TRUE to his words, the streets of Abuja are now wearing carnival looks in readiness for the 2009 Abuja Carnival beginning from November 21 through 24. Earlier at his first media meeting with culture and tourism journalists in Lagos, the newly appointed creative director of this year’s Abuja Carnival, Professor Ojo Bakare had promised that his leadership of the carnival team would transform the hosting of the national festival to what he described as “a street party”, which according to him, carnival is all about.

THE illustrated Things Fall Apart produced in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Chinua’s Achebe’s classic novel will be the star attraction at a formal presentation ceremony to be held on November 17. The event which will take place in Lagos will be chaired by HRM Igwe Nnaemeka, Obi of Onitsha with renowned playwright, Wole Soyinka being the special guest of honour among other notable personalities in the art and literary world and beyond.

DETERMINED to reduced the number of fatal road accidents in the country and in line with its tradition of promoting creative thinking, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) Ltd is teaming up with African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) to sponsor a world-class photography exhibition in Lagos highlighting the issue of road safety in Nigeria.

FOR a man in his nineties, T.M. Aluko still has a very alert mind, and he has come up with a new novel that bears benedictory testimony to his venerated craft. Our Born Again President, a 218-page novel of intrigues in the affairs of state, tells the compelling story of David Tanbata who leads his country to independence and later becomes transformed in a Pentecostal manner not unlike the Biblical Saul-turned-Paul on the road to Damascus.

IN what looked like the first official visit of the acting director general of the National Gallery of Art, NGA, Muku Sabo Abudullahi, Sunday last week to the Lagos office of that federal parastatal responsible for the preservation and promotion of contemporary Nigerian arts and artists, the comatose centre, which in the last two years, under the leadership of Chief Joe Musa enjoyed unprecedented beehive of focused and determined visual art activities symbolically marked a return of life.