Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Video - Building a floating school in Makoko



Architect Kunle Adeyemi explains the logistics building houses in the village of Makoko, Nigeria.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Chinua Achebe passes away at 82



Nigeria's literary icon and publisher of several novels, Chinua Achebe, is dead.

Mr. Achebe, 82, died in the United States where he was said to have suffered from an undisclosed ailment.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt he died last night in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

A source close to the family said the professor had been ill for a while and was hospitalised in an undisclosed hospital in Boston.

The source declined to provide further details, saying the family would issue a statement on the development later today.

Contacted, spokesperson for Brown University, where Mr. Achebe worked until he took ill, Darlene Trewcrist, is yet to respond to our enquiries on the professor's condition.

Until his death, the renowned author of Things Fall Apart was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown.

The University described him as "known the world over for having played a seminal role in the founding and development of African literature."

"Achebe's global significance lies not only in his talent and recognition as a writer, but also as a critical thinker and essayist who has written extensively on questions of the role of culture in Africa and the social and political significance of aesthetics and analysis of the postcolonial state in Africa," Brown University writes of the literary icon.

Mr. Achebe was the author of Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, and considered the most widely read book in modern African Literature. The book sold over 12 million copies and has been translated to over 50 languages worldwide.

Many of his other novels, including Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, Anthills of the Savannah, and A man of the People, were equally influential as well.

Prof Achebe was born in Ogidi, Anambra State, on November 16, 1930 and attended St Philips' Central School at the age of six. He moved away from his family to Nekede, four kilometres from Owerri, the capital of Imo State, at the age of 12 and registered at the Central School there.

Mr. Achebe was a consistent critic of various military dictators that ruled Nigeria and was a loud voice in denouncing the failure of governance in the country.

Twice, he rejected offers by the Nigerian government to grant him a national honour, citing the deplorable political situations in the country, particularly in his home state of Anambra, as reason.

Below is how Brown University profiled him on its website:

"Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known the world over for having played a seminal role in the founding and development of African literature. He continues to be considered among the most significant world writers. He is most well known for the groundbreaking 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, a novel still considered to be required reading the world over. It has sold over twelve million copies and has been translated into more than fifty languages.

"Achebe's global significance lies not only in his talent and recognition as a writer, but also as a critical thinker and essayist who has written extensively on questions of the role of culture in Africa and the social and political significance of aesthetics and analysis of the postcolonial state in Africa. He is renowned, for example, for "An Image of Africa," his trenchant and famous critique of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Today, this critique is recognized as one of the most generative interventions on Conrad; and one that opened the social study of literary texts, particularly the impact of power relations on 20th century literary imagination.

"In addition, Achebe is distinguished in his substantial and weighty investment in the building of literary arts institutions. His work as the founding editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series led to his editing over one hundred titles in it. Achebe also edited the University of Nsukka journal Nsukkascope, founded Okike: A Nigerian Journal of New Writingand assisted in the founding of a publishing house, Nwamife Books–an organization responsible for publishing other groundbreaking work by award-winning writers. He continues his long-standing work on the development of institutional spaces where writers can be published and develop creative and intellectual community."

Related story: Chinua Achebe Tops Forbes' List of Influential African

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Video - Information Technology to improve Lagos



CNN's Errol Barnett meets Bosun Tijani who wants to improve education with technology.

166 Feared Dead in boat accident

A boat traveling from Oron in Akwa Ibom State to Malabao in Equilateral Guinea, yesterday, capsized at the Calabar Waterways with no fewer than 166 passengers feared dead.

Eyewitnesses said the passengers were traveling in a "giant-sized wooden boat" when it capsized at 40 nautical miles along the coast of Calabar off Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, waterways".

Investigation shows that 45 corpses of some of the victims have been deposited at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH, mortuary.

But Mr David Akate, the Assistant Director, Information, Cross River Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, who confirmed the incident, did not give further details.

The eyewitnesses said the boat was carrying 168 passengers, adding that rescue efforts were still going on.

A marine transporter at the Calabar Inland Waterways, Mr Ikechukwu Egwu, also confirmed the incident. He said the passengers of the boat were mostly Igbo traders who were heading for Gabon, adding that they were mostly from the South East states who headed to Oron in Akwa Ibom to board the wooden boat because it was cheap.

"They are mostly Igbo traders who headed to Oron to board the wooden boat because it was cheaper," he said.

The victims' corpses were being deposited in UCTH Calabar instead of Malabo, where the mishap occurred, because they were believed to be Nigerians

A statement by spokesman of National Emergency Management Agency, Mr Y A Shuaib however said "Nigerian rescuers have recovered 9 bodies while two survivors have been taken to UCTH Calabar", adding that rescue continues.

1,585 Nigerians in Norway prisons for drug trafficking


Leaders of the delegation of Norwegian Intelligence Service and Customs officials, Mr. Kai Arild Holm, yesterday, in Lagos, said no fewer than 1,585 Nigerians were arrested and detained in Norwegian prisons between 2000 and 2012 over drug trafficking offences.
Disclosing this development during the team’s visit to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, in Lagos,  Holm said the visit to the anti-narcotic agency was to enhance collaboration with Nigerian authorities in counter narcotic smuggling, money laundering and human trafficking.
According to him, “in 2012, we arrested 432 Nigerians in Norway and deported 95 over drug trafficking. We need your help in dealing with the problem of West African criminal networks in Norway. Most Nigerians arrested over drug trafficking are based in Europe. They engage in drug smuggling and launder the money back home.”
Chairman of NDLEA, Ahamu Giade, said the decision to collaborate with the Norway was reached after a meeting with a delegation of Norwegian Police and Customs officials that visited the agency in Lagos, Monday.
He said: “We need to enter into a memorandum of understanding to deepen our collaboration with the Norwegian government. Drug trafficking is a common problem and we need to embrace the principle of shared responsibility in addressing it. The technical details will soon be perfected. This will lead to improvement in arrests, prosecution and assets forfeiture.”
The NDLEA boss who condemned the involvement of Nigerians in criminal activities abroad, promised to take necessary steps in boosting the image of the country.
The steps, he added, included effective collaboration in counter narcotics, financial and assets investigation and anti-drug education.
The delegation will spend some days in Nigeria while  details of the memorandum are being worked out.