I’m asking you to vote for a true global feminist revolution My Oxford Union talk is live. What a great honour it was. I wanted to use the opportunity to not only address the debate but to also make a case for a conscientious and critically conscious global feminism that “smashes the patriarchy”. I admit…
Why philosophical reflection is a feminist goal
In my most recent column at the Nigeria Guardian, I argue that gender inequality is a predictable result when a society disengages from philosophical reflection. You can read it here or below. In ancient times, Nigerian women had access to spiritual and political power, and women and men were historically seen as equal in many…
When Africans connect food, nature and our deepest selves
There’s a scene in the movie, Moonlight, where the Kevin character (André Holland) prepares a meal for the lead character, Chiron (Trevante Rhodes), whom he is in love with. He drizzles lemon over tilapia fish and sautéed onions, he adds a spoon of fluffy, freshly boiled rice then uses his hands to delicately cup the rice…
Tradition matters for female farmers, and female farmers matter for everything.
Reposting my latest column for The Guardian Nigeria, which was there titled “When it comes to agriculture, we need to talk about tradition”. If you have any thoughts about this, leave a comment. Here’s what I had for breakfast some days ago: Akara and Fura yoghurt. For dinner that same day, I ate pounded yam with Efo…
An African utopia in Ethiopia – On the need for imaginative ideas
In April this year, I was honoured to give a keynote talk at the jesuit university, Xavier University. I’m sharing a video and transcript from the talk below. On one end, the talk’s intention is to inform about Awra Amba, a utopian village in Ethiopia, but at its core it is about the need for imaginative…
Post-Brexit, time to question neocolonialism.
The arguments that Africa will be worse off post-Brexit are everywhere. To give just a few examples, Foreign Policy writes that “Brexit Is Bad News for Africa. Period.” Newsweek explains “Why Brexit is bad for Africa.” Quartz is all doom and gloom in “Afrexit – Brexit will be terrible for Africa’s largest economies. While the titles…
Writing about gender politics in a new column
A few months before the Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa was murdered in 1986, he was on a flight from Europe to Lagos. I know this because I happened to sit next to him on that flight. My age at the time was eight, so when the news about his murder came out, I was old enough…
Nigeria’s Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill – A case for modernity
Last week, the Nigerian senate voted against a Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (GEO bill) proposed by senator Biodun Olujimi. While the Nigerian state protects citizens through its constitution, the GEO bill is a complementary protocol for equal rights for women in marriage, divorce, widowhood, property & land ownership and inheritance to name a few things….
Tradition is the key challenge for African feminists in the 21st century
In the 1960s, an anticolonial political and military group in Angola, the MPLA (Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola), began an intensive guerrilla warfare campaign against the Portuguese. The MPLA were a determined army whose efforts forced Portuguese resettlement. The MPLA was also a dual gender army. And with both men and women fighting…
Masculinity in African literature – the iconic case of Half of a Yellow Sun
Some weeks ago I wrote about masculinity in African film. This post is a companion. I wanted to write about Odenigbo, one of the lead male characters in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, because although Odenigbo belongs to a group of fictional characters, from Don Juan to Heathcliff to Romeo, who have caused women’s hearts…
In which even the university of Cambridge admits that ancient Egypt was Black African
In 2006, the Cambridge University art and antiquities museum, Fitzwilliam, did a commendable thing when they, following a £1.5 million renewal project, launched their new Egypt galleries. The idea was to showcase ancient Egyptian religion, magic, writing, ritual and to redisplay the collections in a contemporary and dynamic way. But that was not all. In a rare condemnation…
7 films directed by African women to see at Film Africa
The fifth edition of the Royal African Society’s annual film festival, Film Africa, is taking place on the 30 Oct – 8 Nov in London. Film Africa celebrates the best African cinema with a wide-ranging film programme. This year, over 60 films from 26 African countries will be screened. As one of the Friends of Film Africa, I have selected seven…
32 views on Afropolitanism
Last month, I took part in a panel discussion about Afroisms at Busseywood film festival. The panel, moderated by Tega Okiti, consisted of Emma Dabiri and Chardine Taylor-Smith, both opponents of Afropolitanism, and myself – a proponent of it. When I chose the name for my blog, I didn’t intuit becoming a proponent of Afropolitanism. The term…
7 non-fiction books African feminists should read
African feminists, that is African women who are feminists, should not only read books by other African women. From my Afropolitan point of view, our reading should be cosmopolitan, we should enjoy books about all kinds of topics from anywhere in the cosmos. That is how you expand your mind, and not by repeatedly reading one genre. However,…
Future Forward – Lights, Camera, Africa Film Festival
I’m excited to share that I am a media partner with the Lights, Camera, Africa Film Festival with the theme: Future Forward. The 5th edition of the festival is taking place from 30 September, 2015 to 4 October, 2015 at Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos, Nigeria. The aim of the partnership is to expose African and global audiences to quality independent African cinema…
A discussion with Nawal El Saadawi and other upcoming talks
Next month, I will be in discussion with one of my biggest role models, the renowned Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi. The impact El Saadawi has had on my work (and my life!) is profound, I intensely admire her achievements as a writer, intellectual, feminist, philosopher and activist. In fact, I live by one of her wisdoms. She says: “Words should…
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