Pearl of the savannah

By Akintayo Abodunrin

GROWING up in a family of writers, it was no surprise that Hafsatu Ahmad took to writing and winning literary prizes early. "I was in form one when the Northern Nigeria Publishing Company (NNPC) organised a competition and I entered the book (her first published nove) ‘So Aljannar Duniya', for the competition.
The result came out in 1978. And I caused a sensation because at that time, women in the North were not permitted to have choice in anything, especially marriage. They felt I was trying to make their female children revolt because I wrote a book about a Fulani girl who refused to accept her parents' choice which was against our culture at that time," she recalls.
Though just a girl when she wrote the award-winning novel, Ahmad wasn't afraid of the potential backlash, "because my father brought us up independently. He gave us the same education with our male brothers. He didn't discriminate between us and the males so I saw nothing to be afraid of. It was just making yourself understood and telling people you have a choice in marriage. If you make a choice in marriage, it is for life so I feel it is always good to allow children choose whoever they want to marry." Her whole family, she adds, "Was very encouraging. They were happy that I wrote something that was accepted for publishing."

For her efforts, young Hafsatu "was given a gift of, I think, hundred pounds. I bought a sewing machine, I bought a lot of things with that hundred pounds. At that time, the money was still the same with English pound. And the NNPC used to give me royalty whenever they sell the book. Up till today, I'm receiving royalty from the book."
Writing in English
Apart from several unpublished manuscripts, Ahmad's other published works include "Nasiha Ga Na Aura", "Yar, Dubu Nai Tanbotsai" and the latest "Saba Dan Sababi", a collection of short stories, she says "is going to be four books because the stories are voluminous. I divided it into 12 stories each in a book. The first one is out now; I'm waiting for the second one, a book of short stories and poems in English to be published."
Noted for writing mainly in Hausa, the former vice chair of the Zamfara State chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors, decided to publish in English, "because I wanted to give my readers, the ones who don't understand Hausa, to know at least something about my writings." Her decision to write in Hausa, she informs, "is because I think we need books in Hausa. At the time I started writing, we didn't have many books, only ‘Magana Jari Ce' by Abubakar Imam. We need Hausa books and I will like my people to read about me in English and in Hausa."
It wasn't me
Ahmad wouldn't agree that she started the Soyaya (romance) trend in Hausa literature. "My book is different from what they are now calling Soyaya books. The Soyaya books are copied and adapted from Indian films but mine is about our own Fulani culture. If you read my book and the Soyaya novels, you will know there is a difference."
She believes the Soyaya books "are cheap, a bit vulgar and there is no art in it. You know writing is natural. If you are a writer, you can write about anything anytime but if you read these books, from the way the stories are written, you will know that this person copied from somebody, it's not original."
The Fulani who writes in her native Fulfude but hasn't published in the language yet because of the high cost of publishing, discloses what continues to motivate her. "You write something, you want to see it published but there is no money. But I always write and keep because one of my great grandfathers, Usman Dan Fodiyyo, left a lot of work that even now we are benefitting from them. So, I feel if I write maybe one day among my children or grandchildren, somebody will find the work and publish it."
Beyond literature
Ahmad is an activist whose activities extend beyond literature. She sought the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party for the governorship office in her native Zamfara in 2003 because, "I felt the governor at that time, (Ahmed) Yerima was cheating people. He was using our money to take care of his family, friends, enriching a few people and not using any for the state. We had a case of a girl who was impregnated by three men and she was judged to be whipped while the men went scot free. When we went there to talk to him - at that time we didn't have a female commissioner or any woman in a top position - he claimed there was no educated woman in Zamfara State.
"That was why he didn't give us any post. So I challenged him, I don't even want a commissionership from his government but I want his seat. Eventually, the PDP didn't give me the ticket because they felt Zamfara is still a backward place and if they put a woman, she is not going to win the election. I spent almost N5 million campaigning but they didn't tell me they were not going to back me until after I spent my money. Two, three months before the election, they told me I had to quit for a man."
The widow of a Yemeni who died in 2005 says of writing and raising her children: "There was no problem; I used to write in the night. I enjoy writing in the night because there is quiet, nobody will disturb me and I will put some music on."
The grandmother who worked briefly at Radio Kano before she moved to Zamfara in 1969 with her husband has a bias for country music. Her favourite artists include "Charlie Pride, Don Williams - I stopped listening to Don Willaims after he was accused of disliking Blacks but I used to enjoy his music and Skeeter Davis. I worked briefly at Radio Kano before we moved to Zamfara State where I stopped working. We moved to Zamfara in 1969.
Her interest in increasing the number of enlightened women in her state made Ahmad and some others start a writing workshop for women some years ago. The reception to the workshop, she informs, "has been warm and we are even getting some contributions from individuals to publish some of our materials."
Her colleagues in Northern Nigeria, she says, "are doing fine. We even have an organisation for female writers alone. The name of the organisation is Ahledi. We have about 60 members in Kano alone and we are trying to expand to other states in the North. The only problem is publishing because there is no sponsor. But we have no problem in writing."

(Source: http://234next.com)

Political activist an unlikely beauty queen

By Lesley Ciarula Taylor

After fleeing her native Zimbabwe, arriving in Toronto alone, living in a Salvation Army shelter, getting first an undergraduate degree in Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto and then a master's degree in history and ethnic and pluralism studies and founding the Humane Migration Institute, Andriata Chironda decided it was time for a little fun.

So she entered the Miss Afri-Canada pageant. And won it.

But even with the crown and the flowers and the title, Chironda still sees the pageant, just like everything else, in terms of politics and social justice.

"Zimbabwe gets a lot of negative press," she says, then pauses. "For very good reason. The cholera, the HIV, the politics.

"But we're pretty nice people, except for Robert."

That would be Robert Mugabe, president for life and the man whose despotic rule inspired her as a teenager to join the fledgling opposition movement. It was the first time since 1980 that Mugabe's repressive regime could no longer smother dissent.

"It was unheard of. Civil society had burst and now a generation was saying no."

A word not without risks. In 2001, at the age of 20, Chironda found herself on a plane to Toronto on orders from her mother. Canada had a reputation for being "more humanitarian than most," she said. Zimbabwe's intelligence agents were believed to operate in Britain, so she would not be safe there.

Her father, who had fought against white rule when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, had died just a year earlier after many years in detention. She recalls him as a "difficult man to live with" but now, a little older, she understands better the sacrifices he made for his country.

"We didn't have much time to mourn him as a family before things went to s---."

Her mother wasn't going to let anything like that happen to her eldest.

And so Chironda landed at Pearson airport with not much money and no connections, a little surprised "to see so many white people."

Growing up in Zimbabwe, "I had never really thought of myself as a black woman. You're not conscious of yourself as a black woman. It's an experience you get here when you're exposed to explicit and implicit forms of racism."

Every single piece of her experience of the past eight years has fed into what she has carved out for herself. The loneliness of a newcomer, the experience of justifying her claim before the Immigration and Refugee Board so she could stay, the diaspora that is her family - mother and youngest sister now in Europe, two sisters in South Africa, her brother finally with her in Toronto - the realization of what other immigrants, not from Zimbabwe, have gone through to get here.

That last came with the Miss Afri-Canada pageant, in which she competed in October against 11 other young women in Toronto representing other African countries. It taught her, she says, how diverse Africa is as a continent and how "Mugabe is not the only evil on the face of the planet."

Plus, it was "the best fun I've had in years. It's not your typical pageant. It's not a crass lining up of women."

When she won the event, sponsored by the African Heritage Association since 1999, this self-proclaimed scrawny tomboy with a master's degree in history "was laughing inside to myself. It all seemed quite ridiculous, surreal."

The competitors showcase their culture. Chironda played the mbira, a thumb piano used to accompany traditional oral history melodies. Oral histories are what she wants to use the Humane Migration Institute to showcase as well, through stories, music and arts. "So much of it can be lost in translation."

She talks eloquently of what transnationals, the people who straddle two cultures, lose and gain. She lost her family and country but gained what she calls a "more multi-dimensional" personality, able to put her activism in a world context and expand her definition of family to include the people at the Maytree Foundation, which gave her the scholarship that gave her an education.

Maytree also sponsored her internship at Amnesty International, putting more flesh on the bones of her knowledge about refugees and diasporas.

Before she goes back to academia for her doctorate, Chironda is putting that knowledge to use on a government-sponsored project through the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture, which will examine just what immigrants and refugees are and aren't receiving to help them adjust.

Her time at Evangel Hall, the Salvation Army shelter, taught her that a credo of her student activist days - that religion was merely a means of controlling people - didn't fit all the time.

A chance encounter near her then-home on Wellesley St., with a man on inline skates, gave her a metaphor for "becoming Canadian.

"He looked really majestic, like he was gliding. I stared at him. A friend told me I was too old for that, so I was determined to do it. God bless Canadian Tire. I got a nice pair of Rollerblades there and I taught myself."

Then she overcame being petrified of the cold to learn how to skate.

"There is something beautiful about learning `what's done in Rome.' Do you know what I mean? Now I can participate. I am at ease on the streets of Toronto. I can skate faster than most Canadians."

A tiny bit competitive, Andriata? "Oh yes," she says with a rolling laugh. "You have to learn to define yourself."
 

Hate Obama? You may not be a racist. But you will be white

By Michael Tomasky 

The president's critics are not all prejudiced but the crowd is mutating to the extremes. And we have a bad history on this topic

I WAS just recalling how, about a year ago, my country was swept up in a spasm of self-congratulation. Not only had Barack Obama broken a seemingly insuperable historical barrier in winning the presidency, the media told us, but "we" had as well. We had overcome centuries of gruesome history and proved to the world that America could live up to its promise.
The US press in those days duly reported but tended to downplay events that told the opposite story. The footnote, for instance, that the white supremacist website stormfront.org temporarily went dead on 5 November, the day after the election, because it was so inundated with requests for membership. And the tale about the Maine convenience store that started an "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool" inviting customers to bet on the date Obama would be shot, and saying: "Let's hope we have a winner".
These were treated as isolated events, and maybe they were. The important thing was the people had spoken, and they'd given proof that America wasn't that kind of country any more.
A year later, we've seen an epidemic of hatred against the president that I think is safe to call unprecedented. Bill Clinton and George W Bush were hated - but not quite like this. When we have a pastor, a real-live Baptist minister in Arizona, devoting a sermon to explaining why the president should "melt like a snail" (and he was explicit - he meant Obama should be killed), we've reached a new point. Obama, it was reported over the summer, receives 30 death threats a day, three or four times the number issued against Bush. And I think it can't be just a coincidence that you will almost never see him give a speech out of doors, the middle of a heavily guarded military base (Fort Hood) providing a recent and rare exception.
We're not supposed to talk about race as a motivator for these kinds of things in this country. There are some decent reasons why. First, it's said, the anger felt towards Obama - among the "tea party" contingent, for instance - is in the main ideological. Let me be clear: I agree with this. It is in the main ideological. What a lot of the rest of us see as salvaging hundreds of thousands of jobs and averting a far deeper crisis by taking steps to bail out General Motors, Chrysler, Citigroup and Bank of America, they see as socialism. Fine. It's a free country, as we like to say.
Second, race is hard to talk about because it's unquantifiable. If an incident occurs that looks as if it might be a hate crime but contains shadings of ambiguity, we can't say, "Well, that act had roots that were 61% economic and 39% racial". Likewise with Obama hatred. And if something can't be measured, it's hard even to argue about, let alone agree on.
And third, I do think it's fair to say that, at this point in US history, most individuals aren't racist, at least in any blatant way. Most white people, especially from middle age down, may have a black friend or two, or at least co-workers with whom they get along fine. When conservatives complain that they feel they can't make criticisms of Obama without being called racist, they have a point, and on an individual level I have some sympathy with them.
But here's the thing that most media discussions of race miss. It has to do with the difference between the individual and the crowd.
The tea partiers are about 98% white. I went to the 12 September tea party march at the Capitol building. I saw many thousands of people. I spotted about a half dozen Asians, three or four Latinos, and one black person. All the rest were white. Look at the videos from the town halls over the summer. Virtually all of the angry people are white. Look, indeed, at the Republican party. It's almost entirely white. Yes, Michael Steele, a black man, is its chairman. But he was obviously a strategic and even cynical choice (made after Obama was elected) and was not culled from the ranks of numerous available black Republicans, because in truth there are hardly any.
Add to this the fact that it is a central article of faith for American conservatism that the whole business of diversity is nothing but a racket, forced on them by liberal elites. I can't think of one measure meant to ameliorate America's hideous history of racial discrimination that conservatives have supported. Literally not one, in the 50 years we've been trying them.
This is the Obama-hating crowd. It's deeply conservative, and it's about 98% white. And the thing about crowds is that they develop a personality of their own that is not merely the sum of individual parts. A crowd is an organism that grows in its own way and tends to be led and excited by its extremes. It can mutate into being racist without many or even most of the individuals in it being so.
It can be a danger, as we're often reminded, to overstate these things without that magical "proof" we're always looking for. But the greater danger rests in understating them. Americans resist overstatement because we want to reassure ourselves we're a good country at heart. But history has more often proved on this topic that we're not. We'd do well not to forget that.

(source: www.guardian.co.uk)

Conservative black women bring fresh perspectives to feminism

SINCE my college years almost 20 years ago, I've considered myself a feminist. It is usually assumed that feminists are left-leaning liberals, but I am a feminist who is politically to the right of center. So, at many feminist gatherings - especially as my politics have changed - I've often felt like an ideological version of the 'sister outsider' outlined in the work of the late lesbian feminist Audre Lorde: theoretically part of the group, but a case apart. However, there are many other black feminists like me.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born feminist and former Dutch parliamentarian was recently interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. A fierce critic of Islam, which she argues undermines women's rights around the world, Hirsi Ali also considers herself a libertarian and promotes the importance of protecting individual rights and freedom in the West. Focussing on protecting and celebrating individual rights for women, as opposed to only patriarchy and oppressive structures which assume that the woman is a victim, is what sets us libertarian feminists apart from liberal feminists.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not the only high-profile center-right black feminist. There's also Nyamko Sabuni, the Swedish Minister for Integration And Gender Equality and member of the classically liberal/center-right Folkpartiet Liberalerna. While the Burundi-born feminist is supportive of affirmative action and is pushing Swedish corporations to hire more women at the top levels, she also believes in a stronger integration approach for Sweden's immigrants by promoting less welfare dependency and more self-sufficiency.
There's also Rama Yade, France's outspoken Secretary of State of State and former human rights minister. When asked if she's a feminist, the Senegalese-born moderate-conservative responded (in French): "Yes, I am a feminist and it's not a dirty word! I don't understand those who fear the word. The genre should certainly not be an excuse or a pretext. Feminism has opened the field of possibilities." Secretary Yade has highlighted the plight of downtrodden women, rape as a political terror tool in countries like the Congo, and domestic violence.
However, it isn't just African-born women who are in the black center-right feminist arena. While I had little appreciation for her while reading her work as a college student, anthropologist and author Zora Neale Hurston traversed this territory long ago. However, her center-right politics and antipathy to government intervention is either purposefully omitted or downplayed by feminist writers. In the blogosphere, my fellow Chicago center-right blogger Afrocity has joined me in promoting feminism in her posts, particularly in discussing women's images in popular media.
There is an opportunity for us black center-right feminists to build upon Hurston's work and to continue to bring different perspectives to black feminism. Liberal feminists often ask for big government goodies, but that can't happen without production and wealth creation by individuals freely trading their products and services.
Another area that libertarian feminists look at is how more modest dress is now the counterculture, and how hip-hop culture has undermined the richness of black American culture that once placed more value on black women. We are also interested in how government policies - such as the Great Society, the war on drugs, prostitution laws that prosecute women but not the male customer, military rules barring women from certain positions, the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military and state crackdowns on informal babysitting arrangements - have disproportionately impacted black women's lives and undermined black women's freedom.
Choice is an underlying theme running through black center-right feminism. However, this pro-choice stance doesn't end with abortion, but extends to economic issues and other social issues.
We believe that women should have the right to make any choices that we desire (while enduring the full repercussions of those choices), so long as it doesn't harm others. With our choice mantra, black center-right feminists can increasingly bring more energy and vigor to the feminist arena.
Cutline: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born feminist and critic of fundamentalist Islam (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)

By Gregory Simpkins

FORMER World Bank consultant and economist Dambisa Moyo has created quite a stir in the debate over the effectiveness of foreign aid. She raises legitimate questions about the more than US$1 trillion in development aid provided to African governments by the developed world over the past 50 years. However, she too often overstates her case and arrives at the erroneous conclusion that aid is the cause of Africa's problems rather than just another symptom of bad governance.
Moyo's criticism of foreign aid to Africa is far from a new view. The first congressional hearing I ever arranged for the then-House Subcommittee on Africa in 1997 included testimony by Michael Maren, a former Peace Corps volunteer who had worked for Catholic Relief Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Maren's view is a bit different than Moyo's thesis. Focusing on U.S. involvement in Somalia during the Cold War, he said aid largely went to local power brokers who used it for their own purposes - similar to Moyo's contention that aid has been wasted on despots. But Maren painted a picture of selfishness ruining aid programs - from U.S. policymakers using aid to win support to grain-trading companies looking to unload excess grain to those unscrupulous local leaders who sold aid supplies for profit rather than providing them to the intended recipients.
Moyo traces Western aid to Africa from the 1960s through the current decade and paints a picture of varying, often conflicting, focuses for foreign aid. She said aid to Africa in the 1960s concentrated on infrastructure projects that private lenders wouldn't touch. In the 1970s, the focus was on poverty and away from infrastructure. The 1980s, in the wake of the 1979 oil crises, saw a tightening of monetary policy, especially a sharp rise in interest rates, which left many African governments with an untenable debt service. Western aid providers in the 1990s focused on governance, blaming economic problems on the continent's lack of leadership that resulted in donor fatigue by the turn of the century. During the current decade, Moyo characterizes foreign aid as being directed by celebrities who call for more aid in the face of large-scale debt forgiveness.
"The broadest consequences of the aid model have been ruinous," Moyo writes.
One can concede that foreign aid to African has not worked as intended. However, to say that it was the aid itself that was the problem is not logical. Moreover, by Moyo's own account, foreign aid to Africa too often was influenced by events outside the continent. Aid was provided to despots merely because they were considered to be on the right side of the Cold War even though it was surely known that they were stealing the funds. Infrastructure projects were often ill-conceived and then abandoned. Poorly considered loans were made and then interest rates were arbitrarily raised, escalating unsustainable debt load. Decisions were made about the direction of aid spending without consultation with the governments involved or the people to be impacted.
Moyo makes the point that it is foreign aid that has accelerated corruption. "With aid's help, corruption fosters corruption, nations quickly descend into a vicious cycle of aid,"she writes. "Foreign aid props us corrupt governments - providing them with freely usable cash."
While there is much truth in this statement, it ignores the fact that foreign did not create corruption in Africa. Too many African leaders have plundered not only aid money, but also revenue from natural resources. It would be difficult, if at all possible, for outsiders to stop the plunder by African governments of their own country's resources, but it would most certainly have been possible for donors and international financial institutions to end aid programs that were being looted. The fact that they did not makes them co-conspirators in this crime.
Merely looking back and assigning blame now will not help find the most effective means of developing African countries from this point forward. Cutting off aid certainly is not the answer, but neither is continuing to look the other way when aid money is being stolen. Surely there must be a happy medium in which aid funds are strategically provided to governments who are accountable for the resources they are provided. That is the basis for the Millennium Challenge Account, which uses independent measurements of government effectiveness and requires all stakeholders in recipient societies to be a part of the decision-making process. The MCA is not an infallible program, but it is a program pointing in the right direction for foreign aid.
This paper and this forum are intended to examine the reasons for continuing foreign aid to Africa and how the provision of this aid can be provided in a way that more accurately reflects its intent - the development of the countries of Africa.
(Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200909240890.html)

By Gbemisola Olujobi

For an industry that started purely by accident, the Nigerian movie industry (known as Nollywood) has not done badly at all. According to a new United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report, the Nigerian film industry has overtaken Hollywood and closed the gap on India's Bollywood, the global leader in the movie business, in terms of the number of movies produced each year. Nollywood has therefore surpassed Hollywood to become the world's second largest film producer.
According to a UNESCO Institute for Statistics survey, Bollywood-as the Mumbai-based film industry is known-produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006. In comparison, Nigeria's moviemakers came out with 872 productions-all in video format. The United States, on the other hand, produced 485 major films.
The survey reports that India, Nigeria and the United States were followed by eight countries that produced more than 100 films each: Japan (417), China (330), France (203), Germany (174), Spain (150), Italy (116), South Korea (110) and the United Kingdom (104).
According to the study, American movies continue to dominate in terms of cinema admissions around the world, and all of the top 10 films seen in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Namibia, Romania and Slovenia were U.S.-made. Nigerian films, however, outsell Hollywood films in Nigeria and many other African countries, where Nigerian video movies are available in even the most remote areas. Nollywood films also enjoy immense popularity among the African Diaspora in both Europe and North America.
The reach of Nollywood is driven by the use of English as a prominent language in its movies. The UNESCO survey reveals that 56 percent of Nollywood movies are made in Nigerian languages and 44 percent in the English language. This has contributed to Nigeria's success in exporting its films. Aggressive marketing using posters, trailers and television advertising has also helped the expansion of the market.
Now to the accident that gave rise to Nollywood. Legend has it that in 1992, Nigerian businessman Kenneth Nnebue imported from Taiwan more blank videocassettes than he knew what to do with. To mop up the glut, he came up with the ingenious idea of recording something on them to make them more marketable. Nnebue shot a film titled "Living in Bondage" which told the story of a man who achieves power and wealth by killing his wife in a ritualistic murder, only to repent later when her ghost starts haunting him. It was a familiar story which resonated with many in Nigeria's superstitious society. A megahit was born.
The film sold more than 750,000 copies and became what could be called a box office success, except that there was really no box office. It was shot on video and copied to Nnebue's tapes and went straight to the streets. It held audiences captive in homes, video shops and street corners, filling a yawning gap. Movie theaters had become nonexistent in Nigeria as a result of a growing siege of crime. Armed robbery gangs ensured that it was almost impossible to go on an outing without risking life and limb, so people generally stayed indoors after dark. Home viewing therefore became the preferred mode of watching movies. Even up until now, Nigeria has virtually no formal cinemas. The UNESCO survey found that about 99 percent of screenings are in informal settings, such as home theaters.
Many would-be producers saw the potential and began spawning imitations of Nnebue's blockbuster. An industry took off. The rise of affordable digital filming and editing technologies also stimulated the industry. Nigerian directors, more than 300 in number, began to adopt new technologies as they become affordable. Videotape cameras were ditched for digital devices, which are now being replaced by HD cameras. Editing, music and other postproduction work are done with Macs and PCs.
Before Nnebue's feat, moviemaking in Nigeria was an unrewarding business. The first Nigerian films were made by filmmakers such as Ola Balogun and Hubert Ogunde in the 1960s, but they were frustrated by the high cost of celluloid film production. The enterprise struggled through the '70s and '80s in the form of local popular theater, television productions and a small-scale informal video movie trade. Home viewing depended largely on Hollywood and Bollywood movies, which provided little that Nigerian audiences could identify with. The rise of Nollywood pushed James Bond, Bruce Lee and Shashi Kapoor off the shelves and replaced them with familiar names such as Okonkwo, Kanayo, Edochie and Kosoko. A true African renaissance was born!
According to UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura, "film and video production are shining examples of how cultural industries, as vehicles of identity, values and meanings, can open the door to dialogue and understanding between peoples, but also to economic growth and development." Nollywood seems to have achieved all of that and much more.
Through Nollywood movies, Africans are experiencing a worldwide cultural renaissance and reengagement. Even the best foreign movies cannot possibly provide this. Recently, South Africa's satellite TV company, Multichoice DSTV, introduced a channel called AfricaMagic, which shows mostly Nigerian movies to its subscribers in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Viewers in the United States also watch Nollywood movies on Afrotainment. And because the films are still sold mainly on videocassette, they are so cheap and widely available that even the poor in rural areas can join the fun.
On the economic growth front, most of the films are produced by independent companies and businessmen. The industry is believed to employ about 200,000 people as producers, directors, actors, editors, distributors and promoters. According to Chike Maduekwe of Gemafrique, a film-promotion business in Lagos, there is a legion of spinoff jobs on a typical film set, such as makeup, props and printing, and young people without a formal education can find a place. The Nigerian National Film and Video Censors Board ranks Nollywood as the biggest employer after agriculture. The industry employs a million people a year and contributes about $250 million to the Nigerian economy. About 30 new titles are released every week. An average film sells 50,000 copies. While less popular titles will sell 10,000 copies, megahits can sell between 200,000 and 400,000 copies.
Beyond the glitz and glitter that is usually associated with the world of movies, however, the story of Nollywood is one of hope and resilience, according to Italian (Zambian-born) filmmaker Franco Sacchi, who studied the industry and concluded that "one can only admire the low-budget effectiveness crossed with lunacy that characterizes Nollywood gumption."
Anyone familiar with the elaborate preparations that go into the making of Hollywood movies would certainly call Nollywood a crazy industry. Most movies are not produced in studios. Video movies are shot on location in hotels, homes and offices which are often rented out by their owners. These emergency studios are usually acknowledged in credits in the movies. The most popular locations are in Lagos, Enugu and Abuja.

By Ryton Dzimiri, in Swansea, South Wales

AS a Zimbabwean living in the United Kingdom, I have learnt a lot - that the streets of London are not really paved with gold as we were told when we were growing up in colonial Rhodesia.

It has dawned in me that politics is not straight forward indeed; in fact, it needs a good map reader. If you can't read the map then it becomes problematic.

My plight begins from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe with brutal dictator Mugabe directly forcing me into hiding out of the country through torture, arrest, detention etc. I am one of those Zimbabweans who bear scars of Mugabe's brutality, and such an encounter in life has changed my life forever.

With this brutal encounter, I left Zimbabwe my country of birthright - running away not from Ian Smith's once ruthless Rhodesian Army, but from a fellow black man - Robert Mugabe. Mr Mugabe had gone mad - totally out of his head.

I left Zimbabwe a few years ago after I was accosted and brutalised by the 5th Brigade better known as Gukurahundi. Though I am a Shona, my roots are in Matabeleland, it is where I was born and bred, and I speak Ndebele with the precision of the Ngunis themselves - probably I speak better Ndebele than other Ndebeles - and I am proud of that.

I guess my sin was to be in Matabeleland at that "moment of madness" but Matabeleland is my home and it is where I feel really liberated, this might sound like a myth to others but its a fact that there are many Shonas who feel like myself. You may call me assimilated if you want, I honestly dont mind.

To make matters worse at that time, my sister went on to marry a "pure" breed of the Ndebeles, Mr Dlamini - this was probably the reason why, as a Shona brought up in Matabeleland did not feel any different at all.

My late mother, a black woman born in Rhodesia 1944 during the height of injustices against blacks - her day was characterised by a colonialist who ran the country in disproportionately slavish fashion.

In Rhodesia, 600 thousand whites owned 80% of fertile land and 6 million black indigenous people were gun-driven to 20% arid land to share. To earn a living, a black man had to work in a white farm where the rich farmer earning £20 000 monthly would pay his 400 strong black labourers £1,75 per month. Bread was reasonably £0,03 and at least the worker was entitled to a 50kg of mealie meal per year.

These were some of the many varieties of incentives Rhodesians designed to produce a mentality of contentment my mother had about a colonialist. As it is always said everywhere - Rhodesia was a breadbasket of Africa. Indeed, it was, even the cities were showing prestige as compared to many other African countries. All the urban property owners were colonialists and the labour slavish force was black.

In any economy like that, where 1% of the population of seven million controls 98% of the economy, the economy will obviously perform well. This is because of the benefit of slave work/cheap labour.

Well, all this was put to an end through a long protacted gurrelar war which cost the lives of many. We saw the resurgence of Robert Mugabe, a man who was never next in line of presidency.

We saw how the British Conservative government literally installed Mr Mugabe. We saw how Mugabe was allowed to kill in Matabeleland in which 20 000 civilians lost their lives. The question is why was Mr Mugabe allwed to kill civilians which was a violation of the International law, and up to this stage there seem to be little attempt to arrest Mugabe on Crimes against Humanity.

The Law, as it is known in Zimbabwe, was not authored by Mzilikazi or by some Mbire institution. It was designed by Britain, perfected by Cecil John Rhodes and inherited by Ian Smith, forwarded to Robert Mugabe. Henceforth our law does not allow lawlessness, arrests, abductions by the state. Do Zimbabweans need an international protection from their state? Do Zimbabweans need to liberate themselves from the liberators?

It can be argued that the reason why Mr Mugabe was allowed to kill as he wanted without any restrain for over 20 year was because the killings were viewed as a non-event in the West. I cannot remember any condemnation of the Gukurahundi operations in Matabeleland, not even now, yet if Mugabe is to be arrested for crimes against humanity, the Gukurahundi massacres are the only clear charge against this dictactor.

We are all aware that someone in Britain financially assisted dictactor Mugabe, or to qoute London Mayor Mr Boris Johnson "the British literally installed Mr Mugabe in power".

The British-Mugabe association went on even after the Daily Mail reporter published a story about massacres in Matabeleland. In fact, after the massacres, Mr Mugabe was Knighted in Britain. What a hypocrisy!

But when Mr Mugabe started exporpriating white farmland under the banner of correcting injustices, we then started to hear what we have always called for - screams of "Rule of Law" and a lot of us unknowingly saw a pasture of hope in Britain.

Thinking, that Britain, as my former colonial master would help us re-gain a status as fully paid-up members of the human race. Little did I know that the perceived gold streets was an expression the survival of the fittest. One needed to stand up and repeat your plight from where you are coming from and you will not be ehard by anyone.
I would certainly require a book publishing company to engage me in writing my experiences as an "African in Britain"

Having arrived in this country in 2000, running away from Mugabe, I had earlier tried to settle in South Africa in 1983 and found that life was unbearable in post Apartheid South Africa. Eleven years later I came to Britain in search for security and dignity.

I got a job in Leicester six days after landing in Heathrow. It turned out to be a miracle to me because it the first place I looked - and I got it at my first attempt. On that not Britain, to me was like The Promise Land. I want to admit, that there where lot of things I did not understand and a lot of things I did not ask or should I say, there was nobody to ask.

Surely, whatever, the most important thing to me was that I was safe, and away from Robert Mugabe.
My routine was 12 hours at work, 2 hours on the road to and from work, two hours at home (where I lived) and eight hours sleep. I had no friends no relatives with whom to share problems except the telephing home. I would stare in the roof to shrug-off the vagaries of the British life.

After three years of working for a company, doing everything I was supposed to do and later being asked to do other peoples work, one day I burst into rage when a young supervisor had set me up to fall into an open tank full of cleaning strong acid.

I was suspended from work, only to be reistated after I threatened to report the incident to the police. I had also been threatened with deportation.

After two months of my reinstatement, my manager handed me a letter from the British Immigration which stated that I should leave the country as I was working illegally. The first thing that came into my mind was that I was going to be sent back to Mugabe.

I was treated like this, yet i had committed no crime, not even theratened anyone, and I had arrived in the United Kingdom seeking refuge - running away from Mugabe - here I was being brutalised in the civilised world as well.
It occurred to me, as ignorant as I was that the law says if "you" are not from the EU or if you are not British by birth and you do not have a valid work visa, you may not work in U.K.

I also discovered that If "you" live in U.K and you do not work you may apply for state benefits but only if you are British or E.U or an African with a valid visa. If you are none of the four but an asylum seeker awaiting a reply from the home office, you will get charity housing and food vouchers.

I applied for asylum in 2005 and was muted without any support yet the British human rights law says I must be supported. My problem was that I have always belong to a wrong political party which is ZAPU. To get favours, I reckon I should have been a member of the popular MDC. But I am not a liar or hypocrite, I have always been ZAPU and would die ZAPU. I am not a political prostitute.

ZAPU's 1975 manifesto states that human rights in Zimbabwe should be one where race and tribe should not spell the destiny of any Zimbabwean black or white. Equal opportunity for all citizens, including those who choose to come and settle among us because human migration is as old as time itself. With such an ideology was this not the party which we Zimbabweans should have voted for in large numbers in 1980?
 

By Clement Ogar

The KING's body has barely gone cold but already right-wing media are revelling in his death by desperately trying to ensure he is remembered by those tabloid controversies that dogged him all his life. Instead of reminding us about the legend that was Michael Jackson, the music genius that he was, the unforgettable entertainer that he will ever remain, they are beginning to feed us overdose of their vile comments.

Those who look for every opportunity to knock him down are now probably rubbing their hands with glee because he can no longer defend himself. What they never managed to accomplish while he was alive, they now hope they can achieve because he is no longer with us. They have gone into a complete over-drive to paint a terrible picture of him and trivialise his great achievements. But they will never be able to take away Michael's legacies.

People like Michael Jackson are special gifts from God to the world. The King was one of those rare gifts God occasionally gives to mankind when HE needs to fulfil a special promise. During his lifetime, Michael fulfilled one of such special duties which God bestowed on him, by uniting people across the globe through his music. He changed the way music is made and carried out a one-man revolution in music. His music is enjoyed by nations across races and generations and will live on after he is long gone. Michael was ahead of his time; in fact he was before his time.

Michael Jackson was something of a phenomenon, a kind of colossus. He was a celebration of music because he was music personified. He was like a lighthouse from which musicians were guided to their art; they took the lead from his shining light. For him to suddenly pass away is something that is very hard to believe. It would be extremely difficult for a lot of people to even begin to imagine that he is gone.

Jackson burst onto the music scene with his brothers in the 1960s. Jackson Five quickly went from their hometown of Gary, Indiana, to the top of the charts. By the age of 11, he was the most popular member of the band. He left the group in his 20s and moon walked his way to superstardom, becoming the most recognisable person on the planet.

Jackson's 1982 album "Thriller" still is the Best-selling album of all time, and Michael Jackson was the top performer in the world. And after over 750million records sold, the bestselling album of all time, 13 Grammy awards, Michael Jackson is truly the KING OF POP. Whilst he may be physically gone, his music will live with us forever. In fact the King is not dead, he is somewhere on our music shelves. May his soul Rest in Peace.

‘Rebranding Nigeria' beyond the change of label
 

By Son Gyoh

THERE has been increasing debate in the Nigerian media and other discussion forums on the issue of perceived insensitivity of government officials to public opinion, particularly among the Nigerian political class. In much of this debate, the legislative arm of government has been fingered as the major culprit, on account of the frequent demands it makes on the treasury in the midst of great deprivations experienced by the vast majority of Nigerians. Constant reference is made to the unending scheming for increases in allowances, benefits and remuneration that sometimes delay the passing of the national budget.

But is it really that difficult to figure out why this insensitivity prevails, when political office holders do not feel accountable to the electorate? From the point of party primary nominations to general elections (or selections), the electorate are never really the decision makers. The party hierarchy imposes candidates who in turn put all available covert machineries in place to take the ballot and the opinion of the public counts for very little and the logic of accountability therefore, becomes untenable. It shouldn't come as a surprise when even in a period of economic recession our political leadership pursue a pay rise as their counterparts elsewhere take pay cuts. This is a classic manifestation of the Nigerian brand. What is more disturbing is when our distinguished legislatures start to base or compare their wages with the profit driven private sector.

In more developed democracies (often a reference point), public remuneration is not based on private sector pay regimes, but informed by a variety of public service related wage structures. In any case, our politicians conveniently miss to make the same comparison when it comes to their output and accountability to the public. Why should they seek pay parity without the same measure of parity in accountability and output? But is it only the politicians in the frame? The civil service is equally culpable as they have perfected the act of treasury plunder. They call it ‘making money' a term that has replaced the whole notion of earning money.

As the government seek to rebrand Nigeria, it is important to remember that rebranding a product does not end at re-tagging or the mere change of the ‘label on the pack', but entails improvement in the content. Improving Nigeria's content will need structural changes such as electoral reforms that will secure popular vote that invites accountability, a revenue allocation regime that ties budgetary allocations to specific verifiable projects, the institutionalisation of project monitoring and evaluation at all tiers of government and instituting a proper tax regime that creates an incentive to demand accountability for ‘tax payers money' in place of the ‘national cake' mindset.

Another important change that falls at the door step of the president, a former university lecturer, is putting Universities back into our development process. The president knows more than any of his predecessors that the university plays a central role in the development process of any country. It is apolitical and the citadel of learning processes, where valuable research that feed into governance, technology, agriculture and even civil society awareness emerge.

If the campaign to rebrand Nigeria is not built on landmark structural changes, it might turn out to be another spurious excursion into the many familiar clichés (due process, war against indiscipline, war against corruption etc) that only serve to reinforce deeply entrenched cynicism that change is truly possible. Today, Nigerians home and abroad seem poised more than ever before, to play by