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First Draft

Onyi Nwabineli

‘Love is at the Centre of Everything I Write’ Onyi Nwabineli’s First Draft

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Six African Writers on Their Fondest Childhood Memories

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The essential guide to the ideas, trends, people and stories shaping Nigeria and the broader African continent. Subscribe from N5,000/$5.99 monthly.
The Beauty Tax On Nigeria’s Poorest Women #OnSite The Beauty Tax On Nigeria’s Poorest Women #OnSite ⚡⁠ ⁠ Beauty, in Nigeria, is never just about appearance. It operates as a language shaped by class, money, and survival. For women at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, how they look is rarely treated as personal expression; it is read as evidence of effort or neglect, discipline or failure. In this terrain, beauty becomes less a choice than a currency.⁠ ⁠ While conversations about beauty standards in Nigeria often focus on resistance and reclamation, the stakes shift for women living with persistent financial insecurity. This tension surfaced starkly in 2023, when Nigerian women were crudely sorted on X into ‘baddies’, ‘civilians’, and ‘amotekuns’. Dismissed by some as internet banter, the classification revealed a misogynistic shorthand collapsing beauty, class, and morality into a single hierarchy.⁠ ⁠ In this story, Foyin Ejilola traces how these hierarchies are neither accidental nor harmless. Connecting global beauty ideals to local economic realities and patriarchal expectations, she shows how poverty sharpens the cruelty of beauty standards for women with the least room to opt out. What emerges is a portrait of beauty not only as aspiration, but as burden—one unevenly borne by those whose bodies are made to signal their economic position.⁠ ⁠ We're currently rebuilding The Republic and not publishing new stories just yet. But it's a great time to revisit stories from our archives, like this one, available to paying subscribers. Subscribe to continue reading at the link in our bio⁠ __________⁠ 📝: Foyin Ejilola (@foyinsaye)⁠ 📸: 1) Photo Illustration by Ezinne Osueke (ezinne.o.osueke) / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: Pexels.⁠ 2) The many facets of beauty. Voices of Youth.⁠ 3) Woman carrying a bundle of leaves. Pexels.⁠ 🔍: Ololade Faniyi (@lolamargaret_), Peace Onafuye (@yetundeandbooks), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.⁠
The Curious Adventures of the Nigerian God #OnSite The Curious Adventures of the Nigerian God #OnSite ⚡⁠ ⁠ Faith has long shaped how Nigerians make sense of the world—how they hope, endure, celebrate, and survive. It has also shaped the language, forms, and public performances through which belief is expressed. In Becoming Nigerian: A Guide, Elnathan John gives this lived experience a satirical form in the figure of the Nigerian God: a lens through which the tensions, contradictions, and excesses of modern religious life come into view.⁠ ⁠ In The Curious Adventures of the Nigerian God, Esohe Iyare traces how this figure has travelled from page to pulpit, from church stages to social media feeds, appearing in viral moments that shaped Nigeria’s religious conversations. Rather than questioning the existence or power of God, the story examines how belief is mediated—by pastors, performance, money, fear, politics, and expectation—and how these mediations shape everyday life.⁠ ⁠ By following four recent ‘adventures’ of the Nigerian God, Iyare reflects on the distance between faith and its public expression. The author presents the Nigerian God not as a metaphor alone, but as a cultural force—one that thrives on spectacle, hunts enemies with theatrical precision, and polices submission, even within marriage. The author offers a mirror to society, if truly to be Nigerian, is to act with such conviction—whether in joy or despair—and if the Nigerian God presides over this theatre of extremes.⁠ ⁠ We're currently rebuilding The Republic and not publishing new stories just yet. But it's a great time to revisit stories from our archives, like this one, available to paying subscribers. Subscribe to continue reading at the link in our bio.⁠ ___________⁠ 📝: Esohe Iyare (@Idia_eyes)⁠ 📸: Photo Illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC.⁠ 🔍: Ololade Faniyi (@lolamargaret_), Peace Yetunde Onafuye (@yetundeandbooks), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.⁠
A Womanist Reading of African Women in Abrahamic T A Womanist Reading of African Women in Abrahamic Tradition #OnSite⚡ ⁠ ⁠ Long before doctrine hardened into dogma, before scripture was bound and canonised, Black women were already there: walking deserts, birthing nations, carrying divinity in their bodies and in memory. Yet history has taught us to encounter the Abrahamic tradition through the voices of men—prophets, kings, apostles, warriors. Their stories dominate the pulpit, the page and the political imagination. What often fades into the background are the women whose faith, sacrifice and embodied endurance made those stories possible in the first place.⁠ ⁠ Kia Mora's story turns its gaze towards those women: African women in Abrahamic tradition whose stories of maternity, exile, devotion and resistance have offered Black women a language through which to reclaim history and imagine new futures. Through figures such as Hajar, Maryam, and the Queen of Sheba, a womanist reading reveals not passive vessels of divine will but conscious agents of transformation. ⁠ ⁠ We're currently rebuilding The Republic and not publishing new stories just yet. But it's a great time to revisit stories from our archives, like this one, available to paying subscribers. Subscribe to continue reading at the link in our bio.⁠ _____________⁠ 📝: Kai Mora (@thefanonian)⁠ 🎨: Illustration by Charles Owen (blvninjv)⁠ 🔍: Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.⁠
What Price Will Africa Pay for the Global AI Boom? What Price Will Africa Pay for the Global AI Boom? #OnSie ⚡⁠ ⁠ Imad Musa examines how Africa’s push towards AI-driven digital infrastructure risks repeating old extractive patterns under the banner of climate progress. As data centres expand and solar adoption accelerates, largely through Chinese-manufactured panels, the continent faces rising energy, water and mineral demands that strain fragile systems.⁠ ⁠ Musa highlights AI’s immense power needs, arguing that renewables alone cannot provide the stable electricity required, pushing countries towards hybrid systems that quietly entrench fossil fuel dependence. At the same time, Africa remains a major supplier of critical minerals while lacking recycling and processing infrastructure, positioning it as both a resource channel and a waste site.⁠ ⁠ We're currently rebuilding The Republic and not publishing new stories just yet. But it's a great time to revisit stories from our archives, like this one, available to paying subscribers. Subscribe to continue reading at the link in our bio.⁠ ________________⁠ 📝: Imad Musa⁠ 📷: Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC.⁠ 🔍: Ololade Faniyi (@lolamargaret_), Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.⁠
Sonny Okosun and the Paradox of Nigerian Greatness Sonny Okosun and the Paradox of Nigerian Greatness #OnSite⚡⁠ ⁠ Emmanuel Esomnofu examines the life, music and legacy of Sonny Okosun, a pioneering Nigerian artist whose influence far outweighed the recognition he received. From his early days in Enugu to his rise in Lagos, Okosun's sound evolved across rock, highlife, Edo funk, reggae and eventually gospel—reflecting both his technical versatility and deep political consciousness.⁠ Esomnofu situates Okosun within the cultural and political climate of post-independence Nigeria, where music often served as protest, moral instruction and Pan-African expression. Songs like Papa's Land and Fire in Soweto positioned Okosun as a voice against apartheid and global Black oppression, even as his restrained public persona set him apart from more flamboyant contemporaries.⁠ Esomnofu explains that despite his impact, Okosun's legacy has faded from mainstream memory—not because of artistic failure, but due to a cultural preference for spectacle over substance alone. ⁠ ⁠ We're currently rebuilding The Republic and not publishing new stories just yet. But it's a great time to revisit stories from our archives, like this one, available to paying subscribers. Subscribe to continue reading at the link in our bio. ⁠ ________⁠ 📝: Emmanuel Esomnofu⁠ 🎨: 1) Illustrations by Ekundayo R. Baiyegunhi / THE REPUBLIC.⁠ 2) Sonny Okosun. Discogs.⁠ 🔍: Osione Oseni-Elamah, Chidinma Nebolisa, Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.⁠
The Expressive Dimensions of Yoruba Architectures The Expressive Dimensions of Yoruba Architectures #Onsite ⚡⁠ ⁠ Ernest Ògúnyẹmí examines the functionality of Yoruba architecture as shelter and as an expressive social and psychological system. ⁠Centred around the agbo ilé—the communal compound—Ògúnyẹmí unviels how space, form and materials shaped family life, hierarchy, intimacy and belonging.⁠ Courtyards served as social cores, verandahs as sites of daily life, and roofs, walls, and carvings carried symbolic meanings tied to spirituality, authority, and beauty. Architecture mirrored Yoruba society itself: centripetal, communal and ordered around shared responsibility.⁠ ⁠⁠ We're currently rebuilding The Republic and not publishing new stories just yet. But it's a great time to revisit stories from our archives, like this one, available to paying subscribers. Subscribe to continue reading at the link in our bio.⁠ ________⁠ 📝: Ernest Ogunyemi (@ErnestOgunyemi)⁠ 📸: Illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC.⁠ 🔍: Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.
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