Category: Blog
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What a Knight?
By Maxwell Chiedozie Ihedioha She said a very emotional, self-justifying, arrogant prayer reminding God that she would hold Him accountable for any lapses in the care and nurture of her children. She was sitting on his bed, an anxious, care-worn woman in her early thirties. She was light-skinned and wore…
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My Lost Ancestors
Indeed, with the slave trade came the reign of strong men now celebrated under the prevailing Aro hegemony. This replaced the esteem previously reserved for people of integrity who upheld nsọ ala, respect for the earth, that were celebrated under the preceding Nri epoch. It was a seismic ethical shift,…
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Pita Nwana, Omenuko and the Carpenter’s Blood
(Dulue Mbachu writes on a conversation with Mrs Nwaobiara Chukwurah, 86, the only surviving child of Pita Nwana, on life as the daughter of the author of Omenuko, the first novel published in Igbo language.) When the novel Omenuko, by Pita Nwana, was published in 1933, it broke the records…
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The Man Who Fought Mental Slavery
OBITUARY: Tribute to Nze Ezeoforkire Cyril Ezenwa (Obinyelugo) By Dulue Mbachu Growing up in Achina during the Civil War and immediately after, I knew Obinyelugo (Cyril as we knew him then) as an older member of the agbataobu (the neighborhood). He was one of the very few who never said…
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Uwa Mgbede: An Exploration of Traditional Musical Instruments
Gerald Eze and the Ichoku Band Deliver an Electric Performance with Igbo Instruments in Uwa Mgbede Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera Every Sunday, Gerald Eze, gathers people of all ages numbering from dozens to a hundred, and regales them with his band playing new fusions of Igbo cultural music. The venue is…
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A Streamside Exchange: Tribute to JP Clark
By Dulue Mbachu and Uzor Maxim Uzoatu He was better known by his initials JP. His full name was John Pepper Clarke-Bekederemo. One of the pioneers of modern Nigerian literature, who started out at the University College (later University of Ibadan) in the 1950s, with the likes of Wole Soyinka,…
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On Nigerian Art, a Second Coming
Renowned artist Jerry Buhari writes an introduction to second instalment of Issues in Contemporary Nigerian Art, edited by Juliet Ezenwa-Pearce. Contemporary art in Nigerian has experienced tremendous development since its humble beginnings with colonial patronage. We recall the academic drawings and paintings of Onabolu, the almost illustrative paintings of Lasekan…
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West Africa’s Fragile States
In Fragile States and Crisis of Regionalism in West Africa, Gbara Awanen examines the things holding the region together and the ones impeding its integration. When ECOWAS was created in 1975, its overarching ambition was to be the vehicle for the economic integration of West Africa. Nearly five decades on,…
The New Gong 