Refreshing!

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye At The Very Memorable WCCRM 
International Pastors Conference, January 2013

Enugu Governor Chime Returns After 140 Days

 

 Sullivan Chime 

At last, the Governor of Enugu State, Mr. Sullivan Chime, is back in the country after being away for 140 days reportedly treating an undisclosed ailment. Mr. Chime arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, this morning aboard a British Airways flight.  Some reports say he is still in Abuja at the Enugu State Government Lodge and is expected to come into Enugu on Friday where his protracted absence has caused considerable disquiet.

Chime had left the country in September to spend what the Enugu State Government said was his accumulated leave.  Initial reports said he was in India and critically ill. It was even remoured that he had passed away, a report that was strongly refuted by the Enugu State Government.  Later, reports confirmed he was in a London hospital. 

Documentary On Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' At 55

A Masterful Documentary From PBS And Annenberg Media On  Things Fall Apart At 55

 

Chinua Achebe

http://www.learner.org/courses/worldlit/things-fall-apart/watch/

Happy New Year!

Wishing you and your family a very Happy New. 

May the New Year usher in abundant blessings,

 favours, promotions and  flourishing health, 

and may it bring with it the realisation 

of all your dreams and aspirations, and 

give you joy unspeakable.
Congratulations!

The Kidnapping of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s Mother

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

No matter the very strong views many Nigerians hold about the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, it is difficult not to sympathize with her and her family on the recent kidnapping of her mother, Mrs. Kamene Okonjo, by heartless criminals.  Mrs. Okonjo, 82, a retired sociology professor, is the wife of the Obi of Ogwashi-Uku in Aniocha LGA of Delta State. 

Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Her

 Mother, Mrs. Kamene Okonjo 

The five days Mrs. Okonjo spent with her captors must have been one long traumatic period for the members of the family. Now that she has been freed and is back home, I must join several other Nigerians to congratulate the finance minister and her family on the happy end to this horrible nightmare. 

It has been quite difficult to determine how exactly Mrs. Okonjo’s freedom was secured.  The public has merely been treated to a cocktail of speculations even by those who ought to have the facts. Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan thinks that the kidnappers may have been panicked by the sudden, heavy presence of security agents in the area and so decided to release the woman.

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:

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 

Chinua Achebe’s 'There Was a Country - A Personal History of Biafra'- A REVIEW

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)

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.

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.   

 

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. 

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.  

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

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

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. 

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.

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. 

Achebe's "There Was A Country" Among TIME Magazine’s 12 Most Highly Anticipated Books Of The Fall

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

---------------------

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.