ktravula – a travelogue!

Paging Bill Gates! (And YOU Can Help)

This time last week I got an interesting, and pleasant, surprise: I’d been listed along with 31 other fantastic people around the continent in the Quartz Africa’s Innovator’s List. Thank you, thank you, and thank you! Two days ago, I got another one: Bill Gates, one of the world’s innovative (and richest) icons had shared the Quartz List on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

My wife who had called my attention to it was half exhilarated that I was getting this kind of recognition, and proud of me, and half desirous of same for her absolutely wonderful and important company currently saving lives in Nigeria through her work with a small team (in cold chain supply of blood) and in need of serious funding support.

Her perspective and excitement struck a chord with me and I have decided to spend some effort trying to get Bill’s attention both on twitter and on Facebook, because having his clout and support for many of the ideas and work we’re doing will give way more practical mileage than just the exposure of a list (great as it is). His Foundation, for instance, has supported hundreds of great ideas around the world that have then gone on to thrive and change lives. We’d like to have that too.

So, I would like to have a conversation with him, wherever, whenever, possible. Here’s one more reason:

One of the motivations for my work on YorubaName.com and other language-related work we’ve been doing over a decade comes from an early frustration with Microsoft products which always drew this red wriggly line under names that it considered foreign, even when they were not to the local environment. When Microsoft Word was used in a Nigerian environment where Yorùbá is spoken as a first language along with many others, the red line never lets the user forget who made the rules. It created a feeling of exclusion, or not being recognised. It was similar to the attitude among teachers in Nigerian private schools who scolded children for speaking “vernacular” in the class. It had the, perhaps unintended, consequence of keeping users (and students) feeling constantly inadequate – second class. Thankfully, this part of my motivation was highlighted in the profile for Quartz.

Screenshot (40) In any case, I am interested in talking with Bill Gates about the work I’ve committed myself to in increasing the African language content in technology. His help will be greatly appreciated and I will appreciate any help in being able to reach him. My last employment was at Google (Nigeria), if this helps. One of the things I did there, apart from my primary assignment, was help improve the Nigerian language currency in Google Translate and some other Google products, for mobile and for PC. I would like to do the same for Microsoft, if possible (I’m currently unemployed, you see). But more importantly, I’d like to explore partnership opportunities between Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and our Yorùbá Name Project.

One of the things I was pleased to discover while going through Bill’s Gates Notes blog is that he’s also a fan of Dr. Richard Feynman who is one of my biggest inspirations. Feynman’s book/biography Surely You Must Be Joking is my all-time favourite book showing how one can be smart, motivated, and still have fun at the same time. His follow up work, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is one book I’ve always returned to. It’s a collection of essays, thoughts, lectures, interviews, on a number of fascinating pursuits and thoughts. Dr. Feynman was an easy man to love, and to listen to.

So, maybe this collision is a good sign.

How you can help:

If you have direct access to Bill Gates (or if you ARE Bill Gates), and/or you’d like to connect us, please send me a mail at kt AT ktravula.com.
If you know any other way I can reach him, other than the grant application processes on the Gates Foundation website, please leave them in the comments below.
If neither of the above, please help retweet my tweet to him, and upvote my comment on his Facebook page. It might work (or it might not). Who knows!

Thank you.

NLNG Releases a Shortlist of 11 for 2016

According to the Advisory Board for The Nigeria Prize for Literature, led by Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo, 11 Nigerian authors have been shortlisted for this year’s Literature Prize for Prose Fiction, worth $100,000. This initial shortlist was drawn from 173 books.

Here are the authors (resident in the country and outside) and their work in the shortlist:

Chika Unigwe (winner of the prize in 2012): Night Dancer (2014).
Ogochukwu Promise (author of over fifteen novels): Sorrow’s Joy
Yejide Kilanko (a writer of poetry and fiction): Daughters Who Walk This Path.
Ifeoma Okoye (a writer and author of children’s literature): The Fourth World
Sefi Atta (author of Everything Good Will Come): A Bit of Difference
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (writer and journalist): Season of Crimson Blossoms
Ifeoluwa Adeniyi (radio broadcaster): On the Bank of the River
Elnathan John (lawyer and writer): Born On A Tuesday
Aramide Segun (winner of an ANA Prose Prize): Eniitan Daughter of Destiny
Maryam Awaisu (radio presenter): Burning Bright
Mansim Chumah Okafor (author of two previous books of fiction): The Parable of the Lost Shepherds

The list was presented by the chairman, panel of judges for this year’s prize, Prof. Dan Izevbaye, well-respected literary critic and a professor of English Language at Bowen University, Iwo. Other members of the panel of judges include Professor Asabe Usman Kabir, Professor of Oral and African Literatures at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto and Professor Isidore Diala, a professor of African Literature at Imo State University, Owerri and first winner of The Nigeria Prize for Literary Criticism.

“The Nigeria Prize for Literature has, since 2004, rewarded eminent writers such as Gabriel Okara (co-winner, 2004, poetry), Professor Ezenwa Ohaeto (co-winner, 2004, poetry) for The Dreamer, His Vision; Ahmed Yerima (2005, drama) for his play, Hard Ground; Mabel Segun (co-winner, 2007, children’s literature) for her collection of short plays Reader’s Theatre; Professor Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo (co-winner, 2007, children’s literature) for her book, My Cousin Sammy; Kaine Agary (2008, prose) for her book Yellow Yellow; Esiaba Irobi (2010, drama) who clinched the prize posthumously with his book Cemetery Road; Adeleke Adeyemi (2011, children’s literature) with his book The Missing Clock; Chika Unigwe (2012, prose), with her novel, On Black Sisters Street; Tade Ipadeola (2013, poetry) with his collection of poems, The Sahara Testaments and Professor Sam Ukala (2014, drama) with his play, Iredi War.”

Ibadan: Of Towers, Hills, and Neglect

There are many stories in every step up Òkè Àarẹ in Ibadan, each as diverse as the other, but each visibly telling of the city’s ancient but colourful past. One of the notable things the city is reputed for, other than its famous brown rusty roofs all of which can be seen at a glance from here in its old glory, is its imposing hills and the lasting reputation they have on the city and neighbouring towns, stretching even into lore across generations. Òkè Ààrẹ (the chieftain’s hill) is just one of such hills, named after its most famous resident, Ààrẹ Látòòṣà whose old palace lay behind a prominent courthouse on the hill. Òkè Ṣápátì (Shepherd Hills), Òkè Páàdì (The Padre’s Hill), Òkè Màpó (Mapo Hill), Òkè Àdó are some of the others, each with stories of their naming and history.

A view of downtown Ibadan from Òkè Ààrẹ on the way to Bower’s Tower.

Some of these hills have increased in reputation over time because of modern (or colonial) additions, in structure, that have cemented (no pun) their statuses as more than just natural attractions. Mapo Hall, for example, is a town hall/courthouse built to Victorian style, in 1925-1929, right on top of Màpó Hill, from where the visitor can see almost all of Ibadan to all directions.

A view from the top of Mapo Hall

Its reputation as a symbol of colonial justice where tax evaders were jailed has transmitted into culture and lore. As the popular song says about owó orí (taxes) goes, “Awọn àgbà tí ò san… wọn ń bẹ l’átìmọ́lé ní Mapo.” Over time, its role in post-colonial Nigeria has evolved, now remaining only as a vintage venue for occasions of private citizens, weddings, and other public events, most notably the coronation of every new Olúbàdàn, which is perhaps the biggest event it hosts at least once in every few years.

Mapo Hall: a view from the front.

From deep in the neighbouring valley in Bẹẹrẹ Market, reputed for its throng of market men and women selling their wares almost onto the road in defiance of coming traffic, Mapo Hall is visible at a distance, perched on top of the hill to the left like an ark. In colonial times, when it was perhaps the only visible structure of its colour and stature, one can only imagine the psychological imposition its presence alone had on citizens’ mind.

The only other notable sight from this spot is the Látòòṣa Courthouse – on the opposite end of the horizon, even slightly elevated than Mapo itself.

On the horizon to the left, on Mapo Hill, is Mapo Hall. Top of the hill to the right, on Òkè Ààrẹ, is the Látòòṣa Courthouse complex with an accompanying tower.

This courthouse structure was opened, according to the plaque on its walls, on June 13, 1937, making it slightly younger than Mapo Hall. Certainly less grandiose, but not less imposing especially on surrounding areas. It does boast of something that Mapo Hall doesn’t, however. That is a tower that has made a lot of people confuse it with Bower’s Tower which is located about a mile away. On this visit, and as one assumes on all visits to this place, there was no guide present to inform visitors of the role of this tower courthouse in the administration of the city. One had to only assume, from its size and location, that it was built for a significant administrative purpose.

Worn out by time and mismanagement, the walls tell a story of neglect. There are signs on the building informing users of the current use of the house: “Oke Ado Grade ‘C’ Customary Court”, “New Bodija Grade ‘C’ Customary Court” “Ibadan North Local Government Tenement Rate Collection Centre”, “Ayeye Grade ‘C’ Customary Court”, etc. For a building of such multipurpose use, care has certainly not been taken. I think back to a recent experience, in Italy, where tourism has built a thriving industry of restaurants, malls, and gift shops around notable structures that tell the country’s history, real and fictional, and how much value that attention (and tourist dollars) has brought to the country. Old churches and abbeys, ancient arenas in Verona and the Colosseum in Rome, among others, are all just ruins of a certain past. But they have been preserved and well branded in order to attract foreigners and their resources. Even a fictional character, Juliet, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, has a touristy structure built in her honour, called Casa di Giulietta.

We haven’t done anything similar with ours, and it doesn’t look like we care.

The location of the Courthouse couldn’t be more auspicious. Right at the back of the building is the site of Ààrẹ Látòòsà’s old palace, now nonexistent, replaced with a modern but still crumbling edifice.

Who was Ààrẹ Látòòṣà, and to what did he owe the fame that got him to have had a whole hill named after him? According to Ibadan history, Ọbádòkè Látòòṣa was a generalissimo of Ọ̀yọ́ empire from 1871 to 1885 (not to be confused with his son Ba’ale Shittu Latosa who reigned as head of Ibadan from 1914 to 1925). Like most Ààr̀ẹ Ọnà Kakanfò before and after him, Ààrẹ lived and died fighting, conquering or being conquered. He was noted to have been the person who curbed the excesses of Ẹfúnṣetán Aníwúrà, a notorious slaver who ran roughshod over Ibadan in her days. But Látòòṣà’s reputation was cemented fully when he committed suicide after a certain dishonour had befallen him in the presence of his subjects. More about that here.

Bower’s Tower, further down into Òkè Ààrẹ, was opened in December 1936 in honour of Captain Ross L. Bower who was the first British Resident and Travelling Commissioner from 1893 to 1897. Along with the Courthouse, the Tower is the only second vantage structure from which one can observe all the city’s land areas. The similarity between the tower structures are notable as is their differences. Bower’s Tower was constructed with an observer in mind, perhaps with a pair of binoculars at hand, looking on at the majesty of the land spread before him/her. The Courthouse tower, placed right above the court itself, seemed removed from visitors to have been constructed as a place for regular access. It looked more like a clock tower than a viewing point.

Bower’s Tower

The view from on top of the tower is sublime, but getting there is usually the first challenge. It’s spiral staircase, built into such a small structure, could easily repel a claustrophobic guest. Also, the wear and tear from decades of neglect has turned it into a disaster waiting to happen. That won’t happen, I was told by a middle-aged man who now runs the place and guides visitors around the premises. The Tower has been commissioned for repair by the state government. Before the end of the year, the new private management would have taken over and made some significant changes.

The common Ibadan word ‘Láyípo’ comes, among other things, from the spiral staircase within this tower.

There are many more structures around this old Ibadan that tell stories of its ancient and modern past. Finding, curating, and branding them for the reinforcement of culture, history, and tourism, will be a worthy endeavour for both private and public initiatives. But will it ever come?

What would one need to do, as a private citizen to support the work of the state government in turning these sites of historical significance to self-sustaining money-making ventures not just for commercial ends but also for the sustenance of important stories and the encouragement of sight-seeing as an important part of modern/city culture?

CFP: LAGOS: From the Pepperfarm to the Megacity (and Beyond) An Interdisciplinary Conference on Space, Society, and the Imagination of an African Crossroads

Faculty of Arts
University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
June 15-17, 2017

Between May 6 and 7, 2016, a conference titled “Lagos: From the Pepperfarm to the Megacity (and Beyond): An Interdisciplinary Conference on Space, Society, and the Imagination of an African Crossroads,” took place at Barnard College, New York City. Participants came from several universities in the United States, Africa, Europe, and Asia. For the conference schedule and other information, see here. The organizers are planning a second edition of this interdisciplinary conference to be held at the Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos between June 15 and 17, 2017.

Talk of cities is everywhere in African Studies and talk of African cities is everywhere beyond the field. Thinking through African cities has produced critical reappraisals of how concepts such as urbanism, globalization, citizenship, migration, epistemology, infrastructure, flexibility, history and futurity, can be more productively thought to capture current, imminent, and historical realities. The city increasingly appears to compete with the nation-state as the key spatial category of analysis for Africanist social theorists. From Casablanca to Capetown, from Kinshasa to Mogadishu, and from Lagos to Luanda, Africa is dotted with cities that constitute political, economic, social, and intellectual alternatives to the nation, while being situated within it. Perennial challenges to nation-states in Africa and beyond combined with the spectacular growth of cities on the continent and the global south more broadly, have prompted some to suggest that we may be witnessing the rise/return of the city-state as the key structuring formation of the new global order, and thus the key structure of concern for theorists of the social world.

The conference will pull scholars and practitioners working from a range of disciplinary standpoints into conversation with each other around shared questions. Through cross-disciplinary engagement, we will flesh out linkages between the pasts, presents, and speculative futures of Lagos. The organizers welcome papers and multimedia presentations from the perspective of literature, politics, dance, culture, diaspora, geography and environment, art, architecture, religion, knowledge and epistemology, economy and labor, identity formation, film, public science, popular culture, history, etc. We plan workshops on publishing and academic mentoring for postgraduate students and junior scholars.
Selected papers from this conference will be published shortly after in a special issue of urban studies journals. Interested parties are asked to send a 250 – 300 word proposal and a short bio to the organizers at lagosconference2017@gmail.com by October 30, 2016. Notifications of successful proposals will be sent out on November 30, 2016.

Conference registration fee: N10,000 for local participants, $100 for international. (Registration fee covers meals)

Conference Organizers:
• Saheed Aderinto–Western Carolina University (USA)
• Abosede George–Barnard College-Columbia University (USA)
• Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi–University of California-Riverside (USA)
• O.B Simire (Chair of LOC)–University of Lagos
• Charles Okafor (Secretary of LOC)–University of Lagos
• Paul Osifodunrin (LOC member)–University of Lagos

Collaborators:
• Western Carolina University
• Barnard College-Columbia University
• University of California-Riverside
• University of Lagos

Lingua Fracas as a Positive

It is 5.47am in Ostana, Cuneo, a small town in Italy (close to the border with France). It has only seventy-four inhabitants, and became world-famous earlier this year from the arrival of a baby, Pablo, its first in 28 years. It is also regarded as one of the most beautiful Italian towns. I am here all the way from Lagos, Nigeria, in order to receive a “Special Prize” called the Il Premio Ostana in Lingua Madre (The Premio Ostana Prize for Mother tongue Literature), organised by a small community organisation who has, for eight years, organised cultural and literary art activities in celebration of the language of the region, Occitan, and other minority languages of the world.

Although it is barely six am, it is already bright, and the view from my room overlooking some of the tallest mountains in the Alps is breathtaking. The mountain closest to me, shaped like a pyramid with a paramount top, is called Monviso, or “my face” because of the way it is arranged with other peaks around it to look like the human face. The name of the mountain is in Occitan, like many phrases one hears thrown around this place. When the clouds are not covering its peaks as they have done for much of my time here, we see its caps, dotted with greens from trees, and patches of black from the face of rock formations from hundreds of years back. Down at the foot of the hill from where I sit on my bed, a man of middle age is tending a small garden with a long hoe. If I open the glass windows, fresh breeze as cold as fifteen degrees, wafts into the room forcing us to hug the bed covers a little tighter.

The trip from the airport in Turin was a fascinating one, taking about two hours, and journeying through some of the most beautiful views of Italy. Travellers in Nigeria would have felt a similar sense of wonder traveling to parts of Nassarawa, or Ondo states where rocks and hills line each side of the road like guardian masquerades. But this is not Idanre, as the clashing of tongues around one’s ears will immediately reveal. This is the Italian Alps, in a region that once was autonomous as “Occitania”, spanning the land from this north-western part of Italy into the other part of southeastern France, united by a common language and culture. Over time, as the nation of France and Italy formed a stronger national identity, they imposed an artificial border that divided Occitania into two, one part staying in France and the other in Italy. And over time, the influence of the stronger languages and culture began to intrude until Occitan became just an endangered minority language needing protection.

This, in many ways is similar to the story of many African languages, from Yorùbá to Hausa to Swahili, forcibly broken down and eventually watered down by colonial boundaries that kept its speakers having to learn a bigger, more imposing language at the expense of the local one. Where the difference lies is in what has been done over time to acknowledge and mitigate the problem of endangerment by the people who care about it. In Ostana, for the last eight years, concerned stakeholders have come to this mountainous region to celebrate the language, and – more importantly – to celebrate other people working on other endangered languages around the world, making resources and networks available for a shared approach to keeping the languages alive.

Yesterday, at a public panel, Nigerian writer Lola Shoneyin described the state of languages in Nigeria, the history of our regressive attitude to mother tongue education, and the problem that has caused in both our educational and also, sadly, in our political culture. She cited the Ife Six-Year Primary Project, headed by Professor Babatunde Fafunwa the result of which proved that students can and should be educated in their mother tongues for a better educational experience, and how that ideal is now totally lost, and the research result swept under the carpet by succeeding government administrations. During the Question and Answer segment where I was interviewed by a member of the event’s organising body, I also pointed to the ideals that were written in our constitution and our National Policy on Education encouraging education to be conducted in the mother tongue for a few first years of the child’s life, and how that had ended up being just a suggestion rather than a policy statement, and how the National Institute of Nigerian Languages (NINLA) – a body established to train language teachers from every part of the country – had become just a toothless tiger. Members in attendance were appalled to know that over the last thirty years, the Nigerian educational system (particularly in the South) has slowly degenerated from a time when subject can even be taught in the mother tongue in a number of government primary schools, to now when Nigerian languages – even as subjects no longer exist in the syllabi. “It is the opposite here,” someone volunteered. Thirty years ago, no one spoke Occitan, but now it has come back as a language of common use. I got the same experience in Wales, just a few months ago, where Welsh-medium schools have sprung up to supplant and surpass many English-only schools, with impressive results.

Around me in Ostana are varying tongues. Our driver from the Turin airport spoke English as a fourth language, after Provinçale (French version of Occitan), Italian, and French. His colleague spoke only French and Italian. The conversation in his car consisted of him making a point and then running into a language block, unable to remember what English word he needed to use to communicate a point. He’d then translate himself into Italian for his colleague who sometimes then gave him the word in French. My wife and I speak a smattering of French and we’d sometimes then understand it, suggesting the appropriate word in English. Or we won’t get the word right and the conversation would move on only for the process to repeat itself again in a few minutes. For a linguist, it was the ultimate beautiful thing, especially since none of these occasional misunderstandings prevented us from fully bonding and sharing other less untranslatable experiences among ourselves. But it was also a celebration of the beauty in the diversity of our tongues and worldviews. My wife noted halfway into the trip, with mock wonder, how it was that none of the road signs we had seen was written in English. Welcome to Italy. But also, welcome to the real world where education and enlightenment isn’t judged only on the basis of competence in just that one language.

I wondered myself a few minutes later what would be said of a town in any part of Nigeria where all the signs there are written in the one language common to the speakers living in the area, and how we’d have resorted to that common pejorative in order to tarnish that hypothetical village: “tribalism”. We would have reacted as though the town is saying to outsiders: “Do not come in here because you speak a different language. We hate you!” But we would be wrong. The experience I have had traveling all over the world, especially in places where value is placed on the local language, from Kenya to Wales to Ostana, leads me to a better understanding of this hypothetical town’s message to the world: “Come here and share with us the experience of our language and culture. Bring your language with you, by all means, but come in ready to share in ours, in celebration of life and this important diversity.”

And from that, we can learn a whole lot!

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First published on Premium Times on June 3, 2016.

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