Bono in Nigeria for ONE

Rock star, Paul David Hewson, (aka Bono) and Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, yesterday met with the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa to discuss the possibilities of a global partnership to address the humanitarian crisis in North-eastern part of the country through international advocacy.

A statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, said Osinbajo told the delegation that the federal government would welcome a global partnership that would ensure a concerted and focused international response to the humanitarian crisis in the North-eastern region.
Bono leads the ONE campaign group, an advocacy organisation with more than seven million people around the world taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable diseases especially in Africa.

It has on its board people like Mo Ibrahim, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg among others. It was founded in 2004.

Addressing members of the delegation that included former UK Development Secretary Douglas Alexander, Osinbajo said: “It is very important that you chose to come and offer some partnership. This is great and we are pleased…Partnership is certainly the way to go.”

He said no matter how prepared a country could be, handling the kind of crisis in the North-east with two million displaced people including children would prove a difficult task.
According to him, a global partnership to address the situation should be coordinated and more focused on what was required to be done, for instance, in addressing the issue of malnourished children and not attempting to do too much things at once.

Speaking earlier, the Irish-born artist, Bono, said he had visited some of the IDPs, saying “We want to be useful to you.”

Bono added that what he saw in the region was “deeply disturbing.”
He also commended the social investment programmes of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, saying: “We have heard of the incredible plans, the social investment funds,” adding also that the level of transparency already seen in the administration is both “very exciting and transforming.”

Meanwhile, Dangote, monday at the meeting, disclosed that a total sum of N4.5 billion had so far been spent by the Dangote Foundation in trying to provide succour to IDPs in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States, which have been ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency.
He added that the foundation would continue to reach out to the victims until the end of the current programme by government to restore normalcy to the people.

Bono, who is currently in the country to draw international support for victims of insurgency in the North-east said funding to the region needed to be scaled up in order to achieve maximum impact.

Bono further lamented that of the estimated $300 million required as part of the reconstruction programme, only about $100 million had so far been realised, stressing that going by the magnitude of destruction and deprivation in affected areas, there’s need to scale up resources to cope with the humanitarian crisis.

He said working with the Dangote Foundation, he would use his ONE Campaign NGO platform to garner global support towards addressing the plight.

According to both Dangote and Bono, the new partnership will focus on the most marginalised citizens, particularly girls and women, who face the brunt of poverty and help empower those most at risk from extreme poverty, extreme climate and extreme ideology.

Specifically, Dangote said: “I am in ONE and partners across Nigeria to strengthen civil society and help the government respond to our ongoing health needs and the urgent malnutrition crisis in North-east Nigeria. ONE’s extensive network of youth groups and its 2.3 million members will help bring international attention to and action on these issues. All of us can and must do more.”
On his part, Bono, an ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the leader of the rock group, U2, said: ”I am proud to be standing alongside Dangote, whose foundation works for the future of Nigeria and Africa through its young people. The youth of Nigeria, Africa and indeed everywhere are like rocket fuel- there are no limits to how far they can go, they can transform the continent-or they can blow up in your face. Harnessing their energy requires investment in their education, employment and healthcare.”

Bono said he was particularly heartbroken at the condition of displaced persons-some children never knew their parents and some severely malnourished.

A particular account was painted by Dangote, where Bono asked a woman in Borno State why she had not breastfed her child – only for the woman to strip her chest bare, revealing her breasts and telling Bono she had no milk to give to the child – once again, depicting the horrible condition of the humanitarian crisis at hand.

However, the new partnership will help amplify the calls of million of Nigerian ONE members, who have been campaigning for years on issues including health, anti-corruption and agriculture.
This year’s Make Naija Stronger campaign calls for the government to deliver on its commute, net to invest more in healthcare.

ONE campaign is a powerful global advocacy group which was instrumental in Nigeria’s debt cancellation, which led to its exit from the Paris Club and it’s incursion into the country at the request of Dangote is expected to produce more concrete results in the rebuilding of the North-east.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/
https://www.one.org

Happy Birthday, The Edge!!!!

 Bono was in Nice, during the attack that resulted in the death of over 80 people. The artist was not to be found in the Promenade des Anglais where the attack took place, but on his  own way, he was  in contact with the people fleeing from the truck-killer.

The French newspaper Le Figaro writes that Bono was  in fact, was eating dinner at  the Petite Maison, a famous restaurant,  in Nice  with chef Alain Ducasse located in a street parallel to the Promenade, in the company of a chef and entrepreneur, Eric Dupond-Moretti and a well-known criminal lawyer. 

The diners in the restaurant were not informed of the massacre that was taking place a few steps away, neither have they heard the roar of the trucks and the gunfire that put an end to the mad race. But what they saw  there was a crowd of people terrified running  through the alleys, one group found refuge inside the Petite Maison.

At the beginning, tthey  thought of a police chase. Security agents have promptly asked whoever was inside the restaurant to not move and do not quit. For two hours, continues to tell Le Figaro, no one has been able to leave the Petite Maison, until the forces of law and order have not led to the locked hands high up towards the place Masséna. It is not clear, however, if Bono was gone already before all this happened. 

http://www.bitfeed.co/

Bono participates in video against racism

Bono has joined  big music stars like Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Pharrell, Lenny Kravitz, Pink, Queen Latifah and Adam Levine to create a video to fight  racism in the United States titled 23 Ways You Could Be Killed if you Are Black in America

https://u2only.net

Adam Clayton chats about their HBO music special "iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE"

U2 band member Adam Clayton chats about their HBO music special "iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE" with Gold Derby editor Chris Beachum.

http://www.goldderby.com/

Edge on HBO's 'Innocence + Experience' Paris Concert, Eagles of Death Metal and 'Busting Our Ass' to Finish the New Album

U2 performs at Accorhotels Arena in Paris on Dec. 7, 2015.

U2 guitarist The Edge talks about the Paris concert broadcast on HBO, security concerns, and the new album.

On Dec. 7, U2 took the stage at Paris’ Accorhotels Arena to make good for the second of its two shows originally postponed in the wake of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in the city that left 130 dead, including 89 at the Bataclan concert venue where Eagles of Death Metal were playing.

The concert,  U2: Innocence + Experience Live in Paris, captured live for HBO by director Hamish Hamilton, was a breathing testament to the healing power of music, not only for the audience, but for U2 as well. “It sort of felt like it was part of a process of reclaiming live rock and roll in the city of Paris,”  says U2 guitarist The Edge in an exclusive interview. “We were by no means the first event post the Paris attacks, but for us it was very symbolic and very significant. We tried to get back as quickly as we could.”

U2 invited the Eagles of Death Metal to join them on stage, marking the first time the California band had played since the attacks. “They were robbed of their stage, so we would like to offer them ours,” U2 frontman Bono told the audience. 

Calling from the studio where U2 is working on the follow-up to 2014’s Songs of Innocence, The Edge talked to Billboard about that Paris night, increasing security following recent events such as the Christina Grimmie murder and the Orlando club massacre, as well as the new album and a possible new tour.

What is your best memory of that night in Paris?

That moment when the Eagles of Death Metal came on stage and we handed to them one of our guitars, [bassist] Adam [Clayton] and myself, and Larry [Mullen Jr.] handed them drumsticks. We then grabbed guitars ourselves and we joined in with them. There was that moment of handing over our stage and our instruments that was just really moving after everything that they’d been through.

You played “People Have The Power” together and then you left the stage as they performed show closer, “I Love You All the Time.” That has to be the first time you’ve let someone else close a U2 show.

Yeah! There’s probably a fan out there who would say “Well, in 1981…” but in my memory, yes, it was the first time and it just felt so right. It was very spontaneous. We knew we wanted them to come on and do “People Have the Power,” but everything else was pretty much just made up on the spot. They just ran with it and [EODM singer] Jesse Hughes, particularly, I think once his feet hit the stage and he heard the crowd responding, I think it galvanized him. They clearly were still coming to terms with the trauma and processing it so there was a little element of the unknown about how that was going to work for them. 

During “City of Blinding Lights,” the names of the victims of the Paris attacks scrolled on a large screen. You did the same thing when you played Madison Square Garden in 2001 after Sept. 11. How did the band decide to do that again? 

We realized immediately that our return show would have to reflect what had occurred, so then it’s really a case of how can you do so in an artful way that doesn’t feel exploitive or jingoistic or anything trite. [Creative director] Willie Williams and the guys in the video team started to figure this thing out. I think because we’d used this device before, we knew it would be dignified and honored the victims without appearing to be overly done. For us, it’s an honor to be able to use our stage for that purpose.

What is the conversation the band and director Hamish Hamilton have as you try to strike the balance between meeting the needs of the live audience and the people watching on TV? Is that a tap dance? 

Yes, it is. We talk at length about where that line is. Should there be cameramen on stage or not? We ended up not having them on stage. If anyone else is up on stage, they end up not just interrupting the live audience, but they end up in a lot of wide shots that you really don’t want them in. It’s a complex formula.  The other quite challenging thing is with a production of this scale, finding within this amazing visual spectacle the things that would be appreciated when watched on a television screen. The show was actually quite difficult to film for that reason. If you can give people a sense of what it’s like to be there, that’s the ultimate aim of any concert film, and I think Hamish came closest as possible to pulling that off. 

During “Elevation,” Bono brought several ardent fans on stage. In light of recent events, does an act have to rethink letting fans that close? 

We never really sat down and had that conversation because I think it will be a really difficult one for us to even think about. Our relationship with our fans is so special to us and there is a huge amount of trust that goes both ways, so I would hate to ever imagine the need to roll back on that kind of freedom. So far I feel like we’re fine, but we had this very strange incident in Sweden [last September] where someone ended up in the venue with a [dismantled] firearm. We actually had to pull the show. We managed to reinstate the show within a couple of days and, in that instance, it was the most innocent of situations, someone just misjudging. Obviously security is paramount at a U2 show and we take it incredibly seriously, as any artist does these days, so we could not take a chance. But that is the only time ever that there’s been a sort of credible, serious threat or potential threat at a U2 show. We’re probably lucky, and we don’t take it for granted by any means, but we very much rue the day that we may have to change any of the ways that our shows are operated because it does mean a lot to us, the connection between the fans and ourselves.

In March you said that the band hoped to get back on the road sooner rather than later. When is sooner? 

That statement still holds true. Short of announcing the plan, which I can’t right now, we’re still on target to get out there sooner rather than later. 

You’re calling from the studio. What is the time table for the new album?

We are still busting our ass to try to get it out this year. That’s our plan right now and exactly when, we’re not sure. Now a U2 album plan has been known to be revised (laughs). This is the working assumption. This is our ambition. It could change, but we’re really doing our best to get it out this year. 

U2 were among the many artists, along with Taylor Swift, who signed a letter to congress about amending the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Why did you feel the need be part of that? 

Our inspiration was for artists, and mostly young and up-and-coming artists, who don’t have any of the benefits of a live concert stream of income like U2. We’re fine, but there is no doubt that for songwriters and performers who are relying on releasing their music on whatever services they get paid by, it’s been a challenging shift from an industry that was paying artists well to a scenario that it’s increasingly difficult to earn a living from your music. So we’re very concerned about the impact that would have on music culture going forward. There’s no doubt that so many other industries have incredibly sophisticated lobbying organizations to look after their interests. We felt it was important for us to stand up and be counted as artists who have done well over the years and just want to make sure that up-and-coming artists enjoy the chance to continue to get to make music as we have. I guess we all feel like that’s under threat. 

http://www.billboard.com/

The Edge has a message for all of us

"Disease prevention has become a crucial new strategy to explore. It is also becoming achievable for the first time in history."




To learn more about cancer prevention, refer to https://www.eattobeat.org
To support the campaign, please consider a donation at https://www.angio.org/donate