A rejoined is necessary I have not written for NigeriansTalk in quite a while but after reading Salisu Suleiman’s piece titled Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? I could not resist the need to comment on a particular part of his article. By the time I finished writing my comment, I realised I might well have broken [...]

On Saturday morning, last week, in a conversation with friends on Facebook, I was reminded of Reverend Martin Niemoller’s famous 1937 statement – more about this later. Over the week leading up to this conversation, I had had problems with the (lack of) quality of after-sales service for my car (from one of the country’s leading car retailers). I complain [...]

There is a variety of Nigerian patriots for whom the mantra “my country, good or bad” is a creed of some sorts. Not, though, in the manner of a self-evident truth, existing alongside other such axioms. But a fundamental dictum of conduct that must be observed, as it were, in “every field of national endeavour” regardless of the specific issues [...]

On April 9, Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor announced the acquisition of her new book Lagoon by the publishing house  Hodder & Stoughton. As published on her blog, “at its heart a story about humanity at the crossroads between the past, present, and future, Lagoon touches on political and philosophical issues in the rich tradition of the very best science fiction, and ultimately asks us to [...]

by Dami Ajayi   It always begins with a song. Then memory sets in. Soon you are coursing down familiar roads, back streets, broken waters. Suddenly, you are back here again. It is the same house in the poor district of Shagari Street with busybody neighbours. You are amongst the privileged few; you own a tokunbo car, you live in [...]

by Carl Terver   *FOR CHINUA ACHEBE* [After Anthills of the Savannah '. . . our fathers were defeated but they tried' p128] I fondle for ways to speak in the dialectic of Idemili and the laconian soliloquy of a thousand drums Wantaregh Now your words shall breathe on the embers of history and the sparkles, itinerant on untrodden paths [...]

(for Ken Saro Wiwa) By Emmanuel Uweru Okoh   My keen cry to Kenule: I, Fubara, of disjointed Fishnet and gaping boat, from the land of kernel Back feeling and staggering heritage. Of gasping fish and de-flowered flowers, Of frowning waters and stunted stalks. I sit on a lonely log; One of the few remaining. I write on a Dutchman’s Dollar paper. It [...]

by Edwin Eriata Oribhabor  Waka go wie? Yo iye de wok so? yu no si wetin de shele? hie wetin de folo? hu wan ‘‘wait’’ mek i puo fo im hed?   I no go puofo mai hed a no go du smesme fo dis mata   A don de si wetin de hapun dem de se notin de hapun [...]

If you have ever listened to Professor Chukwuma Soludo bring abstract economic concepts to life with PowerPoint slides extravagantly peppered with charts and projections, you’d understand how he managed to get himself appointed Chief Economic Adviser to former President Obasanjo, and later governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).   Those who knew him cautioned that beneath his stylish [...]

The emergence of the online retail business in Nigeria was always going to upset a few established practices. One big question centered on how online retailing would play in the face-off between traditional retail outlets (our not so “supermarkets”, and corner shops) and the discount shopping malls that are increasingly a central feature of our large urban centres. Whereas the [...]