The comedy war

There is a war raging on Twitter now, people. Our dear comedians have taken their craft away from the stage onto the Twitter space. It was last week when I returned home from work and my cousin, Toyin, showed me something on her Blackberry that had been making her laugh. It was a joke a friend shared with her. “I have found my Soulmate,” the message read. “I didn’t know the stupid hair cream was lying under my bed.” After reading, I had a good laugh. I had earlier read the joke on Twitter while I was in the office. And I had laughed out really loud. This has been the trend lately on Twitter where Nigerian comedians and comediennes share jokes freely on the social network. I find Helen Paul’s jokes and Seyi Law’s jokes very interesting. I could recall my experience at a fashion show I once attended. The high point of the evening for me was Helen Paul’s comic performance, which was really hilarious. It got us all cracking our ribs with laughter. She was natural with her jokes; she never struggled to let them out. That was really the first time I would see her perform live and I think her childish voice and mannerism were truly original. The duo of Kate Henshaw-Nuttal and Denrele Edun were good as they tried to spice up every segment of the programme without leaving a dull moment. However, the fun was nearly marred by the poor performance of the girls. It was sad they could not answer correctly most of the questions posed to them by the compere, Denrele and Kate, as part of the elimination process to the final stage. It was a narrow escape for those of them who got the three questions right. When asked who the author of Things Fall Apart was, one of them said pointblank she did not know! It was funny she was ignorant of the author of a world-acclaimed novel like Things Fall Apart. Another girl could not mention three countries in Southern Africa. It was funny Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe were names that did not cross her mind. Same was the case for a girl who could not name two countries in East Africa. The compere brought the question home at a point when they asked a contestant to name three southern states in Nigeria and their governors. The contestant could not answer it correctly. She even called Sam Egwu, governor of Delta State! The girl’s performance was the butt of jokes for a long time to come. Even now on Twitter there have been many jokes on beauty pageants and all what-nots. It is amazing that a silent but revolutionary group of comedians are building up on Twitter. In fact, at times they ask for a retweet and recommend comedians to follow for Twitter addicts to enjoy more jokes. This has kept me wondering why these comedians are giving away so freely their source of income. How do they keep body and soul together? Are they just following the adage that a taste of the pudding is in the eating? Whatever the case is, more money will come whenever they organise shows and their fans on Twitter will throng such shows. Comedians on Twitter have come to stay and I am enjoying them!

Juliet Esiri At home with a master gele artist

She gazes steadfastly at the piece of fabric in her hands as she takes her time to study carefully the shape of her client’s head. Obviously, the question on her mind is what style will suit perfectly? Her eyes brighten as she gets a clue. She neatly wraps the fabric round her client’s head with one side of it overlapping the other, creating a V-shape at the front. The result is a creative masterpiece headgear otherwise called ‘gele’ in Yoruba. Some people may not know, but gele tying has become an art which smart makeup artistes like Juliet Esiri have turned into a goldmine. She has been able to create different styles from all kinds of fabrics like aso-oke, kente, jacquard, amongst others. “I can sit down to imagine different styles,” she says gleefully, using her hand to demonstrate the tying process. “Gele tying is actually a form of art. It’s not everyone that can do it. Whenever I see women at functions in Nigeria, I just shake my head. Why? Because it’s boring, it’s just one style. I miss the UK for this. UK ladies want different styles. They always want to go out in different styles.” The UK is a hot market for Esiri, where she ties the headgear from when the weekend begins on Thursday to when it ends on Sunday. At times she ties the head wrap, packages it and sends it by courier to her clients who live in different parts of the UK. Often, her clients don’t untie the gele. They would keep it carefully in the carton for use another time. “In the UK, I get a lot of appointment. In fact, my diary is filled with a lot of appointments,” she tells me.

Esiri has created a mini industry from gele tying as she has trained many others. She charges as much as $10,000 for gele, but back home in Nigeria since she opened her beauty parlour, Okin Arewa at Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, Surulere, she charges as low as $10. But for home service, she charges $50. Depending on the size of the party, Esiri ties as much as 100 pieces of gele in a day. “Most times I lose count of the number of gele I tie. I have tied up to 100 gele in a day at a party. I tie gele in the toilets, changing room,etc. There was a club anniversary in the UK, each member had two fabrics of gele. There were 48 members. I gave them different styles. If five friends are sitting down, I am known to give them different styles.” A look at the client’s face tells Esiri the style that best suits. To achieve the desired creativity, she uses pins to hold the headgear down. She has created different styles which her clients have named. “Most styles are named by clients,” she says, smiling. “My clients name my gele. Sometimes they say I want this style with two feathers from there, and I know what they want.” Esiri is not pleased with the one-style headgear that is common in Nigeria and says she is bringing in creative styles. “I am not really happy with gele tying in Nigeria. We just have the same style, the back-front style. I will bring my fine rose gele to the Nigerian market. My signature is always on my style. When you see my gele, you will know because it’s unique.” Esiri trained seven years ago as a makeup artist in the UK where she had her foundational training in makeup. After this, she travelled to the United States to do more courses. While there, she trained with the famous Segun Gele, Segun Olaleye. Today, Esiri has expanded her beauty business to include makeup artistries, services, teeth whitening and more. “It is a one-stop centre that offers something to everyone. In fact, we are introducing a section for haircut for men very soon. We also do manicure and pedicure. Everything is available in our stock. We have a bridal package where we have all the things required, things like makeup, body massage, brightening of faces on special occasion, head tie, etc.” She says she enjoys training people in the art of gele tying just as much as she loves to make her clients look stunning and unique with their headgear. “I have always had a flair for gele even before I left for the UK. I have always helped my friends to tie their gele. I have always had the passion, so going to the UK was just an instigator. I actually took gele tying to the UK.”

Jahman Anikulapo The art that is his passion

Our meeting that Thursday afternoon is scheduled for Goethe Institut on Catholic mission Street, Lagos Island. That will be a perfect place to meet a cultural enthusiast like Jahman Oladejo Anikulapo. But he has to attend an event first before our interview will commence. Unexpectedly, the media briefing for the musical show, ‘Ten Cities’, drags late into the afternoon hence Jahman suggests we have the interview over lunch at the Freedom Park. “Go to the lady first,” he tells the waiter who had stood by him to take his orders first. “And you never stop saying you are romantic.” Jahman is known to everyone at the Freedom Park. His name alone gains me an entrance into the place as I had gone there ahead of him; he had to make a stop at the bank. It is not a surprise therefore that he poke funs at the waiter whom he had had a conversation with about being romantic. We placed our orders. Lunch is served. His phone rings. “I had to answer this call, he tells me, “or else we won’t enjoy this interview.” The great poet, J.P Clark is on the phone. After answering Clark, his phone rings again. “I had gone to withdraw the last coins I have,” he tells the person on phone jokingly. If he has withdrawn his last penny, I won’t be surprised because he his a man who is said to have spent all he has promoting the arts in particular organising Wordslam, an evening of performance poetry, Under the Samarkand Tree and other cultural events in the past.

The Arts is Jahman’s passion. He has lived it, wrote it, and produced it daily as a reporter and later Arts editor at the Guardian newspaper. Penultimate Sunday, he signed off the last edition of the The Guardian on Sunday which he has edited for many years. However, he did not end his 25 year career in Arts journalism without publishing his view on the Cultural Policy that has been his pain for many years. “They don’t even need any more conference in the culture sector,” he tells bitterly, “all they need to do is go into their shelf and carry out all the documents that have been produced and check them. I have worked on cultural policy all throughout my career. The cultural policy conferences that they organise are now a jeunjeun. Every year they will call you to come and sit down in their meeting. Frank Aig-Imokhuode just called me talking about the joke that is the minister of culture that even UNESCO blacklisted us because the money given to the ministry by UNESCO for the Cultural Policy was whacked.” But Jahman has left the newsroom now. But what becomes of this cultural activism? What will happen to the Cultural Policy and the various campaigns about the advancement of the book? Jahman will never stop fighting even though his stance against the Federal Government on the creative industry may have cost him his friends. “If they have been my friends, then let them cease being so from now on. Yes, I like to have friends but I like to have friends who add value to my life because when I go into something, I don’t just want to be one of them. I want to contribute something that will make them say Jahman was here. So, if you have friends who are not adding value to you, what do you do?” True, Jahman has added value to those close to and far from him. His newsroom principle was any artist who walks into the newsroom, must not leave there without a story. Yet he is angry about a government who is not interested in the welfare and growth of the creative industry. “For an artist to leave whatever they are doing and com e to the newsroom? The way we know artists in other places, you go to meet them. Artists don’t come and meet people. That’s the time he should spend creating. I can get bitter about it because I am very irritated by politics, I like my environment to be free. I don’t like environments full of politics and mischief; where people pretend they are your friend. We can sit down and drink together but there must be something we are sharing before we go drink.” Jahman grew up in the Civil War years in a very wealthy middle class family at Agege where is father built a big house there, the only storey building in the area at the time. It was a big family. His father did some contract job and later dabbled into cow selling and was a distributor of Top Beer, the most popular beer in those days. He also operated a mini bar on the ground floor of their home where the top musicians of those days would converge in the evenings to share a drink. “I can’t remember seeing Yusuf Olatunji there,” he recalls, “but there was Oseni Ejire, who was sakara maestro, Ligali Mukaiba, Ayinla Omowura who actually happened to be an uncle to me. He was like an older brother to my mum because they grew up in the same area in Itoko. There were people like Fatai Olowoyo; people like Barrister were just coming up and they were coming around. Shina Peters used to be the little boy among them, Love Shobiye, SF Olowokere.” This encounters registered in Jahman’s subconscious will alter lay the foundation for his interest in the arts and eventually arts journalism. He sees his exist in the Guardian as a way to pave way for the up young to grow and aspire. “There is a statement I made where I said I want to leave the newsroom as a sacrificial lamb; I wanted to make myself a sacrificial lamb. If you read Strong Breed by Wole Soyinka, the guy who all the dirt, I don’t know whether I’m being idealistic, I just know that my exit will probably pave way for some new leaves to grow. It’s not that I have left arts journalism, I have left the newsroom. And like I said, I would want to be involved in the area of training. If any media organisation thinks that my contribution to arts journalism has been that tremendous, and they think I can be of help, one of the things I would want to tell them is how to set up a proper arts desk.” I could not help it but ask what he will miss most in the newsroom. He tells me: “I will miss the camaraderie, especially in The Guardian. I look forward to being in the newsroom every day. I think I am going to miss that. I will miss mentoring young people. That, I was doing in the newsroom.”

Akpos is everywhere these days

The Tortoise is always a reoccurring character in the folktales we all grew up with. He is often portrayed as the greedy, selfish, cunning or perhaps crafty character who would do everything he can to outdo another person. You will agree with me, that many cultures in Africa have traditions of oral story telling. Skilled storytellers would memorize folktales and captivate audiences with their stories of adventure. It is this skilled art of storytelling. Many folktales have morals, or lessons, for the young audiences. These Folktales or bedtime stories as they are also known are didactic in tune as they usually teach one moral lesson or the other. The lead character usually learns in a hard way that selfishness and greedy are the worst qualities to have. These stories are allegorical representations of human beings the way they live and interact daily. But there is a new character different from the Tortoise we are used to in Folktales. He is a character created on our ‘Facebooktales’ and ‘Tweetertales’. His name is Akpos or Akpors as some other people spell it. But Akpos is the most popular of the two. In every joke or tale that I have so far read online, Akpos is that typical Warri boy who is always everywhere making very silly mistakes. This character Akpos is the one who does all the stupid things. Here is a joke about Akpos tweeted by Tataafo ‏@HelenPaul: Joba: Akpos, why you dey sleep with ruler every night. Akpos: My teacher says she wants to know how long I sleep. Here is another: Sule: Bros why you dey wrap your phone with black handkerchief? Akpos: Rukewe dey owe me money so I dey hide my number before I call am Akpos has become so popular a mischievous character such that Hope Eghagha, the commissioner of education, Delta state, could not help but exclaim on his Facebook wall a few days ago: “Akpos don suffer for this country!” In fact, a comedian has named himself AkposWarriboy. He shared many jokes on ‘himself’ Akpos. AKPOS: I wish I had been born 4,000 years ago. TEACHER: Why? AKPOS: I would not have to learn too much in History Class Here is another joke by AkposWarriboy: AKPOS: You look like someone I've seen on TV before, are you a Celebrity? GIRL: *blushing* awww, thanks, who exactly? AKPOS: Bakary Sagna Therefore, Akpos has assumed that character that employs its cunning tactics to protect itself against powerful people whose pranks usually cause trouble for another character. In most times, he goes away gloating and unpunished. Although in some cases, there is a turnabout where he falls prey to the mischief he started. His figure of mischievous disruption is characterised by rule-breaking, lies, theft, shape-shifting, and wordplay. If you have not noticed this trend, you may do well to watch the messages you receive on your BB, Facebook, and Twitter. An Akpos is always there. Here is a joke by AkposWarriboy to cap it all: OCHUKO: O boy, so U dey on Twitter??? AKPOS: No bros, na person I escort come here.

For Jahman Anikulapo at 50

It was my dear friend Rotimi Fasan who first made me have a close encounter with the man whose stories I have read on the arts pages of The Guardian. I was about to go for my National Youth Service and wanted to serve my father land in a media house. I had taught I would be posted to Lagos since I had someone who promised to help ‘fix’ my posting to Lagos. And so when I told my friend, Rotimi about it, he said we could visit The Guardian together to see the famous Jahman Anikulapo. When he said so, my heart raised and my throat tightened at the thought of meeting this great man. Before long, the appointed date came. And I was confused as I wasn’t sure if Jahman would be willing to take me in his newsroom. Rotimi and I walked through Rutam House straight into Jahman’s office after going through security scrutiny. Contrary to my thought, Jahman received us well and Rotimi told him the purpose of our visit. I thought we were going to meet some resistance from Jahman but he politely told us there’s no problem. He typed a letter signed it and told me to take it with me to camp as soon as it resumes. ‘Just like that!’ I had thought. No questions, no interviews, nothing! Jahman made it happen even before I got my posting. Unfortunately, I wasn’t posted to Lagos hence I never had to use the letter. I never had the opportunity to work with Jahman in The Guardian. But I kept the letter for a long time. Be that as it may, my fascination for Jahman grew especially during those days of the poetry readings organised by the Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA) titled: ‘Under the Samarkand Tree’ at the National Arts Theatre. Jahman has many ‘aburos’ like us whom he has inspired in journalism especially arts reporting. He criticises us just as much as he appreciates what we do with BusinessLife Magazine. It was when I read Ifeanyi Mbanefo’s piece titled: ‘He knew he was right’ (a profile which Taiwo Obe asked him to write in honour of Jahman on the Everything Journalism Group on Linkedin) that I had a clear understanding of where Jahman was coming from. It was then I understand perfectly why he made it a habit to help young helpless people rise to stardom in journalism, arts, culture, film, music etc. This quote from the piece sums it all up: “We started in Lagos Island. My dad decided that we were getting too much into the Island culture. You know what I mean by that. So he moved us to Agege. But I think it was a mistake on his part because Agege turned out to be worse. So I left home early, at about 14 years old because I was playing football and then into theatre arts. Of significance, for me, about my upbringing, is that many of the people I grew up with in that environment have turned out to be ‘Area Boys.’ I would have been one of them if I had not encountered the man who rescued me. “My buddies never got education and became layabouts. It is recurring in our system so I am working, fighting and struggling so that no young person will ever get into that kind of trap. I’ll rather do something to bring them out which probably defines my deep involvement with the arts. That is why my work in journalism embraces developmental programmes that would bring young people out of that kind of situation. This is because anytime I see what we call ‘area boys’ I look at myself and say I could have been one of them.” Like Taiwo Obe wrote on his post on the Everything Journalism Group on Linkedin Jahman deserves more and we can’t all wait till 16 January, his birthday, before we celebrate him. Happy Birthday, our dear Jahman Oladejo Anikulapo. Igba odun, odun kan!