Friday 11 April 2014

Nigerian Idol: Another Season of Boredom

Last weekend’s episode of Nigerian Idol was so boring but I watched it till the end in the hope that someone would come up and upstage the preceding acts. In the end, my patience was unrewarded.
There are 30 contestants left in the show which began on 1 March. In this episode, 10 contestants making up the third batch sang, and with the exception of Obed and BeeBee, they all shared a lack of talent. They were short of the voice and charisma and any other needed attributes to justify their presence on television.
Even the ‘exceptional’ performances were only brilliant in the context of the night’s show. They were not so much better than the worship songs that streams in from the church behind my window into my room. And to think I used to consider that a nuisance.
In the pre-show interviews, most of the contestants gave excuses for their poor showing in advance, complaining that they didn’t like the songs imposed on them, and that they were yet to master the lyrics. On stage, some were inhibited by self-consciousness while others were unnecessarily confident to the point of arrogance. Such predictable doom, the sort of performances that make judges stutter. There was no redeeming quality on which to begin their critique.
I assume the judges – Dede Mabiaku, Nneka Egbuna, and Darey Art Alade – selected the contestants for the show. If so, good for them. At some point, the judges could not disguise their weariness with the performances.
Nneka in particular looked perpetually confused, and always owned up to that. About Esther’s performance she had nothing to say but compliment her looks, adding the unsolicited opinion about her wish that Nigerian women would emulate Esther’s haircut, in other words, dish the wig and embrace natural hair. Noted.
A few questions arise: can’t Nigerians sing anymore? Are the better singers deferring their ambition till the next season of X Factor, which gives to the winner about double the prize money?
Are the judges so fatigued that they cannot give astute critique for every performance? Are contestants tired from living in crammed rooms with narrow beds that remind them of boarding schools, as briefly shown, probably as a result of an editing error?
Whatever the answers to these questions, the novelty of singing competitions for me has worn off. We have seen Nigerian Idol three times before, and other shows with this format many times over: a singer comes on stage, sings, the audience claps regardless of the quality of the performance, judges give their opinion or repeat a fellow judge’s, the host asks the viewers to vote, and the audience clap again as the contestant goes off stage.
Without new tricks, there may be no incentive to watch the show another time.
Admittedly, with 30 contestants still in the show, it is too early to expect a Mariah Carey clone, too early for me, a viewer, to judge, but IllRymz has given me the authority by asking me to vote for my favourite contestant, asking me to judge.
He makes a point of reminding us after each performance to vote, that the judges’ opinion do not count, only the viewers’ votes do. Now, the contestant with the largest family disguising as fans who vote repeatedly remains in the show at the expense of the more talented.
Why then do they have judges if they are so irrelevant to the process of selecting the winner? Why put Nneka through so much agony if her opinion really doesn’t count?
This batch of contestants may not be epresentative of all the contestants on the show. Hopefully, there is enough talent among the 20 contestants in the first and second batches to produce a worthy idol.
I wish them all well, and may the contestant with the largest, richest, and most enthusiastic family and friends win.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

No Photos Please, We’re in Abuja

The fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom. Or so someone said once. But the fear of Boko Haram is also the root of some unnecessary paranoia and ridiculous safety measures that impede on citizens’ freedoms to enjoy Abuja in all its glory.
 
Take last week for example, when we hit upon the idea to take guests around Abuja to show them some of the beautiful structures in the city. Of course the taking of pictures also came into play, especially as our guests wanted to show people back in England that there was more to Africa than mud-huts, and there was more to Nigeria than Boko Haram killings.
 Well, the irony was that Boko Haram ended up spoiling our plans. We had parked outside the ECOWAS headquarters in Asokoro, and there were very few cars and pedestrians around as we walked up to the front of the building to take some pictures, when somebody on the opposite side of the road shouted out “Hey, what are you doing there? Stop taking photos there!”
We looked to see who it was that was giving us an order to stop doing what we thought was completely harmless. In fact, we were engaged in enjoying the city and promoting it to outsiders, surely activities that should be encouraged not thwarted. The man on the other side of the road refused to stop warning us, so we put out camera away and cross the street to face this party pooper intent on spoiling our fun.
The gawky man, wearing a white T-shirt and sandals and carrying a duffel bag, did not look like an official; in fact he looked like a general bystander trying to make trouble. But he said he was a security man and he was ordering us to stop taking photos for security reasons. We were angry, and demanded to see his ID or any other form of identification that will give him the authority to stop us doing something so benign. But he refused to comply and instead grew nervous and frightened as we raged against his rudeness and threatened to have him detained.
It was then that we spotted some soldiers parked some distance away, so we held him by his shirt and marched him towards them so he could either ascertain his identity or be taken away for questioning. But after some heated exchange of words between ourselves, the man and the soldiers, I understood what had happened.
The man we thought was a nuisance was actually a security guard posted to a nearby building who, despite being off duty, was looking out for the capital in light of threats by Boko Haram against major landmarks, especially during the occasion of the on-going National Conference, which had been moved from its original venue of the International Conference Centre to the National Judicial Institute because of such threats.
With security on high alert, we had been confused for Boko Haram supporters taking pictures to aid in terrorism and the man wanted to conduct a citizen’s arrest, but whilst he had the initial confidence to begin, he lacked the conviction to conclude it.
Vigilance over Boko Haram attacks had interrupted our site seeing, and it was both saddening and maddening. From then on, we drove around the city less carefree and more morose, suddenly fully aware that Abuja was a city under threat, and that not too far away, enemies of the state were killing, maiming and razing whole villages to the ground.
Abuja didn’t seem so modern and safe and wholesome anymore, and we didn’t take any more pictures outside.