100 Years of Ladi Kwali

This issue begins with a deceptively simple question: where does genius come from? In asking after the source of Kwali’s genius, we are not only revisiting the life of one of Nigeria’s most significant artists, but also examining the deeper social, cultural and material ecosystems that make excellence possible and, often, invisible. Kwali’s pottery, formed through knowledge passed hand to hand and generation to generation, invites us to think beyond singular talent toward the networks of labour, memory and inheritance that sustain creativity and culture in Nigeria.

The stories that follow move through those same hidden infrastructures. Across all six geopolitical zones, from Borno to Ogbomosho, from mechanic villages to university halls, from kitchens and roadsides to sites of terror and survival, the stories trace a Nigeria that exists alongside the one more frequently narrated: a country held together by journeys, memories, informal economies, cultural rituals, faith and acts of endurance that rarely occupy the centre of national attention. If Kwali’s clay represents a lineage carried quietly through time, the pages of this issue attempt to map the many other places where Nigeria’s most enduring stories continue to live, often in plain sight.

And so, the stories.

We start in the North Central geopolitical zone, in Abuja, among Kwali’s Gbagyi people, who according to Chimezie Chika, scholars have increasingly identified as being the true source of Kwali’s artistic prowess. For decades, Chika notes, ‘Kwali was considered a product of British colonial art instruction, but this viewpoint denied a crucial truth: that Ladi Kwali’s art came from a Gbagyi worldview in which clay, labour and the female body were sacred, inseparable, and hers alone.’

Still on Kwali, The Republic’s audience editor, Tomi Olugbemi, spoke with the magazine’s cover illustrator, Osaze Amadasun. ‘The goal was to celebrate Kwali as both an artist and a cultural icon,’ Amadasun said. ‘By combining portraiture with symbolic drawings often featured in her pottery, as well as key visual elements from her life and artistic practice, I was able to create a bridge between her traditional craft and her enduring legacy, resulting in an image I felt would fit as a contemporary magazine visual.’

Back in Abuja, Terna Iwar and S. A. Anselm report on Apo Mechanic Village, an informal settlement developed by mechanics and spare part traders, which has survived recurrent demolition from the government. As demolition looms again, the authors note, ‘Apo exists in two parts: with fear, uncertainty and resignation affecting both. There are the residents of Apo Mechanic Estate… and then there are the mechanics operating outside the estate along the corridor of the Outer Southern Expressway… The latter have no option but to move. The former wait, caught in limbo, uncertain whether their estate will be spared or erased.’

Additionally, Lotanna Ogbuefi investigates the ‘bombing that changed Abuja forever’: the 2011 Boko Haram attack on the United Nations House in Abuja, which claimed the lives of 26 people. According to Ogbuefi, ‘the 2011 UN attack destroyed the illusion that Abuja civilians were insulated from Boko Haram’s violence. Before the attack, insurgency was widely believed to be a problem confined to Nigeria’s northeast.’

Through Kwara, Wardah Abbas examines how the religious extremism that fuels insecurity in Nigeria also developed within university spaces. Returning to her time as a student at the University of Ilorin, Abbas recalls, ‘how Salafism had staged a quiet coup of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, the largest and most influential body representing Muslim students across Nigerian campuses, popularly known as the MSS. I watched students who once thrived in campus life suddenly retreat into a shell of piety. The transformation was swift.’

Also in Kwara, on 18 November 2025, what began as a Tuesday evening service at Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku, turned into a live-streamed kidnapping that dragged 38 worshippers into the forest and left three people dead. Nearly 40 days after the bandit attack, Pelumi Salako visited Eruku to speak with survivors. According to Salako, ‘Back in Eruku, camouflage-clad soldiers have become a common sight, but their presence has done little to allay public fear. Even now, despite a heavy military and police presence, the air remains thick with anxiety. Residents still cast curious glances at unfamiliar faces. Public buses avoid travelling to the town in the evenings, fearing the unknown...’

In the North East state of Borno, Usman Bashir Abubakar visits three women who survived Boko Haram captivity and now navigate the enduring challenges of social stigmatization. ‘It was a Saturday evening in April 2014,’ Abubakar writes. ‘Unknown to Aisha, two events were about to unfold that would forever change the trajectory of her life. She would prepare her children’s favourite rice and stew, setting off an unexpected chain of events that would culminate, three hours later, in the slaughter of her 23-year-old brother and her own abduction.’  

Also in Borno, Imrana Buba tries to understand the realities of the vulnerable local communities caught between recurrent Boko Haram attacks and the government’s ‘brutal’ counterinsurgency campaign. ‘Everyone you meet is affected in some way by the conflict that has been ongoing since 2009,’ Buba writes. ‘Yet, the violence and destruction were not caused by Boko Haram alone. As part of its counterinsurgency, Nigerian security forces were also brutal. I have met many people who alleged they were falsely accused of being part of Boko Haram and incarcerated for years by state forces.’

In 2007, Helon Habila wrote his acclaimed novel, Measuring Time, about twin brothers growing up in the North East, but could the foods that feature in the novel help us appreciate Habila’s story differently? ‘While àkàrà holds the most fascination for me here,’ Ozoz Sokoh writes, ‘other foods also appear. Rice, for instance, features both as a cooked dish and fashioned into tuwo, a soft, doughy staple… Beans and spinach cooked in palm oil appear as convalescent food. There is also pepper soup… From a gastrocritical perspective, these foods do more than fill narrative gaps. They are symbolic and resourceful, meeting the needs of the characters while telling us their stories of determination and imagination, hunger and satisfaction.’

From our North West desk, Aisha Kabiru Mohammed examines Kaduna’s renewed search for cultural renaissance after years of dormancy following its co-hosting of the 1977 Festival of Black Arts and Culture alongside Lagos. According to Mohammed, ‘Despite the challenges of insecurity, funding and proper systems. Kaduna’s creatives are bringing a revival of Kaduna’s creative sector, one that, with enough support, could build on the legacy of FESTAC ‘77. Still, the question remains: how long will the boom last if it comes?’

In Katsina, Amatallah Saulawa takes us into the world of ‘yan crypto, northern Nigerian cryptocurrency enthusiasts engaged in online trading and mining. ‘A video posted on a northern Nigerian Instagram blog shows two old men sitting outside, both occupied with their phones. One wears a babbar riga, the other a kaftan, both with a kube cap atop their head. It is an ordinary scene except—as the caption betrays—rather than scrolling on Facebook or WhatsApp, they are mining cryptocurrency,’ Saulawa writes.

From our South East desk, Emmanuel Azubuike spoke to Igbo travellers embarking on the annual tradition of travelling east in December, despite fears of growing insecurity in the region. ‘…what I feared more than the depleted East-West Road was the prevailing insecurity that, in the months leading to Christmas, became alarming, as cases of kidnapping along the Benin route grew more widespread. Would these travellers make it safely to their ancestral homes? And why had they, despite the known difficulties, insisted on keeping this culture alive?’ he writes.

In the South South state of Edo, Ebenezer Mowete writes on the night markets of Benin City and the market women who sustain their essential economics. ‘By the time the last gold of daylight slips behind Benin’s clustered rooftops and the heat of the day finally loosens its grip, a different city wakes. Benin City unfolds slowly like an ancient story being retold under a flickering lantern. Its lifeline pulses not from corporate buildings or government offices, not from tax records or economic charts, but from women who unzip the darkness and turn it into survival,’ Mowete writes.

Over 30 years ago, on 10 November 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa and other environmental activists (popularly known as the Ogoni Nine) were executed by the military government of General Sani Abacha. In 2024 and 2025, I caught up with Nigerian writer and daughter of Saro-Wiwa, Noo Saro-Wiwa. We discussed the afterlives of state violence and what lies ahead for the Ogonis. Noo also explains why a pardon, without exoneration, cannot undo the violence of the past or resolve the political struggle her father left behind: ‘A pardon means that you have committed a crime and you are being forgiven for it. Exoneration means you never committed a crime in the first place.’

And with that we return to our homebase of Lagos, in the South West, which Ṣeun Sedẹ Williams argued has been erroneously abstracted into ‘Yorubaland’. According to Williams, ‘Equating southwestern Nigeria to Yorubaland is a historical oversimplification that requires critical re-evaluation. While the Yoruba are a dominant force in the region, the area is also the cultural homeland of the Ogu people, a distinct ethno-linguistic group with their own rich history, language and traditions.’

This issue also features original short stories by Olufunke Ogundimu and Boluwatife Sanwo. Edited by Chigozie Obioma, Ogundimu’s story, ‘On the Road to Ogbomosho and Oyo’, is a meditation on tradition and modernity, stagnation and advancement. Set in the village of Aiyedogbon, the story follows both angry spirit beings and the human cost of rural–urban migration. In ‘A Nose for Evil’, Sanwo offers a reflective meditation on good and evil, exploring womanhood, witchcraft, covens and the fickle nature of humans.

Additionally, this issue features quizzes, puzzles and other interactives that celebrate Nigerian people, culture and history. It also features First Draft interviews with Nigerian publisher and co-founder of Cassava Republic Press, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, and Booker Prize–winning author, Ben Okri. According to Bakare-Yusuf, ‘The loudest obituary writers about African literature tend to be men. These elegies seem to come from a tacit sense of personal or generational displacement rather than from the actual state of the field.’ Meanwhile, Okri argues that Nigerian literature doesn’t always have to be about Nigeria: ‘Nigerian literature limits itself to Nigeria and then limits even the ways in which the country can be written about.’

Our Social Issue, this edition is our first of 2026 and was developed with funding from the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the Mellon Foundation.

As usual, we encourage our readers to engage with our essays and articles, and to provide insightful comments. Readers may send their views directly to the editor by addressing emails (of no more than 700 words) to wale@rpublc.com, with the subject, ‘Comment on Xyz Essay’, or ‘Letter to the Editor’ as applies. Comments and letters will be archived and, depending on the quality of the arguments presented, we may reach out to assist in developing your letters and comments further for publishing in the magazine. 

At The Republic, we will always prioritize the meaningful exchange of ideas. We commit to pressing forward: on the most critical of social, political and economic issues; by innovating through knowledge gaps; and by providing guidance through thickets of opinion, ignorance and misinformation—three key features of our time—in search of glades of insight⎈