Next year I am definitely going to spend more time in Plateau State. High on my to-do list is to visit the amazing basalt formation near Bangai Village (in Riyom LGA) pictured here, known as the Kahwang Rock Formation..
Excellent gathering of all Nigeria anti-corruption initiatives (with links) here.
Read more...
Every Day is for the Thief
A young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence. Ahead lies the difficult journey back to the family house and all its memories; meetings with childhood friends and above all, facing up to the paradox of Nigeria, whose present is as burdened by the past as it is facing a new future.
Along the way, our narrator encounters life in Lagos. He is captivated by a woman reading on a danfo; attempts to check his email are frustrated by Yahoo boys; he is charmingly duped buying fuel. He admires the grace of an aunty, bereaved by armed robbers and is inspired by the new malls and cultural venues. The question is: should he stay or should he leave?
Teju Cole will be reading at Pen and Pages Bookshop, at 6pm on the Monday 14th December. He will also be in discussion with Toni Kan in Lagos (Quintessence) on Saturday, 19th December.
FREE entry.
Address:
Pen and Pages Bookshop
Plot 79,
Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent,
White House,
Wuse 11
Read more...Vacancy Notice:
Programme Mentor
Pro-Natura International (Nigeria)
Lagos, Nigeria (with regular in-country travel)
Pro-Natura International Nigeria (PNI) is looking to recruit a Programme Mentor to provide development expertise and programme management support to its community development activities in southern Nigeria. PNI is a non-governmental organisation which focuses on promoting community-led participatory development within rural communities by establishing or strengthening existing institutions and creating community capacity for decision making, assessment, planning, implementation and monitoring of their own development needs.
You will be responsible for leading and mentoring some of PNI's key community development and advocacy programmes, providing substantive inputs and guidance to field staff and the management team on planning, implementation, M&E and community development. You will also liaise closely with donors and other key stakeholders. Excellent project and financial management skills and the ability to manage a varied and complex workload independently are essential for this post.
To apply:
Please send your CV with a covering letter highlighting how well you meet each of the criteria in the person specification (based on your education/training, experience and skill set) and your suitability for this post to
pm-recruitment@pronatura-nigeria.org by 5pm (GMT+1) on Wednesday 6 January 2010. We regret that late submissions will not be accepted.
A relatively upbeat piece on Nigeria in a recent edition of the Economist - I forgot to blog it earlier. For all the talk of expenditure transparency, we shouldn't forget that none of the delta states has published its 2009 budget yet...
Read more...Another East-meets-West story unfolds. Storymoja's book club reads Every Day is for the Thief. Any Naija book club for some Ngugi?
Read more...Dearest in Christ,
I am Mrs. Rose Patrick from Kuwait. I am married to late Mr. Jim Patrick, who worked with Kuwait Embassy in Ivory Coast for Twenty-Six years before he died in the year 2004,after a brief illness that lasted for only five days.
We were married for Eighteen years with a daughter (Hannah) who later died in a motor accident. Before the untimely death of my husband, we were both born again Christians. Since after his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home, which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of (US$2.5M)(Two Million, Five hundred Thousand United States Dollar) in a General Trust Account with a prime bank in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. Presently, this money is still with the bank. Recently, following my ill health, my Doctor told me that I may not last for the next eight months due to my cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a Christian organization (Church) that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein, according to the desire of my late husband before his death. I want this fund to be used in Christian Activities like, Orphanages, Christian schools, and Churches for propagating the word of God and to endeavor that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that "Blessed is the hand that giveth". I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don't want my husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way.
This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that "the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace". I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband's relatives around me always. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible.
As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank in Abidjan. I will also issue you the documents that will prove you the present beneficiary of this fund. I want you and the Church to always pray for me because the lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that Wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life. Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another Church for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your reply. Remain blessed in the Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs.Rose Patrick.
An all-too rare gem: Professor John Godwin, longstanding Eko resident, writes about his stomping ground. I hope there's more to come and longer next time. Lagos Island has too many buried memories that need to be unearthed for the glory of history and rememory..
Read more...This chap is my Facebook friend but I've never met him. He has just posted this on his Facebook page. I love the language and the calm articulate indignation. Check out his blog too. Isaac Anyaogu, I salute you!"Each time the swashbuckling Minister of Communications and Information (read Re-branding), Mrs Dora Akunyili shares a podium with Nollywood practitioners or adventurers, she takes her time to give Nollywood a good dressing down. She cuts the picture of a stringent headmistress cautioning errant school children.
Daily Triumph Newspaper of November 2009 carried just an ounce of Minister Akunyili’s peppered vitriol against the forces aligned against her mission to rescue Nigeria’s image. She blamed Nollywood for Nigeria’s poor image and charged her to tell our own stories. She said the same thing few weeks into her appointment as Minister at an interactive workshop with Nollywood practitioners in Lagos. And I suspect, she says it everyday. She’s after all a Minister; all they do is say things.
Had Dora Akunyili not being a Minister, she might have understood the inanity of her assertion but as I fear the cordial distance Nigerian public officials maintain with reality has a way of deodorising the embarrassing stench of empty reason. But that is hardly surprising as it emanates from a Ministry where trite ideas are routinely granted a new lease and executed with zeal that borders on mania.
How on earth will anyone blame Nollywood for Nigeria’s sorry image? Did Nollywood invent Juju or 419? Is the President of Actors Guild of Nigeria operating from Aso Rock? Pray, are Aki and Paw Paw Senate President and Vice President? Is Genevieve the Minister of Power or is Desmond Eliot the Minister of Works and Housing? Even Pete Edochie, a strong advocate of re-branding was kidnapped by a bunch of renegades the police cannot find even if they were to raise their hands in a gathering.
Minister Akunyili keeps charging Nollywood to tell our own stories, frankly, I would be very disturbed the day Nollywood begins to tell our story. The reason is that our story, quite frankly, without putting too fine a point on it, is a glorified mess.
In President’s Yar Adua’s Independence Day speech the dearth of concrete, measurable achievement led him to urge Nigerians to at least be grateful to still be alive. This is a government that returns to the treasury half of the year’s budget expenditure at the end of each fiscal year because it is peopled by charlatans of the first order who are so dumb they don’t even know how to spend money!
Isn’t it an irony that Nigeria is on the list of countries with the highest immigration rate to other countries only rivalled by Afghanistan and Iraq – countries at war. Sundays, a maze of crowd so thick you won’t even recognise your mother flood churches and Fridays, normal activities are grounded because Nigerians have gone to find God. Yet God hardly factors in their thoughts and actions. Our politicians swear with the bible or Koran and it is common knowledge that they hold the key to the squandering of our hope. The clowns at the National Assembly have spent more days deciding how to amend the constitution than it took to write the damn document.
And come to think of it, how many times have budget made provision for the Benin-Ore road and why is it still a death-trap? How come university students sat at home for four months due to a protracted strike and the education Minister’s children school abroad? How come we still have a ministry of health when public officials travel abroad to treat catarrh? How come we are one of the leading oil producing nations in the world and we still import fuel? How come after almost 50 years after independence we can’t even light our streets? Indeed, I’d be very worried the day Nollywood begins to tell our stories.
It is ironical that while Madam Re-branding wants Nollywood to lead the campaign to re-brand Nigeria, she is unfazed with the teething challenges confronting Nollywood. To get funding for movies is difficult even before the current global economic crises, now its impossible. The government’s film fund has not left the paper it was written on. Movie pirates now sell more copies than marketers as Nigerian Copyright Commission only proclaims her tigertude on paper. In spite of this, Nollywood has done more to promote Nigeria’s image than all the gaggle of nincompoops who parade themselves as leaders throughout the country.
Minister Akunyili is still fuming over a Sony advert that implied that Nigerians are scammers (our favourite past-time anyway) and some air-headed people too wanted an apology because District 9, a South African film purportedly claimed that Nigerians were cannibals and scammers. Emeka Mba’s Censors board and Madam Re-branding were outraged because for the first time somebody had enough balls to tell our story.
Minister Akunyili advices Nollywood to focus on the positive things and I wonder how many positive things are we reputed for? Yes, we produce a world class literary genius in Chinua Achebe but we left him in a wheel chair just because someone felt the allocation to fix the road will sit better in his private account. We sent out our soldiers to stop other people’s war (while ours rages unabated) and when they return some higher officials stole their monies and we hound them in jail when they shouted too loud. Yes, we are 150 million strong and yet we awarded the highest office in the land to a man who’ve all been asked to pray that he lives as a matter of national priority.
Studies suggest that behaviour is patterned after media content. At the same time media content reflects the value pattern of the society. And when it comes to the issue of values, ours is reeking like an open sewer. Greed, nepotism, ethnicity, corruption and the politics of the belly have eroded our value system. Successive governments have elevated corruption to a pedestal so high, its beginning to assume the character of state policy.
Minister Akunyili will be outraged at the level of support serious governments give their film industry. In Nollywood we have to rent even the shabby police uniforms we use! Freedom of Information bill remains a mirage stalling investigative journalism and critical research to produce historical films that can help our sorry image. When public officials wish to get their hands dirty, they call up consultants to draw up harebrained designs for the movie industry which they can’t even explain if their lives depended on it.
Minister Akunyili should be grateful Nollywood is not telling our story."
- By Isaac Anyaogu
Follow the activities of Rantya School in Jos, which now has a blog. The school's Headmaster is a very nice French chap called Thomas. Rantya School works hard to provide high quality affordable education for kids in Plateau State..
Read more...
Beautifying Lagos, One Street at a Time. Nice website for the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency.
Read more...
© Blogger templates Psi by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
Posts
