EVEN with a deep religious background and music that is gospel-laden, Buchi has continued to worm his way into the consciousness of Nigerians with his kind of music that is not only lyrical, but didactic.On Saturday, October 15, the award-winning singer will officially unveil his latest work, Judah! The new album fights violence, but from a rather subtle angle.Worried by the spate of violence in the country's tertiary institutions, and the more sobering reality that this deviant subculture had permeated the secondary schools with gory repercussions, the artiste, who left his lecturing job at the University of Lagos to use music as a medium to touch the lives of people and to preach the message of peace, began to think of how he could help to combat this hydra-headed monster.The fifth in his repertoire, Judah is an extension of Buchi's campaign against violence. Beyond the album, he intends to take more practical steps in the fight against violence.His involvement with the theme of violence is cadenced by a platform, Project Ceasefire. The project employs music and literature in its mobilisation of youths against violence.The musical and talk aspect of the project was flagged off, in an exciting concert tagged, Operation Ceasefire, on February 17, at the University of Ado Ekiti (UNAD). But Buchi's engagement with violence did not begin as a concert, but as a concern or response to the social scourge of cult violence in our school system especially at the tertiary level.While Operation Ceasefire seeks to end violence in the schools by reaching out to cult members and violence-inclined youths through the tools mentioned above, the project goes further to seek to help victims of violence whether they be victimsof cult, religious, ethnic or any other kind of violence.The campaign also involves talk sessions in the forms of lectures, workshops and focused group discussions (FGD) targeted at youths and youth managers in its bid to deal with the subject at both intellectual and emotional levels.In his words, 'violence does not begin with the explosion of a car bomb or the unfortunate success of a suicide bomber; it begins with the neglect of that child on the street with nobody to guide him who may become a suicide bomber or a guerrilla fighter tomorrow.'He says, 'violence is sustained by society's neglect of the victims of violence. By this, I refer to the wives and children of those killed in the ethnic, religious and political upheavals in our country. These are the ones who have scores to settle and bones to pick, and unless something is done about it, they would certainly continue the vicious cycle by taking vengeance on those who killed their parents.'Project Ceasefire partners with different organisations and centres that make it their mission to provide help and succour to victims of violence.Buchi is donating all the proceeds from sale of the new album to take children off the streets. He is also donating part of proceeds from the album launch to children of victims of religious violence.To this end, he is working with the InnerCity Mission, an organisation known for its deep work among street children and the Stephen's Centre, Abeokuta, an organisation dedicated to helping children who have been made orphans by religious crises especially in northern Nigeria.
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