The Terror Of Being Nigerian

 By Obi Nwakanma

Last year my son made plans to buy a ticket and fly down on his own to Nigeria, and spend the summer with his uncle in Abuja and in the village, East of Nigeria. He was twenty, young, and raring to go. He wanted to explore Nigeria on his own.

It was I that stopped him from traveling to Nigeria, much to his chagrin. I had to beg him to stop. News coming out of Nigeria scared the bejesus out of me. Still does. Kidnappings. Assassinations. Disappearances. The sheer terror of being Nigerian today is so overwhelming that just thinking about it gives one a headache. My son, needless to say, was very disappointed.

Zik’s Day Beckons!

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu 

The man fondly called Zik of Africa deserves his day. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s foremost nationalist and first president, deserves his birthday, November 16, to be slated as a national holiday.

*Azikiwe 

It is a deserving honour for the pivotal leader who led the charge for Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 1960. 

As a result of his unparalleled efforts Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe would in the course of time become the only black Governor-General of Nigeria, the first President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the only Nigerian whose name appeared in a Constitution of Nigeria, the first Senate President, among many other sterling firsts. 

Chinua Achebe: 'Peaceful World My Sincerest Wish'

 Professor Chinua Achebe In Conversation With Iranian Journalist, Nasrin Pourhamrang

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          *Chinua Achebe

Recently, the classic African novel Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, was translated into Persian by Ali Hodavand and released in Iran. Nasrin Pourhamrang, Editor-in-Chief of Hatef Weekly Magazine interviewed the author on a wide range of topics from Art, culture and literature; politics, cultural and linguistic preservation; to the legacy of colonialism and his forthcoming book, There Was a Country-A Personal History of Biafra.
Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. For over fifteen years, he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University.

Chinua Achebe has written over twenty books – novels, short stories, essays, children’s books and collections of poetry. His latest work There Was a Country – A Personal History of Biafra will be available from Penguin publishers in September. Achebe has received numerous honors from around the world, including the Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honorary doctorates from more than forty colleges and universities. He is also the recipient of Nigeria’s highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award; the Peace Prize of the German Book trade (Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels) in 2002; the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction in 2007; and the Gish Prize in 2010.