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Arinze Ifeakandu

‘My Writing Goal This Year Is to Follow My Creative Curiosities’ Arinze Ifeakandu’s First Draft

Arinze Ifeakandu·January 19, 2025
Nigerian writer and author of God’s Children Are Broken Little Things, Arinze Ifeakandu, holds the Nigerian government responsible for the anxiety experienced by queer Nigerians in the country: ‘I believed that our ruling class was largely responsible, by entrenching such avoidable hardship, for much of the intimate fractures around us. And that the people’s (and the state’s) obstinate homophobia was to blame for what I considered the “nervous condition” of gay youth.’ Read More...
December 24/January 25First DraftInterviewsNigeria
Saro-Wiwa

S2 EP3: The Ogoni Crisis

Wale Lawal·January 19, 2025
How did the Ogonis’ peaceful protest turn into a nightmare that many in Ogoniland today are still shuddering from? How did the Ogonis’ hopes become weaponized against them? Let’s find out together. The third episode of the second season of The Republic is now available wherever you listen to podcasts. Read More...
NigeriaPodcastsThe Republic Podcast
India-Nigeria Relations

A New Era of Nigeria-India Relations?

Adeleke Ogunnoiki·January 12, 2025
There is an opportunity for Nigeria to capitalize on the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nigeria to improve our bilateral relationship with India. Read More...
December 24/January 25Nigeria
Wayétu Moore

‘I Gave Myself Permission to Write a Black Villainess’ Wayétu Moore’s First Draft

Wayétu Moore·January 12, 2025
Liberian novelist and author of She Would Be King, Wayétu Moore, wants Africans to tell their own stories: ‘A recent book I read portrayed Africa as a uniform experience—overly simplified and stripped of nuance. It reminded me of why it is so important for Africans to tell our own stories, showing the plurality of our voices, our struggles, and our triumphs.’ Read More...
December 24/January 25First DraftInterviewsLiberia
Aké

What It Means to Attend Aké Festival

Seyi Lasisi·January 12, 2025
The Aké Arts & Book Festival is drawing young people from across Nigeria and the African diaspora, fostering connections, and inspiring a vibrant culture of literary growth and creativity. Read More...
December 24/January 25Nigeria
Africans

Note on Being Groomed for Exile

Ibrahim Williams·January 12, 2025
As Africans, our being lost in the diaspora is contingent on the preservation of life for ourselves and for those of our families left behind. Read More...
December 24/January 25Nigeria
Poets

Youth, Poetry and the Nigerian Traumatic

Ancci·January 12, 2025
In a nation like Nigeria that is not so far removed from constant distress and anguish, it is only reasonable that literature, especially from young writers, serves as the analytical medium of these experiences. Read More...
December 24/January 25Nigeria
African Mother

It Is Time to Let the ‘African Mother’ Jokes Go

Chukwuka Odigbo·January 12, 2025
In recent times, we have been inundated with various social media depictions of African mothers, portraying them as ignorant, irrational, and incoherent. These depictions engender a reading of primitive difference in Africans by reinforcing the trope of the conservative, backward African. Read More...
December 24/January 25Nigeria
Books

7 Books by First-Time Authors You Should Read This New Year

Ìjàpá O·January 12, 2025
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of books by first-time authors you should read this new year. These books will introduce you to some of the best emerging talents in African literature.  Read More...
December 24/January 25Read Something AfricanReading
Saro-Wiwa

S2 EP2: The Political Rise of Ken Saro-Wiwa (Part II)

Wale Lawal·January 7, 2025
What was it about the Ogoni movement that made it (to borrow from the American writer, Toni Cade Bambara) ‘irresistible’ to Ken Saro-Wiwa? Let’s find out together. The second part of episode two of the second season of The Republic is now available wherever you listen to podcasts. Read More...
NigeriaPodcastsThe Republic Podcast

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We’re on Instagram!

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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.

We’re looking for the most interesting brands! ⁠
⁠
For the first time since we officially launched in 2018, The Republic is opening up its platform to advertisers.⁠
⁠
But we’re not doing it the usual way.⁠
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We’re inviting a small number of visionary African brands (companies and organizations building for the future, shaping culture, and sparking conversation) to advertise with us in a way that reflects our values: bold thinking, clean design, and editorial integrity.⁠
⁠
As part of this pilot, we’ll be selecting just three standout brands to receive a full month of premium visibility—across our website, newsletter, and social media channels—for ₦200,000 (a special flat rate compared to our standard ₦2 million).⁠
⁠
If selected, your ad will be vetted and supported by our editorial team to ensure it aligns with The Republic’s visual and storytelling standards. This is a rare chance to reach our highly engaged, globally minded African audience—on terms that elevate your brand.⁠
⁠
For more details and to apply, visit the link in our bio or IG story. ⁠
⁠
Deadline: 12 July 2025.⁠
⁠
We can’t wait to see what you’re building.
Today in 1922, Joseph Ki-Zerbo was born. #RPUBLCHi Today in 1922, Joseph Ki-Zerbo was born. #RPUBLCHistory⏳️⁠
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On 21 June 1922, Joseph Ki-Zerbo was born in Toma, Upper-Volta (now Burkina Faso). As a historian, politician and writer, Ki-Zerbo is recognized as one of Africa's foremost thinkers.⁠
⁠
Read more about Burkinabé politics by clicking the image in the link in bio⁠
____________⁠
📝: Ibukun Olokode x Ugonna Eronini⁠
📷: 1)Joseph Ki-Zerbo / Wikimedia Commons.⁠
2)Joseph Ki-Zerbo / Wiki.⁠
3)Thomas Sankara at the UN headquarters, New York, 1984. Milton Grant/UN Photo.
Nok and Africa’s Disregard for Prehistory #OnSi Nok and Africa’s Disregard for Prehistory  #OnSite⚡⁠
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⁠Who stole our past, and why did we let them?⁠
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Nok art, 2,500 years old, locked in glass boxes in Paris. A German university training archaeologists on Nigeria’s Nok Valley, with none of them African. An ancient Ethiopian feminist philosophy rediscovered in Norway, while Addis Ababa looked the other way.⁠
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In today’s essay, Odafin Odafe Okoh confronts the question at the heart of Africa’s heritage crisis: Why do African leaders continue to treat precolonial history as dispensable? And what happens to a society that allows the world to define its past?⁠
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It’s a timely, cultural report about imperial theft but more hauntingly, it is about African amnesia, state-sanctioned silence and the quiet burial of our most powerful intellectual legacies.⁠
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Read the full essay by clicking this image in the link in bio or our IG story.⁠
⁠
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📝: Odafin Odafe Okoh⁠
📸: Photo illustration by Ezinne Osueke (@ezinne.o.osueke) / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: WIKIMEDIA. Nok Art / African Art Gallery.⁠
🔍: Ada Nnadi (@horneddaughter), Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.
Today in 1920, Amos Tutuola was born. #RPUBLCHisto Today in 1920, Amos Tutuola was born. #RPUBLCHistory⏳️⁠
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On 20 June 1920, Amos Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. He was a Nigerian novelist whose works featured rich Yoruba folklore written in nonstandard English. Many of his books featured stories he had heard as a child.⁠
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Swipe to learn more and read more about Amos Tutuola by clicking the image at the link in our bio.⁠
____________⁠
📝: Ibukun Olokode and Ugonna Eronini⁠
📷: 1) Amos Tutuola. Francoise Huguier/Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center/The University of Texas at Austin. ⁠
2) Amos Tutuola. Wikimedia Commons.⁠
Press Freedom is at Risk in the Democratic Republi Press Freedom is at Risk in the Democratic Republic of Congo. #RPUBLCNews📡⁠
⁠
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has banned the country’s media from reporting on the activities of former president, Joseph Kabila, and his party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), claiming that they pose a threat to ‘national cohesion’. This comes after Kabila visited the eastern city of Goma, which is controlled by the M23 rebels currently fighting the DRC army. ⁠
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The ban raises concerns about press freedom in the DRC, coming only two years after the country passed a new press law potentially restricting press freedom and providing several opportunities for journalism to be criminalized. In 2024, the Journalist in Danger, a DRC-based organization, reported that there had been ‘at least 523 cases of various attacks against the press’ in the last five years.⁠
_____⁠
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📝: Ijapa O (@ijapa_o)⁠
🔍: Ezinne Osueke (@ezinne.o.osueke), Yusuf Omotayo (@yusufomotayo), Adetola Wahab; Editors.
What Is the Place of Nollywood in the World? #OnS What Is the Place of Nollywood in the World?  #OnSite⚡⁠
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Despite being the world’s second-largest film industry by volume, Nollywood remains startlingly absent from the global spaces where culture is consumed. On a train from Paris to Lille for Series Mania—the largest TV festival in Europe—Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi browses the in-train film catalogue: French, Italian, Indian, American. Nollywood? Not there. Even on the flight over, Nigerian films were buried under ‘World’ then ‘African.’⁠
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Nollywood has topped Netflix global charts (Aníkúlápó, Shanty Town), attracted streaming giants like Amazon and Netflix, and sent delegations to Europe’s most prestigious festivals. Yet, the industry remains on the margins: overlooked by the Oscars, sidelined by global distributors and perpetually asked to prove its worth.⁠
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Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi’s essay draws from the Series Mania Forum (where ten Nollywood filmmakers joined Africa’s cultural elite) to ask urgent questions: Why does Hollywood exist in Nigeria but not vice versa? Is the industry being undermined by its obsession with volume over quality? What happens if streamers pull out completely? And why hasn’t Nollywood, despite decades of output, been invited to sit at the table of global cinematic power?⁠
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With commentary from Kunle Afolayan, Mimidoo Bartel and Blessing Uzzi, this essay is a sharp reflection on race, gatekeeping, cultural capital and the complex politics of distribution.⁠
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Read the full essay by clicking this image in the link in bio or our IG story.⁠
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📌 Check the pinned comment for our question of the day.
___________⁠
⁠
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📝: Ahmad Adedimeji Amobi (@ahmad_adedimeji)⁠
📸: Photo illustration by Ezinne Osueke (@ezinne.o.osueke) / THE REPUBLIC. Source Ref: UNSPLASH. Nollywood sign / RIPPLES NIGERIA. ⁠
🔍: Ijapa O (@ijapa_o), Peace Yetunde Onafuye (@yetundeandbooks), Wale Lawal (@wallelawal); Editors.
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