Farafina 15

NUMBER 15
NORTH AFRICA SECTION:

GUEST EDITED BY LAILA LALAMI
REMAPPING
AFRICANNESS RECLAIMING NORTH AFRICA FOR AFRICA
FICTION
EXCERPT FROM THE BOOKER
PRIZE SHORTLISTED NOVEL,
IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN
ECONOMY
CHINA IN NIGERIA:
WHAT’S THE AGENDA?
FASHION
MAKING MONEY
FROM PAPER
SPORTS
NIGERIA’S OLYMPIC
DISASTER
FARAFINA METRO
EXPLORE THE MYRIAD
ATTRACTIONS OF CITY LIVING
NIGERIA N800 • EURO ZONE €5 • EGYPT E£ 38

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®
Telling Our Own Stories
FARAFINA is the Bambara word for Africa.

Our goal is to Tell Our Own Stories by showcasing
the best in contemporary African ideas
EDITORIAL
Anwuli Ojogwu
Azafi Ogosi
Folarin Shasanya
Igoni Barrett
INTERNS
Temitayo Olofinlua
Tolu Ettu
GRAPHICS
Akeem M. Ibrahim
PHOTOGRAPHY
Toye Gbade
ADVERTISING
Babatunde Ajayi
Rita Onwurah
SUBSCRIPTION & CIRCULATION

Opeyemi Akintunde (Nigeria)
Ogechi Ojiji (UK)
Okwudili Okeke (US)
Contributing EDITORS
Akin Adesokan, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
Ike Oguine, Jide Bello, Laila Lalami, Molara Wood,
Okey Ndibe, Petina Gappah, Toni Kan, Uzodinma Iweala
PUBLISHER
Muhtar Bakare
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Photograph by Hoda Mana
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ISSN 0794-4209
CO N T E N TS
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008
NUMBER 15
NORTH AFRICA SECTION

GUEST EDITED BY LAILA LALAMI
Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca by Alex Yera
21 REMAPPING AFRICANNESS
Anouar Majid
Exhibit 15
24 THE SAHARA AND ITS MANY FACES
Photography by Vlad Wojcik, Kelechi Amadi-Obi,
Hoda Mana, Samarth Bhasin and Eileen Nicolson
Pg 44
31 IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN
Hisham Matar
34 MOROCCO AND AFRICA: FROM BEN BARKA TO

SEBTA AND MELILLA
Karim Kettani
36 ON THE RIVER: A NILE LAMENT IN TWELVE PARTS

Matthew Shenoda
38 THE LAST FILM

Nouri Gana
40 TAYEB SALIH AND THE WAD HAMID CYCLE

Waïl S. Hassan
43 DARFUR REPORT
Fady Joudah Pg 21
02 I I NO 15 www.farafinamagazine.com
CO N T E N TS
Pg 14 FARAFINA METRO 09
FASHION 45
PAPER DREAMS
Ayoola Somolu
SATIRE 48
AN UNCOMMISSIONED SPEECH
WRITTEN FOR MR. BARACK OBAMA
Chris Ogunlowo
Pg 11
SPORTS 50
A WELL-REHEARSED OLYMPIC DISASTER
Bada Akintunde-Johnson
FICTION 56
A GRIM TASTE OF FATE
Iheoma Nwachukwu
ECONOMY 59
Pg 45 A CONTINENT OF NON-WHINERS
Oz Omoluabi
ENVIRONMENT 61
TRADING THE FUTURE
Rory Williams
HEALTH 63
SAVING WOMEN’S LIVES
Bosede Afolabi
Pg 75
REVIEWS 65
UNFINISHED MATTER 82
BLACK COLONIALISTS: THE ROOT
OF THE TROUBLE WITH NIGERIA (PART II)
Pg 80
CO N T R I B U TO RS
Fady Joudah’s first collection of poetry, Iheoma Nwachukwu is a graduate of biochemistry
The Earth in the Attic, is a recipient of the Yale Series for from the University of Calabar. He was a participant
Younger Poets for 2007. He is also the translator of in the 2008 edition of the International Creative
Mahmoud Darwish’s most recent poetry, Writing Workshop hosted by Chimamanda Ngozi
collected in The Butterfly’s Burden. Adichie.
Waïl S. Hassan is an associate professor of Comparative

Bada Akintunde-Johnson is a sports writer and
Literature at the University of Illinois at
soccer analyst. He works as a copywriter in one of
Urbana-Champaign and the author of Tayeb Salih:
Nigeria’s leading advertising agencies.
Ideology and the Craft of Fiction.
Anouar Majid, a native of Tangier, Morocco, writes on

Oz Omoluabi is a credit analyst living in New York.
issues of culture and religion in the post-colonial era.
He is a partner at The GoodMan Fund.
He also edits the online magazine Tingis.
Nouri Gana is assistant professor of Comparative

Ayoola Somolu is a freelance writer and a school
Literature & Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the
administrator.
University of California, Los Angeles.
Matthew Shenoda is the author of Somewhere Else,

winner of the 2007 Hala Maksoud Award for Emerging Ernest Williamson III is a Professor of English
Voice and a 2006 American Book Award. His latest at Essex County College. He has published poetry
collection of poems, Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone, and visual art in over 120 online and print journals.
will be published in 2009.
Simona Eva Schneider is a writer and photographer

whose works have been featured in exhibitions in the US, Featured Photographers: Samarth Bhasin, Eileen Nicolson,
Europe, Russia and Morocco and in several magazines. Uche Okpa-Iroha, Vlad Wojcik, Dominik Golenia, Clive Crook,
She has lived and worked primarily in Tangier since 2005. Tope Kogbe and Kelechi Amadi-Obi.
Cover Photograph by Samarth Bhasin

Hoda Mana lives in Los Angeles and has a passion
Cover Design by Akeem M. Ibrahim
for photography. She enjoys experimenting with her
father’s old Canon FTb, the first camera she learned to
use as a child.
Hisham Matar was born in New York and spent his

childhood in Tripoli and Cairo before moving to Britain.
His first novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted
for the 2006 Booker Prize.
Alex Yera is a writer and

photographer in Los Angeles.
Karim Kettani is a lawyer in Rabat, Morocco, and one of the founding

members of the French-language site minorities.org.
Lalla A. Essaydi grew up in Morocco and now lives in the US. Her work
has been exhibited in many US and European cities. She has worked
in video, film and analog photography.
LETTERS Sound
Thinking.
Dear Farafina: Although arriving on my would live together in happily ever-afterness.
desk slightly after the event, the “Kenya” We would like to believe that tribalism in Select from our
issue was a real eye-opener. It articulated the Africa is simply a colonial invention. That range of titles.
Kenyan experience during the recent riots tribe is a passive social difference that is only
and xenophobic outbreak with great articles occasionally activated by cynical, death Catch up on your
and editorials. Andia Kisia's “A Rude defying “fathers of the nation” for short- reading by choosing
Awakening” underlined what we all assume sighted political ends. That younger,
are our modern idealistic tolerances about wealthier, more cosmopolitan Africans are
books that inform,
race, tribe, traditions etc. One that those in immune to tribalism. And that Africa’s intrigue and inspire.
power are always ready to put to the test, and problem is that the members of this
use as a political weapon. transcendent group are too few in number. I
Illustrated with poignant photography, it would like to take issue with the entire
is by far the best issue yet, in my opinion. It proposition and I would have liked to see
also serves as a timely reminder of how some of the writers in this issue marshal the
wrong and distorted everything can turn out, courage to do so as well. Wambui Mwangi’s
right under our noses. “When the Nakumatts Close” probably came
Not a milligram of left-over fat in this closest to facing the issue head on. Others
edition. Bravo. seemed to be trying to rationalize the
Papa Omotayo violence—it’s because people were poor,
Lagos because their votes were stolen, because
youth were disenfranchised. But tribe was
beside the point. How can one seriously
WE WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE THAT argue such a thing? Although I thoroughly
TRIBALISM IN AFRICA IS SIMPLY A “enjoyed” the personal reflections of some of
Africa’s best writers on our latest tragedy, I
COLONIAL INVENTION. THAT TRIBE would have liked to read a focused analysis of
IS A PASSIVE SOCIAL DIFFERENCE tribalism as a factor in African politics.
Perhaps a pointed question from the editors,
THAT IS ONLY OCCASIONALLY or better yet, a structured debate between
proponents of different explanations for
ACTIVATED BY CYNICAL, DEATH Kenya ‘08 would have focused the thinking
DEFYING “FATHERS OF THE NATION” on the topic of tribalism.
I will definitely keep reading Farafina,
FOR SHORT-SIGHTED POLITICAL because it is one of the more polished and
ENDS. THAT YOUNGER, WEALTHIER, progressive magazines we have on the
continent today. But I would like to see a
MORE COSMOPOLITAN AFRICANS more conceptual structure to the
ARE IMMUNE TO TRIBALISM. submissions or more debate-style pieces so

that the thoughtful dialogue Farafina
provokes in theory could actually be
Dear Farafina: I just finished reading your performed on the page.
Kenya issue and was struck by how Abosede George
pronounced the debate was between Kenyan New York
writers as to whether the post-election crisis
of this year was a reflection of class tensions Dear Farafina: I just finished reading my
or ethnic tensions or generational tensions in first copy of Farafina and have no problem
Kenyan political culture. The class argument telling you that this is easily the African
is, of course, the most comforting and sibling of Harper’s or the London Review of
popular one because it holds the promise of a Books. I have been waiting for a magazine
ready solution. Sure, we would like to believe like this since the day I busted out of my
that all things being economically equal, we nappies. For all my non-Nigerians, quit www.kachifo.com
waiting on crumbs from the table of The New
Yorker—this is your chance to get in on the
international literary scene while the
getting’s good.
Frances Uku
New York
Dear Farafina: I had seen previous

Farafina issues but somehow just never got
around to reading any. All this changed when
I was compelled to buy an issue by a friend.
“America” [Farafina issue 13, guest edited by
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie] was a
revelation. I wasn’t completely bowled over,
but you definitely got my attention. I really
loved the Kenya issue [Farafina issue 14],
especially the cover, the use of pictures and
the comic strips by Gado—who is by far my
favourite contributor. I also enjoyed the
article by Judy Kibinge—“No Laughing
Matter”. It’s sad to realize that as Africans, we
have been betrayed by our older, and usually
richer, polity who have re-colonized us. It’s
time for young people to set things right.
Mann Obiora
Lagos
Dear Farafina: I was very happy to receive

the last few editions of your magazine. As a
new subscriber, I had only read one edition
before deciding that I liked the freshness and
direction of the magazine. Particularly, as a
somewhat socially conscious Nigerian, I have
always been disappointed of how little detail
I knew of other African countries. Receiving
the edition entitled "Kenya" was a pleasant
surprise, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope
in the future you will dedicate more editions
to specific African countries or regions. I am
sure many of us in Diaspora would
appreciate the insight given through the
stories shared.
Chimezie Chidi
San Francisco
TELLING OUR OWN STORIES, ONE EDITION AT A TIME Letters to the editor should be sent by email with
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COURTESY OF CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART(CCA)
FARAFINA METRO
LIFE.STYLE.MUSIC.DESIGN.CULTURE
FESTAC Rides Again international media coverage, will water, it’s a great time to be an NFS Mbadiwe Ave, Victoria Island, Lagos
Tales of FESTAC ’77 are still fondly this event cement Nigeria as a true member. Chief amongst these and 01-4633416, 01-7746888
retold by misty-eyed veterans who fashion destination? one of the highlights of the cultural
were there—it’s not uncommon to Nigeria Fashion Week September 15- calendar are the upcoming Durbar Lagos Book and Art Festival at
meet people in places like Jamaica 17 MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos Festivals of Kano and Katsina. Held the National Arts Theatre at
who will regale you with tales of their to coincide with the end of the Iganmu, Lagos
first pilgrimage to the motherland to The Elusive Adunni Muslim Ramadan period, the durbars From the 7th until the 9th of
attend the event. The Center for Black There were more sightings of that feature great exhibitions of horse- November, Toyin Akinosho and
Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC) unlikely cultural touchstone, riding and musicianship and Jahman Anikulapo are at the helm
intends to revive the ideology of this Susanne Wenger, as the Alliance sightings of the fiercely proud once again at the Lagos Book and Art
iconic event. As a precursor to Francaise (AF) screened Pierre northern Emirs. Festival. Themes of the symposium
Nigeria’s 50th independence Guicheney’s 2007 documentary, The www.nigerianfield.org will include “The Moonlight Tale in
anniversary in 2010, the CBAAC plan Lady from Osogbo. Filled with African Fiction”, whilst Ahmadu
to rebrand October 1st using the heady images and imbued with the Masterpiece Cinema Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged and
brand identity of that event and re- same intoxicating spirit that has kept Fritz Lang was one of the most Helon Habila’s Measuring Time are
awaken some of that unique Nigerian the 93-year-old Ms. Wenger in Osun influential film-makers of the pre- amongst the books under discussion.
and Pan-African spirit. State for nearly five decades, this war era—his films are still viewed
www.cbaac77.com/index.htm was not to be missed. Copies of the with reverence today as, even in Communicating for Change
black-and-white, the power of his In association with the World
DVD can be bought by contacting the
Nigeria Fashion Week story-telling and the fluency of his Wildlife Fund and Television for the
AF or the Nigerian Field Society.
With international affiliation from camerawork have stood the test of Environment (TVE—a UK-based
Madame Wenger was also scheduled
the World Fashion Association and time. There’s a chance to review his NGO) the CFC will be screening a
to appear at the NIIT in Lagos at a
the endorsement of the Federal classic film M, as well as W.Thiele’s series of developmental films called
symposium to be held in her honour
Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Three Men and Lilian, at the Goethe Child Survival in Africa. With seven
as part of the activities that heralded
the Nigeria Export Promotion Institute’s screening sessions. It’s a short films taking close-up and
August’s well-attended 2008 Osun
Council, Nigeria Fashion Week 2008 good opportunity to join the dots widescreen views based on the theme
Osogbo Festival.
looks to break through its own between the early lessons imparted of Child Survival on the Continent,
creative and organisational by the German Expressionist and a promise of high-production
The Tireless NFS
boundaries this year. With 70 movement, and the standards that values, the films will be brief, but
Activities continue apace at the
designers and exhibitors from hard-hitting. Check your local
Nigerian Field Society, now helmed prevail in Hollywood and of course,
Nigeria and abroad scheduled for the broadcast schedules.
by Charles Wheeler. From boat trips Nollywood today.
3-day event at the Muson Center, info@cfcnigeria.org
in search of endangered manatees to www.goethe.de/lagos
along with the presence of www.cfcnigeria.org
tours of Lagos’ stilt villages on the The Goethe Institute, 10 Ozumba
METRO DIARY
2ND INTERNATIONAL CREATIVE
WRITING WORKSHOP
For ten days in August, some of Nigeria’s most
promising young writers took part in
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s International
Creative Writing Workshop. With able
assistance from the Antiguan writer Marie-
Elena John, the Kenyan Caine Prize winner
Binyanvanga Wainaina, and Dave Eggers,
author of A Heart Breaking Work of
Staggering Genius, many of the writers
emerged from the workshop convinced that
they had learnt invaluable lessons that would
manifest in their future work. Some of the
participants were Paul Ugbede, Faisal Wando,
Chukwudi Eboka, Suzanne Ushie, and
Desmond Udoabasi. At the Fidelity Bank-
sponsored literary evening held to mark the
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
close of the workshop, a mix of guests from the

local and international media and publishing
industries saw for themselves the results of this
kind of literary mentoring—inspired and
invigorated writers looking ahead to new
challenges.
ALLIANCE MAKES THE MUSIC LAGOS INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FEST

At NTA’s Ahmadu Bello Way Nigeria’s Inspiro Productions and Esp Africa,
compound, the Alliance Francaise organizers of the Cape Town Jazz Festival are
treated music-lovers to a feast of working hard to put some hi-life era vibes back
great live performances. Fete de la into the city. The 1st Lagos Jazz Festival, held
Musique ‘08 featured over 40 artists earlier this summer at Studio 868, was more
and dancers from across West Africa. than a little overdue. Watching the legendary
Highlights included Fatai Rolling Courtney Pine (pictured left) and his crack team
of guitarists, bass players and an outstanding
Dollar’s well-tempered guitar, the
female drummer share the stage with South
mellifluous flute of PMAN’s Tee-Mac,
Africa’s MTV Award-winning Freshly Ground
the crowd-pleasing energy of Sound
and our own Yinka Davies, you had the sense
Sultan; all in all, this was an event
that this 2-day event had the potential for
that honoured the spirit of the global
crossover and to expand the audience for
Fete de la Musique movement. The
Nigerian and foreign soul and jazz bands. The
event didn’t exactly replicate
Nigerian Jazz Club has for years extolled the
American musician Joel Cohen’s
virtues of the many talented acts that struggle
initial 1976 idea of a city-wide “open
to find outlets for their music; many of these
day” for amateur and non-
©STUDIO 868
names, such as the Nigerian guitarist Femi

professional musicians, but the loose,
Temowo, will be lured back by events such as
improvisational edge to the event that
these.
his idea fostered was certainly there. Studio 868, 868 Bishop Aboyade Cole Street,
Alliance Francais, Lagos 01-8911341 Victoria Island 0802-3044806
EVENTS AT AF LAGOS
The screening of Marjane Satrapi’s
Oscar-nominated animated film
Persepolis is just one of the Alliance
Francais’ many attractions over the
coming months. The young Iranian
animator/director is revered in film
circles for her touching and funny
portrayal of the perils of modern Iranian
life. There is also Afro-beat fusion from
Seyi Solagbade, visual art from
Emmanuel Ekefrey, and from the 9th to
11th of October, the Lire en Fete. This
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
special Reading Festival features a

special Book Day on the 11th of October,
talks from authors, a Francophone book
fair, and autograph signing sessions.
www.alliancefrancaise-lagos.fr
METRO DIARY
THE KOKO FOUNDATION
After a successful new album launch and a series of shows and
media appearances, you could forgive some artists for needing a
rest. Not D’Banj though, as the snake-hipped afro-hipster is turning
his hand to a very personal CSR project. Many of the talks given at
his star-studded Ocean View launch event (pictured left) touched
on implementing social change and empowering young people, and
it does look like his Koko Foundation have hit the ground running.
The Koko Foundation for Youth, Peace and Development is
D’Banj’s new not-for-profit NGO, and an ambitious undertaking for
an artist who has already been a great ambassador for a resurgent
urban music industry. Outreach programmes, disease prevention
drives, and special appearances at schools for disadvantaged
children are just some of what seems a very ambitious program.
The new album is selling too. Good times and good deeds beckon
for the “Koko Master”. www.kokofoundation.org
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
LA SAISON
There aren’t many places in Lagos that can serve as refuge from
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
the pressures of work, a respite from the rigours of the daily

commute and still keep you wired, both in terms of caffeine and
internet connectivity. La Saison underwent a refurbishment earlier
this year, and now has even more space outside and upstairs to
enjoy Tosan’s cakes, the great espressos, and the fast Wi-Fi.
La Saison, 42 Raymond Njoku Street, Ikoyi
01-2706794, 01-471-0592
A NEW CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY THE LIVE REVOLUTION

ARTS Since Starcomms and Colossal Entertainment first collaborated over 2 years ago, they have come a long
The CCA Gallery has set about its mandate way–the concerts, such as those held at The Vault in Victoria Island, are safe, vibrant, and feature a
diverse pool of talent. They gave some burgeoning music acts a new audience, and fans of music early
as a visual arts organisation and
access to some of the stars of today, such as Soul-E and Ikechukwu. Colossal Entertainment
experimental media space with some gusto,
acknowledges that the Nigerian music industry faces wider problems such as pervasive piracy and the
holding some compelling exhibitions, talks
lack of legal frameworks within which proper relationships can be nurtured and artists developed, and
and gatherings in less than a year of its are active in seeking high-level corporate and legal resolutions for these problems. In the meantime,
existence. Visit this exciting new space in look out for more live events, and the Colossal roadshow in places as far afield as Kano and Maiduguri.
time to catch George Osodi’s exhibition on The Vault, Idowu Martins Street, Victoria Island, Lagos
the Niger Delta or Ghariokwu Lemu’s Colossal Entertainment: 01-875-2369, 01-871-6763
irreverent Afro-infused artwork. In their
end of year schedule are interactive sessions
scheduled with industry doyens such as
Toyin Bello, the photographer Andrew
Esiebo, and the art historian and social
entrepreneur Professor Sylvester Ogbechie
from the University of California. Centre for
Contemporary Art (CCA), 9 McEwen
Street, Sabo, Lagos info@ccalagos.org
0702 836 7106
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
©CCA
METRO LIFESTYLE
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
THE STRATOSPHERE SOFITEL LUXURY HOTELS

Lagos has major issues with urban The Moorhouse Sofitel has undergone something of an evolution over the past 18
sprawl–amongst many architects the prevailing
months. A new wing, refurbished rooms and a new design aesthetic are part of a
wisdom is that in built-up environments, the
only way to build is up. Look out then, for the global upgrade that the Sofitel brand is undergoing. With the hotel due to be
Stratosphere, rising out of the reclaimed sands reclassified as a Sofitel Luxury Hotel, and with the Epe Resort being constructed
of Banana Island. One of the most ambitious along similar lines, early signs indicate that the brand should be able to reinforce the
projects ever undertaken in West Africa, this
architectural Babel will house over 600 hotel unique balance of French hospitality in a contemporary local setting that has been
the hallmark of the Accor brand worldwide. With high-level entries from Accor’s
rooms and luxury flats, with full-length windows
for those eye-popping views and a helipad on By Anouar Majid
major international rivals such as Intercontinental Group and Radisson Hotels
the roof. www.brookviewinternational.com
expected in the next year, the bar is getting higher for Lagos’ growing hotel market.
Sofitel —The Moorhouse, 1 Jide Oki Street, Ikoyi 01-4615409-20
SUNBORN YACHT HOTEL

By the end of 2008, Lagos’ many lagoons
should be graced by a vessel with a grand
difference. The Sunborn Yacht Hotel will
surely be an incongruous sight berthed
alongside the rusting wrecks and mega-
tonne shipping tankers that adorn Lagos’
waterways. One of the world’s first
custom-built yacht hotels, and formerly
docked at the Royal Victoria Docks in the
south-eastern part of London’s River
Thames, the 105-room vessel was acquired
by the Lagos State Government and
Diamond Bank, and could cost as much as
$3million dollars just to transport to
Lagos.
METRO FOOD&DRINK
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
EKO HOTEL'S THE SKY wafts through its triple-height design has certainly re- an affable host, and Eko Hotel
For a major hotel, Eko Hotel and lobby from the seaside lagoon. established this 5-star hotel as has always been militant about
Suites has always been enviably Whilst the new Sky Restaurant one of the places to see and be the quality of its service. This one
located in Victoria Island. It’s on the 12th floor has not seen in, in Lagos. With a choice then, is worth saving up for.
well-placed in the “business hub” answered any questions as to of “sea-side” or “city-side” views
The Sky
that once-residential Victoria whether the hotel’s features will available at lunch or dinner, the 12th Floor, Eko Hotel and Suites,
Island is becoming, and the ever be affordable to anyone but views, especially at dusk, are Adetokunbo Ademola Street,
Atlantic sea views are augmented business travellers and the stunning. The French manager Victoria Island, Ikoyi
suitably rich, the starkly modern Mr. Francois Puteau makes for 01-2624600-11
by a constant sea breeze that
BAMBUDDHA'S
SECOND BIRTHDAY
There seem to be Buddhas
sprouting their heads in several
venues in Lagos at the moment.
Back in 2006, when Bambuddha
first opened its doors, it was
amongst the first batch of
venues to successfully integrate
modern fusion elements into its
interior design, and immediately
proved popular amongst
denizens of Lagos. Two years
on, the restaurant/bar with the
now much-imitated Buddha
celebrates with a red-themed
©FARAFINA MAGAZINE
cocktail and special meal offers

during the months of September
and October.
www.bambuddha-lagos.com
METRO FOOD&DRINK
Expand your taste horizons (after hours of course) with this diverse selection of drinks.
Limonce (25% Trieste, Lancers Rose Table

Italy) – Like their champagne Wine (10%) – Portugal is
variant prosecco, limoncello has better known for its delicious ports
been a well-kept Italian secret for than for its wine, but their wine-
generations. A sublime liqueur growers are experiencing a new
produced from an infusion of vibrancy. This medium-bodied rose
Mediterranean lemons, it is served wine is a great accompaniment to
cold, but not freezing, and gives a many dishes.
smooth but intense citrus sensation.
As an aid to digestion, it is often
served from the fridge at the end of a
Sirop de Ronin
great meal. (Grenadine and Mint
Flavour) – If you are going to
Mouton Cadet Sauternes mix, concoct, design or experiment
Reserve White (11% in any way with cocktails, you
should really arm yourself with the
Baron Philippe De Sirop de Ronin range of flavoured
Rothschild) – This sweet white mixers. Grenadine will be
wine is produced in limited recognisable as the “secret”
quantities by the famous winemaker. ingredient in one of our favourite
Its beautiful autumnal colour hints at national drinks, but the mint flavour
the sweet flavour of apricot, honey is essential too.
and blossom bottled within. A
product of the “noble rot” tradition, Amarula & Kahlua (17%)
the wine combines three grape
– These drinks seem to go through
varieties–Semillon, Muscadelle and
cycles of being in turn cool and sexy
Sauvignon.
and then outdated and passé. But if
you like your Baileys-style liqueur
Jan Van Riebeek Merlot and you haven’t tried a “Caucasian”
Cabernet Sauvignon (White Russian) before, experiment
with either of these two.
(13%) – This premium red wine
has been bottled for over 350 years,
so the vintners should be credited Lamb & Watt Cherry
with a high level of expertise. This Brandy (24% Liverpool
unusual blend of 75% Cabernet UK) – For a long cool cocktail, try
Sauvignon and 25% Merlot is
pouring a measure of gin and cherry
recommended for both beef and
brandy over crushed ice. Then top it
poultry dishes.
up with some soda water, and add a
silly straw. But please, always drink
Absolut Vanilla (40%) – responsibly.
What more is there to say about one
of Sweden’s most iconic export? The
bottle that has featured in thousands All these and more available in
of ingenious advertising campaigns is the Wine section at Super
still a hot favourite amongst fans of Mega – Mega Plaza, 14 Idowu
vodka. Don’t let the mellow vanilla Martins Street, V/I, Lagos
flavour fool you–this still packs a
weighty punch.
METRO REVIEW
PATTAYA
T hai cooking has become renowned

for its subtle, harmonious pairings of
ingredients and flavour combinations–
portraits of our own rulers. From the
uniquely flavoured starters to the
frankly stupendous Thai Iced Tea, the
lemongrass with galanga, or sweet chilli culinary experience is always a rich
with coconut oil for example. What Thai one. The Chicken Satay and the Thai
cooking has done so well is to assimilate Green Curry were excellent, but the
many influences over a period of years. stir-fried beef was almost too rich in
Chinese or Siamese recipes, the adoption taste and did not complement the
of certain favoured Western eating styles simplicity of the starters. Sweet Thai
(traditional Thai cooking eschews large desserts usually combine some form of
servings of meat for example), and a little exotic fruit, a benefit attributable to
of Japan’s flair for “cooking as theatre” all Thailand’s geographical location and
combine to create what we see and taste the abundance of fruits like mangos,
at a restaurant like Pattaya. papayas and sweet pineapples. The
In the same way that many Nigerians choice of taking desert or not is not left
may not be able to taste the offerings of a to you though–the Thai ethos dictates
“luxury” restaurant like Pattaya but thrive that as you balance chillies with
and rightfully revere the roadside bukka, coconut milk you must also balance
so it is in Thailand—the capital Bangkok your savoury main course with a
is famous for its outdoor stalls and fast- meticulously designed and plated
food cafes where the emphasis is on good, dessert. Besides, the exceptionally
cheap and spicy servings. It’s the “Fusion” courteous Thai chef and manager Noi
version of Thai cuisine that Pattaya Netthip frowns upon any refusal of his
represents, and although hard to compare dessert menu. So a dessert arrives. It’s
(there are only three Thai restaurants in one of those you don’t quite want to eat
Pictures courtesy of Toye Gbade
Lagos), it’s hard not to be impressed. straight away because a fork would
There’s a visual poetry to the presentation destabilise the elegant design, but you
in the way fruits are carved and can’t quite take home either, for the
stuffed—the dishes are very easy on the same reason. It can be something of a
eye. dilemma.
The restaurant inhabits a simple but Pattaya Thai Restaurant,
elegant space, adorned with oddly Upper Floor, 13a Musa Yar’adua Street,
charming portraits of the King and Queen off Idowu Martins Street,
of Thailand which echo the ubiquitous Victoria Island 01-874 3696
METRO DESTINATIONS
STONETOWN, ZANZIBAR by Toks Alalade
How do you get there?

You can Fly Kenyan Airways from Lagos via Nairobi to Stonetown.
What was the reception like?
Warm and welcoming, even though my luggage was sent on a later flight!
Within a couple of hours of being in Zanzibar I’d learnt a whole sequence of
greetings.
What senses did you use the most while you were there?
Sight, as it was so incredibly beautiful.
Was there anything peculiar you liked or disliked about the place?
I loved seeing the Maasai people in full traditional gear as it was so unexpected.
How do you rate the beach life there?
Great! The northern tip of the island has some of the best beaches in Zanzibar,
Kendwa and Nungwi. You can go diving and snorkeling. One of Zanzibar’s
many glorious sunsets is a must see, either out on the water in a dhow or whilst
beachcombing for shells (I threw all mine back).
What was your most memorable meal?
Dinner under the stars at a small makeshift restaurant on one massive
communal table right on the edge of the water. We chose from a wide selection
of fresh fish and shellfish (barracuda, red snapper, tuna, king fish, octopus,
squid, prawns, lobster laid out fish-stall style) caught just hours earlier.
What did you bring back from your travels?
Lots of kikois (a kind of wrap or sarong), for friends and family.
©TOKS ALALADE
PROFILE
would have existed for thirty-eight years.

Steven Bankole Omodele Rhodes was born on the 8th of April
1926, to an Equatorial Guinean mother and a Nigerian father. His
mother had a passion for playing the piano and his father, who
was a lawyer, was a classical music enthusiast. The young Steve
and his two sisters were enrolled for music lessons in Lagos, and
while at Enitonna High School in Port Harcourt, Steve Rhodes,
already displaying a natural gift for music, joined the school band.
STEVE RHODES COM

POSED THE THEME
SONGS FOR THE NIG
ERIA TELEVISION
AUTHORITY’S HEADL
INE NEWS
PROGRAMMES NEWSL
INE AND
NEWSWEEK.
Steve Rhodes proceeded to Germany and then to Oxford to
complete his education, and only returned to Nigeria in 1955
when the Nigerian Broadcast Service offered him a job. At the
NBS, he formed the first radio orchestra in Nigeria. He was so
passionate about the success of his new ensemble that, when
faced with the challenge of finding instrumentalists—quite a
predicament in 1950s Nigeria—Steve Rhodes, to keep his
orchestra alive, turned to using voices for those parts where the
instruments were lacking.
In the late 1950s, Steve Rhodes left radio for television: he
became the first Nigerian Head of Programmes for Africa’s first
STEVERHODES
1926–2008
television station—the WNTV at Ibadan. It was during his stint in
Ibadan that he ventured into film production, directing “The
More Excellent Way”, which was the first television drama in
Nigeria.
After many years in the broadcast
I n the last quarter of 1970, there was a

sharp fall in the attendance of young
worshippers to the Christ Church
Cathedral, Marina. The Provost came up
industry, Steve Rhodes left to set up
private business as an independent
producer of concerts. Amongst the
many international musicians he
with a novel idea: a choir would be formed
brought to Nigeria were Herbie Mann,
that would have the same impact that pop
Millicent Small and the late soul singer,
music services in Britain had in attracting
James Brown. During this period,
young worshippers. The new group wasn’t
Steve Rhodes, who was trained as an
going to be a part of the church’s regular
administrator, also held various
choir and would only perform at specific
positions in Phillip Morris Nigeria,
services, with the hope that these
culminating in his assumption of the
appearances would bring young worshippers R
DES WITH HIS MOTHE post of acting managing director of the
YOUNG STEVE RHO
to the church. The man who was chosen to
company.
spearhead this project was the musician and composer, Steve
During his time as a broadcaster, Steve Rhodes composed the
Rhodes.
theme songs for the Nigeria Television Authority’s headline news
And so Steve Rhodes gathered together his wife, his
programmes “Newsline” and “Newsweek”, tunes which are still in
daughters, his sisters and the members of another family, the
use on both programmes. He also wrote the theme song for the
Lawrences. The first public performance of the group, called the
popular Nigerian sitcom “Second Chance”. More
Steve Rhodes Voices, was on Christmas day 1970. Before long,
Nigerians—though most of them don’t know it—have listened to
large numbers of worshippers began attending the cathedral for
his compositions than to the music of Fela (whose manager he was
services. There were so many requests to join the new choir that,
at one time).
to accommodate applications, the decision was taken by Steve
Steve Rhodes, broadcaster, composer and concert
Rhodes to expand his small group into a professional choir. In
impresario, worked in the Nigerian music industry for over half a
1975, the choir took first prize at the Llangollen International
century, most times behind the scenes. He passed on in June
Musical Festival at Eisteddfod in Wales—the first of their many
2008, at the age of 82. –By Azafi Ogosi
awards. On the 25th of December 2008, the Steve Rhodes Voices
IN MEMORIAM
Some of the leading lights in the arts and media industry who passed away recently
Youssef Chahine, 82: one of

Egypt’s most lauded filmmakers. His Babatunde Jose, 82: doyen of
films reflected his deep interest in Bernie Mac, 50: feisty and frank
Nigerian journalism, who joined the
Middle Eastern history and society. He American actor and comedian. Mac
Daily Times of Nigeria as a technical
directed his first feature film, Baba gained popularity as a stand-up
trainee in 1941. Jose rose to become the
Amin, in 1950, while the last, Chaos, comedian and had his own successful
Chief Executive and Chairman of the
was shown at the Venice Film Festival TV series, the Bernie Mac Show. At the
newspaper group. He is reputed to have
in 2007. He is widely credited with time of his death, Bernie Mac had
turned the Daily Times into a
discovering the actor Omar Sharif, who finished working on the film Soul Men
formidable institution and a successful
played the lead role in his 1954 film, with Isaac Hayes, who, coincidentally,
business—which at one time sold as
The Blazing Sun. He was awarded the died a day after him.
much as 500, 000 copies daily. The
50th Annual Cannes Film Festival paper’s eventual collapse is associated
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. with his exit.
Isaac Hayes, 65: a self-taught

musician, who was one of the dominant
black artists of the early 1970s. Hayes’s
Sonny Okosun, 61: popularly known Oliver de Coque, 61: singer and Black Moses album established him as a
as the king of “ozzidi” music. He found guitarist, who became popular in the black leader, and he was involved in the
fame across Africa with his socio- 1970s with his band, The Expo 76 Ogene campaign for black civil rights. In 1971,
political “liberation” lyrics. In 1985, he Super Sounds. His music inspired the the theme song from Shaft topped the
joined other international “ogene” dance style in Nigerian highlife. Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and
musicians—Bruce Springsteen and Such albums as Identity, People’s Club earned him an Academy Award for Best
Miles Davis amongst them—to and Nmbiri Kambiri were very popular Original Song. He won a total of 3
produce a benefit record in support of and made huge sales. Weeks before his Grammys in his 39-year career. He was
the fight against apartheid. Okosun death, he was awarded a Lifetime married to a Ghanaian at the time of his
later became an evangelist. He Achievement Award at the Nigerian death and had 12 children.
produced more than 40 albums in his Music Awards.
lifetime.
BASTION ARCH Hoda Mana
Laila LALAMI
Guest
Editor’s
Note
I
I have often noticed that whenever one hears about “Africa,” whether on the news, or in music, or in arts, or in literature,
the inevitable focus is always the portion of the continent that is geographically south of the Sahara desert. For
instance, the “plight of Africa,” that favourite headline of European and American newspapers, usually refers to AIDS
or child soldiers or foreign debt or whatever new cause hipsters find fit to embrace at the moment. When African music is written about
outside of the continent, it is usually in terms of Youssou N’Dour, or Fela Kuti or Miriam Makeba. African art, as curated in places like
The Metropolitan Museum in New York, means only artwork produced south of Senegal to the west and Sudan to the east.
I have also noticed that those of us from the Northern parts of the continent are regularly thrust under the headings of “Arab” and
“Islam,” to the exclusion of all others. For example, many political problems in North Africa are explained entirely in terms of the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism. The art of North Africa can be found generally in the Islamic or Middle Eastern sections of museums. The
music is talked about exclusively in terms of its Arab influences. I once heard a TV commentator bemoan the phenomenon of Moroccan
hip hop and proclaim Umm Kulthum’s melodies to be the only ‘real’ music. As for North African literature, it is usually placed under the
heading of Arab literature in any library or bookstore.
So it seems that North Africa is excluded—and occasionally also excludes itself—from considerations of Africa, in all its wondrous
ethnic, religious, linguistic, and cultural diversity. In this issue of Farafina magazine, I want to reclaim North Africa for Africa.
In his article “Remapping Africanness”, the novelist and academic Anouar Majid shows how North African and sub-Saharan novels
in fact share many common themes and concerns. The Rabat-based lawyer and activist Karim Kettani writes about a forgotten chapter
of African history—a time when people across the continent shared the same political goals. I am also delighted to include Nouri Gana’s
review of Nouri Bouzid’s Akher Film. Professor Waïl Hassan has kindly allowed this magazine to reproduce his introduction to the new
African Writers Series edition of Tayib Salih’s masterpiece, Season of Migration to the North. The featured fiction in this issue is an
excerpt from Hisham Matar’s novel, In The Country of Men, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006. Mathew Shenoda has
contributed a lovely poem, and Hoda Mana, Simona Schneider and Alex Yera have supplied the many photographs.
Lastly, I am thrilled to include work by the artist Lalla Essaydi, whose pictures rework Orientalist clichés in order to challenge the
stereotypes they present.
I hope that these contributions serve as an introduction or a re-introduction to the art, culture, and literature of North Africa.
©Samarth Bhasin
REMAP
By Anouar Majid
D
uring the most recent African Cup of Nations, a soccer tournament held this year in Ghana, Arab audiences
were able to watch Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan (all members of the Arab League) compete for the title
of best soccer team in Africa. All games featuring any of these nations were dutifully broadcast in the United
States by the Saudi-owned TV station, ART. Arabs in America needed to watch their fellow Arabs and perhaps join in
the prayers of the Tunisian Issam Shawali who, I was told by a Tunisian friend of mine, is a world-renowned
sportscaster. He is a man whose narrative of the game fuses the best and worst of Arab culture—unabashed displays of
patriotism when Tunisia is on the field; poetic praise for Arab nationalism when any of the other teams are playing; and
fervent prayers for all on all occasions. I didn’t see the final triumph of Egypt in the tournament, but I can only imagine
what outbursts of ecstasy the Arab audiences must have been invited to participate in.
Arab nationalism is well and alive on satellite channels. It can be sweet and comforting, but it can also be fuzzy,
forcing the sportscaster to find the right words to separate Arabs from Africans in a tournament that is officially
African. The language of African solidarity allowed the speaker to blur the very boundaries by his unambiguous
displays of Arab nationalism. Overall, he did an excellent job being the Arab nationalist and proud African, but the
FEATURE
fault lines of culture, if not race, were never entirely erased. A Africa. Like America, and even Europe, Africa is also a place
non-black, Arab North Africa and a black, sub-Saharan Africa defined less by the skin color of its inhabitants than by the
were natural assumptions to make, although this simple black- diversity of its cultures and religions. To the extent that
and-white scenario got complicated during the Egypt vs. Sudan Moroccans, Senegalese, Sudanese and Nigerians who are Muslim,
match. are closer to one another than a Muslim Moroccan is to a Christian
FIFA, the world federation of soccer, doesn’t divide the Syrian, although both could be considered Arab. By the same
continent into northern and sub-Saharan zones, but here, too, the token, a Muslim Senegalese is culturally closer to a fellow Muslim
ideology of race is not entirely absent. Many believe that FIFA’s Egyptian than he or she is to a Christian South African. Islam, in
president, Sepp Blatter, was swayed by the notion that the real fact, allows us to see that Africa, like many other parts of the world,
Africa is black when he chose South Africa over Morocco to host is divided along religious lines more so than it is along the barriers
the 2010 soccer World Cup. I am not sure what my children’s of race or language.
teachers think when they invite me to talk about Africa in
classrooms decorated with masks and images from Kenya. I just One might say that all Africans—except for the handful of elite
wear my djellaba and fez and blend right in. If soccer officials and who benefit from the schemes of corporate exploitation—are
American teachers do their part to bridge the arbitrary lines of united by the suffering and painful marginalization in the age of
culture and race in Africa, they could help reverse the impression globalization. When I examined a few African novels written by
of the vast majority of people who Muslims in the second half of the 20th
stubbornly believe that North Africa and century—whether such novels were
the rest of the continent are not equal parts authored by Moroccan, Senegalese, or
of the whole. Sudanese writers—the common theme was
I almost got in trouble when I first came their protagonists’ attempts to survive the
to New York in 1983 for insisting to an debilitating effects of European
offended Jamaican that I was African. colonialism. These protagonists were all
©Uche Okpa-Iroha
Obviously puzzled that a non-black could privileged members of their

make such a claim, the Caribbean man societies—talented, educated in colonial
became openly hostile, even though we schools, and sent to the capitals of Europe
were in an academic setting. But I was no to finish their studies. If the ultimate of
less confused by his response—a native of Muslim travel in the past had consisted of
Jamaica, a country on the American FIFA DOESN’T DIVIDE THE the arduous pilgrimage to Mecca (a feat that
continent, was denying me the right to be CONTINENT INTO NORTHERN bestowed spiritual wholeness and
from Africa, the landmass that includes my significant social prestige on the traveller),
AND SUB-SAHARAN ZONES,
native Morocco. It was, to say the least, an then today, the Europe-bound traveller
odd scene. Bystanders, mostly white, were BUT HERE, TOO, THE IDEOLOGY comes back mutilated before eventually
amused by the dispute because they, too, OF RACE IS NOT ENTIRELY dying alone. And those who stay in Europe
had their own understanding of Africa ABSENT. don’t fare much better.
based on their own history with race. Take, for example, Driss Chraibi’s
Africa, whether by its defenders or Algerian character Yalaan Waldik (which,
detractors, was, and still is, cast in black by a projection of minds literally, means “a curse on your parents”) in his 1955 novel Les
who can’t see the blinding reality of diversity on that richest of Boucs (The Butts). Waldik’s trip to Europe leaves him tortured
continents. and wounded; it turns him into an angry man speaking for fellow
I first started thinking about the issue of race in Africa when I alienated Arabs—the “Butts”. He does time in prison and quickly
realized how Arab-centric my fellow Moroccans could be. In the realizes that the promise of Europe is a mere “mirage”, one,
early 1990s, the renowned Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun however, from which the traveller never returns. For going back
declared that, as a Moroccan, he didn’t feel African at all. Instead to one’s native land ends up being too little, too late. The Europe-
of considering Moroccans, along with other North African states, bound African is on a trip to nowhere.
as African Arabs, since such Arabs constitute at least three Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s African classic, Ambiguous
quarters of the entire Arab population, he simply “ignored the Adventure, further dramatizes the experience of the young
ground on which he stood” by favoring a mythical concept of African’s displacement. The novel opens with an emergency
identity, one that emerged fitfully in the wake of European meeting in a Senegalese village on how best to resist “the assault of
colonialism. He privileged, in other words, the fiction of Arab strangers [who have] come from beyond the sea.” The charismatic
nationalism over the reality of Africanness. Most Royal Lady realizes that there is no escaping
To be sure, Africanness is a fiction, too, or at least a word with Europeanization, and there is also no alternative but to school the
a long and changing history. But if we accept geographical younger generation in the European ways.
designations of continents, then we must at least acknowledge Samba Diallo, a promising religious student from a prominent
that such a place as Africa exists. Europeans live in Europe, family, is chosen to spearhead this survival strategy. Unlike many
Americans in America, and Africans are those who hail from of today’s Muslim extremists who study science and technology,
Samba studies philosophy. He does as much as he can to resist
Western influences, but he eventually begins to absorb Western
values. His father senses his son’s “disquietude”, and, fearing for
his perdition, calls him back.
It would be too late. By that time, Samba has already lost his
uncomplicated faith. The village fool (whose stories about his
experiences in war-torn Europe and the wounds he suffered there
sound so extravagant to the other villagers that they dismiss them standing baobab tree—a symbol of local stability that has
as fanciful accounts), greatly alarmed by Samba’s inability to pray, sustained her throughout her travails in Belgium—has long been
kills Samba in order to save his soul. Death, the novel tells us, dead. With nothing left, Bugul pronounces a eulogy for the tree
turns Samba into the infinite, not the nothing he had become in that might as well be the eulogy of her life and, indeed, the entire
his exile. Death is, in fact, the “found” kingdom of no ambiguity. African continent.
The same sort of fate hounds the Sudanese “prodigy” Mustafa The same agonizing ruptures afflict young North African men.
Sa’eed in Tayeb Salih’s masterpiece, Season of Migration to the Many of Tahar Ben Jelloun’s early novels and accounts of
North. Like Samba Diallo, Mustafa enrols in the European school immigrant life in France are, in some ways, the chronicle of a
system (English, in this case) and eventually makes his way to steadily mounting despair felt by Muslims all over Europe. Young
Cairo, “a city at the height of English rule”, where Mrs. Robinson Muslim men and women who had hoped to escape the economic
awakens him to his sexuality. Sexual desire is thus, from the start, and cultural constraints of their native villages and towns find
associated with Western women. themselves coping with rejection and social marginalization.
Once in London, the young man immediately steels himself Disillusionment with Europe’s promise of a better life, cheerfully
for a war against the British, planning to seduce their women and peddled at home by sweet-talking colonialists and missionaries,
even kill them in order to avenge a deep-seated grievance against takes on the dimension of a timeless conflict; the one pitting Islam
Europeans, who, in Mustafa’s view, have waged violence against against “infidel” Christians, or a human Africa against an
others—as well as among themselves—for centuries. He describes exploitative Europe. Feeling betrayed and lonely, they succumb to
himself as a “colonizer” and “intruder”, “a drop of the poison a despondency that threatens to explode into violence.
which [Europe has] injected into the veins of history.”
He lies constantly and invents an identity that conforms to Over the course of more than fifty years, African literature has
British stereotypes of Africans, yet he remains painfully aware repeatedly shown us that the African’s legal journey or illegal
that he has internalized much of the West he strongly despises. So crossing into Europe doesn’t discriminate between North
he kills his English wife, Jean Morris, in a final but futile attempt Africans and sub-Saharan ones. Today, migrants may take off
to exorcise Western influences from his being. Only after from a Moroccan city like Tangier, but the zodiacs or pateras that
returning to his native country to live with his new Sudanese wife carry these fortune seekers contain the full spectrum of African
and children does he realize that his situation is hopeless. His colours and languages. They travel to reclaim the lives they have
schizophrenic mental state becomes intolerable, and he drowns been deprived of by the usurious and exploitative schemes of
himself in the Nile. capitalism. One day we read an account of African immigrants
More than two decades later, another Senegalese writer being hunted down by law enforcement agents at the border
reminded us that the same problems continue to haunt a new zones; the next day we are treated to accounts of seabed-
generation of Muslims. Marietou M’Baye, who writes under the scrubbing trawlers emptying African waters of fish to satisfy the
pseudonym Ken Bugul, published Abandoned Baobab in 1982. It demanding palates of rich nations. With their natural resources
is an autobiographical account of a promising student who snatched away by the voracious appetite of the West, many
expects to be liberated by French culture. Yet upon arriving in African fishermen end up on Spanish shores as lifeless bodies.
Belgium on a scholarship, she is quickly disillusioned by the social The African—whether from the north, the middle, or the south of
alienation and cold materialism of a society where only shopping the continent—is as much an object of consumption as his or her
seems to confer an identity. No one greets or pays attention to her. resources are.
Although Bugul identifies with the predicament of all women, she When I was a teenager, I attended a poetry reading in Tangier
also rejects Western feminism’s claims to a universal sisterhood. that has haunted me ever since. The poet was Cuban, and his
Cultures are truly different, she realizes. Confused and subject was the coffee bean. It was an account of the common fate
disoriented, she seeks unfulfilling sexual relations, gets pregnant of the two, travelling from their birthplace in Africa and ending up
and goes through an abortion performed by a racist doctor, after together in the New World, with the African serving coffee to the
which she begins to use drugs. She puts up pictures of her nude white customer. This is now the fate of all Africans, serving bits
body in the room she shares with a male American G.I., starts and pieces of Africana to customers lured by the exotic.
providing massages to men, models for artists and Africa is one in its destiny and diversity. Those who divide it
photographers, and dances in nightclubs before finally along artificial lines would do better to listen to its voices. Africa’s
prostituting herself for the sake of a moment of attention. annals of history bespeak a complex but, quite often, common
Throughout her rapid descent into this marginal existence, she fate. African literature continues to uphold this sensibility,
becomes increasingly suicidal. Mustering all the willpower she affirming the invisible but robust kinship between the likes of late
can, she returns home to Senegal, only to find out that the still- Driss Chraibi and Marietou M’Baye.
THE
SAHARA
AND ITS MANY FACES
©Vlad Wojcik
©Vlad Wojcik
FROM THE ATLANTIC OCEAN TO THE RED SEA
“Sahara” is gotten from the plural of the Arabic noun sahra, which
means “desert”. The Sahara Desert stretches over 3,200 miles from
the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. From the Mediterranean Sea
southwards it varies in width from 800 to 1,400 miles across. It
encompasses about 3.5 million square miles, approximately one-
third of Africa's land mass, and traverses more than eight North
African countries. The Sahara, however, is not one large desert, but
several, distinct and different both in nature and landscape.
THE LIVING SAHARA

The Sahara is a desert on the move. Some countries, like Algeria
for example, have lost close to 80 percent of their land mass to
desert encroachment. Even large swathes of Northern Nigeria are
being encroached into. Experts agree that an estimated 35 percent
of land that was fertile 50 years ago has been lost to desertification
across 11 states in Northern Nigeria, with the major causes of the
desert expansion being global warming and deforestation. The
FADE organisation, led by Dr. Newton Jibunoh, recently
©Kelechi Amadi-Obi
undertook a 16,000 km journey from Lagos to London to raise

awareness about desert encroachment in the Sahara region.
©Hoda Mana
CITIES OF THE NORTH

Cairo, Marrakech, Tangiers, Agadir, Casablanca and Algiers are amongst the
largest cities in North Africa. The port city of Agadir, which is a popular “winter
sun” destination for tourists, lies on the north coast of Morocco. The ancient city
of Algiers has history dating back to the 6th century, when it was a part of the
Byzantine Empire.
©Vlad Wojcik
©Vlad Wojcik
©Kelechi Amadi-Obi
THE TRADE HUB
Trans-Saharan trade has existed for centuries, with
the means of transportation (horses, camels,
donkeys and motorized vehicles) and articles
traded (from gold and slaves to ivory, salt, beads,
cloth and metal goods) changing over time. Trading
activities have served as a unifying force among the
different races and tribes of the Sahara, such as the
Berbers and Tuaregs of Tunisia, but it has also been
the source of much conflict. The Sahara is used as a
pathway by some Africans to migrate into Europe,
often with tragic consequences.
©Kelechi Amadi-Obi
©Eileen Nicolson
©Samarth Bhasin
THE SAHARA MEETS THE SAHEL

The eco-region where sub-Saharan Africa meets the Sahara desert is known as the Sahel.
Apart from a few plateaus and mountainous regions, the Sahel is symbolized by a flat
topography. Several centuries ago, this once-fertile land was part of the Sahara and had
many deep lakes teeming with aquatic life; what remains of these vast water bodies are
©Kelechi Amadi-Obi
drying lakes such as the Lake Chad. In the past, armies from the north of Africa were
repelled from aggressive advances southwards into the northern territories of kingdoms
such as the Yorubas of Nigeria and the Ashanti of Ghana because their horses, camels and
people could not cope with the forests and diseases of this region of the Sahel.
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ
“It’s clearly more

important to treat
one’s fellow man
well than to be
always praying
and fasting and
touching one’s head
to a prayer mat.”
In The Country of Men business. It was as if, when the world was empty
of him, she and I remained as stupid reminders,
empty pages that had to be filled with the
memory of how they had come to be married.
By Hisham Matar I sat watching her beautiful face; her chest
rise and fall with breath, unable to leave her
side, hearing the things she had just told me
swim and repeat in my head.
©Hoda Mana
Eventually I left her and went to bed.
When she woke up she came to me. I felt her
weight sink beside me, then her fingers in my
hair. The sound of her fingernails on my scalp
reminded me of once when I was unlucky. I had
thrown a date in my mouth before splitting it
open, only discovering it was infested with ants
when their small shell-bodies crackled beneath
my teeth. I lay there silent, pretending to be
asleep, listening to her breath disturbed by
tears.
During breakfast I tried to say as little as
possible. My silence made her nervous. She
talked about what we might have for lunch. She
asked if I would like some jam or honey. I said
no, but she went to the fridge and got some
anyway. Then, as was usual on the mornings
after she had been ill, she took me on a drive to
pull me out of my silence, to return me to myself
again.
Waiting for the car to warm up, she turned
on the radio, skipped through the dial and
didn’t stop until she heard the beautiful voice of
Abd al-Basit Abd al-Sammad. I was glad
because, as everyone knows, one must refrain
from speaking and listen humbly to the Quran
when it is read.
Just before we turned into Gergarish Street,
the street that follows the sea, Bahloul the
beggar appeared out of nowhere. Mama hit the
brakes and said ya satir. He wandered over to
her side, walking slowly, clasping his dirty
I
am recalling now that last summer before I was sent away. It was 1979, and the hands tightly to his stomach, his lips quivering.
sun was everywhere. Tripoli lay brilliant and still beneath it. Every person, “Hello, Bahloul,” Mama said, rummaging in her
animal and ant went in desperate search for shade; those occasional grey purse. “I see you, I see you,” he said, and
patches of mercy carved into the white of everything. But true mercy only arrived at although these were the words Bahloul most
night, a breeze chilled by the vacant desert, moistened by the humming sea, a often uttered, this time I thought what an idiot
reluctant guest silently passing through the empty streets, vague about how far it Bahloul is and wished he would just vanish. I
was allowed to roam in this realm of the absolute star. And it was rising now, this watched him in the side mirror standing in the
star, as faithful as ever, chasing away the blessed breeze. It was almost morning. middle of the street, clutching the money Mama
The window in her bedroom was wide open, the glue tree outside it silent, its had given him to his chest like a man who has
green shy in the early light. She hadn’t fallen asleep until the sky was grey with dawn. just caught a butterfly.
And even then I was so rattled I couldn’t leave her side, wondering if, like one of
those hand-puppets that play dead, she would bounce up again, light another
cigarette and continue begging me, as she had been doing only minutes before, not
to tell, not to tell.
S he took me downtown to the sesame man in
the market by Martyrs’ Square, the square
that looked on to the sea, the square where a
Baba never found out about Mama’s illness; she only fell ill when he was away on sculpture of Septimius Severus, the Roman
FICTION
Emperor born all those years ago in Lepcis, proudly stood. She I kicked my heel against the pedestal several times. I stared at the
bought me as many sesame sticks as I wanted, each wrapped in ground, into the heat and brightness that made me want to sleep
white wax-paper twisted at either end. I refused to let her put with my eyes open. But then, not looking for but falling directly on
them in her bag. On such mornings I was always stubborn. “But I my target, I spotted Baba.
have some more shopping to do,” she said. “You’re bound to drop He was standing on the edge of the pavement in a street
them like this.” “No,” I said, curling my eyebrows, “I’ll wait for you opposite the square, looking both ways for traffic, arching forward
outside,” and walked off angrily, not caring if I lost her or became as if he was about to fall. Before he stepped on to the road he
lost from her in the big city. “Listen,” she called after me, motioned with his hand then snapped his fingers twice. It was a
attracting people’s attention. “Wait for me by Septimius Severus.” gesture that I knew. Sometimes he would wave to me like that, as if
There was a large café on one side that spilled out on to the to say, “Come on, come on,” then snap his fingers, “Hey, wake up.”
passageway. Men, some faces I recognized from before, sat Behind him appeared Nasser, Baba’s office clerk, carrying a small
playing dominoes and cards. Their eyes were on Mama. I shiny black typewriter beneath his arm, struggling to keep up.
wondered if her dress shouldn’t be looser. Baba was already crossing the street, walking towards me. For a
As I walked away from her I felt my power over her recede; I moment I thought he might be bringing Nasser to Septimius
began to feel sorry and sad how on such mornings she was always Severus, to teach him all the things he had taught me about the
generous and embarrassed, as if she had walked out naked. I Roman Emperor, Lepcis Magna and Rome. For Baba regarded
wanted to run to her, to hold her hand, latch on to her dress as she Nasser as a younger brother, he often said so himself.
shopped and dealt with the world, a world full of men and the “Baba?” I whispered.
greed of men. I forced myself not to look back and focused instead Two dark lenses curved like the humpbacks of turtles over his
on the shops set within arched bays on either side of the covered eyes. The sky, the sun and the sea were painted by God in colours
passageway. Black silk scarves billowed gently above one, we could all point at and say the sea is turquoise, the sun banana,
the sky blue. Sunglasses are terrible, I thought, because they
I LEANED AGAINST THE COOL MARBLE PEDESTAL change all of this and keep those who wear them at a distance. At
OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. THE ROMAN EMPEROR that moment I remembered how, only a couple of days ago, he had
kissed us goodbye. “May God bring you back safely,” Mama told
STOOD ABOVE ME, HIS SILVER-STUDDED BELT
him, “and make your trip profitable.” I had kissed his hand like he
CURVING BELOW HIS BELLY, POINTING HIS ARM
taught me to. He had leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Take
TOWARDS THE SEA, “URGING LIBYA TO LOOK care of your mother, you are the man of the house now,” and
TOWARDS ROME,” WAS HOW USTATH RASHID grinned at me in the way people do when they think they have paid
DESCRIBED THE POSE. you a compliment. But look now, look; walking where I could
touch him, here where we should be together. My heart
columns of stacked red caps stood as tall as men outside another. quickened. He was coming closer. Maybe he means me, I thought.
The ceiling was made with dark strips of fabric. The white blades It was impossible to see his eyes.
of light that pierced through the occasional gaps illuminated the I watched him walk in that familiar way—his head pointing up
swimming dust and shone still and beautiful on the arches and slightly, his polished leather shoes flicking ahead with every
floor, but darted like sparkles on the heads and down the bodies of step—hoping he would call my name, wave his hand, snap his
passers-by, making the shadows seem much darker than they fingers. I swear if he had I would have leaped into his arms. When
were. he was right there, close enough that if I extended my arm I could
Outside, the square was flooded with sunlight. The ground touch him, I held my breath and my ears filled with silence. I
was almost white with brightness, making the dark shoes and watched his solemn expression—an expression I admired and
figures crossing it look like things floating above the world. I feared—caught the scent-edge of his cologne, felt the air swell
wished I had left the sesame sticks with her. Small needles were round him as he walked past. He was immediately followed by
now pricking my arms. I told myself off for being stubborn and for Nasser, carrying the black shiny typewriter under one arm. I
letting her buy me so many. I looked at them in my arms and felt wished I was him, following Baba like a shadow. They entered one
no appetite for them. of the buildings overlooking the square. It was a white building
I leaned against the cool marble pedestal of Septimius with green shutters. Green was the colour of the revolution, but
Severus. The Roman Emperor stood above me, his silver-studded you rarely saw shutters painted in it.
belt curving below his belly, pointing his arm towards the sea, “Didn’t I tell you to wait by the sculpture?” I heard Mama say
“Urging Libya to look towards Rome,” was how Ustath Rashid from behind me. I looked back and saw that I had strayed far from
described the pose. Ustath Rashid taught Art History at El-Fateh Septimus Severus.
University and was my best friend Kareem’s father. I remembered
our Guide standing in one of his military uniforms like this,
waving his arm as the tanks passed in front of him on Revolution
Day.
I felt sick, anxious that I had somehow done the wrong thing.
Baba wasn’t on a business trip, but here, in Tripoli, where we
should be together. I could have reached out and caught him from
I turned towards the sea, the shining turquoise sea beyond the where he was heading; why had I not acted?
square. It seemed like a giant blue monster rising at the edge of the I sat in the car while she loaded the shopping, still holding on
world. “Ghrrr,” I growled, then wondered if anyone had heard me. to the sesame sticks. I looked up at the building Baba and Nasser
FICTION
had entered. A window on the top floor shuddered then swung I was walking around the house looking for something to do
open. Baba appeared through it. He gazed at the square, no longer when the telephone rang. I ran to it before it could wake her up. It
wearing the sunglasses, leaning with his hands on the sill like a was Baba. On hearing his voice my heart quickened. I thought he
leader waiting for the clapping and chanting to stop. He hung a must be calling so soon after I had seen him to explain why he
small red towel on the clothesline and disappeared inside. hadn’t greeted me.
“Where are you?”
O n the way home I was more silent than before, and this time
there was no effort in it. As soon as we left Martyrs’ Square,
Mama began craning her neck towards the rear-view mirror.
“Abroad. Let me speak to your mother.”
“Where abroad?”
“Abroad,” he repeated, as if it was obvious where that was.
Stopping at the next traffic light, she whispered a prayer to herself. “I’ll be home tomorrow.”
A car stopped so close beside us I could have touched the driver’s “I miss you.”
cheek. Four men dressed in dark safari suits sat looking at us. At “Me too. Call your mother.”
first I didn’t recognize them, then I remembered. I remembered “She’s asleep. Shall I wake her up?”
so suddenly I felt my heart jump. They were the same “Just let her know I’ll be home tomorrow, about lunch time.”
Revolutionary Committee men who had come a week before and I didn’t want the conversation to end so I said, “We were
taken Ustath Rashid. followed today by that same white car that took Ustath Rashid.
Mama looked ahead, her back a few centimetres away from We were side by side at the traffic light and I saw their faces. I was
the backrest, her fists tight round the steering wheel. She released so close I could have touched the driver’s cheek and I wasn’t
one hand, brought it to my knee and sternly whispered, “Face frightened. Not at all. Not even a little, I wasn’t.”
forward.” “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and hung up.
When the traffic light turned green the car beside us didn’t I stood for a while beside the telephone and listened to the
move. Everyone knows you mustn’t overtake a Revolutionary thick silence that seemed to descend on our house during those
Committee car, and if you have to then you must do it discreetly, hours in the afternoon, a silence edged by the humming of the
without showing any pleasure in it. A few cars, unaware of who
was parked beside us, began to sound their horns. Mama drove off
EVERYONE KNOWS YOU MUSTN’T OVERTAKE A
slowly, looking more at the rear-view mirror than the road ahead.
Then she said, “They are following us, don’t look back.” I stared at REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE CAR, AND IF YOU
my bare knees and said the same prayer over and over. I felt the HAVE TO THEN YOU MUST DO IT DISCREETLY,
sweat gather between my palms and the wax-paper wrapping of WITHOUT SHOWING ANY PLEASURE IN IT.
the sesame sticks. It wasn’t until we were almost home that Mama
said, “OK, they are gone,” then mumbled to herself, “Nothing fridge in the kitchen and the ticking of the clock in the hallway. I
better to do than give us an escort, the rotten rats.” went to watch Mama sleep. I sat beside her, checking first that her
My heart eased and my back grew taller. The prayer left my chest was rising and falling with breath. I remembered the words
lips. she had told me the night before, “We are two halves of the same
The innocent, Sheikh Mustafa, the imam of our local mosque, soul, two open pages of the same book,” words that felt like a gift I
had told me, have no cause to fear; only the guilty live in fear. didn’t want.
I didn’t help her carry the shopping into the house as was usual.
I went straight to my room and dropped the sesame sticks on
the bed, shaking the blood back into my arms. I grabbed my
picture book on Lepcis Magna. Ten days before I had visited the
ancient city for the first and, as it turned out, last time. Images of
the deserted city of ruins by the sea still lingered vividly in my
mind. I longed to return to it.
I didn’t come out until I had to: after she had prepared lunch
and set the table and called my name.
When she tore the bread she handed me a piece; and I,
noticing she hadn’t had any salad, passed her the salad bowl.
Midway through the meal she got up and turned on the radio. She
left it on a man talking about farming the desert. I got up, said,
“Bless your hands,” and went to my room. “I will take a nap,” she
said after me. My silence made her say things she didn’t need to
say, she always took a nap in the afternoons, everyone did,
everyone except me. I never could nap.
I waited in my room until she had finished washing the dishes
and putting away the food, until I was certain she had gone to
sleep, then I came out.
MOROCCO & AFRICA:
FROM BEN BARKA TO SEBTA AND MELILLA
By Karim Kettani
W
hen Patrice Lumumba was assassinated, my father, mondiste Patrice Lumumba died in Congo, while the pro-Western
then still a teenager, went out to demonstrate in front Moise Tshombé and Mobutu died in ignominious exile in Algiers
of the Belgian Consulate General in Casablanca. and Rabat, respectively. Nor is it coincidental that the
Thousands of students joined him, and were severely beaten by spontaneous outbursts of popular protest in Casablanca in
the riot police. That same year, my mother, a Swedish au pair in January 1961, were to give way to the Franco-Moroccan military
Brussels, felt the brunt of some Belgians’ hostility towards her intervention in the Shaba in 1978, aimed at quashing an anti-
country, which was fuelled by UN Secretary General Dag Mobutu uprising.
Hammarskjöld’s perceived, but in fact imaginary, bias in favour of This sketch of the recent history of Morocco/Congo relations
Lumumba. Insults were hurled and tyres flattened. epitomizes the evolution from popular solidarity to élite
I grew up hearing these family recollections, so I’ve always felt realpolitik between Northern and Southern Africa—because
connected to Africa; a statement ludicrous in itself as I am Moroccan history is not specific in its estrangement from
Moroccan and thus African, but nevertheless necessary in view of Southern Africa. Algeria and Libya, despite having had a distinct
the mental and ideological distance that some discourses have socialist and tiers-mondiste political orientation, are as much
managed to place between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. aloof from the rest of the continent as is Morocco.
What strikes me about these family stories is that in 1961 But it began differently: under King Mohammed V, Morocco
—which is to say, not so long ago—thousands of young Moroccans was a founding member of the Accra and Casablanca groups,
spontaneously took to the streets to protest the murder of Congo’s which united like-minded African progressive countries and
prime minister. The common struggle against colonial oppression leaders, including Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sékou Touré, Kwame
and an abstract though vividly felt affinity with tiers-mondisme, Nkrumah, Modibo Keita and King Mohammed V. When the king
meant that young Moroccans could, and did, feel directly and died in 1961, his son and successor Hassan II opted out of his
personally concerned by the murder of Patrice Lumumba at the father’s progressive and non-aligned foreign policy. This was
hands of Congolese accomplices of Belgian and American powers. deliberate. The break from his father’s legacy extended to the
But the relationship between Morocco and Congo would turn domestic scene, where the charismatic and internationally
less idealistic: while Patrice Lumumba gave way to Mobutu Sese minded leader of the Union Nationale des Forces Populaires
Seko, King Mohammed V gave way, that same year, to King (U.N.F.P)—Morocco’s then main leftist party—Mehdi Ben Barka,
Hassan II. Ideology and solidarity between colonized people gave was keen on pursuing a comprehensive reform of Morocco’s
way to Cold War realpolitik. Alignment with Western powers led economy and institutions as he was on fighting against
to diplomatic and military solidarity between regimes and rulers, colonialism in its different shapes and colours, be it in Palestine,
rather than between peoples. South Africa, Cuba or Vietnam.
In this context, it is perhaps no coincidence that the tiers- The more Hassan II began to close ranks with Western
From left: Dag Hammarskjold; Moise Tshombe;
King Hassan II; King Mohammed V;
Kwame Nkrumah; Mehdi Ben Barka;
Patrice Lumumba; Mobutu Sese Seko
powers, the more Mehdi Ben Barka stressed the need for Third Sebta and Melilla. Enduring heavy-handed treatment at the
World unity against Western imperialism. In 1963, he became hands of Moroccan authorities, they symbolize the division of the
secretary-general of the Organisation de solidarité des peuples group of countries formerly known as the Third World. It is only
d’Afrique, d’Asie et d’Amérique latine (OSPAAL), also known as once they reach European soil that Moroccans and other Africans
the Tricontinental, where he rapidly became a world figure on a face a common fate as potential and equally unwanted illegal
par with the likes of Fidel Castro, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ho Chi migrants. Sharing a common hope in the 1960s, they now share
Minh or Nelson Mandela. Incidentally, this international and common frustrations and hardship.
progressive profile contributed to his death, as Moroccan
authorities were able to count on French, American and Israeli
complicity to rid the international scene of his inspiring
presence—he was “disappeared” in Paris on October 29, 1965.
Morocco was a founding member
One of Ben Barka’s last contributions to the Tricontinental of the Accra and Casablanca
was to attend the Wenneba conference in Ghana in April and May
of 1965. That meeting, which was attended by four hundred groups, which united like-minded
people, comprising of Asian, African and Latin American
delegates, was held to prepare the first Tricontinental Conference African progressive countries
and was recounted by Otmane Bennani, his assistant. His aim was
to strengthen the international solidarity with the help of
and leaders, including
movements in Asia and Africa fighting against colonialism and Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sékou Touré,
neo-colonialism—a solidarity manifest in his many travels to over
thirty African countries in 1963, for instance. Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keïta
At the Wenneba Conference—dubbed by Bennani “the most
important one in the history of the Tricontinental”—the Latin and King Mohammed V.
Americans joined their African and Asian brethren and elected
Ben Barka “president-to-be” of the first Tricontinental
Conference in Havana in 1966, with Ghana replacing Morocco.
Ben Barka then went on to Beijing to try and mend the Sino-Soviet
rift, which deeply divided the non-aligned African and Asian
countries. He returned to Europe and Paris in 1965, where he was
abducted and has never been seen again.
As we all know, things haven’t evolved as Mehdi Ben Barka or
Kwame Nkrumah would have hoped. Ideological solidarity across
the continent was soon replaced with heightened national, ethnic
and religious tensions. The thought of thousands of Moroccan
students taking spontaneously to the streets, to protest against
the murder of a Congolese prime minister, now seems surreal. In
fact, the most salient phenomenon linking the average Moroccan
to sub-Sahara Africa is, besides the periodic disappointment after
each African Nations Cup, the increasing presence of sub-Saharan
migrants in Morocco, desperately trying to slip into a fortress
Europe present on Moroccan soil through the Spanish enclaves of
On The River:
A Nile Lament In Twelve Parts
By Matthew Shenoda
I
We’ve only just begun
Grasp the twisting mire of this history
But we are also of water
And need not the passage
On the road to criminal ancestry
A sheath gone wander
Born with fire on our tongues
We breathe our children’s repose
Expose the blade to human gully
Trenched by libations
Arrived in a place so strange
The trees lean wrong
Vital flow
Run thin
II
Imesti
Jar with a head like mine
Hold the liver of a brother thieved

Qebehsenuef
Trade your contents for cash

Sudan’s organs
Like blood diamond

Money for the caliphate war
III
Lord, this yoke
This tailored refuse V
There is power in a single act
We’ve tasted with our tongues Resistance in a bearded man
Driven with our spirits
A woman who walks this earth
Sung with our limbs Knowing her strength
Resurrected with our eyes
And somewhere across the Atlantic
Sequestered your tally and vowed Bones—bones—bones
That deliverance will come
Covering the ocean floor
IV Like sand granules
The bridges have been burned
Brethren VI
No one speaks the story of the woman
Who cut her hair in pine
IX
Let each strand go Young boys float
Down river So as not to disturb the fallen
No one tells the truth of the man Feet suspended in air

Who only dreamt to feed his children The earth a graveyard
Gave his dignity for bread Soldiers for twisted desires

And entreated the sun for blindness Troopers for power lust
VII They dream of balancing bread on their

And their eyes still scourge us palms
Buried beneath our skin Pedaling bicycles in a new direction
Frayed like a fern leaf X

We are torn between two lines Roadways skirt the farm
Too close to spire and mortar
Migratory foot paths
Leading to a new haunt Drag stalk to earth
Make bails in the shadow of bricks
Up river there is a tumbling

Down the bank like billowing smoke
Children live in liquid contour

Edfu and electrical towers
XI
Race to grace the Nile
Salve from heat
Lily expanse in the crane’s path

Island marsh, in the center of this river
One push from shore

One paddle to touch
Refugee tents where dreams are made

Doum shade points
Hair parted by blood
Haven in the right direction
VIII
XII
The minarets curve like dandelions
East from here, Moses split the sea in
Uneasy in their own tendency
two
In the country of waiting
A bird of the sky, recluse in haze
Dots the horizon like satellite dishes
Made the crag peaks into home
In the land of duality
The men on their knees, aiming towards space
Touch concrete to root ground
Serket, stone-memory
Hold the rock as evidence
Prayers take flight
And find their home in elevated ears
Make your children to feel their weight
Compass their spines towards rectitude
THE LAST FILM
By Nouri Gana
S
ince its release in late 2006, Nouri Bouzid’s Akher film brainwashing scenes might unduly foreground religious
(which literally means “The Last Film”), has received fundamentalism as the root cause of Bahta’s radicalization, the
broad acclaim in the Arab world, Africa, Europe and North scenes do not appropriate our attention away from the gamut of
America. After winning the Tanit d'or (Gold Tanit) in the 2006 factors presented in the film: familial (abusive father); personal
Carthage Film Festival, it went on to take the Best Screenplay (betrayal and abortive romance); educational (no degree);
Award in the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, and more recently, the economic (unemployment); social (poverty); civic (constantly
Ibn Rushd Prize. The latter is named after the Andalusian Muslim chased by state police); psychological (shame and
philosopher, Ibn Rushd or Averroës, and is awarded annually by disgruntlement) and international pressure (the American
the Germany-based Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought. invasion of Iraq and the clampdown on illegal immigration to
Insofar as the 2007 Ibn Rushd Prize was to be awarded to a Europe), amongst others. All these elements combined contribute
filmmaker whose work promotes freedom and democracy, and to the making of a terrorist. Religious indoctrination by itself is an
tackles the problem of social and political taboos from a fresh insufficient tool. For instance, when Bahta turns out to be too
perspective, there cannot be a more deserving candidate than careless and slippery for the underground fundamentalist group,
Tunisia’s versatile and veteran filmmaker, Nouri Bouzid. they decide to lock him up in a deserted wine factory. When he
Perhaps, because of his firsthand experience of prison and torture finds his way out of his captivity, Bahta punishes one member of
for five years under the ancien régime of Habib Bourguiba, Nouri the group. Thereafter he is chased by the police and runs to a
Bouzid’s cinematographic passion has centered on staging nearby port, where he detonates himself in a metal container on
defeated and broken individuals in search of human dignity, which the word CAPITAL is written in block letters, thus implying
societal justice and political reckoning. For example, in his 1986 that global capitalism is to blame for the emergence of the
début feature film Rih essed (a.k.a Man of Ashes), he tackles the Kamikaze mentality in Arab youth culture.
issue of child molestation; the way a sexually abused apprentice Be that as it may, for Nouri Bouzid, Islam ought to be kept
carpenter grows into adulthood stigmatized by the scandal of apart from any form of ideological or political struggle; be it
homosexuality and the claim of lack of manhood, which prompts against US imperialism or Israeli occupation. Akher film
him, at the end, to avenge himself against his molester, the boss hammers this point home through a thoughtful sequence of
carpenter. interruptions whereby Bouzid intervenes in his own film to
Similarly, Akher film chronicles the fate of another defeated convince the mortified lead actor, Lotfi Abdelli, about the good
and broken individual (a street break-dancer and a crook), whose intentions behind the film—that far from waging a campaign
pursuit of an illegal passage to Europe turns into a misguided against Islam, a religion he loves, it unmasks the hypocrisy of
quest for paradise and martyrdom. This story is set at a time when fundamentalist groups in which Islam is exploited to advance
the 2003 British and US-led military campaign against various political agendas.
Iraq—which ignited feelings of shame, humiliation, and anger Thus, Akher film becomes as much a film about the making of
throughout the Arab world—was well under way. The disoriented a Kamikaze as a film about the making of a film about the making
25-year-old Bahta (Lotfi Abdelli) falls into the hands of a of a Kamikaze. While these meta-filmic scenes might awake
clandestine fundamentalist faction, and is gradually spectators to the fictional nature of the film—and allow the
indoctrinated into believing that the best thing he could do with director to anticipate and respond to the criticisms of his
his life is literally blow it up for the sake of a guaranteed paradise detractors—they paradoxically threaten the credulity of the film,
and dozens of voluptuously beautiful houris, or young women. which hinges on the fictional relation and willing suspension of
Perhaps, the brainwashing scenes are the least convincing disbelief. The point that the film makes is that truth itself might
part of the film; they might mislead some people into thinking that not be obtainable if it can no longer be discernible through the
Bouzid is, indeed, playing into the hands of US foreign visual or fictional.
policymakers and corrupt Arab regimes. But while the
Nouri Bouzid
©Hoda Mana
Tayeb Salih
and the Wad Hamid Cycle
By Waïl S. Hassan
T
he back cover of the first Heinemann edition of Tayeb colonial metropolis of London, and voices the colonized’s
Salih’s Season of Migration to the North, published in fascination with, and anger at, the colonizer. Both voyages involve
English translation in 1969, featured the following the violent conquest of one place by the natives of another: Kurtz
statement by Edward W. Said, one of the most influential literary is the unscrupulous white man who exploits Africa in the name of
and cultural critics of the second half of the twentieth century: the civilizing mission, while Mustafa Sa’eed is the opportunist
“Season of Migration to the North is among the six finest novels black man who destroys European women in the name of the
to be written in modern Arabic literature.” Almost two decades freedom fight. Both novels also depict a “secret sharer” or a
earlier, another critic, Albert Guerard, wrote in his introduction to double—Marlow in Conrad’s tale and the unnamed narrator in
the 1950 New American Library edition of Joseph Conrad’s Heart Salih’s—who are at once obsessed and repulsed by Kurtz and
of Darkness that it was “among the half-dozen greatest short Mustafa Sa’eed, respectively.
novels in the English language.” In praising Salih’s novel, Said This way of reading novels from former European colonies as
was quoting almost verbatim Guerard’s famous appraisal of counter-narratives to colonial texts is one of the strategies of
Conrad’s classic. Said was himself an expert on Conrad, having postcolonial literary criticism. Postcolonial critics have argued
published a book on him in 1966, so what he wrote about Salih’s that narratives of conquest by writers such as Daniel Defoe,
novel was calculated to equate its importance to that of Conrad’s Rudyard Kipling, Ryder Haggard, Conrad, E.M. Forster, Joyce
within their respective literary traditions: just as Heart of Cary, and others are crucial to understanding British culture.
Darkness is a masterpiece of English literature, so is Season of Even the seemingly insular and domestic world of Jane Austen’s
Migration to the North an equally great classic of modern Arabic Mansfield Park depends for its sustenance, according to Said, on
literature. the existence of the British Empire in general, and on slave labour
Later on, in his major book Culture and Imperialism, Said in Antigua in particular. Postcolonial critics also emphasize those
argued that Salih’s novel reverses the trajectory of Heart of literary texts from formerly colonized countries that portray the
Darkness and in effect rewrites it from an Arab African ravages of imperialism and directly challenge the authority and
perspective. If Conrad’s story of European colonialism in Africa the claims of colonial discourse. In some instances, postcolonial
describes the protagonist’s voyage south to the Congo, and along writers have done so by rewriting canonical texts of conquest. In A
the way projects Europeans’ fears, desires, and moral dilemmas Tempest, for example, Aimé Césaire rewrote Shakespeare’s The
upon what they called the “Dark Continent,” Salih’s novel depicts Tempest from the perspective of Caliban; J.M. Coetzee’s Foe is an
the journey north from Sudan, another place in Africa, to the alternative version to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; and several
ESSAY
writers, including Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa late nineteenth century, and especially after
Thiong’o, V.S. Naipaul, and Salih have World War I. Arabs had joined forces with the
responded in various ways to Conrad’s novels, Allies against the Ottomans in exchange for the
especially Heart of Darkness, which has promise of independence, a promise that was
emerged as the single most important, broken after the war. Moreover, the Balfour
controversial, and influential narrative of Declaration of 1917 promising the
empire, in addition to being a key text of British establishment of a Jewish national home on
modernist fiction. Of the novels that rewrite Arab land and European support for the State of
Heart of Darkness, Season of Migration to the Israel deepened Arab resentment. Thus, by the
North is the most structurally and thematically 1950s, the secular ideology of pan-Arab
complex, and the most haunting. nationalism became dominant, and the Nahda’s
If postcolonial criticism, a phenomenon that vision of cultural synthesis gave way to an
emerged in US and British universities in the OF THE NOVELS THAT REWRITE antagonistic stance toward the West. The
1980s, has enhanced the reputation of Salih’s HEART OF DARKNESS, SEASON collapse of that ideology in the 1967 war with
novel in its English translation, the Arabic OF MIGRATION TO THE NORTH Israel spelled a profound identity crisis that
original, Mawsim al-hijra ila al-shamal, resonated at all levels of Arab consciousness
IS THE MOST STRUCTURALLY AND and called for new ways of conceptualizing the
became an instant classic as soon as it was
published in Beirut in 1966. Although this was THEMATICALLY COMPLEX, AND past, present, and future, even while it further
not Salih’s first novel, he was still relatively THE MOST HAUNTING. solidified essentialized notions of Self and
unknown at the time. The impact of the novel on Other, East and West. Not surprisingly, it was
the Arab literary field was such that in 1976, a group of leading during the following decade that the militant ideology of Islamic
critics compiled a collection of essays in which they hailed Salih as fundamentalism emerged to fill the void.
“abqari al-riwayya al-‘arabiyya” (genius of the Arabic novel). The Begun in 1962 and published in 1966, the novel diagnosed the
novel appealed to its Arab readers, first of all, because of its Arab predicament during that turbulent decade by stressing the
aesthetic qualities—its complex structure, skilful narration, violence of the colonial past, of which Mustafa Sa’eed is a product;
unforgettable cast of characters, and its spellbinding style which announcing the demise of the liberal project of the Nahda,
evokes the wide range of intense emotions displayed by the championed by Western-educated intellectuals like the narrator
characters as it moves gracefully from lyricism to bawdy humour who failed to account for imperialism in their vision of cultural
to searing naturalism and the uncanny horror of nightmares, and synthesis; condemning the corruption of postcolonial
from the rhythms of everyday Sudanese speech (captured in governments; and declaring the bankruptcy of traditionalist
literary Arabic rather than in the Sudanese dialect as in some of conservatism hostile to reform, represented by the village elders.
Salih’s other works) to poetic condensation, and from popular The final scene of the novel, and especially its last words, forecasts
song to classical poetry and the lofty idiom of the Qur’an. Indeed, the state of existential loss and ideological confusion that many in
Salih remains one of the best Arabic stylists today, a quality the Arab world would feel in the wake of the 1967 war.
inevitably lost to non-Arabic speakers, although Denys Johnson-
Davies’s English translation is outstanding.
The second reason why the novel created such a stir on the
Arabic literary scene in the mid-sixties was the radical way in
M ost of Salih’s novels and short stories are set in the fictional
village of Wad Hamid in northern Sudan and form a
continuous narrative cycle—the Wad Hamid Cycle—which spans
which it responded to Arab liberal discourse on Europe. That the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1970s. The
discourse began with a movement called the “Nahda” (revival or main narrator of the Wad Hamid Cycle appears as a child in the
renaissance) that sought, from the mid-nineteenth century early short story “A Handful of Dates”, then again as the narrator
onwards, to rebuild Arab civilization after centuries of decay in Season of Migration to the North, as a young man who has just
under the Ottoman Empire and to confront the threat of returned from England with a Ph.D. in English literature shortly
European imperialism. The Nahda attempted to weld together after Sudanese Independence in 1956. He does not appear in The
two elements: Arab Islamic heritage on the one hand, and modern Wedding of Zein, which has a third-person omniscient narrator,
European civilization, especially its scientific and technological but returns as a middle-aged man in Salih’s 1976 short story, “The
achievements, on the other. Far from conceiving the two as Cypriot Man,” and as a disenchanted and nostalgic old man in
contradictory or incompatible, the second seemed to Nahda Bandarshah. He is identified as Meheimeed in that novel, but
intellectuals to be the natural extension of the first, in view of the remains unnamed in the other works.
great advances in scientific and humanistic knowledge that Like Season of Migration to the North, several of Salih’s
medieval Arab civilization had produced, and which contributed fictions deal with the impact of colonialism and modernity on
in no small measure to the European renaissance of the fifteenth rural Sudanese society in particular, and Arab culture in general.
and sixteenth centuries. Therefore, the project of the Nahda In his highly acclaimed short story, “The Doum Tree of Wad
consisted in selectively synthesizing the material advances of Hamid”, the attempts of both colonial and postcolonial
modern Europe and the spiritual and moral worldview of Islam. governments to impose modernization programs threaten to
However, this conciliatory vision became more difficult to sever the villagers’ ties to their spiritual world. Set a few years
sustain as Europe began to colonize parts of the Arab world in the after Sudanese independence and narrated by an elderly villager,
ESSAY
the story registers the bitterness and resignation novel’s central allegory is broken.
of the elders who find themselves unable to In the turbulent decades that give the Wad
preserve their way of life as their children, Hamid Cycle its temporal frame, the contours of
educated in modern schools, eagerly set the personal, cultural, and national identity shift,
village on an irreversible course of sometimes violently, within a complex matrix of
modernization. values, traditions, institutions, power relations,
Members of this younger generation become new ideas, and social and international
the village leaders in The Wedding of Zein. They pressures. Colonization and decolonization
oversee the introduction of modern schools, involve the redrawing of boundaries, within and
hospitals, and irrigation schemes into the village across which human beings suffer the traumas
SEVERAL OF SALIH’S
and manage most of its other affairs. They of continuity and discontinuity.
present themselves as benign, responsible, yet
FICTIONS DEAL WITH In tackling the questions of cultural memory
shrewd politicians who are capable of THE IMPACT OF and identity, the impact of colonialism on Arab
harmoniously integrating traditional culture COLONIALISM AND and African societies, the relationship between
with “progress,” as they conceive it. They MODERNITY ON RURAL modernization and traditional belief systems,
befriend and protect the protagonist, Zein, a SUDANESE SOCIETY IN social reform, political authority and the status
village idiot regarded as a saintly fool in the of women, Tayeb Salih’s fiction vividly portrays
PARTICULAR, AND ARAB
tradition of Sufi dervishes. Zein’s marriage to the those dislocations and enables a vision of
most desirable girl in the village represents the CULTURE IN GENERAL. human community based on greater justice,
spiritual unification of the community as well as peace, and understanding, rather than rigid
the leaders’ ability to bring together the sometimes contentious boundaries jealously guarded by antagonistic communities.
factions within the village. As such, the novella constructs a utopia
in which, despite the shortcomings of the central government, the
new nation succeeds at the local level in fulfilling its material and
spiritual potential. TAYEB SALIH was born in 1929 in the village of Debba in northern
Sudan. He attended schools in Debba, Port Sudan, and Umm
Such idealism is shattered in Salih’s next novel, Season of Durman, before going to Khartoum University to study biology.
Migration to the North, which depicts the violent history of He then taught at an intermediate school in Rafa’a and a teacher
colonialism as shaping the reality of contemporary Arab and training college in Bakht al-Rida. In 1953, he went to London to
work in the Arabic section of the BBC, and during the 1970s he
African societies. A naïvely optimistic, British-educated
worked in Qatar’s Ministry of Information, then at UNESCO in
Meheimeed confronts his double, Mustafa Sa‘eed, a Kurtz-like Paris. Since then, he has lived in London.
figure who uses the power of racist stereotypes of Africans as Salih’s enormous reputation rests on relatively few works of
hyper-sexual and of Arabia’s exotic appeal to Europeans to seduce fiction. In addition to Season of Migration to the North, he has
written a novella, Urs al-Zayn (1962, in English The Wedding of
and manipulate English women, who for him stand in metonymic Zein), another novel, Bandarshah (first published in Arabic in
relationship to the British Empire, ruled over as it was in its two parts, Dau al-Beit in 1971 and Meryoud in 1976), and nine
heyday by a mighty woman, Queen Victoria. One source of the short stories, two of which appear in the Heinemann edition of
The Wedding of Zein & Other Stories (1969). In 1988, he began
novel’s power is its dramatization of the ways in which colonial
writing a column in the London-based Arabic weekly magazine
hegemony is inextricably mixed with racial and gender Al-Majallah; those articles on literary, cultural, and political
hierarchies, an explosive mix—the destructiveness of which is topics were collected under the title of Mukhtarat (Selections) and
graphically illustrated in the novel. As the story continues in Wad published in nine volumes in Beirut in 2004–05.
As a Sudanese, Salih came from a liminal place where the
Hamid, an unprecedented murder-suicide shocks and enrages
Arab world merges with black Africa, and he wrote as an
the villagers and unveils the violence of traditional patriarchy, immigrant in London. His fictional village of Wad Hamid in
linking it in kind to sexualized colonial violence. In this way, the northern Sudan represents the complexities of that location:
situated between the fertile Nile valley and the desert, inhabited
novel shows that the synthesis of traditional culture and modern
by peasants but a frequent stop for nomadic tribes, it is a meeting
ideas envisioned in the liberal discourse of the Nahda and given place for several cultures. Its religion, “popular Islam,” is a
such poetic expression in The Wedding of Zein cannot succeed in mixture of orthodox Islamic, Sufi, and animist beliefs. The village
the shadow of colonial and patriarchal hegemony. is beset by tensions that have defined Arab modernity since the
nineteenth century: between old and new, science and faith,
The crisis of Arab consciousness, ideology and leadership in
tradition and innovation. Because he was an immigrant, Salih
the late 1960s and 1970s, which led to the rise of Islamic could write about the colonial metropolis from a vantage point
fundamentalism, is the subtext in Salih’s third novel, inaccessible to Levantine Arab intellectuals of his and earlier
Bandarshah, which centers on the relationship between past, generations, even those among them who had studied in Europe
for a while then returned home, often dazzled. He also felt the
present, and future; or, in the mythical-allegorical scheme of the predicament of the native more intensely than they did, both as
novel, grandfathers, fathers, and grandsons. This problematic an African and as an Arab. Such a unique perspective ensured
relationship is depicted as a vicious cycle in which the past repeats that his enormous talent would produce the most powerful
representation of colonial relations yet in Arabic literature.
itself: grandsons are ever in conspiracy with grandfathers (of
– By Waïl S. Hassan
whom they are the split image and whose first name they always
bear) against fathers. The novel suggests that the vicious cycle can
be broken only when the rigid patriarchal order reflected in the
By Fady Joudah
I
n March 2005, I went to Darfur as a member of Doctors share the red or green skin (and intermarriages are not
without Borders. The initial massacres and carnage had been uncommon). “Blue” generally indicates someone from the south
completed—what remained was a horrific juxtaposition of of Sudan and can often be derogatory.
presence and absence along the one dirt road that split the desert When I returned to the US to meet the media frenzy over the
in the Western province: few, but large, concentrations of white- Darfur situation, I was appalled by the extent to which the
tarp towns that had sprung up overnight, each located down or up suffering of others had been institutionalized (and
the road from charred villages. sensationalized) into a classification system that exploits racial
This classic representation of displaced peoples was visible politics more than actual concern for the victims per se. If Darfur
from the propeller plane that flew us from Khartoum to Genineh, is now the world’s “capital of suffering”, then what has the
the capital of the western province. From a low altitude, I could Democratic Republic of Congo been, and how does one codify the
easily see the black outline of vacated villages. On the ground a suffering of the Angolan people before their “civil war” ended in
truck tyre, with two acacia limbs sticking out of it, announced each 2003? I have also been mystified by how a large number of the
obliterated village on the road and served as the centerpiece of a American “audience” still do not know that Darfur is not in the
checkpoint. These checkpoints were manned by young men in south of Sudan, and its inhabitants are not Christian, but Muslim.
army fatigues who sought shelter from the sun under trees or This blurring, or confusion, of identities might be a good thing
collapsed walls by the side of the road. Their identity was if it were aimed away from the masses of displaced people
vague—whether militia or government fighters—but they were suffering under extreme conditions. It is indefensible that a
By Fady Joudah
stationed to either prevent repatriation or annex territory as human being’s despair over food, health, shelter and basic dignity
leverage for “peace” negotiations. and security are toyed with on the grand scale of international
In Darfur, a mother asked me to change the pills a “blue” man politics. Darfur, for me, has come to spell the end of genocide as an
had prescribed for her son two days prior. The “blue” man was “act of codification,” which Theodore Adorno foresaw in his
Paolo, a physician assistant who worked with us and who is from Minima Moralia more than sixty years ago. Perhaps, Darfur will
the south of Sudan—a Dinka. People, as it turned out, are become a whistleblower in the court of world consciousness, and
categorized as red, green, or blue in Darfur. Inhabitants expose the institutionalization of suffering as manipulated and
there—“African” or “Arab”—as in many other parts in Sudan, conducted by the nation-state.
EXHIBIT 15 Lalla Essaydi
CONVERGING TERRITORIES N0 1
By Ayoola Somolu
T
he name “Akin Beads” may not mean much to you yet, but boy). However, using paper as a base material for bead creation
by the power of God almighty, whom Akin Sobola, creator has been around for centuries—likely as far back as there has been
of this fledgling accessories line, mentions every other paper. But perhaps that is beside the point. As far as Akin is
sentence, it should soon—once Akin can figure out how to concerned, from his ten years of experience as the only paper-
properly incite the buying impulses of the public with better bead maker in these parts and hearing sufficient numbers of
packaging and branding for his paper jewellery. people go “Wow!”—apparently his favourite word—when he
Yes, he makes jewellery from paper, but it’s not quite what you reveals that his beads are made from paper, it might just as well be
might be thinking. Akin uses an interesting technique that a novel idea.
involves transforming strips of cut-up paper into a variety of “Normally, right from primary school, I’ve been restless,” he
curiously shaped, heavily lacquered beads of different sizes, traces air quotes over “restless”, “I can’t just sit down without
which he strings together to make an assortment of necklaces, doing anything. I’d cut sticks, drill holes into it and create a pencil.
earrings and cuff links. The beads certainly don’t look like they By the time I got to secondary school, I think SS 1, I was making
have been made from paper, thanks to the waterproof glossy sirens, different things in electronics. Anytime we came back from
finish that causes them to resemble beads made from more [the holidays], the first thing people would ask me is, ‘So Akin,
popular materials like glass, plastics or ceramics. what’s the next thing?’ People were always expecting. They knew
Akin made his first paper-bead necklace for a lady friend a that I would have designed something.”
little over ten years ago as an SS 2 student at Moremi High School On the day we meet at his workshop-cum-living quarters, that
in Ile-Ife, Osun State where he grew up, when he didn’t have any restless energy shows up, not so much as restlessness, more as an
money to buy her a “proper” necklace. Since then, the craft has unbridled eagerness to show me his work that sends him darting
stuck, growing by experimentation and finessed techniques into all over the room offering up trays of beads for my viewing
the business that it is today. He makes about a hundred beads a pleasure before I am fully in the door.
day and works 6 days a week for 6 hours on average, which would He shows me some beads that he has just made, in different
be more if he didn’t have his day job working with the live sound colours, molded round a broomstick. “They are still slightly wet,”
and multimedia arm at the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed he warns as he hands them over to me. “All these multi-coloured
Christian Church of God, along the Lagos–Ibadan expressway. He ones are made from materials like
now compulsorily takes Sundays off so he doesn’t burn himself this.” He shows me strips of a cut-
out. He works in a makeshift studio, a mostly vacant dorm room up Celtel poster then points to
within the Electronics Department at the camp, which only gets another cluster of beads that are
slept in when there are events at the campground and tech hands made from plain white sheets but
need to spend the night. He lives two rooms down from his painted over in a variety of bright
workshop with his roommate “M.O.G.”, an old school friend from hues. I make a comment about the
his hometown of Ife (which he left last December to make an lacquer I smell on them, calling it by
attempt at his own Nigerian dream in Lagos). name, but Akin quickly shushes me
Akin is very excited to talk about his jewellery; specifically, the with a finger to his lips. “I don’t
part about their being made from paper. Just by listening to him want you to mention that,” he says.
wax on about his work, how he stumbled upon it and his current “It’s supposed to be a trade secret.”
reluctance to teach others the technique (lest they consider I point out that I can clearly smell
“hijacking it”), it is evident he sees it as his own ingenious idea the substance the beads are painted
(though he does admit to being introduced to the concept of with and that it’s a commonly
producing other decorative objects from paper as a young school recognizable scent but no matter, Akin Sobola
FASHION
it’s to be kept under wraps. up,” and “Maybe we should do something together” throw-away
Akin looks the way I imagined he would, judging by the sound comments from one or two fashion stars for his business to grow.
of his voice over the phone—a little high, like a teenager’s, belying “What is most important to me is seeing my work on people,”
his 29 years. He stands at about 5 feet, 7 inches tall with a cheerful Akin says. “Even though I have business books I am not too good
face and an easy smile, and he talks simply and trustingly. at the business. I behave like an artist. I prefer to see my work on
Generally, he looks like an you, so even if I see someone that loves my work and the person
innocent schoolboy, and sort can afford it, I won’t mind giving it to the person.”
of comes across like one too. “For free?” I ask incredulously.
The broad, well-cut chest and “For free,” he confirms. A sentiment begins to form in my
muscular arms, likely built- mind about how naïve that seems but before it can fully crystallize,
up in part by the daily runs he Akin says, “Because, don’t forget, the business started from
does around the camp, were a giving…. I love giving a lot.”
surprise though. My By his own admission, he has a phlegmatic personality: “I am
presumptuous imaginations the kind of person that needs someone to really push me.” He
of a short and cheerful discovered this from one of the many motivational books he loves
t e e nag e r h ad s o me h o w to read, which evidently inform his opinions on many issues
including his potential to do well in
Akin uses an interesting technique life and business despite not going to
that involves transforming strips of university. The fact that he didn’t
equated to him having a soft,
cut-up paper into a variety of curiously pursue a higher education is
skinny body.
shaped, heavily lacquered beads of surprising considering his father was
different sizes, which he strings together the deputy registrar at the University
to make an assortment of necklaces,
A fter making that first
necklace for his lady earrings and cuff links.
friend back at Moremi High, he made another one and gave it to a secondary school graduate,
of Ile-Ife, where he and his family
lived. Like almost every other
Akin tried to get into university but
neighbour who was into fashion. “She saw them and she was like after five failed attempts at the national matriculation exams, he
‘Wow! Do you know you can sell this?” I was like ‘Sell this?’ I didn’t decided to just focus his energies on what he enjoyed and was
say it out loud but I myself, I [couldn’t] buy it let alone sell it.” good at—his budding business.
But sell them he did—or at least tried to—amid the suspicions “What I don’t like about school is that, one, you have to learn a
of schoolmates, many of whom at the time regarded beads in lot of things that you don’t really need. And when you get out of
general as fetish objects. There was also the case of a particularly school again, they have to retrain you because—most [university
disparaging comment from a female classmate who bluntly graduates], they are good people but a lot of them, if they don’t
declared that she could “never wear paper in the new year.” “That cheat, they would have crammed to pass exams. In fact, they
really discouraged me,” Akin said. encourage cramming in school and I find that cramming kills the
What kept him going, however, was the regular stream of talent in you. So I found that a lot of things were dying in me and
foreign visitors to the university campus, who from their then I was like ‘I’m not going to bother myself about going to
purchases of his jewellery and sometimes complete buy-outs of school.’ The best thing would have been if you had the university
his stock (and on one occasion, a monetary donation from one offering the degree in fashion designing, in craft. I would have
especially enthused gentleman after purchasing all of Akin’s tried my best to make sure I got into such a school but since we
stock) showed a higher appreciation for his work. “That’s how God don’t have that in Nigeria, I was like ‘Let me learn what I can on my
encouraged me because initially, if left for our people…” he shakes own.’”
his head despondently as his voice trails off. Aside from creating and selling his jewellery, which earned
At this point in his career, Akin seems to have achieved an him a decent enough living in Ife after he left school and on which
encouraging level of recognition and support from his he sustained himself without needing his parents’ financial
compatriots as loyal customers from Ife, Lagos and other parts of support, he spent his years after secondary school apprenticing
Nigeria continue to spread the word about his jewellery, and even with different masters and taking a couple of computer and
model his jewellery for free for his promotional photographs. He multimedia technology courses, which are what he intends to use
even counts among his fans such notables in the Nigerian fashion to build upon another dream of his. That dream is to create an
world as Data Okorodudu of the couture line JD–7; Mrs. online platform through which university course notes can be
Folorunsho Alakija, owner of the house Rose of Sharon and made available as a sort of distance-learning program. Now that
former president of the Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria, he is in Lagos, he’s begun doing the rounds of trendy Africana
and Remi Lagos, who he says expressed interest in using his beads boutiques around the metropolis and has caught the interest of
on some of her clothing designs. quite a few prospective buyers. “I’ve been to some shops at
But let’s face it; to succeed in the ultra-competitive Lagos Silverbird Galleria and some of them are so proud that the things
scene it’s going to take a whole lot more than free modeling they have on display are imported. It’s sad. So that’s another
services from customers or some “Wow! Interesting work. Keep it challenge I have.”
I ask him where he sees himself in another 5 years.
FASHION
not simply to do with the

presentation of his work but more likely with
what appears to be his limited understanding of what it will really
require for Akin Beads, or any start-up for that matter, to “become
like Gucci.”
But in the end, after one considers his lack of professional
training, his admitted to need for better business insight and his
arguable over-reliance on the fact of his jewellery being made
from paper as his key selling point (beyond the actual beauty of the
pieces themselves), an encouraging philosophy behind what he
does is the knowledge that he’s making fine use of perfectly good
resources that others might consider useless, and recycling them
“My dream is to make it, to become the way Gucci is a into something worthwhile. Most of his materials are improvised
household name. I met an Italian [lady] and one thing she told me and in a society where many feel that they need a whole lot of
that really touched me—it was as if she knew what was going on in expensive capital to get started, Akin is proud of the fact that he
my mind—she was like, Gucci started the way I started; that she just got started with what he had—old calendars and posters, glue,
didn’t see this as a small work.” a cardboard cutter, two sets of pliers, wire, some broomsticks and
A comparison to Gucci, even if in a very small and indirect relatively cheap metal bits and bobs (professionally known as
way, certainly can’t hurt one’s ego at all, but Akin still has other findings) to finish off his jewellery.
issues on his mind to figure out. “I need someone to get me a better “People throw calendars away. I will never buy calendars.
packaging concept… at some of the seminars I’ve gone to, they tell People are happy to give me calendars,” he states firmly, adding
you that 90 percent of your business is your packaging. When my that God promised him so.
jewellery was in Quintessence (probably the most well-known of “Making beautiful things from something people see as a
the Africana boutiques), before they could sell ten, it took almost a waste… has a message for Nigeria; it has a message for people that
year and I know it was because it wasn’t well packaged. It was just even the mad man you see on the way—it’s just unfortunate—but
in this ‘nylon’.” He points at one of his finished pieces lying on the he still has potential, he’s still worth as much as God sees him.”
table sealed in a clear plastic bag. “It didn’t even have a label…. So all things considered, perhaps what Akin Sobola really
Presentation is important and that’s where I’ve been having needs to make that leap from being a relatively ordinary arts and
challenges—in packaging, branding, marketing. I can’t brand it crafts man to becoming a business mogul extraordinaire is a savvy
myself because I’m not into branding.” business partner to show him how to do all those things that he
When Akin says this, I can’t help thinking that his words are cannot yet do, and perhaps loads of calendars with which to
very telling of what his real challenge is, which is that his issue is perfect those skills. I think he can do it, with God on his side.
AN UNCOMMISSIONED SPEECH WRITTEN
FOR MR. BARACK OBAMA
By Chris Ogunlowo
O
nce again I’d like to show my appreciation for everyone president, if I’d been a citizen of the world’s most populous black
who stood by us over the course of our campaign. Indeed nation. For obvious reasons, I’ve not been able to curtail my
it’s been a defining moment, not just for our party but for amusement at such misguided reflection, knowing well the odds
our country. stacked against such ambition.
I want to specially thank the men and women who have been I will be 47 this August. And this November, I will be marching
walking with me in my journey to become the 44th president of up to become the next Commander-in-Chief of the United States.
the United States. If this were Nigeria, I would have been told to wait and allow
I understand the importance of America’s democracy to the older people to run, as though the amount of grey hair on one’s
welfare of our planet. But I haven’t known until lately the extent to head translates to the person’s level of political or moral maturity.
which the world has shown great interest in our affairs. Moreover, the country’s president is, to the best of my knowledge,
Just yesterday, I watched on television the rousing ovation its first president to graduate from university since independence.
that accompanied the announcement of my nomination, not only More surprising is that his victory during the elections has
in the United States but especially in the farthest regions of the become a classic illustration of fraudulent electioneering. It would
world. What that tells me is that our neighbours, far and near, are be unfair to bother you with the fact that many Nigerians never
interested in the kind of change sweeping across the American know what their president looks like until the morning of
nation. What that means is that our message of hope resonates
beyond the geographical boundaries of this country. And that is Will the Nigerian people ever speak of
significant—because it also means the rest of the world endorses
my candidacy. I’m humbled.
their country as that place where leaders
But I must not pretend that I accept all the congratulatory make unselfish calculations that prepare
messages without some misgivings. Pardon my impoliteness, but them for the challenges of the global
I wish I’d not received some messages from certain parts of the
world. economy? Will they ever speak of a nation
I love Africa. I love the Nigerian people. But certain where every child, male and female, has a
observations call for serious concern.
I’ve been reflecting over the probability of my emergence as
right to achieve his or her dream?
SATIRE
monster of a culture that says women are to be

seen, not heard. She would have been
reminded that women are to remain in the
background because men, only men, have
been destined to occupy the open space.
Certain societies are averse to female
dreamers.
Mrs. Clinton proved to the world what it
means to lose politically. She didn’t talk about
joining another party or even registering one
of her own. She is in possession of strong
guiding principles and her declaration of
support for my campaign is a demonstration
of her bravery even in the face of defeat.
I hear Nigeria makes a metaphorical claim
to be the giant of Africa. That claim, I may
boldly say, is not only unfounded but absurd.
Forgive my observation, but that country’s
claim of “gianthood” is only supported by the
size of its population. Forty-eight years after
bidding farewell to colonial rule, that nation is
still struggling to get on its feet, like a toddler.
Nigeria has clearly failed to become a beacon
inauguration day. of hope for other African nations.
American politics is not perfect. But the American people sure Will the Nigerian people ever speak of their country as that
have a lot to teach the world in matters of politics. And the place where leaders make unselfish calculations that prepare
Nigerian nation has even more to learn. Our candidates here in them for the challenges of the global economy? Will they ever
America move from one constituency to another to woo voters, to speak of a nation where every child, male and female, has a right to
sell a vision of leadership. But in that West African state, it is the achieve his or her dream? So long as people are trapped in
responsibility of a powerful oligarchy, party chieftains, self- poverty, so long as there is evidence of gross marginalization of
appointed godfathers and their band of thugs to impose certain regions, so long as opportunities are opened, but not for
candidates on the party and the people. The American people all—the dream of a true nation will remain out of reach.
definitely understand that a nation is best governed by laws, not Not many nations are as religion-loving as Nigerians. But
men; that we are all equal in the eyes of the law; that we can be free Nigeria also ranks high on the list of corrupt countries. I
to say what we want, write what we want—after all, the law is there dissociated myself from my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah
to defend our freedom of expression under reasonable conditions. Wright. I condemned the statements of Reverend Wright that
Nigeria is a republic—at least that’s what the books say. Sadly, have caused controversy; statements that have the potential not
that’s where it ends too. One’s political success is directly related only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate the
to one’s affiliation to established dynasties: tribal dynasty, family greatness and the goodness of our nation. But I still respect him.
dynasty, business or religious affiliations. How many Nigerian clergymen, considering the size of the
The significance of my candidacy has been highly trumpeted, followership they command, can bluntly condemn the unpleasant
and hasn’t been made any less phenomenal by the media: the son activities of their government?
of a Kenyan father married to a white woman, a black man who is Let’s leave Nigerian problems for the Nigerian people.
now riding on the back of the American Dream. Now, my dad has The American people deserve change. They are tired of
become a source of inspiration to all would-be immigrants to the politics and policies that do not address their immediate
United States. I guess the chase for the elusive US immigrant visa challenges. They now have a choice to determine if they will
has just been heightened. However, let it be known now that a recycle the same old faces or will bestow the leadership of this
green card will not be any less easy to acquire when I become nation on a man who will give them a future—a man who
president. embodies hope and change.
Mrs. Clinton has fought a good fight. Among other aspirants I’m grateful for your attention. I’m also grateful to the writer
for the Democratic ticket, she has travelled the farthest. She has of my speech. He sure deserves to be a part of my administration.
made history as the woman who almost did what no woman has Thank you. God bless you. God bless America.
done before. What would be her chances of coming this close to
the presidency in her country if she had been a Nigerian? If she Chris Ogunlowo is a Lagos-based poet and writer
ever dared to announce such an aspiration she would have only
succeeded in waking up the demons of sexism, and waking up the
A WELL-REHEARSED
Photography by Toye Gbade
DISASTER By Bada Akintunde-Johnson

SPORTS
and other sport stars who brought laurels leap at the same event, virtually all other
and acclaim to Nigeria, will ever be medals which Nigeria has won at the
produced again by the comatose sports games since her first participation in
sector; an industry so sick it has gotten Helsinki 1952, have come from the
used to being sick. squared ropes or the lined tracks.
Black nations at the Olympic Games Then along came Beijing 2008, and
with far less human resources and talent all our failures of the past disguised as
BEIJING’S OLYMPIC STADIUM reservoirs than Nigeria—like Jamaica, successes (because of our occasional
Trinidad and Tobago, and the wins), came back to haunt us with
B eijing 2008 has come and gone.

Even as the dust settles on the
track where athletes competed
for honours, the pain of another
Bahamas—are fast becoming sports
superpowers, while our country is
retrogressing at top speed. The various
sports in which we used to put up decent
unparalleled vengeance. A Nigerian
boxer was beaten black and blue by a
Ghanaian opponent—in fact, he was so
thoroughly battered that we feared he
disgraceful outing is yet to leave the performances against the best of the best was going to lose not just his teeth, but
mind of the average sports fan on the at the biggest stages, are now our his life. It got so bad, one could almost
streets of Lagos. While the 29th hear him screaming for help before the
Olympiad will be remembered for the
THE SPORTS bout was abruptly ended. As evidence of
unprecedented number of world records EXCEPT FOR
FICIALS AND how outmatched the Nigerian boxer was,
broken in various events by athletes, MINISTRY OF the score stood at 12–0 on the cards of
DELUDING
Nigerians will predictably fast and pray THEIR SELF- the judges by the time the referee put a
to God or the devil (whichever of them ANNOUNCED A
COHORTS WHO stop to the bout. Unbeknownst to many
answers such prayers), asking that they
IGHT MEDALS of his bewildered compatriots watching
be struck with selective amnesia. As one TARGET OF E
ERIA AHEAD this debacle on television, the poor
angry viewer remarked after watching yet FOR TEAM NIG Nigerian boxer had been pummelled so
ING 2008
another Nigerian athlete crash out of her OF THE BEIJ much that his ribcage got broken. Our
event disgracefully, it seemed that, ERY OTHER
during these games, while other sprinters
OLYMPICS, EV athletes didn’t fare any better than the
CLUDING THE boxers. Our medal hopeful, Olusoji
were running forward, our dear Nigerian NIGERIAN—IN Fasuba, crashed out of both the 100 and
CURABLE
athletes were locked in reverse mode; SO-CALLED IN the 200 metre races as early as the heats,
such was the abysmal level of
NEW WE HAD while Gloria Kemasoude, Damola
performance that characterized Nigeria’s OPTIMISTS—K Osayomi, Saul Weipogwa and Folashade
HOPES
Beijing 2008 Olympic participation. NO REALISTIC Abugan ran their races in times only fit
While athletes like Hussein Bolt of
FOR MEDALS. for local inter-house sports competitions
Jamaica and Michael Phelps of the USA in villages.
weakest areas. Athletics and boxing,
held the world spellbound with On the African continent, our
which were our brightest medal hopes,
electrifying performances in their various
are now the ones we perform most poorly
events, Nigerian sportsmen and women
at. COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE
continued to exit the Olympics one after
Nojeem Maiyegun produced
the other. Kenya 5 5 4
Nigeria’s first medal in boxing. Peter
Except for the sports ministry
Konyegwachie, Duncan Dokiwari, Albert Ethiopia 4 1 2
officials and their self-deluding cohorts
Eromosele, David Nzorieti, David
who announced a target of eight medals Zimbabwe 1 3 –
Dafiagbon and the current world
for Team Nigeria ahead of the Beijing
heavyweight champion, Samuel Peters, Cameroon 1 – –
2008 Olympics, every other Nigerian—
were also figures who did the nation
including the so-called incurable Tunisia 1 – –
proud as pugilists in past Olympics.
optimists—knew we had no realistic –
Nigerian athletics produced medallists Nigeria 1 2
hopes for medals. Not with the shambolic
such as Falilat Ogunkoya and Mary –
preparations of the various sports Algeria 1 1
Onyali, and also the male and female
federations, coupled with the –
relay quartets in the 4 x 100 meters and 4 Morocco 1 1
disappointing performances of our track
x 400 metres at Barcelona ’92, Atlanta S. Africa – 1 –
athletes in various meets over the past
’96 and Sydney 2000. Boxing and the
three years. Sudan – 1 –
sprint races have together accounted for
One can only wonder if great
more than ninety-five percent of Egypt – – 1
Olympians like Nojeem Maiyegun,
Nigeria’s all-time medal haul at the
Chioma Ajunwa, Peter “The Puncher” Mauritius – – 1
Olympics. Excluding the Atlanta ’96
Konyegwachie, Sunday Bada, Mary
soccer gold and Chioma Ajunwa’s golden Togo – – 1
Onyali, Falilat Ogunkoya, Chidi Imoh,
SPORTS
the naira and kobo spent on the Beijing Christine Ohuruogu won the 400-metre
misadventure, one would be tempted to gold in Beijing while representing Great
speculate that nothing less than 1.5 Britain. Philips Idowu also won a silver
billion naira was spent. This is money medal in the jumps for Great Britain,
that could have been better invested in while at the previous games in Athens,
sports infrastructure, funds that if put to Francis Obikwelu (who had previously
MICHAEL PHELPS
wiser use, could have ensured that the represented Nigeria in Sydney) clinched
dominance in the sprint events seems to country produces young talents who silver in the 100 metres for Portugal.
be coming to an end, especially with the would be nurtured, over time, into world Gloria Alozie, another high profile
sort of results recorded in recent events champions. Money that should have been athlete, turned her back on her fatherland
like the immediate past All-Africa Games. invested in sports development projects after incessant frustrations at the hands
Our misadventure at that event should right from the time the curtain was of inept sports administrators. More
have served as notice of a greater drawn on the previous summer games defections seem inevitable in the future,
catastrophe lying in wait for us at the held in Athens, Greece. given the level of neglect and ridicule the
Olympics. Ghana, Zambia and South Nations like the US, Canada, administrators subject our athletes to.
Africa gave us a run for our money in the China—and also some African Olusoji Fasuba, for one, must be cursing
short distance races, while Kenya and neighbours like Egypt, South Africa and himself for choosing to represent his
Ethiopia further strengthened their even inflation-struck Zimbabwe—started fatherland over his country of birth,
stranglehold on the long distance races. planning for the Beijing games four years Jamaica. The young man was well known
ago, some longer still. Nigerian sports for his outspokenness about the misery of
T he US swimmer Michael Phelps won

six individual gold medals and eight
overall in a single Olympic Games.
administrators, on the other hand, did
not begin to prepare their sportsmen
until the event was weeks away—a
athletes in this country.
These days, there seem to be lessons
Nigeria, with over 100 sportsmen and characteristic Nigerian approach to

women carrying her hopes and preparing for competitions.
aspirations at the games, struggled to win
even one medal. Mongolia, Panama,
Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Vietnam, M aladministration, it is claimed, has
always been the bane of Nigerian
sports. Simply put, we do not take
Bahrain and Togo were all listed on the
Beijing 2008 medals table in the final sporting activities seriously enough in
days of the Olympics. The name “Nigeria” this country to warrant exceptional USAIN BOLT WINNING THE 100 METRE FINAL
was conspicuously missing from this list. performances at international

competitions. It is a verifiable fact that to learn from Jamaica other than reggae
The most populous black nation in the
appointments into the top levels of the music. The success of the Jamaicans in
world pinned its hopes for a single gold
various sporting associations are based Beijing is worth taking a closer look at.
medal on a soccer team that didn’t
largely on political affiliations. In other The country swept almost all of the major
prepare for the games, and whose saving
words, there are no positions open for medals at stake in the sprint events at the
grace was the doggedness and expertise
seasoned technocrats and young, 29th Olympiad. This tiny Caribbean
of Coach Samson Siasia, coupled with the
exposed professionals who know how island is similar to Nigeria in terms of
team spirit and cohesion the players had
these sports should be run. These greedy, level of development, but is nothing close
formed from last playing together in the
self-serving politicians-posing-as-sports- to Nigeria in terms of human resources.
African Youth Championships in January
administrators corner monies released Jamaica has a population comparable to
2005.
by the government to the various sports that of Ibadan—about three million
It is important that we review the
federations. They embark on personal people. But the Jamaicans have put
resources committed to Nigeria’s failed
spending sprees, leaving the sportsmen structures in place aimed at discovering
campaign for “eight Olympic medals”.
for whom the funds are meant to waste young sporting talent and exposing them
Nigeria sent a contingent of over 200
away. It is thus not surprising that our to the best training obtainable anywhere
representatives to the games, comprising
best athletes would rather compete in the world. These young athletes
officials and the sportsmen who
wearing the colours of other countries. constantly attend international meets and
participated in about ten different sports.
gradually inculcate the salient lessons of
The country underwrote the cost of
competing against the best at the biggest
airfare to the Far East for this large group
sports stages. Little wonder the system
and the cost of hotel accommodation for
has produced so many world-class
officials who didn’t stay in the games
athletes in recent times. Merlene Ottey,
village, amongst other expenses
Asafa Powell and Shelly-Ann Fraser are
associated with preparations for the
some of the fine athletes who have done
games. Putting a conservative figure to
NIGERIAN SPECTATORS Jamaica proud at the Olympic Games in
SPORTS
If sports like archery, canoeing, the international community laughs at

fencing, rowing, curling, gymnastics and us. Who cares? After all, the IOC charter
other “obscure” Olympic sports are taken states that the spirit of the Olympic
off the lists at the games, one will Games celebrates “participation” over
discover that the games are dominated winning. On that count, Nigeria should
by black people representing nations who top the tables. I guess that’s in keeping
have planning cultures rooted in their with the Olympic spirit.
psyche. That culture is simply alien to
CHRISTINE OHURUOGU
Nigeria. And that is the simple reason we
recent years. Most notable of them will keep making up the numbers at the
however has to be twenty-two year-old games, at least, until there are some
Usain Bolt, who effortlessly won both the drastic changes in the way we manage
100 and 200 metre events at Beijing sports in our country. We have to adopt
2008—setting new world records of 9.69 the proactive approach of the Europeans,
seconds and 19.30 seconds, respectively. the Americans and now, the Caribbeans.
He is the first man to win both the 100 We must place a premium on
and 200 metres events at the same developmental projects and programmes.
Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984. As if We have to appoint, or better still, elect
Bolt’s achievements weren’t enough, the technocrats and ex-internationals into
Jamaican trio of Shelly-Ann Fraser, key positions in our sports federations.
Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart Till we do this however, let us keep
did a clean sweep of all the medals at celebrating our two gold medals won
stake in the women’s 100 metres final—a over fifty-six years of Olympic
great sporting achievement by all participation. Let our incompetent
MARY ONYALI
standards for any nation. officials keep smiling to the banks while
I want to show you the way to… plagiarize
This article was submitted to Farafina as an original piece. Our editors discovered that the submission was
original only in the extent and scope of the butchery that went into creating this textual Frankenstein.
I want to show you the way to Sao Tome.... So goes the old Cape Verdian song and it is still very true. It is not the Plagiarized from
easiest thing in the world to get to Sao Tome but then again, who wants to go to Tenerife? Not many do. Good thing Navetur
Travel Advice
too. www.navetur-equatour.st
Scenically, Sao Tome suggests something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel: before your eyes, you'll see
spooky yet magical sprawling Portuguese plantation houses. Derelict and desolate, after years of neglect they are
wrapped in the rampant vegetation that covers Sao Tomé Island, in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of West of Africa.
A flight from Lagos takes you to the drowsy capital, Sao Tomé, where life unravels along pot-holed avenues lined
with lofty palms and flaming red Erythrina trees. There’s a photogenic yellow cathedral, a garish pink presidential Plagiarized from
palace, a harbour-front of crumbling quays and cargo ships, and town houses with facades tiled in azulejos, the blue- Times Online
and-white Portuguese tiles. www.timesonline.co.uk
Time and again, you will be taken aback by echoes of the old country: the diminutive squares paved with black
and white wavy shapes that would be perfectly at home in Oporto or the Algarve; the milky galao coffee served in long
glasses, and the sticky pasteis de nata cakes at waterfront Passante café, part of Hotel Miramar, one of the largest
hotels that serve the business travellers to the archipelago. Tranquility is a king on the island as it reigns throughout
the environment.
If the stresses of 21st century life are getting you down, then consider getting away—to a place where the most
imminent threat, one poolside hotel sign warns, comes from falling coconuts. The tranquil scene is one of many to be
had in the palm-fringed archipelago, a remote pair of volcanic islands smack dab on the equator whose attraction lies
in what this undeveloped corner of the world lacks: No mass tourism. No traffic. No terrorism, at least not yet! Plagiarized from
USAtoday
With few flight connections and just a handful of embassies abroad, Sao Tome isn’t easy to get to. But for those www.usatoday.com
who set foot here, that’s exactly the point. It’s a country without tourists. With billions of barrels of oil believed off its
shores, Sao Tome may be on the verge of massive change. For now, though, its name prompts puzzled looks and blank
stares, even among globe-trotting adventurers and travel agents. It’s a place that rarely makes the news, much less
travel brochures.
The first question people usually ask is, ‘Where is Sao Tome?’ The second question is, ‘What are you going to do
there?’
For tourists intent on fishing, game-fishing for blue marlin and sailfish can be booked at most large hotels, as can
whale-and dolphin-spotting tours from July to October.
Snorkellers can head to the Lagoa Azul (Blue Lagoon), a turquoise bay at the foot of a small, savannah-grass
swept hill, topped off with baobab trees and a lighthouse. In season, turtles lay their eggs on the stony shore.
For trekkers, a two-day climb to the island's highest peak, 2,024-metre Pico de Sao Tome, beckons. At the top is
the rim of an inactive volcano.
Tours around the island by boat or car pass the Boca de Inferno or “Mouth of Hell”, a coastal blowhole where
powerful waves spray skyward through a natural gap in the twisted black rock.
Roads along the coast are magnificent, winding past spindly palm trees that hang over black-white sand Plagiarized from
Cyber Diver News
beaches. In the interior, leafy banana, coffee and cocoa fields rise into lush hills that hide misty waterfalls. Network (CDNN)
What is remarkable about Sao Tome is how overwhelmingly laid back the island is. You will see a minister www.cdnn.info
cruising on a beachfront road on a motorcycle alone, without bodyguards. Across the street from the airport, another
minister and a parliamentarian dines under the nose of a rusting plane that was converted into a makeshift
restaurant after being grounded decades ago.
In many parts of Africa, taking pictures isn’t easy. Authorities are uptight, concerned about security. Not so in
Sao Tome. An Associated Press photographer who snapped pictures of a guard at the presidential palace was quickly
set upon by an official inside. Bracing for a lecture on state security, the photographer was told the camouflage-
uniformed guard was, well, not dressed well enough. So he has to take another picture!
Serious crime is rare. Police and guns, even rarer. The islands’ armed forces total only about 600 men. Pigs,
chickens and dogs meander through the streets of tiny villages where the young and old sit out on front-porch stoops
at sundown, playing checkers. Local houses are mostly simple, wooden structures, built from thin, painted planks
elevated on stilts.
For now, Sao Tome’s pristine beaches have been spared the stale high-rise hotels and tacky beach resorts that
litter the mass-tourism age. Over the last decade, the number of visitors to the island—including tourists and
businessmen—has hovered around 6,000 per year, mostly Portuguese but the government expects that number to
rise to 25,000 visitors annually in 2010, boosted by a planned ad campaign and the construction of more hotels.
That's a lot of tourists for a country with a population of just 150,000. Plagiarized from
The Globe and Mail
Most Sao Tomeans, living on just over a dollar a day, are hoping a much-hoped-for oil boom will pull them out of
www.theglobeandmail.com
poverty. The rights to a first field in the Gulf of Guinea were sold to Chevron Texaco and Exxon Mobil Corp earlier
this year.
Getting there!
Getting there: From Europe, Air Portugal flies once per week from Lisbon. Within Africa, Air Sao Tome and Air
Service Gabon run flights from Libreville, Gabon, several times a week. Aero Contractors runs a Flight every
Saturday from Lagos, Nigeria while TAAG, Angolan Airline runs flights twice a week from Luanda, Angola. Elysian Plagiarized from
Airlines also runs twice a week schedule from Douala, Cameroun. Inside Bay Area
Entry: Visas are required for most visitors, but can be had fairly easily (within 24 hours) at Sao Tome www.insidebayarea.com
missions in Lisbon, Libreville and New York. [Company name deleted] can arrange for intending visitors from
Lagos and Cameroun.
For tour packages, ground handling, Business Trips, Meetings, Incentive packages, Team Building sessions
and corporate retreats, [company name deleted] is the best company to talk to. They are the first choice for all
you Sao Tome and the Gulf of Guinea travel needs.
This, evidently,
is all theirs!
H
armattan poured from the sky as if
hurled by a giant hand. It gathered in the
By Iheoma Nwachukwu grooves of the rooftops and dribbled
onto the dry earth. Dawn came hesitantly, limning
the edges of the fog.
Nwankwo turned from the window, hugging
himself. The room was dark. His eyes, tired from
lack of sleep, found the clock above the crucifix on
the opposite wall. Quick steps brought his big toe
against the side of his sister Adaku, who was
sleeping on a thin mattress spread on the floor.
“Wake up!” he said testily. “Wake up! Are you a
corpse?”
Adaku hung in that languorous swell between
sleep and wakefulness, until the pain in her side
forced her awake. She rose grudgingly and
immediately began to fill a bucket for her bath.
We must hurry, thought Nwankwo nervously,
as he watched her get ready. If we catch an early
bus we can finish our purchases before the area
boys rise.
Nwankwo was a licensed seller of medicine.
But everyone called him a chemist. He liked that.
The room he lived in was one-half of a medicine
shop: two high shelves demarcated the cramped
quarters, with a gap between them where a mottled
curtain hung limply.
The lights came on, and so did Nwankwo’s rage
when his gaze took in the inert figure in the corner,
huddled in sleep.
Ararume was his apprentice. He had been for
the past five years, after which time he still couldn’t
tell a needle from a syringe. He should be the one
going to the market with me, Nwankwo thought,
struggling to control his fury. Since Nwankwo had
found out that his apprentice had a “blunt” head he
had begun to teach his sister about the
pharmaceutical business. If Ararume noticed, it
was not an occasion for sadness on his part.
When Adaku was dressed and they were ready
to leave, Nwankwo walked up to the sleeping figure
and pulled off the wrapper which covered him.
Ararume clutched at it in his sleep. Nwankwo let go
and made a grating sound with the bucket in the
corner. His apprentice sprang awake.
“We are going to Idumota,” Nwankwo said
with a harsh tone. “Open the shop on time, dust the
shelves and tidy the place. We’ll be back soon.”
“I’ll start now,” Ararume said obediently.
Gerrout, he mumbled in his throat as he bolted the
FICTION
door behind them, then crept back into his He reached down furtively and thrust his trait in others, they began to pummel him
wrapper and curled up in sleep. wad of cash into his boxers. in anger.
They stepped off the bus at Idumota “Senior brother,” grunted the thinner “Thief!”
and began to wind their way through the of the two men to his companion, “I see “Hawker of curses!”
bedlam to the pharmaceutical products rich soup.” The other man, who was no “It’s your mother you’re lying to!”
section of the market. It was like being relation, smiled quietly. A scar ran under “Merchant of lies!”
squeezed through a sieve. People were his nose where a moustache should have Adaku was also attacked—her purse
moving in all directions, shoving and been. Both men were shirtless: they did was snatched from her and rude fingers
pushing. Screaming hawkers crowded the not care about the cold, they were warmed grabbed at the bag of garri in her hand and
road on both sides, interfering with by greed. the band of her panties. Then one of the
traffic. Curses hovered. The smell of Other miscreants had spotted hooligans turned and tore away. It was the
bodies mingled with the smell of soap and Nwankwo and his sister, a band of six. one with the money, the lame one.
plastic which mingled with the smell of “Look! Senior brother!” Quick as a flash, they abandoned their
carbon monoxide. It was nauseating. “Food!” assault on Nwankwo and his sister and
“No slacking!” charged after their hobbling colleague. He
A daku was shaking a pack of

something that looked like crayfish
into a bag of garri she had bought. It was
“No gawking!” This was the call to
plunder. Within seconds the band had
formed a tight ring round the frightened
hadn’t run very far when his useless legs
were swept into the air by a vicious kick.
They converged on his sprawled frame.
rat poison. pair. “Are you hurt?” Nwankwo hobbled
“Do you seriously think any right- Nwankwo felt drunk with fear. He over to his sister, a shaft of pain rewarding
thinking rat would fall for that make- reached inside himself for courage, but him for the effort.
believe?” sneered her brother as he gave up as a barrel-chested youth grabbed “I–I’m okay,” she lied and choked
watched her. him by the lapels. In his chest, his heart back a sob, avoiding his eyes as she packed
“I’ve never known a rat to think,” she was a panicked bull, ramming against his a breast back into its twisted cup.
jeered, then continued in singsong Igbo, ribcage. They stood there for an eternity,
“You wait and see….” The sun forced a path through the fog collecting their wits; then Adaku said,
Nwankwo shrugged and made a face and stared down, rheumy like a goat’s eye. “They took all our money.” Her brother
at her. She beamed. At home, rats had An elderly Chinese man turned into the did not answer but took off his shoes and
made toilets out of their bags of rice and alley, speaking rapid Cantonese into a cell shook out the remaining money. Twenty
garri and were slowly eating up the room phone. The wind picked up as if on cue thousand in all. He had hidden the bulk of
and driving them crazy. and blew a rolled-up newspaper into his his money in his shoes as a precaution
She finished, and was washing her path. He kicked it aside absently, looked against such a mishap. His shoes were
hands when a motorcycle appeared out of up, gasped out “Dew neh loh moh!” at the oversize sneakers.
nowhere and knocked the sachet of water scene before him, then turned and fled. Nwankwo’s mind strayed to the stolen
from her hands. The rider turned and let “Everything you have,” someone bag of garri and he shrugged. Karma if
loose a string of abuse, bumped into a bus ordered in querulous Yoruba. Nwankwo they eat it, karma if they don’t.
and shook his fist at the driver, all in one emptied his pockets. “Do you think they will eat that garri?”
fluid motion, then was swallowed by the “This one is a jester,” the hooligan Adaku asked, mirroring his thoughts.
Harmattan mist. They continued on their who grabbed the money from Nwankwo “No,” Nwankwo replied, wishing they
way, used to this madness. growled, waving the four hundred and would.
They walked down a street where the sixty naira worth of notes angrily.
storey houses were so close together that
the balcony rails touched, and then turned
into an alley with reeking gutters that
Nwankwo began to plead that he
didn’t have any more money, then
stopped, stunned as the words were
A short distance away, six hoodlums
stood waiting near a tap with a stolen
bag of garri while another filled a large
served as a nursery for malaria. This path sucked back into his throat by an aluminum bowl with water. Another
would lead them to the shops they sought. explosion in his right ear—one the area hoodlum appeared with some sugar tied
But the alley also harboured area boys. boys had slapped him. in nylon bag. They mixed the garri and
“Stamp your feet on the ground,” “Search him!” ordered “scar-under- sugar in the aluminium bowl, then headed
Nwankwo hissed at his sister, afraid. nose”. They quickly found the money he for a nearby uncompleted building. They
Then they walked into a nightmare. had stashed away—it was one thousand piled into one of the rooms, eager to begin
Two young men sitting on stools two hundred and fifty naira. their feast of death.
spotted them and began to rise. Nwankwo As crooks and cheats will look for
saw them and moaned under his breath. every opportunity to lie but resent the
placing minimal demands on the local governments—an
economic agenda fuelled by the demand of her enormous
population and the visions of her leaders. But what do African
governments want in return from the Chinese? What are they
actually getting? And are these objectives in line with the goals of
their citizenry?
China’s foray into the African continent should be welcomed
with open arms, particularly considering the alternatives from the
West and their track records on African involvement. China’s
presence ushers in an era of new opportunities for the mother
continent. Some competition for Africa’s resources is better than
no competition at all. Although accurate figures of China’s total
investment in Africa are not readily available, it is believed that
Chinese aid to Africa may have surpassed that of the World Bank.
Local governments once blacklisted by Western governments and
the United Nations now have access to new markets for their
natural resources. One of the most damaging aspects of this
By Oz Omoluabi however, has been the resultant weakening of sanctions placed by
the United Nations on rogue regimes. The net effect of sanctions
on countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and
T
he city of Beijing in China is undergoing an industrial
Zimbabwe has been debatable. There is very little evidence to
revolution unlike anything the world has ever
show that these sanctions have put adequate pressure on these
experienced. In per capita terms, China is not well-
regimes, while plentiful evidence abounds documenting the
endowed with natural resources. This has led her to look beyond
negative impact of these same sanctions on the struggling
her borders for raw materials to fuel her growth. With a
populations in these African countries.
population of 1.3 billion—300 million of whom belong in the
In terms of the impact of Sino-African relations at ground-
freshly minted middle class—there has been an unprecedented
level, Amos Malupenga, managing editor of The Post, one of
increase in their demand for global commodities. It is estimated
Zambia’s top newspapers, says there is evidence that Zambians
that China’s consumption of oil will increase 800% by 2030, and,
have been maltreated by their Chinese employers. “There is a
iron ore by 500% at the end of the same time period. The resource-
feeling our people are being exploited by these Chinese investors,
rich continent of Africa has become a natural partner in China’s
and there is a feeling that these Chinese investors receive
quest for economic growth.
preferential treatment from [the] government at the expense of
Africa, although heavily endowed with natural and human
other foreign or local investors.” There is a widely held opinion
resources, has through the years remained a continent in dire
that a Chinese businessman can get further than local
need of public infrastructure and an infusion of capital.
businessmen can. There have even been allegations that Levy
Beijing declared the year 2006 as “The Year of Africa”. Since
Mwanawasa, Zambia’s late president, took sides with Chinese
then, it has become a common sight to see Chinese public servants
business owners during a textile workers strike in which workers
schmoozing with African leaders; striking deals for technical and
complained of poor working conditions and inadequate
financial support in exchange for access to Africa’s vast natural
compensation for long hours of laborious work. These imbalances
resources. Landmark deals include a $9 billion loan package for
the Congo and a $40 billion line of credit to fund exports in
Nigeria. China’s trade with Africa in 2007 hit $73 billion with a $2
billion foreign direct investment in Africa. Presently, there may be
as many as eight hundred Chinese state-controlled firms
operating in Africa, with China’s Export–Import Bank (EXIM
Bank) funding over 250 projects in at least 34 countries in Africa.
There are also thousands of Chinese entrepreneurs fanning out
across Africa, seeking investment opportunities in retail,
hospitality and commodities. From textile mills in Kenya, mining
uranium in Zimbabwe, mining for cobalt in the Congo and
harvesting timber in Mozambique, they have even delved into
Africa’s upstream sectors by launching a satellite in Nigeria and
investing in mobile phone networks in Ghana.
Regardless of what elements of the Western mainstream
media may want one to believe, the China’s agenda is unequivocal
and precisely thought-out. China’s survival depends on her ability
to aggressively acquire resources that will fuel her growth, while
ECONOMY
play out day after day, from Senegal to Ethiopia, wherever them to take a stand? This must become a long-term national
Africans meet Chinese workers. objective, which must address our cynical view of the public
In July 2007, Liberia’s minister counsellor Mohammed service fallacy. China’s $40 billion spent on the 2008 Beijing
Kenneth announced that Chinese officials routinely denied West Olympics was primarily spent to showcase a new and more open
African traders from Liberia and Nigeria access into Guangzhou, China. This new China places a high premium on her image and
one of the most important trading centres in China, even though how she is perceived by the rest of the world. Unlike situations in
they possessed valid Chinese visas. Closer to home, there are the past, where some Western media houses treated Africans as if
already more Chinese living in Nigeria than there were Britons at they weren’t present at the most important debates that affected
the height of England’s colonization of Nigeria. In some cases, their lives, Africans now have a unique opportunity to speak out
Chinese businesses, due to their access to cheap capital, hold and speak up about the vices of investors offering us unfair deals.
natural advantages over their Nigerian colleagues. This may not This will be achieved by an effective use of all forms of new
be a fair image of the new economy; although such artificial broadcast and online media. The Chinese may have a plan for
obstacles are not meant to be a characteristic of globalization, they dominating the continent; for this plan to work, they will have to
are becoming increasingly common. Mrs. Onabolu, the owner of a win the PR fight with the rest of the world. In the new media,
supermarket chain in a major city in south-western Nigeria, is on barriers to entry are almost nonexistent. The voice of one person
the verge of closing the doors of her business, which she spent the on one computer can be heard across the world. Local
last twenty-five years building. She now believes her once thriving businessmen and women in Africa should play the public
business was crippled by the government’s uneven policy relations game, as often and as hard as they can.
landscape and the fact that business owners have minimal access China ought to be welcomed into Africa and greeted with strict
to working capital. This situation is particularly galling to her, codes by which business will be conducted on the continent. Until
because she believes that her chains carry superior lines of then, local business owners should perfect the ability to whine and
products to that which is sold by the Chinese chain. complain digitally to the rest of the world. We also should not
In July 2008, Standard Bank Group Limited, in partnership form expectations about the morality of China’s activity in Africa
with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, announced in comparison to that of Western countries active here—it should
that the groundwork had been laid for a deal which would surpass be formed against the bedrock of our expectations for ourselves.
any other one till date. This package will further enable the
Chinese to gain access to Africa’s natural resources and even move
further into new areas such as banking, telecoms and power
generation. Beijing expects annual trade with Africa to top $100
billion by 2010. China’s culture of secrecy, poor record keeping
and practice of not disclosing the true extent of its investment in
Africa have seen her come under some fierce criticism. These
factors, already prevalent in Africa’s public sector, make many
deals difficult to quantify and measure on a project-by-project
basis. Regardless of the true or hidden levels of investment and
outflows of resources, domestic business operators will continue
to feel the pinch.
T here does not appear to be a concerted effort from the

Nigerian government to address the grievances of business
owners, who feel short-changed by their representatives and
bypassed by Chinese competitors, though it can be argued that an
increased level of trade and inflow of foreign capital will result in
the general good. In spite of this, the gains from trade are almost
never evenly distributed. This justifies the cynicism with which a
small business owner greets the advances of the business men
from the East. Furthermore, public office holders also appear to
have policy targets which are not properly aligned with those of
the populace. It is not the fault of the Chinese; self-interest is still
the common denominator amongst public office holders in
Nigeria. The disadvantaged parties need to effectively lobby their
local representatives and motivate their various governments and
public office holders to take a more equitable stand. They also
need to ensure that foreign investors are judiciously policed while
at the same time working towards eliminating hurdles that give
undue advantage to foreign-owned or controlled companies.
How then do we motivate Nigerian officials? How do we force
By Rory Williams
There is also a practical concern. The world is already on track
to exceed the level of carbon in the atmosphere that will result in
W
ith all the talk about carbon trading as a way to slow global warming of two degrees above pre-industrial levels,
global warming, one would think there must be lots according to scientists reporting to the UN Intergovernmental
of opportunity to get involved. Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Beyond two degrees, they say,
The Climate Group estimates that the global carbon market is we are at risk of catastrophic consequences. Regardless of what we
worth 20 billion euros a year, and that this could grow 20 times by do now, there will be a continued warming effect not only from the
2030. But how much of this is happening in Africa? Precious existing fixed investment in industries that will continue emitting
little. In January 2008, there were 908 certified emission carbon well into the future, but also from the carbon already in the
reduction projects worldwide registered atmosphere—and targets for atmospheric
under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean carbon concentrations are only aiming to
Development Mechanism (CDM). Only 24 reduce the rate of increase, not actually
SOON, THERE ARE ALSO LIKELY decrease current levels.
of these were in Africa.
Before we get into the challenges Africa TO BE TARGETS SET FOR On its own, carbon trading won’t
faces in joining this market, it should be DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, address this problem because at best it
said that the concept of buying and selling simply shifts the source of emissions from
WHICH MEANS THAT AFRICA one place to another, which is why it is
carbon credits is a controversial one.
The very idea that dirty industries in
WILL HAVE TO JOIN THE EFFORT. generally seen as a strategy to be applied
developed countries are allowed to together with limits on emissions for each
continue polluting—even if they mitigate country or industry: a cap-and-trade
these emissions by investing in clean system. So far, only industrialised countries
projects elsewhere—is considered by many that signed on to the Kyoto Protocol have
people to be contrary to the spirit of carbon emissions targets to meet. Soon,
environmental stewardship. This is a moral there are also likely to be targets set for
issue. Will the global community come developing countries, which means that
together to address climate change, when Africa will have to join the effort. Exactly
some countries can pollute with impunity? what those targets will be is a matter for
As this nascent market grows, we can negotiation, and there is some contention
expect stronger geopolitical fault lines. around this issue even among developing
ENVIRONMENT
countries. South Africa, for instance, has benefited from a

relatively carbon-intense economy and has more resources than
countries like Liberia or Sierra Leone, and may be expected to
reduce its emissions commensurately.
quick facts
Once targets have been set, each country will have to establish
its own strategy for meeting them, and this will require concerted KYOTO PROTOCOL
effort at all levels of government and appropriate responses from Under the Kyoto Protocol, there are two project-based
the private sector. Whatever carrots and sticks are used, it will be mechanisms that may be used by industrialised countries
difficult to reach 100% compliance with targets, simply because to fulfil their targets for emission reductions. Joint
some communities and industries won’t reduce their carbon Implementation is essentially trading (between
footprints, and the rest will struggle to make up for others’ non-
industrialised countries) of emission reduction units
compliance. This is a tough challenge, and carbon trading may
help if it emerges as a significant source of funding for clean
resulting from projects that reduce emissions or remove
projects; but Africa can only take full advantage if the continent’s carbon from the atmosphere. Right now, developing
leaders are prepared to support investment in renewable energy countries are not required to meet any emission reduction
and greater efficiencies in its use, and not pursue carbon-intense targets. Consequently, they are not eligible to trade
industries. emissions directly. The Clean Development Mechanism
There are many reasons for a lacklustre carbon market in (CDM) is the second project-based mechanism, and this
Africa. One is the immaturity of the market itself; another is
provides for industrialised countries to meet some of their
inappropriate pricing of carbon credits; and yet another is lack of
awareness among project developers. But addressing all of these
emission reduction targets by investing in projects in
will mean nothing unless governments—individually and as developing countries that reduce or offset carbon
collective rule-makers for the market—provide an environment emissions and help the recipient countries to achieve
that enables businesses to tap into it. sustainable development.
If carbon is to become the currency of climate change
mitigation, then it must become a cost of doing business. Like any CERTIFIED EMISSION REDUCTIONS
currency, it will only work if it is trusted, broadly accessible and
For the Clean Development Mechanism, Designated
easily traded. None of these criteria are currently met. At present,
National Authorities set up in some countries are involved
many small project developers are excluded, either because the
administrative or financial burdens are too high, or because the in authorising potential CDM projects and will endorse
type of project makes it difficult to gain certification of emission project submissions to the CDM Executive Board. The
reductions. Some of the smaller projects that have benefited from CDM Executive Board has nominated organisations that
CDM funding have only been able to do so with the support of are authorised to validate information submitted to the
external financial aid—a form of intervention that must change if board. The Board issues carbon credits in the form of
the carbon market is to be self-sustaining.
Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) that are verified
With many small African countries lacking the resources
under the rules of the Kyoto Protocol. After a project has
needed to manage the complexities of the carbon market, it will be
interesting to see whether regional trading blocs emerge to pool been approved and registered with the Board, the project
resources, perhaps along the lines of the Southern African can go ahead—but verification doesn’t stop there. Once
Development Community, which is already facilitating activities the project is operating, it will be audited to see that the
such as the coordination of energy supply in the region. This may claimed benefits of carbon emission reduction are
be what is needed to ensure that poorer nations can grasp the actually achieved, and based on the results of this audit a
opportunity. By the end of 2009, the UN negotiations should
recommendation will be made to the Board before CERs
have arrived at key decisions that will determine the shape of the
are issued to the developer. When the CER is sitting in a
carbon market. Whatever it takes to get it operating effectively,
this may be one way to provide foreign investment of a kind that project operator’s trading account, it can be traded for
actually improves sustainability performance in regions that are money.
vulnerable to outside influence and the vagaries of the global
economy. VERIFIED EMISSION REDUCTIONS
Whether political negotiations actually achieve an Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) are part of a
arrangement that is beneficial for Africa is an open question. The
voluntary market for selling carbon emission offsets. As
outcome is sure to be less than ideal, but it is worth remembering
the name implies, the emission reductions are verified, but
that we are looking for an effective mechanism for reducing global
emissions, not another quick buck. A lot is at stake, and the future not certified in terms of the CDM. As a result, the process
depends on what individuals and nations do now. for trading VERs can be less onerous than for CERs under
the CDM, and may be more suitable for small projects.
Rory Williams blogs at www.carbonsmart.com
SAVING WOMEN’S LIVES
By Bosede Afolabi
©Simona Schneider
A
bout half a million women die as a population earn less than the equivalent and she did not have sufficient money or
result of childbirth every year. of one US dollar a day. Coupled with this is transportation to get to the hospital. This
99% of these deaths occur in the fact that poverty is often linked with is a common, unfortunate occurrence as
developing countries. Worldwide, the ignorance: most of the same people are the time of delivery can often not be
maternal mortality ratio is 400 women also uneducated, particularly about their predicted. Other barriers to healthcare
per 100,000 live births. In sub-Saharan health needs and their bodily functions. access are bad roads and poor security. In
Africa, the figure is 1000 per 100,000 They are therefore unaware of signs of ill- the rural areas for example, the closest
women and in some parts of Nigeria, it health and of appropriate preventive health institution can sometimes be as far
reaches 1500 per 100,000. To put these measures, often have poor hygiene and away as 50 kilometres from the town and
figures in perspective: in Sweden, the the access by road is so poor that getting
lifetime risk for a woman to die in there takes even longer. Thus, even when
childbirth is 1 in 30,000; in sub-Saharan the need to be referred is known, the
Africa, it is 1 in 16. In Nigeria, a woman ability to get to the referral hospital is
dies every 3 minutes from childbirth—so limited. In the urban centres such as
between 2 and 5 women would be dead by Lagos, because of security concerns at
the time you finish reading this piece. Add night, for example, getting out of one’s
to this the fact that for every maternal residential area to the hospital through ad
death, there are 30 morbidities—serious, hoc gates constructed at the end of many
long-lasting, near death ailments—and streets can be a harrowing task. Despite
you can see why being a woman in Africa is being registered at a good hospital, many
a high-risk matter. women end up delivering at home, or at a
nearby church with a “nurse” (usually not
WHY IS IT SO BAD? a qualified one) attending, or in mediocre
For the same reason that so many other private hospitals without the skills or
industries and businesses in Nigeria are infrastructure for emergency obstetric
so bad: poverty, ignorance, lack of basic care. By the time they are eventually
infrastructure such as roads, electricity, referred to the tertiary centres, they are
water, access to health—the list is endless. already at death’s door.
The difference with the health sector, Inadequate healthcare facilities.
however, is that these deficiencies The vast majority of medical facilities in
translate directly to illness and death. Nigeria are grossly inadequate. The
Every single time there is a power cut, problems range throughout the health
or the taps dry up, or there is a major sector, in both public and private
traffic jam, there is a life on the line, concerns. Even the public hospitals,
usually a woman’s, often a mother’s. The particularly the tertiary ones, are too
reality is that the women who die are most expensive compared to average earnings,
often the poor and the ill-educated, or as too unpredictable in services such as
we refer to them in the medical world, nutrition, and are also unable to afford electricity, availability of blood, oxygen
women of low socioeconomic group. good food, drugs and hospital care. and water. The private hospitals have
The causes of these deaths go far Access to health care. Partly due to these same problems, and, in addition,
beyond what happens in hospitals. They poverty and ignorance but also because of they are even more expensive than the
are diverse and complex—however, I will their subordinate role in society, women’s public hospitals and often provide
try to simplify them as follows: access to healthcare is even poorer than incompetent services due to lack of
Poverty and ignorance. The poorer men’s. Oftentimes, when a pregnant regulation and monitoring. The poor
you are, the less likely you will be able to woman who arrives in hospital in a morale amongst staff in the public
access appropriate health care in Nigeria. severely ill state is asked why she did not institutions compounds the issue and as a
Unfortunately, a lot of women and their come earlier, her answer is, because her result, the staff are sometimes hostile to
families are poor, as roughly 70% of the husband travelled, or he was not at home the very people they are meant to be
HEALTH
helping. Pregnant women are particularly Delivery should be free or highly

sensitive to this and as a result, they subsidized. Many women do not go to
sometimes prefer to stay home and deliver hospital because they have to pay when
de
their babies with the help of trusted and they get there—even in the public
sig
often unqualified relatives or traditional institutions—and instead stay at home to
nb birth attendants. deliver, in spite of the risks involved. If
oo
k With all of this, it is a wonder that delivery were free, women would come to
s+ more women do not die of childbirth in hospital in droves, (even with the present
our environment than is quoted. cost it has been found that most Nigerian
However, nature has made it the case women access antenatal care at least
whereby approximately 80% of pregnant once). I am not positing this view from
women will deliver without any leftist, “welfarist” leanings—I realise that
significant problems. it is not always feasible for government to
pay for everything. However, given the
HOW CAN IT BE IMPROVED? desperate reality that is Nigeria today, I
The ideal thing would be to address all of would argue that free maternal healthcare
the above issues. Educate and empower is the only way to go. Approximately 42
women financially. Make them aware of million women need this provision.
their bodies from early on and teach them Economists have done the math and
basic survival skills. Fix all the roads and found that free or subsidised delivery is
other infrastructure—electricity, water, doable even without taxing other sector of
equipment—and create an effective health the economy, and it is extremely cost
plan to encompass both the rich and the effective when you look at the hard fact of
poor. Fix the hospitals, remunerate health the direct contribution of women to the
professionals adequately and make the economy if they are kept alive.
rural areas attractive enough for One immediate thing that can be done
midwives and obstetricians to want to is to improve blood donation. The
books cts
practice in. commonest cause of maternal death in
But the reality is, if we wait for all Nigeria is haemorrhage. If blood is made
architegners
these, it would be like the wait for Godot available to the centres where women
in Becket’s play. We have known the deliver, there would be a significant
problems for a long time but there has not reduction in maternal deaths, and all
desi been much difference in maternal

mortality over the past 30 years. The
immediate practical solutions, whilst
other deaths for that matter. Most adults
are eligible to donate blood; all they would
have to do is make a decision and find the
working on the ideal, are as advocated in time. It is safe in every way: no infection
:architecture the recent Lancet Maternal Survival
series.
can be passed to the donor as new, sterile
needles are used—and this can easily be
:interiors All women should deliver in verified—and every adult person that is
healthcare institutions with skilled not anaemic can donate blood as regularly
:graphics healthcare personnel. This is because as every 6 months without any adverse
:product most deaths occur during delivery and effects.
most also occur in hospitals, after the For nonmedical persons reading this
woman has been poorly managed piece, I can imagine the feeling of
elsewhere by some unqualified person frustration at the myriad issues that
MONDAY—FRIDAY and referred too late. On average, in appear insurmountable even by experts in
9.30am—6.00pm Nigeria, 58% of women deliver at home the health sector. But we are all
SATURDAY with the figures reaching 85% in the stakeholders, nonetheless. We thus have
10.00am—4.00pm northeast of the country. In advanced to pledge to do something, no matter how
countries, home deliveries can be small. The problem of maternal mortality
planned, during which transfer to a in Nigeria is a huge one; but like all other
QA DESIGN BOOKS + hospital is easily arranged if problems in the country, it can be solved
152, Awolowo Road, complications arise. In our environment by a collective effort and by deciding to do
this is not feasible because of the poor something now.
Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria. infrastructure, thus the need for health
Tel: 850 92 27 centre delivery. Bosede Afolabi is an obstetrician and
gynaecologist in the public health sector
REVIEWS
THE CITY IN SWALLOW

By Toni Kan
Tolani visits Violet at Simpatico, the salon run
by the latter, we hear Violet say to Tolani in true
Lagos fashion: “I have to eat right now. My
‘Ghana High’ is getting cold.” Further in the
book, after Violet has finished eating, she looks
at Tolani and says, “Why are you so quiet? You
look haggard. Have you lost or what?” And by
lost she means lost weight. This ability to
capture everyday speech with verisimilitude
makes the novel evocative of time and place,
imbuing the narrative with an authentic and
© Uche Okpa-Iroha
natural feel.
B ecause Lagos is a microcosm of Nigeria,

tribal sentiments frequently bubble to the
surface of the narrative, but Sefi Atta is adept at
avoiding the ever-yawning trap of appearing to
T
here is a sense of emptiness, a certain favour one tribe over another, as her words are
who loved reading so much she forgot reality
kind of loss, grief even, that one feels placed in the mouths of characters thus limiting
and burned her meals.”
when the last page of a good book is authorial intrusion to the barest minimum. In
Sefi Atta’s brilliantly controlled, assured
turned and the cover is shut. That’s what I felt Swallow, almost every ethnic group receives
and endearing narrative of the city is
when I came to the end of Sefi Atta’s new novel, some bashing, but these pills are sugar-coated
reminiscent of Ben Okri at the height of his
Swallow. with humour. Here is the character Rose
powers in novels like Flowers and Shadows,
Now, let us begin by dispelling some wrong describing her impression of one of the ethnic
The Landscapes Within and even The Famished
notions about this novel. Award-winning Road—novels in which he is the most adept SWALLOW
Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga gets it chronicler of the angst and anomie of city by Seffi Atta
wrong in her blurb for the book. This book is not dwellers. No contemporary Nigerian writer is Farafina N1000.00, 268 pages
about Rose and Tolani. Sure, it does focus on better than Sefi Atta at evoking the smells,
their tempestuous relationship as flatmates and sounds and the sheer madness of this sprawling Sefi Atta’s Swallow is fierce and
colleagues, but limiting the powerful narrative cosmopolitan city of Lagos. unapologetic in its
of Swallow to the two women is to do the novel a The portrait of 1980s Lagos in Swallow is ‘Nigerianess’. You can see,
disservice. It is more the story of another set of an unforgiving one, and every attempt to smell, hear and taste Nigeria in
women—one old, one young—connected by ameliorate the hardness, to seek for softness is her lush prose. The author weaves the story of
circumstances of birth and yet held apart by rebuffed and repudiated without mercy. You Nigerian society through the lives of three women
secrets, which in true Sefi Atta fashion ensures “see” it in the hard, weather-beaten and as they swim through the murky waters of
that at the end nothing is ever what it seems. careworn faces of the characters that inhabit the corruption, male chauvinism, drug trafficking,
And this fact is made clear by the narrative pages of the novel. This portrait is markedly poverty and economic instability.
structure employed in the novel, with two The use of the episodic plot in the novel is quite
different from the face of Lagos which we saw in
narrators telling the story on two different levels effective. There are several sections in the story
Sefi Attah’s debut novel Everything Good Will
where the reader could easily be confused by the
and tableaux—the contemporary setting of Come, a novel which was in many ways and on
sudden change in period, but thanks to the
Lagos and the bucolic setting of rural Makoku. many levels a love song and a panegyric of sorts
printer’s convention of using different font types
The second notion which we need to dispel to Lagos. But the Lagos we see in Swallow is no for different periods, finding the string of the
is the belief that the tittle Swallow refers just to love song: it is a keening dirge for the death of story is made easier for the reader.
the act of swallowing cocaine. The term dreams, the atrophying of values and moral However, in a bid to make her characters speak
“swallow” is at once symbolic and physical. degeneration. The Lagos we encounter in Sefi in the tongue of the 1980s, the author tries a bit
Physical in the sense of the actual swallowing, Atta’s Swallow is a carnivorous wasteland that too hard.
but symbolic in the sense that the nation is like a devours dreams and aspirations. Her characters Though the end of the novel is somewhat
huge python with bared fangs swallowing all the speak and sound like people you would meet if ungratifying (Ms. Atta seems to insist on ending
dreams and aspirations of the people—from you stood for five minutes at the nearest bus her novels in a fashion that leaves the readers
Tolani to Rose, Godwin to Johnny Walker, stop, and they say things you would only hear if lifted high for the drop, and then left hanging), it
Mama Chidi to Mrs Durojaiye. Tolani captures you lived in a tenement house and is the boldness of these women as they face and
this well in her narrative when she says in challenge reality that stays with you. The novel
eavesdropped on your neighbours.
reference to Mama Chidi, “I was so sure she could have been a more rewarding experience,
When Tolani tells Rose about the trouble
but it will definitely prod you to start asking
would have been an academic anywhere else in she is having at work with Mr. Salako, Rose says
questions. TO
the world. Here in Lagos she was a housewife to her, “He is doing this to pepper you.” When
BOOKS
groups. “They never forgive,” she said about the Arike, two women who beat different paths to aside, Sefi Atta’s novel is a literary snapshot of
Igbos. “They can’t forget about Biafra. They will arrive at almost at the same terminus. The the 1980s, capturing for posterity the anomie,
sell their people for money. Oh yes, and they problem with the narrative however, is an angst and atrophy of the period.
listen to country music.” apparent lack of chronological fidelity. The Even though the end of the novel leaves us
Though Sefi Atta regurgitates tribal setting is obviously 1983–84 and early 1985, without a clear-cut answer to the truth Tolani
stereotypes—Hausas getting by on nepotism, marking the winter of Buhari’s regime and the had come home to seek out, we find joy just
Yorubas as fawning cowards, Igbos as money ascent of the Babangida era. This is easy to place knowing that Sefi Atta’s narrative is a lyrically
lovers—there is no sense of offence because of because of the austerity measures: the War evocative tale of hope and defiance, with
the absence of malice. Against Indiscipline drive of the government, characters who move from mere spectators on
Narrative-wise, Sefi Atta scores a stylistic the queues, soldiers flogging civilians to the fringes of the city and life’s feast to become
coup in the successful telling of two stories as maintain “discipline” and the execution of drug active participants in the unravelling madness.
one: the urban and contemporary story of Tolani pushers (under Buhari, drug pushing, not “419”,
and the rustic and pastoral one of her mother, was the crime de jour). Chronological fidelity Toni Kan is a Lagos-based writer
READING THE CEILING THE NEW GONG BOOK OF NEW

by Dayo Forster NIGERIAN SHORT STORIES
Simon & Schuster £11.99, 288 pages The New Gong N1000.00, 207 pages
Dayo Forster’s first novel is divided into three stories—or, rather, The most striking thing about
three different choices made by a young girl about to start her life. the stories in this book is the
As I read through the first story I am reminded of a recurring themes and tones, the
Bildungsroman. I can’t help but feel sorry for the protagonist, a biting cynicism and the wicked,
young woman with such complicated feelings for her body, her often macabre, humour. It is
mother, her friends and the world in general. The complex evident from this collection that
relationship between mothers and daughters is definitely an issue the author explores Nigeria is a fecund breeding ground for some of
throughout the novel. When a young female character defies the ways set by the older the most amazing and powerful short stories.
women, the author writes, “It seems as if she’s defying life itself, as if the choice has However, with such rich material, some of the
been hers all along. She’s able to brush off what my mother and probably hers might stories were disappointing in that they made no
think. She started to claim life her own way.” impact, you could read and forget them. I was
By the second story the novel takes on a voice of its own and I delve into the disappointed by “On a Night with two Friends and
protagonist’s second choice with a lot more enthusiasm than the first story. Perhaps an Empty Oil Drum” by A. Igoni Barrett, where
two friends try to steal petrol from a station owned
this is because Dayo’s writing has taken a whole new rhythm and confidence of its
by one of their fathers. In one tense moment, they
own. I enjoy sentences such as “conversation steers towards topics that do not heat
have opened one of the tanks and Saamekpe drops
up tempers” and I am as frustrated as her characters get when they discuss world
the keys in the tank. They consider finding a rope
politics and events.
and climbing down the tank to fetch it…. The
The third story, while totally different from the first two, is similar in one issue. It
potential of the story to unfurl thrilled me but
seems the modern African woman cannot escape marriage whatever choice she
instead the story rolled through a scene with
makes (I am left wondering if this was done on purpose by the writer). policemen who catch them and a journey in the
As I reach the end of the novel I cannot help but feel that the definition of home has back of a van ending with a bribe. It seemed like a
somehow managed to slip through my fingers and I am overpowered by the recurring ripe opportunity was missed to tell a story only
themes of exile and distance. However, unlike the novel’s protagonist, I am sure of Nigeria could breed.
one thing. Dayo Forster certainly knows the path she has chosen: she is a writer. Interestingly, the two stories on either end of
Sylvia Ofili the collection, “The Front of the Past” by Omale
Allen Abdul-Jabbar and “Written in Stone” by
Molara Wood, are quietly powerful and profound.
WAITING FOR THE HATCHING OF A COCKEREL
In particular “Written in Stone” seems to offer
by Tanure Ojaide
delving into the stories of our ancestors as a
Africa World Press $19.95, 168 pages
means of gaining clarity regarding the dilemmas
of the present, and being empowered. The humour
Waiting for the Hatching of a Cockerel is Nigerian scholar–poet
in stories such as “The Ram” and “New Generator:
Tanure Ojaide’s sixteenth collection of poetry. The poems in this ‘I pass my neighbour’” is enough to make one
collection share with readers the voice of a sensitive intellectual laugh out loud. The stories poke fun at our
grappling with disparate strands of his own existence, history, superstitions; the things we believe are the truth.
Africa-centered philosophies and a plethora of relationships that The story that left the greatest impact, a deep
crisscross human and non-human conditions. sense of unease, was “Waiting for the Messiah” by
Meticulously built around memory and high-level craft, this collection is stylistically Tolu Ogunlesi. It paints the picture of what
more ambitious than Ojaide’s earlier works. Gone are the over-dependence on happens when greed and witchcraft become
numbered sections and abundant use of traditional verse. Now freer in his bedfellows, revealing the underbelly of
experimentation with form, Ojaide’s images are sharper and more immediate. desperation and depravity.
Waiting for the Hatching of a Cockerel sheds light on the poet’s identity and alerts Ultimately, I salute the principles behind the
his readers to a myriad of events, human conditions, and historical ruminations that New Gong project. The publishers cast an expert
shape his personal landscape and political vision. net across Nigeria, caught a pocketful of talents
I recommend this book to those familiar with Tanure Ojaide’s writing, and also to and then put them into an aquarium for us to
those encountering the brilliance of his poetry for the first time. Dike Okoro admire and inspect. Yewande Omotoso
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BOOKS
DEVELOP OR DIE?
over issues of methodology that circulate in the academies: should we
read a poem like this, or like that, for example? Ultimately, such
questions don’t affect the price of bread in Zimbabwe. But within the
social sciences, where we know that we act in the real world with, as
and for real people, theoretical debates and their ensuing enactment
By Stephen Derwent Partington have tangible consequences for the lives of communities and
individuals. However, a whole numinous industry seems to have been
MISSIONARIES, MERCENARIES AND MISFITS: erected in the social sciences, within the discipline itself, and from the
AN ANTHOLOGY academies out into the unsuspecting world. It is that vast industry,
Edited by Rasna Warah that myth, that Great Modern Missionary Project that has been
AuthorHouse Publishers £12.49, 199 pages wrapping its sweaty fat hands around the world since perhaps the
1940s: Developmentalism. That is, the belief that development in its
traditional form is achievable, always brings benefits, is good for us.
“As usual, in every scheme that worsens the position of the poor,
Developmentalists are generally clever, active and well-
it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries” – Vandana Shiva
intentioned people. I would never suggest that our contemporary
developmentalists are like medieval bishops or their inquisitions,
negatively interfering in the lives of folk as surely as the Pope hindered
Galileo, but I might contend that they are very similar, if not the exact
W hen in late 18th century Europe the

two chemists, Joseph Priestley and
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier,
inadvertently isolated oxygen for the first time
postcolonial equivalents, of those equally well-intentioned Christian
missionaries and anthropologists of the colonial era who came to “do
good”, but who unwittingly found themselves to be the soft and smiling
vanguard that enabled the imperialist boots and guns to enter and
during haphazard experiments with combustion,
occupy British East Africa.
neither of them had any idea what exactly they
Frankly, I have come to believe, as have an increasing number of
had done. Initially, both believed that they had
younger and older thinkers in the southern hemisphere—or the so-
collected something called “phlogisticated
nitrous air”. This was not because the two great
scientists were fools, or because their equipment
was inadequate—they weren’t, and it wasn’t. Rather, it was because RENOVATION OF INTERIORS DECORATIVE FITTINGS
the prevailing Combustion Theory of the earlier 18th Century was the MARBLE/GRANITE PORTAKABINS MDF
“Phlogiston Theory”. WOODEN FURNITURE METAL GLASS
According to the Phlogiston Theory, all combustible materials
contain “phlogiston”, a type of inflammable matter that sort of mists
into the surrounding air when a flame is introduced to the larger
combustible material. And that was that: the oxygenated air itself CONCEPT INFINITE
didn’t—pardon the pun—matter. Giggle as even present-day Craftworks
schoolchildren might at such a theory, it was popular and accepted.

Conventionalist historians and philosophers of science such as
Thomas Kuhn might suggest that Priestley and Lavoisier could not
identify or articulate their new gas, oxygen, because the prevailing
paradigm was simply irresistible. Ultimately, we might say that
Lavoisier’s chemical revolution, which was brought about by his and
others’ final identification of oxygen as a distinct elemental gas, was
delayed by over a decade not by a lack of technological skill, but rather
by a mindset, an ideology that couldn’t be thought beyond. Simply, the
idea of oxygen—as a gaseous component within the air—being the
combustible element was just outside the truth of the time.
But how had the Phlogiston Theory gained such a powerful hold?
Clearly, it wasn’t because it was true. It was because of the power of
circulation: it had been repeated endlessly in scientific literature over
decades by reputable scientists, who simply accepted it and
perpetuated its truth status. Science, then, has its powerful myths, as
well as its own ability to fall victim, even today, to religious or political
myths and prejudices—think of Copernicus and Galileo, yes, but also of
those stem cell scientists in the US who are legislated against by the
neoconservative religious right.
A long anecdote this, but one that will serve to support a point. You
see, all disciplines have their myths, their arrested
developments, from History and Literature to Astrophysics and
33, Mobolaji Johnson Way, Eleganza Ind. Complex Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos
chidiemejuru@conceptinfinite.com, conceptinfinite@yahoo.com,
www.conceptinfinite.com
08033033105, 08058129900, 01-8508899, 01-4174445
Chemistry. The world is not fundamentally damaged by nice debates
BOOKS
called developing world—who have had their lives intruded upon by Rasna Warah’s wonderful anthology does something very similar
development, that we now, before the paradigm is entrenched forever for East Africa, but something that is then more immediate and more
in the policies of the world, need to reflect profoundly and honestly on directly pertinent to us, and consequently it has some claim to be not
whether Development Theory isn’t our Phlogiston Theory, our only the most interesting book that I have read on developmentalism in
arrested development, the very discourse and practice that, ironically, the last ten years, but also the most urgent and important. In it, we
makes impossible the “improvements” in people’s lives that it seeks to discover, as Warah—a respected columnist in the Kenyan national
effect. If the little people from India to Brazil to Kenya who receive aid press—states in her editorial introduction:
or who find themselves, to their surprise, being developed, are
increasingly aware of the need for a rethink here, perhaps it’s time for an eclectic mix; here, among others, you will find a leftist
the rest of us, especially those who think and work in the field, to sit up scholar who exposes the lies perpetuated by donor-funded
and listen. This is never an easy thing. Priestley and others were African NGOs, a banker who urges African governments to
unwilling to relinquish their faith in the Phlogiston Theory, and it took “grow up” and stop begging for more donor aid, a BBC
much of the rest of the international scientific community years to correspondent who critiques the lifestyles of development
accept the conclusions that Lavoisier eventually reached. But 18th workers in Africa and an investigative journalist who uncovers
century Euro-America became, perhaps, a better and more interesting the post-colonial machinations of Kenya’s political elite
place for the chemical revolution, for the fact that certain scientists against the Maasai community. All the contributors to this
anthology approach the notion of development through their
own worldviews and experiences. Many are convinced that it is
A sort of village-as-lab-rat experiment, with
time to declare the death of development as an idea, as an
real people suffering the tiresomeness and ideology, and as an industry.
cultural upset of endless and unsuccessful So, as the old Family Fun Parks used to tell us, there’s something for
development from above. everyone. But this eclectic range is, to my mind, a wise and vital
approach for an editor of such a book to attempt, in this case so
came to take the difficult step of letting go of fixed theories and time- successfully. This is because development of course affects so many
dishonoured arguments from authority. different people in so many different ways, with so many different
negative consequences. As a reader, we might find that some of the
T here is now a new anthology of East African essays that will surely
grease the cogs of our conscience, forcing us all to think about
development and its negative consequences for the folk who are to be
individual contributors’ criticisms somewhat fail to convince us, and
are even churlish or romantic, or are perhaps written for too
exclusively Western a readership (important in many ways), or for too
developed. It is a book that should go some good way toward forcing us specific a Kenyan audience (important, also, in other ways). And yet,
to realise the need for a paradigm shift, a Copernican revolution within the diversity of the anthology ensures that there will be other
the development establishment, a move toward a post-development arguments and approaches that do make us think that something’s not
world and away from development or foreign investment that is little quite right in the world of developmental aid and assistance, that make
more than planned poverty. us say, as a good poem can, “Yes, that’s right! That’s it exactly!”
The essays in Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits come from Although virtually all of the pieces in the anthology strike me as
various writers, all of whom are either based in East Africa or are part valuable and at times excellent, there were some that struck me as
of its Diaspora, or who have worked, often as developmentalists in particularly interesting. Firstly, there is a gently journalistic piece by
their own way, within East Africa. Consequently, this collection Victoria Schlesinger, a sort of reformed developmentalist, who from
doesn’t attempt the grand sweep, raging aimlessly against the machine the professional’s end of the debate articulates what she perceives to be
with general complaints that fail to hit their mark. Rather, it is a the failings of a particular model village project in Western Kenya that
focused peep into the regional and the local, into what development could be ungenerously viewed as nothing more than a rather stressful
and its brother, capitalist globalisation, means for us Kenyans. This (for the villagers) research project for the renowned economist, Jeffrey
local focus of the anthology doesn’t mean a narrow parochialism, but
rather it means specifics and relevance, and means that in itself as a
project it has something about it of the shift in our thinking that post-
developmentalists desire: a move from the global to the particular and
local, where real people live.
BDA Consultants
Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits strikes me as a local
companion to the vastly important The Post-development Reader,
Strategic Data Analysis
published in 1997. That book hit an immediate nerve for me,
articulating certain heresies, if you like, that I had been confusedly and Business Modelling
thinking about from a left-wing perspective for a while. And yet, it
went further than simply following the ideologically-stuck critiques of
Using
(neo-) colonialism found in such excellent canonical texts as Walter
Rodney’s somewhat dated 1972 publication, How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa. Instead, it eclectically mixed leftist critiques
MICROSOFT EXCEL
of postcolonial developmentalism with libertarian critiques, with Tom Satimehin ACA, CISA: 08035062636
guilty reflections and confessions from liberal developmentalists, and
with heart-rending testimonies from folk in place.
satimehintom@yahoo.com
BOOKS
©Dominik Golenia
Sachs. A sort of village-as-lab-rat experiment, with real people know that they are either spoken down to and/or ignored. People very
suffering the tiresomeness and cultural upset of endless and much like you and me, our families and our friends, who might want to
unsuccessful development from above. reject certain “improvement” projects and instead think of
Another interesting piece is by Bantu Mwaura, who argues that alternatives—that’s the next stage, beyond the covers of this collection.
creative theatre, drama writing and, by implication, other creative Rasna Warah’s anthology, then, begins to demystify our
enterprises in Kenya have been stunted and redirected away from the contemporary, phlogisticated theories of developmentalism, and
concerns of real people by NGOs and other patrons who have specific provides some oxygen for those Kenyans who weren’t necessarily
ideas of what “Third World” creativity is and should be about. The suffering before in many ways, but who nevertheless today find that
strong implication that I get from this piece is that foreigners with they are succumbing to the sometimes noxious gases of progress.
good intentions, set agendas and fat wallets dictate to some great
extent what Kenyans should be watching: Aids-themed theatre only, Stephen Derwent Partington is a Kenya-based teacher and poet
for example, or endless skits on FGM. It is not perhaps that such
theatre is totally unimportant; rather, that it’s all there is as our best
artists are, often against their own better judgement, co-opted and
redirected. For Mwaura, this is no better than the political or religious which was first publish
ed
a Social Studies textbook
artistic-interference and indoctrination of the past, and certainly as extrac t is an u nedited reproduction from in man y prim ary scho ols in Nigeria.
The below wide use
1997) and which is in
boring. in 1975 (revised edition,
There is a semi-academic piece by the excellent Parselelo Kantai
on Maasai land rights and the denigration of the Maasai and “their”
territory by both the colonialists and Kenya’s post-independence”
governments. (I add the scare quotes because Kantai would probably
want them stressed here!) My only concern with this fine, new-leftist
piece is that it at times seems to imply that imperialist brutalities and
other injustices stem from the white skin colour of the settlers and
colonials.
The incomparable Onyango Oloo writes with a knowing,
thoughtful and lamenting wit about the hypocrisies, farces and
excesses of the recent World Social Forum, which, to simplify his
rather more subtle view, came in the form of NGO-ers who camped in
Kenya for quite a while to engage in some communal navel-gazing. He
reminds us that not all NGOs are the same, with the same generosity or
conscience.
But there are others who I haven’t mentioned here because many
of their names should already be known to us, and we can
consequently be assured of the quality of their writing: Kalundi
Serumaga, Binyavanga Wainaina, Isisaeli Kazado, Lara Pawson, Achal
Prabhala, Sunny Bindra, Maina Mwangi, Issa Shivji and Firoze Manji.
Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits is a book that will make us
reimagine our world and our place in it, and reconsider the
comparative value of anonymous development and very real, human-
faced people. People who know that they matter, but who equally
70 I I NO 15
small TALK NNEDI OKORAFOR-MBACHU
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu was born in a grand inspiration.
the United States to Nigerian parents. How would you introduce
She has degrees in English and your child to literature?
Journalism, holds a PhD in English and
I read to her every night and
is a professor at Chicago State University.
whenever she wants me to read
Her debut novel Zahrah the
Windseeker was published in 2005 and to her. I take her to the library
her second novel The Shadow Speaker and bookstore. I put books in her
was published in 2007. An illustrated room. I talk about books. I teach
version of Zahrah the Windseeker was her to read. And I buy her books.
published in July 2008 by Farafina. She I make books seem more
lives in Chicago with her daughter. important and more magical
than television and music.
What time of the day do Who would you most like
you write most? to sit next to at a dinner
The early morning. party?
What books are currently The director of Pan’s Labyrinth
on your bedside table? and the Hellboy series,
I Refuse to Die: My Journey for Guillermo del Toro. I swear he
Freedom by Koigi wa Wamwere novel to write. and I share part of the same
and sexism), my love of the
and a comic book series called What is the strangest mind, plus I hear he’s far from
sciences and the flora and fauna
Castle Waiting by Linda Medley. research you’ve done? boring.
of the earth, my own odd sense
What are you scared of? I was doing a story with a main What is the worth of a
of humor, my athleticism, etc.,
Absolutely nothing. Ha ha. I character who was a stripper. I book?
all these manifest themselves in
wish. My fears include sudden was having a very hard time Books contain centuries and
my writing whether I like it or
unpleasant change, large black getting into her head because I generations, yet can be carried
not. My writing is who I am.
spiders, and a lack of control. just found the practice of around; they keep you up at
What would you change stripping so disgusting. So I night; they incite change, hilarity,
about yourself? Books contain centuries
and generations, yet can
called up the owner of a strip tears, rage, joy; they bring things
Absolutely nothing. Not even club and asked him if I could to life right behind your eyes;
be carried around; they
my imperfections. I am what I keep you up at night; they interview some of his dancers. they show you death; they give
am. Well, I wouldn’t mind my incite change, hilarity,
To this day, I cannot believe I you deep experience without
tears, rage, joy; they bring
feet being the same size. One is a was able to do this. I spent two having to leave your home; they
things to life right behind
full size bigger than the other. your eyes; they show you hours talking to those women affect children and adults; they
Makes it hard to find shoes that death; they give you deep
and then I got to see what they can show you different planets
fit. Ha ha. experience without having
to leave your home; they do. Stripping is more awful in and worlds; and they live on
What will you call your affect children and adults; real life! And those were some of long after you are gone. Books
kind of writing—science they can show you the angriest women I’ve ever are priceless.
fiction, magical realism or different planets and
worlds; and they live on
met! But they were also really
fantasy? long after you are gone. kind, insightful and very down
I call it mine. Categories annoy Books are priceless. to earth. All (except one) were
me. Too often, they are single mothers supporting their
incorrect, incomplete and How does your writing
children through dancing.
limiting. Editors and publishers influence your life?
Needless to say, I had all the
call my work African fantasy and It gives it purpose and focus. It’s
information I needed for my
science fiction. Magical realism often therapeutic. For example,
story.
is just a subcategory of fantasy. when my father passed, I
What inspires your
How has your life channeled all my pain into a
writing?
influenced your writing? novel. I literally started writing it
Everything. All people, incidents,
In every way. My Nigerian right after he passed. That novel
beasts, creatures and things I
background, my American is the best and most painful Zahrah the Windseeker by
encounter have a chance of
background, my experiences thing I’ve written to date. I don’t Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu is
making it into my stories.
with otherness (such as racism know how I’d have gotten published in Nigeria by Farafina
Honestly, this earth we live on is
through that time without that
SURE NETWORK
SYSTEMS
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Desktops, Laptops, Phones, Computer Accessories,
Phone Unlocking and Delivery
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Do you want your work reviewed in

FARAFINA MAGAZINE? John
Farafina is now accepting books, music albums and movies Pepp
for review in the magazine. To have your work considered, e r Cla
please send two copies of the item for review and a covering rk-Be
kede
letter containing your full contact details to:
remo
FARAFINA MAGAZINE,
8th Floor, SIO Towers,
25 Boyle Street, Onikan, Lagos.
J. P. Clark’s AMERICA
By Anderson Brown
America, Their America, a satirical account of author John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo’s year in the US, was
first published in 1964. It was written after he spent eight months studying at Princeton University. The book
Montana
created controversy because of its attacks on American life, values and manners. Its publication is believed
by some to have damaged the writer's reputation by alienating a large western audience.
Grill
Specialist in: M
y friend Beverly Nieves and her
husband Henry owned a
bookstore on St. Thomas for a
number of years, and a couple of years ago
experiences as he visits the US for the first
time. Through his fellowship, he meets
many people in the highest walks of
government, journalism and the theatre
when she moved, she was kind enough to (another of his own specialties).
let me have a shelf of volumes from the I found this book quite challenging. At
Samosa African Writers Series. The legendary first it was too easy for me to patronize
series started with the publication of him as the stereotypical angry young black
Beef kebab Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in man. He was on a mission to defy the
1962. Then last year, a friend gave me a generosity of his hosts, to reject America
Spring Rolls box of books from his years in Africa that before it rejected him, to prove to
also included a number of editions from everyone (but especially to himself) that
Chicken Barbecue the series. I’ve been sampling them and he, the young radical, saw through the
have found all sorts of delights and smug hypocrisy of provincial America. He
Asun curiosities, needless to say. I read J. P. throws the most innocent conversation-
Clark’s America, Their America, his starters back in people’s faces, and
Waiter account of his year spent in the US on a repeatedly reports to the reader the
fellowship to Princeton in 1963, when he ensuing uncomfortable silence, and the
Meatballs was twenty-six years old. Mr. Clark is a fact that he never spoke to so-and-so
Nigerian, educated at the University of again. He is the poetry slammer on a
Fish-in-Batter Ibadan, who worked in the information mission to shock—the tedious anti-
ministry in Nigeria, and also as a American who imagines that no one has
No 12, Manual Street, journalist. He is well-regarded today heard these criticisms before.
principally for his poetry. The present As I stuck with him though, he
S.W. Ikoyi, Lagos.
book is not a work of fiction, but an gradually won me over, and that process
Tel: 08023236999 account of his impressions and of getting to know this difficult person
BOOKS
through the medium of his journal turned A substantial point of Clark’s is that
out to be the pleasure of the book. He is in
fact learned and worldly, quoting Pound’s
Cantos from memory, making easy
classical allusions, critiquing productions
the American concept of foreign aid is
classically imperial—the idea is that
everyone ought to be civilized through
assimilation and absorption into
G r a m ma
One short, simple word recurs in
of Bertolt Brecht. More than that, he turns American ways. He has a perceptive ‘Nigerian-English’ talk. It can fall at the
out to be a serious student of the US, more discussion of the drawbacks of bringing end of virtually any statement. It flows
familiar with New York geography than Africans to the US for their education, at easily with almost every question.
It most often follows injunctions and
even I who grew up in Rochester: he is not the expense of developing higher
orders, the more strident the better.
just some angry victim of culture shock, as education back home. His anger is The word: ‘now’. The Nigerian ‘now’ is
he must have seemed to many of the unavoidable as no one will appreciate him not the same as the English ‘now’.
people he encountered. He has made a for his African self; they only appreciate It sounds different. You could think of
it as having an upward accent: nów. Nów
serious intellectual investment in him when he “assimilates.” What is
and now also mean different things. Now
refers to time, and nów? Well, perhaps
A substantial point of Clark’s is that the American concept of the two words are not as unrelated as
they may first seem. We use nów for
foreign aid is classically imperial—the idea is that everyone emphasis, and its tone often implies a
certain hurry and impatience, an
ought to be civilized through assimilation and absorption into unwillingness to wait or explain further,
and so perhaps a desire for... now. Think
American ways. He has a perceptive discussion of the about it, nów.
drawbacks of bringing Africans to the US for their education,
Greeting: How nów?
at the expense of developing higher education back home.
Reply: I’m fine nów.
understanding the United States. remarkable is how true this rings today,
Then there is the historical context of forty-four years later, both in terms of how Question: Why nów?
Cold War America, circa 1963. The Parvin Americans view foreigners, especially
Fellowship he has been awarded is “Third World” foreigners, and in terms of Affirmative: Eeeh nów.
transparently a propaganda arm of the emotional challenges confronting
government policy, but then, so is virtually African Americans who are moving into Negative: No nów.
every international initiative of the professional communities.
government. The Kennedy brothers sit And then there is “JP” himself. After a Plea: Please nów.
astride Washington; the Democratic Party while, one comes to see that his style is a
leads the struggle against the “Reds” with kind of humorous sarcasm that aims at Impatience: O ya nów.
liberals as the chorus. It is the time of the everything and everyone. He is forever
Cuban missile crisis, and Clark’s praising and thanking people, only he
Apology: Sorry nów.
observation that the US has the USSR insists in doing it in a back-handed way.
He is completely even-handed in his
Complaint: Ooo nów.
ringed with missiles is decidedly
unwelcome. Most of the people Clark treatment of whites, blacks, and people
Time: On Monday nów.
meets ask him leading questions that from other parts of the world. Finally
invite him to recite to them how wonderful booted out of the fellowship and sent Truth: It’s true nów.
America is, and much of his rejection is packing home, his transgression is that he
because he refuses to perform. The US in never attended any classes, which is Command: Stop nów.
1963 does not appear to this educated indeed grounds for washing out. But
Nigerian to be much different from South equally obvious is the fact that he has
Africa (and it isn’t that much different, alienated the cold warrior administrators
something we Americans conveniently and their auxiliary society hostesses, who
forget). His friendly guide tells him about are now angry at this ingrate African. One
all of the things that “we” are doing for “the is glad to find, on researching him a little
blacks,” who are being concentrated into more, that he subsequently returned to the
apartment towers through “urban
renewal.” From his perspective in 1963,
US as a speaker and a teacher some
number of times. He’s the kind of visitor
Increase my
the civil rights movement looked like
something just taking off; he’s aware of it,
that we could use more often.
s alary
and hopeful about it (he wants people to
learn to fight for themselves), but barely
Anderson Brown is a professor of
Philosophy based in the US
now .
mentions it.
ASA in
CONCERT
An attendee’s review of Asa’s concert at the

Carling Academy, London, on 12th May, 2008
L ondon was hot that day:

skirts were short, spirits
high and the fans turned up
en masse to hear Asa in concert.
Ben Onono opened for her and the
storytelling of “Àwé” was as
ingenious as the song itself,
drawing screams of laughter at her
suggestion that Wahidi (the main
character in the song) was getting
crowd appreciated him (probably busy every chance he got. From this
because he “hailed” the 95 percent moment on, it was one crowd-
Nigerian crowd), but by 9 p.m., pleasing song after another: “No
chants of “We want Asa!” filled the one Knows Tomorrow”; “Bibanké”;
room. “Fire on the Mountain”; with a
She emerged from behind the near-riot breaking out at the
stage delivering the first line off opening chords of “Jailer”, one of
“360 degrees”, the number two her more popular singles. She even
track on her album. Her velvety broke into a dance during the up-
voice was distinct but poor thing, tempo sections of “You’re
she got as far as the third line Beautiful”, a song that flaunts her
before the crowd went wild and skill in fusing the Yoruba language
pretty much sang the rest of the and style with English, to produce a
song for her. She seemed taken unique folk music sound which is
aback by how well we knew her hard to describe, but may be
lyrics and possibly had to change imagined as an ethnic and soulful
tack for the rest of the concert. Corinne Bailey-Rae with the
Dressed simply in white top and sunshine simplicity of Jack
black pants—and with her guitar Johnson.
across her chest—she launched into As far as gigs go, it was an
her second song of the evening, the applaudable effort, and Asa has
hauntingly soulful and reflective great staying power on stage.
“Subway”. She closed her eyes and Sailing through her songs, she gave
concentrated on taking us on a the crowd exactly what it
journey of emotional wanted—a full set, and then some,
disappointment, accompanied by after the encore. However, she did
her four-piece band. pick the right day with the right
Photo by Tope Kogbe
Asa took a while to warm up to weather and a good location;

the crowd, even declaring how she without all this in place, she might
preferred a quiet atmosphere and have been left with only the true
“did not like to shout”, but I think followers, her hardcore fans.
she gave up trying to do it her own I have a feeling that’s how Asa
way and simply let the love and probably would have liked it.
energy in the room set her free to –Sade Abiodun
truly work the songs. The
small TALK NNEKA
Nneka Egbuna was born in Warri,

Nigeria in 1981. She moved to Germany
at the age of nineteen to pursue her
education while also advancing her
musical career. Nneka’s album Victim
Of Truth was released in September
2006. She lives in Hamburg, Germany.
QUOTE
When did you know you
were going to be a
musician?
It was never really my intention
to become a musician. I would Can you match the song
©Youri Lenquette
say music found me when I got lyric with the artiste? Answers
to Germany for the first time. I at the bottom of the page
experienced a world I had never
seen or known since I’d never 1> “Bone animosity, I be
left Nigeria before, and I had to the great one”
face new trials and obstacles. I guess they connect the most to What is your greatest
Music strengthened me; it what I sing about, especially on regret? 2> “If you want to criticise
helped me in times of loneliness themes such as corruption, For now, nothing. I just have to me talk small-small,
and pain. I felt closer to God face the fact that I have made 'cos you no holy pass
through music.... So I began to Music strengthened me; it
mistakes I have to learn from my brother”
helped me in times of loneliness
develop passion and love for and pain. I felt closer to God and, therefore, everything I
what I was doing. through music.... So I began to experience is a lesson. No 3> “We don't have to go
Where and what time of develop passion and
regrets. the 360 degrees, now
love for what I was doing.
the day do you compose it's time we go the
What is the last song you
music best? 180”
bribery, oppression and of listened to that made you
It varies, sometimes in the night, course, the happiness that one cry?
at times in the day; at times I am 4> “I dey see well-well but
can still find despite the suffering Ben Harper's Picture of Jesus.
not inspired at all. It all depends they tell me love is
one is confronted with day by What is the value of good
on how I feel; if my soul is at blind”
day. music?
ease or not. What inspires your music? Timelessness.
What song changed your 5> “Hilary wey you been
The things I see, the people I Have you ever bought your
life? promise to marry, still
meet or have met, my own album?
The song titled War by Bob dey wait, o boy she
experience, especially my past Excuse me? No!
Marley. The lyrics were adapted don tarry”
back home in the Niger Delta,
from a speech by Haile Selassie my school life, my work, my 6> “They can't fire
I, the Emperor of Ethiopia. family and the Almighty God. extinguish me”
What will you call your Which famous musicians
kind of music? do you admire? A> Asa
I love Afro beat and hip hop. I Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. For his B> Sound Sultan
mean real Afro beat and real hip courage and the fact that he C> 9ice
hop, heartfelt and not superficial never spoke too much grammar; D> 2face
unconscious stuff. he spoke in the language of a E> Naeto C
Who is your perfect common naija person, he hit the Nneka’s debut album F> D’banj
audience? nail on the head.
Victim of Truth
The Nigerian audience, because is available in stores
FILM
CLOUDS OVER CONAKRY (2007) DRUM (2004)

Directed by Cheick Fantamady Camara Directed by Zola Maseko
Clouds over Conakry (also Il Va Pleuvoir Sur Conakry) was the The film tells the real life story of
winner of the People’s Choice Award at FESPACO 2007. Henry Nxumalo, a journalist in
The film captures the difficult yet necessary task of balancing
tradition, religion and education. BB, the son of an influential 1950s South Africa. The young
Imam, is chosen as his father's successor over his more fanatical journalist, played by the
brother. However, BB leads a modern life as a cartoonist for a Hollywood actor, Taye Diggs, is
local newspaper which his father, the Imam, is unaware of. BB is portrayed as a happy-go-lucky
caught between respecting his father's wishes and following his young man, who enjoys his time
own path in life. His choice is made even more difficult by his girlfriend Kesso, who in Sophiatown, the decadent town for fun-loving blacks
does not understand why BB is afraid of facing up to his father.
If Camara's mission was to show the contrasting lifestyles of the traditional versus and whites. His carefree days come to an end when he
the modern man, then he succeeded with this movie. The importance of women in realizes that he has a voice and he can use it to expose
African society is also a major theme. Despite the fact that religion seems to hold sway the evils of the apartheid government. He does this by
over the people, tradition, it seems, might even have stronger hold. Though Camara going underground and gathering evidence and
deals with the themes and subjects familiar to African cinema, he has managed to do materials, which are subsequently printed in the
so with humour, depth and wit.
magazine, Drum.
The film is definitely worth seeing and while you might find yourself nodding and
smiling at much of the dialogue, a tear or two will also be shed. Sylvia Ofili Whilst this film seemed to have a powerful and
inspirational story to tell, I was disappointed. There was
something missing—perhaps it was a sense that the
MAD MONEY (2008) actors where not passionate enough? Or was it the fact
Directed by Callie Khouri that Taye Diggs seemed so unconvincing in the role of a
journalist? I expected him to switch into his American
Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) is a middle-aged, middle- accent at any moment and sometimes, he did. Even an
class woman whose life of domestic normalcy is shattered appearance by the legendary Nelson Mandela (played by
when her husband Don (Ted Danson) loses his job. Faced with
bankruptcy and on the verge of losing their home, this Lindani Nkosi) did nothing to uplift this movie.
homemaker decides to seek employment. With the help of her There were however many unforgettable characters,
housekeeper she lands a job as a janitor in the city’s Federal such as the schoolteacher turned writer, a German
Reserve building. Not long after she takes up her new job photographer and a lowlife criminal, who all managed to
however, the mildly neurotic Bridget figures out a way to steal give the movie its few entertaining moments. Also, the
old money meant for the incinerators. She enlists the help of two co-workers: Nina soundtrack of the movie was very good; definitely worth
(Queen Latifah), a black, single mother who is in charge of the incinerator and Jackie
(Katie Holmes), a high-spirited hippie who mops the floors. buying.
Looking at the cast members, one might be tempted to think that Mad Money is a All in all, Drum is a well made movie that had huge
chick flick. Wrong. The movie is hilarious right from the opening scene. Diane potential but failed to live up to expectations. Sylvia
Keaton, as Bridget, carries you along, as you are curious to know what the sheltered, Ofili
middle-aged lady at her wits end would do to get herself out of a sad situation. Recent
Academy Award winner, Queen Latifah (much reduced in size, I must say) plays the
IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A
part of the rational one in the trio. Katie Holmes’ character, Jackie, is the happy-go-
lucky, childlike personality who answers “Why not?” to the question as to why they DUNGEON SIEGE TALE (2007)
should steal from the bank. Directed by Uwe Boll
With some good acting and a string of great one-liners, Mad Money is a take on the
incipient greed (and capabilities) resident in each of us. Or—as others may argue—it This is the movie adaptation of the
is simply a story of the quest for a better life. TJ O’karo popular “Dungeon Siege” video
games.
An evil Sorcerer, Gallian (Ray
IDERA ALAKO (2007) Liotta) is bent on taking over the
Directed by Tunji Bamishigbin kingdom of Ehb. With the aid of
the king’s nephew, the sorcerer amasses an army of
Idera, a well-to-do young lady, learns that her childhood friend, beastly creatures called Krugs and starts a war. Caught in
who travelled overseas has “made it” and returned home to
acquire a luxurious property in a highbrow area of Lagos. She is the middle is the mysterious, boomerang-wielding
inspired to do the same. She then embarks on a desperate Farmer (Jason Statham), his wife (Claire Forlani) and
adventure to travel out of the country but meets obstacles in their son. During a raid by the Krug, Farmer’s son is
the process. I wish I could say more about the movie but the killed and his wife captured. Together with two friends,
truth is, there’s nothing more to the plot. he tracks down the Krug in order to rescue his wife and
Going by the dialogue, I could wager a guess that the movie the others. After a failed rescue attempt, Farmer is
had no script. Also, the dialogue was in Yoruba and had no subtitles. The comic relief
scenes were more annoying than funny. There were many scenes that weren’t encouraged by the king’s sorcerer Merick (played by John
necessary and had nothing to do with the story. Many characters were poorly Rhys Davies) to join the King’s forces to defeat the Krug
developed and were not strong enough to represent their roles. The only character army and Gallian.
worth mentioning was Yemisi (played by Foluke Olumide), and this only because she With a popular cast of actors—Jason Statham, Ray
was less plastic than the others. Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Claire Forlani, Leelee Sobierski
Camera work in the movie was sloppy and poorly handled. The sound was bad,
and John Rhys Davies, amongst others—it looked like
especially in scenes where there were confrontations. The soundtrack was
unimaginative: there was this awful song—which was more of a continuously looped Uwe Boll would land his first big hit. Unfortunately, In
chorus that chanted the movie’s name: a lazy sound trick. the Name of the King failed to impress. The storyline was
Idera Alako fails to meet up with the standard that a number of other good Yoruba exceedingly weak and the special effects actually put me
movies have achieved. It isn’t a movie that I’d want to watch a second time. ‘Lolu to sleep. The movie offers nothing new and is a big
Kusimo disappointment and a waste of time. TJ O’karo
THEATRE
By Wole Oguntokun
T here has been resistance in some

quarters over the emergence of
upstarts in the realm of Nigerian
stagecraft. Impostors who, without artistic
for sponsorship from the Ford Foundation,
the government or the many unwilling
banks, but used personal funds, resources
and whatever goodwill they had acquired to
Terrence featured Richard Mofe-Damijo and
Genevieve Nnaji in his plays, while I have
featured Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, Joke Silva, Kate
Henshaw Nuttal and Stella Damasus-
pedigree—according to their critics—have rejuvenate theatre in Nigeria. Aboderin in different plays I wrote and
risen to hold theatre by the scruff of the neck They did not choose dilapidated halls or directed.
and have made the direction it faces in decrepit structures to present stage plays, I was commissioned to direct the Muson
Nigerian culture their business. Festival Drama in 2006, then created the
In the opinion of the opponents of the annual “Season of Soyinka” in 2007, and
“new theatre”, these greenhorns are not ideal partnered with Terra Kulture in the
artistes, because they do not obey the production of the weekly “Theatre @ Terra”
traditions set by the masters of old. that same year. I was also head-writer and
Through the 1990s and early this director of the first Nigerian version of “the
millennium, many people who considered Vagina Monologues” in March 2008.
themselves theatre practitioners, including
the famed Abe-Igi school (“under the tree”
fraternity at the National Arts Theatre),
pondered on the demise of theatre culture in
T he way forward for Nigerian theatre, in
my opinion, is to see how the new wave
of producers can be used for the
Nigeria. After the glory days of practitioners advancement of good theatre. The
like Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo, Wole techniques used by these innovative
Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Zulu practitioners in raising funds to produce
Sofola, Wale Ogunyemi, Fred Agbeyegbe, stage show after stage show, even in the
J.P. Bekederemo-Clark and a few others, big- Wole Oguntokun midst of an ailing economy, must be learnt by
budget theatre practice in Nigeria was not those who wish the theatre well.
comatose, but dead, and what was left of the but consistently staged their productions in Many have praised the quality of
faithful (those not driven to the home video some of the most prestigious (and therefore productions from “the outsiders”—the high-
ranks and other forms of industry in search of expensive) venues in Nigeria such as Terra level acting and the quality of the scripts
better pay and greater opportunities) kept Kulture and the Muson Centre in Lagos. produced. Theatregoers, especially, have
faith by warding flies off its lifeless body. These choices were strategic. Consistent and accepted them with open arms and have
About two decades ago, financial competently packaged theatre productions supported their courage through the
institutions (like NAL Merchant Bank and at such high-profile venues caused the purchase of tickets, and sometimes, outright
Citibank) supported theatre productions in corporate world to take notice and consider donations. They do so because of the
Lagos. This sponsorship did not result in the the possibilities of how they could consistency of these dramatists and because
production of many plays, but it served in participate; and, after an absence of many they know that “the show must go on”. Many
“
assuaging the thirst of theatre practitioners years, theatregoers began to show up in
”
of the new plays that are staged in Nigeria are
and theatregoers in a season of severe numbers when it dawned on them that there the works of these new people.
drought. However, even the support of was a re-awakening. It is best to accept that there is enough
corporate bodies dwindled after a while and Now, in 2008, “the outsiders” continue space in the skies for all the birds that desire
for many years there was nothing but silence. their innovative onslaught on all factors that to fly. All sides of the Nigerian theatre world
All that was left as evidence that theatre had previously obstructed the growth of must begin to integrate and learn from one
existed was the yearly National Association theatre in Nigeria (to make a point, my another, each side utilizing strengths that the
of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners theatre outfit has produced more than fifty- other possesses.
(NANTAP) Festival, which usually lasted less two plays at Terra Kulture and still holds the One thing that is certain though, is that
than ten days. record for the largest number of plays regardless of whatever direction theatre may
Then “the outsiders” came on board. produced at the Muson Centre). They have face in Nigeria from now on, “the outsiders”
Individuals who had a love for the theatre as played a major part in placing theatre have come of age, they have a say, and are
consuming as that of any person formally production back on the map of cultural here to stay.
trained in stagecraft, came together and events, taking the initiative by inviting
established theatre houses which did not celebrities to participate in their plays so as to Wole Oguntokun is a Lagos-based
play by the rules of the past. They did not wait revive public interest in theatre. Tyrone lawyer, playwright and theatre director
THREE-MINUTE GUIDE TO feeders. It is the most advanced
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first 2 months after stocking the
pond before switching to pelletized
feed.
CATFISH FARMING is also the most expensive system to

construct. A standard re-circulatory
Before entering into catfish
farming it is advisable to consider
system that can house up to 18000 contacting an expert who will guide,
Only two major species of fish are medium scale farmers. In a fish and 3 harvests are easily advice and provide training about
reared on a commercial basis in conservative estimate, 70–80 fishes achievable per annum. This system is processes. The expert also serves as
Nigeria. These are tilapia and the can be stocked per square meter. however heavily dependent on power consultant to the enterprise and
African giant catfish. Catfish is the They can reach an average of 0.8 kg supply, which makes it an unrealistic monitors occasional activities like
more commonly reared and in 4 months. Juveniles are best option for the small and medium sorting, water treatment and
commercially preferred of the species stocked in this system. scale farmer in Nigeria. harvesting. He could also help the
because of the high demand for it. Water reuse and re-circulatory Catfish seed production is the farmer to find markets for the first
Some farmers even rear tilapia system is a high-tech method of fish most difficult business area in catfish harvest. Marketing is however not a
purposely to feed their catfish stock. production that requires heavy production. Hatching technology has problem for the Nigerian catfish
There exists a market for catfish, capital input and in turn yields continued to evolve as an industry, farmer as the demand for catfish at
irrespective of season, and it massive returns for investors. The and it is fast taking over the artisan present is greater than what is being
constitutes the market traders, gadgets in this system include and inshore fishing industries which produced.
hoteliers and eateries, as well as aerators, distribution plates, are considered laborious and
domestic consumption. ultraviolet light, air balls, bio-filters, expensive. Fingerling production is Sola Fagorusi studied Agriculture
Catfish are farmed in either sedimentation filters and automatic considered a quicker approach to at the Obafemi Awolowo University,
earthen or concrete ponds. Earthen breaking even with investment capital Ile-Ife
ponds are however limited to land if operations are properly managed.
areas where the soil has a high clay In hatching fingerlings, wooden
content. The stocking capacity for vaults can be used (this can be
earthen ponds is low—about 10 fish improvised and it is cheaper) or the
per square meter. Fish given more effective re-circulatory system
intensive care in earthen ponds can be employed. Recent surveys for
usually reach good market weight in demand and supply of catfish
their 6th month. In stocking earthen fingerlings show that catfish
ponds it is best to stock jumbos, as hatcheries in Nigeria are only striving
cannibalism is greatly reduced due to to supply 45 % of national demand.
the evenness of their sizes. Nutrition is one of the cardinal
The major concern with concrete aspects of catfish farming as it gulps
ponds is that water is needed in great about 50% of the total cost. As a rule,
quantity. It is however the most it’s best to use floating feed for the
economical system for small and CATFISH JUVENILES
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2009 MITSUBISHI LANCER RALLIART

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Corolla.
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Unlike the Evo IX, this car will
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It is a road car on steroids. It
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looking pretty at the same time. This
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Ralliart is what you’d expect from a
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The Ralliart seeks to put Mitsubishi
of speed on the Lekki Expressway.
on the shopping list of folks who
Balance backed up by a high level of
might consider, say, a Subaru WRX
equipment, including Bluetooth, an
but not a full-bore STi. It is evidently
MP3 input and almost everything
a guy’s car, yet it is a car that the
else you can imagine by way of
missus can live with.
entertainment features. The
The Ralliart is blessed,
Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart, I think, is
depending on how you look at it, with
a pretty complete package for an
a dual-clutch manumatic as its only
estimated three million naira.
gearbox. Mitsubishi calls its system
– By Oz Omoluabi
Twin-Clutch SST, and it returns
quick, positive shifts. However, it is
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UNFINISHED MATTER
Chinweizu answering questions from Paul Odili on the 3rd of September, 2006
What in your view is the problem with education in barbarians; unemployables with slave-minds and with a self-
Nigeria? righteous sense of their entitlement to the highest standard of
The so-called education in Nigeria is not really education; it is consumerism in the world. And to grab the money to enjoy that
neo-colonial brainwashing. It is a type of Bantu education for the entitlement, they are selfishly and amorally determined to loot
Nigerian Bantustan: a process for grooming and recruiting black the treasury, extort from the public or rob their neighbours, as
comprador colonialists to manage the Bantustan for imperialism. opportunities arise; or to even import toxic waste from Europe
It is, like black education in apartheid South Africa, an “organized and dump it in their own village in exchange for money to build a
mis-education” which taught, as Biko said, that “the white man mansion in their village or buy a house in London. After all, they
was some kind of god whose word cannot be doubted”. It, do not learn or care about the Ten Commandments or any other
likewise, disparages the black African, his culture and civilization. ethical code: these not being emphasized in school or by the
It, therefore, produces black persons who aspire to whiteness and ubiquitous prayer-and-miracles hustlers plaguing the land. In
accept white behaviour as their norm. It produces persons that are short, it is a mis-education system that breeds a highly certificated
loyal to Europe or Arabia, but not to black Africa or even to and amoral lumpen-proletariat—with all the usual vices of a
Nigeria. lumpen-proletariat. Not being raised in a milieu of production,
Politically, Nigerian education is a dangerous mis- they lack the skills, discipline and outlook of the productive
education system. It teaches nothing about the centuries-old race classes—the peasantry and industrial workers. So, with their
war between black Africans and the whites, Europeans and Arabs. certificates, they know only how to breed, shout “hallelujah”, and
It doesn’t teach about imperialism, or about the European loot and consume. If each Nigerian was given a PhD certificate at
expatriate colonialism that “independence” allegedly birth and let loose on society, he would be no worse than he is after
ended—which is partly responsible for people not knowing the going through the Nigerian education system and getting all
value, however limited, of the “independence” they celebrate on manner of paper degrees.
October 1; it doesn’t teach about the Black comprador colonialism Nigerian education is wrong basically because it was
that has replaced European expatriate colonialism; and it doesn’t fashioned to create mental slaves. The British colonial masters
teach anything at all about the Arab colonialism in black Africa founded an education system to enslave us mentally, so that we
that is still going on in places like Sudan and Mauritania. These look up to them, obey them and do whatever they tell us to do. And
omissions leave its products profoundly ignorant about their that is the slave-making system that Nigerians are still voluntarily
history and the dangers in the global political environment. They continuing with, long after “independence”. If Nigerians want to
don’t know, and resist the idea, that black Africans have any change Nigeria, they must first define what Nigeria should do in
enemies in the world, despite centuries of being enslaved and the world, its national purpose, and do the hard work of figuring
colonized. This failure is like sending children into a forest out the kinds of citizens it would take for Nigeria to do it. And then
without telling them about the snakes, scorpions, leopards and design an education system that would produce those kinds of
other predators that live in the forest. No wonder Nigerians, like citizens. All that mental work has not been attempted, not even
other black Africans, accept the NEPAD nonsense that the recognised for 50 years. So it is no wonder that Nigerian education
imperialists are their “Development Partners.” And no wonder is in the peculiar mess in which it is: no political education, no
they accept the continentalist lie that the Arabs are their “African historical consciousness, no nationalist consciousness, no moral
brothers.” No wonder, despite the facts of our history, we refuse to code, no sense of the citizen’s social responsibility for society is
see that Europeans and Arabs are our racial enemies. Which is being inculcated by the schools.
why black African governments, lacking a sense of danger, The universities are a special disaster area. They are infested
allowed the WHO to come into their countries, unsupervised, and with armed criminal gangs that misleadingly call themselves
vaccinate 97 million black Africans in 11 countries with AIDS- “cults”; they are busy robbing, raping, shooting and killing fellow
infected smallpox vaccines, making black Africa the epicentre of students. Is that what universities are for? The university
the AIDS pandemic. This fundamental mis-education is tragic authorities pamper these campus criminals, the state authorities
and suicidal. tolerate them. This campus gangsterism cannot be stopped until
Furthermore, the skills it teaches are not suited to the needs the authorities, if and when put under intense public pressure,
of Nigerian communities. It is simply a certificate-spraying mill. It have the gumption to prosecute, convict and hang at least a few as
does nothing for the physical, moral and intellectual a deterrent. Those who started and still secretly head the entire set
improvement of the students and society. It does not train people of evil gangs go about parading themselves as the “wasted
for the rigorous and comprehensive thinking required to solve generation”. They are the generation that wasted Nigeria, but they
problems. It spews out mobs of certificated but incompetent get your sympathy by calling themselves “the wasted generation”.
UNFINISHED MATTER
But let’s leave aside its decay and perversions: even at its best, invaders and enslavers. Now, all the things Black Africans have
Nigerian education is a disaster because it is simply a ladder for suffered from—slavery, conquest, colonisation, neo-colonialism,
potential black comprador colonialists to climb into the system underdevelopment, poverty, the AIDS plague—are as a result of
and exploit the population for their imperialist masters. There are the fact that we could not defend our borders. Those who can
many things wrong with the education system, and we could defend their borders do not go through such disasters. Therefore,
spend two full days talking about them. that should be the cardinal purpose of Nigeria, South Africa,
Congo, the Economic Community of West African States
What do you think should be Nigeria’s national (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community
purpose? (SADC), or whatever political structure Africans organise.
Let’s put it bluntly: If Nigeria is to serve its population rather than You have to start from the premise that that is the
imperialism, its national purpose must be to help build, in the fundamental problem you must solve; without that you cannot
next 50 years, by say 2060, a black African power that would do industrialise, you cannot be prosperous because other people can
what Garvey stipulated, or do at least an African equivalent of take away your resources, which you should be using for yourself,
what China did after 1949. Your history, if you know it, dictates and you will remain poor. All the things on your wish list stem
what your objectives should be. Since our problems in the last one from your inability to defend your land or population against
thousand years are because of our inability to defend our territory, anybody who comes to take them—whether it was the Arabs and
our population, our civilisation and our culture, the only reason Europeans yesterday, or the Americans and Arabs today, or the
for us to tolerate and live under any political structure is that it Chinese and Indians tomorrow. If you cannot do that, whatever
provides us security from all enemies—Arab or European else you do is as nothing. So I would say that is the yardstick
invaders who come to loot our resources and brainwash our people should use to measure what anybody is trying to do in
population with their self-serving imperialist religions and Nigeria or any of these glorified Bantustans. And if these entities
ideologies. The minimum purpose must be to create structures are not doing that, then they are not the countries we should be
and policies that defend our land, people and culture from foreign perpetuating.
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What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Is there such a thing as perfect happiness?
REPARTEE
Which living person do you most admire?
My mum. For her ability to find laughter in spite
of the challenges life has thrown at her.
What is your treasured possession?

My family. Although that’s not a possession, is it?
What is your greatest extravagance?

Books and magazines.
What is your greatest fear?

Losing my sight.
Which world-renowned figure do you

most identify with?
I have to say Nelson Mandela for his forgiving
spirit although I have issues with his views on
EUGENIA ABU
religion and his treatment of Winnie Mandela.
What talent would you most like to have?

Eugenia Abu is a Singing. But my daughter more than makes up
for it. Sings like a bird.
seasoned newscaster
and the Head of What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Presentation with the My first book, In the Blink of an Eye.
Nigerian Television Who are your favourite writers?
Authority. She is also Nigerian writers have to be in the lead. And Chinua
the author of Achebe of course tops the list. I read a lot, from
Zadie Smith to Anthony Bourdain, from Isabelle
In the Blink of an Eye. Allende to John Updike, from Naguib Mahfouz to
In this chat with Nadine Gordimer, from Ngugi wa Thiong’o to
Farafina, she gives Arthur Golden. Difficult to pick.
insight into her
Who are your heroes in real life?
extravagances, her Everyday Nigerians who are suffering and smiling.
ambivalent admiration And also selfless persons worldwide who give of
for Nelson Mandela, themselves to put a smile on other people’s faces.
and a talent that What is your greatest regret?
skipped a generation. I have very few regrets and they are not great ones.
Hair Salon Simona Schneider

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NUMBER 15

NORTH AFRICA SECTION:

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NORTH AFRICA SECTION

34 MOROCCO AND AFRICA: FROM BEN BARKA TO

36 ON THE RIVER: A NILE LAMENT IN TWELVE PARTS

38 THE LAST FILM

40 TAYEB SALIH AND THE WAD HAMID CYCLE

Waïl S. Hassan is an associate professor of Comparative

Anouar Majid, a native of Tangier, Morocco, writes on

Nouri Gana is assistant professor of Comparative

Matthew Shenoda is the author of Somewhere Else,

Simona Eva Schneider is a writer and photographer

Cover Photograph by Samarth Bhasin

Hisham Matar was born in New York and spent his

Alex Yera is a writer and

Karim Kettani is a lawyer in Rabat, Morocco, and one of the founding

ARE IMMUNE TO TRIBALISM. submissions or more debate-style pieces so

Dear Farafina: I had seen previous

Dear Farafina: I was very happy to receive

TO SUBSCRIBE NOW which may be published or otherwise used in any

close of the workshop, a mix of guests from the

ALLIANCE MAKES THE MUSIC LAGOS INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FEST

names, such as the Nigerian guitarist Femi

special Reading Festival features a

the pressures of work, a respite from the rigours of the daily

A NEW CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY THE LIVE REVOLUTION

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STONETOWN, ZANZIBAR by Toks Alalade

How do you get there?

would have existed for thirty-eight years.

STEVE RHODES COM

I n the last quarter of 1970, there was a

Youssef Chahine, 82: one of

Isaac Hayes, 65: a self-taught

Obviously puzzled that a non-black could privileged members of their

THE LIVING SAHARA

undertook a 16,000 km journey from Lagos to London to raise

CITIES OF THE NORTH

THE SAHARA MEETS THE SAHEL

“It’s clearly more

Hold the liver of a brother thieved

Trade your contents for cash

Like blood diamond

No one tells the truth of the man Feet suspended in air

Gave his dignity for bread Soldiers for twisted desires

VII They dream of balancing bread on their