TEJU Kareem’s Zmirage Multimedia Company (ZMC) has announced the passing of one of its international consultants, Vernon Shabaka Thompson.
Thompson, 65, died Tuesday, July 4, 2023, in Saint Lucia, the Caribbean, from heart-failure-related complications.
Until his passing, Thompson was the lead consultant and head of the United Kingdom operations of ZMC.
The deceased was a renowned specialist in carnival management and directed the Notting Hill Carnival in the United Kingdom, from where he was head-hunted by ZMC to serve as a technical consultant to the Calabar Carnival in Cross River State, and later the CARNIRIV in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Kareem recalled how the intervention of Shabaka Thompson changed the culture and landscape of Carnival production and management in Nigeria.
He said, “At the ZMC, he spearheaded most of our UK and the Caribbeans operations. He regularly visited Nigeria, especially attending the yearly Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange programme.
“He had just – some 16 hours before his shocking passing — submitted his travel itineraries to the Nigeria High Commission in the UK to commence his travel to Nigeria to join us in Lagos and Abeokuta for the 2023 edition of the WSICE, which holds July 13-15. Our universe will miss his gentle African and black cultural advocate soul.”
“We commiserate with his family and all the people he left behind in all the stations where he operated and registered irrepressible impressions and impacts on our collective humanity,” concluded Kareem.
Co-Executive Producer of the WSICE, Professor Segun Ojewuyi, stated: “Shabaka was a good man. A true collaborator and man of the arts. Shabaka never left the motherland forever chorded through the navel of Africa to the world.”
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