APRIL 27 2012

BY FRANKIE EDOZIEN

NEW YORK — If he’s to have any hope of keeping his job, President Barack Obama needs to regain the love of young voters. But with 50 percent of Americans under 30 jobless or underemployed, the once cozy relationship is strained.

So Mr. Obama has kicked off his now re-election campaign by wooing university students with a charm offensive that began with an appearance on a late-night television show popular with young people, “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

To read more of the IHT piece click here.

January 13 2012

Opinion

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

LAGOS, Nigeria –  This was supposed to be the year the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, began to deliver on his campaign promises.

After all he was the leader whose campaign proved you didn’t have to be born with a silver spoon or even have shoes as a child, and yet still be elected president of Africa’s most populous nation.

But it’s all gone horribly wrong. Now everyone wants his head. Or at least his resignation.

Even before the year began, the fundamentalist Islamic sect, Boko Haram, detonated a bomb inside a Catholic church _ killing four and injury many during the morning mass on Christmas Day, just outside the capital city, Abuja.

Jonathan, fortuitous throughout his political career, couldn’t seem to get handle on the fringe group who want Christians out of the Northern regions and an end to Western education for Nigerians.

The militants seem just interested in destabilizing his government. And they responded to his meek declarations of emergency by four more attacks.

As Nigerians were recovering from the spate of attacks and collectively resisting the urge for reprisal attacks, the Jonathan administration shocked everyone.

On Jan 1, it imposed an immediate removal of the $7 billion fuel subsidy that has kept gas prices in this oil-producing nation low for decades. The price would jump 120 percent in price.

In Abuja on New Year’s Day I couldn’t even find a place to fill up, but the next day gas prices doubled, to about $3.50 per gallon from about $1.70 per gallon. Labor unions were incensed and called for the ‘mother of all protests’ nationwide for the next week

Successive governments have failed to provide constant electricity, portable water or reliable mass transit so Nigerians have resorted to doing it themselves over the years. Residents and businesses must have gas and diesel powered generators, to switch to when the frequent power cuts occur.

So when gas prices go up, everything else does: food, baked goods, bus and cab fares, everything. All this in a country where many live on under $2-a-day. And so the masses, spurred on by Labor unions have taken to the streets in nearly every major city in Nigeria.

Thousands of fed up citizens both young and old, professional and working class have had enough. ‘Occupy Nigeria’ has taken hold with emails, Blackberry instant messaging, Facebook and Twitter directing thousands to demonstrate, including outside the Nigerian embassy in Washington D.C.

The grievances have moved beyond gas prices to transparency, good government and corruption in the administration.

In the mega-metropolis that is Lagos, everything’s been shut down. Strange for a city that like New York never sleeps. In addition to slogans, some carried coffins with signs saying ‘RIP Goodluck.’

Streets are either eerily empty and quiet or filled with demonstrators. Malls, movie theaters, banks, restaurants, markets all remained closed. Gas stations stayed shut. “They are too scared to sell” one driver told me.

The few drivers on the roads affixed leaves to their cars as signs of being part of the peaceful protest.

Jonathan’s move to slash expenditures among his executive team as well as announced ‘palliative measures’ like introduction of over a 1,000 buses for transportation has done nothing to ease the fracture.

He and his economic team, lead by the former World Bank managing director and technocrat, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala insist that the removal is necessary and those funds would be better served developing other areas.

Perhaps.

Due to government ineptitude over the years, this country is forced to import much of its gasoline even though it is a leading crude oil exporter.

Its own refineries are crumbling so it pays middlemen who import its own now refined product. The middlemen have become wealthy, while most have only gotten a benefit of the affordable gas they need for everything.

By Day 3 of the demonstrations, airports remained closed and a few international carriers were able to leave Lagos with the airport staff moving at a snail’s pace causing flight delays and scrambling at check-in counters.

Labor unions now accuse the government forces of using ‘armed thugs’ to attack protesters as the death tolls mount in different cities. Sixteen dead so far with two confirmed from police bullets. Jonathan’s government denies the ‘armed thugs charge’ and police have arrested the cop shooters.

Yet the government seems to have lost its way. The entire nation now seems to have turned against them, an outcome the militant Boko Haram extremist group couldn’t accomplish, with bombs.

“Goodluck will get tired, we won’t get tired,” some protested chanted at me as I steered my American companion through the streets.

It’s seems Jonathan’s luck has finally run out with his gift-wrapped gift to Boko Haram.

For more from the Amsterdam news click here

© 2012 New York Amsterdam News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Tuesday, August 30 2011, COLORLINES.COM

On particular midweek nights, throngs of men and women gather at a few particular clubs to dance the night away to pulsating beats, and sometimes live music. The men dance provocatively close to each other, with reckless abandon. The few women around do the same with each other. Kisses are even exchanged.

At seaside dance parties where beer and reggae flow to all and sundry, it’s no longer uncommon for men and women in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, to test the waters and try to pick up companions of the same sex. Even in conservative Ghana, it seems that gays and lesbians are taking steps out in the public domain, at least at night.

But like elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, a backlash to that new openness has erupted as well. Since late May, it has spilled out onto the radio. Hours are spent debating whether gays should be allowed to exist here. Then Ghanaians wake up to national headlines screaming that gays and lesbians are dirty and sinful and ought to be locked up.

The pattern is becoming a familiar one throughout sub-Saharan Africa. As evangelical Christianity has seen its fastest growth on the continent, gay communities have simultaneously grown more open. The parallel developments have led to a growing list of countries in which politicians and media outlets have both incited and exploited social panic around sexuality. In the late 1990s, a beleaguered Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe drew global attention as he invited violence against gay people and blamed the country’s growing troubles on the European deprivation he said they symbolized. Since then, similar moments have struck in places stretching across the continent. Most recently, Uganda has been embroiled in controversy over a proposed law that would, among other things, allow the death penalty as a punishment for homosexuality. The authors of that law are closely tied to the U.S. religious right.

Now, this West African nation is having its own gay-dialogue moment and, once again, much of it has been unsavory, with religious leaders and some politicians stoking the flames.

“Gay bashing had never been a feature of the Ghanaian social landscape until, oh, I would say the last 10-15 years. And it came with the evangelical Christians,” says Nat Amartefio, 67, a historian, lifelong resident and former mayor of Accra.

“It’s these evangelicals who are looking for Satan everywhere, in everybody’s drawers, who have created this specter of an expanding gay universe. In all fairness, maybe they see things that those of us who are not involved cannot see. But they are the ones who are driving this hysteria,” Amartefio adds.

 Nat Amartefio

The recent hysteria began when a front-page article in the Daily Graphic, Ghana’s largest circulation newspaper, claimed that organizations doing health work in two regions had “registered” 8,000 gays—many supposedly infected with HIV. The claim was taken from a participant in a workshop for health workers to assist them in dealing with patients with sexually transmitted infections, particularly HIV. The U.S. government, through its Agency for International Development, sponsored the training.

Religious leaders took to the radio to denounce the gays and ask the government to intervene, with one cleric saying he didn’t want Almighty Allah to destroy Africa. The Bureau of National Intelligence claimed it was investigating, and one Presbyterian leader branded gays as “unbiblical, un-African, abnormal and filthy.”

Each week in June brought a slew of new headlines with one legislator, David Tetteh warning that gays could be lynched like robbers.

”You cannot trace this act to any of the settings in Ghana. So this is foreign and I am I saying that Ghanaians cherish our culture a lot so for anybody to adulterate the cultural setting in Ghana … I have the fear that people could take the law into their hands in future and deal with this people drastically,” he suggested to a local journalist.

The “un-African” claim has recurred in each anti-gay backlash that’s hit the content, despite mounds of historical research showing that, in fact, gay and lesbian people have been part of many African cultures for centuries. Rather, homophobia was imported with European colonialism—and today’s growth in evangelical Christianity. Amartefio and other noted Ghanaian intellectuals have pointed out that gay men have been in the society from time immemorial and are sometimes referred to as ‘Kodjo Besia.’

Despite the rhetoric, Amartefio believes the moment will pass quietly. He doesn’t expect a “kill the gays” bill like what was proposed in Uganda. “I don’t believe it will lead to an open pogrom. There just are so many gays in this society who are in all walks of life, in all stations of society who don’t draw any attention because nobody is looking out for them.”

But the daily newspapers trumpeted a different perspective—the voices of those most virulently opposed to sexual freedom. Breda Atta-Quayson, a Daily Graphic deputy editor who wrote many of the headlines that had “Homos” in bold type, says the paper has no anti-gay agenda but wants the issue discussed openly.

“Unfortunately the stories we are getting are the ‘negative’ ones. But it’s not that we are putting it there because we are anti-gay,” he told Colorlines.com. “That is why we have refrained from even writing editorials. We wanted it to be in the public domain for discussion.”

Nana Banyin Dadson, a senior editor at Graphic Communications, adds that interest is high. “Editors are supposed to have a pulse of readership. It is what is strange that sells. It’s strange because this is the first time that it has come up as a subject of discussion openly.”

Against the onslaught from the religious leaders in the media, however, very few voices for LGBT rights could be heard.

One popular radio journalist, Ato Kwamena Dadzie, spoke out and devoted two articles supporting Ghana’s gay community. The response was vitriolic. He was called gay himself and many wrote in response that was the reason he had gone through a divorce.

“One of the jobs of the journalist is to give voice to the voiceless and one of the most deprived people in this country—in terms of voice—is the gay community in the country and I’m more than delighted to speak for them,” Dadzie says.

Ato Dadzie

The former country director of Journalist for Human Rights adds that the piling on is a direct result of poverty. “If I struggle to get one meal a day and I have a band of homosexuals coming into my community and I’ve been told that this band of homosexuals cause God to come and take away the single plate of food that I have, I would fight,” Dadzie says.

Ghana has a high unemployment and nearly 30 percent of the populace lives below the poverty line, according to figures from the CIA World Factbook.

Accra resident Atta-Quayson, 59, says the frenzied coverage is ultimately good. “This topic is going to lead into a liberal society. Now that it is coming to the fore, a lot of people will want to find out what it is. Even though the religious right is so anti-gay.”

Dadzie believes that as the country grows more prosperous, society will be more open. He’s putting together a “coalition of the willing” to challenge the current interpretation of the unlawful carnal knowledge law, which criminalizes homosexual sex acts.

“We’re not going to get to the point of same sex marriages soon, but we’d get to a point where people will decide, ‘He’s gay so what.’ Maybe when I’m dead and gone we can get to same sex marriages,” Dadzie jokes, “but I’ll be surprised if in my lifetime we talk about same sex marriages in this country.”

Still, gay Ghanaians interviewed by Colorlines said they are waiting for the government to offer some protection and leadership in turning down the volume.

“This is what we are praying for,” says one corporal in the army, who has lived with a partner for two years. They would like to move openly into the barracks one day, where the accommodation is free. But for now, freedom on the dance floor is the only option.

To read more click here

MAY 13 2011

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The frenzied betting that engulfs horseracing enthusiasts in many countries kicked into high gear with the 137^th running of the $2.1 million purse Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday of May.

Many here were glued to their televisions screens, as they will be when the Preakness Stakes is held in Baltimore later this month, and also in June when New York’s Belmont Stakes, the third leg of racing’s triple crown occurs.   

America’s racing season has begun with races are held each week.  Those who can’t go to the races can go watch and place bets in halls known as off-track betting parlors with video feed.

In Britain, the kick-off to the summer is a week of horse racing at the Royal Ascot. The alluring venue has been a magnet for bettors and their glamorous companions, for 300 years. 

In Africa, the business is a legacy of colonialism and in some places doing well. Races are run six times a week in South Africa. Kenya’s races tracks are still busy but Nigeria’s once glamorous racecourse in Lagos has long been a shopping complex and suite of offices.

But in Zimbabwe, a day at the races is still an exciting fun filled day for anyone who goes to Harare’s pristine Borrowdale Park. It provides an escape from the everyday stress of a battered but recovering, economy and the decades long political turmoil. 

“There are some races which are very popular like [those sponsored by] the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the insurance brokers and the Zimbabwean National Army,” said Robert Mukondiwa, a former racing commentator here.

“Those folks provide shuttle buses and it’s a fun day. It’s packed to the rafters. It’s everyone from all works of life; gardeners, housewives, maids right up to the top of the pecking order in terms of society,” he added.

Around the world, this niche sport is big business. In the U.S. alone, equestrian racetracks form the largest and most profitable segment of the  $12.2 billion racing industry. The thoroughbreds are as much stars, as the jockeys who ride them.

Mukondiwa, 30, points out that despite recent economic instability, the fields here have remained impeccable.    And admission is free.  “We have some of the best grounds on the continent.   As the economy gets better you’ll notice a lot more people are coming to the races and the number of horses fielded are getting bigger.”

Yet local jockeys, all of whom are black, aren’t thrilled.

On those race days, jockeys get the slimmest of pickings; the horses rejected by the higher profile foreign jockeys, who fly in for the races and then leave right after.  “Unfortunately there is a bit of race related issues in racing,” Mukondiwa added.

The races often figure six to eight horses ridden by jockeys from South Africa and or the United Arab Emirates who fly in just before race days and get their pick of the horses.

Michael Mangwendeza, who has trained at the Zimbabwe Jockey Academy (ZJA) since 2006 explained that owners love to pick jockeys from abroad. “You’ll find that a local jockey will get one or two rides while a foreign jockey will get six, seven eight, a full card in those two weeks.”

Mangwendeza, 23, added that many of the thoroughbred owners, primarily white Zimbabweans “don’t think we are good enough. But I believe a good horse makes a good jockey. If you get a good horse you will win. Most of the time we get third choice. Some of them can run, some of them cannot.”

Zimbabweans have been going to the races twice a month for years.  Its second city, Bulawayo had a race court dubbed Ascot but it isn’t in operation anymore.  Borrowdale Park and the adjacent stables are the center of equestrian commercial activity here.

Africa’s former breadbasket, a country of 12 million has seen a 5.9 percent economic growth in 2010 after years of decline, according to the CIA World Fact Book.  This was in part due to cessation of the local currency in favor of the U.S. dollar in 2009.

Horse owners and their trainers have told local jockeys the reason they pass them over is because they aren’t  ‘racing fit.’

Boniface Vengesa, another popular jockey explained that the current system keeps them that way: “because we have races twice a month and in S.A., they race six times a week,” he said. “If you make a mistake on two rides, it’s going to take you another two weeks to correct that mistake.”

Vengesa, 20 said ‘ride work’ – taking care of races horses and training them daily — is plentiful in Harare. But jockey work, what they all train for, is elusive.

 “When it comes to races these youngster they are not given races. It is something that makes me feel sad,” said Clever Makanya, a groomer at the stables adjacent to the Zimbabwean Jockey Academy. 

Makanya, 49, has been grooming champion horses since 1979 and remembers the first time a black jockey made it through in 1984. Now there are more, but they rarely racing.

“Some of our jockeys seem like they’ve been left behind or don’t have much experience. But they do. It’s got a bit of problem since I started.  It didn’t change. This racism is always the same. Keeps going on and on and on. For now everything is not going in the right order.”

Several owners couldn’t be reached for further comment.  They are primarily among the 1 percent of the population that is Caucasian.

Still just because local jocks don’t get first pick doesn’t mean they never end up in the winners circle.

Vengesa has won twice with a stallion “Shadow Moon.” They had a rough start. The horse threw him off in 2008 and the novice broke his collarbone. But since, they’ve become a good team.

“He’s my favorite. He’s 4 about to turn 5. He’s the one who has done well to me.  And I’m grateful.”

Mangwendeza too, has had the rare win.

  “I’ve ridden this horse plenty times, he’s called ‘One True Moment’. I didn’t think I had a chance but when you get in the race you’ll be hoping for a miracle. That day he quickened for me and we won. In these five years I’ve only ridden 11 winners. That’s not good enough.”

But local jockeys trained at the Zimbabwean Jockey Academy now fear that to make it in horseracing they have to leave the continent. Having a ride or two every fortnight and making $160 a month for stable work and an extra $55 for riding in a race doesn’t cut it for them. If they win a race the extra goes up to $200.

“You get more money and expect to be picked for more rides at the next meet,” but nothing changes he added. “If I ride I will be earning $55 but the other one will be getting $1,000. Same day.” He hopes to make his way to the United Kingdom this year.

The winning jockey of the Kentucky Derby John Velaquez, got at a minimum $120,000 for that ride.

For Vengesa, who has a perfect jockey frame at 5 foot 3 and will finish his ZJA training next year_, leaving is not an option he’s happy with. “I want to be a jockey. I’m still going to go out because you get more exposures but I still would want to come and ride and represent my country.”

Mukondiwa, now an editor with H-Metro, a tabloid daily newspaper, said that perhaps it will be a wake up call for owners if more of their jockeys are plucked away, like those who ended up in the U.K.

“They are doing quite well which shows that they were not too bad out here. If people start coming to poach these kids, that could actually spur some people on to employing them.”

To continue reading click here.

By Frankie Edozien

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Tucked into the treasure trove of thousands of leaked cables from the U.S. embassies and consulates around the world to the State Department in Washington was a beaut of a find.

Royal Dutch/Shell oil has long infiltrated the Federal Government of Nigeria and had moles in all relevant industries, the cables leaked to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks revealed. 

Wow.

Click here to continue reading.

Distribution key to Nigeria’s burgeoning film movement

By Kevin Cassidy and Frankie Edozien

May 13, 2010

It’s been nearly two decades since the current incarnation of Nigerian filmmaking — Nollywood, as it has come to be known — took Africa by storm.

From the seaside metropolis of Lagos to the chop bars of Accra, Nigerian film has steadily become a surprisingly viable industry built from the ground up by enthusiastic locals working with little money and few resources.

These vibrant, homegrown dramas — often gritty tales of witchcraft and the occult, or wish-fulfillment fantasies about get-rich-quick schemes — remain extremely popular with a viewing public eager to escape the day-to-day reality of a country still wrestling with extreme poverty, widespread corruption and shaky-yet-improving infrastructure.

A lot has changed since 1992, when Ken Nnebue’s “Living in Bondage” — widely considered the forerunner to today’s Nollywood — hit the streets, selling an estimated 750,000 videocassettes and igniting a do-it-yourself film movement that relies on an informal network of DVD distributors.

Despite advances in both technology and storytelling, Nollywood now finds itself at a crossroads: In order to take the next step in its evolution — an ambition passionately advocated by many in the industry — insiders say theatrical distribution is the next logical step.

But can it actually happen?

If a group of roughly 70 local artists and filmmakers have their way the answer is an unqualified yes. The goal of the group, which has incorporated as a company called FameCorp., is to transform the industry by creating the infrastructure necessary to ensure local films will be screened in theaters before their release on VCD and DVD.

“FameCorp., is intending to build in each state capital a complex with a cinema hall, a multi-purpose hall for concerts and a warehouse for CD/DVD and music magazine distribution,” says its chairman Tee Mac Omatshola Iseli, who adds that FameCorp’s members have pooled their resources and plan to have an initial public offering of some of its stock by the end of the year.

It’s not as if Nigeria has never had a viable theatrical distribution circuit.

“In Nigeria, we have had a long-running romance with theatrical distribution of both Nigerian and foreign films, especially Indian films, which remain quite strong in certain parts of the country,” says Emeka Mba, chairman of the National Film & Video Censors Board (NFVCB). “Filmmakers like Eddie Ugboma, Ladi Ladebo, Dr. Ola Balogun and late Herbert Ogunde all made films on celluloid that were commercially successful and distributed to cinemas in Nigeria.”

Indeed, Ogunde’s classics “Aiye” and “Jaiyesimi” were bonafide hits when released in Nigerian theaters, even though they were in Yoruba and not the official English language.

“Cinemas are no aliens to Nigerians,” adds director Izu Ojukwu, whose upcoming drama “The Child” will receive a theatrical release in Nigeria. “As a mater of fact the southwest and core northern Nigerians already have a very strong cinema culture going as far as the 70s. Nigerians love entertainment — even my grandma in the village would love to watch movies on the big screen. Evidently, only a few can afford it. Nevertheless, I believe that eventually we will be living our theatrical dreams.”

Currently, there are 50 screens in Nigeria, primarily in the capital city of Abuja, as well as Lagos and Port Harcourt, an oil hub in the south. The FameCorp. goal to build 36 new theaters — one for each state — is coupled with an attempt to ensure that moviegoers pay a reasonable price for a ticket.

“The few existing cinemas in Nigeria are visited by the elite as cinema tickets of N1,500 ($10.00) are too expensive for 70% of the population that is still living below one dollar a day,” says Sandra Mbanefo Obiago, a Lagos-based producer whose Communicating For Change film company produced the Nollywood trilogy “Too Young, Too Far, Too Late.” “By addressing the lack of cinema infrastructure in Africa’s most populated country with a 150 million population eager to become regular theatergoers, FameCorp’s model — ‘local entertainment centers’ — is sure to draw huge crowds.”

While that may be true, widespread piracy is a major hurdle since VCDs and DVDs can be copied and distributed with ease. In an effort to clamp down, Nigeria’s government, led by Mba and the film board, recently launched a new film distribution framework mandating that all film distributors be officially registered and regularly report on their distribution figures.

Still, according to Obiago, the situation isn’t going to change overnight. “This is being strongly opposed by the powerful market traders who control Nollywood distribution business both locally and internationally,” she says.

There are glimmers of hope, however, that locals will indeed pay to see quality films in theaters. Last year, when director Kunle Afolayan released his thriller “The Figurine” in three local multiplexes, the film ended up beating Hollywood fare at the boxoffice, according to the NFVCB.

Afolayan, who recently won a host of African Academy Awards for “The Figurine,” including best picture and best Nigerian film, says the time has come for Nollywood to think bigger than the local market.

“Nigeria definitely needs more theatrical distribution, not only within the country but also on other continents,” he says. “We are beginning to make films that the rest of the world can relate to. Quite a number of people are back to shooting on celluloid and HD and telling our own stories with good production values.”

FameCorp.’s Iseli agrees, adding that Nollywood filmmakers should not shy away from larger productions that could attract global audiences. To that end, FameCorp. has already begun seeking interest in a large scale bio-pic of Mary Slessor, an 18th century Scottish missionary who repeatedly ventured into the Nigerian hinterland when the eastern areas were dubbed the ‘White Man’s Grave.’

Rob Aft, the head of Compliance Consulting who closely monitors the Nigerian film industry, says that while Nollywood films have improved recently, local filmmakers must continue to make a commitment to high production values if their work is to be taken seriously beyond Nigeria’s borders.

“The acting has improved, the scripts are better and the equipment they’re using is first rate,” he says. “Nigerian films must be of sufficient quality to screen in real movie theaters and at international film festivals if they are to grow outside their current markets. Clearly some of their films have reached this threshold and their success should inspire other filmmakers to raise their standards — and they’ve done it without sacrificing the energy and originality that are at the core of the Nigerian film industry’s success.”

Afolayan adds that his work and that of his fellow filmmakers shooting on celluloid “should be given the chance of touring available cinemas all over the world.”

But before that can happen, the insiders agree it’s time for Nigerians to be able to watch movies as they were intended — on the big screen, with the lights dimmed.

“There is no example anywhere in the world where anyone would find a sustainable film industry without theatrical distribution being part of it,” Mba says. “In fact the very concept of cinema and film is anchored firmly on the concept of theatrical distribution. Without it, the long-term survival of any kind of film industry would be jeopardized.”

For more click here

How one charitable organization is using the Nigerian movie industry to educate people.

BY FRANKIE EDOZIEN

 LAGOS, Nigeria. 

When ‘Living in Bondage’,  _ a film about a man who sacrifices his wife to gain wealth, only to repent when her ghost haunts him _ gripped Nigerian audiences in 1992, it ignited the creative juices of artists here..

A lot has changed since that movie, which sold over 750,000 videocassettes was made. When there was virtually no filmmaking, one million plus people are employed by it now.

And, Nollywood productions are seen all over the continent like Bollywood offerings and Hollywood blockbusters, with . an estimated 2,000 films made annually.

 But even with its explosive growth, the themes of its bestsellers have remained constant.

Witchcraft or ‘juju’  in local parlance, and cultism are heavy favorites, reflecting get rich quick schemes to explain how folks go from being poor to millionaires.

For years though, Sandra Mbanefo Obiago, the founder of the nonprofit Communicating For Change (CFC) has sought to use Nigerians love of drama and entertainment to change behavior.

She has produced internationally acclaimed documentaries on female mechanics, Nigeria’s leading women market traders, know as ‘Cash Madams’ as well as programs promoting democracy and good governance.

Recently, she began collaborating with Nollywood directors.

“Documentaries reach a certain segment of the population but not everyone is attracted to documentaries, so halfway through we said lets try and be more popular, she said from CFC’s offices tucked away on a quiet street in Ikeja, a commercial hub here.

Back in 2002, CFC produced an attention grabbing 52-part radio drama on conflict resolution, exam fraud, cultism, health education and more.

Their  method is simple.

CFC  makes programming aimed at changing behavior, but using research data on problems in the country. 

When the HIV/AIDS began to severely impact Nigerian youth CFC produced seven dramas  based on the experiences of youth in the oil producing Bayelsa state.  

(See clip here)

Many dealt with navigating safe sex issues on college campuses, unplanned pregnancies where the young fathers disappear, and the severity of not seeking counseling testing for HIV after unsafe sexual behavior.

 “The films are a synthesis of the research. Everything that came into the film you can trace it back to something someone said in the field.  That link with the audience, what works, what doesn’t what is believable and what is not has been a big factor in our success,” Obiago added.

 When U.N. statistics showed the Nigeria had the second highest rate of maternal mortality in the world with some 144 women dying daily attributable to pregnancy related complications, CFC embarked on its most ambitious project yet.

They brought in health experts and  screenwriters and took all of them to a seaside resort for some solitude and brainstorming and three issues emerged.

Cultural barriers to seeking treatment included complications of early marriages; getting the husband’s permission to go to a hospital and indecision as to when to seek prenatal care.

The idea was to teach screenwriters how to produce dramas using research findings on safe motherhood.

 “It was now up to them to find out how do we pull all of this information together and come up with a fantastic script, not just to inform people or educate people but also to entertain them,” said Bolaji Fati, a producer.

Three shorter films were produced and a 90-minute feature is in development. All were screen in December 2009 at the Silverbird cinemas in here.

The production got a boost when Nigeria’s best known and highest paid director, Teco Benson, agreed to direct two installments pro bono.

Benson is known for his horror movie Six Demons and hit Mission to Nowhere.

“I was attracted by the topic and the credibility of CFC,” Benson a former head of the Association of Movie Producers.(AMP) who also runs TPF studios.

 He said his own interest in public health made him accept the job even though he had a big project on hand.

 “They have really done works that touch on virtually all works of life. And the amazing thing is that they spend a lot of time and resources in research with a view to educating the viewers and changing their bad attitudes,” the director added.

 CFC is a nonprofit and its maternal mortality project was made using some funds from the New York based, Ford Foundation.

In February 2010, at least 60 of the some 100 TV stations executives saw the films.   CFC is providing the series as usual to them for a nominal fee (about $300). The stations will air the works repeatedly for the next year.  TV stations rarely commission their own work.

Silverbid Cinemas, the largest movie chain in sub-Saharan Africa, is supporting the project by airing them in its cinemas as previews to its main events.  Its television arm, will air them.

 Even with the 100 TV stations and close to 5,000 cinema screens CFC keeps looking for means to get its message out.

It has partnered with luxury bus companies that transport the bulk of Nigerians from city to city and provides DVDs or videocassettes to drivers to screen the films.

“The whole point is that  we are trying to be popular, we are trying to reach out to the grassroots, we are trying to use visual language that is understood,” Obiago said.

Going forward, CFC has signed agreements to have its films translated and broadcast in East Africa and marketed elsewhere as they try to change attitudes around the continent.

Nigerians struggle to understand why a privileged son tried to become a bomber.

By Frankie Edozien— Special to GlobalPost

Published: January 1, 2010 09:15 ET

 ABUJA Nigeria — Nigerians are still struggling to come to terms with the news that Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of one of this country’s most prominent and wealthiest bankers, allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it landed in Detroit on Dec. 25.

“The man who shamed Nigeria,” is what the local newspaper, “The Guardian,” dubbed Abdulmutallab.

In a country where the majority of people live on just $2 a day, people are asking how someone who’s been born and reared with a golden spoon in his mouth could throw it all away?

And if the privileged young man could be drawn by Islamic extremism into a suicide bombing plot, what does this say of about Nigeria’s efforts to encourage its Muslim and Christian populations to live together peacefully? Muslims make up about 50 percent of Nigeria’s 149 million people, while Christians comprise 40 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up a passenger-filled airliner has left Nigerians angry and puzzled. And it comes at a time when officials here are trying to improve Nigeria’s image.

“This singular act has done unquantifiable damage to the nascent re-branding project,” said Steven Douglas, an executive with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. “He was simply unenlightened and stupid to allow himself to be used.”

Abdulmutallab’s father Umaru Abdulmutallab, 71, is at the top of the heap of the Nigerian elite, and has been for years. His 16 children and two wives share massive homes around the world. His home on Asa Street in the tony Maitama district of Abuja is palatial, as is his country home in the sleepy Funtua in the nearby Katsina state.

He just retired as chairman on First Bank, one of the nation’s largest, after serving on its board for 13 years. And before that he ran the large United Bank for Africa (UBA). For decades Abdulmutallab, has worked the corridors of power here, serving as a federal minister, as far back as 1975 and currently heading up the current president’s Business Support Group. He has racked up national honors over the years.

In a country where some 90 percent of the people struggle economically, Abdulmutallab’s wealth allowed him to give his son, Farouk, an international education that most Nigerians can only dream of.

Abdulmutallab sent his son to a posh boarding school, the British International School in Lome, Togo and then to the University College, London, where his son lived in swanky apartment. The younger Abdulmutallab seemed destined for success.

After graduating in the U.K., the quiet young man, who was dubbed “alpha” and “the pope” because of his saintly ways, went off to Dubai for post-graduate studies.

He never completed them and reportedly left due to nonpayment of fees. The younger Abdulmutallab instead went to Yemen to study Arabic. By August he was severing ties with his family and his worried father was calling the U.S. embassy to warn of his son, who he was worried was now under the sway of extremists.

The son re-entered Nigeria on Dec. 24 in order to board the KLM flight to Amsterdam that same night. He used an e-ticket that had been purchased from Accra, Ghana. And he boarded the international flight with just one piece of hand luggage and no checked in luggage, which is most unusual in Nigeria, where traveling light means two checked bags.

“The man in question has been living outside the country for awhile. He sneaked into Nigeria on Dec. 24 and left the same day,” said Dora Akunyili, Nigeria’s information minister.

From the bustling seaside metropolis of Lagos with its searing skyscrapers, to the red soil dirt roads of Asaba, on the banks of the River Niger, Nigerians can’t understand what has transpired. And it’s the talk of many towns.

“It is a reflection of poor family values but more importantly it is a clear evidence of the disadvantage of allowing very young children to live a life away from family from a very young age,” said Ifeanyi Ukoha, 39, a banker in Lagos. “The young man’s values would have been so mixed up thus opening him up to extremism.”

Ukoha added: “Nigerians in the diaspora will suffer in terms of a renewed perception as terrorists. Already Nigerians are grappling with issues relating to immigration abuse and advanced fee fraud.”

Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan said Abdulmutallab’s actions may lead to a clampdown on all Nigerians.

“A Nigerian has created an additional problem for us by wanting to blow up an aircraft,” he said after a church service here. “That means that those Nigerians who travel out of this country will be subjected to unnecessary harassments and searches.”

Timothy Obiorah, 43, an oil and gas industry manager concurred: “Everyone will be a suspect now. This was the bleakest Christmas in this country.”

One Detroit-based businessman who landed in Abuja right after Christmas said that when he withdrew thousands of dollars from an American bank for his trip, he did not want to tell the teller that he was traveling to Nigeria, because of the hysteria about Abdulmutallab.

“I said I was heading to Kampala [Uganda],” said the traveler. “With all this stuff, she might have thought to herself, out of an abundance of caution, to call the FBI and say ‘this black guy just withdrawn all this money and is heading to Nigeria.’ I just don’t want the hassle.”

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

ABUJA

International travelers flying out of Nigeria’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos during the Christmas season are used to being hassled by security. Usually, it’s a demand for tips and gifts. At every point of contact with officials, from check-in to final boarding, the requests are constant.

As a result, many passengers familiar with the Lagos airport aren’t surprised that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young man accused of trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit, could have boarded his flight with liquid explosives. “They tell you, Take your shoes off, take your boots off, take your belt off, but the woman who is looking at the X-ray machine is looking at you to give her a tip,” says Victor Chidi Asaba-One, 41, a businessman who shuttles between Detroit and Lagos about 20 times a year, often on the same KLM and Northwest flights that Abdulmutallab used.

The 23-year-old son of one of Nigeria’s wealthiest men and most prominent bankers has lived outside Nigeria for years and had severed ties with his family. On Dec. 24 he re-entered Nigeria and boarded a KLM flight to Amsterdam that same night. He used an e-ticket that had been purchased in Accra, Ghana.

Shortly after the thwarted bombing attempt, Nigerian authorities stressed that its airports had recently passed the International Civil Aviation audit and just last month passed a Transportation Security Administration audit as well. “However, in light of our new developments, we have reinforced our security systems in all our airports,” said Information Minister Dora Akunyili.

Nevertheless, Ifeanyi Ukoha, 39, a banker in Lagos who flies from the Lagos airport regularly, insists the security at Murtala Muhammed International Airport is comparatively lax. “Unauthorized persons are allowed beyond the stipulated point mostly because they are in uniform,” he says. “And security personnel will keep soliciting gratification, especially during festive seasons.”

Other passengers say screening processes, particularly at Lagos, are geared toward looking for drugs. In fact, there is an additional checkpoint for local drug enforcement once passengers have passed customs and immigration.

At the airport in Lagos, as well as the one in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, passengers are now subjected to extra screening, with officials there saying everyone will now be subjected to body-screening. “It’s a joke, man,” Asaba-One says. “They may have functioning X-ray machines, even though they are older, but I’m not sure the person looking at the screen even knows what to look for. If, for example, I had a liquid explosive that is going through it, will they be able to tell the difference between a liquid bottle of Coke versus a liquid bottle of PETN? I don’t think they can tell. I know they can’t tell.”

Some passengers also know that liquid gels in plastic containers less than 100 ml don’t set off magnetometers. They say they simply put them in their pockets and let their shirts hang over them as they walk through airport checkpoints in Nigeria — and head for Europe and the U.S.

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It’s been five years since the designer emporium Cloth debuted in a brownstone on a quiet side street — Fort Greene Place, off Hanson.

Back then, compared to the longstanding boutiques on Fulton Street, Cloth was the upscale newcomer.

But with little fanfare, owner Zoë van de Wiele has built up a clientele and a reputation as the woman to see for stylish duds that won’t break the bank.

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