Nsibidi existed from the 3rd century before the metamorphosis of the English language from the West Germanic languages in the 5th century.
Nsibidi used on an Efik tray made in the 19th century. A mermaid encircled with diagrams including Nsibidi ideogram.
Nsibidi has been described as a Semasiographic script comprised of ideograms and pictograms that were used in southeastern Nigeria among the Ejagham (Ekoid people), Efik, Igbo, and Ibibio societies.
The Ejagham originally came from Northeast Africa which supports my analogy of the origins of Igbo Ukwu art of the ancient Igbo Ukwu Kingdom with the ancient Indus Valley Civilization of the 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE.
Igbos believe that they are descendants of one of the Sons of God who descended from heaven and had a relationship with one of the daughters of Eve.
Insibidi is the secret language of the Ekpe Leopard Secret Society of the Efik, Ibibio and Igbo societies.
Nsibidi means The Beginning in my mother tongue of the Igbos sharing borders and ethnic similarities with the Efik and Ibibio tribes.
Nsibidi is more than a written language.
It is also a sign language of the Ekpe Leopard Secret Society and unknown to the various Nigerian artists who have been doing nothing more than to copy and paste Insibidi for drawings, paintings, sculptures, prints and potteries and posing and posturing as experts, Nsibidi is also expressed choreographically in a movement of hands and footsteps of secret language communication by members of the Ekpe Leopard Secret Society and used by the dreaded Ekpe masquerades.
I once confronted an Ekpe masquerade decades ago in the early 1990s on the popular Fola Agoro Road leading to the University of Lagos on my way to visit a beautiful girlfriend, Naomi, the Joy of my heart.
As others were either avoiding or running away from the scary looking Ekpe masquerade holding a machete and bell and a chain was tied to the waist held by his guides, I stood face-to-face with him. He was growling and snorting angrily. I was not afraid, because I have also met original Ekpe masquerades during festivities in my mother's hometown of Umuda Nsigwu in the Umuahia North Local Government area of Abia State of southern eastern Nigeria.
Two weeks ago, whilst waiting for a tailor in front of his residence in the Ekpri Nsukarra village in Uyo, a friendly discussion with one of his young neighbours drifted off to Nsibidi and the Ekpe masquerades and he demonstrated one of the movements of their secret language.
IEC Applications Can End Extreme Poverty in the World
I am one of those involved in the concerted efforts for the eradication of extreme poverty in the world. And I have reached the advanced final stage in the development of the applications that can reduce poverty by 80 percent with IEC, Information, Education and Communication methods which I have seen during my years of working as an IEC field officer for the Center for Education, Population, AIDS and Drug Abuse (CEPADA), an NGO founded by Mrs. Hadiyat O. Shitta-Bey, a former award winning Program Specialist in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) when I did Market Based Distribution (MBD) surveys of the largest markets in Lagos, the most populous state in Nigeria and the largest megacity in Africa and when I was contracted as a public health illustrator and translator for the production and publication of family planning methods booklets in Pidgin English, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa for semi literates distributed by the Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria (PPFN) and as a national Program Consultant for the Child Survival and Development (CSD) projects of the UNICEF in Nigeria.
The first mobile app for all the users to GSM phones has been in development since 2014 and I have also completed the layout for a SaaS e-commerce and fintech app for interactive IEC through social network for wealth creation and distribution among all the users of mobile phones in Nigeria and other countries.
Imagine an app with X Amazon and Paypal combined.
My advocacy for the education of the millions of girls out of school in Nigeria is fundamental in the eradication of extreme poverty in developing countries, because surveys have shown that majority of the people living in poverty come from families with mothers who did not go to school or dropped out of school.
In Nigeria, we found out that almost 90 percent of the bandits and terrorists on rampage in northern Nigeria were born by mothers who did not go to school and without any formal education and thousands of their children were destitutes. Their rebellion against law and order was caused by lack of parenting and poverty with uneducated parents who did not have the information on family planning and family welfare.
They continue to breed children they cannot feed and they cannot afford to send to school.
Extreme poverty is largely due to ignorance and illiteracy.
With the use of IEC applications through mobile phones, millions of the people in poverty will be taken out of poverty.
The first MVP of the mobile app was among the top finalists for tech innovation awards in Africa in 2014 and the pitch for the SaaS e-commerce and fintech app was shortlisted for the a tech startups hackathon in Africa in 2022.
Both mobile apps will advance the decentralization of e-commerce and fintech platforms in all communities in Nigeria and other countries and downloaded without any payment by all those who can use mobile phones and the IEC applications will be in their own languages.
The Diversions and Misappropriations of Grants and Loans in the Nigerian Film Industry
The socioeconomic, sociocultural and political institutionalization of corruption in Nigeria has done collateral damage to the Nigerian society with widespread administrative incompetence in public service and political corruption is the cause of the maladministration in the Nigerian government.
Political corruption is the anathema of democracy and good governance in Nigeria with brazen corrupt practices from the local government to the Office of the President; from Alausa to Abuja. Every workplace is infected of the virus of the epidemic of corruption with corrupt and incompetent public officials posing and posturing as Smart Alecs, but they disregard the values and virtues of dignity, integrity and nobility.
There is widespread culture of conceit and deceit in the Nigerian society. Being fraudulent is no longer shocking!
Corruption is now widely reported in the Nigerian entertainment industry with several cases of unprofessional sharp practices during film and TV productions.
The entertainment industry has become a conduit for money laundering in the camouflage of international events and productions used for illicit transfers of funds and tax evasions.
We should not sweep the corruption in the entertainment industry under the red carpet.
Fraudulent activities should be exposed and reported no matter the rank and file of the entertainers and their sponsors.
The Diversions and Misappropriations of Grants and Loans in Nolllywood and the Nigerian Film Industry by filmmakers with questionable integrity.
The recent statement by popular Nigerian comedian and film/TV producer, Bright Okpocha popularly known as "Basketmouth" that several millions of dollars given to some of the selected Nigerian filmmakers by Netflix for film productions were diverted and misappropriated (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/12/netflix-they-spend-10-on-movie-use-others-to-buy-cars-houses-basketmouth-slams-nollywood-producers) did not surprise me, because there have been previous reports on corrupt practices of filmmakers in Nigeria.
I have been informed about diversions and misappropriations of grants and loans for film and TV productions by the beneficiaries since 2001 to date.
The funds provided as soft loans with low interest rates by the Ecobank were misappropriated. The AccessNolly Fund of the Access Bank and NollyFund of the Bank of Industry (BoI) of Nigeria were diverted and misappropriated and the grants from the Project ACT Nollywood were also misappropriated by some of the beneficiaries. The film productions were compromised, badly done or abandoned.
A former Regional Audio-visual Attache at the French Embassy in Nigeria knew that some of the funds from the Fonds Images Afrique grants given for a short documentary film on Lagos and two other productions were diverted and misappropriated
See Nollywood and the French Connection on
https://nigeriansreportng.blogspot.com/2022/06/nollywood-and-french-connection.html
He gave me the details and I watched the documentary film.
"This is not Lagos", I said and smirked. But I did not report the disclosures. The same Regional Audio-visual Attache later told the director of the documentary film that he suspected me of being an American spy. I was amused.
I laughed and dismissed the suspicion. I have been identified sitting with certain Americans and a prominent Ghanaian politician on exile in Nigeria during an official meeting for a family planning project in Nigeria at the Eko Hotel and Suites on Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria. One of the Americans who was my namesake then was later accused of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Ghana by the military regime of Jerry Rawlings in the 1980s. I was only contracted as a public health illustrator through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
I have stopped communication with this French Regional Audio-Visual Attache who was later transferred to Burundi.
He told me that a particular young filmmaker misappropriated the funds given to him and used only the remainder to produce a feature that they rejected. But his colleague who did not misappropriate funds produced a good mystical romantic drama that was accepted by Canal France International in 2009 and broadcast to all television channels in French-speaking Africa under the title "La Métamorphose".
The details of the cases of the diversions and misappropriations, including the filmmakers involved are available.
- - by Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,
The Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series,
First book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry.
Distributed by Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.
"Dahomey" is More Important to Me than "Emilia Pérez"
I have ignored posting on the nominees for the 97th Academy Awards, because I was disappointed that Mati Diop's critically acclaimed multiple award winning documentary film, "Dahomey" was not included among the nominees after it was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature category and the Best International Feature Film category.
This is the second time that her award winning film has not made the nominees after winning a highly coveted award at one of the Big Five international film festivals in the world.
She won the Grand Prix at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for her feature film debut, "Atlantics" and was the entry of Senegal for the Best International Feature Film category of the 2019 Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. And her second feature film, "Dahomey" that won the Golden Bear at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and the entry of Senegal for the Best International Feature Film category was not nominated.
The most likely predicted winner is of course, Jacques Audiard's controversial musical romantic crime drama, "Emilia Pérez" with the record of 13 nominations, the highest number for the 97th Academy Awards to be held on March 2, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. But I doubt if the film can win up to five Oscars.
I don't know how the nominees are chosen, because the judges and specific criteria are not known to the public, except the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) whose membership of the academy is based more on being recommended than on the merit of professional criteria. So, membership can be influenced by the familiarity with influential members of AMPAS.
The content and context of "Dahomey" as an anticolonial historical film on repatriation have a more universal theme than a romantic crime thriller of sexual orientation and personal insecurities and sentiments.
It will be better and more meritorious if the winners of the highly esteemed critically juried Palme 'Or and Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival; Golden Bear of the Berlin International Film Festival or Berlinale; Golden Lion of Venice Film Festival; People's Choice Award and the FIPRESCI Prize, or International Film Critics Awardt at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic, Directing Award Dramatic, Grand Jury Prize Documentary and Directing Award Documentary at Sundance Film Festival qualify for the nominations for the annual Academy Awards.
I agree with the following statement by Tim Dirks, editor of AMC's Filmsite, has written of the Academy Awards:
Unfortunately, the critical worth, artistic vision, cultural influence and innovative qualities of many films are not given the same voting weight. Especially since the 1980s, moneymaking "formula-made" blockbusters with glossy production values have often been crowd-pleasing titans (and Best Picture winners), but they haven't necessarily been great films with depth or critical acclaim by any measure"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Awards
-;By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, Founder, Publisher and Editor, NOLLYWOOD MIRROR® Series, The first book series on Nollywood and the Nigerian film industry distributed by Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.
Since 1988, I have completed my comprehensive research for the historical film on Mary Slessor, the famous Scottish missionary and heroine and saviour of twins among the Efik and Ibibio tribes in now Cross River and Akwa Ibom States of south-south region of Nigeria.
I met with the Mr. Lai Arasanmi of blessed memory, who was the Manager, Programmes, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) , Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos whose resume included B.Sc. Broadcast Journalism, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA, 1975; M.A. Speech Communication; Cert. Public Entreprise Management, ASCON. Member: Nigerian Guild of Producers/Directors with several awards. But I abandoned the project and became an evangelist on the streets and public transport buses in Lagos.
There have been attempts of both film and TV productions of the dramatic life of Many Slessor. But none has been successful, because of poor research, poor characterization of her personality and erroneous art direction and production design. Jeta Amata's "Mary Slessor" was not well done in casting and storytelling as can be seen in the video on https://youtu.be/ospsnFdqsck?si=CQIjzAHamcCaFhA8.
Any "Mary Slessor" without her Scottish accent is wrong characterization and should not have been done.
In my research, I had access to copies of the letters of Mary Slessor, especially the personal letters to her sister.
Presently, no Nollywood actress can play Mary Slessor, because none of them has attained that standard of intellectual acumen and professionalism in acting historical figures of such magnitude.
Nastassja Kinski can play the leading role in the film adaptation of Mary Slessor.
I was convinced by her role as "Tess", the 1979 epic drama film by Roman Polanski, the film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 classic novel, "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". that was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and won the Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.
Nastassja Kinski met Roman Polanski at a party in 1976.e He urged her to study method acting with Lee Strasberg in the United States and she was offered the title role of Tess.
In 1978, Kinski underwent extensive preparation for the portrayal of the English peasant girl and she had to learn and acquire a Dorset accent through elocution studies:
"I was given the book almost a year prior to read, I then had to transform myself and lose my German accent completely. I worked with a coach from the National Theatre in London, Kate Fleming. It was almost an intellectual voyage. I went to live in the countryside of the deep part of England, on a farm, did everything they did, and learned it. When the time came in Paris to do my test, it was with our director and our producers Claude Berri and Timothy Burrill, I had done a screen test with Roman prior to that, for Dino DeLaurentis, but now this was for Tess. Preparation is an amazing thing. It, somehow, after all the work, carries you if you are fully present, it carries you through like a bird, like big inner and outer wings."
Nastassja Kinski can undergo the same preparations for the role of Mary Slessor and I am convinced that even at the age of 64 years, she will bring out the great personality of the iconic Scottish missionary and also learn to speak the native languages of the Efik and Ibibio tribes she loved and lived with till her breath in their midst on earth.
The awesome life of Many Slessor would be most appreciated in the historical film based on the facts she documented in her dairies and letters.
Mary Slessor stands just outside Ikotobong court house, which can be seen with its thatched roof on the right side of the photograph.
Mary Slessor with her adopted children.
Mary Slessor stands with a number of villagers outside her house in Ekenge
Pots in which twin babies were exposed due to the superstitions of the natives (photo c. 1880)
In 1889 the British Government established a Protectorate in Calabar and, on account of her unique influence, she was invited to take up the office of Magistrate and Superintendent of the district court. It had already become customary for locals to refer their disputes to her for settlement.
During her forty-year ministry in Africa, Mary Slessor contracted malaria (which never left her), as well as other fevers and health-wracking illnesses. She ministered to head-hunters and cannibals.
She interceded in inter-tribal warfare and she saved countless babies who were left to die in the jungle due to the superstitions of the natives. The birth of twins among the Efiks had always resulted in infanticide because they believed it was the result of a great sin by the mother and evidence of a curse. They would be abandoned in the jungle to wild animals. Mary rescued a number of twins and raised them herself, saving numerous lives. On one occasion she nursed a chief back to health, to the great relief of his wives, all of whom would have been sacrificed if he had died. They gathered around her to ask about her wonderful powers and she replied:
“I have come to you because I love and worship Jesus Christ, the Great Physician and Saviour, the Son of the Father God who made all things. I want you to know this Father and to receive the eternal life which Jesus offers to all those with contrite and believing hearts. To know Jesus means to love Him, and with His love in our hearts we love everybody. Eternal life means peace and joy in this world and a wonderful home in the next world. My heart longs for you to believe in Jesus, to walk in His paths, and to know the blessings of eternal life through Him.”
The natives said Mma Mary Slessor was a mother, a teacher, a court President, and a Consul of the Southern Protectorate of Nigeria who traversed the area as far as Arochukwu in Abia State preaching the gospel.
“Mary Slessor came from Scotland to Calabar and then moved to Okoyong. She stayed at Calabar and even built a wooden storey building house there but now they are trying to renovate that place.
“After that, She left Okoyong to Use Ikot Oku. From Ikot Obong village where you have the district court sign board to Use Ikot Oku where you have the bridge, that bounds Ibiono Ibom and Itu local government areas, her tombstone is about half a kilometre from here.
“I have had her oral history from one of our longest Chiefs, Chief Etim Udoudo who reigned over 30 years. That man even sang the song the woman sang before she died. I have gotten the history from my grand father’s second wife, Adiaha Akpan Usung (nee Adiaha Akpan Ekarika). She told me stories about her. I have also gotten oral evidence from one of the twins that she nurtured, late Elder Mrs Ceecee Akpaninyang who happened to be my aunt.
“The woman stayed here and worked. She built her house on that hill, that was her base. According to Chief Udoudo, she used to move and she was carried on what was called ‘amake’, a sort of swing, where young men would put her on their shoulders and travel across this bridge through Arochukwu. The bridge links Atan, Onoyom to Arochukwu to Ikpe Ikot Nkon; that was the route she used to travel,” he said.
According to Elder Usungurua, it was during one of such trips that Mma stumbled on the Long juju shrine where people were used for sacrifice. Mma Slessor was said to have informed the British government of the activity there which led to the destruction of the shrine.
Her advance into Ibibios territory was aided by the fact that the British government was building roads in that region. “Get a bicycle, Ma,” government officials said, pointing to the road, “and come as far as you can. We will soon have a motor car service for you.” At fifty-seven years of age Mary gamely learned to ride a bicycle after a government official presented her with a brand new model from England.
The early months of 1909 found Mary covered with painful boils from head to foot. “Only sleeping draughts keep me from going off my head,” she related. She later became severely ill from blood poisoning. She was taken to Duke Town near the coast where members of the mission attentively nursed her back to heal. But after five weeks of such care she was eager to resume her ministry responsibilities inland, and did so before some officials and doctors thought it fully advisable.
Eventually her health declined to the point that the Mission’s doctor forbad her to travel by bicycle. Hearing of her need for an alternative means of transportation, a group of ladies in Scotland sent her a Cape cart, a basket-chair on wheels capable of being maneuvered along quite easily by two boys or girls.
In the closing years of her life Mary established churches and schools in the villages of Ikpe, Odoro Ikpe and Nkanga further up Enyong Creek. She carried out ministry at those locations unaided by fellow missionaries. To her deep disappointment, the Mission had already concluded that health conditions were not safe enough in that region to place other missionaries there. To the end, however, she continued to be assisted by several African girls who lived with her as foster daughters.
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"Kisses and Roses on Amazon To Open Offline Stores in Nigeria
Kisses and Roses eStore on Amazon will open offline stores in Nigeria to be located in the cities of Uyo and Lagos in 2025.
People can walk into the stores and order for the trending fashion, beauty and lifestyle products of different popular brands, including COVERGIRL, Chanel, D&G and Gucci distributed by Amazon and their orders will be delivered within a week in Nigeria.
Kisses and Roses will also cosponsor two beauty pageants in Uyo and Lagos for the promotion of Nigerian beauty, fashion and culture for the local and international entertainment industry.
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