“I should have known that ambition and success were not to be expected in an African woman. An African woman should be a good African woman whose qualities should be coyness, shyness, submissiveness, incompetence and crippling dependency. A highly educated independent African woman is bound to be dominant, aggressive, uncontrollable, a bad influence.”                 [...]

Want to help Africa? Do business here was the TED rallying cry by former World Bank MD now Nigeria Finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. But, who is going to do business with you if you appeared clueless in the face of the future? Spearheading the controversial plan to scrap fuel subsidies was a mistake as anger sparked unrest forcing banks, petrol [...]

Those that follow me have probably figured out by now that I spend a lot time in Lagos traffic, constantly hopping from one bus to another. While I would certainly prefer to commute less, there’s an upside, in that it allows me see and ponder all kinds of interesting things. This post is largely inspired by one of such bus rides, [...]

I recently attended an event at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on Change and Governance in Africa. One thing is clear: Africa is changing. The landscape of the continent is changing at a rapid pace, in some sectors, maybe a bit too rapidly but that is the topic of another write-up. The change is exciting. People are [...]

See the first part here In my previous article of the same title, I attempted a backgrounding of the many issues that have made it impossible for quality programming to be the order of the day on Nigerian television. It’s important  we understand where we’re coming from concerning television programming in Nigeria and how we have found ourselves in the [...]

by Benson Eluma I have cast around for how best to characterize Nigerian literature 50 years after Independence, and I have decided to settle for the Abiku motif. Abiku or Emere is the colleague of Ogbanje, and these are personages that have played central roles in Nigerian lore and literature. They have also enjoyed a respectable filmic presence, at least [...]

The news that President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria had created a Facebook page eventually got to me through Google Buzz where comments had been made to the effect that the power infrastructure issue should be easy to solve. Apparently, the President had zeroed in on a comment and arranged for his aides to contact some “visionary” who appeared to have [...]

This article was originally written for www.tradeinvestnigeria.com. In May, an Indian trade mission, led by Mr. Ravi Bangar, the deputy permanent representative of India to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), paid a visit to Mr. Jubril Martins-Kuye, Nigeria’s Minister for Commerce and Industry. One of the major issues they discussed was the possibility of India helping Nigeria to revitalise its [...]

I don’t know which to pick between May 29 and June 12 as the worst date to look forward to in our political calendar. I don’t know which is, to me, emptier of meaning as far as democracy is the issue. Perhaps, I hold a generally jaundiced view of Nigeria’s political history and career. But I truly pity the optimists [...]

A Review of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I Do Not Come to You by Chance Cassava Republic, 339 pages. Chris Ihidero Two recommendations need to be done with utmost care: a book and a spouse. If the wrong recommendations are made, a long hiss may follow your future recommendations. As a rule, I hesitate greatly before recommending either. A friend of [...]