Nigeria and the Effects of Religion

(By Raymond Ijabla & Biodun Aiyegboyin) – The Destructive Effects Of Religion On The Nigerian Society

From the professor of medicine who lectures at the prestigious University of Ibadan, to the almajiri destitute who roams the streets of Kano, to the wealthy real estate manager in Port Harcourt, to the lowly nomad of arid Baga, there is one thing that connects these people - religion. Religion permeates every facet of the Nigerian society and influences the collective mindset of its people. Religion supposedly makes people good except that the evidence does not support this claim.

What we know is that our society is plagued by all the inequality, injustice and atrocities that one rarely encounters in the godless Scandinavian societies, to use just one example. Our high degree of religiosity has not translated into good governance and prosperity for our citizens. The reasons are not far-fetched, and are discussed below.

One thing is undeniable – our society needs a change of attitude and values. So how can we do things differently? 

Mr. Biodun Aiyegboyin teams up with the secular humanist and commentator on Nigerian socio-political and religious matters, Dr. Ijabla Raymond, to explore these issues, and more.

Time To Abandon Beliefs in Witchcraft

Ijabla

(By Raymond Ijabla) – It's Time To Abandon The Belief In Witchcraft Because Witches Don't Exist

Since declaring, I'm a humanist and someone without religion, many respondents have asked if I believe that witches, wizards, demons and evil spirits exist. Some asked, "how do you decide what is right or wrong if you don't believe in God?" I shall address the first part of these important questions in this article and the rest in future articles.

Funke is a six-year-old girl who lives with her uncle and his wife. She lost her parents in a car crash when she was only a few days old. Uncle Segun and his wife, Ngozi, have been married for four years now but have no children of their own. Ngozi has suffered recurrent miscarriages.

They have been to different churches and attended various crusades and have done everything they have been told to do - from fasting and prayers, anointing themselves with olive oil, tithing, to paying all the special offerings specifically targeted at couples looking for the fruit of the womb - to no avail. They even carry a white handkerchief that was specially anointed by the General overseer of their church wherever they go. At the end of a week-long session of prayers and fasting atop a hill known simply as Oke, the word of the Lord came to their pastor - Funke is a witch sent by the queen of the coast to destroy their lives. They thought, "Aha, that makes sense.

Pat Utomi: Ochichi Na Odimma Igbo

Names As Socio-Cultural, Historical Currency

(By Mame M. Kwayie) – I Allowed People to Mispronounce My African Name for 25 Years

In a recent interview with the Improper Bostonian, Emmy Award-winning star of Orange Is the New Black Uzo Aduba recalls telling her mother of a childhood desire to be called “Zoe,” a name more easily pronounced than her given Nigerian name, Uzoamaka. Aduba’s mother offered the following reply: “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka.” 

Like Aduba, many first-generation African Americans have straddled dual identities with their names as a tipping point. I am no exception. Despite my Ghanaian parents’ urgings, I allowed and encouraged my name to be mispronounced as “Mamie” instead of “Mame” (mah-may) for nearly 25 years. I was named after my paternal grandmother, Mame Manu, but by the first grade, I dreaded my teacher’s daily roll call.

Had I come of age in Ghana, no teacher would flinch at seeing “Mame” on her roster. But as I sat in Houston classrooms with Ashleys and Amandas, I thought “Mamie” (though antiquated) to be familiar and less likely to incite questions about my background—even as I insisted on spelling it M-A-M-E and asked others to emphasize the long vowels.

"If You Can Pronounce Schwarzenegger..."

Omokri and daughter

(By Reno Omokri) – My kids are born and bred in California and they each bear Itsekiri names. They know my language and they know their native dress. Your kids aren't 'POLISHED' because they can't speak your native tongue. No. In fact they are 'RUBBISHED' if all they know is English. I remember once somebody asked me why my kids don't have English names. I told him as I am telling you, that when the English start giving their kids Itsekiri names, then I will start giving my kids English names. Africans, emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. A Christian can still be a Christian with an African name. It is the faith that matters not the name!

               ********

Some people reacted very angrily to my admonition that African parents should give their children African names and teach them their language no matter where they are born. Since it is said that examples are the best form of advice, let me give you examples of how African children with African names excel more than those with European names. In politics we have Barack Obama. In film we have Chiwetel Ejiofor. In Music we have Sade Adu and AKON. In sports we have Nnamdi Asomugha. In technology we have Chinedu Ocheruo. In international banking we have Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. In literature we have Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. These guys are at the TOP of their chosen field right here in the West. If you can pronounce Schwarzenegger, don't worry, they can pronounce whatever name you have.

Weddings and (Pre)-Pre-wedding Photo Shoots

(By Olubunmi Familoni) – The Nigerian Wedding: Shaming the Devil and Unrelenting Exes

The big social event known as ‘The Nigerian Wedding’ has attained Olympic status, in size; one only wishes the status could also apply to frequency of occurrence — once every four years — and like the athletes, all the participating couples would gather and get the pageantry over with within the space of those 16 days, and we wouldn’t have to endure the frenzy of any more bridal gymnastics for another four years.

Not being a spoilsport, but one begins to get rather bored with seeing the same matches (most of them not ‘made in heaven’, or even anywhere close to the skies) every weekend — even the bloody Premier League goes on break sometimes.

I don’t even mind the weddings very much — you can choose not to go, or to look away; but they don’t even wait for the wedding ceremony before the photographic assault begins. And throughout the months leading up to the Big Wedding, the pictures turn up everywhere, everywhere you turn they’re there — turn your phone on, they’re crawling up your nose; turn the phone off, they’re all over the papers, magazines, on the news, and billboards!

Now there’s a photo-proposal trend in which the ring is no longer king, the photos are.

Of Women and Career Preferences

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) – This meme is everywhere sha.

I have a problem with it, because it addresses absolutely nothing...

Just a vague idea of what a woman should do or be before greatness can be determined.

What is greatness anyway? How do we determine another woman's greatness?

This mission to drag all women into a boardroom has become ridiculous. Does she want to be in a boardroom?

We have moved from dragging women into kitchens, now that seems old-fashioned. The new trend is to create the desire to be room-ed away from the typical rooms suggested by society for women.

Why should it be ok for me to like boardroom activities, but not ok for the next women to like kitchen room activities without judgements?

We should not be tempted to design badges of greatness for women based on our own ideas of what greatness is.

Beyond the conventional utterances of Buhari... there is something great in being a housewife, working within the important rooms of kitchen, living room and the other room.

At the least, children are fed when a kitchen is put to good use.

"Dear Ijeawele": Adichie's Feminist Manifesto

Photo Source: Dreamstime.com

(By Chimamanda Adichie)--“DEAR IJEAWELE, OR A FEMINIST MANIFESTO IN FIFTEEN SUGGESTIONS”

Dear Ijeawele,

What joy. And what lovely names: Chizalum Adaora. She is so beautiful. Only a day old and she already looks curious about the world. Your note made me cry. You know how I get foolishly emotional sometimes. Please know that I take your charge – how to raise her feminist – very seriously. And I understand what you mean by not always knowing what the feminist response to situations should be. For me, feminism is always contextual. I don’t have a set-in-stone rule; the closest I have to a formula are my two ‘Feminist Tools’ and I want to share them with you as a starting point.

The first is your premise, the solid unbending belief that you start off with. What is your premise? Your feminist premise should be: I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only.’ Not ‘as long as.’ I matter equally. Full stop.

The second tool is a question: can you reverse X and get the same results?

Of Bovi, Comedians and Nollywood

(By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo)--Bovi, king of Nigerian comedy, goes to the movies in It’s Her Day

The contest for supremacy in Nigerian comedy has been taken out of stand-up comic performances and into the movies. With It’s Her Day, top comedian Bovi enters the ring.

The Nigerian film industry loves the comedy form. It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s frequently foolish.

But foolishness has its uses. The last time somebody put a foolish Nigerian on the big screen, he cashed in so much that his film ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest-earning Nollywood film at the box office. That somebody was the comedian Ayo Makun, aka AY, the film was 30 Days in Atlanta. It is a film that irked many but drew many more to the cinemas.

The Problem With Nigerian Christianity Today

(By Joy Isi Bewaji)--What really upsets me most about Christianity is its cowardice. This spineless manipulative religion!

A 14 year old girl has been forced into marriage (forced, because she is a minor and cannot make decisions of her own. She is a child!)… where is Christianity when you need it!

What did Christianity do when it heard the news? It made a "friendly" call to the paedophile and his community and before the wink of an eye, Christianity had its tail between its legs, surrendered to arguments on consent… and has left everything to God.

A languid and lifeless faith.

It’s shameful.

How can you live in a time like this without a fight in you?

Christianity is so selfish, it’s sickening.

The only time its voice appears valiant is when it needs to extort money from you- tithe and offering and building projects and pastor’s appreciation shenanigan.

Patriarchy, Misogyny, and Gender Relations

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi)--It's interesting though seeing die hard misogynists coming out from the woodworks...literarily. Like the craven worms they truly are.

The oodles of comic outrage about the president's "other room" gaffe just makes me want to chuckle and choke someone dead in amusement.

I mean..like...really?

"My wife belongs in my heart, my life, my office..."

"I am a mother, a wife, a career woman. I don't belong in the..."

Aaaah spare me!

Nobody fucking cares. Go suck a lemon...

How Achebe Saved Me From James Hardley Chase

(By OkeyNdibe)--Two Saturdays ago, I had the privilege of giving a keynote at an international conference organized at the Senate House of the University of London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God. 

Okey Ndibe The two-day celebration was an impressive gathering of scholars who have devoted time to the study and explication of Achebe’s work as a novelist, cultural activist and intellectual. Among the luminaries who offered stimulating papers were John Gikandi of Princeton University, Harry Garuba (who traveled from his South African location), and T. Vijay Kumar. The first day of the conference, Femi Osofisan, a polyglot who is at once an incisive scholar, extraordinary dramatist, and novelist directed a dramatization of Arrow that brought home in a powerful way the millenarian tension in Achebe’s most important—even if not most well known—fictive work. Akachi Ezeigbo, a novelist and professor at the University of Lagos, capped off the second and final day of the event by performing an Igbo dirge for Achebe. 

The two-day conference was altogether moving. The brilliance of many of the presentations was matched by the conference’s festive air. It all showed the potential power of rich, deep cultural production. In their wide-ranging, multidisciplinary engagement with Achebe’s grandest novel, several presenters sought to underscore how literary creativity can illuminate a people’s social experience and embody a broad range of their dreams.

Chasing Heaven: From Jesus to Juno

(By Rudolf OgooOkonkwo)--While some of us are sure of the number of gates to heaven and the kind of visa needed to get in, some scientists are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to locate the 9th planet. Those who have mastered the layouts of heaven, including the postal code of their mansions, are waiting for death to come and take them there. Well, not really. Most of them are not in a hurry to make the journey. It is, however, slightly different for scientists. For scientists, they are willing and are working to send spacecraft on a journey of over 2.8 billion kilometers in search of the 9th planet.

When most of us were in school, the 9th planet was Pluto. It used to stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Venus and Saturn. In 1992, questions were raised about its status as a planet, following the discovery of several other objects of its size within the area called the Kuiper belt. In 2005, an object called Eris was discovered. It has mass that is 27% more than Pluto. So in 2006, Pluto was demoted from a planet to a mere dwarf planet for failing to clear the objects around its orbit. On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft tapping the gravity of Jupiter flew by Pluto accurately measuring it and providing conclusive proof that it wasn’t a planet.

Uche Ogbuagu: Chineke E Riela Ariri

Ugwumba TV: Emume Ndi Igbo

Nollywood Celebrates Bowler Hats Bash 2 in Style

L-R: Bowler Hats Bash founder Azuh Amatus, Saint Obi, Azuh Arinze, & D'Lectura

(Chika Chimezie)--It was indeed, the gathering of some of the biggest names in Nollywood, music

and comedy sectors respectively, at the second edition of the annual Bowler Hats Bash (BHB).

The memorable and fun-filled evening of comedy, music, dance and more, held elaborately on Independence Day, October 1, at the prestigious Coliseum Events Centre, Ikeja, Lagos.

Just like the maiden edition, it was also hugely attended by leading entertainers, revered celebrities and upwardly mobile revelers.

The problem with Nigeria 2.0

“The day we all stop celebrating thieves, I believe we will all have a better Nigeria. Evil servants (sorry civil servants) see their offices as shops for buying and selling. The politicians see position of authority as license to loot and treasury as war trophies. Our Obas, Obis and Emirs end up granting and awarding them undeserved chieftaincy titles as a reward for looting well done. The Pastors and GO [General Overseers] then cover their loots with Holy Ghost fire anointing and the blood of Jesus.

To crown it all up, the FG further oil their looting and stealing wheels with National dishonor award of CFR, MON etc. The day we start stoning these bastards AND THEN ask questions, things will change.”
                                                                                                                                        Daniel Osazuwa

Moving Nigeria Forward, Reorienting Perspectives

When Your Community Church is the Largest

(Okenyi Kenechi)--Place the massive Nigerian churches and mosques on a side of a table, place the massive homes of our politicians on the other side of the same table. The similarities between the two sides of the table is that dilapidated school or hospital in your village.

Place the massive cars and private jets of your pastors on one side of a table, place the hotel bills, private jet bills and investments of your politicians on the other side of the same table. The similarities between the two sides of the table is that poor teacher owed tens of months of salary in your area.

You need more? OK, come with me..

I have never seen a dilapidated or abandoned church in this country since I was born.

I have seen hundreds of dilapidated and abandoned schools since I was born. I have visited more than 18 states in Nigeria.

I have never seen a church where members sit on the floor because they don't have seats but I have seen school children sit on the floor, under mango trees just to learn.