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.”
Chika Unigwe on #OccupyNigeria
January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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 […]
#OccupyNigeria Music N°2
January 18, 2012 By 3 Comments
Aduke is the latest artist to boost #OccupyNigeria, a movement that is transforming Nigeria’s otherwise elite driven politics for the better. (BTW, we have been amazed at the regularity and speed by which these music videos–of decent quality–are coming out. In the same way we are struck by the good video journalism, like that of Chop Cassava, something […]
#OccupyNigeria Music
January 12, 2012 By 1 Comment
Literally hot off the press (or whatever the youtube equivalent is) here is Tha Suspect’s video for SUBsidy, an anti-corruption theme song offering for the ongoing Occupy Nigeria protests. h/t Siddhartha Mitter
Big Brother Goodluck Jonathan
April 19, 2013 By 2 Comments
Late last year, we ran a piece on the documentary Fuelling Poverty, a 30 minute crash course on the politics, implications, and significance of #OccupyNigeria and the fuel subsidy protests of January 2012. Made by Ishaya Bako and backed by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, the film deftly exposes Nigeria’s failed social contract. But […]
Shameful Self-promotion: Sean wrote an online essay for the SSRC on ‘New media in Africa and the Global Public Sphere’
February 22, 2013 By 2 Comments
The main takeaway from #Kony2012 is that it will probably retain some salience—despite the widespread criticism against the film and its makers—for how most people, including some Africans, will engage with Sub-Saharan African issues for the time being. However, more promising for media are the implications of #OccupyNigeria, a series of protests that brought that […]
Canada likes Africa’s “new image”
October 19, 2012 By 32 Comments
After spending its first six years in power largely ignoring the continent, the Conservative Party of Canada has finally “discovered” Africa. Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper undertook a four-day trip to Senegal and the DRC—only his second trip to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office in 2006, and his first in five years.
Looking back on Occupy Nigeria
March 26, 2012 By 1 Comment
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.”
The Ungovernables
February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment
It seems rather arbitrary to pick out the African artists from ‘The Ungovernables’, the New Museum’s triennial show. The first thing that appears (if, like me, you start on the fifth floor and work your way down) is a neat stack of Zimbabwean billion dollar bills, put there by Thai artist Pratchaya Phinthong. The show brings together thirty-four […]
Vogue Italia’s “Rebranding Africa” disaster
Everybody’s trying to rebrand Africa, and it isn’t going so well. Vogue Italia’s latest issue — boosted by great billowing gusts of editorial hot air from both the New York Times and the Guardian — is called “Rebranding Africa”, and as you’d expect the whole thing is an embarrassing and insulting shambles. The images are […]