My Beauty Best Teacher

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.

Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people. Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age

Pan-African News Wire File Photos

“THE gele is my trademark,” says the Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, describing the colourful head wrap she puts over her short, greying hair before she allows pictures to be taken. “I am very Nigerian from dress to everything.” Some of her critics disagree. During anti-reform protests in January, demonstrators focused their anger on the finance minister. They called her an unwelcome outsider because she spent long periods abroad. She was a managing director at the World Bank before coming home last year.

Sitting in her half-moon-shaped office overlooking Nigeria’s dusty capital, Abuja, Ms Okonjo-Iweala faces an unenviable task. President Goodluck Jonathan has given her just three years to overhaul sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest economy, one riven with corruption and inefficiencies, carved up by political bosses and vulnerable to bursts of communal violence.

Image courtesy of Nollywood Gossip

Nigerian D’Banj–a combination of outsize showman, confidence, flash, little politics and affecting personality–could be Africa’s first global pop star of the 21st century. He draws big crowds on the continent and regularly plays the diaspora circuit in cities like London. Perhaps the clearest sign of that he is about to be a bona fide pop star is that he was recently signed by Kanye West’s label and one of his hits, “Oliver,” is doing better than well on UK pop charts. Now it is getting the cover version treatment from artists as diverse as a British boy band (who changed some words in the song) and mainstream R&B singer, Estelle...[continue reading]

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

...the underlying cause of corruption is the structure of Nigeria’s quintessential “petro” state. There are a number of characteristics of the petro-state we can point to. Firstly, it features a broken social contract in the form of a rupture in the relationship between taxation and accountability. Royalties and taxes paid by international oil companies are direct contributions to the federal coffers, by-passing the citizenry. As the government has no need to rely on internally generated revenue, it has no incentive to engage with accountability actors such as civil society organisations. It is therefore close to impossible to apply accountability pressure into the system of governance. In Nigeria ministers never resign.

The obvious developmental solution to the stultifying fiction of the petro state is a systematic decentralisation of fiscal arrangements, supported by constitutional devolution. This would be the Nigerian ‘third way’ between an enforced unitary status quo and an unrealistic appeal for a once-and-for-all break up. This would include rigorous checks and balances placed against presidential and state governor discretion; it would also ensure that local governments are funded independently of state governors. Finally, it would include the mandate that oil windfalls over the benchmark price are saved rather than squandered (replacing the Excess Crude Account).

Perhaps you failed to see that all of this, this ad hoc revolution, was simply the beginning of a shift of consciousness. It takes a lot, you should know, to transcribe the language of a dream into the spoken word of reality. True, all dreams are translatable, all dreams are reality. But within the terrain of the dream and the terrain of reality lie shadows.

What you did was tell the shadows you are beginning to reclaim your reality. Do not feel undermined, betrayed, or normal. There is no such thing as normalcy; there is change lurking everywhere and those mountebanks from the other side know it. They have seen the rise of reality; they have seen, yes. And they know that it is only a matter of time before they are overtaken, overridden, outpoured.

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.”

...I believe the majority of the country is behind not just the strikes but the Occupy Nigeria movement which seeks to seriously challenge the status quo and once and for all end the rule by kleptocracy. However there are other small but extremely powerful interest groups working for and against the government: Boko Haram and whoever is behind them; Jonathan and possibly some of the ex-Niger Delta militants; Senators and Governors who fear loss of their power and wealth; the trade union movement particularly the oil workers - how trustworthy are they? – the independent oil marketers or cabal. And of course there is the religious factor, the cozy relationship between an all-powerful state and a powerful highly influential set of religious institutions. Nigeria is about oil and nothing but oil...

The ongoing Nigerian protests against the scrapping of the fuel subsidy have garnered the support of musicians and even invoked the spirits of some dead ones...demonstrators ‘resurrected’ dead afrobeat legend and human rights activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti to join their rally. Protesters have also shown how to ‘occupy’ Nigerian-style as some all but moved their sitting rooms out onto the street...[continue reading]

By gambling that public anger would dissipate after a few days, Mr Jonathan placed and lost the biggest bet of his presidency. He has now opened talks with labour leaders that will resume on Saturday. If no solution is found, the main oil union says that, from Sunday, it will start shutting down crude production, which provides four-fifths or more of government revenues.

Amid the drab suits of international finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s colorful and vibrant traditional African attire always guarantees she will stand out in a crowd. Often wearing a coordinated head wrap, Okonjo-Iweala is a big personality with matching opinions. “I feel very Nigerian, very African, and I love it,” she says.

Okonjo-Iweala tells how during the civil war, while her mother was ill and her father away in the army, she rescued her three-year-old sister who was sick with malaria and at death’s door. She put her sister on her back and walked 10 kilometers to a clinic in a church, where she’d heard there was a good doctor. When she arrived, there were a thousand people outside, trying to break down the door. Undeterred, she crawled through their legs with her sister on her back and climbed through the window to see the doctor. “I knew if she didn’t get help she’d die,” says Okonjo-Iweala.The doctor gave the girl a shot of chloroquine and put her on rehydration therapy, and within hours she was back to health. The injection saved her sister’s life. “The 10 kilometers home with her on my back, that was the shortest walk of my life. I was so happy,” she said.She has shown the same pluck and determination ever since.

Affable, approachable, and hardworking, she was known for her rigor and strong technical knowledge. “I would say she is an eternal optimist and a straight shooter,” says Tijan M. Sallah, who currently heads the Capacity Development and Partnerships Unit for Africa in the World Bank and who wrote a book with Okonjo-Iweala (see Box 2). “She is also a strong advocate for women,” he adds, pointing to her efforts to help promote promising young women into managerial positions in the World Bank. She also helped set up a private equity fund to invest in African women–owned businesses.

Question: In your 1960 novel, "No Longer at Ease," you write about the coming problem of official corruption in Nigerian society, told through the rise and fall of your main character Obi. What do you think are the roots of corruption in Nigerian society – colonial legacy, corporate power, local business elites – and what will it take to uproot it?

Everything you mentioned has played a part. Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensively. (No longer at ease, A man of the people and later Anthills of the savannah also tackle Nigeria’s burden of corruption and political ineptitude…) At this point in Nigeria’s history, however, we can no longer absolve ourselves of the responsibility for our present condition. Corruption is endemic because we have had a complete failure of leadership in Nigeria that has made corruption easy and profitable. It will be controlled when Nigerians put in place checks and balances that will make corruption “inconvenient” – with appropriate jail sentences and penalties to punish those that steal from the state.

The first republic produced political leaders in all the regions who were not perfect, but compared to those that came after them they now appear almost “saint like” – they were well educated, grounded politicians who may have embodied a flawed vision or outlook for the country (in my opinion); but at least had one.

REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

...With inspiration from the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and the power of social media, more people than ever before in Nigeria are aware of and angered by the corruption in the system. Never before in the country's history have ordinary citizens been inspired to discuss budget items line by line. The questions are mounting. For example, how can N1bn ($6.25m) be allocated to the president and vice-president's catering budget, in a country stalked by hunger?
The target of the protests is a system constructed to oppress the poor and protect wealthy criminals. Every day since 2 January, the day after the fuel price increases, protesters have been assembling across several Nigerian states, marching and sharing their messages. And in many cases, enduring police harassment.
Young Nigerians are waking up and realising that we are where we are today because previous governments – maintainers of the corrupt system – were hardly ever seriously challenged, or rigorously questioned.
Now, having woken up, we will not be going back to sleep.

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.”

Image by Raquel Marín

On Jan. 1 Nigerians awoke to find that the price of gasoline had gone from just under $2 a gallon to almost $4 a gallon. Since the beginning of this week, tens of thousands of angry protesters have taken to the streets all over the country; several are dead. Apart from nationwide protests, the country faces continuing sectarian violence. Many fear Nigeria is on the precipice of total collapse...[continue reading]