First Contact: Your bank in your pocket.

 The cashless society has come to stay although we seem to be undecided on how best to move forward what with this new reintroduction of ATM usage fees of N65 by the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele. I don't think this new service charge is going to aid the financial inclusion policies, I mean if I'm going to pay service charge for using my card at outlets not my parent banking institution which will include everywhere that you use POS services these days, which is everywhere, I might as well use my cash directly. Anyway, one of the telecommunications network came up with an innovative way to use the cashless society by introducing a new product that will  help to take the awareness drive of the financial inclusion even to the grassroots level and create more jobs.  I was privileged to be part of the presentation through a stage play tagged "CARRY GO"Your bank in your pocket written and directed by the amazing Israel Eboh. Needless to say I was ecstatic about the project. Incidentally I got to play my glamorous younger sister. The character description was fully her and I guess a bit of me but with her name. It was uncanny. Now, I get people referring to me as Itoro which is actually my real life younger sister's name. yeah uncanny!The experience was fantastic. Beautiful energetic dancers, equally energetic, funny and ebullient actors all warmly wrapped in music that everyone else seemed to know except me and I used to think I was a connoisseur of old school music. Oh well, I conquered it eventually. This project presented many firsts for me on different levels. I'll talk about it another time. I met very interesting unique individuals. Isioma Williams the gentle head traditional drummer with a voice that can melt a diamond and there was the multitalented actor/dancer Barr Ugo Obaiyo who always seems to have a smile and a helping hand. And others that require no elaborate introduction...Saeed Funkymallam, Okey Onyegbule aka Okey Bakassi, Aunty Kenny...There's too much untapped talent in Nigeria. Really. Rehearsals were at the National Council of Arts and Culture NCAC which presently looks like a neglected, abandoned first wife(we need to take care of our facilities; 'if we don't, who will'?) performance at the luxurious Eko hotel and suites. I have discovered that performances can go one of two ways: bad in which case you come down exceptionally drained and depressed or great, in which case you come down high. The performance was great. Backstage was even more fun.  I finally got to meet my lookalike the lovely singer Ego Ogbaro who thrilled the crowd with back to back hits. People always claim we lookalike( I guess it's due to our very prominent signature cheekbones)we should probably act awesome sisters some day.