Column

From 16 October 2011 to July 2014, I wrote a column in the Weekly Trust, published every Saturday. This is an archive (not yet completely updated) of the articles I wrote during that time. On this page, I provide a listing of the title, a link to the articles on the Trust website, a link to a photo of the hard copy, as published, and links to blog posts where I extend the articles with more commentary or photos. Occasional guest columnists are listed by name. (For a list of my other publications, see the main publications page.)

“My Thoughts Exactly”

(From October 2011 to July 2014, I did not miss a single week, although I arranged for a few guest columnists every once in a while for relief. Where there are articles missing in sequence here, it is because Weekly Trust did not upload them that week, for whatever reason. The articles from 2014 are missing because I have not yet added them here.)

(2013) “A Death at Christmas-time.” 21 December 2013.

(2013) A Conversation with Victor Prince Dickson, developer of Nigeria’s first registered card game (II). 14 December 2013.

(2013) A Conversation with Victor Prince Dickson, developer of Nigeria’s first registered card game (I). 7 December 2013.

(2013) Kannywood Awards 2013 seek uplift and unity. 30 November 2013.

(2013) Premiere stage performance of Africa Ukoh’s play 54 Silhouettes skewers Hollywood. 23 November 2013.

(2013) Young poets in Jos chasten their elders. 16 November 2013.

(2013) Breathing Life into Mummified Texts: Prof. Scott Carroll talks about his research on ancient texts (II). 9 November 2013.

(2013) Breathing Life into Mummified Texts: Prof. Scott Carroll talks about his research on ancient texts, (I). 2 November 2013.

(2013). A Film to Remember: Dul Johnson’s There’s Nothing Wrong with My Uncle. 19 October 2013.

(2013) Words Without Borders Draws Attention to African Women Writing in Indigenous Languages. 12 October 2013.

(2013) Murdered Sleep. 5 October 2013.

(2013) “Where the worm eats, a grain grows”: Kofi Awoonor and terror in Benisheik, Baghdad, Nairobi, and Peshawar. 28 September 2013.

(2013) Playing the Nollywood game in Chibundu Onuzo’s novel The Spider King’s Daughter. 21 September 2013.

(2013) 25 Years in Nigeria. 14 September 2013.

(2013) The many layers of NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel We Need New Names. 7 September 2013.

[…]

(2013) Chasing scapegoats in the “Woods”: Aisha Umar Yusuf’s Kannywood. 17 August 2013.

(2013) Readers on reading: your responses. 10 August 2013.

(2013) The Daughters of the Niger Delta speak out through film. 3 August 2013.

(2013) The question of child marriage and Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s novel Wa Zai Auri Jahila? 27 July 2013.

(2013) African Literary Prizes: Where are the translations? 20 July 2013. (Interestingly, the South African literary blog Books Live wrote a whole blog post on this article “Carmen McCain Criticizes the Etisalat Prize for Not Accepting Translated Works.”)

(2013) Defining the “African story” in London: a preliminary response to the African Writes Festival at the British Library. 13 July 2013.

(2013) Libraries for All: A Conversation with Kingsley Sintim, founder of the Tasha Community Library (III) 6 July 2013.

(2013) Libraries for All: A Conversation with Kingsley Sintim, founder of the Tasha Community Library (II). 29 June 2013.

(2013) Libraries for All: A Conversation with Kingsley Sintim, founder of the Tasha Community Library, part 1. 22 June 2013.

(2013) The beautiful ones are being born in Nigeria! (the first part of an interview with Hausa filmmaker Husayn Zagaru. For some reason Weekly Trust did not put up the second part.) 8 June 2013.

Hoechner, Hannah. (2013) Rights and respect versus bans and blame: What serves Nigeria’s almajirai? 1 June 2013.

(2013) An Americanah takes on Race and Class in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie latest novel. 25 May 2013.

(2013) Nigeria’s Four Caine Prize Nominees. 18 May 2013.

(2013) For the love of Kannywood. 11 May 2013.

(2013) As the rains begin. 4 May 2013.

(2013) A Conversation with American Librarian Elizabeth Chase. 27 April 2013.

El-Awady, Nadia (2013). Boston: Why Arabs like me are horrified. 20 April 2013. (Blogger and journalist Nadia El-Awady allowed me to reproduce her blog about the Boston bombings as a guest column. You can read her original blog post on her blog here.)

(2013) In Memory of Rachel Horlings, a Daughter of Nigeria. 13 April 2013.

(2013) A letter to Chinua Achebe, never sent. 6 April 2013.

(2013) Conversation with Nkem Ivara, author of Closer than a Brother. 30 March 2013.

(2013) Weeping at Night, Waiting for Light. 23 March 2013.

(2013) A Conversation with Award-winning Hausa film Director Hafizu Bello. 16 March 2013. (reprinted on Muryar Arewa).

(2013) The 7th Jos Festival of Theatre and Three Nigerian Plays. 9 March 2013.

(2013). “A Conversation with Jos Literary Activist Onotu David Onimisi (II).” 2 March 2013.

(2013). “A Conversation with Jos Literary Activist Onotu David Onimisi (I).” 23 February.

(2013) “The Nigerian Reading Culture and the Need for Libraries.” 16 February.

(2013) “Finding the Girl Next Door on Black Sister’s Street” [a review of the NLNG-winning novel by Chika Unigwe]. 9 February.

[… Weekly Trust revamped their website and lost two articles written at the end of January. I will eventually upload hard copies. Bear with me]

(2013) “Aaron Swartz and his battle to give knowledge to the world.” 19 January.

(2013) “Reading Labo Yari’s Climate of Corruption.” 12 January.

(2013) “Vacation Reading.” 5 January.

(2012) “The Good things of 2012.” 29 December.

(2012) “Christmas in a Time of Massacres.” 22 December.

(2012) “The Silent North? Problems in Studies of Northern Nigerian Literature.” 15 December.

(2012) “Remembering Director Muhammadu Balarabe Sango.” 8 December.

(2012) “Imagining Another Country: Eghosa Imasuen’s ‘New Nigeria’ in To Saint Patrick.” 1 December.

(2012) “Journeying to the Seeds of Slavery in Ngozi Achebe’s Onaedo: The Blacksmith’s Daughter.” 24 November.

(2012) “Private Jets for Jesus?” 17 November.

(2012) “Lola Shoneyin’s Polygamist satire in The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.” 10 November.

(2012) “Making History with Balaraba Ramat Yakubu’s Sin is a Puppy….” 3 November.

Dr. K.A. Korb. (2012) “Is Teaching a Last Resort Career?” 27 October.

(2012) “Revisiting the Kano Censorship Crisis in Iyan-Tama’s Kurkuku.” 20 October.

(2012) “My Thoughts Exactly, Year Two in Review.” 13 October.

(2012) “More Tips on Doing Internet Research in Nigeria.” 6 October.

(2012) “Tips on Doing Internet Research in Nigeria.” 29 September.

(2012) “Contextualizing Rage: Islamophobia, Anti-Americanism, and Everyone In Between.” 22 September.

(2012) “The Rhetoric of Hate in ‘Until we Do this we Labour under a Curse.” 15 September.

(2012) “Nollywood’s Incursion into African Cinema Studies.” 8 September.

(2012) “Stepping out into Mystery: the passing of Neil Armstrong.” 1 September.

(2012) “Navigating the Land of the Dead in Helon Habila’s Oil on Water.” 25 August.

[… Weekly Trust is missing a week here. I will find the hard copy and upload]

(2012) “Fragile Seeds of Hope.” 11 August.

(2012) “A Conversation with Director Andrew Osawaru.” 4 August.

(2012) “Diary of a Trip to Four Nigerian Cities.” 28 July.

(2012) “Nollywood greats Emem Isong and Lancelot Imasuen on Nigerian Language Films.” 21 July.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012) “Eulogy for the Young Victims of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing.” 14 July.

(2012) “Destroying History, Destroying Souls.” 7 July.

Alessandro Jedlowski. (2012). “Local Language films and the Reverse Side of the Production Crisis.” 30 June.

[…. Weekly Trust is missing another week]

(2012) “Young Love, Forty Years Later.” 16 June.

(2012) “For Those Lost Last Sunday.” 9 June.

(2012) “Walking around a Jos city block, a day after Democracy Day.” 2 June.

(2012) “Re-imagining Bala Muhammad’s ‘Raise a Child, Not a Voucher.” 26 May. (This article was in response to back page columnist Bala Muhammad’s column “Raise a Child, Not a Voucher” published on 19 May.)

[… Weekly Trust is missing a few more weeks here.]

(2012) “The Caine Prize, the Tragic Continent, and the Politics of the Happy African Story.” 12 May.

(2012) “Responses to ‘Fellini, Godard, and Training Nollywood.’” 5 May.

(2012) “Ridding Nigeria of Illegality and Giving Jos a Facelift.” 28 April.

[Missing another week]

(2012) “The Haunting Trauma of Buried History.” 14 April.

(2012) “Captured by Modern Day Slavery in [Abidemi Sanusi’s] Eyo.” 7 April.

(2012) “Peace in Jos: Marching forward little by little.” 31 March.

(2012) “Learning How to Fight… Peacefully.” 24 March.

(2012) “The strange poisonous fruit of hate” 17 March.

(2012) “Taking Hausa films to the world with hausafilms.tv” 10 March.

(2012) “The Darkness Only Love Can Drive out” 3 March.

(2012) “Love Triangles and Other Complicated Things” 25 February. (a review ofUnwanted Guests)

(2012) “‘Nollywood Hustlers’ and the celebrity elite’ 18 February.

(2012) “A Mixed-up People: When Wainaina Writes About Africa” 11 February.

(2012) “Politics of Hollywood’s Half of a Yellow Sun” 4 February. (hard copy)

(2012) “Praying for Enenche’s Country” 28 January.

(2012) “The Occupants of Nigeria’s Harmattan” 21 January.

with Gimba Kakanda (2012) “Cross of Crescents: Muslims around a church” 14 January. (hard copy)

Korb, K.A. (2012) “Splitting a Nation: Lessons from History” 7 January. (hard copy)

(2011) “Unity or Hell: Choices for the New Year” 31 December. (hard copy) (Republished in Vanguard)

(2011) “The Small Things of Christmas” 24 December.

Adamu, Abdalla Uba (2011) “Music Maestros, please: Freedom Fasaha championships” 17 December . (hard copy)

(2011) “Politics, literature collide at ANA’s 30th convention” 10 December. (hard copy)

(2011) “‘Across the Niger’ Rocks the Plateau International Film Festival” 3 December. (hard copy)

(2011) “Exploring Bridges Between Nollywood and Theatre” 26 November.

(2011) “I met an African Dream waiting to come true” 19 November. (hard copy)

(2011) “Equestrian Elegance at Sallah-time” 12 November. (hard copy)

(2011) “Duniya Juyi Juyi: Life from the eyes of the almajirai” 5 November.

(2011) “On the Precipice: the short dark films of Julius Amedume” 29 October. (hard copy)

(2011) “Mr Lecturer, Snoop Dogg, and Dbanj’s ‘Mr. Endowed’” 22 October. (blinged up blog version with links to videos)

(2011) “One Year of ‘My Thoughts Exactly’” 15 October. (hard copy)

Nwokeabia, Chidi Nuel. (2011) “Re: Champions of Our Time, The Figurine, and Nigeria’s Rebranding Project at FESPACO (II)” 8 October. (hard copy)

with Chidi Nuel Nwokeabia. (2011) “Re: Champions of Our Time, The Figurine, and Nigeria’s Re-branding Project at FESPACO.” 1 October. (hard copy)

Korb, K.A. (2011) “The Stories we Share” 24 September.

Madueke, Kingsley (2011) “Why Christian, Muslim Jos youths should climb the ‘peace tree’” 17 September. (hard copy) (Please note that despite repeated requests to the webmaster, I am incorrectly noted as author of this piece on theWeekly Trust site. Guest columnist Kingsley Madueke, a journalist and peace activist in Jos, is the author.)

(2011) “September 2011, Ten Years Later” 10 September. (hard copy)

(2011) “Violence at a time of celebration” 3 September. (hard copy)

(2011) “Under the Mango Tree” 27 August 2011

(…)

(2011) “From Kano to Lagos, All for a Concert” 13 August 2011. (hard copy)

(2011) “Questioning Power Relations in Dani Kouyate’s Keita” 6 August. (hard copy)

(2011) “Nollywood and its Terminology Migraines” 30 July. (hard copy)

(2011) “Raoul Peck’s Lumumba and the Cannibals of the West” 23 July

(2011) “On a Nollywood Myth and the Rise of Nigerian Cinema” 16 July. (hard copy)

(2011) “Coming to terms with renewable energy in Nigeria” 9 July. (hard copy) (Extended version on my blog)

(2011) “Nigerian Copyright Commission vs Pirates: 5 Things that Should be Done.” 2 July. (hard copy)

Musa, Samdi Lazarus, (2011) “Torn Between” 25 June. (hard copy)