Essay
Agema and The Writer as a Repository of Memory
E. E. Sule, the renowned writer, critic, and scholar, in his instructive keynote address titled “BM Dzukogi as an Archive: Literature, Activism and Mentorship,” delivered at the national literary colloquium in honour of BM Dzukogi’s 60th birthday celebration in Minna, in January 2025, postulated that the “Nigerian writer must necessarily be an activist. Given the […]
Same Tune, Different Lyrics: A Review of “When I Say Africa”
Reviewer: Mosunmola O. AdeojoDocumentary: When I Say AfricaDirector: Cassandra HerrmanProducers: Cassandra Herrman, Linda Peckham, Kathryn Mathers Africa as backdrop. Africa as a stage. Africa as the set upon which someone else’s life story unfolds, their moral awakening performed, their benevolence practiced. In Cassandra Herrman’s documentary When I Say Africa, we are invited to confront this […]
Examining Social Dysfunction and Internet Fraud in Ikenna Okeh’s YAHOO! YAHOO!
Nigeria’s battered global reputation has been attributed to the nefarious activities of internet fraudsters and corruption perpetuated by unscrupulous political leaders who embezzle public funds and store them in offshore accounts abroad. These unfortunate social vices have led to the global victimization of innocent and hardworking Nigerians in legitimate businesses around the world. Nigeria suffers […]
A Continent of Riddles : A Review of Adéṣọ̀kàn’s “South Side”
The strange thing about Africa is how past, present and future come together in a kind of rough jazz – Ben Okri (A review of South Side, Akin Adesokan, Parresia Publishers, Lagos, 2025) Abel Dankor is an itinerant writer whose life reads like the typical life of every or most Africans; stateless and always in […]
From the Prism of Black Orpheus: Mapping the Growth and Development of Discourse on African Literature
The Conflict of Cultures in West African Poetry, Ulli Beier’s first essay in the maiden edition of Black Orpheus (September 1957), raises a crucial question that haunted the beginnings of African literature, one that has persisted till date. While the African writer fights against colonial subjectivization, he does so within the ambivalence of using the […]
Black Orpheus Dispatch: On Re-Using History
On re-usiting history 68-sh, 50-sh years later I The moment you use something, you initiate its death. II The most significant threat to historical work is not its inevitable decay (which is often how it appears in academic and public discourse), but the fact that said interventions become dated and fall out of use. In […]
War Without End in Nigerian Literature | A review of The Road to the Country
Only the dead have seen the end of war- George Santayana Book: The Road to the Country, Author: Chigozie Obioma Publisher: Masobe Books, Lagos Year: 2024 The Nigeria civil war (1967-70) has produced so many literary works that it would be a surprise if definitive course (s) on the war is not already in our […]
A Psychosocial Reading of Saddiq Dzukogi’s Your Crib, My Qibla
John Pepper Clark, the renowned Africa poet, playwright and scholar, in his acclaimed poem “The Casualties” offered a profound postulation on the complexity of war and victimhood when he remarked that “The casualties are not only those who are dead…” as a response to the divisive rhetoric and counter accusations that trailed the Nigerian civil […]
Àṣàkẹ́’s Vibe as Gimmick
It is a common refrain to say Nigerian popular music doesn’t reflect the social issues of contemporary Nigeria, and yet frame its global rise as an emblem of Nigerian triumph and dysfunction. This disconnect between our claims that the music lacks sociopolitical substance and its overwhelming cultural influence leads to a state of critical coma, […]
On Why Afrobeat Queens are Found Wanting
An honest witness does not lie, a false witness breathes lies. –Proverbs 14:5 “No more Big 3, there’s now a Big 4,” the Nigerian Afrobeats star Rema declared in his 2024 song “HEHEHE.” Rema’s statement, fans of Afrobeats are meant to believe, is declarative: the Nigerian music industry has had three main stars—Davido, Wizkid, and […]