#afmag

  In fact I am proud of it all, the old and the new!!! It just dawned on me after all these years of raining insults on Afmag for the ratchet and poorly produced movies, I finally realised what it is all about!

If not for African Magic, Lord knows no one else would showcase what Nigerians have to offer (bad directing and poor camera quality notwithstanding).

You know, we are taught to always look down on ourselves and what we produce. Whatever comes out of Africa is “substandard” and blah blah blah. So we never look at it with appreciation and applaud what is being done well. I mean Rome wasn’t built in a day. None of the Western entertainment that we see today just begun, its been at least a century since they've been at it and only now have they reached the stage they are at.

We had and still have a lot to say and show and African Magic gives us the opportunity to do just that. Without African Magic there is no way Nollywood would have grown to the extent that it has.

But now, they are doing something which i think is much more important than any of the movies and reality shows and other entertainment they showcase.

They have commissioned shows that reclaim, showcase and further Nigerian culture, culture that is largely lost on the vast majority of youth in Diaspora and even locally based Nigerian youth.

Yesterday, I stumbled on a show called Ise Dale, a show solely for the purpose of exploring Yoruba culture. Today I saw another show called Ugwumba which is solely focused on all things Igbo. It’s amazing, it’s necessary, especially with all the western propaganda that we are confronted with about Africa every day.

It’s such an important thing that we need to do for ourselves! We must ensure that all that is good and beautiful and unique about our diverse Nigerian and African cultures are not lost entirely to westernisation! Every day, the rest of the world, without fail and even we don’t fail to highlight one negative or the other about our nation and its people.

What African Magic is doing is so valuable and I appreciate it. If they didn’t do it, then no one else would. I appreciate what those actors and producers and script writers and editors did, they opened a door to a new world and ventured into uncertain terrain. The point and the idea was Nigeria by Nigerians. It’s an opportunity and a responsibility; we get to tell the world our stories.

It’s amazing to me how you can know you are different, your name is Chigozie when others are John and Linda. Or your name is Jadesola and you now ask people to call you Jade, so you can blend in and fade into the crowd. You have no interest whatsoever in knowing your roots, where you are from, or what your people do.

Its confounding to me, I try to understand and I will continue to do so. Nigeria is surrounded by stigma and stereotypes and I get the urge to not want to have to prove that your are a dignified human being, like any other person from any other country, and have something to offer the world that is unique and positive. But I would say it’s worth the effort to learn your language, dress traditionally from time to time, learn the values of your society and all that good cultural stuff.

Because the truth of the matter is no matter what you do, you will never be one of them! Someone, somewhere will always ask "where are you from?" and when you say I’m from here they be all like " No, I mean like where are you from originally?". And those, my friends, are the moments when you want to know there is a place somewhere that you can call home where no one will treat you differently for not being one of them.