Nigerian Times

FESPACO 2013 - Read The Transcript Of Wole Soyinka's Epic Keynote Address Speech Click here to read the complete report . Tweet "A Name is More Than the Tyranny of Taste" is a celebrated essay by Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. First delivered as a keynote address in 2013, the essay explores the cultural, political, and historical significance of African names in the face of colonial legacy.  Key themes from Soyinka's work include: Colonial Imposition: He critiques how colonial powers and missionaries historically stripped Africans of their native names, replacing them with European or biblical ones under the guise of "civilization" or pronunciation ease.  Decolonizing Identity: Soyinka argues that returning to or embracing native African names is a vital act of decolonization, as a name is deeply tied to an individual's heritage, destiny, and history.  The "Tyranny of Taste": This phrase refers to the Eurocentric standards that ...

Prof. Wole Soyinka and Prof. Chinua Achebe, the great titans of modern African Literature. The following news should not surprise those who are close to Kongi. Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has backed his literary colleague, Prof. Chinua Achebe, in the raging controversy over the roles of some prominent Nigerians during the Nigerian civil war. Soyinka, in an interview published in The Telegraph of London, but obtained by THISDAY yesterday, said the Igbo were victims of genocide during the three-year civil war, which was fought to break up Nigeria. Achebe had stirred the hornet's nest in his civil war memoir, "There Was A Country", when among others, he accused wartime Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon and the then Finance Minister, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of carrying out a genocide against the Igbo. The claim has generated considerable controversy, with many commentators accusing Achebe of re-writing history. Click here for the complete report . Twee...

Chinua Achebe Thank God for Nigerian writers for producing great works of world class literature winning prizes competing with the best in the world unlike other Nigerians in other disciplines who continue to lag behind. Even though the quality of education in Nigerian schools at all levels is pathetic, Nigerian writers have been able to overcome the challenges of corruption, maladministration and insecurity to produce great writings in prose, poetry and drama of these interesting times. Wole Soyinka Over 200 novels have been presented to the panel of judges for the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature sponsored by the Nigeria LNG Limited. And our new books have been receiving high ratings among highly esteemed literary critics in America and the UK. I wish Nigerians in music, movies, economics, academics, sports and other occupations can do the same to make Nigeria proud. Helen Oyeyemi Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie Our movies are still substandard B movies, and now two Nigerian writers have ...

Adeleke “Mai Nasara” Adeyemi, author, The Missing Clock , winner of the 2011 Nigeria Prize for Literature lifting up his trophy at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos on February 6, 2012, with the Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka standing behind on the stage. Meet Me at the Library: Getting Nigeria to Book a Date with Development. Being a speech by Adeleke “Mai Nasara” Adeyemi, author, The Missing Clock : Winner, The Nigeria Prize for Literature , 2011; delivered at Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos on February 6, 2012, at Public Presentation and Award Ceremony, hosted by Nigeria LNG Ltd. Protocols A certain 18th century English poet woke up one day and penned the following words: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”. I am not sure what Alexander Pope was thinking about that particular day but I know he was right about the human heart and its penchant for hope. It was sheer hope that drove me to ...

Lagos Freedom Park at night, the main venue of the 13th Lagos Book and Art Festival. First African Nobel laureate in Literature Prof. Wole Soyinka and famous dramatist Prof. J.P. Clark were among the special guests on Saturday as they graced the Town Talk on "The Book in the Knowledge Economy" at the on going 13th Lagos Book and Art festival (LABAF) at the Freedom Park on Broad Street, Lagos. Other special guests included Penny Compton and Maggie Robertson from the Hay Festival . LABAF is the biggest book fair and art event in West Africa founded and organized annually by the Committee For Relevant Art (CORA) in Nigeria. The festival ends on Sunday with the Arthouse Forum on Art Of The Biography:Reviews and discussions of Femi Osofisan’s J. P. Clark: A Voyage , Adewale Pearce’s A Peculiar Tragedy: J. P. Clark and the beginning of modern Nigerian literature and Dele Olojede/Onukaba Adinoyi Ojo’s Born To Run: a biography of Dele Giwa at noon, followed by the CORA Stampede on ...

Ribadu Again! By Ngozi Saromi, culled from This Day Newspaper of October 08, 2007. Tuesday, 09 October 2007 Dele Momodu, publisher of the Ovation magazine and most lately a columnist of THISDAY newspaper, attempts, through his piece of last Saturday [Anti-Corruption War as a Cliché], to heighten the frantic, well-organised and ongoing smear tactics against the EFCC and the person of its Chief Executive, Nuhu Ribadu. Incontrovertibly, Momodu's opening claim, unsupported by any shred of argument or justification, that "the anti-corruption war has come to a dead-end" is at best a wish rather than a fact that serves the delusion of bringing cold comfort to the dirtiest section of the Nigerian thieving class whose image this article ultimately hopes to burnish. As a word of caution however, the beneficiaries of this image management enterprise will be well served to stick to reality and continue their desperate shopping run for a better apologist because this is indeed a poor...