Security analyst and author of ‘Terrorists or Criminal Gangs: New Lords of Nigeria’s North West’, Tosin Osasona, believes justice is a contextual and local concept: ‘The primary misconception about justice in Nigeria is that justice can only be done in, and by “formal” institutions or agencies inherited from the colonial era.’
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
I grew up in a university community, where everyone seemed to be reading or pretending to read something. I was force-fed a diet of newspapers (The Guardian, Daily Times and The Tribune), the African Writers Series—Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Cyprian Ekwensi’s Burning Grass, Flora Nwapa’s Efuru, Mongo Beti’s Remember Ruben, and also some bits of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens when anyone wanted you to be miserable.
What did you find miserable about Shakespeare’s plays and Charles Dickens’ books?
Knotty language and unrelatable allusions made Shakespeare’s plays serious misery. For Dickens, it was the volume of those novels.
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