Culture & Society
Leaving Nigeria After #EndSARS
I knew policemen as neighbours, as fathers of schoolmates, as bullies, as murderers. Even though the protest was my first, it was nothing new. They were killing and harassing young boys; we needed to speak. Everything was the same until DJ Switch went live on Instagram that night. Read More...
What Happened to the #EndSARS Generation?
With the #EndSARS movement and the eventual Lekki Massacre in October 2020, the realization that the lives of ordinary Nigerians could be snuffed out simply for demanding a better country transformed migration from an option for a better life into a perceived necessity for survival. Read More...
‘The Human Spirit Naturally Resists Oppression’ Chibueze Darlington Anuonye’s First Draft
Editor of Who Gave The Order: The History of a People’s Movement, Chibueze Darlington Anuonye, believes that 20 October 2020 stands as an indictment of the Nigerian conscience and urges Nigerians to remember that day: ‘What happened at the Lekki Toll Gate could be described as a country waging war against its citizens.’ Read More...
A Eulogy for Dead Languages
‘At 16 every Zambian gets a green National Registration Card (NRC). On my NRC, much of that information is either a lie, a slight fabrication, or, as with many things in life, a well-intentioned truth turned false.’ Read More...
A Vision for Nigeria’s Queer Future
In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde’s vision for Nigeria’s queer future requires new languages for care and intimacy—and lots of money. Read More...
Charly Boy Bus Stop and the Politics of Official Renaming
What happens when the politics of naming is used to silence a story? From ‘Charly Boy’ to ‘Baddo’, Nigeria’s streets are becoming battlegrounds where memory, identity and politics collide. Read More...
The Nigerian Heart of Joop Berkhout
Joop Berkhout, an icon of Nigeria’s publishing industry for almost six decades, died in February 2025 in Ibadan. He nurtured generations of writers and built Spectrum Books into a publishing powerhouse, yet also embraced the ‘big man’ culture of his adopted country with remarkable ease. Read More...
10 African Writers on How They Actually Wrote Their Books
In our latest First Draft interview, we ask leading African writers, including Laila Lalami and Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ, about their writing processes. Here's what the told us. Read More...
Diaspora’s Struggle to Belong Home and Away
If the media plays an important role in the extreme portrayal of the West as a haven in the mind of the African, we might also assume that the same media largely has a role to play in the making of the self-perception of Africans. Read More...
Rema Wants a Seat at the ‘Big Three’ Table—Has He Earned It?
With sonic versatility and global reach, Rema is rewriting the rules of Afrobeats. But does that earn him a place alongside Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid? Read More...
