By Samuel Bello
Popular music star, Olu Maintain, is partnering some young musicians from northern Nigeria in a project aimed at fostering unity of the country.
The Yahoozee crooner, who hails from the South-West, penultimate weekend, launched a three-track album in collaboration with four artistes from the North, namely El-Muaz, Aminu A.L.A., Ali Jita and Fati Nijar.
Daily Sun learnt that the album, titled “M5,” was specifically released to help in dousing ethnic tensions and other agitations among Nigerians.
The event, which took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, saw dignitaries and guests from across the country relishing the rhythms and lyrics of the tracks, “Leave Story,” “Hey Love” and “U.N.I.T.Y,” with their message of love and unity.
Well-meaning Nigerians showered encomiums on the brain behind the idea of mixing all languages and ethnicity in the album, jettisoning cultural differences.
Director-general of National Orientation Agency (NOA), Dr. Garba Abari, and Chief Nasir Dano, the major sponsor of the event, could not hide their joy as they enjoyed the lyrics of the beats produced by Casiva Entertainment Limited.
Abari expressed the optimism that Nigerians can overcome their present challenges as a people, if they unite and bring the country out of its woes.
He noted that corruption had eaten deep into the nation’s fabric, adding that the fundamental issue was to embark on aggressive attitudinal change campaign because most of the problems in the country were attitudinal.
According to the NOA boss, “Our country is passing through difficulties, but which country does not have difficulties? We are diverse, but in this diversity lies our strength. We have a population of nearly 200 million people, by every sense of imagination this is a large market that you can never ignore.
“It is an endowment that we must make our citizens to appreciate because we are the only ones that can make this country great. All other countries that we see and we admire were made great by their own citizens. Of course, we have difficulties but difficulties are meant to be surmounted.
“Music is one of the most veritable platforms that I intend to use for this message, and what kind of message? Because music has now developed beyond entertainment, music has developed beyond singing and dancing, music has become a veritable instrument of mobilisation of cultural consciousness.
“We want to change our country from a country perceived as corrupt country to a country of honest people, we use music. We want to showcase our natural endowment, we use music; we want to export our culture, we use music. We have seen the role of music in the liberation of South Africa.
“I have heard a lot of messages here that make a lot of sense, but if we are going to talk about corruption, we cannot just be talking about corruption in high places because it is more than stealing of money. We have a country that we must all unite and bring out of the woes.”
On his part, Olu Maintain said music was powerful and it was one of the most engaging elements in nature; he explained that the project would expose artistes from the North and South to different cultures.
Said he, “I’m from the South and this collaboration project that I did with artistes from the North is going to blow people’s mind because not only do these guys have their fan base in millions, we in the South probably have not even heard of them before.
“Most especially, we all realised that there is ethnic tension in the country, so it is better to try and tone it down with music because, at the end of the day, music takes us away from our sorrow.”
Another member of the group, Ali Jita, disclosed that the project was Dan Amani’s idea in collaboration with Olu Maintain and some of the artistes from the North.
“It was a great experience, this is the first time and we have a lot coming. We want to see how we can unite the North and the South, the whole country together, through music. The crew is called M5 and the idea was led by Olu Maintain and it consist of five artistes,” he said.
Main sponsor of the album, Chief Nasir Dano, is said to have, prior to this period, supported and sponsored youths with vision and talents in Nigeria, irrespective of their place of origin.