It was something else I planned to share today; but then, pronto! It’s Niji Akanni’s birthday.
Wow!
I can’t keep quiet.
The name Niji Akanni is a positive whirlwind that blows everyone every good. He is a force in the Theatre and entertainment industry. He’s known for his distaste for mediocrity. Also, he doesn’t do things half-heartedly.
When people refer to my era as Chairman of NANTAP (National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (Lagos State Chapter) as a golden one and an indelible hallmark, Niji Akanni contributed immensely to the overall success.
Sometime in 2009, watching a stage play by the National Troupe of Nigeria at the National Theatre, Lagos – and sitting beside the almighty Tunde Kelani (our very own famous TK) – we kept exchanging a flurry of creative ideas. Then emerged a notion that TK’s Mainframe Film and TV Productions and the NANTAP-Lagos could do something together. That, to me, was a most brilliant dream that must come to fruition.
I later visited TK in his office where we gave flesh to the skeletal idea: to re-enact a traveling theatre experience by staging a powerful play and garnishing it with what the traveling theatre practitioners called Opening Glee.
Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo, Kola Ogunmola, Oyin Adejobi, Adeyemi Afolayan (Ade Love), Ishola Ogunsola (Dr. I-Sho Pepper), et all. They all did it to treat their audiences to a bout of dance/musical rendezvous
We (TK and I) chose ’Yeepa! Solaarin Nbo!!,’ a comedic play translated by Prof. Ogundeji from Prof. Femi Osofisan’s ’Who is Afraid of Solarin?’ The Opening Glee was handled by the Dance Guild of Nigeria (Lagos State Chapter) featuring Segun Adefila’s Crown Troupe of Africa and Dayo Liadi’s Ijodee Dance Company.
The play was also a special project designed in a way that artistes would be paid handsomely unlike the paltry stuff they usually got.
We approached the Lagos State Government under the dynamic and no-nonsense Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola for funding. This was late 2009.
I was in South Africa in 2010 when our proposal was approved. I had to fly back to hold an emergency meeting with TK. It was at that meeting that we agreed to give the directing of the play to someone whose creativity, skill and professionalism were never in doubt. And that was how Niji Akanni’s name came up.
Long story short, to the delight of everyone, Niji Akanni did a yeoman’s job. He delivered impeccably. We had two shows at the National Theatre and a Special Command Performance at Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos. It was graced by the representatives of the Lagos State Government – led by the Secretary to the State Government – other dignitaries and eminent personalities.
The project was a huge success, and Niji Akanni’s name never left everybody’s lips.
By extension, Niji Akanni’s direction of that award-winning film, ‘Aramotu’ and many other stage and screen productions are classy examples of that Midas touch from a positive whirlwind called Niji Akanni. Wherever he goes, he lives an impressionable mark that people often talk about for a long time.
Niji is an erudite Theatre Scholar, a technically sound Theatre Director, a man with an infectious personality, and someone whose kind heart affects people around him in a most positive way. He demonstrated that recently, but that is a discussion for another day.
Today (August 11) is Niji Akanni’s birthday. Let’s celebrate him.
Happy birthday to a man of respectable clout and professional excellence!
