Nigeria's Notes celebrated

By Ben Ezeamalu

The global premiere of Notes to Notes, an animated video that tells the story of Nigeria’s rich history using the naira notes, and illustrates the core values of the country’s naira notes, will hold today at the Genesis Deluxe Cinema, The Palms, Lekki, Lagos.

According to Aneto Okonkwo, an associate of the Nigeria leadership Initiative (NLI), an international non-profit organization and the organizers of the event, the country’s younger generation lack a good knowledge of the history of their nation.

Knowledge of the country

“During the last Future Leaders Class of the NLI (all new NLI Associates must go through a three-day Leadership Training before induction), we were taken through a course on Nigeria’s history,” said Mr Okonkwo.

“Very quickly, it became obvious that quite a few of us (especially the Nigerians in the Diaspora) had a few gaps in our knowledge of our nation’s history. We were concerned that this would be even worse for the younger generation. So we set out to create an animated video that was short and fun, that would remind the youth about Nigeria’s history and values.

“The video was deliberately kept short in view of the short attention span of some youth. Also, we wanted something that was easily distributed on the web and mobile phones.”

The project team was drawn from NLI Associates in the October 2009 Class (Associates are inducted twice a year - in May and October).

A lineup of celebrities including MI, Kate Henshaw-Nuttall, BOUQUI, TY Bello, Sasha, Omawumi, Rooftop MCs, Chioma Omeruah and Aisha Augie-Kuta, will narrate the Aphobos Studios’ Femi Omoluabi-produced video.

Reliving the past

Tunde Olanrewaju, Co-Chair of the NLI Management Board, relived the experiences of the Nigerian youth in the early sixties.

“We had gained independence and Nigerian youth exhibited an insatiable thirst for education and innovation in different spheres of life. During this time, strong values and a sense of community were the fabric of Nigerian society and Nigerians upheld values in their everyday activities. Today, this is just not the case.”

The Notes to Notes video will also be broadcast on TV and radio stations on Children’s Day, May 27, 2010, at 8pm on Silverbird TV and Inspiration FM. It will also be available for free download at www.nli-global.org.

The Notes to Note project is under NLI’s CLEVER initiative, which includes other projects like the Wordslam competition where youth can write the lyrics to a potential award-winning song and international poetry book. There’s also a Clever Club, which gives students an opportunity to take responsibility for transforming the country by developing a sense of civic responsibility.

Source: http://234next.com