My Beauty Best Teacher

From OludaScribe:

WAITING LINES by Lagos Based Daniel Oriahi Follow @Filmic25

Shorts have been the means by which upcoming film makers show the world and more specifically the industry what they are capable of doing. Many of the legends of today made short films which enabled them to be recognized and get the opportunity to make feature films. Directors like Speilberg, Scorcese, Chris Nolan ,George Lucas and other went through this path at some point.

As a cinephile and director, i get excited when i discover other film makers that know their craft , so I want to dedicate this post to the young film makers from Nigeria.

I won’t write much but i’ll let their work speak for them. Some of them are based in Nigeria others are outside the country, But they are all Naija Bred .

They vary in genre and tone. Some are socially relevant, some are art house and indie, and others are just entertainment,your opinions on their execution may vary. but they all show something different about their craft and the capabilties and potential of their directors. So ladies and gentlemen, say hello to The Future

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For context read an early Timbuktu Chronicles post on Nollywood and its promise of helping spawn Auteurs

A recent Bombastic Element's post reveals the aspirations of an emerging elite in Victorian Lagos. It also lays bare the dysfunctional foundation on which the society itself was being built:

Image of James Pinson Labulo Davies &  Sarah Forbes Bonetta (Victoria's godchild) via Shadow and Act

They wanted good education for their children to be "refined," and so they frequently sent them to England. These children had to be in the smart circles of Lagos, so thay went into the right professions--law, medicine and the Arts. Educated Lagosians wanted to associate themselves with the usual recreations of a sophisticated Europe, and so went to the Races, to Fancy Dress balls, to the Gymkhana games, and to cricket.

Meiji Restoration

Victorian Britain had reached its heights of power and influence by building,warring,trade and manufacturing,the refinement came later. The "right"professions might have been so for a rich empire at the apogee of its influence but not for an assemblage of peoples who had barely framed their national identity. Contrast this with Japanese experience of roughly the same time. Their Meiji restoration, the antithesis of refined African elites behavior transformed Japan into an industrialized nation in about two generations.Most of Africa still awaits its version of "enlightened"-Meiji type- rule  

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing in the NYTimes:

Economic arguments are useful, but so are human arguments, which seem alarmingly lost on the Nigerian government. Prices have gone up but salaries remain the same. A driver in Lagos who earns 25,000 naira, about $152 a month, would have had to spend almost three-quarters of his salary on transportation to and from work, and this is before he would have to pay for food and, if he has children, for school fees. In Nigeria we like to say that we can “manage,” but it is almost impossible to see how many people could manage that.

We are an oil-producing nation and it is not unreasonable for Nigerians to expect affordable petrol, nor is it unreasonable for Nigerians to expect more from a democratic government. A friend of mine, after calculating how much she would now spend getting to work in Lagos, said, with her eyes alive with rage, “Our senators make $100,000 a month if you count their salaries and allowances. A month! In dollars! They live in government houses and have government cars. And none of them pay for their own petrol.”

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VOA reports:

Pius Utomi Ekpei / AFP - Getty Images

Executive Director of Nigeria’s ‘Enough is Enough’ coalition, Yemi Adamolekun was on her way home from an Occupy Nigeria protest in Lagos Tuesday when she offered two fellow protestors a ride home.“People are walking two hours to get to protest sites because they are that passionate about what is going on," said Adamolekun. "I gave two gentlemen a ride today on my way back home, and they told me it took them almost two hours to get to the site this morning and they’re coming back tomorrow.”
Enough is Enough has been calling on the youth of Nigeria, where 75% of the population is under the age of 30, to provoke change for almost two years.
But President Goodluck Jonathan’s New Year’s decision to remove a fuel subsidy – an act that doubled the price of fuel for Nigerians overnight – catapulted the movement, which has dubbed itself, Occupy Nigeria. "Really from our perspective it was just a trigger," said Adamolekun of the end of the fuel subsidy. "Nigerians have been very quiet for so long. The corruption in the system is known at home and abroad. Lack of infrastructure, rising costs of goods and services.”

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The Economist on the current protests in Nigeria:

Image courtesy of 360Nobs

A strike over fuel prices and government corruption has brought Nigeria to a standstill. Tens of thousands of workers in Africa’s second-biggest economy have vowed to continue their protests until a popular fuel subsidy is restored.Shops, markets, banks and public offices have been closed for three days. Some international flights have been cancelled. Roads have been empty of cars and buses. Instead, the streets of cities across the country have been filled with thousands of protesters. The demonstrations have mostly been peaceful but at least three people were killed and dozens more injured when police fired on protesters accused of rioting in Lagos and Kano.

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In the IMF publication Finance and Development, Calestous Juma writes:

The new African middle class will flourish in knowledge centers that are connected to the global economy. The seeds of such growth can be found in places like Ikeja, the nascent computer-based industrial district of Lagos, and emerging knowledge-based industries such as Nigeria’s movie production network (“Nollywood”) will produce a new crop of entrepreneurs ready to shape the character of the next generation of middle-class Africans.

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Adun Okupe writes about the under appreciated 'Collective Intelligence' exhibited by the Makoko community in Lagos:

Image courtesy of NLE

...within such ‘chaos’, or apparent disorganization, the system works. Somehow it does, and nowhere is this more exemplified than in Makoko, Lagos’ water community. Kunlé Adeyemi of NLÉ works is doing some very interesting work in this community and I am enthusiastic. Not only does the community provide 33% of Lagos’ fish supply and a high proportion of its timber, but it is also the city’s cheapest
dwellings...The fact that this community is existent after 100years shows that there must be a way around this. A form of collective intelligence that goes into how the residents co-habit successfully, how they build, how they plan their dwellings. I find it interesting and exciting. Excited to learn more about it, to understand it, and know how this intelligence can be replicated across the city in terms of intelligent and effective urban planning.
This is intelligence.

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via Nigerians Talk

Bus Rapid transit Lagos:

BRT is a transport option, which relies on the use of dedicated ‘interference’ free segregated lanes to guarantee fast and reliable bus travel. The BRT buses run on physically segregated lanes and thus make them run faster in a situation where there is traffic congestion.It is one of the several options available for tackling the huge public transport predicaments of Lagos.

S. Okwunodu Ogbechie on his new book:

A culmination of three years of research and writing, the book investigates the curious fact that African art history largely disregards African art collections owned by Africans or held in Africa. The goal of the book is to review the reasons for this marginalization and use a notable African art collection, the Femi Akinsanya African Art Collection, based in Lagos, Nigeria to examine how such collections might be recovered for art history.

A WSJ review of Robert Neuwirth's book,Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy:

In "Stealth of Nations," Robert Neuwirth offers a fascinating tour of System D, a world largely ignored by academics and government officials but a world familiar to anyone who has visited developing countries. Step outside your beachfront resort in Cancun and you can't miss it. Usually foreign visitors treat the participants in this unofficial economy with either pity or distrust: pity because they assume that System D workers are on the verge of starvation, distrust because familiar guideposts—regulations, licenses, credentials—are lacking.

Often neither prejudice is correct. Mr. Neuwirth introduces us to a woman named Jandira who for a decade has peddled coffee and homemade cakes to the unlicensed vendors at São Paulo's early-morning wholesale market for pirated movies. Her street-corner business, she proudly tells him, has enabled her to buy two cars and a house and to pay her children's fees at private school. Another of Mr. Neuwirth's sources, Chinese handbag designer Ethan Zhang, prefers to stay illegal. For him it's a matter of costs and benefits: "If I want to get a license, then I will need a bank account and an office in an office building." These are not people who lack the skills to survive through legal employment; they just see no good reason to join the legal economy...[continue reading]

Over at Bloomberg Robert Neuwirth himself on the 'Offbeat Economy':

Here, in the squatter community of Makoko, one of the waterside shantytowns of Lagos, Nigeria, Ogun Dairo smokes fish. Without a license, on land that she doesn’t own, she has created her economic future. The fish is imported from afar, caught in the North Sea, frozen and shipped to the cacophonous port city on the Nigerian coast.

After several hours in the concentrated smoke of her scorched sawdust --- the strong fumes have stained her wax-print dress, dulling the extravagant colors -- she packs the fish in boxes, readying them to be retailed for a tiny profit on the roadsides of this West African megacity.Economic development in Africa can be found all over, hidden in plain sight. It evades our gaze because our notions of growth and development are conditioned by Western rules. We expect development to be highly organized and regulated, to involve government, and to be anchored by big corporations. In Makoko, as in most of the developing world, the great engine of economic progress is different. It is unstructured, unofficial and, to most people, unfathomable.Academics call this sub-rosa sphere the informal economy, an attempt at objectivity that unfortunately links unlicensed markets with drug dealers and gun runners. But Ogun Dairo and the billions of other unlicensed businesspeople around the world are not criminals. So I propose a new name.Sculpted From French

In French, people who are particularly effective and self- motivated are known as “debrouillards.” Former French colonies have sculpted this word to their economic reality. People doing business on their own, without registering or paying taxes, are part of “l’economie de la debrouillardise” -- or, sweetened for street use, System D.

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via Stealth of Nations

The Style House Files on an interesting fashion and trade relationship:

Frank Osodi

The beginnings of Austrian lace exports to Nigeria can be traced all the way back to the 1960′s. Trade has been documented even prior to these dates through intermediaries, but it was during this time that the first Austrian lace pioneers sought personal contact with textile traders along Kosoko Street on Lagos Island.Withstanding political and historical ups and downs throughout the decades (such as the oil boom in the 70′s, the nationalization and various import bans on textiles in 1976 as well as 2005, the last one of which was lifted in 2010), the relationship has now grown to be much more than just trade. Nigerian traders soon started counter-visits to Austria, resulting in mutually trusting relationships, some of which have been continuing for over 40 years.

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In the New Yorker:

When Teju Cole began work on his current project, a non-fiction narrative of Lagos, Nigeria, his African hometown and one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the world, he encountered a problem. He wanted to move beyond statistics to the experience of the individual Lagosian. But how to capture, in any meaningful way, the variety and abundance of life in the city? He began reading the daily newspapers (eleven in all), and found himself drawn to the small items—petty crimes, metro reports. Here, he thought, was Lagos in the raw. He determined to make use of the stuff, though he realized that it wouldn't quite fit the book.

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In Think Africa, Lucky Idedia on the unintended consequences of Nigeria's new minimum wage:

To pay the new wage, some states like Lagos will increase taxes or devise new taxes to increase their internally generated revenue. The ripple will hit the informal sector—the biggest employment sector in Nigeria. A market woman in Lagos, struggling to meet her tax responsibility in addition to other inflated costs, has no choice but to increase the price of tomato, fish, or garri. The same goes for commercial bus operators, and landlords. The load eventually falls on consumers, and that includes labour.

Organized Labour should focus on meaningful solutions:

Living conditions cannot be improved simply by increasing wages. Using the national union, workers should fight the cankerworm that chews holes in the pockets where that wage – however small – ends up. Organized labour has a lot of leverage, and is selling it cheap on the minimum wage issue.But they could really exert effective pressure for far-reaching change. This is not to say that Nigerian workers do not need a living wage. But there would be bigger and better rewards to be had if labour campaigned on a much broader range of governance issue. That way, they can ensure the government implements policies capable of improving the economy and sustaining a genuine living wage.

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Ndidi Nwuneli founder of AACE Foods writes:

Image courtesy of Alhaji's Groove

In my current status as a local food content activist and food processor, I have become a keen observer of the activities of restaurants, caterers and food processing companies. Sadly, my observations reinforce the Minister’s assertions – at least 60% and in some cases, up to 90% of the food on our shelves and in our tummies is imported. For example, I visited a local restaurant outside Lagos early in the month and decided to run the same test. I asked the chef for the sources of the different food being offered to the clients. What surprised me was that in a relatively “local” joint, owned by Nigerians and focused on catering to our local taste buds, the menu was tilted in the favor of imported products or products that were imported and repackaged in Nigeria. Interestingly, the chef did not seem to give much thought to the issue of the source of food. In her mind, she was looking for the most convenient and cost effective options. When I asked her why the restaurant used imported instead of local chicken, she simply said that “they purchased it in the local market.”

NaijaJams highlights the music of Siji:

His videos are visual feasts and Ijo is no different. Shot in Lagos, the video is staged as an open audition with dancers putting forth their best moves forward.

SIJI - 'Ijo'(Official Video) from SIJI on Vimeo.

Time reports on efforts to turn around the bustling metropolis of Lagos:

Image of Lagos via Wikipedia

For Babatunde Fashola (Governor of Lagos state), the law is key. The changes he is overseeing improve infrastructure, create jobs, make money, even build him a soaring political career. But ultimately, the aim is to end the anarchy, he says. A city that does not function "creates desperate conditions for people and reduces their ability to resist temptation." Lapses can be minor, like driving on sidewalks or into oncoming traffic, or major, like violent crime. Fashola sees both as symptoms of Lagos' dysfunction, and he is tackling them by, in one approach, setting up a series of driver-improvement schools as well as, in another tack, employing area boys as cleaners and gardeners to beautify their neighborhoods. It's working. Orderly lanes are becoming the norm on the roads. And crime is down. From 2007 to 2008, armed robberies in Lagos fell 89%. From 2008 to 2009, car theft fell 54%. And murder more than halved, from 221 cases in 2007 to 94 in 2010. This rising sense of citizenship is revealing itself in another surprising way. Astonished then delighted by the transformation their new governor was effecting, Lagosians were happy to pay for it. By 2010 the governor was raising 70% of the state's income locally from taxes. By diminishing the importance of oil money handed out by the federal government and raising the role of local tax, Fashola has reconnected the state to its people. He takes that as a stamp of approval for his efforts to reverse lawlessness in government as well as across the city. "The capacity of a government to attract taxes is a very strong measure of its legitimacy,"

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G. Pascal Zachary writing in Reason:

Lagos Bus Transit System  courtesy of Wikipedia

Once overwhelmingly rural, Africa is urbanizing at a faster rate than any other region on the planet. With the world’s lowest rates of automobile ownership, urban Africans also have the world’s greatest demand for mass transit. And they are meeting their own needs with enterprise and creativity, largely fueled by private resources. The successes of the continent’s ad hoc urban transit systems are partly due to government neglect. Unable to keep pace with growth, governments are simply staying out of the way and letting private operators assemble inexpensive networks of buses and taxis that can adapt quickly to shifting consumer needs.

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The Economist on what awaits Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, the re-elected president:

The problem is not simply one of embezzlement and bribery. The entire state machinery exists to siphon off cash. Many functions of government have been adapted for personal gain. It starts at the frontier. Access to the fast-track channel at Lagos airport can be bought from touts for $10. Border guards in cahoots with them work extra slowly to make this option more attractive.A universe of red tape engulfs the economy. In a survey by the International Finance Corporation, Nigeria ranks 178th out of 183 countries when it comes to transferring property. In some Nigerian states, governors must personally sign off on every property sale; many demand a fee.Senseless restrictions and arcane procedures abound. Procter & Gamble had to shelve a $120m investment in a factory to make bathroom products because it could not import certain types of specialist paper. An American airline waited a year for officials to sign off on an already agreed route from Atlanta to Lagos.

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From Aljazeera:

Courtesy of Al Jazeera watch video here

Lagos, Nigeria's financial capital, is one of the fastest growing megacities on earth. Every day thousands of people arrive in the biggest city in Africa to start a new life and forge a new, better future. Many come from outside Nigeria.Jean and Christian, both teachers, are from Benin. They came to Lagos to seek their fortunes and live and work in one of the most famous slums in Africa, Makoko. Here they take us on a journey of their adopted city, showing us the spirit of enterprise and survival that its residents need to make a living...