Kakadu The Musical and Me

My debut on the Nigerian stage was at the Agip Recital hall, Muson Centre in a musical play entitled Kakadu The Musical a presentation of the Playhouse Theatre Limited, Produced by the duo of Winifred and Uche Nwokedi(SAN) and directed by the life journal himself Kanayo Omo who was assisted by Williams Ekpo who doubled also as the stage manager. Saying that it was one of the most beautiful experiences which I thoroughly enjoyed is an understatement of course. I got the privileged honour to work firsthand with some of the industry's best; musical director and Lord Lugard Benneth Ogbeiwi(Uncle Ben) had just the right spicy words to get the best music out of you, the camera shy Choreographer Abel Utuedor assisted by Olufowobi Femi  was a shock to me at first,I still remember 'splash out 'and believe me those dancers set the stage on fire -Sometimes I left my acting to just watch the dancers do their thing-And there were the greats: Nobert Young(very cultured), Tina Mba, Hajji_Bello, Bongolipso who serenaded me on the casting day while I did my best to put up my most convincing 'not impressed look' little did I know that we'll end up as dance partners. Then there were the younger ones the waffy JJC Onyeka Fiaka who came to enact his story as a JJC Osahon in the play: an eerie coincidence if there ever was one. Emmanuel Luka Musa who dropped the word 'ore' in our mouths, I still use it.
The assignments heaped on us by the director who later found out that we referred to him as 'profile' and  'focus' but was nonetheless unfazed led me to research and discoveries that astounded me and begged for more questions.
The play showed Nigeria before and after the war,  the effects of the war on relationships across the different tribes, when friends became "those people", "not our type"...Kakadu represented a microcosm of our society and today Forty three years after as I sat in the Keke going back home, an incident on the road brought a line from the the epilogue of Kakadu to my mind "How do we build a nation, build a future?" In the midst of our current situation?

My Magic Wand

While surreptitiously following a bbm group chat of some friends, this question just announced itself in my heart "IF you could change the world, how would you go about it?". The first thing that came to my mind was a magic wand(too much cartoon influence I guess -and I have had my fair share - Voltron,Superman, wonder woman,Cinderella, Aladdin,Tom and Jerry, Ben 10, Mickey mouse...). What would I do with the wand? well, I'll wave it as I have often seen it being done in my favorite Cartoons to make everything alright. In Cinderella; the fairy godmother with a wave of her wand gave Cinderella everything : a throne without enemies, wealth plus Prince charming all in one package.I'll start with my generation: a damaged,abandoned, drowned careless generation struggling to break the surface of the water and to breathe. Those who have been lucky enough to break the surface are seemingly thriving but so few of them, then there are those grabbing at anything and everything in site, ruthlessly taking down any form of resistance in their path and not counting the cost at all.
However, the major problem as I see it is the 99% who are not even aware of where they are or what is going on ; Sad really because we are looked on as the "lucky" generation with so much information at our fingertips. But if you do not know what to do with the information, what use is it to you having it? none! none at all, on the contrary the information has been the 'undoing factor' putting a knife in a child's reach and saying "knives can cut.." plus the erroneous assumption of my generation that the elders will gladly move over and let us take control because we are the future leaders- I don't even want to go there- but if a statement credited recently to former president Olusegun Obasanjo in which he said the youths have failed or if at eighty nine Robert Mugabe still considers himself fit to lead and has purportedly won a seventh term...need I say more?
Then I'll move to the younger generations and change their DNA(Deoxyribonucleic acid) completely in case these disease is in the genes so we don't end up breeding the same destructive entities, and as for the older generations? for a long time I've thought that the Charles Taylor's modus operandi is the best method to employ after forgiving them of course- I mean we're not beasts- but then seeing the aftermath of Spartacus' season one last episode I have my doubts,  so, I think we'll probably put the older generations in a cube and leave them in space to wander for a while until we decide what to do with them....