Last year, I attended a conference that brought together African thought leaders. In a session about African identity, we explored the question of whether one could claim to be African without being fluent in any African languages. A passionate, and near disruptive

Read the rest of What Kind of African Doesn’t Speak Any African Languages? Me. »

A conversation with Chinua Achebe was a deep, slow and gracious matter. He was exceedingly courteous and always listened and reflected before answering. In his later years he talked even more slowly and softly, savouring the paradoxes of life and

Read the rest of Achebe – The Passing of A Great Man, A Great Writer and a Passionate Human Being – By Richard Dowden »

Ever since Nigeria’s first oil find at Olobiri in 1956, the question of who should benefit and pay for the costs and consequences of oil production has been a contentious issue; often with little consensus amongst the key players –

Read the rest of A Bold Bill for change opens up the Debate on Nigeria’s Oil Industry – By Dele Meiji Fatunla »

Ethnicity and religion are not predetermined; we are not born, do not possess an innate sense of ethnic or religious affiliation, we become Yoruba, Christian, Hausa or Kataf largely as a factor of geographical, ancestral, and societal influences. Against this

Read the rest of Northern Nigeria: The Conflict Within – By Zainab Sandah »

The development sector has for the past few years been criticised for being ineffectual. This has come both from ex-insiders, such as Owen Barder and William Easterly, as well as those outside the sector, most notably by Dambisa Moyo in

Read the rest of A polemic against NGOs and the destruction of local innovation – By Jeremy Weate »

Chinua Achebe’s latest book, There was a Country, has appeared fifty-four years after the author’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, today arguably the best-known novel ever written by an African. In the time between the two books, a remarkable literary and

Read the rest of There was a Country: Chinua Achebe makes peace with Nigeria – By Tolu Ogunlesi »

This piece is part of the Africa and the War on Drugs debate – and series of articles and reviews commissioned to coincide with the launch of the latest book in the African Arguments series:  Africa and the War on

Read the rest of Africa and the War on Drugs: the West African cocaine trade is not just business as usual – By James Cockayne »

In our house in Nsukka, the small university town in eastern Nigeria where I grew up, my parents’ bedroom harboured a cupboard, reached only by standing on a stepladder. In that cupboard lay a battered brown leather satchel, filled with

Read the rest of ‘There Was a Country’: a review of Chinua Achebe’s Biafran memoir – By Ike Anya »

Babatunde Fashola is the 13th Governor of Lagos State, Nigeria, and one of a number of Nigerian politicians and political technocrats who currently enjoy a high-level of respect internationally. We might add Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and the dapper

Read the rest of Babatunde Fashola: the Mayor Bloomberg of Lagos State – By Magnus Taylor »

In 1994, journalist Robert Kaplan wrote a controversial Atlantic article, “The Coming Anarchy,” warning of West Africa’s ungoverned spaces, disease-ridden slums, weak borders, and impoverished masses. Kaplan declared: “we ignore this dying region at our own risk.” In 2004, Douglas

Read the rest of Terrorism in West Africa: The Anarchy That Hasn’t Come – By Charlie Warren »