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Browsing the archives for the News category.

Of Tabs and Texts

I realized since a few months ago that I have a habit of opening too many tabs on my Google Chrome internet explorer. Everyone who peeped onto my computer screen while I work always wondered how I managed to concentrate on current tasks. My fiancée suggested that I most likely have attention deficit. In return, I argue that I have read enough reports that suggest that distracting oneself with stuff online actually led to efficiency. She has now asked that I limit my open tabs to ten. I have tried, and failed. Now I use Evernote to mark down some of the links I intend to read much later.

Today however, I recalled something that may be responsible for my interest in many things at once (much of them about politics, education, humour, literature, and news). Two words: my father. Thinking back now, I remember how there was always a room in every house we’ve lived in that has stacks of every current publication in Nigeria at the moment. Today, I remembered Prime People, Vintage People, Fun Times, Ikebe Super, Super Story, Vanguard, The Sketch, Newswatch, Daily Times, among very many others. Name it, we had every issue published, and they were always delivered by father’s vendor early in the day. Soon enough, the stack filled up a whole room. Literally.

It was impossible to be bored in an environment like that, and cartoon strips in the newspapers and magazines, and the continuing stories in legitimately fun publications like Ikebe Super, Fun Times, and Super Story sustained a literary interest for a very long time, long before it was eventually replaced with real literature, also from his bookshelves. So now, whenever I’m chided for opening too many webpages at once, I point back to the memory of a time when pleasure and work walked hand-in-hand while sitting on the floor of a living room with dozens of news and feature publications spread all around.

Sometime last year when an academic mentor in Ibadan asked if I had access to past issues of any Nigerian publications which used pidgin as the main language of communication, I immediately thought of Fun Times, Dauda the Sexy Guy, and Ikebe Super. He was working on a compilation of a comprehensive Nigerian Pidgin English dictionary. I have not asked father what he did with all his stack of past issues, but I assume that it will be a trip to return into the margins of those oldies at some point in the future, if they still exist. For now, new tabs and texts.

Caine Comes Home

On Monday July 2, my friend and writer, Rotimi Babatunde, was declared the winner of this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing – the highest prize for short fiction from Africa. The prize comes with 10,000 British Pounds, and the bragging rights that come with being singularly crowned out of a list of diverse nominees.

“The shortlist with Baroness Nicholson in Oxford yesterday: Stanley, Melissa, Jenna, Emma, Billy and Rotimi.”

His short story titled “Bombay’s Republic” (downloadable here) explores the almost forgotten story of Nigerian soldiers in Burma during the Second World War. In the citation, Babatunde’s work was described as “ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of Independence.”

Rotimi Babatunde’s fiction and poems have been published in Africa, Europe and America in journals which include Die Aussenseite des Elementes and Fiction on the Web and in anthologies including Little Drops and A Volcano of Voices. He is a winner of the Meridian Tragic Love Story Competition organised by the BBC World Service and his plays have been staged and presented by institutions which include the Halcyon Theatre, Chicago and the Institute for Contemporary Arts. He is currently taking part in a collaboratively produced piece at the Royal Court and the Young Vic as part of World Stages for a World City. Rotimi lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.

The Lost Country

This post, originally intended to be titled “Mitt Romney Hates Me” in response to the decision of whoever manages his Youtube channel to ban me from leaving any further comments after I spent last week debating with some of the commenters on one of his videos. There’s something else in the news however that is a little more disconcerting than being banned from further debate by someone who wants to be the president of the country that champions free speech and democracy. It is about the so-called investigation in the corridors of power about someone in the Obama administration leaking “sensitive” foreign policy information.

It began about a week or more ago when two consecutive New York Times articles came out one of them boasting that President Obama has a “Kill List” of wanted terrorists marked for death by the US drones that he personally supervises. The other talked about an extensive cyber war conducted by the administration and Israel in which computer systems in Iran were targeted with debilitating viruses. Responses to the two articles were mixed. The response to the Kill List article was definitely very mixed, and very weird. Republicans and other right-wing conservatives who had tried to paint the president as otherwise soft on terror suddenly found themselves faced with a well-done reportage that showed that the commander-in-chief had actually been personally conducting a strong, brutal, foreign policy. The Left however, the otherwise human-right touting base of the president who beat up on George Bush for being such a hawkish man who misled the country into war in which innocent lives (and of some bad people too, no less), kept curiously quiet. They found no contradiction whatsoever in the image of a president who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 personally supervising the killing of suspected terrorists not yet convicted of any crimes.

Therefore, in a weird twist of fate, logic, and political identity, Democrats silently cheered that their president finally locked down the foreign policy cred (nevermind that his supervising of the killing of Osama Bin Laden already wrote him into the history of decisive leadership), while Republicans – otherwise usual supporters for whistleblowers who leak government information that show abuse/misuse of power – are now up in arms, jumping up and down, and making loud noises that the leaker of the said information should be found. Why? Because the leaked information made the president look good. Of course if the information “leaked” to the New York Times had included some embezzlement or some sort of information, these same Republicans would have been the first to find ways of protecting whoever the person is, touting him/her as a hero.

So, here’s where we are. The biggest developing news on TV today (bipartisan, nevertheless) is about the call for a private investigation, not – as you would imagine – to examine the rationale for the president himself personally supervising the life/death decision on who lives or who dies in Yemen, Afghanistan or Iraq tomorrow, but to punish whoever made that information public. The Republicans making the most noise about the call for this panel do not care much for those accused bad guys (and the innocent collateral deaths accompanying it), but they hope on some level that the investigation would lead to the president himself, and he would thus be embarrassed. Again, not so that the killings would stop or become more open, but so that he would be painted as a weak, narcissistic leader. The president himself, calling the insinuations that he purposefully leaked classified information “offensive” is investigating the leaks so as to plug it, and not really to stop or modify the draconian policy that made some mockery of his 2009 Nobel Prize and his earlier stance on the policies of the George Bush administration.

It all just seem weird to me. But what do I know. I’m just one naive observer. But all liberal observers now keeping quiet would do best to remember that Obama won’t be president forever. The spy and killer drones however, and the capability for government abuse, will.

3bute.com & Caine Prize: Press Release

The 2012 winner of the of the £10,000 Caine Prize, Africa’s leading literary prize, will be announced at a celebratory dinner at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, on Monday 2 July. To promote the new crop of young writers, 3bute.com in collaboration with the Caine Prize will be adapting (so readers can mashup) all the stories shortlisted for this year’s prize before the winner is announced.

Drop dates for the Caine Prize 2012 ‘3butes’:

– Stanley Kenani (Malawi) ‘Love on Trial’ – May 27

– Melissa Tandiwe Myambo (Zimbabwe) – June 3

– Constance Myburgh (South Africa) ‘Hunter Emmanuel’ – June 11

– Rotimi Babatunde (Nigeria) ‘Bombay’s Republic’ – June 20

– Billy Kahora (Kenya) ‘Urban Zoning’ – June 30

3bute [pronounced: tribute] is an online anthology devoted to the contexts often missing when African stories are reported. Our mash-up platform lets artists collaborate with writers on 3-page visualizations of their stories and journalism. By being able to add context to these narrative and “mashable” surfaces, our goal is to render, with your help, the developing world in a more engaging and immersive way.

3bute’s mashable surface lets everyone add their voice to the story by submitting relevant links to any context/ media content they can find on the web. 3bute pages can also be embedded all over the web, and the context everyone has added to the page goes along with it. In other words, 3bute is a social, accessible and sustainable way of distributing African stories, along with much needed context, around the web.

This year, like never before, overwhelming attention is being drawn to the shortlisted stories, thanks to the efforts of portals like ZunguZungu. 3bute hopes to offer a hotspot for the discussions around the stories.

For more information visit www.3bute.com or email us at mail@3bute.com.

CFA: Sprouters’ Free Creative Writing Mentorship Program

SPROUTERS is now accepting applications for her 2012 online mentorship program.

We would like to invite all interested teenage girls, between the age of ten and twenty, who have a passion for creative writing, to submit an application for Nigeria’s pioneer online mentorship program.

This is a great opportunity for young writers at any stage of experience to have their talent honed by nine mentors of repute: Unoma Azuah, Ayodele Olofintuade, Ifesinachi Okoli-Okpagu, Abimbola Adelakun, Temitayo Olofinlua, Azafi Omoluabi-Ogosi, Abimbola Dare, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia, and Ugo Chime.

Mentees will be taken through a robust set of writing and critical analysis skills. They will be directed towards great literary works of fiction and encouraged to understudy these writings. The program will raise awareness on domestic and global issues affecting women and girls, encouraging mentees to write on these subjects.

SPROUTERS is a yearly program, and is free for all mentees.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: First fifty applications. Early submission is therefore strongly advised.

ENTRY REQUIREMENT:
1. Must be citizens of Nigeria, resident anywhere in Nigeria.
2. Must be female.
3. Must be between the ages of ten to twenty. Older applicants should please send an email to applications@sproutersng.com requesting exemption, and wait for clearance before proceeding with their
application.
4. Must have access to the internet, either owned by them or by someone who would permit them the use of it.
5. Must have the time and passion to follow it through to the end. This is a long term program. All applications must be backed up by verification from a referee. The following are eligible to act as referees: Teachers. Parents. Church
leaders. Published writers (books and newspapers). Known editors. Members of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), or other writing groups. Referees may be citizens of any country, and do not have to be resident in Nigeria.

SELECTION OF MENTEES:
The editor will select a maximum of fifty mentees on the basis of the application submitted, which should include:
 Uploaded Passport Photo: Use jpeg, jng format. Size should not exceed 300×300.
 Personal Statement – In no more than 200 words, mentees should tell a little bit of themselves. There is no right or wrong answer.
 Writing Sample: In no less than 300 and no more than 450 words, showcase your best work (short story/poem). Mentees should choose subjects that interest them the most.
 All applications must be submitted through the online application form: http://www.sproutersng.com/Applyformentorship.php.
 Applications must be written in English.

To read more about SPROUTERS, please go to http://www.sproutersng.com. For additional information, contact us at: Email: editor@sproutersng.com, Tel: +2348024345207

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