The advent of the pandemic brought about a massive change in how people run things, and the internet has become a safe zone for organisations. Most people have begun to work online, and we see many people doing their meetings and events online.
The advent of the pandemic brought about a massive change in how people run things, and the internet has become a safe zone for organisations. Most people have begun to work online, and we see many people doing their meetings and events online.
One such organisation is Africa-Fora, which holds its event, Nzuko, online, and many people can attend. The recent one, Nzuko 2022, was held on May 24th—26th, 2022. Nzuko is an annual event, the first of which was held last year.
The event’s name also captures a significant African setting where people gather at the town square to discuss. Many influential people gathered online to discuss using the indigenous African culture to move Africa forward.
In this meeting, they all agreed that life started in Africa, and many people view Africa more negatively than it is.
This article will highlight the fantastic discussions held during Nzuko 2022 and how they directly affect Africa.
AfricaFora, formerly known as the Golden Cowrie, aims to promote African culture and products. They intend to change the African narrative and place Africa at the forefront of global discussions. This way, they can reform the relationship between Africa and the world.
AfricaFora has projects of getting inventions and investors together to promote local expertise wherever they are, and Nzuko showcases this goal.
Reverend Father Anslem Adodo is a Catholic priest and founder of Nigeria’s foremost herbal research institute (PAX Herbals).
He intimated to the audience how African medicine is not voodoo but an excellent health solution.
Reverend Father Anslem spoke about the indigenous knowledge systems at the heart of African health policy reform. He emphasised that African Traditional Medicine (ATM) is a neglected goldmine which has suffered from the prejudice of being viewed as an outdated and fetish aspect of African culture and knowledge.
Many educated African elites even joined the Western people to call it folk medicine, fetish medicine, voodoo medicine and non-scientific medicine. Colonial
education turned African medicine into something to be viewed with suspicion and fear while they made us buy their drugs and created a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.
Hence, Father Anslem focuses his research on changing the perceptions of Africans towards their indigenous medicine. “Science is not native to Europe and America”, he says.
We have to guard against the danger of one story by bringing the two worlds together. One can learn from the other.
Indigenous knowledge is very vital. And our healthcare system must go back to learn from what we can from our traditional understanding.
STRENGTHENING BLACK COMMUNITIES IN BRAZIL THROUGH SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.
Dr Igor Miranda, a professor at the Federal University of Reconcavo da Bahia, Brazil professor, also graced the platform with his research interests.
He talked about strengthening black communities in Brazil through scientific research. He co-founded the McCullough Institute, an institution for research and development and communication on science and technology from a black and Indigenous perspective. In this pursuit, he partnered with several organisations.
The project is currently taking place on Merritt Island. It involves exploring native vegetation called Wild Cane, found in many places on the island and used for handcrafting activities. This produces so much waste, which can be used to create new materials.
Their projects established a manufacturing process for utilising this waste to create ceilings and other products. With scientific methods, they are making a profit for the community. They are currently aiming to establish a factory for such a production. With these wastes, they will also create briquettes that can substitute coal in ovens.
BUILDING AND FOCUS ON DELIBERATELY INVESTING IN AFRICA
Ms Tenemba Anna Samake the CEO of MBC, also graced Nzuko 2022. She is a trained lawyer who’s an MP and certified business coach, and she discussed the topic of local food systems in our communities.
Ms Samake started with the story of how we see young Africans dying in the Mediterranean every day because they want to go to Europe for greener pastures.
They also show famished African kids on the screen and the world, in turn, takes it as a sign to bring food to the Africans, whereas Africa has 60% of arable land, and Mali has the most extensive pure water stock. Africa also has youths who comprise 60% of its population. We already have what the world wants to give us; we just need to control our space. There is also a problem in that to pitch a deck in the financing; you have to have a white face in your team.
We have various models within our communities which are successful for us, but we let go of them when we should use them to inspire ourselves. Agriculture is needed in every way, in medicine, waste gathering, energy, and many more. The produce all comes from Agriculture.
Poverty has been sustained through our unsustainable ways of using natural resources. And to restore the continent on this side, heavy investment is needed, and capacity building cannot solve this problem. We need to organise the internal African markets. There should be business development services, and people should be given access to market intelligence and financial services.
Ms Dion Johnson, the womanologist, began by using her story to admonish Africans to come out from behind the masks that they are hiding. Her story involved her growing up as a young girl with facial disfigurement, and even after corrective surgeries, some parts of her face still had issues, and she had to wear these big dark glasses at the time. She hid her facial flaws to look normal.
She called this “The beginning of her life behind the mask.”
But it all changed in 2009 when she emerged from hiding behind the masks in her relationships and schooling years. Some events occurred, and she cried to God, and in her despair, she heard a voice that asked her why she was hiding. Then, she decided to bring the real HER to the world.
In the long run, she realised that the issue was not just about her face but about her as a leader and an African woman. It turned out she was hiding a lot.
Ms Dion noted that the things we’ve learned about ourselves, even unconsciously, affect how we show up affect how we speak up affects how we shake things up. Her speech aimed to remind people that change and transformation are possible.
Daniella Sachs took the lead and spoke about Tourism in Africa and how we should market our tourism not only to Westerners but also to fellow Africans. Ms Sachs is the founder of Know Your Tourist (KYT), a tourism innovation design agency reimagining destinations as we know them.
She spoke about how Africans need to grab the attention of other Africans than anybody else.
Africans don’t have to do much to be successful in the tourism industry. We attracted 5% of the world’s international tourists in 2019, which brought 71 million tourists to Africa, creating 24.3 million jobs. Many young Africans prefer to travel abroad rather than to other African countries.
This is a lucrative opportunity for Africa, and we are just letting it go by. By 2050, one in four consumers will be African: the same is also predicted that by 2030 there will be 1.7 billion people in Africa. The statistics also show that the middle and upper class will spend over 260 billion on leisure and recreation only. So why not leverage this? If just 5% of these youths come to tour Africa, that will be 38 billion dollars.
The digital world can also help solve the tourism issue when young online influencers travel and visit locations in Africa which they post on their accounts and blogs. After marketing Africa, we can start developing products of interest to attract other countries.
Other countries are targeting us by creating what we need and we can do the same.
MONIQUE WILLIAMS: THE PLIGHT OF BLACK WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP
Ms Monique Williams, the CEO of Cadence Council, a certified Women’s Business Enterprise took the floor and made the audience aware of “The Plight of women in Leadership”.
She told the story of Chesley Crist who died earlier this year. Chesley was a litigator and diversity, equity and inclusion professional.
She was active in many things and was also Ms USA in 2019. But regardless of all these achievements, she committed suicide in February. This event made Monique start believing in how massive a public health crisis can be.
She started digging into this and found that about 31% of black lawyers have contemplated suicide at some point in their careers. She concluded by encouraging the community to ensure that women are as healthy as possible to avoid incoming generations discussing this same problem. In her workplace, they help women by doing a lot of counselling, and they have seen many professional women asking how they can manage their work and family at the same time. She always says you can’t handle them all but should take them according to their priority level. Especially the things that help your health.
EXHIBITION OF THE AKWETE CLOTH
They exhibited a video showcasing a woman designing and creating the Akwete cloth. The cloth is a handwoven fabric invented in the southeastern part of Nigeria in a village called Akwete by Madame Nwakwata. The clothes were woven in the confines of her room to protect her trade secret, but when she was about to die, she shared her techniques and requested that they should only be taught to Akwete youths and women. This has brought a means of living for the Akwete people; today, 90 to 95% of women earn their livelihood from this practice.
This sums up what women’s empowerment signifies. So right now, if you visit Nigeria, the only place you can get the original fabric is Akwete, Nigeria.
GOING BACK IN HISTORY AND FINDING OUT HOW AFRICANS ARE THE CORE OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION
Professor Christopher Ehret, a distinguished research professor at the University of California, who holds a PhD in African history, and Historical Linguistics from Northwestern University, spoke to the gathering about revealing the hidden gems in African history.
He stated that we are all Africans regardless of race because we have a common ancestry that stems from Eastern Africa. We can use language today because of this. Africans are diverse, and the ancestors who moved out were just one subset of this diversity.
Africa has contributed to every significant form of innovation in the world today. Between 10,000 and 5,000 BC, a major world economic transition took place and Africa was among the 11 or 12 regions that brought Agriculture into being. West Africa, Southern African and the Nilo Saharan- speaking people contributed major crops to the world.
The technology of using heat to transform the chemistry of materials, and the first ceramics were from Africa. It was created by the speakers of early Niger-Congo languages living in today’s Mali, sometimes before 9500 BCE, more than 11,500 years ago. That was 3000 years before the Middle East had ceramic technology, and even longer before this technology reached Europe. Not much later, today’s country of Sudan, speakers of the Nilo-Saharan languages, independently 3000 kilometres away from Mali, also invented ceramic technology.
Professor Christopher concludes that it is incorrect to say that the people of Europe are more advanced when we have not critically examined history.
Moving on in the event, a more exciting phase began with Ms Elizabeth Tchwenko-Fabu speaking about using the African Fabric to change the narrative. She is the Founder and CEO of Auth’Africa, a textile company that uses fabric as an authentic expression of African heritage and identity.
She is an experienced executive who advocates for the economic independence of the African continent and is an expert in procurement, oil, gas and negotiation.
Her story began when she started getting clothes for her sister in Malawi, who loves to wear only African materials and many people there loved her dress. She took fabrics for sale anytime she visited and usually sold out most of them. This gave her a business idea. She thought of Africanising the fabrics and using them to tell African stories.
To back up her topic, she graced Nzuko, fully clothed in her traditional attire. She quoted Chinua Achebe’s, “Until the Lion Tells the side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” If we do not own our history and heritage, someone else will tell it in a way that pleases them.
She used the African Fabric to share the African narrative and history without sounding too political or economic.
Whenever she wears her traditional clothing, people ask where it is from, leading her to tell her story. She does not own a Fabric factory, but she designs, and someone else produces it.
Nothing we own in Africa is inferior. Another great part of Nzuko 2022 was where the entrepreneur Mr Chibu Akwukwe let the audience in on his business in Africa after his return from the diaspora.
Chibu is the co-founder of Pedro’s, Africa’s first indigenous premium spirit made 100% from organic palm spirits. Before Pedro’s, Chibu held various roles in finance and business management in the USA.
Chibu began producing the ogogoro drink to relate more to his identity and heritage. At first, he received doubt from people, but in the long run, Pedro’s changed the narrative and used a quality brewing process to quell the rumour of the ogogoro being poorly produced and unhealthy.
Spirit is a drink that comes from the palm tree. So when you tap the sap of a palm tree, a white substance comes out called Palm Wine. And then, when you ferment palm wine and distil it, there is a transparent white distillate that comes from it. That is the spirit we all enjoy in different parts of our lives in Nigeria and across Africa, and Pedro took it to a different level. In Nigeria, it is called ogogoro in Yoruba and Kai-kai in Igbo. In parts of Ghana and certain parts of Nigeria, they call it Akpeteshie.
The history of Ogogoro runs deep as it is the drink our forefathers were making before the whites came. The Dutch traded schnapps in Africa, and when the British became the world powers, they intended to make money for the crown and push the Dutch out. So they started selling gin.
The Ogogoro was then quashed and given a negative image like the illegal and local gin. But the ogogoro is different from the British gin, made from Juniper Berries.
Everything handcrafted in the Western world is always termed premium. This means that our Ogogoro/kaikai should be premium too.
John is aka immortal an artist and the CEO of Immortal Cosmetic Art, climbed the platform and got the tables shaking. His story started when he tried to get prostheses for his disabled brother but was only provided with the ones for white people. No one cared that his brother was black. This made him decide to study and do it himself, and from there, he nurtured the idea of changing the African narrative by helping the disabled in Africa to create something that would give them hope. He has a patent as the first African to produce a hyper-realistic prosthesis.
He owns the only indigenous company in Africa to make hyper-realistic flesh covers for amputees of African skin.
One of his major aims is to make sure that he gives back to his continent and changes the narrative that Africa is poor. Even after he got offers from top companies from other continents, he refused because he wanted to add value to his continent. In this way, what he creates will be sold to Africa or might not get to Africa at all. He even gave an example of the ear pod, which was made by a Ghanaian and can translate up to 40 languages but Africans cannot purchase it.
Africans leave the continent and want to become Westernised, even changing their identity and wanting to assume another. But this should not be, and we have to preserve our African identity.
He cited a friend of his who once said that “until the African man appears in his true self, as an African, he will never be respected.”
Many of us claim other nationalities but are still being discriminated against.
John’s brand is collaborating with other African brands to create great innovations. He quoted Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, who said “You can Christianize me, but do not Westernise me”. He then urges African creatives not to get Westernised.
“We have to innovate. Everything has to be African.” John Amanam Sunday
Christopher, Chibu, John and Elizabeth all agreed that Africans need to produce for Africans and that Africans need to patronise each other. They also point out that to
better appreciate ourselves and realise that we are not backwards, we must look back into history. It was also agreed that you do not need to have the skill, but if you want to solve a problem, you will learn to solve it. If Africa does not seize back their narrative, the world will continue to hold no respect for them.
ANNKIO BRIGGS: WE NEED TO OWN OUR RESOURCES, RAISE OUR BAR AND HAVE A SAY WHERE OUR RESOURCES ARE CONCERNED.
Ms Ankkio Briggs addressed resources management in Nigeria coupled with the war between two origins. She’s an award-winning environmental and human rights activist and the founder and director of Agape Birthrights.
Speaking from Nigeria, she took the audience on a grand exploration of what is happening in Nigeria and Africa.
The 1999 constitution states that any resource found in the south belongs to the government, but those found in the north can be used by the people there. Worst of all, the Westerners are the ones who decide the pricing of our natural resources. Africa produces 75% of Cocoa, but we only own 5% of the chocolate market in the world. We hold resources but have no say in whatever relates to them.
We have to begin to be competitive in Africa. We have to be able to finish our products in a way that we raise our bars by ourselves.
We call for people to invest in the country, forgetting that they have to generate light and transportation themselves personally when they do that—coupled with the cost and stress of export. It is our problem, and we need to solve them ourselves.
Why Africans succeed abroad but fail at home is also a big topic discussed at Nzuko 2022 by Mr Uzoma Nnganyadi, a trained mechanical engineer with over 40 years of experience in multidisciplinary engineering and management experience.
Mr Uzoma took the audience back in time to when some enslaved people came back to Africa in the 1914 and 1915s and the kind of reception they got. At first, the welcome was friendly, but after some weeks, they realised some issues like the fact that they left somewhere with a higher standard of living to a place with lower and the fact that their families now considered them differently. The material consideration weighed more heavily than sentimental bonds to Mother Africa.
When diasporans come back home to start a business, first, the body language they get from people is different, and they have to bribe their way through hatred and challenges. And worse of all, people now regard them as ATMs.
People back home want immediate gratification. Even if you come in as a diaspora specialist in whatever area and you’re applying for a government job, you are told by the Permanent Secretary to bring a white guy with you.
Other challenges include the bad internet and traffic, costing Nigeria billions of dollars. To be punctual to a 10 am appointment, you must leave home by 5 am. So basically, diasporans have distrust because of the lack of infrastructure, utilities, and supplies, which always make it hard for them to achieve their business dreams in Nigeria. As we know, one of the reasons they leave is because those who have tried to fight the tiger in the past ended up in the Tiger’s stomach.
Mr Christoph came on board to talk about how Africa can be financially independent and stop depending on the Westerners.
This way, Pan-Africanists urgently call for the 54 African leaders to meet at the African Union and solve these problems. He stated his belief that if we start collecting taxes for every single product made on the continent, we will be able to collect about 30 to 50 billion dollars yearly. This solution can raise half a trillion dollars every seven years for Africa.
He further explained this to the solution of the Mandela tax that Nigeria came up with from 1970 to 1994, where employees were charged 2% of what they earned
and raised about 61 billion dollars in two decades. If this is successful, Africa can have its own World Bank and call it the African infrastructure fund. This can help to fix the continental infrastructures under agenda 2063 projects.
Only our generation can go to the General Assembly of the AU to push for this. Yes, there is corruption. He did not rule this out, but the private sector is the solution he proffered to aid in collecting the taxes.
Also, there is a need for integrated high-speed railways, which can connect capital cities across Africa, and one can travel from one African country to another in just one day.
He noted that Africa is too big, and many countries cannot distribute their product as transportation is not easily accessible, some countries are landlocked, and some are even the poorest in the country. Countries like Burundi cannot even bridge the cost of mining their natural resources.
Mr Christoph believes this is a divine call for us to be financially free.
Chioma Phillips Irewolede, the editor of Msingi African magazine and the host of Msingi Africa television, and her husband, Samuel, also came on the platform to highlight to the crowd how Africans in the diaspora can be actively part of the change that the continent needs.
In her terms, the African Union is now 60 years old but can be likened to an older man who is able-bodied and well-to-do but is unable to take care of himself.
With all our education and skills in Africa, we are still very poor.
With Msingi Africa, she found that Africans have the issues of poor mindset and lack of self-belief brought on by the West and East, who are playing on subjugating Africa while controlling their resources.
Africans have been intimidated by low self-esteem and have forgotten the basics of love and Ubuntu. Now we see one person wanting to keep 80 billion naira for himself instead of thinking of helping 100 million people in his country.
There is a carefully purported narrative that trails Africa. We have been portrayed as weak, sick, diseased, worried and corrupt, hence why no one in their right mind will give us a seat on the global table.
Everybody has this false belief about how they have to rescue the poor and filthy Africans from COVID-19. Chioma opines that we have to fix the people’s minds and bring them back to where they understand who they are and are willing to die for the continent of Africa.
We need to stop this Hollywood cushy life madness among Africans and make it stop in two decades.
Repairing the bond between the African culture spread across the world One beautiful discovery in Nzuko 2022 is that many countries outside Africa seem to be practising African culture, which is often traced back to Africa. Still, sadly the people in Africa are no longer practising it. In this session which happens to be the sixth session of the event, they discussed how these cultures are the same worldwide and why they should be reconnected. Contrary to what people think, the connection is profound.
Yinka, a very energetic Brazil-based Nigerian artist, writer, journalist and documentarist, brought on his full Yoruba arts advocate attire to Nzuko 2022. With a solid stand, he stated that Africa is incomplete without Brazil, and if you celebrate Africa, you celebrate Brazil as it is practically half of Africa. From his view, the culture and religion of the Africans are very much pronounced in Brazilian communities. A Brazilian believes he is African because his forefathers got there through the influence of the slave trade back in the day. It is a bad moment that has turned into a sea of glory as today, the Yoruba language is an official language in Brazil, and the government spends a lot to preserve this culture.
The annual Festival of Arts and Culture at the samba festival celebrates Africa. The way they move, dress, worship, eat and speak reflects the African culture, and you can even find some Yoruba expressions in the Yoruba language. Even the women back their children. They eat with their hands and practise the Yoruba Orisha religion. This religion has been given many negative views in history as the ancestors’ gods are tagged as the bible devil. But today, the highest Orisha temple stands in Brazil and anyone who discriminates against the religion is liable to arrest. Still, we are not enjoying this in the country of origin.
Today in Brazil the Yoruba man is like a God as far as he or she speaks the language.
Sanja Djurdjulov, the liaison executive for the African business chamber in Serbia, ABC, a young chamber with high goals, brought the topic of the togetherness of Africa and Serbia to Nzuko 2022.
Through the business chamber, she aims to promote business connection, growth and development of countries and connect the African-Serbian markets on a national, cultural and traditional level.
She stated that Africa and Serbia have collaborated and supported each other for a long time as they have contributed to each other’s development. Serbian architects participated in the construction of many famous institutions on the African continent. They were in charge of building the convention centre and the Sheraton Hotel in Harare, Zimbabwe; these were some of the most significant projects at that time. And also the building of the parliament in Nigeria, the Entebbe airport in
Uganda and the Canasta University complex in Ghana, as well as the international affairs complex in Lagos, etc.
The relations between both continents have always been based on solid foundations of unity, mutual understanding supporting corporate collaboration, and solidarity.
The business chamber also wants to promote African culture as they see Africa as a vast and potentially filled continent. The connection between the two continents fell through when the former Yugoslavic President died, but they are retrieving it by connecting B2Bs and creating strategic partnerships.
Another exhibition during the event showcased the delivery drone made by Akintunde Oluwaseyi Olanrewaju. He is a Nigerian drone UAV builder and auto-detect inventor, and he builds drones and radio control aeroplanes from scratch using Styrofoam plywood, aluminium and local materials. It can deliver goods to customers in good condition and reduces the chances that the package will be damaged or stolen. The drone itself can also hardly be damaged or crashed because if one of the motors of the drone shuts down, the drone can still glide in the air like a plane with the help of the wing attached to the fuselage and lens safely without damaging the package.
Akintunde started building this drone in 2013. His first flying aeroplane was in 2016. And he’s since been able to make any plane or aeroplane and completely auto-detect.
Madame Josette Bruffaerts-Thomas is the CEO of Haiti Future. She introduced the audience to the educational project which she is currently overseeing in Haiti as she highlighted how she left her influential job in France to provide quality education in Haiti.
Ms Josette pointed out the challenges with her project: overcrowding of students and poorly trained teachers. The phenomenon of overage students, whereby 40% of the children are not in school in Haiti, a poor state, 10% of all schools is public. The diversity of types of schools and the establishment is rarely electrified.
But she persisted because she could see the strong will to learn.
This way, they introduced technological means of learning.
The Haiti Future programme is in partnership with the Ministry of National Education. They signed an agreement with the central administration to have regular contact with the directors and district inspectors in the areas where the technological numerical initiative is taking place. There are also issues with finances, and they are coping a bit by introducing the students to agriculture in the school garden programme, where they get to supplement the school’s income and canteens.
COVID-19 has increased the food risk, higher food prices due to the instability of the local currency, and lower remittances from the diaspora, which are strongly affected by COVID-19.
So, she concludes by quoting Nelson Mandela, who says education is the most powerful weapon to change the world. Thanks to technology, let’s make a weapon of mass construction for our society using education.
Professor Dr. Victor Mancir da Silva Santana, a science scholar at the University of Bahai, intimated the gathering on the intersection between education and science.
He also spoke about the situation in Bahai, where he was born, where there is a Federal University and where most people are of African descent. But even though this is the case, there are only a few Africans in the University, especially in the science sector.
Using the statistics of the number of people attending school in the City of Salvador, he noticed that there are 688 young people against 16981 Whites who have scholarships.
Digital products were introduced to help people in technical science and education, but they seemed overwhelmed by them.
And the films, series and social networks have consumed their attention.
When you hear of science works, you only hear about jobs from Europe like Einstein, Isaac Newton, Tesla or Marie Curie but none from the black man. He then suggested that we communicate the notable results of black scientists to give hope to the young workers and encourage them to go on to study.
And then he talked about the school Maria Philippa, which is in Salvador where they promote the black communities’ activities.
Africans need to create a value chain for themselves. Knowledge should be shared, and publications should be made.
There are many distractions, but we must focus on developing.
Obi Emelonye, a writer, producer and director, based his discussion on the Nollywood industry, which he called a disputed taxonomy and paradox of identity. He mentioned that he included this study for his PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London after his encounters with global academia, critics, writers, and reviewers of Nollywood. They view Nollywood from the outside without considering the makeup of the film industry.
To him, Nollywood is not a term for a particular movie-making platform but a blanket term for the film industry in Nigeria.
Nollywood emerged in 1992 due to the economic and political climate when a man called Kenneth Nnebue released a film on VHS tapes called Living in Bondage and marketed it through piracy.
This was how the early years of Nollywood looked. But Nollywood started to have many more influences from the Yoruba Travelling Theatre and the NTA, which promoted it. It always had that speed, low cost and informality.
However, Nollywood grew exponentially, and by 2009, it had become the second-largest film industry in terms of volume of productions, ahead of Hollywood and only behind India’s Bollywood. But there was criticism against the industry and its production quality as some technicians gained experience and diasporans like himself came in.
International writers, critics, academics, and even local academics have been reluctant to classify Nollywood as cinema.
Using the theories of Film theorists like Bazin and Pollock, he tried to dissect it to see if there is a cinema criterion that Nollywood has to follow. In his study, he also investigated Hollywood’s identity paradox. He found that in terms of audience reception, Nollywood is doing well, and it is not just quality that determines its influence.
Nollywood is spread across many African countries and is now a hegemony.
Claire Mtui, a communications manager at UnleashedAfrica, spoke on performing arts and democracy. Democracy is a system where all the members have a say, which she believes is directly linked to performing arts. She believes that skills deserve a chance to speak for themselves and have a role to play in various sectors towards a better Africa.
In her words, performing arts is the collective term for acts performed in front of an audience, that is dance, drama, music and many others. But for all these to be communicated, there must be a media platform, which is why there is the media industry.
UnleashedAfrica Academy has different departments specially designed to cater to these needs in the surface area and from the roots. This is a form of sustainability that can last for a long time.
History says performing arts started in the mid-20th century. Still, she begs to differ because, in African history, we have people sitting around fires to share stories, sing, dance and play musical instruments. What the 20th century brought is media for propagating this art.
UnleashedAfrica has made plans for artists and even kids, of which she is one of the artists to be out the power of natural creativity in Africa just like their name portrays. This has also brought about job creation.
Nii Amarh Amarteifio is a strategic communications expert, journalist, event consultant and the CEO of landmark media solutions who visited the platforms of Nzuko 2022. He expressed his views on supporting a free press for a stronger Africa.
He posited that the population of Africa represents 16.72% of the world’s total population, and a majority of active youths are ready and willing to contribute their quarter to the growth and development of this continent. Hence, the a need to support a free press for a stronger Africa.
However, despite the wave of media liberalisation and pluralism, since the 1990s, there have been so many cases of capricious censorship, especially in mainstream media and on the internet, with occasional network shut down in some countries, arrests of journalists and violent attacks on media personnel.
The lives of journalists are threatened, and Nii gave the example of Journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale who was recently attacked and killed, and nobody was brought to book.
Nii later said that the media over the years in Africa is proving to be strong and independent. He doesn’t discourage youths from joining the press because of these stories but instead joins in to fight for a better and free press. Africans need to own and tell their stories; this can only be done through the media.
Online platforms are great for the news, but it is a double-edged sword as many people post unverified and unconfirmed news, which most times hurts the people affected.
The last exhibition at Nzuko 2022 featured Favour Oluma, 22 years old, and the founder and CEO of Retyredglam enterprise. She is a seasoned and experienced entrepreneur in the field of upcycled products.
It’s a young and dynamic company that has proudly produced upcycle products of very high quality and standard for individuals, government organisations, film sets, and various other groups. Favour empowers youths in her community by sharing her knowledge with them. She started this enterprise during the lockdown, using tyres in her area. Her prototype went viral thanks to social media.
And now, this is a fully-fledged business with which Favour has created over 150 objects since she created it a few years ago. The company aims to expand directly into retail, recycling more plastics.
She was studying before this, and then during the pandemic, she decided to put her time into this.
Favour has been working out of her home, self-financing and transporting her orders from Minna to Abuja, Nigeria. Despite all of this, the furniture she exhibits is a testament to the unending creativity and entrepreneurship of the Young African youth and a further cry for more support.
Let’s not only sit together to discuss but let’s also find a solution…
Winfred Gaillard
Nzuko 2022 was concluded with the input of Ms Winifred Gaillard, the founder of AfricaFora, a former journalist and community leader.
She came on the platform and spoke on how it’s all about solutions as everybody knows the problem. We all have to go from pointing fingers to having real answers. Collective action is what African means. By this time next year, May 25, 2023, Africa Day will be 60 years old, this is the day when African Unity was formed, and we will be 60 years old. But we are nowhere but far behind.
Previously politicians fought for freedom, but they only care about their pockets these days.
This, she says, is why AfricaFora hosts events. To awaken the interest of the private sector and civil society so they can come together and bring about salvation.
When people come together, as in AfricaFora, they can influence the government’s decisions.
Europe does not want war in any of their countries, and they are fighting hard to stop it, and this is precisely what will happen if Africa stands together.
As one of the speakers, Josette, mentioned, it will help if seminars like this are held so people can use these platforms to show what Africans can do. For example, some people would not have known about the drone, the refined gin, or the earpod that can translate about 40 languages if they were not mentioned at the Nzuko Africa event.
AfricaFora is all about this as it tries to propagate African products. The core lesson is that Africa needs to change its story.
Many things are going on in various countries in Africa, and if everyone only sticks to their countries, nothing will change. But when Africans come together as they did in Nzuko 2022, the lack of press freedom in some countries is unveiled, coupled with other problems that many people do not know about.
We can see that many Africans in their communities are trying to bring about change, which can be seen through the speech of each speaker. They were not just talking about solutions; we can see that they already have ongoing projects targeting every problem they mention.
Africa needs to come back together as one.
There is a new trend on social media these days. And while this trend often makes me proud, it also makes me sad at the same time. I’m talking about young black people from West Africa leading their classes and being valedictorians in Harvard, Yale, Sheffield and other Universities and schools in the UK, US, …
From Underfunded national leagues and abysmal performances on the international stage to Gross Mismanagement of Funds by Troubled Associations, Africa’s Football Associations have not had it easy over the years. In Present Day, Sports, – and Football in particular, have intimately become interwoven with the developmental issues of the continent.
Ipolowo oja l’agunmu owo is a Yoruba adage that translates to; promotion is the magic potion for business, and this is true for the sports business. Sporting events are organized throughout the year in Nigeria and West Africa, yet, these events are held with little or no relevance; stadiums are nearly empty, there is insufficient …
Extraordinary! That’s the word that best describes the performance of certain African countries in the 2022 Commonwealth Games and like we would always say, a win for one is a win for all. The 22nd edition of the Commonwealth Games officially known as XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly called ‘Birmingham 2022’ after the host city- …
