Pe­ter Ray Blood

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az has strong­ly de­nied that mem­bers of Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille are strand­ed in Nige­ria, in re­sponse to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in yes­ter­day's edi­tion of tt News Flash, an on­line news site. Car­ry­ing the by­line of Rhon­dor Dowlat, the ar­ti­cle stat­ed that the State Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice of Be­nue state, Nige­ria, was called to res­cue 18 mem­bers of the East­ern Quar­ries, Laven­tille steel or­ches­tra on Mon­day from a ho­tel in Be­nue.

This was af­ter claims were made that the pan side was mis­led in­to go­ing to the east-cen­tral state to per­form at its Car­ni­val event. The ar­ti­cle adds that on Tues­day the pan­nists were be­ing ac­co­mo­dat­ed at the of­fi­cial res­i­dence of Be­nue gov­er­nor Gabriel

Tor­wua Suswam, along with T&T?High Com­mis­sion­er to Nige­ria Nyahu­ma Men­thuhotep Obi­ka, who is based in Abu­ja, the Niger­ian cap­i­tal.The ar­ti­cle went on to state that a Niger­ian of­fi­cial al­leged that the steel­band left for Be­nue af­ter per­form­ing at Abu­ja's Car­ni­val on "al­leged" in­struc­tions by Obi­ka that he had been con­tact­ed by per­sons in Be­nue re­quest­ing the band per­form there. It was lat­er dis­cov­ered that Be­nue had no Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

The ar­ti­cle pur­ports that a mem­ber of the steel or­ches­tra said that the band's equip­ment was seized by two Nige­ri­ans claim­ing that a huge sum of mon­ey was owed to them for trans­port­ing the band from Abu­ja to Be­nue. The sum stat­ed to cov­er the re­main­der of the Niger­ian tour was 14,532,000 Naira (US$96,880).

It added that High Com­mis­sion­er Obi­ka has made a plea to T&T?na­tion­als re­sid­ing in Nige­ria to con­tribute to the costs of up­keep for the pan­nists, who are sched­uled to be in Nige­ria un­til De­cem­ber 28.

Con­tact­ed at Pan Trin­ba­go's head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain on Tues­day, Di­az said:?"I don't know any­thing about all of this. I just got off the phone speak­ing to the high com­mis­sion­er and right now Sound Spe­cial­ists is per­form­ing. The high com­mis­sion­er said no in­stru­ments were seized. The band per­formed in a wed­ding in Abu­ja on Sun­day, and got to Be­nue state yes­ter­day (Mon­day). I think that this is a false re­port.

"The truth of the mat­ter is that Chief Bowie Bowie has is­sues with Pan Trin­ba­go and is try­ing to un­der­mine the or­gan­i­sa­tion."

Bowie Bowie is a Niger­ian en­tre­pre­neur in­volved in es­tab­lish­ing ties be­tween Pan Trin­ba­go and Nige­ria ear­li­er this year, ce­ment­ed at a cer­e­mo­ny held at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain. Giv­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty to the tour, Di­az said:?"This isn't some kind of vie-ki-vie, fly-by-night pro­mo­tion­al tour. It has been un­der­tak­en with the bless­ings of the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and Pan Trin­ba­go.

"In fact, the min­is­ter (Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas) has just re­turned from be­ing there with the band. Fol­low­ing its stay in Be­nue, Sound Spe­cial­ists is booked to go to Port Har­court and Cal­abar state, be­fore re­turn­ing home from Abu­ja on De­cem­ber 28.

"The T&T?high com­mis­sion­er is part of the tour­ing con­tin­gent, so there's con­stant prop­er pro­to­col at the state lev­el be­tween the gov­ern­ments of T&T and Nige­ria.

"When steel­band first went to North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope there was nev­er a prob­lem, no kind of bac­cha­nal. Now that steel­band is mak­ing some kind of pro­gres­sive en­try and in­road in­to Africa, there's a big hul­la­bal­loo.

"Pan is be­ing re­quest­ed across the African con­ti­nent like nev­er be­fore, of­fer­ing a lu­cra­tive fu­ture for the in­stru­ment and our na­tion. In places like Ugan­da, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon and Sier­ra Leone peo­ple are clam­our­ing for our na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Our am­bas­sador is at the cen­tre of all these ne­go­ti­a­tions for the fu­ture.

"This tour has had the bless­ings of the Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and his per­ma­nent sec­re­tary. Sound Spe­cial­ists was warm­ly wel­comed at a gala re­cep­tion at the Pres­i­den­tial Palace host­ed by Niger­ian pres­i­dent Jonathan Good­luck and his wife. It was the first time that any steel­band has ever played in any pres­i­den­tial palace on the African con­ti­nent. The prime min­is­ter of St Kitts was present at the re­cep­tion as well," Di­az said.