, yet fearful of confronting his enormous popularity. Yes, there are political elements left out -- viewers will have to dig elsewhere to learn about the bloody Biafran War of 1967-70, a civil war estimated to have killed as many as three million people and which shaped the political culture of the Nigeria inhabited by Fela (and perhaps even more importantly, by his politically outspoken mother, too). Absent too is talk to the ethnic tensions within Nigeria between the Igbo and other groups like Fela's Yoruba, which contributed to that war and were exacerbated by Britain's colonial administration, itself touched on but not deeply examined in the show.
But a full revealing of these political complexities would turn the show into more of a lecture and less of an entertainment. And that's what Mr. Isherwood misses in his critique -- this is a show, and deservedly so. Fela knew that his politics had to be coupled with his music to gain traction with the population; likewise, the musical "Fela!" would be sorely off-base if it left out the sensual side of its main character.
The show is far from perfect -- for that, the plot and narrative would have to match Bill T. Jones' breathtaking choreography and the irresistible Antibalas-fueled live soundtrack. But what flaws it has do not stem from exploitation or racist assumptions about Africans and African culture.