My Beauty Best Teacher

Dele Olojede writes about 234Next's daunting task in the FT:

It is especially daunting to attempt what we are trying to pull off in a country whose electricity grid has totally collapsed, whose ruling elites are almost uniformly corrupt and heedless, whose citizens have often appeared to accept that it is their cursed fate to live in such wretchedness, and whose government, with some happy exceptions, is clueless and dysfunctional.

TED speaker Dele Olojede, talks about setting up 234Next:

More evidence on the hidden strength of the informal economy in a 234Next report by Ngozi Sams:

The campaign for made-in-Nigeria products is gradually yielding good results as new information indicates that about 50 per cent of products consumed in West Africa as at today are made in Nigeria.Michael Awunor, president of (NAMACCIMAT), who disclosed this in Abuja, also said that Mali and Burkina Faso alone import, informally, over 300 tonnes of made-in-Nigeria products on a weekly basis, which amounts to 14,400 tonnes annually.

Dele Olojede writes about 234Next's daunting task in the FT:

It is especially daunting to attempt what we are trying to pull off in a country whose electricity grid has totally collapsed, whose ruling elites are almost uniformly corrupt and heedless, whose citizens have often appeared to accept that it is their cursed fate to live in such wretchedness, and whose government, with some happy exceptions, is clueless and dysfunctional.

Open Access papers a boon for developing world scientists-SciDev
Supporting Nollywood the Directors Guild of Nigeria
Challenges for Craftspeople-BBC
Is Kenya teetering?-NYTimes
Challenges for the book industry-George Ngwane
Questioning the Nigerian Stock Exchange-Basil Enwegbara
The real Water Board-WashAfrica
South-South ties contd. Asian footsteps in the continent.
Power-sharing government is a recipe for “disaster”-FT
Leadership starts with you not him!-Joachim Ezeji
The Ghadafi virus-The Moor Next Door
Public-private investment partnerships in health systems-Output Based Healthcare
Examining Charles Soludo Nigeria's Central Bank Governor-234Next

In 234Next Obidike Okafor reports on Bisi Silva's Art Place

In trying to break uncharted areas in the art world, the curator felt that there were few avenues for critical discourse. So, like a scientist experiments, discovers and develops, Silva set out to create a space that like a laboratory will allow artists to develop themselves, experiment on new ideas and interact with colleagues from different parts of the world and the African Continent."There was nobody out there for the teeming population of artists who needed to keep abreast of what is happening in other parts of the world," she said. Thus, the CCA was born.

Ikhide R. Ikheloa writes in 234Next

Liberal orthodoxy is avuncular and patronising and it bestows upon the "helpless" African a benevolent but malignant label - subhuman. It is malignant because most days these days we spend our waking hours trying to convince the other that well, we are human, just like them. Why do they see us differently from how we see ourselves? Is racism alone the answer to that question?...[continue reading]

The roll-call of incompetence continues, Okey Ndibe in 234Next on Nigeria's legislators:

A week ago, two reporters at this newspaper, Idris Akinbajo and Elor Nkereuwem, wrote an investigative report that unmasked Nigeria’s current crop of senators for the mediocrities they are. The report, simply captioned “The Senate’s scorecard,” revealed that the Senate had passed only 15 bills in more than two years. This paltry output represents what the reporters aptly described as “a miserable five percent” of the 284 Bills that came before the legislative body. I don’t care what your line of work is: any employee who completes a mere five percent of his or her assigned tasks is a failure. Such an employee would be an eminent candidate for rustication. Not, however, if you happen to be a Nigerian senator. In the perverted logic of the Senate, five percent performance is a mark of distinction!

Gani Fawehinmi was one of the ever resilient few,along with Nobel Laurete Wole Soyinka and other figures,who insisted on fighting causes whose primary or only relationship with their own well being was that it affected all Nigerians.He endured imprisonment,harassment and the climate of assassination created by the Babanginda and Abacha regimes in battling causes which,even though,they did not always succeed against totalitarian governments who controlled the organs of the law,succeeded in focusing national and international attention on the villainy represented by a significant number of the activities of such governments,as well as highlighting their illegitimate means of coming to power...[continue reading]

In 234Next Akintayo Abodunrin reports on an exhibition -Benin1897.com- that highlights the sacking of the Benin Empire:

In February 1897, a ‘punitive expedition' was sent to Benin to capture the king and destroy his kingdom in retaliation for the killing of a British Counsel and his party on their way to investigate reports of ritual human sacrifice in the city. But the punitive expedition not only went beyond its brief - capturing and destroying the city - it also engaged in large scale looting of artifacts. Among other war ‘booties', about 900 Benin bronze works were taken from the city to "defray the cost of the war." Many of these are held at the British Museum in London, and have been the subject of long standing contention between Britain and Nigeria.

In 234Next:

Ruined is a play about the women and girls who have been victims of some of the worst atrocities committed by armed groups fighting over Congo’s mineral resources - women who have been raped, mutilated and left with injuries so horrific that they are no longer able to bear children. Many of them are abandoned by their husbands and ostracised by their communities, their lives as well as their bodies ‘ruined.’

Babatunde Ahonsi in 234Next writes about Nigeria's defective middle class:

Too many of its members are bogged down with devising and pursuing private or individual solutions to macro and collective problems. The resultant strong sense of insecurity about its future well-being is therefore undermining its capacity to think trough what it needs to do to address the root causes of the situation. It is a class that seems to be unable to see that it is in its medium-to-long term interest to begin to collectively work for the building up of sustained pressure on the ruling class for the enthronement of good governance.

Jibrin Ibrahim in 234Next:

The Sanusi Lamido Sanusi revolution in the financial system has revealed the extent of this booty capitalism and that is why they are after him. We know that a single individual who is the managing director of a bank will give himself a margin loan of 16 billion Naira, use the money to buy shares of the bank he works for and by that act becomes the main owner of the bank.
That individual has no interest in lending to industry or to commerce. He has no interest in serving the interest of the millions of people who had been encouraged to invest their had earned cash in bank shares. That individual becomes a dangerous agent of destruction whose life purpose is using the office for self aggrandisement. The Soludo banking reform was the final death knell to the possibility of capitalist development in Nigeria.

Continuing our focus on clusters and ecosystems we take a look at their importance in photography.Tam Fiofori writes in 234Next:

Photo courtesy of Uche James Iroha

One of the most gratifying manifestations in the growth and professionalism of photography in Nigeria is how the present ‘young' generation of photographers have embraced the ideals of working together in collectives, networking and their staunch refusal to be drawn into the simplistic frame of mind that they are in competition with one another as photographers.
They have, by adopting these positive ideals, been able to achieve as a group, a remarkable level of social responsibility in generating a huge body of authentic documentary images of ourselves as a people in all spheres of life. Our eminent historians and literary people have always advocated that we are, and remain, the best positioned people to write our history and tell our stories. Our photographers have now followed suit.

A lot of praise must go to Uche James Iroha, an accomplished international-award winner, for his brave and unselfish decision to invite other equally talented, aspiring and inspired photographers to collectively contribute towards the production of Unifying Africa; a book of huge relevance, captivating images and in-depth documentary strength.

Patrick Barta writes in the WSJ:

Economists have long thought the underground economy -- the vast, unregulated market encompassing everything from street vendors to unlicensed cab drivers -- was bad news for the world economy. Now it's taking on a new role as one of the last safe havens in a darkening financial climate, forcing analysts to rethink their views...the "informal," or underground, economy, an enormous, vital and poorly understood segment of world commerce. It is becoming a lot more important now, as the global financial meltdown casts millions of people out of steady-paying jobs. Especially in developing economies, many of those people are landing in the informal sector, which has become a critical safety net as the economic crisis spreads...[continue reading]

In 234Next Ayo Okulaja reports:

“The only way to fight corruption that is endemic to the entire world is to develop a culture that rejects corruption in the formative years; that is in schools and at home.” This was the postulation of the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.

Jibrin Ibrahim in 234Next:

The Sanusi Lamido Sanusi revolution in the financial system has revealed the extent of this booty capitalism and that is why they are after him. We know that a single individual who is the managing director of a bank will give himself a margin loan of 16 billion Naira, use the money to buy shares of the bank he works for and by that act becomes the main owner of the bank.
That individual has no interest in lending to industry or to commerce. He has no interest in serving the interest of the millions of people who had been encouraged to invest their had earned cash in bank shares. That individual becomes a dangerous agent of destruction whose life purpose is using the office for self aggrandisement. The Soludo banking reform was the final death knell to the possibility of capitalist development in Nigeria.

Gani Fawehinmi was one of the ever resilient few,along with Nobel Laurete Wole Soyinka and other figures,who insisted on fighting causes whose primary or only relationship with their own well being was that it affected all Nigerians.He endured imprisonment,harassment and the climate of assassination created by the Babanginda and Abacha regimes in battling causes which,even though,they did not always succeed against totalitarian governments who controlled the organs of the law,succeeded in focusing national and international attention on the villainy represented by a significant number of the activities of such governments,as well as highlighting their illegitimate means of coming to power...[continue reading]