Weekly Trust online

American pop star Jennifer Lopez has topped the annual Forbes list of the 100 most powerful celebrities in the world, taking over from fellow pop singer Lady Gaga and beating out media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

The fifth edition of the annual European Film Festival started in Abuja last Thursday with a cocktail at the Silverbird Cinemas.

They are known for their energetic moves and African style and culture in their music. Weekend Magazine caught up with Anthonio and Andre Dixon - the Mamuzee twins. When they fielded questions in this interview, they agreed that one was speaking the mind of the other, though Anthonio answered most of the questions.

Ebook market has defied predictions, with world’s reading habits now battle ground for tech giants

Journalist Chido Onumah’s book, Time to Reclaim Nigeria, will be hitting the shelves this weekend. In this interview the widely travelled journalist, who has worked in Nigeria, Ghana, the US, Canada and India talks about his collection of articles spanning a decade. Enjoy!

Book: Issues & People

Author: Ramatu Ali Ohioma

Publisher: Ibadan, Kraft Book Publishers, 2011

Volume: 324 pages

Reviewer: Jideofor Adibe

Okri accuses former editor Robin Robertson of ‘exaggerating his own importance’ after Robertson claimed that he ‘redid’ sections of the author’s dialogue in a 1988 short story collection

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has said he supports fuel-subsidy protests and says that unrest can be eased by better, less-corrupt leaders. He currently teaches at Brown University as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies.

South Africa may have produced two Nobel laureates in literature but a famous bookshop in Johannesburg is nevertheless about to close, a victim of the country’s poor reading culture.

When a husband and wife are individually particular over an issue, there will be difficulty reaching a compromise and taking decisions will be tough in the family.

As a woman, there are going to be trying moments but no one wants an alone moment. This means that the man in your life - your husband - has to be there for you, though not every time. The times you need him is more or less every time.

According to a book on women, “A woman will encourage her man to save his money as long as she is doing the saving for him; whereas mothers will only praise sons who bring money home.” This could also be the cause of misunderstanding between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. And trying to strike a balance between these two conflicting demands may prove an onerous one for the man.

It is commonly said that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” but more to it is the ability of the woman to capture her man’s heart entirely. A disrespectful and nagging woman cannot win the heart of her man with food. A man wants to feel loved, appreciated and a complete sense of security. And you as a woman can guarantee that through so many ways, one of which is total commitment.

We all agree that the pain of rejection is sharp, scary and always unexpected. But what’s next? Will you allow this pain affect you throughout your life?

Most traditions require women to change their name and take on the last name of their husband when they get married, but the trend seems to be changing as many women are sticking to their maiden names.

With the kinds of price-tags bandied about for weddings these days, one would wonder if it’s all about the cash.

Many believe that it is only after a quarrel that a relationship becomes stable and it is only through same that partners communicate their most sincere opinions of one another. Is this ideology true.

“We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly . . . spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.” - Susan L. Taylor

With good parenting, children will possess good manners and good character. However, with poor parenting, the general behaviour of a child will most likely be affected and   cannot be changed easily once a child has crossed adolescence.

Accepting and understanding that we need to push ourselves beyond our present successes or failures and the environment which we are familiar with can be quite difficult to come to terms with. Breaking the barrier of our security block and overcoming our fears is a dreaded move that many do not want to make. All the same, some security or comfort zones are actually not as secured as we may want to see it.

We all need a good boost of confidence every now and then. After all, feeling good about yourself makes everything in your life better. But what is it that boosts our confidence?

“Spare the rod and spoil the child!” is often repeated to caution  parents and child caregivers, but many parents  seem not to appreciate that good parenting also includes reprimanding when necessary. For many parents, love (which excludes punishment and other disciplinary methods) will teach the children how to behave properly.

For some women, the era of waiting endlessly to hear their admired man proposal seems to be fading as they are beginning to take bold steps to ensure that they get the men of their dreams.

Ever wondered what your handwriting says about you? Experts say we can get astonishing facts and information just by looking at someone’s scribble.

A STORE of honey had been found in a hollow tree, and the Wasps declared positively that it belonged to them. The Bees were just assure that the treasure was theirs.

A LION had been watching three Bullocks feeding in an open field. He had tried to attack them several times, but they had kept together, and helped each other to drive him off. The Lion had little hope of eating them, for he was no match for three strong Bullocks with their sharp horns and hoofs. But he could not keep away from that field, for it is hard to resist watching a good meal, even when there is little chance of getting it.

Wow, we have some very interesting games that will get our minds triggered in fun ways. Also, as mangoes are about to come into season, we have a recipe today to teach you something healthy you can do with them.

Do have a great day.

Love,

Aunty Vanessa

A GIANT OAK stood near a brook in which grew some slender Reeds. When the wind blew, the great Oak stood proudly upright with its hundred arms uplifted to the sky. But the Reeds bowed low in the wind and sang a sad and mournful song.

Many many years ago, there lived a dog named Tom. Tom was adopted as a pet in a wealthy household and he was daily showered with nice foods and affections by her mistress Mrs Havisham. All day, Tom lived in a kennel within the compound of the house and he tried his best to guard the home of his mistress. Whenever a thief or a burgler came within the vicinity, Tom would bark as loudly as he could to scare the living daylights out of the culprit. He was the favourite of his mistress. When night fell, he slept on a nice blanket inside his kennel and when day broke he had his food served before him in no time.

How did you enjoy your holiday? I am sure you had a very good time and are prepared for school and more work. I am wishing you all the best.

Love,

Aunty Vanessa

There was none of the drama of last February, when Sotheby’s sold a Giacometti statue for a new world record auction price, but art sales this month in London banished immediate concerns about a boom-and-bust cycle.

Works of Nigeria’s Yinka Shinibare along with Yang Fudong, Shirin Neshat, and Christodoulos Panayiotou come March 8th, 2011, will be previewed as a multimedia group exhibition by the Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art (PUFCA).

Ekaterinburg Art Foundation (Russia) would like to invite sculptors and photographers world-wide to take part in the International Exhibition Project of Sculpture and Photography “Family Unity - Unity of the World”.

Last Saturday ushered in a new streak in path of Ahmadu Bello University’s art school when artistes open audience engaged different forms of visual representations. It is part of effort to sustain the rudiments in contemporary art practice by Zaria-based artists through an organised workshop which pulled artists from their studios into an open environment. The artistes put their creative talents/endeavors to a delightful manner to produce different forms of visual representations.

London’s cultural institutions and heritage sites are to be transformed into national houses for the Olympics games.Museums and heritage sites are leasing out space during the 2012 Olympics for national houses, including the Docklands Museum, Somerset House, Marble Arch, Old Billingsgate Market and Alexandra Palace. The two-month deals will typically each bring in several hundred thousand pounds.

Today, dear readers, I will point to two campaigns against lawbreakers in Nigeria. The first is the Faruk Lawan committee findings of staggering corruption in the fuel subsidy administration. In one instance, Lawan claims, the Central Bank of Nigeria paid, in the space of 24 hours, 999 million 128 times to unknown recipients. The second story comes from Jos, still under state of emergency, where the Jos Metropolitan Development Board (JMDB) has been overseeing the demolition of “illegal structures.” According to the National Accord of 5 April 2012, the Chairman of the Task-force Musa Gambo said that “these structures are in the contravention of the provision of the greater Jos Master plan of 2008” and other national and state laws.

These days, I feel as if I am always rushing to get in an analysis of a book or film into my column before the next disaster, the next bomb that I will feel duty bound to address.  I was expecting (dreading) a bomb on Easter. Weren’t we all?

When I decided to review Abidemi Sanusi’s novel Eyo, which was nominated for the 2010 Commonwealth Prize, I had forgotten this week’s date. It wasn’t until I was editing my review that I realized that it will be published on the last day of Lent, the Christian period of fasting and self-denial, leading to tomorrow’s joyous Easter Sunday celebration. Though the book is not a joyful “Eastery” one, I thought that the way it delves into the depth of human wretchedness and hints at the fragile redemption of love provides an appropriate reflection for this season.

Last week, I reviewed Rev. Yakubu Pam and Dr. Katrina Korb’s book Fighting for Peace: Learning from the Peace Heroes Among Us, which tells stories of both Christians and Muslims who have overcome prejudices and hardships to work for peace. The day after I turned in my review, I attended the launching for the book held Thursday, 22 March, at the office of the Young Ambassadors for Community Peace and Interfaith Foundation (YACPIF) in Jos. Although initially envisioning a bigger affair, the authors felt it would be inappropriate to have a large launching while families were still grieving after the two church bombings in Jos and subsequent violence against members of the Muslim community. Instead they combined a youth meeting with the book launch. While the meeting was attended by a few people from the university and the film industry, including filmmaker Sani Mu’azu who had written the forward to the book, most of the participants were youth from the community involved with YACPIF as “young ambassadors.” It was their voices who were most heard at the event. If reading the book had sometimes brought tears to my eyes, I was even more touched by hearing Christian and Muslim young people tell in their own voices, stories of friendship and peacemaking.

During the November 2008 crisis in Jos, an old Muslim man went to sit on the steps of the neighborhood Assemblies of God church in Kwararafa. Four times, he turned away angry youth who wanted to burn the church. The fifth time, the youth attacked him. Two weeks later he died of his wounds. Before he died, he told his wife, “You tell Pastor that he shouldn’t worry. For what I have done for the church is for the sake of peace and the neighborhood and I love him very well.” Thus goes one of the first stories found in Fighting for Peace: Learning from the Peace Heroes Among Us by Reverend Yakubu Pam and Dr. Katrina A. Korb. In the book, which was launched at the Young Ambassadors for Community Peace and Inter-faith Foundation (YACPIF) office in Jos on Thursday, the authors follow the thesis of Ugandan priest Emmanuel Katongole (presented briefly in a guest column by Dr. Korb in September 2011) that the stories we tell shape the people we become. Fighting for Peace challenges negative stereotypes heard so often of Plateau State and the north, telling detailed stories of eleven heroes, both Muslims and Christians, who, in the face of violence, chose the path of peace. The book is in much the same genre as Ruth Beattie’s, My Brother’s Keeper: Stories of Grace from the Jos Plateau (ACTS: 2010) that compares the author’s experiences growing up during the political and religious conflict in Northern Ireland with her observations of the conflict in Jos. However, while My Brother’s Keeper tells stories of “good Samaritan” Christians and Muslims directed to an explicitly Christian audience, Fighting for Peace attempts to balance between Christian and Muslim perspectives, offering arguments for peace from pastors and imams, the Bible and Qur’an.

It’s a little before midnight on Monday, the day after the bombing at St. Finbar’s Catholic church in Jos. There was automatic gunfire a few hours earlier and I am having trouble concentrating on anything. I turn on the TV and Centurion is on. It is a film about a group of Roman soldiers fleeing a band of indigenous warrior Celts in ancient Britain. The movie is violent. Arrows thunk into the chests of soldiers. One Roman soldier betrays another, stabbing him so that he becomes bait for the wolves pursuing them, while the other man escapes. During an interlude, I hear, in my own world of Jos 2012, what sounds like the shouts of spectators at a football match. I know it is not football. I turn down the volume on the TV to listen. Onscreen, Romans soundlessly slam Celt faces into log walls. Celts stab spears through Roman bellies. Outside I can hear the rumble of an angry mob, then gunfire.

Pioneering Nollywood scholar Jonathan Haynes has argued that one of the most urgent aspects of research on the Nigerian film industry is preserving film history and compiling archives for films.

A few months ago during a trip to Abuja, I went to see the film Unwanted Guest directed by Nigerian director Daniel Ademinokan, produced by Chuck Ajoku, and shot on location in New York City with a mixed African and American cast and crew.

I walked into the darkened room very slowly and gently closed the door behind me. By the time I reached our bedside, I was very sure my mission was accomplished, but I had not reckoned with Tahir’s incredibly light-sleeping ability. The moment I lifted my side of the quilt to slip into bed, he said:

‘Why this sudden rush of sighs Maryam? You are on your way to a wedding luncheon yet you look so gloomy. Please shake it off, this is a happy occasion.’ I commented, looking over at her on the passenger seat.

‘Oh no Bint, how many times must I tell you to put off your phone before you fall sleep?’ Tahir complained at the sound of my ring tone from the top of the bedside drawer.

‘Musty Musty, it seems to me you can’t wait to move out of this house, you are packing already.’ I said to my nephew Mustapha while standing by the door to his bedroom.

‘Good morning’ I said to the nurse, who opened the door after I knocked. Looking over at Maimuna lying on the hospital bed, I quickly added ‘Is she asleep or awake?’

‘So your ex-husband actually came calling.’ Maryam asked in amazement.‘

‘Wa alaikummmussalam. It’s never good when I see you two together, unannounced.’ Asabe said opening the front door and moving aside to let Maryam and I in.

‘Assalamu alaikum,’ I said, as soon as I picked up the phone. ‘Wa aliakissalam Anti Bint’ Hafsa answered in a rather low voice. ‘Is Anti Asabe with you? I have been trying her numbers but I can’t reach her.’ She added.

I waited till Tahir was completely in the sitting room, having closed the front door behind him, before I used the remote control to put the CD player on.