Yoruba or No?: Yes, Yoruba.

You might remember my Yoruba or no? post where I presented to you the dilemma of whether to study Yoruba or not. In the end, SOAS accepted me. So I will be studying Yoruba. As such I will be adding to this blog a documentation of my trials trying to master what my dad has called "the most cultured language in the world".

I reckon to not confuse this particular blog any further than I have already (it started as a travel blog and metamorphasised into a political commentary) I'm gonna start a separate blog - details of which will follow soon.

If you are Ghanaian, please still follow my Yoruba journey because I reckon it's the same thing most African descendant Westerners have to go through - it just might make for an interesting read. ;]

#DearNigeria: support your paralympians

The paralympic team for Nigeria did amazingly well and recieved worldwide recognition, but yet they got no reception upon returning home.

The Nigerian Paralympians are our heroes and should deserve a heroes welcome.

Mandarin in Lagos, yes please.

Lagos will have their young people learning Chinese and according to BellaNaija, there is big debate as to whether this is a good thing or not.

What could be bad about it? There is no need for natives to be on the back foot in their own land because they can't negotiate with the new economic powerhouse that is China, on their terms.

I must say that Nigeria should also be doing their best to promote the learning of native languages (reading, writing and conversation) within their own young people and their diaspora descendants. The adoption of Mandarin as a language to learn within Nigerian schools is only a problem if it is yet another one-way imposition upon Nigerian culture and identity to the benefit of an alien culture, language and nation.

So really if we must debate the fact that our schools will teach Mandarin, the question is, will it be to compliment or replace our native (i.e. Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa) and presently adopted (i.e. English) languages?

All in all, I'm in favour of it. If used to strengthen Nigeria rather than re-suppress Nigeria we could be seeing the beginning of an even brighter future.

Land grab in Ethiopia by Foreigners from an irresponsible TPLF (Woyane) 'government'

Perhaps one of Africa's most vulnerable states, in my opinion, even though the AU is based there and most African countries contribute to its development Ethiopia's land is being used, not to help Ethiopians, or even other Africans, but rather people on other continents. What is the difference between today and a century ago?

#DearNigeria , from Ola

I really don't need to say much to add to this, but to build and support the movement I'm also going to post my own #DearNigeria soon. Please watch, like, forward, email, reblog, tweet and most of all post a response. It's important that if you consider yourself Nigerian, or African, or Afropolitan, or whatever label or non-label you want to attribute, that you take equal responsibility to pull Nigeria from its inertia.

And if you are not Nigerian, still make the effort to post a #DearNigeria video if Nigeria is able to sort itself out 1/5 of Africa's problems are resolved.  

Enjoy.