Life in My City Art Festival Finale
Enugu Governor Calls for National Development At Nigeria’s Biggest Art Festival
Dignitaries including the Executive Governor of Enugu State, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and the Obi of Onitsha, His Royal Majesty, Igwe Alfred Nnaemeka Achebe called on young people to constructively use their talents to promote Nigerian values, social cohesion and national development.
Governor Ugwuanyi thanked the organisers of the festival for their patriotism and growing the event to be an enabling platform for young Nigerians to share their creativity and by attracting visitors from within and outside the state and the country, firmly put the state on the national tourism map and a path to creating wealth and generating revenue for its people.
Speaking at the exhibition and awards ceremony of the 2019 Life in My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) sponsored by MTN Foundation, which took place at the International Conference Centre, IMT, Enugu on Saturday, 16 November, 2019, the leading traditional ruler, who is also the patron of LIMCAF, said the works on display at the festival were a vivid rendition of today’s relevant issues and encouraged the artists in attendance to emulate the footsteps of the country’s visual legends such as Bruce Onobrakpeya and Yusuf Grillo.
This year’s edition, which was supported by the MTN Foundation, saw young artists thrill seasoned art collectors, celebrities, art lovers with paintings, mixed media creations and sculptures which spoke to the theme, “The Other Side.:
Speaking at the event, celebrated Nigerian printmaker, painter and sculptor, Bruce Onobrakpeya said that LIMCAF was unprecedented in the development of modern contemporary art in Nigeria “because it brings home to everybody, especially to the parents of practitioners the social and economic value of art.”
The art festival, billed as the largest gathering of young artists, patrons, scholars, gallery owners and other stakeholders in the visual arts in Nigeria, was the culmination of a process that saw a record 507 entries from 24 states and eight zonal exhibitions, including showings in Abuja, Benin City, Ibadan, Lagos, Ondo, Port Harcourt, Uyo and Zaria. One hundred artists were chosen to show their creations at the finale.
Speaking at the festival, the Executive Director of the Life in My City Art Festival, Mr Kevin Ejiofor called the finale “an accurate representation of the ability of our young artists to imagine our society in new, bold and provocative ways.”
Also speaking at the event, Mr Dennis Okoro, Director at the MTN Foundation, said the organisation’s support of the event “stems from a desire to see a reawakening of Nigerian arts and culture. He added that “a world without art is a world devoid of colour.”
After a rigorous selection process, Victor Olaoye, whose winning exhibit was a charcoal medium painting titled ‘Angel among gods’ won the 2019 LIMCAF. He won a cash prize of N500,000.00 as well as the honour of representing Nigeria at the Dakar Biennale in Dakar, Senegal in June 2020
The MTN Foundation supported the festival as part of its Arts and Culture Causes, through which it has sponsored some of Nigeria’s most compelling art, poetry and theatre productions. For almost a decade, the Foundation has sponsored acclaimed plays including Fela and the Kalakuta Queens, Agbarho, Jungle Story 2, Emotan and initiatives such the Nigerian Universities Theatre Arts Festival and the Lagos International Poetry Festival to name a few.
UBA Ghana donates Eghosa Imasuen’s book ‘Fine Boys’ to Teshie Library
As part of the ‘UBA Read Africa Project’, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Ghana has donated books entitled “Fine Boys”and authored by renowned writer, Eghosa Imasuen to the Teshie Library, in Accra.
Presenting the books on behalf of the Bank, Mr Emmanuel Efo Dzakpasu, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications, UBA expressed the Bank’s commitment to educate the African child through reading.
He said, “The future of Africa lies in her youth and education is key and the UBA Foundation through the Read Africa Project, is embarking on a passionate journey to make reading a possibility for the African child.”
Mrs Victoria Attipoe, Head of Retail Banking, UBA said their passion for education and empowering the African has led the Bank to initiate the project where the bank encourages students to read books by renowned African authors.”
She said the bank has also undertakes the National Essay Competition where winners are rewarded with scholarships of $5000, $3000 and $2000 to study in any tertiary institution of their choice.
Mr Justice Akitey, the Manager of the Teshie Library and Miss Mercy Abraham, the Library Assistant, received the donations and thanked UBA for its kind gesture and interest in the development of the African child.
Mr Akitey called for a positive attitude towards the Read Africa Project and urged the Bank to do more to help children across Ghana and Africa as a whole.
Since its inception in 2005, UBA Ghana has established its presence in Ghana as a full financial service institution, providing retail, corporate and investment banking services and offers a wide range of unique banking solutions and products to its customers.
The Bank pioneered the entry of a new generation of foreign banks into Ghana in January 2005. UBA Ghana’s presence in the banking industry in Ghana over the last decade has revolutionized banking in the industry, where competitive innovation in responding to the needs of the customers has become the driving force of the industry.
UBA’s world-class customer driven innovations has earned it the confidence of the Ghanaian public; as it continues to provide banking services to a wide variety of customers.
International Men’s Day 2019; Not A Nigerian Thing?
A quick look around the social space today will put things in perspective for you, International Men’s Day doesn’t hold much value, as opposed to it’s more recognized contemporary, International Women’s day.
Women we need to talk.
Don’t the men deserve at least a small mention on our social timelines on the one day that they should be internationally recognized?
We had a few famous handles tweet the required hashtag but that is as far as it went. It would have been a heartbreaking episode but men are taught from a young age to take everything in stride and ‘man up’; a condition which could be closely connected to the high suicide rate in men between the ages of 18-50.
So before the day comes to an unceremonious end, here’s some proper information on what the day is really about, to help the small minority who might not be celebrating men because they have no idea what the day is about.
International Men’s Day (IMD) is an annual international event celebrated on 19 November. The objectives of celebrating an International Men’s Day are set out in “The Six Pillars of International Men’s Day”and include
- focusing on men’s health.
- Focusing on boy’s health.
- improving gender relations.
- promoting gender equality.
- highlighting discrimination against men.
- promoting male role models.
It is an occasion to celebrate boys and men’s achievements and contributions, in particular for their contributions to community, family, marriage, and child care. The broader and ultimate aim of the event is to promote basic humanitarian values.
International Men’s Day is celebrated in over 80 countries, on 19 November, and global support for the celebration is broad.
International Men’s Day is followed by Universal Children’s Day on 20 November, forming a 48-hour celebration of men and children, respectively.
Additionally, the month of November is also occasionally recognized as International Men’s Month. International Men’s Day is supported by a variety of organisations including UNESCO.
Inaugurated in 1992 on 7 February by Thomas Oaster, the project of International Men’s Day was conceived one year earlier on 8 February 1991. The project was re-initialised in 1999 in Trinidad and Tobago.The longest running celebration of International Men’s Day is Malta, where events have occurred since 7 February 1994.
Jerome Teelucksingh, who revived the event, chose 19 November to honour his father’s birthday and also to celebrate how on that date in 1989 Trinidad and Tobago’s football team had united the country with their endeavours to qualify for the World Cup.
Teelucksingh has promoted International Men’s Day as not just a gendered day but a day where all issues affecting men and boys can be addressed. He has said of IMD and its grass roots activists, “They are striving for gender equality and patiently attempt to remove the negative images and the stigma associated with men in our society”
