VIEWERS watched with great awe, the appalling condition of the oil rich Niger Delta region, the effect of the havoc unleashed on North East by Boko Haram, and the devastating effects of erosion on the South East, all in Nigeria. It was a clear evidence of a country blindly existing on impending doom. “No Where To Run: Nigeria’s Environmental Crisis”, is the title of a documentary film which exposes humanly inflicted disasters on some areas in the country, leaving the people in perpetual fear of the unexpected.

IN spite of the 2015 general elections that affected most of the activities of several sectors in the country, the Art and Culture sector globally regarded as the flagship for both economic and social development of any society experienced huge success. Even with the scrapping of the Art , Culture and Tourism Ministry by the present administration, arts and culture producers and promoters, saw to it that the sector went on with its activities and in return recorded tremendous success. This was because, the sector despite its contributions to the nation’s GDP has never been a good bride of the government.

It is said that a good writer is one who relates intelligibly to his society and, using the society as a base to disseminate his message with a view to contributing positively to that society in particular and the world in general. The above statement can be said to be true of Dr Onyeka Onyekuba, who also writes as Onyeka Iwuchukwu, a literary scholar with bias in drama and theatre, a multidisciplinary researcher, and a playwright with varied experience and author of over eight plays, who has used her plays to highlight and address some compelling issues in the society.

THE battle to save the life of Palestinian poet and visual artist, Ashraf Fayadh who has been sentenced to death by the Saudi Arabian government for renouncing Islam and for allegedly posting an online video showing women being flogged by Saudi Arabia authorities, continued last Thursday with Nigeria’s literary community led by Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, joining the global community to demand for his unconditional release.

For two days, it was a real celebration of Chinese culture as movie lovers, especially lovers of the Chinese film thronged the famous Silverbird Cinemas in Victoria Island for much publicised Chinese Film Festival in Lagos, Nigeria. The festival which is the first of its kind was put together by the Chinese Consulate in Lagos as part of movies to help Nigerian friends to understand Chinese culture, history, society and boost future cultural exchange and cooperation.