Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Demystifying the Concept behind the Koko Mansion


Many eligible bachelors often wonder what qualities to look out for in their prospective life partners. In this age and clime, the debate has been stiff; many shy away from lending a voice to the debate, afraid that their views may be misconstrued as a form of gender discrimination – and as a result of this, many young men of marriageable age wallow in their confusion, with no ideas as to what to look out for in a woman.

D’banj being a successful young man who’s seen many of kith and kin in this dilemma, took the bull by the horns, and decided to get the public involved in this debate: who is the ideal Nigerian woman?

As a result, the Koko Mansion was conceived – where 12 dynamic and beautiful young ladies from all over Nigeria will spend eight weeks in this exquisite mansion, under the tutelage and supervision of an amiable governess. Through specially designed tasks, these ladies' strengths, talents, tolerance-level, fashion sense, social etiquettes etc will be put to the ultimate test – where the viewing public will act as the grand jury in the eventual selection of which one of the 12 contestants should be considered as having the virtues worthy of an Ideal Nigerian Woman. With all the cultural values we hold high as Nigerians projected to the rest of the world. In a nutshell, this show is a celebration of the dynamism of the hard-working beautiful Nigerian woman –by sharing in her struggles, and celebrating her virtues.

The eventual winner will amongst a few other prizes will receive 5 Million Naira, a convertible car, and a diamond ring from Chris Aire], become a symbol of the ideal woman in Nigeria; her talents would be harnessed and developed, as she would go on to become a global ambassador to a multi-million naira entertainment empire.


First Day Inside the Koko Mansion – LIVE [1]

The reality TV show that had kept everyone guessing, speculating, and criticizing, finally commenced LIVE broadcast at exactly 5:30 pm on Sunday, 28th June.Our first surprise was when the delectable darling of Nigerian television, Marian Anazodo came on screen to introduce the show. Marian Anazodo? On Koko Mansion? Yes, the same Marian Anazodo whom we’ve all fallen in love with for the past 12 years on NTA.

Definitely, her presence in the mansion immediately dispelled all notions of vulgarity, as have been touted publicly by ill-informed critics, who just had to shoot without aiming. Seeing Marian Anazodo, who in all ramifications is qualified to be referred to as an Ideal Nigerian woman take the reins as the presenter of the show was indeed an ice-breaker that went a long way to promise viewers a very good show, where intrigue and drama are more powerful than vulgarity.

But before we continue, let’s back-track a bit, to bring you highlights from the MCR, where the brains behind the show were throwing all their magic portions into one big technical calabash that transmitted the LIVE feed to you. At about 5:00pm, the MCR was buzzing like a bee hive, more than 18 robotic cameras were being operated from here, to bring you this opening show.
The satellite uplink system was humming like an athlete waiting for the sound of the gun, while the crew was running from one monitor to another like investment analysts on Wall Street, but then there was no sign of panic; these guys have done it before, countless times, and all the buzzing and humming was just part of a well-oiled ‘production machine’. A few minutes later, D’banj walked in, so excited, he said, “thank you guys for making this happen, finally, we’re going live, after all the challenges we experienced along the way” he went round hugging everybody in the MCR, really emotional about the whole affair, “my mother called me to tell me that this is the best thing I’ve done in my career so far”.


Okay, fast forward to the live show. Marian Anazodo took the viewers on a guided tour of the mansion, from the foyer to the living room - with its sensuous red furniture, and a life-sized painting of D’banj hanging on the wall.
All the awards D’banj has won so far were displayed in a glass encasement in the foyer. From the living room, Marian toured the dining room, and then the kitchen. From the kitchen, she took the viewers to the leisure area - where we could see the wine bar, the lawn, and compact swimming pool – very ideal for private millionaire picnics.
From the leisure area, she took us upstairs, but on our way, we couldn’t help but notice the stainless-steel balustrade on the staircase, and its finely polished marble steps. Upstairs, we explored the living quarters – the two bedrooms with six beds each – one room has an excellent Jacuzzi – all these for the kokollettes.


First Day Inside the Koko Mansion – LIVE [2]
Okay, time to welcome the 12 contestants. Let’s just list them in their order of appearance, with very brief descriptions:
After the contestants arrived, the presenter introduced the governess, Chika Anadu – one look at her and you’d be convinced that she was tailor-made for the job of keeping these girls in check. D’banj joined the ladies briefly, had cocktail with them; toasted to good health and an entertaining stay at the mansion before leaving the kokolettes in the capable hands of the governess. That’s all for now, more updates coming soon. But let’s hear what you think about your favorite contestants, and maybe discuss what you’re looking forward to seeing on the show.
Expect to hear and see more of the inside the Koko Mansion- Live [3]

Monday, July 20, 2009

Soyinka Celebrated 75th Birthday

Professor Wole Soyinka’s 75th birthday is marked in Lagos with a rousing lecture by Dr. Olatunji Dare, accomplished columnist and journalism teacher

The celebration of Professor Wole Soyinka’s birthday has become an annual ritual, but one without a hollowness to it. Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel laureate in Literature, is a national treasure. It is for this reason that the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, WSCIJ, decided not only to celebrate him but also organised a lecture on 13 July in commemoration of his 75th birthday in Lagos.

The lecture, titled: Narrating The Nigerian Story: The Challenge For Journalism, was delivered by erudite scholar and journalist, Dr. Olatunji Dare of Bradley University, Preoria, Illinois, USA.
Dare began his lecture by showering encomiums on the literary icon. He described Soyinka as a constant presence in our national life. “No person has told the Nigerian story more eloquently, more copiously, more arrestingly than Wole Soyinka,” Dare said.
In his well-researched lecture, he not only brought the national question to the fore, but also interrogated the role of the media in Nigeria’s quest for nationhood. He questioned Nigeria’s existence as a nation. “Nigeria began as an idea in the head and mind of the British imperialist, Fredrick Lugard. He actualised the idea in 1914 and since then, Nigeria has been a picture we carry in our heads,” the scholar lamented.
Dare also believes that not only is Nigeria a work in progress, it is a promise and a possibility. According to him, though Nigeria exists in the present, it is a future country. “It (Nigeria) is inhabited by a patchwork of nationalities corralled into place by British imperialist fiat. Nobody knows its actual geographical boundaries,” Dare submitted.

Food in the life of Nelson Mandela

The most elementary social, economic and emotional truths are revealed in the ways that we cook, eat and serve food. So why not ask those who changed the world what they were eating while they did it?


Nelson Mandela enjoying his 89th birthday celebrations at the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund in Johannesburg. Photograph: Denis Farrell/AP



In his autobiography Nelson Mandela declared that:
"I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free. Free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies [corn] under the stars … It was only when I learnt that my boyhood freedom was an illusion … that I began to hunger for it."
Only the truly food obsessed would read such a statement and consider the stomach from whence it came, but I did and the result is a gastro-political biography entitled

HUNGER FOR FREEDOM, THE STORY OF FOOD IN THE LIFE OF NELSON MANDELA. There are those who might argue that such an evaluation is trivial or even tasteless, but there is nothing innately frivolous or disrespectful about food. We all reveal our most elementary social, economic and emotional truths in the ways that we cook, eat and serve food. So why not ask those who changed the world what they were eating while they did it?

Hunger for Freedom traces Nelson Mandela's journey in food reminiscences and recipes from the corn grinding stone of his Mvezo birthplace and simple dishes like umphokoqo through wedding cakes, prison hunger strikes and presidential banquets into a retirement deliciously infused with the Mozambican seafood dishes of his third wife Graça Machel.

In the course of the research for my book I tracked down the former South African President's schoolboy contemporaries who put on a traditional Xhosa rural feast for me. I shared biscuits and memories of teenage dinner dates with his first girlfriend. I made his favourite spaghetti recipe with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela as she told of a great love lost and thwarted. I wept through ex-prisoners' descriptions of Robben Island prison rations and roared with laughter at his grandchildren's tales of the great man's fondness for Frosties breakfast cereal.

There were Christmas cakes with former jailers and crab curries with comrades past. I was very pregnant throughout much of the research process and to hear Nelson Mandela reminisce about chicken recipes (and offer to deliver the baby) was a huge privilege and an absolute joy.

Looking at Nelson Mandela's personal and political history from the vantage point of the kitchen offered up hitherto unrecorded insights into a man and the society in which he came of age. In apartheid South Africa every dish was served against a backdrop of racial oppression. In the 1950s parties given by anti-apartheid activists saw drinks served in very short tots so as to ensure that if the police raided the event black people would not be found engaged in the illegal act of consuming alcohol.

The guest list for Nelson Mandela's 1958 wedding to Winnie Madikizela was profoundly curtailed by the fact that almost every significant political activist was banned, jailed or in exile. The racially discriminatory food conditions for prisoners on Robben Island and the prisoners' fights to improve their diet mirrored those of their broader struggle.

And yet Nelson Mandela's food preferences past and present reveal the social and political significance of a multi-racial anti-apartheid alliance in which Thayanagee Pillay made coffee for prisoners awaiting trial, Farida Omar smuggled chicken curry to Nelson Mandela at Pollsmoor Prison, George Bizos cooked Greek lamb on a spit to celebrate great victories and Ray Harmel served chopped liver in times of trouble.

The history of South Africa's transition to democracy can be read on a plate from Mandela's first meal of freedom (Lillian Ngoboza's hearty casserole followed by rum and raisin ice-cream at Bishop Tutu's house) through the gastro-reconciliation of syrup-drenched koeksister with the widow of apartheid architect HF Vervoed in the whites only enclave of Orania. Similarly, Nelson Mandela's personal transition from President to pensioner can be tasted in his housekeeper Xoliswa Ndoyiya's chutney chicken recipe and Graça Machel's caranguejo recheado (stuffed crabs).

Mandela media coverage has a somewhat saccharine tendency to deify South Africa's most famous son. Asking what he had for lunch restores humanity to a living legend. It also recognizes that he was not acting alone but rather as part of a social and political team. Besides, the man himself has always been justifiably proud of his edible exploits. On August 31 1970 Madiba wrote to his wife Winnie from Robben Island prison:


"How I long for amasi (traditional South African fermented milk), thick and sour! You know darling there is one respect in which I dwarf all my contemporaries or at least about which I can confidently claim to be second to none – healthy appetite."

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

THE REQUEST FOR STARDOM BEGINS JULY 17th 2009

STAR QUEST 2009

CALABAR, MAKURDI ROUNDS OFF STARQUEST AUDITIONS.



The ancient city of Calabar, Cross River State and Makurdi, the Benue State capital would this weekend play host to the final auditions for this years’ edition of Star Quest, the annual music talent hunt reality television programme sponsored by Star lager.

The auditions which began in Lagos on February 24th and has also been held in Benin, Abuja and Owerri has so far recorded huge turn out of talents for possible inclusion in the reality TV show expected to begin airing on National and selected TV stations from March 29th. Music talents in Calabar are expected to converge at the Cultural Center, Calabar for their audition from Friday 6th to Sunday 8th while those in Makurdi would show what stuff they are made off at the Kotangora Center, High Level on the same days.

Expectation is high very high amongst the youths who have already had their auditions and have been short listed for the next stage of the screening process. It has indeed become a Herculean task for some of them to pass through the very professional eyes of the Judges - Sound Sultan, Weird MC, Paul ‘Play’ Dairo, KC Presh and Foster Zino.



The search is for a six member music band that would rock Nigeria’s music scene. Those selected to form the 36 across the country are expected to form six bands that would compete for TV viewers votes during the 21 day period the program would run on television.

At stake is N7.5m recording contract, N3.6m cash prize, a mini van and one year guaranteed accommodation in Lagos for the winning band. The winning band would also feature in upcoming star lager sponsored music concerts.
Entry into the STAR QUEST is free and open to individuals between the ages of 21-30 years.
To qualify, applicants must posses demonstrable proficiency in at least one vital area of
music; instrumentation, vocals, or song writing. Unlike previous years, online registration is not required for participation and auditioning in this year’s STAR QUEST.
for more info. login on to www.star-nigeria.com

Saturday, July 4, 2009

The Burial Ceremony of Governor Sullivan

The remains of the late Chief Onoh, Okaa Omee Ngwo was placed in his home town where he was buried to rest in peace.
There were some many recommendation comment made about his life and his reign while on earth as governor of old Anambra State.

Such as:-
Such as:- “In life, he was an excellent example of a fearless leader who spent his entire life fighting for the down-trodden, the underprivileged, the powerless, the poor and sometimes the oppressed rich. In death, the candle he lit continues to show us the way.

“Therefore, we are here not only to extol the virtues of Chief Onoh, Okaa Omee Ngwo, but to testify that he left indelible footprints in his pursuit for justice and equal opportunities for every Igbo man and woman within the Nigerian federation.

“It is on record that in his quest to have more states created in Igbo land, he made heroic sacrifices and suffered some personal pains. Yet, until his death, he remained undaunted in his campaign to have another state created out of Igbo land.”
He noted that although Onoh’s reign as the governor of old Anambra State was cut short by the military, he continued to fight for the emancipation of his people by ensuring that subsequent leaders were always put under check and their perceived excesses exposed.

“In this regard, he was simply a one-man riot squad. That was Chief C. C. Onoh as a politician and an indomitable fighter for justice and equity for his people,” Chime said.He also said that in his condolence message to the Onoh family and millions of other compatriots grieving over his demise, he spoke about the pain of losing a great pillar of strength, counsellor and ally.

They were also the present of other dignitaries on the occasion include the four other governors of the South-East,

Ikedi Ohakim (Imo), Peter Obi (Anambra), Theodore Orji (Abia) and Martin Elechi (Ebonyi), ex-Vice President Alex Ekwueme, former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, former Enugu governor Okwesilieze Nwodo, former administrator of old Anambra State, Allison Madueke, former Anambra governor, Dr. Chris Ngige and a host of others.
Saturday sunnewspaper.

Soundcity (Nigeria) Music Video Awards 2009

Check out winners for the first edition of SMVA 2009 below

Best Male Video
Gino - Farabale
Naeto C - Kini Big Deal
Igho - Naija Boy
Shank - Too Late
Banky W - Capable Remix
9ice - Party Rider


Best Female Video
Sasha - Only One
Goldie - Shift
Wierd Mc - Riranwo
Ty Bello - Ekundayo
Kel - Waa Wa Alright
Nikki Laoye - Never Felt This Way


Best Choreography
Freewindz - Like That
P-Square - Roll It
Dipp - Dangerous
Goldie - Shift

Best Special Effect Editing
Mo Hits All Stars - Ten Ten
Dipp - Dangerous
P-Square - Roll it
Omawunmi - In The Music
Sorty - Brymo
H-Man - Ndoli Ndoli

Best Duo/Group Video
Mohits All Stars - Pere
P-Square - Roll It
Kentro World - Kama Kazee
KC Presh - Shokori Bobo
GXploits - Bolu Moru

Best Cinematography
Bigiano - Shayo
Eldee - Bosi Gbangba
Sasha - Only One
Tuface Idibia - Enter The Place
Darey Art Alade - Not The Girl


Best Hip Hop Video
Str8butah - Last Standing
Mode9ine - Hip Hop
OD ft. Sound Sultan - No Be Today
Gino - Farabale
DJ Jimmy Jatt ft. Sasha, Blaise, Kemistry, Bouqui - Too Much

Sound City Fresh Video
Bouqui - Morile
Ikechukwu - She Makes Me Go (Shoobeedoo)
GXploits - Tear Rubber
Morachi - Boomskolo
Steel - South African Girl


Sound City Viewers Choice
9ice - Street Credibility
Wierd Mc - Riranwo
Tuface Idibia - Enter The Place
Bigiano - Shayo
Ikechukwu - Wind Am Well
D'Banj - Suddenly


Best Collaboratian in a Music Video
Jmartins ft. Timaya and P-Square - Good or Bad
Tuface Idibia ft. Sound Sultan - Enter The Place
2shotz ft. Timaya - In Case You Never Know
Klever Jay ft. Danny Young - Koni Koni Love
Ayzee Yo ft. Tuface Idibia - No Be Small Thing
DJ Jimmy Jatt ft. Sasha, Blaise, Kemistry, Bouqui - Too Much
Ikechukwu ft. D'Banj and Don Jazzy - Wind Am Well



Discovery of the Year
YQ ft. Dagrin - Efimile
DeeBee - Collabo
Bracket - Yori Yori
Kel - Waa Wa Alright
Bigiano - Shayo
Tustep ft. Dagrin - Call the Police
Jmartins ft. Timaya and P-Square - Good or Bad

Hit Producer Of The Year (As used in a music)
"Efimile" by YQ ft. Dagrin - Dr Frabbs
"Le fenuso" by Lord of Ajasa - ID Cabasa
"Suddenly" by D'Banj - Don Jazzy
"Kama Kazee" by Kentro World - JJC Skills
"Pasa Pasa" by M.P - Dapsee
"Enter The Place" by Tuface Idibia - JSleek



Best R&B pop Video
Omawunmi - In The Music
Banky W - Don't Break My Heart
Dipp - Dangerous
Tony Tetuila - Do Re Mi
KC Presh - Shokori Bobo
Ay.Com - Pass Me Your Love


African Video Of The Year
Nneka - Heart Beat (Nigeria)
ML - 340 (Mozambique)
Hip Hop Pantsula (South Africa)
Asem - Pigaro (Ghana)
Okyeama kwame - Woso (Ghana)

Best Video

Wierd MC - Riranwo
Eldee - Bosi Gbangba
Naeto C - Kini Big Deal
Mo Hits All Stars - Pere
Bigiano - Shayo
Kentro World - Kama Kazee
P-Square - Roll It
Tuface Idibia - Enter The Place



SMVA:- The Second Edition will hold on the
Date:- 1st of August, 2009
Venue:- The Soundcity Music Centre, Oceanview V/I.

To vote, go to the official website here...http://soundcity.tv/smva/

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