THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK

The Story Behind the Book

Both my grandfathers were interesting men, both born in the early 1900s in British-controlled Igbo land, both determined to educate their children, both with a keen sense of humor, both proud. I know this from stories I have been told. Eight years before I was born, they died in Biafra as refugees after fleeing hometowns that had fallen to federal troops. I grew up in the shadow of Biafra. I grew up hearing ‘before the war’ and ‘after the war’ stories; it was as if the war had somehow divided the memories of my family. I have always wanted to write about Biafra—not only to honor my grandfathers, but also to honor the collective memory of an entire nation. Writing Half of a Yellow Sun has been my re-imagining of something I did not experience but whose legacy I carry. It is also, I hope, my tribute to love: the unreasonable, resilient thing that holds people together and makes us human.

Q & A with the Author

Q: What led you to write a book about the Nigeria-Biafra war?

I wrote this novel because I wanted to write about love and war,

MORE ON THE BEAUTIFUL CHIMAMANDA, IT'S LONG BUT BEAUTIFUL.

       

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's third novel, Americanah is the story of two Nigerian émigrés who love and lose each other across continents and years. It is a book about leaving, and loneliness and the intersection between class and race, all of which makes it sound rather hard work – unjustly so. It is a book about hair: straight versus afro; and discreet tensions, not just between white Americans and Nigerian immigrants, but between Africans and African Americans, between the light- and dark-skinned, between new and established immigrants, and its frankness – in particular on the subject of gender – has upset some people. "I knew that was coming," says Adichie. "I can't write a book like that and then go, 'Oh my God, they're upset.' But my intention wasn't to upset." She smiles. "It's just that I'm willing to if that's what it takes to write the book."

"Democracy, Deferred"

Check out this post by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and tell me if she's not the best.

Y'all that knows me, know that iLove this woman to bits. See why iLove Her.

 

Last week, Victor, a carpenter, came to my Lagos home to fix a broken chair. I asked him whom he preferred as Nigeria’s next president: the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, or his challenger, Muhammadu Buhari. "I don’t have a voter’s card, but if I did, I would vote for somebody I don’t like,” he said. 'I don’t like Buhari but Jonathan is not performing.”

Victor sounded like many people I know: utterly unenthusiastic about the two major candidates in our upcoming election.

Were Nigerians to vote on likeability alone, Jonathan would win. He is mild-mannered and genially unsophisticated, with a conventional sense of humor. Buhari has a severe, ascetic air about him, a rigid uprightness; it is easy to imagine him in 1984, leading a military government whose soldiers routinely beat up civil servants. Neither candidate is articulate. Jonathan is given to rambling; his unscripted speeches leave listeners vaguely confused. Buhari is thick-tongued, his words difficult to decipher. In public appearances, he seems uncomfortable not only with the melodrama of campaigning but also with the very idea of it. To be a democratic candidate is to implore and persuade, and his demeanor suggests a man who is not at ease with amiable consensus. Still, he is no stranger to campaigns. This is his third run as a presidential candidate; the last time, in 2011, he lost to Jonathan.

This time, Buhari’s prospects are better. Jonathan is widely perceived as ineffectual, and the clearest example, which has eclipsed his entire presidency, is his response to Boko Haram. Such a barbaric Islamist insurgency would challenge any government. But while Boko Haram bombed and butchered, Jonathan seemed frozen in a confused, tone-deaf inaction. Conflicting stories emerged of an ill-equipped army, of a corrupt military leadership, of northern elites sponsoring Boko Haram, and even of the government itself sponsoring Boko Haram.

Jonathan floated to power, unprepared, on a serendipitous cloud. He was a deputy governor of Bayelsa state who became governor when his corrupt boss was forced to quit. Chosen as vice president because powerbrokers considered him the most harmless option from southern Nigeria, he became president when his northern boss died in office. Nigerians gave him their goodwill—he seemed refreshingly unassuming—but there were powerful forces who wanted him out, largely because he was a southerner, and it was supposed to be the north’s ‘turn’ to occupy the presidential office.

And so the provincial outsider suddenly thrust onto the throne, blinking in the chaotic glare of competing interests, surrounded by a small band of sycophants, startled by the hostility of his traducers, became paranoid. He was slow to act, distrustful and diffident. His mildness came across as cluelessness. His response to criticism calcified to a single theme: His enemies were out to get him. When the Chibok girls were kidnapped, he and his team seemed at first to believe that it was a fraud organized by his enemies to embarrass him. His politics of defensiveness made it difficult to sell his genuine successes, such as his focus on the long-neglected agricultural sector and infrastructure projects. His spokespeople alleged endless conspiracy theories, compared him to Jesus Christ, and generally kept him entombed in his own sense of victimhood.

The delusions of Buhari’s spokespeople are better packaged, and obviously free of incumbency’s crippling weight. They blame Jonathan for everything that is wrong with Nigeria, even the most multifarious, ancient knots. They dismiss references to Buhari’s past military leadership, and couch their willful refusal in the language of ‘change,’ as though Buhari, by representing change from Jonathan, has also taken on an ahistorical saintliness.

I remember the Buhari years as a blur of bleakness. I remember my mother bringing home sad rations of tinned milk, otherwise known as “essential commodities”—the consequences of Buhari’s economic policy. I remember air thick with fear, civil servants made to do frog jumps for being late to work, journalists imprisoned, Nigerians flogged for not standing in line, a political vision that cast citizens as recalcitrant beasts to be whipped into shape.

Buhari’s greatest source of appeal is that he is widely perceived as non-corrupt. Nigerians have been told how little money he has, how spare his lifestyle is. But to sell the idea of an incorruptible candidate who will fight corruption is to rely on the disingenuous trope that Buhari is not his party. Like Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party, Buhari’s All Progressives Congress is stained with corruption, and its patrons have a checkered history of exploitative participation in governance. Buhari’s team is counting on the strength of his perceived personal integrity: his image as a good guy forced by realpolitik to hold hands with the bad guys, who will be shaken off after his victory.

In my ancestral home state of Anambra, where Jonathan is generally liked, the stronger force at play is a distrust of Buhari, partly borne of memories of his military rule, and partly borne of his reputation, among some Christians, as a Muslim fundamentalist. When I asked a relative whom she would vote for, she said, “Jonathan of course. Am I crazy to vote for Buhari so that Nigeria will become a sharia country?”

Nigeria has predictable voting patterns, as all democratic countries do. Buhari can expect support from large swaths of the core north, and Jonathan from southern states. Region and religion are potent forces here. Vice presidents are carefully picked with these factors in mind: Buhari’s is a southwestern Christian and Jonathan’s is a northern Muslim. But it is not so simple. There are non-northerners who would ordinarily balk at voting for a ‘northerner’ but who support Buhari because he can presumably fight corruption. There are northern supporters of Jonathan who are not part of the region’s Christian minorities.

Delaying the elections is a staggeringly self-serving act of contempt for Nigerians.

Last week, I was indifferent about the elections, tired of television commercials and contrived controversies. There were rumors that the election, which was scheduled for February 14, would be postponed, but there always are; our political space is a lair of conspiracies. I was uninterested in the apocalyptic predictions. Nigeria was not imploding. We had crossed this crossroads before, we were merely electing a president in an election bereft of inspiration. And the existence of a real opposition party that might very well win was a sign of progress in our young democracy

Then, on Saturday, the elections were delayed for six weeks. Nigeria’s security agencies, we were told, would not be available to secure the elections because they would be fighting Boko Haram and needed at least another month and a half to do so. (Nigeria has been fighting Boko Haram for five years, and military leaders recently claimed to be ready for the elections.)

Even if the reason were not so absurd, Nigerians are politically astute enough to know that the postponement has nothing to do with security. It is a flailing act of desperation from an incumbent terrified of losing. There are fears of further postponements, of ploys to illegally extend Jonathan’s term. In a country with the specter of a military coup always hanging over it, the consequences could be dangerous. My indifference has turned to anger. What a staggeringly self-serving act of contempt for Nigerians. It has cast, at least for the next six weeks, the darkest possible shroud over our democracy: uncertainty.

Linda Ikeji at 4:22 PM

Song Of a Banana Man

GEORGE SCOTT: We started about 21 years ago here in Hartford, a mom and pop with just three employees and my wife. We have grown from three employees – now we have nearly fifty. Most of the people who work for us are Jamaicans. It’s nice to be able to help your own people, and very often you need a new employee and it’s a matter of somebody mentioning a relative or somebody they knew, so it’s like an extended family for all of us.

And I think what we have done that makes me feel good particularly is the fact that we have made a contribution, not just to ourselves or to our own workers or to our own people, but to the community in which we live because we have certainly brought to the attention of many people how important diversity is in this town.

The poem that I have chosen to read is one that I really love. It’s set in the mid ’40s in Jamaica. The main person in the poem is small farmer who ekes out a living in the very hard hillsides in Portland of Jamaica. He’s proud of what he does; he knows who he is and he’s not afraid of facing anyone who wants to criticize him. I like it because of that expression of who a Jamaican is but I also like it because it was one of the first attempts by any Jamaican to use the Jamaican Creole in way it could have universal understanding.

He talks about places and things I’m familiar with. You know, as a youngster growing up in a Jamaica when he talks about Mullet and Janga swimming in the pool, I used to, you know, wade into the stream and try and catch these Janga which is like a little shrimp, you know, under the rocks. And the mountain Mullet in Jamaica is one of the sweetest- tasting fishes that you have, so a very nostalgic connection for me also, especially when you are far away from home, it kind of brings back the memories of who you are, who your people are, and what we stand for.

“The Song of the Banana Man” by Evan Jones.

Touris, white man, wipin his face,
Met me in Golden Grove market place.
He looked at m’ol’ clothes brown wid stain ,
AN soaked right through wid de Portlan rain,
He cas his eye, turn up his nose,
He says, ‘You’re a beggar man, I suppose?’
He says, ‘Boy, get some occupation,
Be of some value to your nation.’
I said, ‘By God and dis big right han
You mus recognize a banana man.

‘Up in de hills, where de streams are cool,
An mullet an janga swim in de pool,
I have ten acres of mountain side,
An a dainty-foot donkey dat I ride,
Four Gros Michel, an four Lacatan,
Some coconut trees, and some hills of yam,
An I pasture on dat very same lan
Five she-goats an a big black ram,
Dat, by God an dis big right han
Is de property of a banana man.

‘I leave m’yard early-mornin time
An set m’foot to de mountain climb,
I ben m’back to de hot-sun toil,
An m’cutlass rings on de stony soil,
Ploughin an weedin, diggin an plantin
Till Massa Sun drop back o John Crow mountain,
Den home again in cool evenin time,
Perhaps whistling dis likkle rhyme,
(Sung)Praise God an m’big right han
I will live an die a banana man.

‘Banana day is my special day,
I cut my stems an I’m on m’way,
Load up de donkey, leave de lan
Head down de hill to banana stan,
When de truck comes roun I take a ride
All de way down to de harbour side-
Dat is de night, when you, touris man,
Would change your place wid a banana man.
Yes, by God, an m’big right han
I will live an die a banana man.

‘De bay is calm, an de moon is bright
De hills look black for de sky is light,
Down at de dock is an English ship,
Restin after her ocean trip,
While on de pier is a monstrous hustle,
Tallymen, carriers, all in a bustle,
Wid stems on deir heads in a long black snake
Some singin de sons dat banana men make,
Like, (Sung) Praise God an m’big right han
I will live an die a banana man.

‘Den de payment comes, an we have some fun,
Me, Zekiel, Breda and Duppy Son.
Down at de bar near United Wharf
We knock back a white rum, bus a laugh,
Fill de empty bag for further toil
Wid saltfish, breadfruit, coconut oil.
Den head back home to m’yard to sleep,
A proper sleep dat is long an deep.
Yes, by God, an m’big right han
I will live an die a banana man.

‘So when you see dese ol clothes brown wid stain,
An soaked right through wid de Portlan rain,
Don’t cas your eye nor turn your nose,
Don’t judge a man by his patchy clothes,
I’m a strong man, a proud man, an I’m free,
Free as dese mountains, free as dis sea,
I know myself, an I know my ways,
An will sing wid pride to de end o my days
(Sung)Praise God an m’big right han
I will live an die a banana man.’

Facebook newsfeed post by: Valentine Igolo

Valentine Igolo wrote:

Intro to Vagina
Squeeze 101
💋
Every man loves a good “cum”. Now what if you could make that experience better?

The walls of the vagina are made up of muscles. All women should do what are known as kegel exercises to help tighten their vagina muscles.

 From what i read, I have
found that this same exercise is also good for maximum sexual satisfaction for ur male partner.
Kegel exercises explained in the simplest way is pretending 2 hold ur urine.
This simple motion causes the wall of d vagina to tighten together and relax
upon release of that hold. This simple exercise can b done during sex but is
often missed by ur male partner. It’s most effective use is just after ejaculation. Right after ejaculation and just when his penis begins to relax,
squeeze the walls of the vagina as in a kegel exercise, count 1,2 and release.
Repeat this for about five times and you are sure to get a OMG from your man!

Your vagina got skills!
Use it!

#Valentine

Happy Val's day in Adv

Prospective INEC ad hoc staff... Discussing politics.

Hey it's being a while since iwrite some thing by myself write? Hmmmm, politics... Thatks the hottest topic around now abi? Very hot even amongst people that a being trained to be neutral to the *poli-tricking* , hey am talking about prospective Inec ad hoc staff like me, who are being train at the moment. So many things are being discussed right now in this Jss3 class of Igwuebuike grammar school, a class that gives me the nostalgic joss of eight years ago.
 Am surprised that the issues of the postponement of Valentine's day election for the next six weeks is not topping the discussion polls here among prospective inec ad hoc staff, who are supposed to be displeased about the turn of events. But what they all are talking about is... Jonathan and. Buhari... Hu go vote for hu... No kind things wey iNeva hear for here today, the sensible. The bad and the irritating.. I've heard them all... Some jus speak like their brains are holo.. Others speak like they actually can do a better job than Buhari or Jonathan.. One guy in particular hu is a Jonathan suppoerter nearly got my folded fist in his face.. He's lucky that he standing meters away from me, the best statement I've hear all the here.. Is "non of both candidates are actually good men, we jus are inclined to choose the lesser of both evils.... Nd defintion of "lesser of both evils" differs from what MR A - MR B thinks" wow!!! That's jus wow... Sounds like what I'd say... If iHad the power to shout on top of my voice this afternoon.. Very objective and wonderfully intelligent thought... Again... One guy keeps shouting "we need change, we need change in this country.." It made me want to ask him if "Buhari was a bus conductor that had all the change in the world" but a funny looking guy beat me to it.. "ILove Nigeria and Nigerians... Be it GEJ or GMB we'll survive..." I almost said.. Something else iiAlsomt said was... "Do you knw that if Naija was anoda country, the absence of chibok girls, is reason enouf to remove jonathan.." Buh still iHeld my peace. Buh am going to say something now.. And this is it.." No matter how anybody wey dey here dey root for either Jonathan or Buhari, if on that election day... They were given money to vote for ur favourite's rival, u'd do it.. Cause deep down in us.. We av no faith in niether"... Jus said it. And they are about to crucify me... iHope the election goes down well ooo.. For my relatives leaving in the north, and the rest of us all toom #GodHelpUsAll #VoteNotFight. Peace....

Mr Chinyere 47

Facebook newsfeed post by: Ndi Igbo

How a 72 year old Man can withstand another 6 weeks of sensitisation campaigns in the whole 36 states remains to be seen. Health matters o.

And then, APC money don dey finish for this elections. Amaechi don spend billions of money where only God know where he get am from and would only be stupid to dole out more.
Tinubu would think twice about spending a second round of billions especially as Lagosians have stopped paying tax because of elections.

No money from Federation account to share till budget is passed so the APC Governors are in a financial mess.

At least APC needs another 15 billion naira to spend on Buhari's campaign the next 6 weeks. Atiku wey don go sleep since after he lost primaries cannot put his money on a sinking ship.

Jonah...sorry; Jega.... don give dem real uppercut

And they call Oga 'clueless'. I love that kind of cluelessness.

~~ Charles Novia

Facebook newsfeed post by: Francesca Smith

Francesca Smith wrote:

The only relief i'm getting today is from Ifem's insanely true blog posts about Blackness in America. Don't know who Ifemelu is? Try reading Americanah by Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie (Thank you Erica White) A very, very good read*

“Dear American Non-Black, if an American Black person is telling you about an experience about being black, please do not eagerly bring up examples from your own life. Don’t say “It’s just like when I…” You have suffered. Everyone in the world has suffered. But you have not suffered precisely because you are an American Black. Don’t be quick to find alternative explanations for what happened.

[…]

Don’t say “We’re tired of talking about race” or “The only race is the human race.” American Blacks, too, are tired of talking about race. They wish they didn’t have to. But shit keeps happening. Don’t preface your response with “One of my best friends is black” because it makes no difference and nobody cares and you can have a black best friend and still do racist shit and it’s probably not true anyway, the “best” part, not the “friend” part. Don’t say your grandfather was Mexican so you can’t be racist. Don’t bring up your Irish grandparents’ suffering. Of course they got a lot of shit from established America. So did the Italians. So did the Eastern Europeans. But there was a hierarchy. A hundred years ago, the white ethnics hated being hated, but it was sort of tolerable because at least black people were below them on the ladder. Don’t say your grandfather was a serf in Russia when slavery happened because what matters is you are American now and being American means you take the whole shebang, America’s assets and America’s debts, and Jim Crow is a big-ass debt.

[…]

Finally, don’t put on a Let’s Be Fair tone and say “But black people are racist too.” Because of course we’re all prejudiced…but racism is about the power of a group and in America it’s white folks who have that power. How? Well, white folks don’t get treated like shit in upper-class African American communities and white folks don’t get denied bank loans or mortgages precisely because they are white and black juries don’t give white criminals worse sentences than black criminals for the same crime and black police officers don’t stop white folk for driving while white and black companies don’t choose not to hire somebody because their name sounds white and black teachers don’t tell white kids that they’re not smart enough to be doctors and black politicians don’t try some tricks to reduce the voting power of white folks through gerrymandering and advertising agencies don’t say they can’t use white models to advertise glamorous products because they are not considered “aspirational” by the “mainstream”.

[…]

And remember that it’s not about you. American Blacks are not telling you that you are to blame. They are just telling you what is.”

Ten of My Best Rappers in The World

MY Own Personal Favourite Rappers list... My Top 10 Rappers in The World.

Starting for bottom to the Top.

  (10) BigSean... The guy's got good puch lines.. Love those
 
  (9) RickRoss... #100 black coffins earned u this place nigga nice work.

  (8)Erigga... Pigin English's most rugged and eloquent word rhymer.

 (7)2pac... Hey if this list was made August last year.. Pac would av topped it... He's Legend Thank God we made it.

 (6) Yung6ix.. Mtchew this guy is my favourite rapper with the best word playing skill...

 (5) Nas... Legend.. Story telling skill... Out of this world.

 (4) Common (the rapper)... For me writing jus *common* without adding *the rapper* doesn't jus cut it... This guy is so good dat his story telling skill beats dat of Nas.

 (3)M.I ... Proudly Nigerian... Best rapper ever.. With Nigerian blood flowing in him... Fifty times better dan Wale...

 (2) BlackMagic... The only reason y this guy is not on top of this list... "Or under" is dat.. Well forget... Blackmagic baby.. Some will say u no rapper... Buh in ur song #repete... Verse2 Bar number 13 or so... U said... "Blackmagic is a cool rapper, shokoto and t-shirt make u look dapper... What else dey wanna knw.

 (1) J.Cole... The emperor of the Coleworld... This guy is the reason ilove Nas, Pac.. Jay... And iCan't pass a J.Cole song online and nothit the download button... Weda na feautre or not..


 Some wonderful rappers like ".. Lilwanye, drake, kanye, jayZ...Vector.. Jessejagz... Would av made the list if iWas typing this ish a fews days or years back... This is my list for rightnow.. And it might change in the next minute.

cc: Dr Nems

See a prose verse iWrote to a gurl dat might never be mine.

Dear Cresent stone of night's light, (i.e the moon) You sure lighten my path in the darkness of light's fury. And for this am in ur debt. But I've got one plea to beg of Thee. There lies a pretty muse of mine, kilometres away from here, whose beauty could make the sky trade his width for a kiss. She's soon to become an actor in her dreams of tonight, and maybe mine. She reminds me of a perfect picture of what perfection should picture. Illuminating moon, as you doth brighten the night and sit majestically in the wide darkness of the sky, so those she my heart. She say's " am no Neuro-Surgeon" , but she surely knows her way around the heart,My Heart. Dear Friend(ii.e the Moon) please bring with you, the cool night's breeze and the Godly fairies of sweet dreams,to her warm bed dis night. To make her this night and subsequent night's sleep, prettier than she is. Ha!!! Just before u sleep dear miss, will u come with me to an eatery in the skies? Where we'll sit on the edge of moons head(with the moon's permission of course) while our legs dangle freely in the clouds, as the angels speak to You in a language only Angels like U and Michael , Gabriel and Haniel understands, as they tell u of the thought and talks my heart speaks of u, nd the beats and music my heart sings for u. Because like Aneal... U too are an Angel. Pls do sleep tight.