By Morenike Taire

Every practitioner, consumer and observer of Nollywood appears to have their own unique ideas about the Nigerian film industry which all nonetheless agree has grown in leaps and bounds and has thrived for twenty years. As the industry celebrates 20 years under the able leadership of Ibinabo Fiberisima, the first female president of the Actors Guild, it is clear that Nollywood is an official Nigerian industry to be reckoned with, adding billions of dollars to the Gross Domestic Product and reeling out more than 100,000 jobs both directly and indirectly.

Still industry insiders and stakeholders are not resting on their laurels. They are not particularly pleased with the position they are in and seem to feel there is more the industry is missing, apart from the lack of unification and production quality. Lack of investment, lack of expertise, lack of internal and external regulation, and of course copyright issues are only some of the factors militating against the development of Nollywood, despite its huge growth.

According to Adim Williams, a film marketer and Vice President, Association of Movie Producers (AMP),  compared to other film industries (Hollywood and Bollywood) the quality of movies in Nollywood is poor because their production is constrained by the budget.

They don’t have enough funds to finance the product, so they make do with what they have. The industry’s financial strait, he claims, stems from low investment inflow, poor state of infrastructure, marketing and distribution system as well as insecurity in the country, and most importantly, the activities of pirates which guarantee no return on investment.

Definitely, originality is one factor that has been sacrificed in Nollywood.  Scriptwriting is poor, scriptwriters are unappreciated and poorly paid: at the worse end of the value chain. Historical films are few and far between and those done in well developed local languages such as Yoruba are a breath of fresh air, despite poor plots, bad narratives and bad editing. The ethnic or ‘African’ component therefore cannot be overemphasized. There are no novels being adapted into film. Practitioners are impatient to perfect their trade

Nollywood has however come to stay and has lent its stability to the African commercial film industry as a whole, with international trade within Africa more versatile than it is with any other industry.

A rash of movie awards are springing up and intensifying all over the place with a clear view to recognizing both the work done and the enormity of the work that still needs to be done. This year the maiden edition of the AfricanMagic Viewers’ Choice Award ceremonies took place in Lagos to huge public attention.

The African Movie Academy awards, held recently in the current presidential cradle of Bayelsa State, thumps at its chest and boasts of being the “African Oscars”. This claim is left to be proven in other regards apart from size, but the theme for the 2013 edition,  ‘Africa-One-Africa without borders the integration cinematically’, is no coincidence.

The huge resources being poured into these award ceremonies and parties appear, on the face of it, to be huge wastes, considering they only appear to reinforce the African propensity to celebrate mediocrity, one of the banes of our development. There is also nothing original or particularly innovative about them. They are, however, a response to the staying power and growth of Nollywood, and its great potential to expand exponentially into other African countries.

The unification of Africa via film might be the much needed impetus that will bring about the much needed investment renaissance in the industry. Already investing is Big TV, with DSTV taking their reality show interests beyond the tired Big Brother into zeroing on the lives of Nollywood icons such as Omotola and now Jim Iyke. Now, these reality shows might be insufferably boring and might fail to get the desired attention; people might not pay attention now, but they will the Art of Foundation

In this our tropical zone, foundation, also known as pancake, is recognized as a necessary evil for the woman who must keep her make-up on in the course of the day. On the one hand, the heat causes sweat, which in turn has the tendency to streak powder and powder make up. On the other hand, foundation tends to be uncomfortable for the wearer inside the heat, causing the wearer to squint and look more wrinkled than she originally did. The balance is very tricky…

Not the back of your hand

The prevailing wisdom is to test the colour on the back of your hand before deciding on it. In reality, the colour of the back of the hand is seldom the same as that of the face, and neither is the texture. A better bet is to take a wild guess if you have never used a foundation before, then adjust with regard to how light or how dark until you get the perfect blend. You are free to do your own blends according to your mood and expertise.

The skin rules apply the dry skin/ oily skin always and will always apply. It is as always: oil-based foundation for dry skin; water based for oily skin and normal skin. These are not environment dependent.

Starting at the nose, stipple in small, tight areas, moving to the cheeks and the borders of the face, stippling product inward towards the center. Repeat this process for your chin. With what is left on the brush, stipple over the area above your lips and below your mouth. Avoid the area where you get smile lines for now.

Take a bit of foundation on the outer edge of your brush, and dot lightly under the eyes, concentrating the product at the lower inner corners where your undereyes are darkest. Stipple lightly over this area, taking the foundation applied under the eyes up and onto the eyelid and browbone.

Take some on your brush, and stipple it across your forehead and into the hairline (almost as bad as the jawline is a blatant change in color at your hairline, which many people tend to neglect). Your entire face should now be covered. Take the remainder of the product on your brush, and dot it under your jawline. Stipple this upwards to “connect” with the product on your face, and downwards slightly to fade it into your neck. Stipple lightly where your ears connect to your face.

Buff in a circular motion

After you have stippled all over your entire face once, lightly buff in small circular motions using the same brush. This blurs imperfections and removes any excess product, and melds the product with your skin, giving it a natural skin-like texture. Make sure to buff under your eyes, over your eyelids, and around your hairline to blend the product into the tight borders surrounding these areas. Keep buffing until the foundation starts to feel a bit tacky

Finish with any other powders and blend

Apply loose and any other powder products (blush, bronzer, contour, etc.), and blend well.

If you wish to sheer down this application further, dampen your brush slightly before application to prevent excess product from being absorbed by the bristles. Make sure to always use a clean brush for application ( wash every 3-4 days) to avoid caking. And never forget to set and blot!

Let your foundation set

This step is crucial. Let the foundation set for 3-5 minutes. Take a tissue, and blot all over your face, avoiding the nose if you have large pores. Pay special attention to the eyelids, lines under the eyes, and the corners of the eyes (where excess product will definitely have creased and collected). If your foundation tends to set into your smile lines, you may wish to buff very lightly over this area once more using the same brush as before.

Helping twins, multiples central to our NGO — Okafor twins

By Ebele Orakpo

Research has shown that the Yorubas of Nigeria have the highest twinning rate in the world, at 45-50 twin sets (or 90-100 twins) per 1,000 live births. This may be one of the reasons why British-born Nigerian twins – Emmeline Ndubuisi and Pauline Ifechukwude Okafor, decided to come home and help twins and multiples in Nigeria.

Born on March 9, 1983, in London, England, Emmeline and Pauline Okafor, are the first of the four children of Mr. and Mrs Paul Okafor. The other two are Kelvin Okafor, a fast rising photo-realistic artist, and John-Paul Okafor, a mortgage advisor.

The twins, both law graduates of Kingston University, dumped their initial dream of becoming Ejima Solicitors to pursue their passion which is empowering twins and multiples. According to the delectable twins, they have not completely abandoned their dream of practising law; they only shelved it for now as they hope to achieve that vision at a later stage.

Today, Emmeline works as a Service Manager for a leading provider of services helping businesses such as SKY and BT communicate to their customers through voice data and call centre services, and Pauline works as a Project Coordinator within the financial sector, providing trading systems for private banks such as Goldman Sachs, Citi-Group and Standard Charterd Bank.

Recently, they created the House of Ejima Ltd, an interior decorating outfit where the two bring their love and passion for home and office renovation to life because according to the twins nicknamed Copy and Paste, at House of Ejima, they hope to ‘Copy Your Dream and Paste It into Your Reality.’

Twins Connect Skills & Empowerment Centre:

“With a deep rooted sense of responsibility and desire to reach out to twins, especially those that are less advantaged, we are pleased to introduce the Twins Connect Skills and Empowerment Centre, a non-governmental organisation. Helping twins and multiples is actually central to our NGO,” they said. At the centre,  twins and multiples between the ages of 15 and 30 years, will be provided with “social skills, character growth, educational guidance, and career development, with the goal of increasing personal and professional achievement.

They stated that the training will involve “skills acquisition, empowerment, tutorship and entrepreneurship/leadership in a large selection of fields, including comedy, carpentry, sports, fashion, music, theatrical arts, modelling and other business areas,” adding that the Empowerment Center will work collaboratively with established personal development and mentoring organisations.

Going beyond empowerment:

“We will not stop at empowerment, but on a case by case basis, we look to finance the actualisation of their chosen business or career paths through our loan scheme.”

Other programmes lined up by Emmeline and Pauline are

Twins Connect TV programme, financing, Consulting services, Entertainment, Counselling and Intellectual property development. The TV programme “would be used as an avenue to reach out not only to twins but to the general public. In financing, we hope to help to facilitate funding, directly or through partnering with financial institutions, to enable business production and development and also aid the growth of their existing trade.”

The Consulting services will entail “advising and helping to develop key business concepts, strategies, financing and good corporate decision-making, all aimed at helping to grow and develop business ideas.”

“We will use the Twins Connect TV programme as a platform for not only creating awareness of our activities but also an impactful household entertainment programme which documents the success of the work carried out and the progress of the individuals.

The counselling unit will be “advising twins on the best possible way of dealing with life and its challenges. Acting as a point of contact, a support system where they can discuss any issue or concern that they experience.”

Intellectual property development unit will aim to “develop ideas, concepts, and programmes and learn how to identify and manage various rights within their business field.”

Said the twins whose mission is to regularly develop ways of promoting and enhancing the skills and talents of these individuals, “we hope to offer workshops, guidance and support on the transition from youth to adulthood.

“At the same time, reinforcing the importance of positive supervision over our youth and how this benefits and contributes to the growth and development of our society.

“Our dream is to be a leading, trusted and respected empowerment body in Nigeria, Africa in particular, and the world at large,” they said.