• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Anchor Insurance, The Duke of Shomolu Productions empower Akwa Ibom youths

Anchor Insurance gross premium up 25.9% to N13bn

Anchor Insurance, one of Nigeria’s fastest growing underwriters, will this April support an exciting new stage play – Ibiom: When Doves Fly. The play, which features Ini Edo, the most influential actress to come out of the South South, will also see Ahmed Yerima, a professor and former director general, National Troupe, carry out an extensive theatre clinic for the youths.

Speaking on the involvement of the insurance firm, Augustine Osegha Ebose, managing director/chief executive of Anchor Insurance, he said, “The need to strengthen our cultural ethos through powerful platforms as provided by this exciting stage play cannot be deemphasized hence Anchor involvement”.

He went on to state that Anchor as a socially responsible corporate citizen was further buoyed to be part of this initiative by the offer for the free theatre clinic, which will see highly esteemed Prof Ahmed Yerima fly into Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, to engage over 500 youths in a three-day fully packed session. The sessions would see the professor take interested youths through the rudiments of theatre from costuming, dance, elucidation and more.

Read Also: How insurance recapitalisation can deepen Nigeria’s 1% penetration rate

According to Ebose, this directly underscores the vision of Anchor, especially in the area of youth engagement and empowerment.

In his own submission, Joseph Edgar, who is a prominent investment banker and theatre producer, Ibiom- When Doves Fly offers not only the people of Akwa Ibom but Nigerians as a whole the opportunity to better delineate our history, putting it within the right context while packaging it to serve as a trigger towards an effective renaissance in the country.

The play, according to Edgar, will tell a perfect story of courage and love. It will also pull together all the ethnic groups that make up Akwa Ibom State while also engaging the legendary Arochukwu people of South East Nigeria, who share a historical lineage.

It will expose audiences to a wide and varying kaleidoscope of colors, costumes, cuisines, loving folk tales in a sweet mix of sporadic dances carefully curated to elicit spontaneous appreciation from audiences. Over 50 different dances will envelope the prestigious Ibom Hall in Uyo as over 25 actors and dancers take to the stage.

Edgar concluded that the performances will be executed under very strict covid guidelines as the famed Ibom Hall will only take 30 percent of its usual capacity hence the plan to live stream the show to a wider audience globally.

Already, the producers have received clearance from the Akwa Ibom Hospitality and Tourism Board, the state’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Ministry of Information.