Beware the culture of Malpractice.

I am certain that you already suspected from my last post that I am not here to talk only about singing and dancing, which a good number of persons conceive when the idea of culture comes up.

I  am an apostle of the position that  "culture is the totality. of the way of life of a people...."  .

Today, I am focusing on the danger that most of us engage in acts and habits which in our opinion have nothing to do with culture. There are many such phenomena in our schools, but my interest today is in the area of Malpractices.

Teachers are not necessarily more guilty than parents. Consider that , whereas teachers and others in the school sysgtem are the engineers or at least conduits of examination malpractices, parents are known to have either induced, sponsored or even partake in these practices.

Two things are to be noted here  ! First is the fact that the child soon begin to take these anomalies as given, as norm. The second is that , that child will sooner or later become a parent or teacher. Would you rightfully expect her to proceed differently than he was taught by example ? NO !

Same goes for malpractices relating to amorous relationships between teachers and their pupils.

Beware ! Thoughts become habit and habits become culture. The Igbo proverb comes to mind here : if taboo lasts a year , it becomes the norm .

The Primary Cultural Influence !

Even with no more than cursory thought, anyone will soon see that a child's primary sources of cultural influence come from two sources - the mother and the teacher.

I know that a lot of you there would rather I replace the word , mother with parents. I have very little to say to the contrary , knowing that fathers do have a chance of playing a role in this respect. My teeny-weeny doubt comes from the awareness that responsible fatherhood dos not come as cheap as responsible motherhood. Anyway, that is assuming that we define fatherhood beyond the provision of money.

Lest I digress, however, I will rather allow that you can replace mother and teacher with parents and teachers if that suits you better.

My worry at this moment is not so much who these primary sources of influence are as much as whether they have appropriate understanding of the term culture, because, if they do not, then how can we expect them to give what they do not possess.

Here then is the time to draw our attention to the fact that, culture can only be properly seen in the perspective of the totality of the way of life of any entity- a people, a family, an association, a company etc.

Whichever of the two categories cited that you belong to, I wish to hereby appeal to you to make a careful study of the responsibility that God has assigned you through your contact with that young life, that toddler, child, teenager, youth .....

On your behalf, I pray God for the grace to succeed.

Constructing the set !

A performance venue in limbo !

One of the great art hotspots of Abuja is the place popularly called Arts and Crafts Village. That of course is not its official title. It is rather the permanent site of the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC).

 In the middle of this great  art space is an amphitheater which has been out of any serious use for quite  a while.It was put to some use recently as rehearsal venue for the forthcoming production of Trials of Brother Jero scheduled to show in Abuja schools from Oct 2015

NCAC Trials 2015 gets its first outing!

On Thursday , the NCAC @ 40 Celebrations took another step forward with a special event for children. Tagged Children's Cultural Variety Day, it was conceived basically as one at which the children would perform to a dominantly children audience and so it was in the main.

Based on the fact that this event shares children interest with another NCAC@40 event,being the production of Trials of Brother Jero,the day's billing was adjusted to include a 15-minute except from that play.

Below are a few pix from the event :

The following are pictures from earlier rehearsals :

I am a prophet ! A prophet by birth and by inclination !

Set me down ! Set me down!! That is his house !

Chief Clerk, is that work !

If I were not one not to think evel of anyone,even you, ......

I am already late for work !

One pound, eight shillings......!

Mind you, the beach is hardly worth having these days!

Hopeful Brother Jero tries to sneak past Amope

Beware, Sister, that is a sinful way to speak !

You are going nowhere till you have done a little bit of my own work.

Is it not money you are going to the market for ?

The fish does smell a bit , doesn't it ?

Maybe it is you that have not a bath for a week !

NCAC is 40 !

The National Council for Arts and Culture, NCAC was brought into legalistic existence in 1975 via Decree No 5 of that year . It has since then been in continuous business of promoting, presenting and preserving the living culture of Nigeria. It is therefore deservedly celebrating its 40th year of existence this year.

Quite a good number of activities have been outlined for this celebration and a few have already been held, notable among them The International Craft Fair, a special edition of its 7-year old AFAC among others.

From its early years, the NCAC has been very conscious of its responsibility for effective demographic coverage of the nation's citizenry in the delivery of its services. Thus children and youth are given a special place. Amongst the services specially designed for this demographic bracket is the Schools Drama program by which NCAC puts up a performance of one or more plays recommended for Secondary School external examinations.

By a fluke of fate, the same play by which this program was launched in 1982, viz Wole Soyinka's Trials of Brother Jero is in the schools syllabus this year and has been selected by the NCAC Performing Arts Department for performance in the Schools Drama component of the establishment's 40 years anniversary.

Please come along as we feed you information on the various actions that have been and will be taken towards the actualisation of this laudable project.