After successful take off of the well received International cultural Exchange programme with two plays; Preemeptive and Seven last year, the organisers of the event, Zimrage Multimedia has announced its preparedness for the second leg of its internal programme.

At a press briefing in Lagos last week, It was revealed that the international cultural programme will be anchored on the theme; Culture and Humanity. It was further revealed that Lagos and London will be hosting symposia with lead speakers, who would deliver papers that should explore the theme of the programme.

Though the plays for this season have not been made known yet, the children’s turf has been defined. 77 of them will take part in a writing contest on the topic ‘I Love My Country’, which is taken from Soyinka’s musical effort titled ‘I love my country I no go lie’. It is the hope of the organisers that the topic will help young people, particularly secondary school students, see the positive sides of their country and thus give them a chance to become advocates of the Nigeria they love to see emerge.

According to Zmirage boss Alhaji Teju Kareem, “The idea that nothing good can come out of Nigeria is constantly drummed into our children, who are leaders of tomorrow. It’s therefore important to change their mindset and constantly change their outlook and attitude. We have therefore come up with a re-orientation and advocacy project as part of this year’s programme”. Kareem is also desirous that the younger generation be engaged intellectually in the quest for national identity and lasting peace in the world.

Continuing, Kareem explained that, Students will be drawn from both private and public schools from the 36 states of the federation plus the Federal capital Territory. They will be joined by winners from last year’s. Already, the country has been divided into zones and zonal coordinators have been engaged to ensure that standards are met. Just like last year, winners will go home with mouth-watering prizes, and a chance to visit the home of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate Prof. Soyinka.

Organisers have assured that there would be an encore of last year’s red carpet performance in honour of Soyinka on July 13, his birthday, and as a mark of Soyinka’s theatrical spirit and offerings with a line-up of 77 celebrities from the world of theatre performing snippets and monologues from the many characters the revered writer has created in his works.

Also for Kareem, this year’s project serves as a celebratory one and a toast to a feast of democracy in the wake of successful general elections in the country. He stated that the elections were about a change in orientation amongst Nigerians, who have become cynical over time.

As usual, MUSON Centre will host the plays with Freedom Park on Broad Street as partner venue.

A major feature of this year’s cultural exchange is the staging of the plays also in Abeokuta, the home city of Soyinka. For Kareem, it would be akin to taking the brand Soyinka to his roots in Abeokuta.