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 […]
Today is Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, to which guests have been asked to “wear full day ceremonial dress without swords.” Remember when we blogged about Margaret Thatcher’s terrible legacy? Read it again here and here. We were emphatic that “Africans don’t remember Margaret Thatcher fondly.” Well, we were wrong. Some Africans do like Margaret Thatcher. Here’s a […]
Last Tuesday, President Jonathan pardoned 7 Nigerians. While four of those pardons, Diya, Yar’Adua, Adisa and Fadipe have raised semantic issues as they had been granted ‘clemency’ under the regime of General Abdusalam Abubakar in 1999, the remaining three–former Bayelsa governor, Diepriye Alameisiyagha (among others, he dressed up as a woman and skipped bail in […]
Whatever Jay-Z and Beyonce were expecting when they went to Nigeria in 2006, they can’t have seen this one coming.
By Cheta Nwanze* Make una no vex, I’m running on less than 2 hours of sleep, and for good reason. Scratch that, FOR GREAT REASON. Thirteen years of sorrow, hurt and pain were wiped out in an instant a few hours ago as I watched Joseph Yobo lift that golden goblet over his head to […]
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 […]
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.
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.”
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 […]
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 […]