Is it still spam if they actually give you the money? (SLYT)
posted by mikepop on Dec 23, 2009 - 37 comments

Forty years ago, just after the Biafran War, Nigeria was home to a cultural boom that paralleled its skyrocketing oil revenues. These heady days not only produced afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, but also, in the genre of music called highlife, created a star known as the Ultimate Dr. Sir Warrior (born Christogonus Ezebuiro Obinna) a member of the nebulous Oriental Brothers International Band. Listen to the music of Dr. Sir Warrior and the Oriental Brothers International Band. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Dec 10, 2009 - 15 comments

Me Le Se and Dance Medley - live clips of King Sunny Ade and his African Beats in Seattle last month just before being inducted into the AfroPop Hall of Fame. More clips from the show ... [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 9, 2009 - 11 comments

A preview version of a 20-minute film following Damon Albarn as he and other western musicians (including Franz Ferdinand and Fatboy Slim) travel to Mali, Nigeria and Congo as part of the Africa Express, a sprawling musical collective collaboration between Africans (including Toumani Diabate, Baaba Maal and Tony Allen) Americans and Europeans. The film includes a visit and concert at The Shrine for last year's Felabration. [more inside]
posted by criticalbill on Jun 19, 2009 - 4 comments

Wiwa vs. Shell. 14 years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa (prev) was hung with his counterparts for speaking out against Shell and the atrocities they were committing upon the Ogoni people of the Nigerian River Delta. [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime on May 30, 2009 - 23 comments

Microsoft and Linux have been battling for dominance in Africa for some time now. In South Africa, Linux elicited the help of a former Microsoft executive, to which Windows countered with a massive free software giveaway. A more recent front has been in Nigeria, where Mandriva looked set to secure a government contract, until Microsoft allegedly paid $400,000 to have that contract dumped. Microsoft, for its part, has denied the allegations.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on Nov 12, 2008 - 40 comments

Fela: Music is the Weapon is a documentary film from 1982 featuring a wealth of live concert footage (from his club in Lagos, "The Shrine") as well as interviews with the legendary Nigerian singer, bandleader and social critic. Here's part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Nov 5, 2008 - 22 comments

Pieter Hugo photographs the Nigerian film industry, where a digital camera, 2 lights, nine days and $20k translates into a feature film. NSFW. [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Aug 12, 2008 - 20 comments

According to Ilechukwu, an epidemic of penis theft swept Nigeria between 1975 and 1977. Then there seemed to be a lull until 1990, when the stealing resurged. “Men could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding on to their genitalia either openly or discreetly with their hand in their pockets,” Ilechukwu wrote. “Women were also seen holding on to their breasts directly or discreetly, by crossing the hands across the chest. . . . Vigilance and anticipatory aggression were thought to be good prophylaxes. This led to further breakdown of law and order.” In a typical incident, someone would suddenly yell: Thief! My genitals are gone! Then a culprit would be identified, apprehended, and, often, killed.
posted by chunking express on Jul 8, 2008 - 71 comments

From the Bookstalls of a Nigerian Market. Onitsha Market Literature consists of stories, plays, advice and moral discourses published primarily in the 1960s by local presses in the lively market town of Onitsha [in then-newly-independent Nigeria]... In the fresh and vigorous genre of Onitsha Market Literature, the commoner wrote pulp fiction and didactic handbooks for those who perused the bookstalls of Onitsha Market, one of Africa’s largest trading centers. Examples: How To Write And Reply Letters For Marriage, Engagement Letters, Love Letters And How To Know A Girl To Marry, Learn To Speak 360 Interesting Proverbs And Know Your True Brother, Struggle For Money [All full-text links are in pdf format, and some are quite large]. With links to additional resources.
posted by amyms on Jun 4, 2008 - 25 comments

OK, I got yer muhfuggin Single Link You Tube post right here. That's right. Now you tell me that's not amazing. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jun 4, 2008 - 88 comments

Why go with a simple cake topper? A Texan bride of Nigerian descent had a klassy cake made for her big day. The company who created the brilliant piece. One of the master sculptors talks about AND shows us how she did it. Other cakes they've made. Well worth the 5 grand. Does this contradict empath’s statement that 5’4” people aren’t diseased?
posted by gman on Jan 15, 2008 - 48 comments

#1 African Music Website. Africa Hit offers an extensive and varied selection of great music videos from West Africa. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 31, 2007 - 11 comments

"The really disturbing thing about Lagos’s pickers and venders is that their lives have essentially nothing to do with ours. They scavenge an existence beyond the margins of macroeconomics. They are, in the harsh terms of globalization, superfluous." The Megacity, George Packer in Lagos.
posted by afu on Dec 11, 2007 - 25 comments

Wife thief - the Wodaabe of Nigeria are one of the world's few remaining Nomadic peoples, retaining age-old customs and ways. Physical beauty and charm are highly prized, qualities much in evidence at the annual Gerewol ceremonies. After donning elaborate makeup and clothing, men engage in stylized dance and preening to win the favor of a desired woman - often one who is already married. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 26, 2007 - 20 comments

Learn about the powerful, complex Batá drumming and dance tradition of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Check these 6-to-8 year old Batá drummers laying down the groove. Then theres the Egungun action going on over in Ibadan, to the accompaniment of Batá drums, of course. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Nov 8, 2007 - 8 comments

Dambe is a form of boxing associated with the Hausa people of the Saharan regions of West Africa. It is essentially a striking art. The primary weapon is the strong-side fist. Known as the spear, it is wrapped in a piece of cloth covered by tightly knotted cord. The lead hand, called the shield, is held with the open palm facing toward the opponent. The lead hand can be used to grab or hold as required. Officials generally discourage the use of magical protection on the grounds of fairness.
posted by hob on Nov 6, 2007 - 7 comments

The Hyena Men, seen a couple of years ago and now updated: Pieter Hugo's gallery of photographs of people with hyenas and baboons as pets in Abuja, Nigeria.Text. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 3, 2007 - 12 comments

Nigerians have always had musical opinions about lots of topics. From premature pregnancy, to women who cannot conceive, political criminals or the old topic of heartbreak. And that's just the old stuff. The new Nigerian music is about the Nigerian perspective on 419, sexing your professor for better grades, staying faithful to your wife, how a big schlong can get you girls, how getting your car hit by a politician is the best that can happen to a poor man, big booties, success as a musician, being in love and the everywhere played African Queen. There is also the embarrassing stuff, like when the most popular actress decides she also wants to sing. And let's not forget Idols West Africa.
posted by markesh on Jul 4, 2007 - 9 comments

David Oluwale arrived in Britain in 1949, one of many African immigrants. By the close of 1969, he was dead. Two years later, two police officers were charged with his murder, although they got away almost scot-free despite a massive amount of evidence against them. Although it caused a national scandal at the time, more because of police malpractice than racism, Oluwale's sad story has been forgotten since (apart from a play, written by Jeremy Sandford, a few years later). However, it deserves to be remembered not just because of a tragic and unnecessary death, but because it was the first recorded death of a British black person as a result of police racism. A new book, Nationality: Wog, The Hounding of David Oluwale is helping bring Oluwale's plight back into public consciousness. Via the BBC's Thinking Allowed.
posted by humblepigeon on Jun 6, 2007 - 8 comments

On May 22, 1969, the Babies of Biafra launched their first attack against Nigeria. The Babies were a fleet of 5 civilian single-engine SAAB aircraft outfitted with unguided rocket launchers. They were going up against an air force composed of MIGs and Ilyushin bombers, flown by English, South African and Egyptian mercenaries. Their leader was Carl Gustaf von Rosen, a Swede who was Herman Goering’s nephew-in-law. (More inside)
posted by forrest on May 22, 2007 - 17 comments

Mary Uduru of Nigeria. Although we see lots of single-image representations of African poverty (usually in the form of a swollen-bellied child on the brink of starvation) it's rare to find a photo-essay like this one one, which brings us an intimate, informative and non-sensationalist view of the life of the working poor there.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Apr 11, 2007 - 22 comments

Wangari Maathai discusses saving the environment in Nigeria
and how religion influenced its destruction and subesquent efforts at saving it. A beautiful portrait of a beautiful determined woman doing her part to help save the planet.
posted by specialk420 on Apr 17, 2006 - 4 comments

Let me make you an offer you can refuse... The Nigerian Football Association has adopted the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" policy regarding bribery of officials. They now say that officials can accept bribes, so long as said bribes don't affect the game's outcome. Brilliant. Why didn't anyone think of this before?
posted by TheFarSeid on Apr 3, 2006 - 21 comments

The other religious riots. While much of the world's press has covered the Muslim cartoon riots, not nearly as much ink has been spilled over the continuing violence in Nigeria. A good analysis of underlying factors here. A Shell report points to oil as a proximate cause of violence as well. For oil companies, this may not be a bad thing. (If I was more interested in trolling, I'd have framed this as "Christian Leaders Fail to Condemn Religious Violence." The real world's a little more complex).
posted by klangklangston on Feb 23, 2006 - 15 comments

Teju Cole is a Nigerian who is returning home after years in the US. His writing is some of the best online prose I have ever read. Good photographs too.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen on Jan 8, 2006 - 12 comments

Blood Flows With Oil in Poor Nigerian Villages An insightful NYT article on "the desperate struggle of impoverished communities to reap crumbs from the lavish banquet the oil boom has laid in this oil-rich yet grindingly poor corner of the globe" Ok, so the quotes a little heavy handed but the pic on the 2nd page speaks volumes.
posted by Mr Bluesky on Jan 1, 2006 - 24 comments

10 years. Though I already went on and on about this on another thread, I can't shake it: Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged ten years ago. All he did was point out that Shell so scarred, pitted and slimed his tribal Ogoni lands that it was spontaneously catching fire. Oil company cronies showed up with guns, cleared villages. And then Nigerian government officials got pissed, and nine Ogoni were hanged. Wiki. Testimony of his brother. His foundation.
posted by toma on Nov 14, 2005 - 14 comments

The Hyena People of Nigeria. Photography from Pieter Hugo.
posted by tellurian on Sep 11, 2005 - 28 comments

From Minnesota to Nigeria - Marty was born in the USA and adopted at three years old. In his late 30s he found his biological parents, a woman named Kathleen and a Chief from Nigeria, making him a Nigerian Prince. via Chookooloonks
posted by SuzySmith on May 30, 2005 - 12 comments

Hollywood? Old. Bollywood? That's soooo 2003. Make room for Nollywood, Nigeria's own film industry which is growing by leaps and bounds every year, and is currently worth about $45 million dollars. About 400 Nollywood films are produced every year many on a budget of around $15000 and are distributed almost entirely by VHS and VCD. The stories are very much simplistic and pulpy (check out 419 Stalk Exchange. Yes, 419 as in the email scam) but are much preferred by local residents and emigre's than the usual arthouse fair one often thinks of when talking about African cinema. Now if you'll excuse me there's a bucket of popcorn and a copy of GSM Connection waiting for me in the living room.
posted by PenDevil on Jan 19, 2004 - 13 comments

Scamming the scammer Somewhere along the line I think we've all wondered what would happen if we answered the Nigerian 419 scam email. Now we don't have to. Someone calling himself 'ebola monkey man' has been taking the scammer's on a email journey to the point that he will only agree to send them money if they send him a silly picture of themselves holding up a sign with their name on... [via b3ta]
posted by feelinglistless on Jul 4, 2003 - 11 comments

Like most Nigerians, you're probably finding that it's increasingly difficult to earn a decent living from email. That's why you need to attend the 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference.
posted by Wet Spot on Jun 12, 2003 - 6 comments

The Hidden Dangers of Letter Campaigns.
A series of email petitions have been circulating over the past year, to prevent the execution of Amina Lawal, a 30 year-old woman found guilty by an islamic court in Northern Nigeria of adultery. Even signature-collecting websites have been set up by local Amnesty chapters (see for example this Spanish A.I. site). But this isn't helping - and is indeed damaging the cause of Amina Lawal, according to BAOBAB, a Nigerian group supporting Women's Human Rights:
...It turns out that letters and petitions, even the few that aren't just chain-letter foolishness, may do more harm than good and that the situation in Nigeria is at once far more complex and less dire than it seems from the outside. There are ways to help, starting with understanding what is really going on...
Good intentions, it seems, aren't good enough if one has little knowledge of what one is campaigning against or for.
posted by talos on May 16, 2003 - 12 comments

The G.I. Jones Photographic Archive of Southeastern Nigerian Art and Culture. 'This is an archive of digitized photographs depicting the arts and cultures of southeastern Nigeria. The collection includes examples from Ibibio, Igbo, Ijo and Ogoni speaking peoples. All of the photographs were taken in the 1930s by the late G.I. Jones, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. The majority of the images are from the Igbo speaking regions where Jones conducted most of his research. The materials included here represent only a sample of the complete Jones collection. The photographs are unique for the creative brilliance of the art represented, the quality of the photography itself, and the cultural and historical significance of photographic records from this time period in Nigeria.'
Some related links :-
American Museum Congo Expedition 1909-1915. A truly interesting site, which includes field notes, photographs, watercolours, historical maps, anthropoligical objects, and so forth.
A Clickable Map of the Art of the African Continent, via Africa: The Art of a Continent.
The Woods Collection of African Art, with another clickable map.
Nigerian Stories.
posted by plep on Mar 27, 2003 - 11 comments

Homeless Quints. When a white American has quints in America, companies fall all over themselves to provide money, goods, and services for this "miracle." When a dark-skinned Nigerian has quints in America, though, a somewhat harder time is in store. Citizenship concerns aside, the lack of humanitarian concern here is staggering.
posted by FormlessOne on Feb 12, 2003 - 26 comments

Still getting those Nigerian scam spams? Brad Christensen is too -- but he seems to be enjoying them. (And he's not the only one, either.)
posted by ook on Nov 21, 2002 - 26 comments

The power of Western culture illustrated with the story of Miss World 2001. Agbani Darego of Nigeria is single-handedly responsible for a radical change in the feminine beauty ideal in her native country: voluptuous women are out, thin girls are in. A stunning illustration of the cultural power of the West, and a good example to think about what it means - for the better and for the worse - to those under its spell.
posted by ugly_n_sticky on Oct 3, 2002 - 14 comments

Nigerian scammer, meet James T. Kirk. Or, how to turn the scam around.
posted by misterioso on Sep 13, 2002 - 31 comments

Amina Lawal Must Not Face Death by Stoning says UK Amnesty International. Nigerian woman, divorced & single, with 3 kids, to be executed by a Sharia Court for giving birth outside of wedlock. Other pregnant unwed mothers, such as this computer student, are seeking asylum outside of Nigeria to avoid being stoned to death by a Nigerian Sharia Court in accordance with Islamic law principles. Amina's whole convoluted and horrible story is laid out nicely here. Sharia Courts, and their ilk, punish sexual and "moral offenders" through stoning, amputation, crushing the victim with walls, hanging, or even rape.

Meanwhile, in another universe, the Nigerian 419 scam has mutated into Amina Lawal's "barrister" spamming the net with pleas for cash. Instead of that, sign the open letter to the President of Nigeria asking that death by stoning be stopped.
posted by filchyboy on Aug 31, 2002 - 14 comments

Nigerian court upholds death-by-stoning sentence on adulterous mother. The ruling will stay as it was; the now 30-year-old woman, sentenced to die for having a child out of wedlock, will be executed in January 2004, the time the court has deemed "she will no longer be necessary to breast-feed the baby." You read that right. Something tells me they didn't.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Aug 19, 2002 - 62 comments

"The myth of oil prosperity runs wide and deep". "Petroleum-led development strategies have delivered nation after nation into a spiral of debt and dependency. And yet, governments, corporations, and international financial institutions continue to reinvest in the growing, global oil economy". Consider Nigeria, the point of focus of attention of environmentalists, human rights activists and fair trade advocates around the world. With its annual debt service obligation at over $4 bn, more than a third of its export income, Nigeria has in recent years pegged its annual budget allocation for actual debt servicing at $2 bn. Lower export earnings forced it to cut this to $1.5 bn in the 1999 budget. Who's to blame? Theftocracies, the IMF, World Bank, oil companies, foreign governments? Since it is clear that debt restructuring harms more than helps, will there be more debt relief, and finally, who ends up paying the banks when loans are written off?
posted by Mack Twain on Aug 13, 2002 - 6 comments

Striptease Nigerian style The women, ranging in age from 30 to 90, used a traditional and powerful shaming gesture to maintain control over the facility -- they threatened to remove their own clothing. All jokes aside, these women may know a thing or two about political startegy ... either that, or they have an excellent PR rep....
posted by poorhouse on Jul 21, 2002 - 3 comments

About damn time. If I ever get another email asking me to go to Nigeria on behalf of Mr.Ngkoskusomethingoranother for some large sum of cash I could just...
posted by lostbyanecho on May 24, 2002 - 12 comments

Nigeria has made a deal with the Abachi family. Does this mean I will have to send back the $35 million that Mariam said she would deposit in my bank account next week? She promised it would be transferred just as soon as something was cleared.
posted by Geo on Apr 19, 2002 - 2 comments

Nigerian Boy Raised by Chimps. I swear I'm not making this up. A disabled two-year-old Fulani boy was abandoned by his nomadic family because he was mentally and physically disabled, and was raised by a chimpanzee family in Nigeria's Falgore forest for a year and a half. He was found by hunters several years ago, and now lives in a children's home, where he walks and vocalizes like a chimpanzee, unable to communicate with humans normally. So the obvious question: Is it better to have taken this child away from his chimp family to live in an orphanage, or should they have let him continue to live in the forest?
posted by waldo on Apr 17, 2002 - 32 comments

Woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery The man with whom she had sex admitted it, then denied it, and was set free for lack of evidence. She was pregnant when she received the sentence (which provides for her to be buried up to the chest and stoned by male villagers until dead). The Nigerian court in question recently implemented a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic Law (Sharia, in the case), and have returned to mandatory sentences like stoning to death for adultery and amputation of hands for theft. Modernity, how we luff ya.
posted by brookish on Feb 14, 2002 - 23 comments

Meanwhile, back in some secluded spot...Refugees are fleeing for their lives as a town of 20,000 people is completely demolished-in Nigeria. The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has agreed to take urgent action to eradicate slavery, i.e.children making chocolate. I could go on and on. Why does Africa receive such little attention when it's really the bigtop in the circus of world suffering?
posted by quercus on Oct 25, 2001 - 25 comments

hundreds dead in clashes in nigeria. apparently more than 200 people have been killed in protests in nigeria in the last 48 hours, but all i've seen are these articles on nytimes and CNN. if anyone knows of more detailed accounts, this would be much appreciated.
posted by moth on Oct 14, 2001 - 9 comments

Can you help a brother out with a little money laundering?

So, I was thinking about this otherwise unremarkable spam while cleaning out my inbox when it dawned on me how familiar it was. I have seen this letter (with slight modifications to suit the contemporary political news from Nigeria) three times in my life. The first one I remember was over 10 years ago (on oniony paper, soft brown fibery envelope, red mock-official stamp). And I was wondering: how many of you have seen a postal version of this letter? Did I just fluke out, or is this letter so common that it is some obscure junk mail counterpart to Coca-cola, Princess Diana & Baywatch? I kind of like to think of it as the fraudspam equivalent of the nervous Don Knotts.
posted by sylloge on Mar 11, 2000 - 1 comment