Neo Africanus: In Teju Cole’s World
Teju Cole, author of the award winning book Open City, recently announced that his new book is a non-fictional narrative of contemporary Lagos. But what is Cole’s relationship to his native Nigeria and its cultural and commercial capital, Lagos? Akin Adesokan looks of the answers in his books. I Of the many encounters in which […]
I Have Always Meant to Fail
Isoje Chou knows the road is long, winding and full of mythical, evangelical and philosophical twists and turns. Set foot on the path in I Have Always Meant to Fail: from Abiku to Abikuisms (Speaking of Nigeria and Road Desire). (Scroll down-down for references and footnotes) Apropos on the problem Movement in Nigeria is as […]
How to be a Nigerian
Peter Enahoro a.k.a. Peter Pan’s How To Be A Nigerian was first published in the 1960s as a series of columns in the Daily Times. It became a bestselling book that was re-published in 1996. Almost two decades later, Enahoro’s brilliant satirical enquiry into identity, nationalism and inventiveness is still the definitive guide. To be […]
A Corpse and its Jurisdiction – a letter from Lagos
Akin Adesokan tropes on the detective genre after he stumbles on an unidentified corpse in Oko-Oba. Who does the body belong to? And more importantly who is going to take responsibility for it in a society where bureaucracy and apathy have usurped common human decency? I had some housekeeping assignments around Oko-Oba, near the Abattoir […]
When We Hear the Name of President
Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide evokes a language of high stakes, hi-jinx, and hybridity, combining code switching with scathing poltical critique to down ‘Mr. Big Belle’. Wetin our eye never see? Dey don see Oba! President na butcher e be for khaki or agbada— cobra-o, viper-o, na snake dem be; murderer na killer no […]