Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Nigerians in UK inspire British Author’s new book for Children

Nigerians in UK inspire British Author’s new book for Children

A new book Tópé Arrives is about a Nigerian orphan who was forced against his will to continue his life in England. It is a Nigerian story written by a new British author Wendy Hue who told me why she wrote this emotionally compelling children’s book that has been endorsed by Richard Damilola, the father of Damilola Taylor, the 10-year-old Nigerian child murdered on his way from Peckham Library on November 27, 2000, in south London in 2000. The book was on the long list of the The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition.



Tópé is suddenly orphaned and against his will he has to leave Nigeria. Worried about starting a new life in England, he feels he is an outsider in his new school. It is a time of tears and tussles. Will his nimble football skills and precious wooden boat somehow help him to carve out a new beginning? Will he ever again be able to believe in himself and drum in with the dundun drums his renewed sense of fun and pride.

The book is specially for 7 - 9 year olds and already selected for Centre for Literacy and Primary Education book fair in London on the 24th June 2011.

Wendy Hue has a lot to say on her book, how Nigerians she has known for years in the UK inspired her literary genius in the writing and her unique multiethnic family among other important facts of her colourful life.




'Tópé Arrives' is just one of many, many stories that I have written.
The reason I decided to move with 'Tópé first was because he kept getting a lot of interest from mainstream publishers and also a literary agent I had about 5 years ago, however he never quite got published by them. Then the manuscript was long listed in The Times/Chicken House 2011 competition and I thought 'you know what - let me take this project in to my own hands' as from what I can see there is a real close net of who decides what books get published and end up on our shelves for all of our children. Children of different ethnicities are dispersed around the globe now and I believe we can no longer think insular, but must think wider because of this. We also have 4th, 5th etc generations of children now who are born and reared in different countries to that of their mother, father, grandparents, great grandparents and so on.

I also believe there is still a real under-representation of books for 'all of our children', where they can all be the main protagonist, the hero, or the fairy queen etc. I do not think we are quite there as yet in terms of having books that represent the complement of ethnicities in many countries, due party I suppose to the migration of peoples from one part of the earth to another today.

In terms of writing 'Tópé Arrives' about another culture, I felt confident enough because I have many, many amazing and wonderful Nigerian friends and worked in Peckham, South London for over 20 years (where there is an enormous and wonderful Nigerian community) so became very familiar with Nigerian culture. As the book, which was originally written, but not edited at that stage, is for young readers I did not want to force too much information about Nigeria in the book. I just wanted that information to trickle through with a light stroke of a paint brush. I hope I have done justice to this.

I can also let you know that I worked with two (not even one) excellent editors, one in particular who is an expert on diversity in children's publishing - Laura Atkins and she worked tirelessly with me to polish up the manuscript. I also commissioned a fabulous illustrator who has one some really wonderful line drawings inside and a beautiful front cover. Zara Slattery is the illustrator. All of this has and getting the book published has been at a total cost to me, but I am passionate about my writing and have persevered. I cannot wait for book number two to come out now, which is 'Ria - Sisterly Plaits' about a young black British Caribbean girl. I am of Caribbean ethnicity, but this story will not be autobiographical.

I have just left working in local government in London after almost 22 years and had been there for so long. I am a part-time university student in my final year, but finish next year as I have been also working fulltime. This year I have studied 'Global Politics and Postcolonial Worlds' and 'Cultures of Consumption'. As a family we also regularly have young children from all parts of the globe come and stay in our home on short stays when they are visiting England. I am a married mother of three children, my son Marlon is 23 and daughters, Hannah 19 and Emily 13. My father (who is part Chinese) came to this country (UK) when he was enlisted to fight in World War II for the British Royal Air Force when the Caribbean as were many other countries, part of the Commonwealth. He and my mother who came here in the 1950s remained thereafter. With my father's work we always moved around and lived for 3 years in Cyprus in the Mediterranean when I was growing up and also I was born in Germany because of this, amongst many, many places in the UK. As a family (I have 6 wonderful brothers and two lovely sisters) we have a multiplicity of ethnicities as we have African heritage in us as well as Scottish, Irish, Chinese and so on... - very global - one world!

On my literary ambitions, I have already paid with a publishing company for book number 2, but am now wondering if I should just try and set up my own publishing company to move with books thereafter. I am keen for far more representation and transparency in our world of children's books globally, and all of my books embrace inclusion and diversity...



~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Click here to order "Tópé Arrives" from Amazon.



Saturday, May 21, 2011

The Muslim Woman Who Saw Jesus!

The Muslim Woman Who Saw Jesus!

Millions of people are still perishing in ignorance of the Truth of Jesus Christ, because of their unbelief and being misled by false doctrine and false religion. That is why I have to remind them of the awesome testimony of Gulshan Esther, a Muslim girl, imprisoned by her religion and severe disability, but was healed and set free by Jesus Christ HIMSELF!



You should also read the book of her unforgettable testimony The Torn Veil: The Best-Selling Story of Gulshan Esther



A true story of freedom and miraculous healing as a Muslim girl finds faith in Christ

When Gulshan Esther, a devout Muslim girl, was six months old, typhoid left her a cripple. Her loving father took her from Pakistan to England to find a cure, but the only hope the British specialist could offer was prayer. Gulshan and her father made pilgrimage to Mecca and begged Allah for healing, but it was not until her father’s untimely death that Gulshan began to receive an answer. In her grief she wanted to die, but as she called out to God, for the first time in her life she sensed she was being heard. She heard a low, gentle voice say, "I won’t let you die. I will keep you aliveÖI am Jesus, son of Mary."

As Gulshan began reading the Quran, her interest in Jesus grew, until one amazing night he appeared to her in her bedroom in a blaze of light. He restored her crippled arm and leg and taught her The Lord’s Prayer. He told her to go to his people—now her people—and tell them what he had done. Since that time, and to this day, she has been a joyous, obedient disciple of Christ. The Torn Veil is an amazing story of faith and determination.

This moving autobiography was first published in 1984 and has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide.

Click on the Amazon image of the book cover below to order for this book of the extraordinary testimony of this Muslim woman who saw Jesus our Lord!



Monday, September 6, 2010

Nengi Josef Ilagha Writes Queen Elizabeth II on Nigeria’s 50th Independence Anniversary

Majesty Nengi Josef Ilagha, Mingi XII, Amanyanabo of Nembe

News Flash

As Nigeria prepares to celebrate her Golden Jubilee anniversary on October 1, 2010, the London-based Nigerian poet, journalist and broadcaster, Nengi Josef Ilagha, forwards a Royal Mail to Queen Elizabeth II, the constitutional monarch of England who will be marking her Diamond Jubilee anniversary on the throne in 2012. In twelve gutsy, friendly, sober and soul-searching epistles, the author takes the Queen on a revealing ride into the corrupt character and unwholesome habits of a nation on the verge of rebirth, and invites her to push for the restoration of the values that make England a stable and prosperous model.

Told through the perceptive lenses of a poet with a knack for refreshing imagery, the book is an incisive and harrowing testament on the state of the most populous African country, fifty years into its life as a nation, laying bare its shameful inadequacies, and underscoring its hopeful impact on world affairs. Delivered in a lucid, winsome and personable style which dollies in from time to time to undertake a dramatic exposition of the British colonial mentor and life in London, Royal Mail is inspired by Her Majesty’s efficient postal delivery service.

The book promptly finds its place beside Chinua Achebe’s popular 1983 commentary, The Trouble With Nigeria, with the added advantage that it extends its critical antenna to England and finds the colonizer culpable of the political rot in present-day Nigeria, no thanks to the divide-and-rule ethic enthroned by the British under Lord Frederick Lugard’s pioneering tenure as Governor-General of the West African nation. The following is the opening epistle from Royal Mail, published by Treasure Books, Nigeria.


I

City Boy

The men who succeed are the efficient few
- Herbert N. Casson


YOUR ROYAL MAJESTY, I am glad to make your acquaintance. I am led by none other than the hand of God to address this humble epistle to you. I have no doubt that your efficient mail delivery service will bring these words before your eyes in the fullness of time. As you will soon come to understand, I have quite a lot to say to you, and I will say it as the pages flip by, so help me God.

Allow me to begin by congratulating you on your fifty-eighth anniversary in office. That is quite a long time to serve your land and people as Queen. You have been monarch of England for as long as Ron and Don, the world’s most famous conjoined twins have been together, bound by flesh from day to day, minute after minute. I happen to have seen them for the first time on BBC 4 television on the night of March 4, 2010, and it got me thinking. They were born one year after you ascended the throne at Sandringham.

By all accounts, you will be marking your Diamond Jubilee in 2012. I find myself suitably equipped and qualified, therefore, to address you in the twelve epistles that make up this small loaf of bread, even as you come to understand that two of my sons go by the names of Diamond and Jubilee. But let me not get ahead of my story. Let me take one letter at a time, one word at a time, one line at a time, one paragraph at a time, one page at a time, one chapter at a time.

You have been at the head of government for so long, witness to the policies and programmes of Prime Ministers as varied in temperament and carriage as Anthony Eden was from Gordon Brown. Not too long ago, I saw pictures of Winston Churchill, Eden’s predecessor, upon the satellite clouds, delivering excerpts of his famous speeches in the finest manner of a war-time hero. Quote. Let each man search his conscience and search his speeches. I frequently search mine. Unquote.

Your Majesty, do you mind taking a look at your speech to Nigeria on October 1, 1960? Remind yourself of the things you said to the new nation, the promises you failed to keep. I say this advisedly, because I have before me your speech to the Commonwealth delivered on May 8, 2010.

Today’s societies are constantly seeking ways to improve their quality of life, and science and technology play a vital part in that search…Experimentation, research and innovation, mean that more opportunities for improving people’s lives exist today than ever before. Take long distance communication, where the obstacles of time and geography have been dramatically reduced: people can now use mobile phones to be in instant contact virtually anywhere in the world, be it with a medical centre in the Himalayan mountains in Asia, a Pacific island school, a research facility at the South Pole, or even the international space station, beyond this planet altogether.

I share your sentiments, Your Majesty. I look forward to your next speech, the one you will address to the President and good people of Nigeria on their Golden Jubilee anniversary, the one that will pronounce restoration to a long-suffering nation. Suffice it to say, for now, that Nigeria is not some space station beyond this planet. It is a country you once ruled with pride and honour. By virtue of modern communication devices, we can still be reached by phone, in spite of frustrations with the network. But anyone you call up in our beleaguered country will assure you that conditions of living could have been better than they are today. Take it from me.

By and by, it should strike you as a sign that Sir Anthony Eden was the first Prime Minister under your watch. I shall have a lot to say about Eden, the parcel of land upon which the first man and woman were moulded from the mud of the earth. Of course, as a fervent Christian, I take my bearings from the Bible. Now we dwell in the present, listening to the rhetoric of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to say nothing of the Miliband Brothers. I am a witness to history in the making. I abide with you. I can only say it is your portion to have been so blessed, so revered, so adored for over five decades of your life in prosperity and opulence.

I have no doubt that you have questions of your own bubbling within you right now, questions you wish to direct at me. Verily, verily, I will be only too glad to give ear and hearken, to say nothing of answering them as the days unfold, but I suppose you will let me exhaust myself on the subjects I have set out to address in this long epistle to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of England. Even so, I cannot proceed without running the full course of the pleasantries which I must not fail to offer, from my meek and gentle self to every member of the Royal Family, acting on behalf of the President and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

How are you today? How is the Queen Mother? How is Prince Phillip? How is Prince Charles? How is Prince William? And how is Prince Harry? O, how is Princess Anne, the one you sent to represent you at Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos on October 1, 1960? How did you find Nigeria on your maiden visit in the first week of December, 2003? What gift do you have in mind for the country you once colonized, as it marks its Golden Jubilee? These questions popped up in my mind in that particular order on February 6, 2010, when I read in the internet rather belatedly that you were marking your anniversary in Sandrigham. It was remiss of me not to have put my thoughts on paper at the time and date in question, on account of the poor weather. As the saying goes, however, better late than never. I have never been at home with the cold, and I will tell you why. I am a child of the sun, that’s why. At any rate, I have no doubt that your family is in good health and excellent spirits.

Your Majesty, I will do well not to hold back what I have to say to you. If I have rambled round and about the subject up to this point, put it down to a royal habit I acquired since I became king. That last bit of information, indeed, should give you a fair idea as to how I summoned the audacity to extend a few words of hope in conversation with Your Imperial Majesty, as Nigeria marks her Golden Jubilee. Do allow me to whisper this detail in your ear, if you don’t mind coming a little closer. I am His Royal Majesty Nengi Josef Ilagha, Mingi XII, Amanyanabo of Nembe Kingdom. I am also the author of twelve books spanning the full calendar, from January through December, as you may have noticed from the Pope Pen Library that prefaces this book. Glad to meet you.

Time does fly, Your Majesty. Don’t you find it amazing that you have ruled Britain for all of fifty-eight years, that in a couple of years you will be marking your Diamond Jubilee? Isn’t God wonderful to have kept you through the storm of eleven Prime Ministers? Before David Cameron showed up, I was wondering who would be your Twelfth Prime Minister. Now we know that you are overseeing the first coalition government since 1945. May God give you the fortitude and grace to undertake the assignment to the glory of his name.

Lest I forget, let me promptly invite you to my coronation ceremony in the selfsame critical year of transition which marks your Diamond Jubilee. I shall be formally ascending the throne in that capital year, 2012, as King of Eden, better known as Nembe in modern geography. I have no doubt that your entire entourage will be on hand to demonstrate to our land and people what the imperial ceremonies are like, and should be, even in a former colony such as Nigeria. Do bring along your beefeaters, your buffeters, your bagpipes, your puppeteers, your horses, your Metropolitan police and your Imperial Guard of Honour.

Come and stage a carnival as colourful, as grand, as magnificent, as brilliant, as vintage as the one I just witnessed at Nothinghill. Come with your trumpets, come with your bugles. Come and stage a lavish party in Nigeria, beginning from Bayelsa. Come to the Glory Of All Lands. You must come and set a new standard, or at least, revive the memory of our people as to what it means to be part of the British Commonwealth. What is more, I believe you will do well to send word to your worthy counterparts in Spain, Denmark, Jordan and such other countries where the monarchy is still respected as a timeless institution, to grace the coronation ceremony of Pope Pen The First.

There we are! The proverbial cat is out of the bag, out of the proverbial bin, in spite of all the efforts of the Mary Bales of this wicked world. My friends call me Mingi Nengi XII, the Lion King of Nembe. So now you know why I am so conscious of the year 2012. What are your earnest plans for your Diamond Jubilee celebration in 2012? I want to be a part of it all. Well, now we have our bearings right, let us get down to brass tacks, so to speak. But let it not be that I am being presumptuous. It is possible that you cannot quite place Nembe on the map of British history, so I will go so far as to help you.

Fifty-eight years is a long time indeed, Your Majesty. So much has happened. So much more is happening, even as we speak. You may have forgotten certain matters that called for your urgent attention in times past. You may at present be preoccupied with A Journey, the memoirs of Tony Blair. I have my copy in hand as well. I will read it on the Tube, from Golders Green to Finchley, from Finchley to Baker Street, from Baker Street right through to Aldgate. Up and down the Jubilee Line, I will read from Stanmore to Stratford and back, my all-day travel card in my pocket, like a typical City Boy. But let me not digress.

As I was saying, Your Majesty, certain incidents may have become mere figments from the past, as if they never happened. Certain faces may have become blurred in memory. Certain names and dates may escape you from time to time in the course of conversation. I don’t blame you. After all, none of my royal predecessors kept you in remembrance of our abiding relationship as colonizer and colonized, certainly not the last Mingi of Nembe. I do hope that the language you left behind in my country will avail me with the right and proper words to express myself to the fullest, and to extend the great expectations that my subjects back home want you to consider, without let, without hindrance.

From time to time, I shall consult Daniel Ogiriki Ockiya, the reverend gentleman who extensively documented the historic Nembe-British War of 1895 in The History of Nembe, and E.J. Alagoa, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Port Harcourt, author of The Small Brave City-State. The credentials of these noble sons of the soil lie in the fact that they had the presence of mind to record the events of the day as faithfully as they could manage. They deserve trophies from Her Majesty The Queen, as much as many gallant Nigerians who have contributed to the grandeur of England in no small way.

As Nigeria turns fifty, Your Majesty, it is tempting to undertake a comparison of the country you once colonized and check it for critical differences with yours, from the time Britain annexed our parcel of land after the partitioning of Africa in 1884, right up to 1960 when we returned the Union Jack to you through Princess Anne of Kent, right up to the present -- and to see just how far we have come as a nation. I shall promptly fall for this temptation. The internet is my witness. I shall consult it for facts. I shall also do well to conduct a cursory parade of your queenly parks, your royal gardens, your busy highways, your underground network of rails and its workaday population, in order to put in fair perspective the disparities between Lagos and London, between Brass and Brighton, between Nembe and Nottingham.

I want to hail Nigeria, Your Majesty. But I find it hard to do so. I want to hail the profound ideals expressed in the inaugural national anthem composed by Flora Shaw, Lord Lugard’s companion, who first gave us the name Nigeria in an article published in The Times of London on January 8, 1897. Nigeria is not quite the same country you granted political independence in 1960. Take it from me. In the words of one of your famous political theorists, Thomas Hobbes, life in present-day Nigeria is “short, nasty and brutish.” I will tell you why. I am obliged, indeed, to bring you abreast with developments in my beloved country, with particular emphasis on the state of my domain. But if the matters I bring before you in the intervening pages sound confusing, if this epistolary journey upon which we have embarked, qualifies as a mosaic of sentiments trussed up together, without form or order, don’t blame me too much. Put it down to the chaotic temper of my country, the haphazard scheme of existence under which we have laboured, these past fifty years.

Even so, I assure you that our nation is on the verge of rebirth. Good luck has come to Nigeria. There is an inevitable tectonic shift in the political order. I invite you to push for the restoration of the values that make England such a prosperous and stable example, that we might take our cues afresh. I have no doubt that you will give me your fullest attention. I will do well not to bore you, but if I do so at all, put it down to my second-hand acquaintance with the Queen’s English.
I will do well to be reasonable. I will do well to uphold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. I pledge not to insult your royal intelligence. I promise to remain faithful to the picture I have studied of my country since I was born into it on December 18, 1963. I am, Your Majesty, a full-grown child of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the best sense of the expression. I will do well to grip my country, literally by the scruff of the neck, and yank it for faith.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, no one can take that divine right away from me.


By His Majesty Nengi Josef Ilagha
Mingi XII, Amanyanabo of Nembe
Bayelsa State, Nigeria

More from the same author.
A Memorial Tribute to a Fisherman, Melford Obiene Okilo
A Perspective on Goodluck Jonathan’s Attitude to Governance While He Was Governor of BayelsaState
King Ilegha Writes to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan On the Trashing of the Nigerian Constitution By Those Who Want to Prevent Him from Attaining the Presidency
A Profile of Goodluck Jonathan, Vice President of Nigeria
"Tattoes Are Forever": A Discussion of Nigeria's Social Ills
Epistle to Maduabebe:A Fictional Portrayal of Corruption in Nigeria