Sunday, December 23, 2012

2012 Chinua Achebe Colloquium On Africa Communique

Being The Communiqué Issued At The End Of The Chinua Achebe Colloquium On Africa (December 7-9, 2012) At Brown University, Providence, U.S.A.

The fourth edition of the Chinua Achebe Colloquium on Africa convened by Nigerian novelist and humanist Chinua Achebe, the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, was held at Brown University on December 7-8, 2012, at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.

With its theme as “Governance, Security and Peace in Africa,” the 2012 colloquium attracted leading experts from academia, business, non-governmental organizations, and governments from Africa, Europe and the United States. The Colloquium was well-attended by delegates who actively participated in two days of intense deliberation and exchange of ideas on the importance of strengthening democracy and peace on the African continent. The Colloquium featured panel discussions which highlighted the complex security issues that confront African nations, security challenges surrounding the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, homegrown terrorism, and the persistence of ethno-religious insurgency. The colloquium noted that these were serious concerns that challenge the establishment of institutions and principles of good governance on the continent. 

Highlights of the Colloquium included four keynote addresses by Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation for the promotion of good governance in Africa; Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, the executive governor of Lagos State, Nigeria; General Carter F. Ham, Commander of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), based in Stuttgart, Germany; Ambassador Bisa Williams, U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Niger; Professor Emma Rothschild of Harvard University, and Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, South African anti-Apartheid activist and former managing director of the World Bank.

The Colloquium acknowledges the fact that the main driver of conflict in Africa is poverty originating from the failure of leadership and governance. Among the resolutions advanced at the Colloquium are:

Monday, December 10, 2012

Achebe's 'There Was A Country' Discussed At The House Of Commons

Chinua Achebe's There Was A Country: Reflections from the Nigerian Diaspora



DATE: Monday 10 December 2012
TIME: 6.00-9.00pm
VENUE: Committee Room 8, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
(Please allow for at least 15 minutes to clear security when you arrive)
Chinua Achebe's recently published memoirs, There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, have controversially reopened discussions on Nigeria's past – especially the events leading up to the first coup and the aftermath of the Biafran War. These events have had a profound impact on Nigeria and continue to critically impact developments across the country today.
  























Chinua Achebe
 
This event aims to bring Nigerians together to debate the key legacies from the coup and civil war in the context of Nigeria's present realities and future trajectory, and hopes to explore how the coup and war have:
  • adversely affected peacebuilding and state-building across Nigeria (with reference to reconciliation, integration and equality)?
  • shaped the relationship between the Nigerian State and ordinary Nigerians?
  • influenced broader understanding of how to tackle the deep and growing levels of economic and social inequality polarising Nigeria?
  • affected access to justice, transparency and accountability as well as tackling state impunity in Nigeria?Chair: Chi Onwurah MP, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Science & Digital Infrastructure 

    Speakers:
  • Donu Kogbara, Print and broadcast journalist and Board Member, Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority
  • Dipo Salimonu, Eirenicon Africa and founding partner of Ateriba Limited
  • Onyekachi Wambu, Director Policy and Engagement, African Foundation for Development (AFFORD)
  • Dr Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u, Senior Lecturer in Media and Politics, Northumbria University  
  •  
    There are a limited number of places so if you would like to attend, please RSVP by email to: events@fpc.org.uk
 Download the report (170 kilobyte PDF)
-----------------------------
RELATED POST 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

2012 Achebe Colloquium on Africa (December 7 and 8, 2012)

 Governance, Security and Peace in Africa 

The 2012 Achebe Colloquium on Africa at Brown University will focus on several crucial issues that are impacting the continent and the world, including the security situation throughout northern, central, and eastern Africa, ethno-religious insurgency and regime change in West Africa, and peace-building efforts taking place in southern Africa. The colloquium will be held Friday and Saturday, Dec. 7-8, 2012, at Brown University and will be available live online




  













Chinua Achebe (pix: Mike Cohea/Brown University)

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Plagiarism: Dike’s Suit Against Two UNIPORT Professors For January 15

A Federal High Court (FHC) sitting in Port Harcourt has fixed for January 15, 2013, hearing on the case of alleged of plagiarism instituted against Professors Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle of the Department of Economics, University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), by a Nigerian-born United States-based professor, Victor Dike.  
























*Dike

Dike who is of the School of Engineering & Technology, National University (Sacramento Center), Sacramento, California, accused the two UNIPORT professors of violating his intellectual property rights.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

PhotoNews: Barack And Michelle Obama As A Young Couple

...The Winning Picture?

















In the morning of Tuesday, November 6, 2012, the day for the United States Presidential election, a very moving photograph of President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as a young couple was posted on the facebook page of Michelle Obama.

The picture was accompanied by this equally moving caption: "She voted for him for the same reason she married him - his character. Cast your ballot for President Obama today."

The photo, according to the Telegraph  "attracted over 250,000 'likes' from viewers in seven hours and thousands of comments." It may have equally attracted a sizable number of votes to President Obama.   
 

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Producer Of Popular Sitcom, "Clinic Matters" Honoured In Paris

Whitestone Cinema Ltd, producer of the popular sitcom, Clinic Matters, has been honoured with the 2012 World Quality Commitment International Star Award

The award ceremony was held in France on October 28 and 29, 2012


















CEO of Whitestone Cinema Ltd, Paul Igwe,  introducing the company to chief executives from over 52 countries @ B.I.D 
 
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Whitestone Cinema Ltd, Mr. Paul Igwe, who also directs the sitcoms, received the gold category of the award at an impressive ceremony at the Concorde La Fayette Hotel Convention Hall in Paris yesterday

Monday, October 22, 2012

Chinua Achebe’s 'There Was A Country - A Personal History Of Biafra'

– A REVIEW 
By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye  
At last, the world is hearing from Professor Chinua Achebe, Africa’s foremost writer, distinguished intellectual and author of the classic, Things Fall Apart, on the Nigeria-Biafra war. In a new book (There Was a Country – A Personal History of Biafra, New York: Penguin, 2012),  Achebe presents a detailed account of what is widely regarded as the ‘genocidal Biafran war’ prosecuted forty-two years ago in which about 3 million people (mostly, unarmed civilians, including women and children) were brutally killed.  
When you talk about genocide in Africa, most people would eagerly prefer we all look towards Rwanda or Darfur, or even the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and not Biafra which happened about twenty years earlier and which Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, professor of history and politics, in his review of Achebe’s memoir, describes as “Africa’s most expansive and devastating genocide of the 20th century.”  

Indeed, Biafra is a problematic subject. It readily stirs up a lot of discomfort and debilitating guilt in not a few quarters as it throws up memories of grossly disreputable decisions and actions which had far-reaching, disastrous effects on too many innocent and harmless people, from which the originators and perpetrators would so much wish to distance themselves.  The genocidal Biafran war and the horrible pogrom that preceded it are, without doubt, recent occurrences (only some four decades ago), but the strong determination of their guilt-ridden perpetrators, foreign collaborators and local sympathizers, to hastily consign this monumental tragedy to pre-history and shout down anyone trying to remind the world of it has been quite overwhelming.   


But in his new book, There Was a Country – A Personal History of Biafra,   which TIME magazine in its August 27, 2012 edition classified as one of the twelve “most anticipated” books this fall (2012) and Newsweek (of the same date) in its “Fall Books Preview 2012 placed among the “15 Books To Read,” Achebe unwraps Biafra before the world again, letting everyone into gruesome details of wanton massacres of unarmed civilians, including women and children, and the horror of mass deaths caused by unspeakable starvation and sicknesses due mainly to the inhuman blockade zealously imposed upon Biafra by the Nigerian government, with the overwhelming support of the British government, despite  outcries from several parts of the world.  

Friday, October 19, 2012

2013 Budget Prudent And Reasonable - Okonjo-Iweala

From The Federal Ministry Of Finance
Press Release
THE PROPOSED BUDGET OF THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE IS PRUDENT AND REASONABLE




Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala,
Greeting Labour Leaders

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Achebe Colloquium On Africa 2012

  Theme:
Governance, Security and Peace in Africa
      The 2012 Achebe Colloquium on Africa will take place on Friday and Saturday, December 7-8, 2012 at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center, Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. 















Professor Chinua Achebe Reads A Poem At
 The 2011 Achebe Colloquium On Africa

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Chinua Achebe's "There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra" [ A Review]

By Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
Chinua Achebe is Africa’s foremost novelist and one of the African World’s most outstanding intellectuals. The 1958 publication of his classic, Things Fall Apart,underscores the African-centred thrust of Achebe’s esteemed literary journey. In There was a Country, Achebe revisits the 1966-1970 Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa. It is also Africa’s most expansive and devastating genocide of the 20th century, in which 3.1 million Igbo or a quarter of this nation’s population were murdered. Achebe himself narrowly escaped capture by the genocidist army in Lagos where he worked as director of the external service of Nigeria’s public broadcasting corporation.


















*Prof Chinua Achebe  
 
Safely back in Biafra, Achebe was appointed roving cultural ambassador by the fledging resistance government of the new republic to travel and inform the world of this heinous crime being perpetrated in Africa, barely 20 years after the Jewish genocide. He recalls with immense satisfaction the successes of his travels in Africa, Europe and North America during the period – meeting leading writers and intellectuals, addressing church, civil and human rights assemblies, and charity and humanitarian caucuses. 

Chinua Achebe's "There Was A Country: A Personal History Of Biafra" – A Review

By Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
Chinua Achebe is Africa’s foremost novelist and one of the African World’s most outstanding intellectuals. The 1958 publication of his classic, Things Fall Apart,underscores the African-centred thrust of Achebe’s esteemed literary journey. In There was a Country, Achebe revisits the 1966-1970 Igbo genocide, the foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa. It is also Africa’s most expansive and devastating genocide of the 20th century, in which 3.1 million Igbo or a quarter of this nation’s population were murdered. Achebe himself narrowly escaped capture by the genocidist army in Lagos where he worked as director of the external service of Nigeria’s public broadcasting corporation.






















*Prof Chinua Achebe  
 
Safely back in Biafra, Achebe was appointed roving cultural ambassador by the fledging resistance government of the new republic to travel and inform the world of this heinous crime being perpetrated in Africa, barely 20 years after the Jewish genocide. He recalls with immense satisfaction the successes of his travels in Africa, Europe and North America during the period – meeting leading writers and intellectuals, addressing church, civil and human rights assemblies, and charity and humanitarian caucuses. 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Patience Jonathan, The Inimitable Dame!

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
It is a classic case of ‘One Week, One Controversy’!  And the inimitable Dame, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, has been in the news again. She hardly disappoints. Perhaps, before your read this piece, Mrs. Jonathan would have returned from Germany where she had gone “to have some rest,” or receive medical treatment, or both, depending on whom you choose to believe between the media, opposition parties  and Aso Rock spokespersons.  Or her husband, our president, would have decided to come clean about her exact state of health and whereabouts. 

*Mrs Patience Jonathan  
(pix: onobello)
But the latter may eventually not happen. Indeed, President Goodluck Jonathan understands this game very well. So, he is not unduly perturbed by all the din saturating the polity because of what his wife chooses to do with herself or not to say about her health condition. Yes, he does not “give a damn” because he knows full well that no sooner than his wife’s plane touches down in Abuja, and she sweeps across the red carpet like the marvelous Dame that she is, than she would stumble onto another controversy which would immediately and effectively kill and bury the present one over which the media and the opposition have raised ear-splitting cries. And so life goes on. Who, for instance, is still talking about her controversial appointment as Permanent Secretary in Baylesa State or the famous purchase, (or is it donation or lending or all three?) of posh cars scandal that embarrassed us all during the African First Ladies Summit in Abuja recently.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Is The West Lusting For Robert Mugabe Again?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye  
Two interesting incidents that played out on the international scene recently clearly underlined the profound confusion of values that has crept into Western policies and attitudes towards President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Late in May, the United Nation’s World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) announced the choice of President Mugabe as a United Nations Ambassador for Tourism, despite the fact that the international travel ban and other sanctions imposed on him by the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) were yet to be lifted. He was warmly welcomed into the prestigious “leaders of tourism” group with his Zambian counterpart, Michael Sata.  
*Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
 And His 
Wife, Grace...
At Victoria Falls, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, where Sata and Mugabe met to sign an agreement with the UNWTO Secretary General, Taleb Rifai, Mugabe must have been surprised and elated to hear Rifai say this about his own Zimbabwe

"I was told about the wonderful experience and the warm hospitality of this country … By coming here, it is a recognition, an endorsement on the country that it is a safe destination." 

Following this May 28, 2012 agreement, Zambia and Zimbabwe will jointly host the UNWTO general assembly in August 2013.  

Reactions to this development were prompt and unsparing. Human rights groups across the world and government functionaries in EU countries condemned it in very strong terms, just as Canada immediately announced its decision to withdraw from the UNWTO. But while Canada maintained that Mugabe’s appointment was the key factor that inspired its decision to terminate its membership of the global body, UNWTO stated that Canada had already withdrawn its membership two weeks before Mugabe was invited to join the body. 

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Chinua Achebe: 'Peaceful World My Sincerest Wish'

 Professor Chinua Achebe In Conversation With Iranian Journalist, Nasrin Pourhamrang
 -----------------------------------



          *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.  

Monday, July 30, 2012

Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' Translated Into Persian

Translated into Persian by Ali Hodavand, Things Fall Apart a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has been released in Iran.

 Things Fall Apart is an English-language novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe published in 1958. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim.












Chinua Achebe
It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats's poem "The Second Coming".
The novel depicts the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion in Umuofia—one of a fictional group of nine villages in Nigeria, inhabited by the Igbo people (archaically, and in the novel, "Ibo"). It focuses on his family and personal history, the customs and society of the Igbo, and the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community during the late nineteenth century.The novel is studied widely in Europe and North America, where it has spawned numerous secondary and tertiary analytical works. It has achieved similar status and repute in India, Australia and Oceania. Considered Achebe's magnum opus, it has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide. Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The novel has been translated into more than fifty languages, and is often used in literature, world history, and African studies courses across the world.The Persian translation of Things Fall Apart has been released in 1650 copies by Jeyhoon publications.


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 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 honours from around the world, including the Honourary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as honourary 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.

Soyinka’s Utterance Against Me Is “Aggravated Libel” – Maja-Pearce

Interview With Adewale Maja-Pearce

BY YEMI ADEBISI




















Wole Soyinka


How would you describe your experience so far in Nigeria’s book industry?

I’m right now a consultant for Evans. Evans bought over Nelson Publishers and they want to develop together a literary series. I told them we shouldn’t leave the foreign publishers to be publishing Nigerian writers. Some of these old publishing houses publish textbooks for schools. We are ready to publish six papers every year. Instead of waiting for other series, let’s publish the first two so we would generate interest. We would begin to launch our first papers in November at the Lagos Book Fair that is run by Toyin Akinosho. We have to make things happen in Nigeria. Apart from that I have a small publishing company since 2005 called New Gong. So that is really a small fascinating publishing house we have and we don’t physically publish books. We load up a book and then they print, sell it as Print On Demand (POD). We don’t have probably any physical book in Nigeria. If you want to buy it you have to go online to purchase the book. The only problem we have in Nigeria is distribution because in small developed country like South Africa and even in America, the publisher is not involved in selling the book. The publisher goes to train that we have so, so and so copies, bla, bla, bla. So the train has bookshops all over the countries and they will distribute it. So the publisher doesn’t know how they sell the books; we don’t have that in Nigeria.





















Adewale Maja-Pearce

Let’s talk about the POD you spoke about. Judging by probably what you have been able to put together, what would you advise an author that wishes to publish through such medium too?

Anybody can do it. If you simply go to our site, there is an icon in the site called ‘create space.’ When the book is ready you upload it, the cover and the inside pages. They will give you a file page so that every of your work will be filed. What you see about a week is your book on our site. We print and sell as requested. And it is a big advantage, a very big one.

There is this rumour that you have some personal grudges with Wole Soyinka over your comments in your review on one of his books. It was even gathered that you were exchanging abusive words publicly. Can you throw more light into this?

Grudge! No! I first met Soyinka shortly after he won the Nobel Prize because I used to work for a magazine in London called Index On Censorship. I was their African editor from 1983 to 1997. So, before I joined, Soyinka had already been published by them and also had written for them. He was familiar with the magazine. So when I joined, I told him, “I am the new African editor. I hope you will continue with us.” We have a means he used to send us materials; we had a good working relationship. The problem came when he published You Must Set Forth At Dawn. I was asked by the London Review of Books to review it. I didn’t like the book so I gave my reasons. So, when it came out people told me that Soyinka didn’t take it kindly with criticism. I was just working for a magazine anyway.