Bianca Iboma-Emefu
In her bid to promote art and develop young talent through indigenous means, Mrs Chinwe Anyigbo, proprietress of Infantino Montessori Schools, Lekki, Lagos, has introduced art and culture festival “Things Fall Apart.” The kids displayed brilliant performance in drama, art, culture and music.
To celebrate the second edition, the pupils acted Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Anyigbo said: “The concept is to basically acquit the children of their culture and the effect of the colonial master, that changed and invaded our custom and tradition.
“Music promotes positive value among children, teens and youths. It gives them a sense of purpose and as a nation we need to our culture through art and music.
“Western culture is now a dominant factor in our various homes and school today. As people, our cultural value is in extinction, thus the need to revive it. Children were laughed at when they speak their mother’s tongue in school. The languages have equally suffered serious bashing in other sectors of the nation.
“In homes, parents no longer tell folktales to their children. Several families no longer find it fashionable to talk to their children in their mother language or teach them idioms and proverbs in their native tongues.
“The sad thing is that our local parlance has names for all manner of relations but all these have sadly been lost in the unholy attempt to be more English than the English nationals. The downward slide of our language continued over the years unabated.
“A recent alarm raised over the imminent extinction of Nigerian languages has, however, reawakened the consciousness of a number of persons and organisations. That is why we are using the act to acquit them with their identity and developed their interest using what they enjoy.”