Criticism

Reading the Oyinbo Wall in Nigerian Football

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Just before his country’s encounter with France at the 2026 World Cup, Senegal’s National Assembly President Ousmane Sonko stated that “regardless of the winner, it’s Africa that will have beaten Africa,” a sentiment that reiterated the French National Team’s constitution by African sporting talent. Sonko’s remarks also speak to the domination of the French side […]

A Poet and His Nation in Flight

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A poet and his nation in flight. First, the poet’s country, Uganda – an ill-fated Icarus – flew with delirium, overreached itself mid-flight, and plunged into the abyss of postcolonial chaos. The other, the poet – a reclaimed Icarus–is pulled into exile by the instinct for survival and escape from state victimhood. This is the […]

Nigerian Literature is Dead (Again)

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When Oris Aigbokhaevbolo declared Nigerian literature dead, he did not do so casually. He was not lamenting a temporary lull or the disappearance of a few magazines. He was naming what he saw as a fundamental failure of formation. There was, in his account, no stable literary life to grow into. Writing appeared intensely, briefly, […]