By Chris Onuoha

It was a great touring experience across the jungle in the Nigeria Conservative Foundation Park, (NCF) Lekki, the arena of the event, as 2015 edition of “Vision of the Child” (VoTC) arts contest ends with the 60 finalists drawn from 35 primary and secondary schools within Lagos State, participated in the live Painting and Literary Arts Competition.

Participants

The competition themed “The Road To Sambisa” which held weekend amidst excitements and fanfare afforded the children the opportunity to express themselves, and as was expected many budding talents were discovered with the way and manner they exhibited during the contest.

The yearly programme which was inaugurated in 2012 is a children/student’s segment of the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, LBHF and on hand to grace the occasion was the Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism and Inter-Governmental Relation, Chief Disu Holloway, former Ondo State commissioner for Tourism, Honourable Tola Wewe, renowned Artist and Gallery owner, Chief Nike Okundaye, LBHF representative, Jahman Anikulapo, Representatives from Honeywell Noodles, Diamond Bank and others.

The VoTC Programme Manager, Foluke George led the participants alongside their parents and teachers through the awesome, emotional and mock horrifying jungle experience in the Park, segmented with tame and wild animals to showcase and expose to the children, terrifying experience the Chibok girls are passing through in Sambisa forest. The children while on tour could not conceal their bewilderment as they ask questions sympathetic to Sambisa experience, and also, the scene equally enhanced their focus in relation to the theme, ‘The Road to Sambisa’.

The highly excited participants swoop into action after refreshments by Honeywell noodles. Kits and painting materials were provided for the 30 participants in the painters’ category who illustrated their literary presentation in the painting medium while writing materials provided for the 30 literary art participants who wrote and presented poems, prose and fiction in the reading studio.

A panel of eminent jury comprising teachers, artists, child carers and social workers assessed the participants in the age bracket of 9 t0 12 years old. Unlike 2014 in which prize was awarded on the aggregate of the two creative media, 2015 witnessed three prizes in painting, literary art and a combined product of the pupil’s dexterity in painting and literature.

Display of works produced by the participants will be opened to the public at the Freedom Park and Nike Art Gallery on April 18 which will kick start the 2015 Lagos Black Heritage Festival, while on April 24, winning entries will be mounted for viewing at the Gala event to mark the conclusion of the Heritage Festival.

Heritage festival

Earlier in his address, Mr. Disu Holloway, who was the special guest and Lagos State Governor’s representative said that this year’s theme was Prof. Wole Soyinka’s initiative and the essence is to draw a closer attention,to the plights of 200 Chiboks girls abducted by Boko Haram insurgents over an alarming period of time with no convincing efforts to rescue them. He said it is worrisome and difficult to explain how it could take a nation so long to achieve this, noting that the leadership is actually denying it.

Disu said that the intrigues are so obvious that not much was done until time for election, “all of a sudden, fire brigade approach ensued, you put up all the arms you could use capturing various villages and nobody sees the connection. It is an insult to all of us. As a parent myself, I get emotional when I talk about children who are treated wrongly today, we seem to have allowed our children to be treated this way.”

Disu mentioned that what Prof. Soyinka had in mind is for the children to stay overnight in the Park and have a feel of what the girls in Sambisa forest are going through, though, could not be achieved now because of certain change in programmes.