AFA Hosts Sanwo-olu at LACI Trainees Graduation, Launches Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu Table Tennis Challenge

On Tuesday, October 25, over 1,000 trainees of the Africa Film Academy will graduate after many weeks of intensive training in filmmaking, cinematography, editing, directing, makeup, and acting.

The graduation ceremony of the trainees will have the Executive Governor of Lagos State, H.E. Babajide Sanwo-Olu as the Special Guest of Honour while the First Lady, Dr. (Mrs) Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu will sit as the Chief Patron of the day.

Special guests expected on the occasion are the Lagos State Commissioner for Culture, Arts and Tourism, Pharm Uzamat Akinbile-Yussuf, and the Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Education, Mr. Tokunbo Wahab.

The event is billed to hold in the Alimosho area of Lagos, which recorded the largest data of trainees of the Africa Film Academy’s Film in a Box.

The training was facilitated by AFA in joint collaboration with the Lagos State Government under the Lagos State Creative Industry Initiative, LACI.

On June 9th, 2022, the AFA embarked on training youths in different localities in Lagos, who registered and showed interest in acquiring skills and knowledge in filmmaking, cinematography, editing, directing, makeup, and acting.

The facilitators led by Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, the Chief Executive Officer of AFA, sited training camps in some parts and employ the use of Lagos theatres in other localities. Other facilitators for the AFA training tagged ‘Film in a box’ include Keppy Ekpenyong-Bassey, who was the director of Studies, and Abiola Durodola, who was the Head of Strategy of AFA.

Youths in Epe, Badagry, Ikorodu, and Alimosho areas of Lagos state testified to acquiring more knowledge, skills, and in some cases skillsets to help practice while honing their skills.

In her words, Pharm Akinbile-Yussuf said, “This is a continuation of our efforts to discover, encourage and nurture talented creative youths of this state, who can favourably compete globally in terms of content and technical know-how in film production.

“As we all know that the youth population is the strength and vigor of the society, this explains why Gov. Sanwo-Olu gives premium attention to youth-related initiatives, especially through capacity development.

“The state government is making frantic efforts to address the growing and increasing unemployment rate across the country.

“Also, the effect of unemployment on Lagos state being the commercial nerve centre of the country and home to most Nigerians who have migrated to the state in search of greener pastures,” she said.

Speaking on the graduation ceremony, which is one of the activities lined up to herald the 2022 Africa Movies Academy Awards, AMAA, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe said she’s delighted to have imparted knowledge and impacted the growing Lagos creative industry through capacity building.

“It was such an eye-opening experience and we had a large turnout of participants. I think what worked for us was that we took the training to their localities and the youths came out in droves. After the training, we ensured that we worked together on themes while ensuring that they understand the business side of filmmaking. There is the show business and the film business. In Epe, a short film, which premiered in September was achieved, in Alimosho, a full feature film entitled Akanji was achieved. In Badagry, we trained rising editors and in Ikorodu, we achieved more. At the end of the training, I can confidently say we have achieved capacity building in the film sector while creating employment for youths in Lagos,” she said.

Also at the event, a sport initiative aimed at discovering and nurturing nascent talents in the game of table tennis will be launched. Tagged ‘Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu Table Tennis Challenge’, the initiative intends to be a talent hunt project across all the Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas in Lagos aimed at raising new talents to compete in the game and return Lagos State, nay Nigeria to its past place of glory in the game.

Speaking about the initiative, the project coordinator, Mr. Victor Ganzallo opined that the main idea behind the project is to discover new, unrefined talents in the game of table tennis and help them develop and realize their full potentials. He further stated that Lagos was once renowned as the breeding ground for some of the best talents in the game, with some of them going on to represent Nigeria globally and making a name for themselves by becoming some of the global icons in the game. According to him, ‘’Table tennis is one of the sports that has brought Nigeria fame and renown as a sport, with a global recognition of some of our talents as the leading lights from the continent of Africa in the game. One of the biggest breeding grounds for table tennis talents in Nigeria in the past was Lagos State. Talents like Atanda Musa, Segun Toriola, Aruna Quadri, Biola Odumosu, Bose Kaffo, Yomi Bankole and Funke Oshonaike were all discovered in Lagos. Rowe Park, a sports complex in the Yaba area of Lagos is reputed to have been the venue where some of these talents were polished’’.

Speaking further, he stated that back in the days, almost every street in Lagos had one table tennis board or the other, where adults and children from diverse backgrounds and ages converge to compete.

The Ibijoke Sanwoolu Street Table Tennis Challenge is a competition being initiated to return the glory days of table tennis to Lagos and to discover and nurture the large number of talents we have in our great state.

The plan is to start this competition from Alimosho Local Government and then spread to other LG and LCDA in Lagos.