As it appeared in the BusinessDay of Tuesday June 23, 2009I was recently reading the history of trade between the peoples of the Niger Delta region and Europeans, and one line caught my attention. The British Consul Hutchinson, in 1856, wrote to the supercargoes of English ships that operated in the region: ‘trading can never assure prosperity in any country, [...]

Where are all the true true Fashionistas that walk the walk, talk the talk and blog the blog? Please tell me where I can get a daily if possible a 3 square balanced meal of all things fashion from a fun but intelligent perspective with some snack catwalk goss in between? If only wishes were horse in Naija-Blogaria! We will [...]

As it appeared in the BusinessDay of Tuesday June 16, 2009One of the first things anyone interested in development learns is the measure that is popularly described as the poverty line. That is not in any way surprising; for, is poverty not the whole point of development? Or what development policy is worth more than the paper on which it [...]

As it appeared in the BusinessDay of Tuesday June 9, 2009If you were to take a bus from Badagry into Lagos you cannot but notice the high number of traders on that route. I often did this last year while researching cross-border trade in used clothes between Nigeria and its much small neighbour, The Republic of Benin. Most of the [...]

As it appeared in the BusinessDay of Tuesday June 2, 2009. Last Friday, as I normally do every Friday, I walked over to the newspaper store to pick my copy of The Economist. On my way to the store, I started wondering why I act in a seemingly irrational way every Friday i.e. in picking up my copy of The [...]

Today I want to take you into the literary landscape of Nigeria, and not just the regular. In the past few years, it seems that our output in literature has grown in leaps and bounds even in the face of poverty and other hindrances. A Nigerian has now won the Booker – Ben Okri, the Orange – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [...]