EXO - Nigeria's Super Hero

Roye Okupe grew up in Nigeria with American superheroes – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Spiderman – and always had “an itch” to write his own story.

It was not until 2008, when the new wave of superhero movies started breaking worldwide, that he started working on a concept, thinking “If you don’t do it now, you’re never going to do it,” he recalls.

By that point he was working in the US, having left Nigeria in 2002 to study at Georgetown University. He saved up some money, produced a seven-minute teaser and began to shop it around to producers and investors in the US and Nigeria, without much success.

“I had someone say to me ‘no one’s going to watch anything based on African characters.’ I had a producer tell me that point blank,” Okupe says. “I respectfully disagreed. I believe if it’s done right, if it’s done well, people will gravitate to it.

“I grew up watching Superman, not because he was fighting in Metropolis in America, but because I could connect to the story. I was just a kid from Africa. So why can’t the reverse be true? Why can’t I create an African superhero that everyone can connect to.”

African content – and in particular Nigerian content – has been gradually increasing in global prominence over the past few years, as a young, increasingly technology-savvy population clamours for movies, books and games that better reflect their own experiences.

‘Nollywood’, Nigeria’s film industry, which pumps out thousands of movies per year, is now a global industry worth $250m in 2012, and undoubtedly more now. Technology companies, such as Jason Njoku’s IrokoTV, have raised millions and made more in building out networks online to package and distribute content.

The huge expansion of mobile telephony – there are more than 100m mobile phones in Nigeria today, and smartphone use is growing as data services expand – has driven a consequent explosion in mobile gaming. Nigerian games studios, such as Maliyo and Kuluya, have developed relatively simple, but hugely popular titles based on Nigerian stories. The latter is estimated to be worth around $2m, and now has more than a million downloads.

Breakout Nigerian music stars, such as D’Banj, have inspired producers in the US and Europe to seek out talent in West Africa, with Jay-Z the latest big name to start scouting the region.

Frustrated in his attempts to get his product in front of producers, Okupe has changed tack, and is now raising money to turn his idea into a graphic novel, with the aim of building a brand around his concept, his character, Wale Williams, and his setting of ‘Lagoon City’ – to Lagos what Gotham City is to New York.

“I figured if I could build a fanbase, it’ll be easier for me to go back to a TV network or a distributor and say, look, people are waiting for something like this… people want to see an African superhero. We want to see diverse superheroes. People are clamouring for things like this.”

Nigerian – and African – stories could, Okupe hopes, follow the path of Japanese manga and anime, which broke into Western markets in a huge way in the 1980s and 1990s.

“I’m very optimistic,” Okupe says. “It’s going to be a tough road, but I believe it’s going to happen. When it happens, it’s going to be like a tidal wave of movies, comic books, video games.”

Written by Pete Guest


Forbes


Related story: Nigeria's own Comic-Con celebrates 3 years

More kidnapped women and children rescued from Boko Haram

Nigeria's military says it has rescued at least 160 more women and children who had been abducted by Boko Haram and were being held in the Sambisa Forest, considered to be the armed group's last stronghold.

Colonel Sani Usman, an army spokesperson, said in a statement on Thursday that those rescued include around "60 women of various ages and around 100 children".

"They have been evacuated to a safety zone for further processing," Usman said.

At least one woman and one soldier were reportedly killed in the fighting during the rescue. Eight other women and four soldiers were also injured.

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Abuja, said that the reports from the army could not be independently verified because of restricted access to the area.

However, she added that the military promised to release more evidence of the rescues, including photographs, later on Thursday.

All the former hostages - some of whom are said to be traumatised by the experience - were being screened to determine their identities and from where and when they were abducted.

Their release comes a day after the Nigerian military rescued nearly 300 hostages - 200 girls and 93 women - in Boko Haram's forest stronghold.

Usman said that the girls who were seized from the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014 were not part of the group. The fighters are believed to have taken the schoolgirls in trucks into the Sambisa Forest. Dozens escaped, but 219 remain missing.

Boko Haram has abducted an unknown number of girls, women and young men to be used as sex slaves and fighters. Many have escaped or been released as Boko Haram fighters have fled a multinational offensive that began at the end of January.

A month ago, the Nigerian military began pounding the Sambisa Forest in air raids, an assault they said earlier they had been avoiding for fear of killing the Chibok schoolgirls, or inciting their captors to kill them.

'Tip of the iceberg'

Earlier this month, rights group Amnesty International published a report saying that the armed group has abducted at least 2,000 women and girls since the start of 2014.

Amnesty's Africa director for research and advocacy, Netsanet Belay, said the rescues were a "cause for celebration" but he warned: "This is just the tip of the iceberg.

"There are thousands more women and girls, and men and boys, who have been abducted by Boko Haram," he said in a statement.

Aljazeera

Indonesia executes four Nigerians for drug trafficking

Indonesian authorities on Tuesday executed eight people, including four Nigerians, convicted for drug offenses.

The death row prisoners, whose pending execution drew condemnations around the world amid pleas for clemency, were killed by firing squad.

The execution of a ninth convict, a woman from the Philippines, was postponed at the last minute.

The Fillipino was spared after a woman accused of tricking her into carrying drug, handed herself to the police in Philippines Tuesday.

The four Nigerians included Martins Anderson, 50, who was charged with possession of heroin, and Okwudili Oyatanze, 41, also charged for smuggling heroin.

Jamiu Abashin, 50, was also executed for smuggling heroin, while Sylvester Nwolise, 42, was also executed for the same offence.

Other convicts who were executed were 34-year-old Australian, Myruan Sukumaran, 31 year-old Australian, Andrew Chan, charged for smuggling heroin, and 41 year-old Brazilian, Rodrigo Gularte, 42, who was convicted for smuggling cocaine.

Also executed was Zainal Abidin, a 50-year-old Indonesian, who was convicted for marijuana possession with intent to distribute.

Premium Times

Audit shows oil firm overpaid Nigerian government

An audit has found that Nigeria's state oil company overpaid the government $750m (£490m), but also found it had not properly accounted for $1.48bn.

The financial report follows allegations in 2013 by then-central bank chief Lamido Sanusi that the firm had failed to account for about $20bn.

It caused a huge uproar in Nigeria, forcing President Goodluck Jonathan to order an independent audit.

His office released the findings as he prepares to step down in a month.

Ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari will be inaugurated on 29 May after he defeated Mr Jonathan in elections last month.

He has vowed to tackle corruption in Nigeria, Africa's main oil producer where most people live on less than $2 a day.

'Accounting errors'

The BBC's Chris Ewokor in the capital, Abuja, says the findings suggest that Mr Sanusi's claims were exaggerated.

However, many Nigerians still believe that corruption in the oil sector runs deep, our correspondent adds.

The audit into the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was carried out by PwC, one of the world's leading accounting firms.

It stated that it could not vouch for the integrity of the information it was given when it conducted the audit, our reporter says.

PwC said the oil company should be overhauled and pay the government about $1.5bn arising from duplicate claims and accounting errors.

Mr Sanusi, then a respected banker, caused shockwaves in September 2013 when he claimed that the NNPC had failed to account for $20bn of oil sold between January 2012 and July 2013.

He was forced out of office following a heated row with Mr Jonathan and the NNPC over the allegation.

Mr Sanusi, now a powerful Muslim traditional leader in Nigeria, has not commented on PwC's findings.

BBC

Nigerian army rescues hundreds of kidnapped girls from Boko Haram

Nigeria's army has rescued 200 girls and 93 women during a military operation to wrest back the Sambisa Forest from the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, it said on Tuesday.

Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls near the northern village of Chibok in April 2014, causing an international outcry. The six-year insurgency has seen thousands killed and many more abducted.

"Troops this afternoon rescued 200 girls and 93 women from Sambisa Forest. We cannot confirm if the Chibok girls are in this group," army spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade said, adding Nigerian troops had also destroyed three camps run by the militants there.

Diplomats and intelligence officials say they believed at least some of the girls were being held in the forest about 100 km (60 miles) from Chibok, although U.S. reconnaissance drones failed to find them.

The girls and women will be screened on Wednesday to determine whether they had been abducted or if they were married to the militants, one intelligence source told Reuters.

"Now they are excited about their freedom," he said. "Tomorrow there will be screenings to determine whether they are Boko Haram wives, whether they are from Chibok, how long they have been in the camps, and if they have children."

Some of the girls were injured, and some of the militants killed, he said without giving more details.

The group was rescued on Tuesday afternoon from camps, "discovered near or on the way to Sambisa," one army official said.

Nigerian forces backed by warplanes invaded the vast former colonial game reserve late last week as part of a push to win back territory from the group.

The group, notorious for violence against civilians, controlled an area roughly the size of Belgium at the start of the year but has since been beaten back by Nigerian troops, backed by Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

While the Nigerian army maintains the group is now hemmed in Sambisa Forest, militants have managed to launch attacks in the neighbourhood including chasing soldiers out of Marte town and an island on Lake Chad.

Reuters