A Nigerian journalist thinks aloud and hopes you bear with him awhile

I felt righteous indignation when a non-Nigerian friend made the above comment. Perhaps “indignation” is too blunt a term, better - I went on the defensive. You see, I too love gadgets, but recently I have had cause to revise my reaction to my friend’s assessment. His view then was that seeing as we have mainly come from the Third World, poverty and underdevelopment, the advent of technology and the ease with which they reach us put us in a mad rush to acquire them, much to the exclusive of other things that matter more.

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Bold title. That is how the author of Purple Hibiscus prefers we deal with the topic. But she is mistaken in her take on how to depict sex in literature.

She is currently running a training workshop for aspiring Nigerian writers under the auspices of Fidelity Bank. One of the course participants took exception to the brazen way some authors treat a topic that should be sacred - human sexuality, averring that a writer should not throw decency to the wind in an attempt to please the readers. The participant Ejiro Edoki says that literature should be a “moral agent” helping to shape society for the better, and that it was therefore “indecent to openly depict sex and (such) experiences on the pages of a literary work”.

Hear Ms. Adichie’s retort: Continue reading →

This is where I bank and their services are good but they have one defect that they share with other Nigerian banks … they skim off bits and pieces from your account. Multiplied by thousands of clients, this is how they make their millions for which everybody proclaims that “the banking industry is robust”. Indeed!

One day they charge me COT (Charge on transfer) twice. When you complain, they apologize. Another day, they charge you for an unknown concept, named with codes they alone understand. And so on. I’m almost tempted to keep my money at home!

On Monday I requested a Letter of Introduction from them, as my bankers, to another entity. They did, graciously it seemed. I received a notification from them yesterday with a charge for that letter! And I thought they were being helpful…

To the organisers in Beijing, it was a detail, but lip-synching in the opening ceremony struck at the heart of the Olympic spirit.

So, the footage of the “footprint” fireworks was digitally inserted in the TV coverage of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. And Lin Miaoke, the adorable nine-year-old “singer,” was miming the Ode to the Motherland, as seven-year-old Yang Peiyi’s voice floated over the 90,000-person crowd and was transmitted across the world. Continue reading →

Yes, in spite of the obviously saturated market, people are still coming out with new magazines in Nigeria.  Understandably that was my initial (justified) reaction.  But “WorkLife” sets out as if concious of this and is different from the outset.  That’s smart because the only way to survive a reprint is to have something unique and it seems to do - addressing an oft neglected issue of work-life balance.

A friend brought the magazine to my attention today.  Printing is superb with Direct Imaging.  Photographs are quite good and attractive and I read it through in two sittings (less than one day!).

The crew is relatively inexperienced, at least without previous (serious) pedigree in publishing but I think they credited themselves well.  I couldn’t help sending off an sms to one of the publicised cell phone numbers to say congrats.

I think we’ll be hearing more about them.

PS. By the way, they have a website worklifemag.com but you better not visit yet cos it’s “under construction”