Of English Language, Nigerian English, and Nigerianisms

(By Farooq Kperogi) – Divided by a Common Language: Comparing Nigerian, American and British English

It is important to stress that Nigerian English is not bad or substandard English. It is a legitimate national variety that has evolved, over several decades, out of our unique experiences as a post-colonial, polyglot nation.

However hard we might try, we can't help writing and speaking English in ways that reflect our socio-linguistic singularities. Even our own Wole Soyinka who thinks he speaks and writes better English than the Queen of England habitually betrays "Nigerianisms" in his writings. Or at least that's what the native speakers of the language think. For instance, when he was admitted into the Royal Society of Arts, the citation on his award read something like: "Mr. Soyinka is a prolific writer in the vernacular English of his own country."

I learned that Soyinka's pride was badly hurt when he read the citation. But it needn't be. It was Chinua Achebe who once said, in defense of his creative semantic and lexical contortions of the English language to express uniquely Nigerian thoughts that have no equivalents in English, that any language that has the cheek to leave its primordial shores and encroach on the territory of other people should learn to come to terms with the inevitable reality that it would be domesticated. …

Of "Gay Jesus" and Offended Christians

(By Abimbola Adelakun) – On ‘gay Jesus’ and offended Christians 

So far this week, more than two million Christians worldwide have signed a petition demanding streaming services provider, Netflix, to pull a comedy special that portrays Jesus Christ as gay. The film, “The First Temptation of Christ,” was created by a Brazilian comedy group called Porta dos Fundos and it is as goofy as it can be. At the Nigerian end, the Pastor of Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman, also started a campaign urging Christians to “cancel” Netflix.

Whether they can build up enough momentum for Netflix to yield to their demands remains to be seen. Capitalist behemoths like Netflix are not moved by morality or liberal arguments of mutual tolerance. They only respond to what threatens the balance of their company’s balance sheets. The recent case of Hallmark films and their flip flop over two lesbians kissing in an ad demonstrates this to a hilt. In this case, Netflix might just point at the gazillion Christian shows on their stables as proof of their all-round neutrality. And they will be sincere if they say they are not for or against any side. Those that imagine we are witnessing an ideological battle between conservative and liberal values, and that Christianity is being offered up in this contest simply do not have the full picture. There is only one god we are all called to serve these days, and its name is capitalism. Or, dollars for short.

Kpali: Eloquent Commentary on Millennial Angst

(By Toni Kan) - Kpali Is An Eloquent Commentary On Millennial Angst

Forget the story.

Forget the acting.

Forget the hype.

Go see Kpali the movie for the aerial shots that make Lagos look nothing like the chaotic urban conurbation we all love to hate.

Ladi Johnson and his DoP get full marks for producing a crisp, visually stunning film.

But movies are much more than cinematography and visual clarity. Movies have to be visceral and relatable and realistic in a way that approaches verisimilitude.

Kpali ticks all those boxes as a movie revolving around a 20 something year old Amaka Kalayo whose sedate London life is set on a roller coaster when her bosses inform her that she has 30 days to close a big deal or lose not just her job but her Kpali; her visa, work permit and right to live and work in the UK.

Thrust into this career maelstrom, Amaka departs for Nigeria with her oyibo male colleague in tow. They arrive Lagos and for some curious reason head together to Amaka’s family home and thus ensues the comedy of errors that is almost always at the heart of a true rom-com.

The Kings: From Africa to the World

L-R: Kamaru Usman (UFC Welterweight Champion), Anthony Joshua (unified WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO Heavyweight Champion), Israel Adesanya (UFC Middleweight Champion)

The Queens: From Africa to the World

Of Africa, Colonialism, and a Granny's Memory

"How I mumbled adoring, reverent prayers to my grandmother in those early days of my market gardening. My grandmother, who had been an inexorable cultivator of land, sower of seeds and reaper of rich harvests until, literally until, her very last moment. When I was too small to be anything more than a hindrance in the family fields, I used to spend many productive hours working with my grandmother on the plot of land she called her garden. We hoed side by side strips of land defined by the row of maize plants each carried, I obstinately insisting I could keep pace with her, she weeding three strips to my one so that I could. Praising my predisposition towards working, she consolidated it in me as a desirable habit.
          She gave me history lessons as well. History that could not be found in the textbooks; a stint in the field and a rest, the beginning of the story, a pause. 'What happened after, Mbuya, what happened?' 'More work, my child, before you hear more story.' Slowly, methodically, throughout the day the field would be cultivated, the episodes of my grandmother's own portion of history strung together from beginning to end.
          'Your family did not always live here, did not move to this place until after the time that I was married to your grandfather. We lived up in Chipinge, where the soil is ripe and your great-grandfather was a rich man in the currency of those days, having many fat heard of cattle, large fields and four wives who worked hard to produce bountiful harvests. All this he could exchange for cloth and beads and axes and a gun, even a gun, from the traders. They did not come to stay in those days; they passed through and left. Your great-grandfather had sons enough to fill a kraal, as big, strong, hardworking men. And me, I was beautiful in those days,'

1980s Nigeria: The More Things Change...

"Nigeria: A squandering of Riches," a World About Us Documentary by Onyeka Onwenu

Of Nollywood and Endless Women Sacrificial Victims

(By BellaNaija Features) - Hey Nollywood, Why Do Women Have to Be the Victims When It’s Time for Sacrifice & Ritual Killings?

From the fear of Ayamatanga to witchcraft, Nollywood movies have impacted us in many ways we cannot explain. Thanks to Nollywood, the fear of ‘old women’ is the beginning of wisdom for some youngies. Many people thought most elderly women were witches who flew at night, sometimes missed their timing and got stuck as birds. Sometimes, they would have started turning back into humans before getting stuck as half-human and half-bird.

Many of these witches would be found in villages (because witches never exist in the cities). In fact, these witches will be so nice and close to you. It won’t be a lie to say that the term ‘village people’ originated from Nollywood movies. There was a widespread fear that once you are an Americanah who just landed in the village, your legs will swell, your eyes will go blind or at worse, you will run mad until ‘village people’ decide to set you free. If they want to do you patapata, na die be that.

It is also in Nollywood that we have seen ghosts in white robes, looking left and right before crossing the road or an actor using a phone in a flashback of 20 years. Honestly, Nollywood has done a number on us, but we move sha. We move!

Of Nigerian Christians and Resilient Witches

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) - In Defense of Witches 

Witches have lost again. In prayer houses, Nollywood and, finally, on campus, they always lose to Christian Talibanism. But be sure they will be back. The war on witches never ends, nor do those urchins stay vanquished long on the ground. The University of Nigeria has said the “witch conference” should choose another venue—and that is an unfair phrase, witch conference, as headlines call it. Witches have always had bad reportage, yet they rise. 

Never mind having a Supreme Father, never mind all the assurances of safety in the Bible by that Father, the Nigerian Christian is the most afraid creature on earth. Sleepless in his fear of something he declares has no power, suspicious of every noise within range. “Killing”, casting and binding in a tautology of chants against an agency whose apparent immortality never compels a rethink. 

What if there are no witches? Maybe witches, alongside the devil in that binary of good and evil, were invented to keep spirituality perpetually on course? Or perhaps they exist, but not in the touted sense.

Of Oro, Yoruba Religions, and "Live and Let Live"

(By Pius Adesanmi) - Live And Let Live

If you are Yoruba and you are older than the Facebook or Twitter generation of Nigerians, if you are struggling to cope with expressions such as LOL (laugh out loud) , LMAO (laugh my ass off) OMG (Oh my God), and 9ja (Naija) in emails and texts you receive daily from Nigerians in their teens and twenties, chances are you grew up in a village in Yoruba land where life is suffused in culture, tradition, and a panoply of ancestral rituals and spiritual observances, all instances of man shaping order out of primordial chaos. 

Chances are, growing up, you partook – as audience or celebrant– in a very colourful tapestry of ancestral liturgies: Ogun festival, Sango festival, Imole festival, Egungun festival, and, of course, Oro festival, the fear of which is the beginning of wisdom for Yoruba women. 

Chances are you enjoyed the atmospherics of these observances, partook of propitiatory offal, sang, and danced to a host of inspirational choruses and processionals welcoming the ancestors and the orishas into the realm of unworthy mortals at each spiritual enactment.