Friday, April 25, 2014
Video - Search continues for the 200 kidnapped schoolgirls
In Nigeria, parents have joined the army to search for almost 200 schoolgirls kidnapped last week.They were taken from their school in Chibok in the northeastern Borno state.
Related stories: Wole Soyinka calls for the release of the kidnapped school girls
Video - Number of kidnapped girls revised to at least 230
I was born in Britain and not Nigeria because of Biafra civil war - Chiwetel Ejiofor
His own grandfather had lived through the nightmare played out in “Half of a Yellow Sun”, which premiers in Nigeria on Friday, and spent long hours years later recounting the painful memories to Ejiofor.
While the actor won his Academy Award nomination for “12 Years a Slave”, 2014′s Best Picture winner, he said he felt particular “connective tissue” with the lead character in the Nigerian war film.
The movie — now showing in Britain and Australia and opening soon in the US and other countries — is based on the best-selling novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the 1967-1970 Biafra War, which began after the eastern region tried to secede from newly independent Nigeria.
“The Biafra War was a seminal part of my upbringing and my family history,” said Ejiofor, 36, the first black actor from Britain nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.
“In fact, I would say that the Biafra War was the reason I was born in London and not in Nigeria,” he told journalists in Lagos earlier this month.
His parents, natives of eastern Nigeria, left the country after the horrific conflict that killed more than one million people, including many from starvation.
The war was a regular family discussion topic throughout his upbringing in London, but Ejiofor said he acquired a fuller understanding of the conflict during a visit to Nigeria six years ago.
- Grandfather’s memories -
At independence from Britain in 1960, Nigeria was divided into three geopolitical zones: the north, dominated the mainly Muslim Hausa tribe, and two predominantly Christian regions, the west where the Yoruba were the majority and the east, led by the Igbo people.
In 1967, Igbo leaders declared independence after claiming that their tribesman living in the north were being massacred by Hausas. They charged the federal government with failing to provide protection.
Ejiofor’s maternal grandfather was among the Igbos based in the north during those violent, chaotic years.
The actor said he recorded 10 hours of conversation in Nigeria with his grandfather — who died three years ago — and played the material for “Half of a Yellow Sun” director Biyi Bandele and other cast members.
“It was an extremely powerful and moving account of an ordinary Igbo man in the north,” Ejiofor said.
“An ordinary Nigerian experiencing this extraordinarily turbulent time, from the hope of independence to the seismic cost of the war.”
The attempt to create an Igbo-led republic was crushed by the British-backed Nigerian federal forces, who had military superiority and used scorched earth tactics, including the blockage of all food imports to the breakaway Biafra region.
In “Half of a Yellow Sun”, Ejiofor plays Odenigbo, an idealistic math professor at the University of Nigeria in the eastern town of Nsukka.
Odenigbo hosts colleagues and friends for long-nights of drinking and discussion about Nigeria’s immense promise following the dismantling of colonialism.
His dreams are destroyed by the massacres and ultimately by the civil war.
“I had Chiwetel (Ejiofor) in mind for the part of Odenigbo,” Bandele told AFP.
“I did not have to audition him. I knew that he was going to be perfect. And he was.”
- ‘Helpful’ typhoid -
“Half of a Yellow Sun”, produced by Andrea Calderwood who also made “The last king of Scotland” about the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, was filmed entirely in the southeastern Nigeria city of Calabar and a nearby village called Creek Town.
The latter half of the film, which unfolds after the Biafra War has broken out, was shot first and the cast’s war-ravaged look was a product of more than just make-up and strong acting, Bandele said.
“Some of us had typhoid,” and likely contracted it on the first day of filming in Creek Town, he said.
“People started falling like flies three days into the shoot.”
Female lead Thandie Newton was among those who got sick and looked like “something the cat dragged into the house.”
“And it’s because she had typhoid! And her character is supposed to be going through a tough time here, so it actually worked really well!” Bandele said.
“I mean I wouldn’t recommend that as a way of making movies, but it worked, it really worked for us.”
Vanguard
Related stories: Chiwetel Ejiofor on shooting Half of a Yellow Sun in rural Nigeria
Nigerian censors delaying Half of a Yellow Sun premiere
The movie director says censors are delaying the Nigerian premiere of the movie "Half of a Yellow Sun."
The screen adaptation of Chinamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel is the story of two sisters caught up in Nigeria's 1960s civil war, when the southeast tried to form an independent nation called Biafra. About 1 million people died, most of famine.
Nigerian-born British director Biyi Bandele posted a tweet Friday saying "It's all true" that they were having difficulty with the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board. No one answered the telephone at the board Friday. Some say the film may be banned because it could whip up tribal sentiment.
It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton and made it to the top 10 in London cinemas over Easter.
The screen adaptation of Chinamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel is the story of two sisters caught up in Nigeria's 1960s civil war, when the southeast tried to form an independent nation called Biafra. About 1 million people died, most of famine.
Nigerian-born British director Biyi Bandele posted a tweet Friday saying "It's all true" that they were having difficulty with the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board. No one answered the telephone at the board Friday. Some say the film may be banned because it could whip up tribal sentiment.
It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton and made it to the top 10 in London cinemas over Easter.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Video - Traditional textile business in Nigeria
Kano is famous for its pits, where fabrics have been dyed for over 500 years. But the ancient industry that once thrived in the days of the trans-Saharan trade, is no longer as popular as it once was. And as CCTV's Carol Oyola reports, many unemployed traders now want the state to invest in the pits, in order to revive and grow the local textile market.
Wole Soyinka calls for the release of the kidnapped school girls
Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, yesterday, called on the Federal Government to ensure the release of 230 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, who were abducted by members of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram. Professor Soyinka made the call on a day a coalition of women’s rights in Borno expressed their readiness to mobilise thousands of women to embark on a voluntary search and rescue mission into the notorious Sambisa forest, to ensure the release of the abducted students.
Senate President, David Mark, on his part described the abduction of the girls as sacrilegious.
Meanwhile, members of the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, have threatened to kill the abducted students, should the search to recover them continue.
Soyinka tasks FG
Professor Soyinka, who gave the keynote address in Port Harcourt at the opening ceremony of declaration of Port Harcourt as UNESCO World Book Capital 2014, said the focus of the event was for the Federal Government to ensure the safe release of the students.
He said he had expected President Goodluck Jonathan to convene an emergency security meeting over the ugly development in the school after the abduction of the students.
He noted that the ongoing book fair in Port Harcourt was a national rejection of Boko Haram, adding that the Islamic sect does not reflect the teachings and values of Islam.
Minutes after his address, former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili and the Project Director, Rainbow Book Club, Mrs Koko Kalango led the gathering to make a collective demand for the girls’ release.
Storming Sambisa forest
The Borno women, under the auspices of BAOBAB Women’s Right, have said they were ready to storm the major hide out of the insurgents in Sambisa forest, where the abducted girls were believed to be held.
Spokesperson for the group, Professor Hauwa Biu, told newsmen that they resolved to embark on the rescue mission when it was evident that no reasonable progress was being achieved in the rescue efforts.
Biu said: “We are ready to go into the forest and search for the girls. In fact, we are prepared to risk our lives and get up to Boko Haram camp and appeal to them to release the children to us so that they can re unite with their parents.
“There is nothing extraordinary in our quest to enter the dangerous forest. We learnt that some men in Chibok had earlier embarked on such mission, which later turned out to be fruitless.
“We felt that as mothers, we are in a better position to have the sympathy and concern over the fate of the missing girls.
“Our target is not to fight the abductors, but we want to beg them to release the girls in the name of the God that we all worship.”
The group urged security forces to expedite action in their search and rescue mission of the students so that their parents can have rest of mind.
Biu appealed to security agents to make use of sophisticated weapons in detecting the location of the abductors for easy rescue operation.
She described the abduction of the school girls as inhuman, abuse of human rights, capable of scuttling efforts for enhanced girl child education in the state and the country at large.
She said: “The abduction of the innocent girls violates their human rights, and it is a crime against humanity and prohibited under international humanitarian law.
“Women in Borno strongly condemn this act in its totality as it deprives children their right to learn in a safe environment, thereby jeopardising their future.”
Appeal
Biu also appealed to the insurgents to lay down their arms and hold dialogue with the government.
She said: “We wish to appeal to the insurgents to lay down their arms and embrace dialogue. We assure them of our motherly support toward rehabilitating them when the need arises
“We condemn all other attacks in form of bomb blasts and serial killings all over the country and commiserate with the families of those who lost their relations during the unfortunate incidents.
“We commend the efforts of Borno and Federal governments as well as youths and vigilantes in addressing the current insurgency in the country.
“However, bearing in mind the continuous attacks on schools, we appeal for the provision of adequate security to all schools so as to have a safe learning environment for our children.”
It’s sacrilegious—Mark
Meanwhile, Senate President, Senator David Mark has described as sacrilegious the abduction of the female students and called for their release.
The Senate President, in a statement by his Press Secretary, Paul Mumeh, in Abuja, yesterday, said the abduction was embarrassing and that no nation that had the desire to develop would indulge in such dastardly act.
He pleaded with the captors to listen to the voices of reason and release the teenagers.
According to the statement, “Senator Mark imagined the harrowing experience the students had been subjected to by their captors and the mental and psychological torture parents and guardians of the students had faced.”
He said no nation could justify the abduction of the children whose only offence was that they chose to go to school to better their lots and contribute to the socio economic and political development of their fatherland.
Mark said: “It is a sad commentary and a terrible assault on our psyche as a people. In the good old days of Nigeria this was a taboo and unarguably unheard of.”
The Senate President canvassed for synergy between and among security agencies, especially in the area of information gathering and sharing to facilitate their rescue, stressing that the deteriorating situation was making a mockery of the nation.
Vanguard
Related stories: Video - Number of kidnapped girls revised to at least 230
Boko Haram abduct 100 schoolgirls from boarding school in North Eastern Nigeria
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