The Journey to a Bëtá Nigeria

A university education that started in 2007 had me in the near years that followed carrying out several activities in student activism that saw me then representing the National Association of Nigeria Students - NANS at regional levels, leading the Nigeria Universities Engineering Students Association (NUESA) as president and holding the positions of secretary and vice president of the organisation SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise now called Enactus) in successive years.

 

Student activism was birthed in me to protest the deplorable learning and living conditions of study. While engagements like SIFE and Rotaract clubs were spaces that built the social and ethical aspects among other qualities necessary for formal world interactions. 

These are as much a part of education as the formal content received in the lecture rooms of the institution.

These opportunities emboldened my access to information and interaction. The tertiary institution, being the first environment I explored after a well guided secondary education in a missionary school; I was greeted with a treasure world of possibilities that only education can afford one. 

I took the biggest bites while understanding the need to leave a better system behind hence never relenting in campus student activism. 

My heart would almost explode at the availability of information: reading which I had come to love in my early formative years, gave me access to a library of books other than academic options and this was a 'privilege' I would come to know many never had and some, younger than I was already 'knew - believed' education was not something they can afford.

A campus of societies and organisations, vibrant minds ready and willing to learn. This would be my first time appreciating education after twelve years of primary and secondary education. 

I had enjoyed in many ways, and come to appreciate education and wish more people have some. 

This wish would shape the many activities and causes I will undertake moving forward. From radio programs designed to raise interest in education through stories told on air. 

Book chats and book discussions to establish conversations on the beauty/benefit of reading; and encouraging writers to create stories that will further engender the ideas of creative writing and reading and non formal education through literary critique and open mic sessions.

Better some education than none. 

I would, by 2013 start and register an organisation with a vision to become a global voice using art and creativity; through education and enlightenment liberate society.

This organisation with a mission to transform society through creative expression while propagating ideas towards development, now undertook many projects: all not-for-profit and ran programs for about nine years pro bono in three radio stations for this reason.

Friends, I and anyone who would join us donated books to rural schools, orphanage homes and inmates in correctional facilities. While also supporting other organisations in their work in the area of education with internally displaced persons (IDPs).

This to me, to us; is reaching those most disadvantaged or most limited in accessing proper education. 

However, there are a lot more people than these disadvantaged groups; living in circumstances that can be helped much easier, yet without education nor the hope for it.

In the light of this reality glares the data published by Bëtá Nigeria of one in five of the world's out of school children being Nigerian and the government's budget being less than eight percent below the minimum requirement for a country like Nigeria. 

For this story, we can tell how it ends; like a poorly written movie script. And if with hindsight we compare the former investments to education (that we still find ourselves eight place from the bottom among developing countries with poor investment in education now) when Nigeria's population was way below the over 200 million people estimated now 

With an over ten million boys and girls currently out of school; as the Bëtá Nigeria information leaflet well covers. 

It is a disastrous future, looking from these figures, even as the disasters of terror against education continue in parts of Nigeria where school children are kidnapped in hundreds. 

A nightmare unimaginable. 

As the country's budget deflects from prioritising investment in the education sector, to ensure access for all; Bëtá Nigeria's call to this campaign remains a welcome one for Nigeria as a country and it's people.

Data available via the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Federal Government shows only once did Nigeria go as high as ten point six percent being 2014, and has stayed below six percent from 2021 to 2023. 

A happy future will be difficult an image to paint, for a country that has a population like Nigeria, and has experienced challenges we can only attribute to the lack of, and poor nature of education in the country.

The Tiv proverb: it is by sitting together that a craft is perfected; holds fast for these stakeholders and groups championing the education agenda at the Bëtá Nigeria roundtable discussions.

This may be the answer to a prioritising of education for a nation with an education budget five times below in percentage, to the UNESCO stipulation of twenty six percent minimum investment of a nation's budget in education just last year 2023.

Any human being is better with an education in them, my practical experience of this would be the projects I did with inmates, who had education and those without. 

Over time on this project our recorded observation showed that there's the higher likelihood of recidivism among uneducated inmates than educated ones. 

And of course the ability to communicate and absorb useful information is higher among educated inmates.

Having reading and numeracy skills at the least, generally enlivens an individual's ability to navigate a world of information and ideas and opportunities and privileges if any; and every country should afford it's citizens the chance to a better life through proper education, even as the constitution of Nigeria rightly captures it as a fundamental human right. 

To a mind that is educated, it is unimaginable to see yourself without that education, and though minds without education may not say how much better their life could be, we have seen instances when such minds uneducated as may be; plagued and still plague the society in ways we could only imagine years back. 

We do know that they, like we; their lives would have served better, this society and country; if they were enlightened through proper education.

In the event we take no action on the current state of education: going by global and national data; we should know then that this is a sentence over ourselves and the future of millions through the ignorant judgement of neglect. 

The journey to a better Nigeria starts at the door of education and Bëtá Nigeria just opened that door, with the roundtable talks having civil society organisations, literacy and literary organisations, media organisations and organisations for the physically challenged among others and various stakeholders in the education sector walking through the Bëtá Nigeria door in this new wave campaign for education. 

This campaign requires that everyone be on board. 

It is strange to imagine anyone to not want a better Nigeria, but Bëtá Nigeria has begun; and only figures and futures will tell the rest. 

When that telling occurs, may it be told by minds that have not just been educated; but educated properly, telling it to even better educated minds! 

Ngutsav Anselm Sesugh writes from Kaduna, Nigeria. 

Kaduna Radio: the Curfew anchor & The Night to Remember

By anselm SESUGH NGUTSAV 

It is Saturday evening 27 October, 2018.

Curfew laden city of Kaduna has seen deep unsavoury moments in recent events. The bubbly city lost a monarch to criminals in a kidnap and murder, has lost citizens in clashes at different parts of the town and gone back and forth of a 24 hour curfew; on this fateful evening it has been a round the clock curfew, 24 hour curfew!

Radio is a quick go-to for news and current information on goings-on here and now. Radio gives information to the Kaduna community pretty fresh and provides an avenue for live phone interaction. While measuring its broadcast modus operandi against broadcast standards in a society tiptoeing around itself to get by safely. 

It is an observatory certainty that many more people than usual, would have turned to radio, having time on their hands from the curfew for: company, information, and of course who wouldn't want to be entertained. After having a compulsory home rest beyond your plan running into days with no knowledge of when it might end. 

At the moment, if you tune to Liberty radio 91.7FM Kaduna, the first voice you are likely to hear on a morning work day is that of Tunji Oyeleke. 

Tunji powers or drives the morning belt as radio terminology captures it. 

Radio anchoring has a lot to do with experience outside of the rudimentary eloquence of speech. 

For one who has being in radio for some time, you can pretty much get by fine enough, on any shift or drive. 

However, 'fine enough' doesn't cut it with an audience looking to be satisfied and not just that, but given the nature of the times in the city of Kaduna, normal isn't just enough. People want to forget the horror, yet be abreast with what is next. 

This Saturday evening has Tunji on radio. He will obviously be driving the belt. 

Fewer of Liberty radio 91.7FM On-Air-Personalities (OAPs) are heard on radio live at this time, due to the curfew obviously. The danger of an OAP sounding weak and monotonous is likely a case when you have to face your audience too frequent without space to replan and structure content for delivery; fatigue, flight of ideas, lack of morale, the list goes on. The charge is to surpass the looming challenges and perform beyond 'fine enough'.

The city of Kaduna does have other radio stations as options for radio experience and a frequency change to another station can happen to you from an unsatisfied listener. 

The task is always to marry character, style and manner of presentation with an audience one is faced with per time, and most importantly with the time of the day. 

Imagine your favorite meal at your most desired time and place. That is what an OAP aims for. Serve the listener right! 

While at a restaurant a waiter enquires your meal choice, on radio the OAP simply gauges and makes a run to win your heart as a listener. Loosing that moment means loosing you and loosing you for that moment, means you can do away with him or her at any time. 

That is like being in a relationship, where you are totally in love with your partner yet you stand the risk of being left alone at the altar, shrine or wherever the wedding is to take place. Yes! That wedding day bride or groom absence is what it means to be tuned off. 

You know why? Being on radio is not just about talking through the mic, it's the audience. The audience is your partner. And in this relationship the moment that matters most, is the one you are there reaching out via a program or simply talking and playing music.

Kaduna has been through days of a 24 hour curfew, that is going to make a grumpy partner: hard to please and difficult to understand.

Tonight, it seems the curfew on the audience of Liberty radio 91.7FM has existed longer with a talent like Tunji Oyeleke away from an evening/night shift.

Unsurprisingly, his experience leaves him quite competent to hold his airwaves with great music selection and smooth mixes. 

TJ as Tunji is referred to in alias, captures the Croc-city pulse with music and presentation that is both vibrant and exquisite in character and manner beyond a brief review tonight. 

Tunji Oyeleke has an enigmatic radio performance bathed in spontaneous comedy, that resonates with a Kaduna audience that seems to have been waiting for him, given the rate of calls and participation; with spouses giggling with their partners or even alone as they conversed with him on his lighthearted phone-in theme or topic of discussion. This offered the ultimate evening/night radio experience! Especially at a time like this on an evening of this kind, and a weekend at that. 

People were and are tired of discussing the curfew, they simply want information that leads to an end of it and or to something better at this time. 

Tunji had never demonstrated such complete fullness of talent, skill and capacity as he seemed to enjoy himself so much one had no choice but to enjoy with him! 

This is what listening to the radio should do, and Tunji has just set the bar for the entire Kaduna State and beyond where people could visit to learn what an evening/night shift should be like. 

Liberty radio 91.7FM could really set a standard for radio tourism from Northern Nigeria to the entire continent and we are all ears to hear the changes the esteemed management of Liberty TV and radio has in the near future. 

Listen to radio! Most importantly, listen to Liberty 91.7FM

A Review of This is Nigeria by Falz

This is Nigeria by Falz is by far the boldest song from Nigeria replete with a creative video that seeks to not only disturb but actually does disturb the sociopolitical and religious system of the Nigerian State, since Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s music in the history of Nigeria.

Unlike the many attempts at a mimicry of Fela's music which ends up on the fringes of stimulating and impressing our senses through melody and rhythm. This is the absolute true Fela-nian spirit, captured in contemporary hip hop music.

Dabbling beautifully between the fluid boundaries of a cover, re-make or re-imagery of Childish Gambino’s This is America, this video has won its own sole standing as a masterful piece depicting true and orginial This is Nigeria experience.

This is Nigeria; is a big win for the artiste, director and the Nigerian music industry as a bold dare into an artistic call out only credited in the history of Nigeria to Fela Anikulapo Kuti.

In this three minute, forty two second video, ending shorter than Childish Gambino’s over four minute video, starts with Falz on an analogue radio set which nicely depicting the technological backwardness of Nigeria (reminding me of the cover of an old book I read from my father's library My Cousin comes to Jo'burg by Mbulelo V. Mzamane). Though shirtless Falz's trousers could pass for a Fela style wear.

The video being soft in imagery and graphics depicting the Nigeria situation, makes a lucid case while leaving us a video to be watched by almost anyone.   

The reception and critique of this video as a remake justifies the display of Falz’s message right in front of you rather than behind as western reviewers pointed out from Childish Gambino’s This is America when placed in acute juxtaposition. 

The hijab wearing female dancers compliment both the ideological and revolutionary signs Falz makes toward the end of his video symbolic now to the black and African communities; the Fela-nian spirit and music. The stereotype of conservative and withdrawn hijab wearing ladies was defiled by ‘the stride in their steps’, to paraphrase Maya Angelou’s line in the poem Phenomenal Woman. The swing of their arms is beyond confident to daring.

The brilliance and intelligence in this work, not long after the original version, doesn’t banter with a message drowned by unnecessary theatrics and display, as it comes with lyrical balance of Nigeria’s issues and great rhythm.

The non-compromise in the use of certain illustrations to communicate, like the Toyota SUV for a scene where a politician gets his son out of police trouble neglecting the other victims supposedly students like his son in his company is something Nollywood could learn from, of scene where the lyrics said little leaving more to the watcher.

A complete This is Nigeria experience by Falz can only come from this video.

See video link here 

Falz


Review Author: Anselm Sesugh Ngutsav
writer, poet, radio presenter and photographer