₦airaland Forum

Ebube Chukwuuzo(Put God first) dalu ooo!!!

Not only is he our own Handel, the circumstances he defied to achieve that was very challenging.

Ikoli Harcourt-Whyte was born in 1905 in Abonnema in the Niger delta of Nigeria to a family of the Kalabari tribe. His parents- Munabo and Odibo named him Ikoli, however he adopted the name Harcourt-Whyte later on in his life. He was trained by his parents in the vocations of the Kalabari people, fishing and trade and also was schooled in the traditional vocal traditions of the Kalabari.

He was disagnosed with Leprosy in 1919, at the age of 14 and was sent first to the Port Harcourt Hospital- the closest hospital to Abonnema- by his siblings and then to the Uzuakoli Leprosy Hospital in the East of Nigeria. In keeping with the practice at the time, he and other patients were kept in virtual seclusion since Albert Schweitzer's vaccine had not been developed by then. Its also important to point out that his beloved mother and father died in 1916 and 1919 respectively thus making him both an orphan and a victim of one of the most dreaded diseases of the time at a very young age.Substantial background about Harcourt-Whytes affliction with Leprosy is provided by the research of Hazel Mae Rotimi (wife of Ola Rotimi) and Achinivu Achinivu who wrote a PhD dissertation at the University of Berlin on the life and works of Harcourt Whyte- the symptoms of the disease were first noticed in 1918, and the symptoms aggravated very quickly until its full blown manifestation in 1919. Especially noteworthy was that In ancient lore, leprosy was considered a curse from the Gods and Lepers were banished, resulting in most committing suicide.

Harcourt-Whyte however sought a deeper meaning for his fate and conviction that his life had a greater purpose than his affliction and the attended stigma represented to him.

Whilst at the Leprosy hospital, he immersed himself in Biblical text and in particular developed a strong interest in the religious hymns sung in the Hospital chapel and was encouraged to join the choir by the English Missionaries who ran the hospital and soon became an important part of the choir, subsequently becoming its conductor. He was encouraged by the missionaries also to compose choral pieces in Igbo, which though not his native language was the language of expression at Uzuakoli of which he mastered.

Harcourt-Whyte wote over 200 choral pieces in his career, an incredible feat for a man with virtually no formal education. In 1949, upon Schweitzer's vaccine gaining widespread use, he was cured of Leprosy, upon which he dedicated the rest of his life to composing inspirational music and educating on the need for care of Leprosy patients.

His music incidentally became a source of comfort for Igbos during the Nigerian Civil war, especially the track Atulegwu. three of the most popular recordings of his work were namely two albums by the Choir of the Uzuakoli Leper Colony (comprising Leprosy patients) and conducted by the legendary Musicologist and poet- Nnamdi Olebara, whose haunting and powerful poetry and narrative make these two of the most important classical works ever recorded in Nigeria. The third being the album "A e na o" by the St Louis Missouri African Choir, the only readily available recorded version of his work. By the way the Choir was composed entirely of Americans.

Harcourt-Whyte died in 1977 in a motor accident, however his compositions gained huge global critical acclaim after his death and whilst not on the same scale as his contemporary Fela Sowande, however his work is immprtalised in the published research by Hazel Mae Rotimi (subsequent to a 23-year research), Achinivu Achinivu's work and Ola Rotimi's great play "Hopes of the living dead" which featured the music of Harcourt-Whyte.

At some of my most challenging times- especially when undergoing Chemotherapy last year, the music of Harcourt-Whyte was inspirational to me - especially the song "Atulegwu" (never fear), also his composition "Umu gi emebiwo uwa gi" (Oh God, your children have destroyed the beautiful world that you created..) is one of the most moving songs I have ever heard and has resonance with several themes of the beauty of this earth destroyed by man's greed, avarice, covetousness and individualism. It is important also that Harcourt-Whyte's ministration never included condemnation of other faiths but focused on the simple philosophy love, compassion and empathy for your fellow men. A smiple man, he never sought acclaim, money or fame, he believed his life had a purpose beyond the challenges he faced or merely acquiring material achievement. One of the greatest African's who ever lived, if you aske me.
By Ed keazor.

We should be celebrating such Nigerians that defied all odds, refused to be bitter and made history.


Mods pls fp.

Asiwaju tell your boys to release fuel for us now.....na abeg i dey beg!

Robert Nesta Marley.
The only one in that list that sang meaningful songs.

Neduzze5:
Hehehe.... I blame the state governors more for all the mishaps and lack of economical and physical developments in their states.

We cannot have a political federalism & no fiscal federalism. The sharing of federal allocations should be minimised or outrighly stopped & let these lazy governors be forced to roll their sleeves, crack their brains & get down low with dirts & work to earn money from their respective states & spend on themselves.

Neduzze5:
Sir, are you just knowing now? It seems you've been in Bene Republic for a very long time!!

My brother propaganda don confuse us for Nigeria.
Everybody is shouting Goodluck, Iweala, Madueke & are using them to distract our attention from the robbery going on the states.

notobs:
You are the biggest fo0l around for mentioning Akpabio's name in conjunction with embezzlement, of all these governors who amongst them have done 1/4 of what Akpabio has done in Akwa Ibom.

1).Brand new airport with MRO
2).Brand new state University
3).1900 km of completed standard roads Using reputable construction firms
4).6000 classroom renovated and built
5).5 brand new general Hospitals
6).I specialist hospital the best of its kind in Nigeria
7).A state of the arts E- library with 15 million electronic book the best and first in west Africa
9).An International Stadium Nominated for world best stadium 2014 the best in west Africa
10).38 bridges including the tallest bridge you will find anywhere in Nigeria
11).Le meridien ibom hotel and golf resort
12).Ikot ekpene sheraton
13).5000 housing estate in uyo
14).2000 housing units Eket
15).Ibom hilton 90% complete opening last quarter 2015
16).ibom tropicana entertainment centre
17).4 flyovers in Uyo.
18).over 7000 rural projects like health centres, bore holes, transformers, town halls. rural markets etc
19). Incentivising the private sector to set up the biggest gas processing plant in the country in Akwa Ibom
20). 191 MW gas station tone of the few reliable power plant in Nigeria because of availability of gas
21). linked 97% of all communities in the state to the National grid one of only two states in Nigeria with that record
and others too numerous to mention.


Talk about your governor Akpabio is a living legend and we in Akwa Ibom cannot thank him enough for daring to be different from his peers.

God bless Akpabio for using his peoples money to work for them.
Amaechi what did you do with Rivers people money.?

Thank God for this woman NOI, now we know that the 36 thieves answering your excellency in 36 states as governors are the real problem with Nigeria.

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MayorofLagos:
We are glad Yale took the position because it is now registered to the world and the awareness that Okonjo-Iweala is an incompetent and over rated technocrat is spread globally.

She has been projected, successfully and rightly so, as a liability...and not an asset to the national and regional economy.

This raises the risk and makes her unappealing for hire by any international body working for the upliftment of human society on a global scale.

Okwu nkasi obi......ntooorrr!!!

Thank goodness, let some restless folks look for something else to agitate their restless minds.

nicklaus40:
These TANoids sef,person reject rolls Royce because he is on a personal visit,not an official visit nd una dey show us picture of him in a jet going for a function as the presidential flagbearer of his party

And he went to pay british prime minister a private visit in his private residence of 10 Downing street & govt of U.K. released a press statement of the official duscussions held between them.

Hypocrisy is when a man flies around the country in a gulf stream private jet for campaigns, flies first class in a British Airways plane to London, lands at airport & tells people i won't ride in a rolls royce 'cos it is opulence.

PassingShot:
I prefer the way APC is handling this. The leadership wants to be seen not to favour anyone until a clear cut preferred candidate is emerged through the number of supporters the person has; this is already happening.

It is far better than what PDP did which was favouring a candidate no matter how unpopular he/she was, over other lawmakers.

The difference is that, at the end of the day, APC leadership will be able to see who has more/most supporters of the contestants and give their blessing to him; they'll then prevail on the other contestant with fewer supporters to step down.

On the other hand, this is an entirely different scenario playing out, the most popular candidate (Saraki) does not have the support of the party leaders unlike the presidential primaries that had the Tinubu/Amaechi southern bloc together with the Buhari northern bloc queuing behind Buhari.
This time around the leadership of the party is very afraid of the much popular but ambituos Saraki senate president that they can't control emerging with the support of PDP senators that can be potentially slippery for APC.
Oh boy APC is on a long thing.

PassingShot:
No issues!

This type of back and forth politicking is expected whenever important positions like this are to be shared.

What happens at the end of the day is how the party rallies behind whoever emerges.

We witnessed a similar scenario when APC was to choose its presidential candidate but the party emerged stronger thereafter.

A blind man could clearly see that Buhari was going be the winner of the primaries.
This kind of horse trading was always done by PDP yet nobody hears about it.

arewafederation:
I just de entertain myself seeing how much these vainglorious beings love fooling themselves. In their little silly minds, they think the scarcity of fuel does not hit them because they are hard working, industrious, organised bla bla bla bla so much that one would think these guys are living in utopia.. SMH

Well, FYI, fuel is available in the north but with a slight increase in price but the highest you get is 130/liter. You still get it at 87/litre but you ll have to join a not so long que. So please, stop feeling special while your govt continues to rob you.

Pls name two towns in the north that has fuel.

noblezone:
Reason is very simple.
We dont depend on government to survive.
We are more concernd about the availability of fuel than the cost of it.
Marketers being fuel to the East because they are assured of their money.

We drive inn, buy and drive out.

Did you see any "Silly Subsidy Protests" in the East?
No, we have more important things to do.

Subsidy removal would have been the best for Nigeria, but the cabal who benefit from it, deceived the gullible.

Nwanne dalu for this your reply, infact 1 bottle of Orijin for you.

Time to sell the cars & buy a nice canoe.

egift:
Helping Nigeria workers get paid is not a bad thing. Also States will repay from their allocation later. We all need to start on a level playing ground.

I hope you are not encouraging the recklessness & financial irresponsibility of these governors?

Taylor86:
buhari should beta spend d money

especially here in rivers, all d debts Amaechi is owing is because of his campaign and health

dey should beta pay my dad d pension Amaechi hv been owing them for 7months

no b to go carry 4.1 trillion go breed new cows, import Chinese gworo kola-nut and buy foreign kwili kwili

Wickedness is when you and your hangers-on live lavishly in opulence & the poor labourers toiling for you are denied their meeagre income of salaries .

God will judge between this heartless Ogbeni Raufu & the poor workers of his state osun being owed six months salary.

HOW DOES HE EVEN SLEEP AT NIGHT?

For those of you supporting this nonsense talk -

Was Oshiomhole's first wife a Nigerian & was she materialistic?

Are your moms, sisters, nieces, girl friends, female cousins, wives & fiancees after properties or materialistic?

Please respect our women, they are wonderful.

For me, the statement is very derogatory to the Nigerian woman.
Implying that all our women are materialistic & only after properties is very insulting to the average Nigerian woman that is resiliant & hard working enough to acquire her own properties if need be.

#Our ladies are great.

hamzyluv:
so u mean Ngige &Gbenga Ashafa ETC. of APC stopped the labour laws amendment ? bros u are clueless like ur oga at d PDP.. how many APC members are in d house to stop any proposed Bill by PDP government since 2010? ...

Please make your own point & move on.

Different strokes for different folks.

bjt:
My Honda Pilot '05 drive ""is flashing. Please help

Start by checking the condition & level of the transmission fluid in the gear.

omenka:
This is why we keep failing, advice like this.

It is foolhardy confronting the symptoms of a problem rather than its causes.

Go figure Mr.

Smh.

Blame Jonathan for his failure for once in your life. Just once. It's not gonna make your business any less successful.

At least start by telling me good morning first, after all i senior you.

Nothing of that sort will happen or Nigerians may start to suspect something.
They turned it down before & will only be dealt with by millitary force.

High time Nigerians rise up deal with this issue of persistent strikes by oil workers.
The senate wanted to amend our labour laws to address the issue of using strikes as a bargaining tool by labour unions in 2012 but was resisted by APC senators like Ngige & Gbenga Ashafa because it was PDP in power, today it is APC, we will wait & see how Buhari's govt will roll with these greedy Shylocks called oil workers union.

midolian:
I hope and pray this thing goes to Akume eventually.. He has maintained a clean slate both in his political career and his private life. A man of sterling quality,.Akume rather than loot the treasury when he was Governor of Benue State, unleashed an avalanche of development in all the facets of the socio-economic endeavours of the state such that between 1999 and 2007 Benue State became a beehive of activities and a very pleasant home for all tribes and religious groups to thrive among the natives harmoniously. He is the kinda person Nigeria needs as the senate president @ this critical moment.

Serious ? Avalanche of development in Benue state?

Mynd44:
Nigerians are jobless

Very very jobless my brother.

otokx:
This woman finished Nigeria.

Nigerians finished themselves by running a parasitic federation that gives billions in hand outs to 36 thieves monthly in the name allocation. Till we decide to restructure Nigeria, this thrash will continue like this.