AfricaResource: The Place for Africa on the Net

By Biko Agozino

‘Unlike societies right next to the Igbo for instance – more famously the Benin, or further West, the Yoruba or, all the way southwards of the continent, the Kwazulu of the legendary Shaka – the Igbo, with their strong social formation rooted in republicanism, would appear to belie my general claim. The Igbo have no history of expansionism, being content with a strong organization around autonomous clan entities that made contact – friendly or unfriendly with one another as the need arose (Wole Soyinka, Distinguished Nyerere Lecture, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 2010: 1).

By Damola Awoyokun

We should pay closer attention to the debate between Fr Hassan Kukah and Dr Ebenezer Obadare. It represents much more than even the participants seems to realise. While Kukah sees Obadare’s complaints as mere “contribution to knowledge and in which case, there would really have been no need to do a rejoinder,” it is no exaggeration to say, the debate is the soul of the nation struggling to free itself from grip of sinister darkness that masquerades as light of truth. There is no instrument more cogent, more effective in enslaving Nigerians than religion and God-talk. Today, when armed robbers want to rob a bank, they call prayer meeting. When Yar Adua’s minders wanted to sell the ruse of his sickness in Saudi Arabia, they asked us to pray hard for him in order to distract us from the fact that they had kidnapped the instruments of presidency so that no one else could claim power. And for two months daily prayers flowed from National Assembly to every church and mosque. And we that dared to criticise the sick man as another Mugabe hanging onto power at all cost were made to feel heartless.

By Biko Agozino

Ruben Abati made very insightful observations in his analysis of the failure of the Nigerian national football team to inspire enthusiasm from supporters at home and abroad during the World Cup in South Africa. He concluded that the outing has brought more shame than pride to Nigerians given the Nigerian preparations for the competition were characteristically shoddy, while the South Africans distinguished themselves by organizing an efficient competition at a level that Nigeria could not manage, the way they effortlessly introduced a new equipment to the game, the vuvuzela, while Nigeria has yet to bring an innovation to the game we love so much, and how their national team played well even when they lost or drew while the Super Eagles are praying that some other team should suffer misfortune at the hands of some other team in order for us to qualify by default the way we managed to qualify for the finals.

Two months have passed since the night she lost her son Andre, and still she could hear him all around the house. Whenever she’s in the kitchen preparing supper for her husband, she sees him standing there beside her, tugging at her apron, wanting to see what she was preparing. He often asked a dozen questions, and it was usually a miracle for her to keep up with him. Time after time she wanted him to save his questions for his father when he returns from work, but now, in the deep quietude of the house, how she wished to hear the sound of him once more. At least just once, she would love to open his bedroom door in the morning to get him ready for school and find him smiling and laughing while jumping up and down on his bed. He once said he wanted to be a pilot, later on he changed it to wanting to be a cowboy, just like the good guy in that western classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

I am staring at a blank Word page on my laptop. I feel the need – the urge – to write down something, and yet I know not what to write about. It’s weird; never once have I suffered from Writer’s Block as I do now. It’s been a near two weeks since the thought of writing down anything crossed my mind. The doctor seemed pleased about this. He advised I try taking much time off and try my hands on something – anything – else that’s different rather than reach into my head for something to write about. He means well, this doctor of mine. Sometimes I can’t help but think of him as full of shit.