Christmas craft market opens in Lagos today, runs for two days
It’s here, the exciting two-day Christmas craft market, which promises to be exciting, opens today, December 6, 2019 in Lagos with unique Christmas Gifts for Less until December 7.
Artmiabo will be holding a Fabulous Christmas Craft Market with the most unique and well-handcrafted Products and Gifts by International Artist Miabo Enyadike, Art by Timi Willis-Amah and Ogunlesi Oyetunde Paul, Unique Pastries and Natural Vegetable Oils/Fruit Soaps by Jokwho Moruku and much more…
On display will be art, crafts, soaps, delicious pastries, scenic photograph prints and much more all at affordable prices for 2 Days only.
The venue is Angels and Muse Art Gallery, 5 Jibowu Street, off Awolowo Rd, Ikoyi Lagos. 10am-7.00pm daily…Come and shop authenticity at affordable prices and experience Christmas Shopping like no other…See you Soon
For more details visit www.artmiabo.yolasite.com
26 Pioneers Inducted Into the South African Hip Hop Museum’s Wall of Fame
Here’s the full list of inductees of the South African Hip Hop Museum’s Hennessy Wall of Fame.
On Thursday night, the South African hip-hop community gathered for a night of celebrating the culture and artform’s pioneers and icons. The Hennessy Wall of Fame is the first phase of the South African Hip Hop Museum, which is still under construction.
The Wall of Fame consists of 26 names who have been instrumental in the growth of hip-hop in South Africa, from the likes of Prophets of da City, Godessa and Lance Sterh to younger artists like Cassper Nyovest, Da L.E.S and AKA.
Osmic Menoe, the founder of Ritual Media Group, the company behind the museum, the festival Back To The City and the South African Hip Hop Awards, shared that he felt hip-hop was running the risk of its story not being preserved and told by itself.
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Kel P unpacks the Making of the African Giant Album
Studio Sessions | Kel P talks making ‘African Giant’ in hotel rooms, Burna Boy’s next album already being done and more
In this installment of “Studio Sessions,” Kel P discusses the ‘African Giant’ recording process, the status of Burna Boy’s next album, and more.
For “Studios Sessions,” we delve into the stories behind the long hours in the studio and all that goes into making an album by talking with artists, producers, engineers, photographers, and more who are intimately connected to the recording process with some of the biggest artists in the world. These are the stories that rarely leave the booth.
Kel P produced and co-wrote 10 of the 19 songs on Burna Boy’s African Giant including “On The Low” and “Pull Up.” He and the artist helped spread the sound of African music across the world — all from inside of hotel rooms.
“We didn’t record any of the songs in a studio. We were in a hotel. The day I met Burna, we recorded in a hotel and we stayed there for over a month recording songs. I have my mobile studio with me. We were in Lagos, Nigeria. But, we also recorded in a hotel in Ghana,” Kel P said.
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Cardi B Makes An Entrance
in Lagos.
Cardi B is in Lagos. Her entrance was orchestrated without much buzz.
She stepped off the plane with her team in tow, clad in a loose fitting gown and head wrapped in a multi-coloured scarf.
There was little or no press involved in the entrance. The reception was that bland.
The award winning music star, who recently was recorded as the most streamed artiste in the US Spotify platform, is in Nigeria for the Pepsi/livespot concert on Saturday and will be on her way to Ghana after that.
Nigerians are prepped for the amazing concert which is set to take Lagos by storm.
Business day celebrates top 100 fastest growing SMEs in Nigeria.
The business day conference which kicked off today at the Landmark Event Centre featured a cross section of professionals from different industries.
The event which is primed to celebrate the top 100 fastest growing SMEs in Nigeria hosted three panel session and masterclasses on different stages of the SME development journey.
Kofo Akinkugbe, the founder and CEO of SecureID Nigeria Ltd, a market leader in smart card technology and digital security, shared some insight on the entrepreneurial journey.
She addressed one of the most frequently asked questions that Start-ups ask about how they can scale their ideas and be competitive.
“In thinking big, it is okay to note the negative but you should also communucate with the resilience in you to keep going regardless,” She adviced.
As regards equity and fund injection in businesses, Kofo Akinkugbe advised.
“When you are starting out, tell yourself, do I want to be the one driving the company in ten years? How much stake do I want when the company starts doing well?
This will inform your direction as regards equity in the long run.”
The session continued with a Q and A session that touched debt management and cashflow.
“Get your debt and equity mix right, when the company grows, plough your cash flow back into the business,” she concluded.
Pulitzer Prize Adds Audio Reporting as New Category
Podcasts can now win Pulitzers.
Good news: That podcast your friend started but you haven’t listened to yet can now win a Pulitzer. Well, not really, but theoretically.
Today, the board of the much-esteemed Pulitzer Prize announced that it’s adding Audio Reporting as a new category for its journalism prizes in the next cycle. The award will be given to a podcast or radio show that serves as a “distinguished example of audio journalism that serves the public interest, characterized by revelatory reporting and illuminating storytelling.” As Politico’s Michael Calderone points out, this is the first new Pulitzer category since 2007.
“The renaissance of audio journalism in recent years has given rise to an extraordinary array of non-fiction storytelling,” said Pulitzer Administrator Dana Canedy in the circulated press release. “To recognize the best of that work, the Pulitzer Board is launching an experimental category to honor it.”
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Abantu Book Festival and the spaces that affirm us
In 2011 I was a third-year student at Wits University, completing my Bachelors degree in mathematics and physics.
I had always enjoyed science and mathematics and my plan was to become an academic teaching and researching the phenomena that were described by these incredibly beautiful equations.
But somewhere in my second year, I started getting less satisfaction and more disillusioned with solving these difficult problems. By the time I got to third year, it would be difficult for me to get out of bed to go to the lectures that were destroying my spirit.
One of the things that got me through the year was attending an African literature lecture. I was not registered for the course but I had always been fascinated by this department, the only one of its kind in the world. So one day I found out where they were having their first-year lectures and I skipped Numerical Analysis to attend Oral Literature and Performance in SA.
I walked in late and found a seat in the fifth row. They were discussing how AC Jordan used forms of oral literature like praise poetry, proverbs and izithakazelo [praise names] in his novel The Wrath of the Ancestors.
I don’t recall fully understanding what was being discussed but I do remember feeling like I belonged in a way that I never felt accepted in my science lectures.
I was not made to feel like I needed to have assimilated a culture and ideals I did not identify with in order to exist fully in that space.
It was not implied, in the same way that one of my physics professors had once implied, that what we were studying was so Eurocentric that there was nothing African knowledge systems could contribute to it.
My lived experiences as a Black person were not invalidated and dismissed. It is not an exaggeration when I say that sitting in that lecture saved my life.
That same affirmation of my humanity is the same affirmation I feel whenever I am at Abantu Book Festival. Founded by novelist Thando Mgqolozana out of the frustration of having to perform Blackness in the White literary world of SA, the festival fashions itself as a “literary movement that is not rooted on notions of coloniality”.
Mgqolozana envisaged it as “a healing space for Black readers and writers”.
And so, in December 2016, with the participation of numerous Black South African authors, poets, playwrights and readers, Abantu Book Festival took place in Soweto.
In 2017 and 2018, I went with some friends. We ran into Gcina Mhlophe as she was on her way to tell stories to young children at the children’s section and she stopped to chat to us, making us long for those days when she used to tell stories on the SABC in the 1990s.
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We saw the likes of Zakes Mda, Zukiswa Wanner, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi and Tsitsi Dangarembga talking to fans, taking pictures and signing books.
Everywhere we looked, we felt star-struck by African literary royalty! We attended a panel discussion on the book selling business in South Africa with bookstore owners like Kays Mnguni, and got a sense of why the work that needs to be done in the South African literary space cannot end at Abantu.
And we went to a screening of Siphiwo Mahala’s thesis documentary on the life and work of legendary Drum magazine writer Can Themba. We got to see that those who came before us also had agency and always thought of us when they produced their work.
At Abantu we do not have to struggle to find ourselves. Writers who look like us are not world literature’s dirty little secret that has to be hidden in the back of the book store. At Abantu, Whiteness does not follow us and cling to us like a bad reputation, and we are able to be ourselves without shrinking any parts of ourselves.
We also had the opportunity to listen to an important conversation between our literary idols, Pumla Dineo Gqola and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. This discussion reminded me that it is important for Black people to create and control their own spaces [like Abantu], where issues like Adichie’s remarks about transwomen and her comments on post-colonial theory can be interrogated. When these spaces do not exist, then these conversations will be hijacked and their terms will be dictated to us by people who are only interested in controlling our lives.
Being at Abantu gives me the same feeling I had when I gate-crashed that African literature lecture in 2011. It is a feeling of belonging that can only come from seeing Black people, Black authors and Black stories and experiences no longer being forced into the periphery: they occupy the centre fully and unapologetically. I look forward to having that feeling again at this year’s Abantu Book Festival.
Abantu Book Festival started yesterday and ends on Sunday. It takes place at Eyethu Lifestyle Centre and the oweto Theatre
Source: Sowetan Live
Burial of Professor Tejumola Olaniyan: Tributes by Friends, Colleagues
Tejumola Olaniyan, the Louis Durham Mead Professor in English and the Wole Soyinka Humanities Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who died on Saturday 30 November, 2019 was buried today in Madison, the United States. TheNEWS magazine celebrates Professor Olaniyan with this special online edition in which his teacher, professional colleagues, friends and well-wishers pay glowing tribute.
Last honour: Casket bearing Professor Tejumola’s remains. Photo credit: Ndirangu Wachanga
I am Devastated
Wole Soyinka
Teju’s exit is devastating and, even now, still incomprehensible. I was with him in Cambridge – with Awam Amkpa, Okey Indibe, Mrs. Irele, Skip Gates, Bankole Olayebi- only a week ago. Not one wisp of premonition that we had all been fortuitously brought together for the implacable rites of a Last Supper. I deeply mourn with the wife and the family. It is such a cruel order of going.
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Speaking Volumes – an Interview With Indie Bookstore Owner Kate Rogan
Joburg’s celebrated independent bookshop, Love Books, turned ten in 2019. We caught up with its owner just as the silly season kicked into high gear.
The Reading List: What’s life like as an indie bookseller?
Kate Rogan: Full. Full of books, authors, launches, customers. By extension, full of words, thoughts, stories, ideas, the life of the mind. And full, full — fuller than you ever imagined — of admin.
TRL: Which books have Love Books customers been most excited about in 2019?
Kate Rogan: The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s highly anticipated follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale. Normal People: Sally Rooney sealed her reputation as the voice of a generation with this one. A Thousand Tales of Johannesburg by the great Harry Kalmer, who very sadly died in July this year, but left this for us to relish, his first and only English novel.
TRL: Which authors have had the most interesting book launches at your shop this year?
Kate Rogan: Hard to pick but here are some that stand out. The wonderful Marcus Byrne and Helen Lunn chatting to Simon Gear about one of my favourite books of the year, Dance of the Dung Beetles. I never thought a book about…
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Akinwumi Adesina Wins Forbes African Man of the Year
President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, has been named as the African of the Year by Forbes Africa.
This is a well-deserved award.
Adesina has taken the bank to an enviable height with the bank’s indelible marks adorning African continent.
Recently, the bank’s Board of Governors approved a capital increase of $115 billion, moving the Afrcan Development Bank’s capital from $93 billion to $208 billion.
This was the highest height ever attained by the bank in the history since 1964.
With this new general capital increase, the African Development Bank said it poised to do more for the continent through its various ambitious projects.
Reacting to the Forbes Africa’s award, Adesina said he’s humbled and greatly honoured to be singled out and named the African of the Year from more than 1.25 billion people in the continent.
According to him, “I am humbled and greatly honoured to be named African of the Year by Forbes Africa.
“My darling wife, Grace, has always been my rock with her love, wise counsels, prayers and support. Forbes Africa’s ‘African of the Year’ Award is jointly shared with Grace. Thank you very much honey!
“African of the Year Award by Forbes Africa: I give a big ‘High 5’ to all the amazing staff and highly supportive Boards of Governors and Directors of the African Development Bank Group. Together, we continue to fast-track Africa’s development!”
Congratulations!
Between Thuggery and State Disobedience, By Wole Soyinka
I have no hesitation in admitting that I have a personal, formative interest in the health of the Nigerian judiciary, deeper perhaps than the average Nigerian. At a critical junction in the life of this writer, a judge resolved to give primacy to the call of conscience, affirm his professional integrity and defend the supremacy of law in defiance of state interference. He refused to bow to external pressure in adjudicating a case whose conclusion, had this accused been found guilty as charged, would have been life imprisonment. That individual, the late Justice Kayode Eso, has narrated the event in his autobiography – The Mystery Gunman with his noted wit and judicial poise.
The Deputy Premier of the then Western region of Nigeria had summoned the judge to his residence, lectured him on his duty to protect the interests of the government against the accused. Justice Kayode listened politely, re-affirmed his commitment to the rule of law, and took his leave.
It would be most surprising if my own brush with the law has not crossed my mind since the predicament of Omoyele Sowole, journalist and former presidential candidate began. The Nigerian judiciary was not thereby, nor is today a model of perfection. Nonetheless, exemplars such as Justice Esho have succeeded in creating, in some of us, exceptional respect for the Bench, instilled a conviction that the law, despite its lapses, demands respect, autonomy, and obedience. Much of the judiciary across the continent remains constantly under siege – Nigeria is no exception. Needless to say, it often strikes me that the “learned brotherhood” could do more to protect, and assert itself. Apart from the obvious and numerous scandals of moral deficit that require constant internal purgation, there are instances where it does fail to protect itself even from putative and/or illegal power.
Take the assassination of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Bola Ige on his way to a UN appointment. The presiding judge on that case cried out against unseemly interference from “ least expected quarters.” He kept a diary of coded names and times, two pages of which came into my possession. His cries petered out in the void. Justice Abass, feeling vulnerable and isolated, bowed out of the case. The judiciary lamely acquiesced, certainly with a huge sigh of relief in some sectors. A robust opportunity lost to burnish the image of the law. I was left aghast.
From tragedy to slapstick tragi-comedy – let us pull up an eye-witness account from the Nigerian PM News of Thursday, September 2014:
Temperamental Ekiti state Governor-elect, Ayodele Fayose, slapped a court judge today for being rude to him and then ordered his thugs to beat him further.
The action of Fayose and his thugs triggered some pandemonium in the court, with judicial workers and others running into safety. The sitting of the Ekiti State Governorship Election petition Tribunal could also not hold.
Immediately, thugs numbering about 20 pounced on Justice Adeyeye, beat him up and tore his clothes, while his co-workers scampered and shouted for help.
Following the development, judicial workers hurriedly shut down the court premises thereby preventing any court proceeding for hours before the police fired tear gas canisters to disperse the hoodlums.
For a week, two weeks, then forever, I waited to see what would be the response of the judiciary. There came none. Naively, I thought, surely, this institution will rise and defend its very existence through some form of action, even if merely symbolic. Not a squeak. Not even after that governor left the office and thereby lost his immunity. What to me appeared to be the collapse, not just of a pillar, but of the edifice of human culture, appeared to be no more than a blip on the judicial template.
There are of course more effective ways of degrading a judiciary than merely brutalizing a judge, and leaving his judicial robes in tatters. One of the most effective, increasingly optimized in Nigeria, is simply by not only ignoring, but treating its orders with disdain, encouraging its agencies to trot out cynical excuses for disobedience while laughing all the way to the citadel of power. In that regard, there does appear to be an undeclared contest among succeeding governments, intensified since the return of the nation to the civilian government in 1999 for placement in the Guinness Book of Records as the most notorious Scofflaw in the field of democratic pretensions. Or could it be an anticipation of a proposal I made at the Athens Democracy Forum some months ago, calling for an annual award – such as an Order of Demerit – for such an achiever?
Perhaps we have finally attained maximum saturation, and there is no need for any further record keeping. It is extremely difficult to imagine a further lowering of the bar of disdain for the law than we have witnessed under the present regime. The degree of cynicism in the conduct of State Security agencies has attained a level of consistency that is surpassed by only one other previous government – but it is a close call. Not only does a security agency refuse to obey a court order to release a suspect after fulfilling his bail conditions, but that agency also manufactures one childish pretext after another, including a claim that no one has shown up to receive the detainee. “His sureties have yet to show up to collect him”, declared the DSS, prime candidate for a special featuring in my “Interventions” series, periodically dedicated to the theme of The Republic of Liars. Are we speaking here of a full-grown adult, a journalist and former presidential aspirant, or an overnight bag awaiting the rightful claimant in a LOST AND FOUND department?
The nation continues to undergo the chagrin of having the rug pulled from under her feet while waiting on the long queue for judicial redress against the strong-arm culture of the state, as well as unlisted power interests. For instance, Lagos State, the former capital, and still the acknowledged commercial capital of the nation, once found herself denied statutory allocation for several years, despite repeated court declarations that such withholding by the central government was unconstitutional and should be remedied forthwith. That president took sadistic pleasure in simply playing deaf. It took his successor to end the abuse and restore the full entitlements of that state, disobedience that went beyond mere churlishness but affected the development and welfare of the indigenes of that state. And so on, and on, waiting in vain for that day when the Rule of Law becomes commonplace, and its benefice is not doled out by the drop to famished mendicants.
So, finally, what do thuggery and court disobedience have in common? Everything! They are both Scofflaw’s manifestations.
Unilateral declarations of Supra-Law delusions. One is simply a more structured, more hypocritical version of the other. One knows itself for what it is, while the other tries to camouflage its abnormality under a higher purpose, the more elastic the better. Such is that often specious alibi labeled “national security.” Is Sowore Myetti Allah? As for those agencies that actually think to inhibit social revolution by fastening on the alarmist association of the word ‘revolution,’ half the citizens of this nation should be in permanent detention. From pulpit to the minaret, from clinic to fish market, from student club to motor park, the wish for a drastic transformation of this nation is staple discourse. Perhaps we should begin with its application to that institution whose decisions affect both society and individuals with such finality, for good or ill – the judiciary.
Source: mynewsbite.com
African Development Bank Launches Digital Tool to Address Continent’s Unemployment
African Development Bank and Microsoft Tuesday launched the ‘Coding for Employment’ digital training platform, an online tool to provide digital skills to African youth, wherever they are across the continent,in a bid to address African unemployment.
The platform, launched at the 2019 African Economic Conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, was aimed at promoting a continuous learning culture among young people and build their capacity to shape the continent’s future.
“The youth employment and skills development challenge is a complex issue that requires systemic thinking and bold partnerships…to address the existing skills gap and link youth to decent and sustainable employment,” said the African Development Bank’s Acting Director for Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development, Hendrina Doroba.
“The skills training platform launched today is a testament to the impact that such partnerships can achieve and the bank looks forward to strengthening similar partnerships,” the director added.
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