By Charminae George
The arrival of a Nigerian dance group along with other individuals on the inaugural Air Peace flight on August 5 has been a topic of great curiosity.
Many residents fear the flight could be a repeat of the Antigua Airways saga which saw hundreds of Cameroonian refugees stranded in Antigua late last year.
Official details surrounding the dance group, beyond the number of individuals travelling and the arrival and departure dates of the flight, have been sparse.
However, according to the Deputy Director of the National Troupe of Nigeria, Dr Husseini Shaibu, among those set to arrive on the Air Peace flight are the troupe’s dancers.
“There are 13 artists, male and female and drummers. Then there are two officials, the artistic director (Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed), and then the head of dance,” Dr Shaibu told Observer yesterday.
After their arrival on Saturday, the dance group will be participating in various Carnival events.
“We’re told that we will be performing… three performances in three days. There’s one on Sunday, there’s two on Monday, and we will be a part of the Carnival on Tuesday,” Dr Shaibu said.
Precisely which events they will be appearing at has not been made clear, he explained.
“We were only told about our schedule of performances; they were not specific as per the venues of the performances or where we are going to have them,” he stated.
Dr Shaibu revealed that the group’s trip to Antigua is being sponsored by Air Peace, and indicated that the airline has been acting as an intermediary between the troupe and the government of Antigua and Barbuda, as there has been no direct contact between the dance group and the government.
“We only know the sponsor for the event, Air Peace airline…they are the ones taking us to Antigua. We are not directly in touch with authorities in Antigua. We are dealing with our sponsor,” he said.
Contact with the airline was as recent as Wednesday, the deputy director added.
“Yesterday, our sponsor reached out to us to say that they needed the list of our drums and we did send it to them just to confirm that we would be in Antigua,” he stated.
Dr Shaibu outlined the approximate timeframe the invitation was extended to the group.
“We got the invitation like two weeks ago and then we started preparing, and the date of departure from Nigeria, Saturday August 5,” he said.
He said Antigua will be the first country in the Caribbean the group has ever visited.
“We have gone as far as Brazil to perform. We’ve gone to Venezuela to perform. But we have not been to the main Caribbean, so this [will be] our first time there,” Dr Shaibu said.
Additionally, he spoke on what to expect from the group’s three performances.
“The national troupe is set up to celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Nigeria, so you’ll see a display of the best of Nigerian culture onstage…So we are going to draw our dances from different parts of the country,” he stated.
The National Troupe of Nigeria, a government-owned organisation, was established in 1991. The group consists of three departments (drama, music, and dance), along with a standing chorale group.
The dance department, along with the music department, has travelled to destinations including Dubai and the USA, and has plans to travel to Algeria in September and Canada in November.
The organisation aims to foster the discovery and development of performing arts talent, and to achieve high artistic performances for national and international tours. This information is according to the organisation’s website and the deputy director.
According to Air Peace’s website, the inaugural flight will depart from Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport at 4pm Nigerian time, and arrive in Antigua at 8pm local time Saturday.
Air Peace was established in 2014 by Allen Onyema, a Nigerian lawyer and businessman. Currently, it is the largest carrier in West Africa, according to the airline’s inflight magazine.
