A New Generation for Nollywood

(By Azuka Ogujiuba) - A New Generation for Nollywood 

        We are at a time where women are no longer asking for opportunities but calling their shots and claiming their seats on the table of success. And even when society mirrors their achievements or downplays their hard work, they keep evolving and setting new records. 

        Thus, women are more vocal now, than ever, about being who they are with no apologies. They are owning their stories and writing their scripts when it comes to making their marks in the sands of time. It’s again in this light, that we have featured these young amazons who are Nollywood’s New Generation. 

        Sharon Ooja, Lillian Onyinye Afegbai, Nancy Isime, Lisa Omorodion, Erica Nlededim, Maryam Ado Muhammad-Booth, Ini Dima-Okojie, Bimbo Ademoye, Beverly Osu and Linda Osifo grace our pages in this edition as they tell us about their chosen careers, how more women should participate in Politics, their challenges as artistes and of course, their achievements amongst other issues. 

On Biafra and the Plight of the Igbo in Nigeria: Putting the World on Notice

(By Rudolf Okonkwo & Chido Onumah) - To the Most Senior Biafran in Buhari’s Government 

 …We think we should have you and the international community on notice. 

        Dear Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Jideofor Onyeama, We chose to write you instead of President Muhammadu Buhari because it is apparent from the president’s two most recent media outings that his cognitive impairment has greatly deteriorated, even though that is no justification for his murderous and genocidal rhetoric. From his utterances, the gap between things his innermost mind conjures and what his mouth utters has been completely erased. We also chose to write you because you are the most senior Biafran in Buhari’s government. We know that in your world, Biafra is the worst tag that anyone could put on you. Unfortunately, the people you work with, in and around Aso Rock, see you as a Biafran. You can keep running away from it, but in the deepest corners of their eyes, Biafra is like a shell on you. And like a snail, you cannot cast it off. 

        Over the last six years, we are aware of your hard work on the international stage to rescue this government’s reputation. As this government squandered both at home and abroad the enormous goodwill it received in 2015, you have worked hard to reassure the international community that the wheel of the Nigerian vessel had not come off and would not come off. Based on recent events, you do not need a soothsayer or us to tell you that the wheels came off a long time ago. What the international community was telling you in private weeks ago, they have made a tiny bit of it public following the debacle that is Buhari’s reaction to Twitter’s sanction of his genocidal tweet against the people of the South-East. 

Decolonizing the Decolonizer in African Education

(By Saheed Aderinto) - Decolonizing the Decolonizer: Epistemic Liberation in 21st Century Africanist Scholarship 

        I gave the Plenary Lecture of the "Ife-Edinburgh Catalyst Workshop" on June 10 [2021]. The theme of the highly successful workshop was “(Re)imagining ‘Our’ Ways of Knowing: Decolonization and the Human Sciences.” ... Excerpts from [the] lecture titled, “Decolonizing the Decolonizer: Epistemic Liberation in 21st Century Africanist Scholarship.” 

        In September 2019, the social media was ignited when news broke that Musiliu Akinsanya, aka MC Oluomo, the current Chairman of the Lagos State Branch of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) was invited to give a talk at the University of Lagos. To many, MC Oluomo, a street thug and a political tout did not deserve to be invited to one of the strongholds of “normative” elite power in Nigeria. He doesn’t have a place in the university ecosystem where professors and highly educated people dictate the tempo of “conventional” intellectualism. To many, MC Oluomo’s character epitomizes the common spectacle of “curated chaos” that characterizes everyday life in the inner city of Lagos. The role of the NURTW in election violence and compromise of democratic ideals disqualifies him for talking on campus, where core principles of fairness and justice are installed in the heart of young people. The University community, many believed, must not be turned into the “street” -- the real and imaginative locale that crowned MC Oluomo the King of Violence and an assortment of unregulated indecency. 

        Days after the digital acrimony, the University of Lagos did the rightful by clearing the air on the circumstances under which MC Oluomo was invited to campus. Not only did they establish that the event was a Colloquium titled, “Transport Efficiency: Employing Lagos Terrain Alternatives” organized by the National Association of Geography Students, the university argued that “experts and relevant stakeholders with considerable knowledge and experience on transportation…are carefully selected and invited to come and share their thoughts with our students.”

Nollywood & Constructive Criticism: Whose View?

(By Stella Okemuo) - Is Constructive Criticism A Thing In Nollywood? 

          The Nigerian film industry Nollywood is Africa’s most prevalent film industry. It has survived on quantity rather than quality, and this has affected its global competition. 

          Apart from the infrastructural and financial barriers that hinder the industry from self-improving, there is a worrying habit of a backlash from film producers when criticisms of their films are made. 

          There is also an unhealthy habit of belonging to cliques and therefore, good actors may not be cast in films or nominated for an award if they don’t belong to a particular clique. 

          I have been a loyal fan of Nollywood since the 90s when films were released as video cassettes, to the CD era, and now the Cinema era. I have watched my favourite film veterans improve their craft; seen producers improve in the quality of their films and I’ve even seen Nollywood films screen at theatres abroad yet, something is missing, and that, for me, is the content (storyline) of the films. 

Nation Building through History and Storytelling

(By Chigozie Chikere) - HISTORY AND STORYTELLING FOR NATION BUILDING: Getting the Youth Involved 

        I am a student of history even though the last time I sat in a history class was over three decades ago, when I was in JS3. Simply put, one does not always need the four walls of a classroom to learn about things that happened the previous day in his life, his immediate environment or the global community. Naturally, humans are endowed with the capacity to memorise facts, figures, and to recount past events even in chronology. Aside from the schools where pupils are expected at the end of each academic period to recount what they are taught by way of examination, other institutions like media houses and the courts of law are known to take advantage of this human phenomenon respectively in their interviews as well as their examination and cross-examination of witnesses. Thus, books and all forms of writing were invented primarily to assist mankind’s weak memory. But why do many Nigerians blame the government for what appears to be a poor grasp of history among the youth? 

        On many occasions, we have heard or read that the Federal Government of Nigeria abolished the study of history in schools; and the allegation has always been that the government does not want the upcoming generation to lay its hands on the dark pages of Nigeria’s history. How true is this claim? A brief survey will show that history was not at any point in time abolished from school curriculum in Nigeria. While some are of the view that Government as a subject was introduced to replace History, others say Government was rather introduced as an interventionist approach to provide a tonic for formerly history enthusiasts who before then were losing interest in History, possibly because it was becoming difficult to pass in the WAEC school certificate examinations. So, structurally, Government became History in a functional approach.

Nigeria and the Politics of Hijab

(By Abimbola Adelakun) - Hijab not about ‘religious discrimination’ 

        A bill to end “hijab discrimination” has reportedly passed second reading in the House of Representatives. Sponsored by Rep. Saidu Musa Abdullahi of Niger State, the bill, “Religious Discrimination (Prohibition, Prevention) Bill, 2021,” is supposed to protect hijab wearers from various forms of discrimination. Abdullahi was, of course, reacting to the ongoing hijab war in Kwara State that had degenerated into skirmishes. Just as it happened in Osun, Oyo, and Lagos states too, schools considered “Christian” are putting their feet down against their Muslim female students wearing hijab within their premises. Abdullahi managed to dredge up a few other instances of women who have been refrained from performing certain duties on account of their wearing hijab and added that the issue needs to be addressed once and for all. 

        Truly, Nigeria needs a definitive solution to this recurrent hijab issue but framing what is at stake as religious discrimination is a misdiagnosis. In countries where Muslims are a minority or migrants, religious discrimination might be a thing. In Nigeria, no honest person can allege that with a straight face. 

        In Nigeria, a Muslim can petition a whole Inspector-General of Police and threaten violence if an atheist whose opinions unsettle him is not dealt with, and the letter would be honoured in less than 24 hours. Even more shocking, the target of that attack has been indefinitely incarcerated without trial. In Nigeria, a Muslim would petition the Police IG saying that a woman who posted a photograph of herself on Instagram had blasphemed, and then threatened the issue could degenerate into violence. The woman in question almost went into exile even after she withdrew the photo, donned a hijab, and virtually begged for her life. In another country, those that threatened her would have at least been arrested, but not Nigeria. When a religion that can pull those kinds of stunts alleges discrimination, you want to take a closer look.

Hijab Controversies in Nigeria: Kwara State

 

Fela Kuti, His Genius, and Afrobeat

Adichie on "Chimamanda," Arts, Igbo, Biafra, et al.

Religion and Politics: The Church and Education of Politically-Conscious Citizens

Acapella on the Nigerian Condition

#EndSARS Protest: Police Brutality and Reforms in Nigeria

#EndSARS: Johnny Just Drop

#EndSARS: They Don't Care About Us

#EndSARS: Nigeria Is Murdering Its Citizens

(By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) – Nigeria Is Murdering Its Citizens                               LAGOS, Nigeria [Oct. 21, 2020] — For years, the name SARS hung in the air here in Nigeria like a putrid fog. SARS, which stood for Special Anti-Robbery Squad, was supposed to be the elite Nigerian police unit dedicated to fighting crime, but it was really a moneymaking terror squad with no accountability. SARS was random, vicious, vilely extortionist. SARS officers would raid bars or stop buses on the road and arbitrarily arrest young men for such crimes as wearing their hair in dreadlocks, having tattoos, holding a nice phone or a laptop, driving a nice car. Then they would demand large amounts of money as “bail.” 

          SARS officers once arrested my cousin at a beer parlor because he arrived driving a Mercedes. They accused him of being an armed robber, ignored the work ID cards he showed them, took him to a station where they threatened to photograph him next to a gun and claim he was a robber, unless he paid them a large sum of money. My cousin is one of the fortunate few who could pay an amount large enough for SARS, and who was released. He is not one of the many tortured, or the many disappeared, like Chijioke Iloanya.