Yinka Olatunbosun
Nigeria’s leading first generation bank, First Bank has thrown its weight behind a new documentary series produced by Linda Ikeji Television with the title, “First Class Material.’
The show which is a celebration of exceptional talents from Nigeria is created to counter the negative stereotypes of Nigeria that are paraded in western media. Nigeria, being a most populous country in Africa, has earned a respectable spot on the continent for its rich human resources with excellence in literature, music, sports and visual arts.
At the press briefing to announce this laudable effort held at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, the GM, Marketing, First Bank, Mrs. Folake Abdulmumuni expressed her excitement at this new project.
“The creative industry must be celebrated. It’s about doing things differently from the way the West has positioned us. It’s obvious that even with the West setting the parameters, we still excel. Nigerians get multiple admissions into Ivy league schools. There are so many stories of resilience, achievements that ought to be the narrative,” she said.
Whilst acknowledging the efforts of a lot of young Nigerians, she said that the show which will be broadcast online and on terrestial platforms will not be restricted by age, ethnicity or other barriers.
“The reality is that we are just looking for excellence so we encourage the public to nominate anyone who deserves to be on the show. There will be gifts and rewards which will grow with the power of collaborations. We want to have a very credible platform,’’ she revealed.
Meanwhile, the famed blogger and entrepreneur, Linda Ikeji revealed how the series will be broadcast and what to expect.
“We have profiled over 200 people and there are thousands of people who deserve to be on this show but we are going to go for the best of them. For instance, Bashir is an extremely talented young man who won at a competition in Dubai that had several people drawn from 73 countries. He won in the Artificial Intelligence category and built an app that targets retailers. Also, we have a 12-year old hyper-realist artist, Waris who did a portrait of the French President, Emmanuel Macron and that’s incredible talent,” she said.
The docu-series which had its premiere on November 26 will be broadcast every Tuesday and Thursday.
