Saturday 26 January 2013

Anueyiagu, Offoedu-Okeke… Giving contemporary African art a boost


By Anote Ajeluorou

Africa is regarded as ahistoric continent, with outsiders narrators giving it grudging space for whatever history latter day narrators, mostly from the continent, may ascribe to it. Contemporary efforts to accord the continent its proper place in history have therefore met with resistance. But the continent’s historical narrators have wielded all manners of weapons in their arsenal – be they historicism, art or other humanistic endeavours – to unsay what has been negatively said about Africa. The result is that the world is beginning to listen, with a keen ear!
  Several prominent names have been spurned amongst the wronged children of the continent who are fighting the ahistoric status of Africa. One such young ones is a visual artist, Onyema Offoedu-Okeke, whose accomplishment as an artist, has been brought into fuller perspective by the publication of a coffee-table book of his works entitled, Contemporary African Art: My Private Collection of Onyema Offoedu-Okeke (Brown Bommel Ltd, Lagos; 2011) by Dr. Okey Anueyiagu.
  This kind of defining publication is only recently becoming part of Africa’s art patrimony with the dire awareness that Eurocentric dominance of art discourses at the international scene has been taking place for too long now at the expense of Africa’s huge contribution to world knowledge. This position is affirmed by one of the contributors to the volume, Prof. Sheri Fafunwa-Ndibe, who declaimed the marginal position African art has occupied until very recently when the continent’s scholars, researchers and cultural producers began to mount articulate megaphones in defence of the need to accord it its glorious in world discourse.
  As she submits in her piece ‘Global Importance and Impact of Contemporary African Art’, “…some critics have chosen to be stuck in the static discourse. They have succumbed to the temptation to view any African art that employs ‘modern materials’ and technology somehow non-traditional, lacking authenticity and originality. In fact, such art is often deemed illegitimate or corrupted”.
  On the other hand, works of Offoedu-Okeke and others of his ilk have become really dominant in recent years in espousing Africa’s cultural philosophy, as Fafunwa-Ndibe states, “In the 21st century, contemporary African art seems to be asserting itself in an extraordinary way. At any rate, it has begun to receive some of the attention and focus it so richly deserves. In the last five years, the world has witnessed an explosion in the contemporary art market”.
  This explosion is easily credited to the astounding works of masters artists Ben Enwonwu, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Yusuf Grillo and younger artists like Offoedu-Okeke and many of his peers who are redefining the landscape of artistic performances in ways never before known since colonialism. It is against this backdrop that Offoedu-Okeke’s work can be viewed.
  And in putting this book together, Anueyiagu has lent a big hand both in boosting the artistic repertoire of Offoedu-Okeke and raising the profile of African art. In this wise, Offoedu-Okeke’s work shows the necessary continuum between ancient African art so much idolized by the West on account of it having gone into stasis, with colonialism interrupting its flowering, and modern cultural productions that are advancing the frontiers of African art and intellect.
  Five eminent, informed commentators, who are art scholars and art historians contributed to the book. They take different narrative approaches to Offoedu-Okeke’s works and explicate his styles, techniques, media and themes. These eminent critics and scholars provide viable lenses through which to view Offoedu-Okeke’s painterly endeavours and the unique place he occupies in contemporary art discourse. While Prof. Chike Aniakor in the foreword examines the ‘Legibility of Art as a Vector of Aesthetic Experience’ of the works of Offoedu-Okeke, the art collector and documentarist, Anuenyiagu provides the introduction; Fafunwa-Ndibe’s piece has been aforementioned.
  Also, Dr. Ozioma Onuzulike writes on the ‘Pictorial Scripture and Colourful Lines: The Art of Onyema Offoedu-Okeke’ while Dr. Francis Ugiomo writes on ‘Still in Search of an African Renaissance: Re-mapping the Past in the Contemporary’. Capping off the commentary is a director with Standard Chartered Bank, London, Mr. Richard Howarth. These informed commentators have shared and experienced of the rich banquet that is Offoedu-Okeke’s artistic work and poured their heart in it.
  In foreword, Prof. Aniakor sums up Offoedu-Okeke’s works thus, “Undeniably, his works delight in the seamless range of their compositional phrasings, as well as the kinetics of colours, under the effect of ennobling brush work. These I contend serve as ample vectors of aesthetic experience, fore grounded by the fecundity of his creative imagination”.
  In this apt summation, Aniakor points out the direction of Offoedu-Okeke’s painterly vision. His works traverse a wide range of issues and subjects as he has lived them in his social discourse; these subjects he has also skillfully narrated in this rare presentation by Anueyiagu. The range of Offoedu-Okeke’s art is astonishing, as he succeeds in bringing together visions of the past, problems of the present and prospects to come. His art traverses ancient art type of masks and other ancestral totems and modern concerns.
  This wide-ranging artistic vision thrusts Offoedu-Okeke into the forefront of Africa’s cultural workers seeking to replace old, useless paradigms with new visions of a continent that had long been maligned as capable of shaping its own destiny, with its energetic young talent. Indeed, Offoedu-Okeke’s talent, which became noticeable at an early age, has been deployed to good effect to project both himself and his continent.
  Anueyiagu has done contemporary African art great service with this publication. It’s hoped that others art patrons and collectors will emulate him in the march to reposition a much marginalized continent in world’s historical discourse of knowledge production for which Africa is also undeniably renowned with its talented human resource.

Chukwu wins Literary Star Search contest


By Anote Ajeluorou

A winner has emerged for the grassroots short story contest Literary Star Search competition. The prize is worth N1 million. The winner is Bonaventure O. Chukwu. He won with his short story ‘Mother’. The prize-winner was announced last Saturday, January 19, at Nustreams Conference and Culture Centre, Kilometre 110, Ibadan at the first edition of Ibadan foremost literary and art event, Artmosphere, which had ‘Timeline’ as theme.
  Chukwu’s ‘Mother’ beat two other writers - 'Chasing Lizards' by M.S.C. Okolo and 'The Woman without a Name' by Bode Asiyanbi – to win the maiden edition of the prize.
  While addressing a gathering of writers and artistes at the event, spokesperson for the prize Seun Jegede commended Chukwu for his winning story and urged other writers to emulate him and participate in the next edition of the contest to be announced soon. He said although writers were in a minority, but a vocal minority and urged them to bind together so as to be heard loud and clear.
  Earlier, three writers and a songster had treated the audience to poetry, spoken words and music. This was spiced up with the interrogation of the difference between spoken word performance and traditional poetry and their relevance in addressing social issues.
  Author of Antonyms of Mirrage, Atilola Moronfolu, who does not subscribe to being called a poet, was the first to perform. With the fluidity of an eel, Morunfolu spoke her words to her audience. First she did ‘The Wrestler’, which narrates her unwilling contest with life and its many uninvited struggles that confront a man or woman even he or she is not ready to face up to it. But having been knocked down several times by life’s many struggles, the persona is compelled to square up to the challenges life throws up. With the supernatural power of the most high God, the persona is finally able to overcome life’s challenges.
  Her second performance was ‘Akani Street and the Atheist’ in which the persona takes a swipe at modern-day Pentecostal churches that make many a neighbourhoods living hell on account of the cacophonous noises that emanates from their ‘spirit-filled’ activities. She wonders whether such negative activities do not negate the spirit of the love of neighbour, which is the foundation of Christian doctrine preached by Jesus the Christ!
  Ironically, for raising her voice against the noise pollution being generated by these churches in Nigeria’s neighbourhoods, Moronfolu is often seen as an atheist. In response, she performs another one titled ‘The Atheist’ in which she lampoons the dominant hypocrisy being peddled by many a Christian in their daily negation of the confused doctrines they affirm.
  On her part, founder of Pathway Initiative and womanist poet, Funmi Aluko rendered ‘The Hood’ in which she confronts issues of womanhood, her place in a patriarchal society and how she could break free of inhibiting barriers erected against her. And in ‘Seasons’, Aluko went down memory lane to the days of social upheavals in Nigeria, with dictators swashbuckling and squelching many a dream in their deranged mentality. A folklorist to the core, Aluko did not perform without first engaging her audience with folk songs in the song and response format.
  In between the two female performers, a student of English Department, University of Ibadan, Rasaq Malik also performed his dark poem, ‘Song of a dying nation’. Michael Obot performed songs to thrill the audience while Nwachukwu Egbunike read hilarious, satirical pieces from his collection of essays Dyed Thoughts.
  While Moronfolu argued that she was comfortable with her spoken word genre that is fast gaining ascendancy because of its accessibility, noting that traditional poetry was too difficult to understand even though she liked the folk songs Aluko sang before her performances. Aluko, on the other hand, said poetry needed not be seen in that light. She also noted that poetry without its baggage of the tradition and culture of the people that it embodies would be meaningless poetry if it merely dredges up current issues.
  A respondent in the audience stated that there something wrong with the way Nigeria’s education was structured with students no longer interested in deepening their knowledge on things around. He added that whether spoken word or so-called traditional poetry, people needed to immense themselves in learning else society becomes shallow. He also said even with the hiphop culture from America, Americans still read the traditional poets and other deep philosophic materials that at the core of their development.
  He charged Nigerians to take education seriously ands stop the dichotomy between science and arts in secondary schools. This way, he noted, the perennial complaint that Wole Soyinka is a difficult writer would be overcome! He noted that Nigeria’s educational system has retrogressed so much in recent years with mass failures in national examinations as evidence that something drastic has to be done to save the country’s continuing slide in fortunes. The fellow also informed that between Moronfolu’s spoken word performance and Aluko’s rendering of ‘traditional’ poetry, which is seen as difficult, there were underlying messages about society and the need to save humanity from anti-social elements bent on making life difficult for everyone else.
  In other words, both forms of poetic performances spoke to the human condition using the primary mode of communication, words as vehicle. While spoken word relies on a fast-flowing, rap style of evoking scenic situations, the other is more deliberate and invokes deep images that conjure emotions. Both Aluko and Moronfolu showed the seeming polarity between two sides of poetic performances, with the spoken word appealing to the hiphop, younger people and the other reserved for older, mature people. Yet the two forms can also have fans in both generations, so long they speak to the human condition, as the two performers did last Saturday!

Sunday 20 January 2013


Literature Prize Winner, Unigwe,  To Be Honoured In Nsukka

By Anote Ajeluorou

Belgium-based Nigerian writer, Chika Unigwe, winner of The Nigeria Prize for Literature 2012 in the prose fiction category, will be honoured at her alma mater, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Enugu State on Tuesday, January 29, 2013. The event will hold at Princess Alexandra Auditorium of the university.
  Unigwe had her first degree in English Language and Literature at the same university. She is also the author of Phoenix and several other short stories. On Black Sisters’ Street is the title of the winning work. Her  forthcoming works is titled Night Dancer.
  Awarding Africa’s most prestigious literary prize worth US$100,000 and sponsored by gas company, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), to the winner at her roots is part of the innovations that organisers have made to reposition the prize and endear it to the literary community and the reading public at large.
  Also, a statement from the company’s media officer, Anne-Marie Palmer-Ikuku, said Unigwe would also be hosted to reading sessions in Lagos in the days after receiving the prize. Her first stop will be at Bogobiri in Ikoyi on January 31 at 6pm. On February 1st, Unigwe will also read at Bookville, Opposite Federal Secretariat building, Ikoyi at 4pm. She will round off her reading tour the following day, February 2nd at Debonairs at 4pm.
  Unigwe beat two other writers - Olusola Olugbesan’s Only A Canvass and Ngozi Achebe Onaedo’s The Blacksmith’s Daughter – to emerge winner.
  Unigwe’s winning work On Black Sister’s Street opens the raw wounds of female trafficking for prostitution purposes still rampant in some parts of Nigeria and Africa generally, as a means of escaping the economic hardship prevalent on the continent. The Belgium-based writer’s work explores the dark under-world of the criminal ring that profits from this obnoxious trade in feminine flesh and some of the unfortunate ends of the victims.
  Unigwe’s novel does not look away from the grim fatality of the sex trade, its trauma on both the women being trafficked and their families and its corrosive effect on society at large. On Black Sister’s Street, like Wale Adenuga’s current ‘Super Story’ series, Itohan: A Call to Action, lends a portent weapon to several efforts aimed at stemming the tide of the evil trans-border sex slave.
  Members of the panel of judges that decided the 2012 prize included Prof. J.O.J. Agbaja, Prof. Angela Miri, Prof. Sophia Ogwude, and Dr. Oyeniyi Okunoye. The panel had the Provost of the Colleges of Humanities at Kwara State University and Fellow of the Dubois Institute, Harvard University, Prof. Francis Abiola Irele.
  Undoubtedly, bringing Unigwe back to her old university to receive her prize is a major first by the prize organisers in deepening its value. It would be a big boost for both students and staff of the Department of English and Literature of UNN and the university community generally. Particularly for the students, Unigwe’s prize will serve as a perfect exhibition of excellence for which they must aspire.
  Also, Unigwe is the second winner since opening up the prize to include Nigerian writers living abroad. Coincidentally, the first Diaspora writer to win the prize two years ago was also an alumnus of the sane department as Unigwe. Former U.S.-based Esiaba Irobi won in the drama category with his combative play Cemetery Road; he died in Germany before he was announced winner.
  Nsukka, indeed, can be proud of its products and honouring this year’s winner in rustic Nsukka university town will further raise the profile of the university, as a center of literary excellence, a tradition it must continue to uphold for generations to come.

ALSO, among the innovative ideas being brought to improve the prize, organisers announced recently in a parley in Lagos was to bring an external consultant from outside Nigeria to complement judges’ efforts, especially when the final three writers would have been announced and shortlisted. Prize board chairman and emeritus professor, Prof. Ayo Banjo had said at the forum said that the initiative would give the prize both international status and enhanced credibility.
  More than this, he also noted the move would help obviate the notion of ‘ghetto’ judges sometimes cynically ascribed to the judges usually made up only of university professors from some quarters. It would seem integrating non-university professor among the judges is about the only idea yet to be assimilated into the prize regime in spite of arguments so far made for it. An external consultant is just about the way the board is ready to go for now.
  Another novel idea to the prize regime also announced recently was the ‘Critical Essay Prize’ worth N1 million. This prize will be awarded for a critical essay or review of a Nigerian literary work each year, but which must be published in a renowned international journal by Nigerian critics both home and abroad. According to organisers, the Critical Essay Prize takes cognizance of the pivotal role critics play in the evolution of literary creativity. The prize will indeed serve as a further boost to Nigerian literature, organisers envisage.

Unusual Bar, Lounge For Art, Intellectual Discourse


By Anote Ajeluorou

It has become somewhat of a given that when you want to discuss art or hold any other intellectual discourse in the city of Lagos, the place to go is on the island, Victoria Island, to be precise. It boosts of venues that have the right ambiences for just such matters. And so from art exhibitions to book readings and discussions, book launches and other intellectually stimulating discourses, Victoria Island is the place of choice.
  But this may soon change with the opening of a new, posh restaurant, bar and lounge on the mainland, specifically in the city’s capital, Ikeja, at one of its highbrow areas, Opebi Road. It’s called Forks & Fingers located at Salvation Road Junction on Opebi Road, Ikeja, Lagos. It’s an ingenuous creation, a vast, open space set in dinning style manner, but with compartments set further deep inside to guarantee homely cosiness that is alluring and salutary.
  Founded by commercial law expert, Mr. Andrew Akporugo, Forks & Fingers will delight families wishing to dine out or simply hang out in a place just as good as home and even more. Akporugo simply described his new place as a “Thinking man’s bar, lounge and restaurant; a meeting place for business people and intellectuals. There are books available for intellectual discourses; projectors and meeting cubicles for meetings and seminars for five to 10 people. It’s a family place for children as well as adults alike. There are ayo and ludo games to delight family and friends, with a wine bar that is arrayed with assorted drinks plus food. Mark you, Forks & Fingers is not a night club”.
  The cuisine is a rich blend of favourite local and continental dishes that are fairly priced. It offers a special buffet on Sundays, an after-church brunch from 11 – 3pm, where families can first digest their sermons before getting home.
  The interior décor of Forks & Fingers speaks volumes about the artistic and intellectual taste of its owner. On Tuesdays, Forks & Fingers hosts a book club from 7 -10pm, where guests freely and openly discuss books and sundry issues such as politics and businesses. On his taste for art collection that dominates the décor, from paintings to ironworks, Akporugo said at Forks & Fingers, “Has a mentally stimulating at ambience – from the art décor, setting to the acquarium, bookshelves and old music tunes spilling from the Home Theatre.
  On his passion for the collected artworks he privately holds (over 631 works of different artists) and from which he has lavishly decorated Forks & Fingers, Akporugo stated that he would hold an exhibition in the future to show off some the works. Among his favourite artists are Olu Ajayi, Sam Ovraiti, Tony Ebodaghe and Soji Yoloye. He said Yoloye is probably the master painter soon to explode on Nigeria’s art scene on account of his immense productivity and profuse use of colours.
  Akporugo, son of latte renowned journalist who rose to the height of his career at The Guardian as Executive Consultant, said although he has set up Forks & Fingers, he was not quitting law practice. Having trained and worked at the feet of Goodie Ibru at his Goodie Ibru & Co law chambers for 20 years, and headed the firm for 10 years, Akporugo indicated he could never have had a more fulfilling law training and practice than he did at Goodie Ibru & Co law firm.
  He noted, “Ibru has been training me to offload me into the world. I had absolutely no problem with my mentor for leaving; it’s just a mutual agreement. He’s my boss for life. Even in this restaurant, I’m in the line of what my oga (Ibru as owners of Sheraton Hotel & Towers group) is doing; learning more from him how to manage a service delivery firm. Don’t forget, my late father, Akporugo, a first class journalist, was a close associates of the late Dr. Alex Ibru”.

ACCORDING to Akporugo, what makes the difference between success and failure in any endeavour in life is the amount of details put into it. That is why at Forks & Fingers, he has taken special care not just to tastefully make the place homely with the décor, he said the amount of care put in place to serve customers was something to cherish. In businesses today, he noted, “The difference will be made for people who go for details. How much attention do you pay to details? I’m committed to details. I look at how the drink is served to a customer, how a customer is handled. Everything I do is with details both as a lawyer and restauranteur.
  “You see, in Nigeria we are wealthy without having class. We have too many wealthy people who don’t know how to do simple things like handling cutleries. We need finishing schools for a majority of Nigerians to get the simplest things right. So, at Forks & Fingers, we want to connect people with class. Unfortunately, most Nigerians think class is expensive; it’s not. For instance, people don’t know that Sheraton Hotel is the most affordable place to eat; it’s not, especially food.
  “So, what you find is that there are a lot of beer parlours springing up everywhere in dark places without class. This should not be so. At Forks & Fingers, we combine class with moderate pricing”.

Thursday 17 January 2013

Palm Lines… of love, home and exile


By Anote Ajeluorou

Germany-based Aka Teraka’s collection of poems Palm Lines (Boxwood Publishing House, U.S.; 2012), which can only be obtained online at Amazon for now, is a lyrical delight, an offering that coalesces thoughts about diverse issues into one tidy whole. The volume is moving poetry that takes the reader through the many labyrinths of Teraka’s very fertile imagination as he ruminates on the human condition and tries to locate himself within that broad canvas.
  The five-part poetry collection is at once a journey and a destination both for the author and those fortunate to read it. It also casts a backward and forward glance at his roots and his current shared space in a foreign land and the contradictory intersections that shape the lived experiences. For an artist – musician, poet and linguist living abroad, in Germany, Teraka’s very exploratory and experiential poetry offers an avenue to the human spirit in quest of freedom through the few chinks it can find and the joys awaiting it on the other side.
  But particularly, the notion of love in its many ambivalent shapes and contours runs through this compact collection. It is a love shaped by many experiences not least is the love for a woman, in this case, a white woman. Intermingled with this love is the anguish of exile and the longing for a troubled home still mired in self-ruination at its inability to create order. But in all of this, there is the poet’s self-exultation that, as a free spirit, he is still able to find joy in small things, not least, the love of his woman and the inescapable hope that the future can only get better.
  From Part 1 ‘The Cracked Mirror’s Bottom’, which pertain to things gone awry and the loss of innocence or complete loss of human direction. But in all these, there’s the faint hope of renewal, as the poet reflects in the poem, ‘Resurfacing’, ‘Your disgrace/Reflected on my bottom/Wiped with tears across your lost face/Mirrored in anguish ambush- / Be of good cheer-/The dew/Washed the exposed leaf clean each time/The cock crows again.’
  Always, the poet’s humanity comes to the fore with his expressed belief in the possibility of a dignified human spirit and what it can do in spite of the many shackles ranged against it. It is this triumph of the human spirit that Teraka sings most joyfully about even during moments of acute despair occasioned by acts of human error that sometimes plunge humanity into the abyss.
  This position he affirms in the poem, ‘The Thirst Commandment’, when he says in the last stanza, ‘Understanding is/A fragment of that/Cracked mirror’s bottom./Return from space ship/Bewildered scientist/The greater mystery is humanity’. Here, there is abiding faith in humanity as healing point to a chaotic world. What is uppermost is ‘understanding’ as precondition to the ‘cracked mirror’s bottom’ or the fragmented world.
  He encounters this ‘cracked mirror’s bottom’ in his love relationship with his ‘white wife’ in the racial slurs that easily mire such black and white love affairs. In spite of this racial madness, the poet persona is startled that the woman he loves sticks by him nonetheless. Not even the ending of that relationship, as it often happens, sways the persona otherwise, when he says almost in triumphant irony, ‘Love is a mysterious path/If you see me crying bitterly, do not comfort me/My joy is an enigmatic wonder performed by my pain.’
  In Part 2 ‘Crunchteeth of Reality’, Teraka takes a look at the harsh reality in his home land and the gruelling conditions that daily assail lives from armed robberies to plane crashes to thieving politicians and bad governance. In ‘The Goodbye Bird’, Teraka, like most of his countrymen and women, is tired of the frequent plane crashes that cause loss of lives. So, he says, ‘Tell your master/Trust is no flight of mere imagination/That will rise again from its ashes/When it dips and crashes…/The very sky/has spat us out/in discontent!’
  On the corrupt political actors waging a war against the people, he asserts in ‘Oil-drunkard’, ‘Tolotolo longa throat/Oil-drinker/I hear you coughing…/Your cough syrup is counterfeit/Shipped in from India or China/Fake drugs, Swiss accounts, a hundred mansions/Will not get rid of the black smoke/Stuck in your throat/So come… let slap your back!’ Or is it the hypocrisy plaguing the land in the guise of religion? Teraka is humourless, as he states in the last stanza of ‘Intersecular’, ‘Monday is the new Sunday./If you want to meet God,/Look for Him on Monday-/On Sunday, Saturday and Friday He is far away/Tired of our hypocrisy.’
  In Part 3 ‘Kissing the Palm Groove’, Teraka goes back to the theme of love as the all-healing balm to a troubled world, as he sings in ‘And there was life’, ‘’Tis no cliché/When God said let there be love/We heard let there be light’. In ‘Tracing The Palm Groove’, he also asserts that in spite of the differences people tend to see in the world, the one unifying vision is love that melts boundaries of colour, race, religion and ideology, ‘Like a glove/Her palm fit into mine/I saw her struggling/with the shock/Recognition brought.../ We clasp hands and become a palm nation’.
  The symbolism of palm as peace offering in both African and Christian religious theology is tellingly asserted in this poem as with the collection’s title Palm Lines.
  In Part 4 ‘Free Spirit’, the poet pursues the artistic ideal of the human spirit free to roam in a world without the inhibiting boundaries society often imposes on those willing to seek and dare beyond the ordinary. In Part 5 ‘Come-Promised Land’, Teraka takes his quest to a promised future of possible bliss. But in exile, he finds this almost impossible and is forced to look backwards to his home land for possible redemption of his humanity that exile often abuses in its many nuanced rejections.
  So in ‘Renaissance’, his ambivalent is ripe like a puss, ‘I thought it was a river running/But the Niger is quiet these days/Silenced at gunpoint/Now the iroko too seeks refuge over seas…/Look back! Your roots are tugging at you/Awaken from your winter sleep!’ The last poem becomes an anthem of sorts to hopeful sojourns in foreign lands from an insider, one who still lives there. It’s ominously three short stanzas sum up the reality of foreign lands, especially what Europe really is: Rather than give anything to those seeking a better life over there, Europe gives a huge lie instead, ‘They are taking, taking/what they lack/More than what they give-/they need More to live.’
  Simply put, Teraka’s is an accomplished collection of lyrical poems that dredges the totality of the human condition on its chosen subjects. It’s a joyful read!

Unigwe to be honoured at home base, Nsukka


By Anote Ajeluorou

Belgium-based Nigerian writer, Chika Unigwe, winner of The Nigeria Prize for Literature 2012 in the prose fiction category, will be honoured at her alma mater, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Enugu State on Tuesday, January 29, 2013. The event will hold at Princess Alexandra Auditorium of the university.
  Unigwe had her first degree in English Language and Literature at the same university. She is also the author of Phoenix and several other short stories. On Black Sisters’ Street is the title of the winning work. Her  forthcoming works is titled Night Dancer.
  Awarding Africa’s most prestigious literary prize worth US$100,000 and sponsored by gas company, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), to the winner at her roots is part of the innovations that organisers have made to reposition the prize and endear it to the literary community and the reading public at large.
  Also, a statement from the company’s media officer, Anne-Marie Palmer-Ikuku, said Unigwe would also be hosted to reading sessions in Lagos in the days after receiving the prize. Her first stop will be at Bogobiri in Ikoyi on January 31 at 6pm. On February 1st, Unigwe will also read at Bookville, Opposite Federal Secretariat building, Ikoyi at 4pm. She will round off her reading tour the following day, February 2nd at Debonairs at 4pm.
  Unigwe beat two other writers - Olusola Olugbesan’s Only A Canvass and Ngozi Achebe Onaedo’s The Blacksmith’s Daughter – to emerge winner.
  Unigwe’s winning work On Black Sister’s Street opens the raw wounds of female trafficking for prostitution purposes still rampant in some parts of Nigeria and Africa generally, as a means of escaping the economic hardship prevalent on the continent. The Belgium-based writer’s work explores the dark under-world of the criminal ring that profits from this obnoxious trade in feminine flesh and some of the unfortunate ends of the victims.
  Unigwe’s novel does not look away from the grim fatality of the sex trade, its trauma on both the women being trafficked and their families and its corrosive effect on society at large. On Black Sister’s Street, like Wale Adenuga’s current ‘Super Story’ series, Itohan: A Call to Action, lends a portent weapon to several efforts aimed at stemming the tide of the evil trans-border sex slave.
  Members of the panel of judges that decided the 2012 prize included Prof. J.O.J. Agbaja, Prof. Angela Miri, Prof. Sophia Ogwude, and Dr. Oyeniyi Okunoye. The panel had the Provost of the Colleges of Humanities at Kwara State University and Fellow of the Dubois Institute, Harvard University, Prof. Francis Abiola Irele.
  Undoubtedly, bringing Unigwe back to her old university to receive her prize is a major first by the prize organisers in deepening its value. It would be a big boost for both students and staff of the Department of English and Literature of UNN and the university community generally. Particularly for the students, Unigwe’s prize will serve as a perfect exhibition of excellence for which they must aspire.
  Also, Unigwe is the second winner since opening up the prize to include Nigerian writers living abroad. Coincidentally, the first Diaspora writer to win the prize two years ago was also an alumnus of the sane department as Unigwe. Former U.S.-based Esiaba Irobi won in the drama category with his combative play Cemetery Road; he died in Germany before he was announced winner.
  Nsukka, indeed, can be proud of its products and honouring this year’s winner in rustic Nsukka university town will further raise the profile of the university, as a center of literary excellence, a tradition it must continue to uphold for generations to come.

ALSO, among the innovative ideas being brought to improve the prize, organisers announced recently in a parley in Lagos was to bring an external consultant from outside Nigeria to complement judges’ efforts, especially when the final three writers would have been announced and shortlisted. Prize board chairman and emeritus professor, Prof. Ayo Banjo had said at the forum said that the initiative would give the prize both international status and enhanced credibility.
  More than this, he also noted the move would help obviate the notion of ‘ghetto’ judges sometimes cynically ascribed to the judges usually made up only of university professors from some quarters. It would seem integrating non-university professor among the judges is about the only idea yet to be assimilated into the prize regime in spite of arguments so far made for it. An external consultant is just about the way the board is ready to go for now.
  Another novel idea to the prize regime also announced recently was the ‘Critical Essay Prize’ worth N1 million. This prize will be awarded for a critical essay or review of a Nigerian literary work each year, but which must be published in a renowned international journal by Nigerian critics both home and abroad. According to organisers, the Critical Essay Prize takes cognizance of the pivotal role critics play in the evolution of literary creativity. The prize will indeed serve as a further boost to Nigerian literature, organisers envisage.