Nigerian producers Chris Dada and Funmi Iyanda created chopcassava.com “to document the popular fuel subsidy protests in Lagos.” They have now stitched together their “short viral films and video-blog diary, made by a team of volunteers and first uploaded during the protests.”
Nigeria’s political leaders probably did not expect this kind of response from the populace –mass protests, a national strike starting today that shut down major cities–when they decided, on January 1, 2012, to scrap fuel subsidies (as part of “reforms” to deregulate the oil sector). The rationale was that by freeing money spent on the […]
Post by Akin Adesokan Whether or not the Super Eagles win the finals of Afcon 2013, there is a point that followers of Nigerian football everywhere should note—that Stephen Keshi’s ideas represent the best, indeed the future, of the sport that unifies the country even as it inevitably divides it. In fact, I would go […]
Remember that little video campaign called #Kony2012? Yeah, we wish we could forget too. Few videos have reached the magnitude of pestilence that the non-profit Invisible Children’s video achieved this year. By transforming a complex regional crisis involving the Lord’s Resistance Army into a simple, manufactured (and in some ways factually false) narrative about the […]
Outsized American rapper (and music executive) Rick Ross shot the latest version of his “Hold me Back” song mostly in Obalende, a poor section of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. The video — which resembles the travel diaries shot by rappers on tour — is a strange mix of images and ideas over a nonsensical rap. […]
We at Africa is a Country think Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace should either radically rethink the Failed States Index, which they publish in collaboration each year, or abandon it altogether. We just can’t take it seriously: It’s a failed index.
This film festival–still the premier site for African film in New York City and on the US east coast–opens tonight at Lincoln Center with a showing of “Mama Africa,” the 2011 documentary by Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki about the life of singer Miriam Makeba “who brought South African music to the world.” The well structured […]
Yesterday the African Union added their backing to Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s run at becoming World Bank President. She announced her candidacy on Friday, just hours before Obama told everyone he’d picked South Korean-born rapper Jim Kim (now backed by Paul Kagame). But how do Nigerians look at this? Some are puzzled by the government’s silence, and local media reports that Ali Mazrui wrote to President Jonathan urging him to offer louder and stronger support to Okonjo-Iweala’s campaign.
Today’s Financial Times, has a full page analysis by Xan Rice on how the failure of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to remove fuel subsidies has raised questions about his abilities to push through “reform.”
A key element of political struggles on the continent, is the role of diasporas. #OccupyNigeria has benefited from their input with protests in London and Brussels and through sites like #SaharaTV. In Europe, specifically Brussels, one of the key personalities has been novelist Chika Unigwe who has been living in Belgium for over thirteen years. Unigwe […]
