A law that punishes the messenger protects the officials who most need scrutiny.
10 hours ago
Living in Nigeria can mean expecting constant disappointment, yet it still manages to shock you. It could be a sudden policy change, an infrastructure project left incomplete for years, a hospital that fails you when you need it most because doctors are on strike, or the quiet shame of explaining, yet again, why your passport gets extra scrutiny abroad. Bad governance, a battered economy, terrible infrastructure and systems that seem designed to fail affect the quality of Nigerians’ lives everyday. Anyone who has lived here long enough has at least one moment where the system failed them. In this edition of Nigerian Lives, Culture Custodian speaks with 4 Nigerians about that one moment:
2 months ago
Niger’s military government narrowly survived an attempted coup on Saturday, August 29, after junior soldiers seized a key airbase and briefly disrupted state broadcasting in an assault that was ultimately crushed with direct assistance from Russian forces. The episode has laid bare both the fragility of the junta led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani and the widening security vacuum across the Sahel, one that regional and international observers warn is becoming an increasingly dangerous threat to all of West Africa.
2 months ago
Nigerian politics has used the phrase “federal might” loosely, and it can mean different things depending on who says it and why. At a serious level, it means using the army, police, or federal security agencies to intimidate voters, seize or destroy result sheets, or physically prevent an outcome the federal government does not want.
3 months ago
Tanzania’s Vice President Emmanuel Nchimbi has resigned from office and announced his retirement from politics, saying he had become convinced that President Samia Suluhu Hassan wanted a different deputy.
3 months ago
Funke Akindele’s Where Is Mr. Right?, a Nollywood melodrama, released exclusively on Prime, follows event planner Bunmi (Omowunmi Dada) on her near desperate quest for marriage in a film that feels confused about what it aims to be. It bounces from being a social commentary to a thriller, and by the time the credits roll, it has failed to achieve either.
3 months ago
Nigeria’s national parks and game reserves were set up by colonial and post-independence governments to protect wildlife and forests. Today, several of them have become safe havens for terrorists, bandits, and kidnap gangs in the country. To understand why, we have to look past the immediate security failures and into a conservation system that has long been starved of money, staff, and proper management before any armed group ever set foot in these forests.
3 months ago
The appeal of Serenity is ultimately quite straightforward. It understands that relaxing music does not have to disappear into the background. Rency gives the listener enough melody to hold onto while never disturbing the quiet atmosphere he has created.
3 months ago
Three books in, mechanically assured and increasingly ambitious in scope if not in style, she has made a strong case for herself as one of the more important chroniclers working in Nigerian literature today, all while building a hell of a community.
3 months ago
