Showing posts with label Nobel Prize. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nobel Prize. Show all posts

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Speaking Out on #Nollywood: Majority of Yoruba Filmmakers Are Intellectual Illiterates

Speaking Out on #Nollywood: Majority of Yoruba Filmmakers Are Intellectual Illiterates

Majority of Yoruba filmmakers are intellectual illiterates and by their movies you shall know them.
They portray Yorubas as fetish and superstitious people with low IQ.
If you watch their movies, you will be scared of having relationship with Yorubas.
They are the largest producers of Juju movies in Africa.

They seem to have forgotten that Yorubas have produced great  intellectual minds; from the greatest Nigerian polymath of modern education, Bishop Samuel Ajai-Crowther to the first black Nobel Laureate in Literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka. And the most outstanding founders of tech startups that are among the Unicorns in Africa are Yorubas. But I have not seen Yoruba movies about outstanding Yoruba geniuses and technocrats of Arts, Sciences and Technology who have achieved success by their education and erudition. All I have seen in over 90 percent of Yoruba movies are fetish and superstitious people using Juju rituals to get rich quick and succeed in life.
Even some of the Yoruba movies and  series showing educated Yorubas in the modern Nigerian society have glaring shortcomings in the characterization and personification of the middle class and upper class Yorubas such as in the TV series of "Hush" of the Africa Magic channels on both DStv and GOtv.
The telenovela about romantic, economic and political lives of Bem and Arinola in fashion and politics. The personality of "Bem" acted by Richard Mofe-Damijo as one of Africa’s biggest fashion designers based in Lagos failed to show any expertise and lifestyle of a guru of the fashion industry. The producers should have studied the personalities of the leading male gurus of fashion in Africa and their knowledge of the fashion industry from Lagos to London to Paris to Milan to New York. They should have consulted Ohimai Atafo and Duro Olowu, two of the top Nigerian international fashion designers. Bem looked more like the owner of a club than owner of a top flight fashion house.
Then "Arinola" portrayed by Thelma Okoduwa as one of the state’s fastest rising politicians did not have the political knowledge and personality of any notable female politicians in south western Nigeria.


- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

Publisher/Editor, 

NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series 

247 Nigeria (@247nigeria) / Twitter

https://mobile.twitter.com/247nigeria

https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima

#BishopAjaiCrowther #WoleSoyinka #Nobelprize
#nigeria #filmmakers #africa #technology #education #dstv #success #people #tech #gotv #startups #like #fashion #fashionindustry #london #paris #founders #society #designers #Africamagic #movies #series


Sunday, August 1, 2021

SOYINKA and the Quest for the Ori Olokun

 SOYINKA and the Quest for the Ori Olokun

The first African Nobel Laureate in Literature Prof. Wole Soyinka is 80 years old today, born on July 13, 1934. And the enigmatic and phenomenal genius is famous for his dare devil exploits including the one that landed him in jail. 

In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years after he secretly and unofficially met with the military governor Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu in the Southeastern town of Enugu (August 1967), to try to avert civil war. Go and read his "The Man Died" for his prison notes.

In 1978, Wole Soyinka was made aware of the existence of a bronze head in a private collection in Brazil – similar to the disputed one discovered by the famous German archaeologist Leo Frobenius (29 June 1873 – 9 August 1938) in 1910, which now stood in the Ife Museum, but of far greater quality. In his memoir "You Must Set Forth at Dawn" (2007), Soyinka recalls how, in a spirit of cultural duty, and with the knowledge of the Nigerian authorities, he mounted a kind of guerrilla raid with a group of friends, stealing the object from the apartment in question in near-farcical circumstances, and removing it to the Senegalese capital Dakar, where experts proclaimed it genuine. Suspicious, however, of the lightness of the object, Soyinka examined it further to find the letters “BM” stamped on the back: it was a British Museum replica, once sold in the museum’s shop. Soyinka then declared the British Museum’s head to be the real 'Ori Olokun", even though it was excavated 18 years after Frobenius’s original discovery.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, aka Orikinla Osinachi, prize winning Nigerian writer since age 13, author of Children of Heaven, Sleepless Night, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe (now being revised with the new title of Bye, Bye Zimbabwe and other books.

Tuesday, July 13, 2021

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PROF. WOLE SOYINKA The Lion of African Literature

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PROF. WOLE SOYINKA

The Lion of African Literature.

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka(YorubaAkínwándé Olúwo̩lé Babátúndé S̩óyíinká; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (pronounced [wɔlé ʃójĩnká]), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, human rights activist, actor and filmmaker in the English language and Yoruba. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature.

A #Netflix documentary film on SOYINKA will be a hit from OTT platforms to the cinema. He is the Big Picture of African Literature.
I am the best for the production design of the documentary film.
Netfix, HBO or Amazon should not miss this great opportunity.




Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Prof. Wole Soyinka's Most Anticipated New Novel, "Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth"

WeREAD💕💋 NEW BOOK OF THE MONTH

"Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth" by Prof. Wole Soyinka, the first black winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

https://bookshop.org/shop/Weread

The Book

The novel tells the story of a pact and an alliance formed between four friends, to make an impactful change in their nation. Now in the late stages of adulthood, against an evolving political landscape and a change of government, they drift apart, reunite, navigate complex familial relationships, and increasingly gain recognition in their professions — all the while, their paths interweave with those of prominent religious, community and government leaders, and the tide begins to turn against them, with dire consequences.

It is a dramatic and engaging read, laced with humour and extraordinary characters. The read also provides a realistic perspective on the state of affairs in Nigeria, with a depth of commentary. In Soyinka’s expert hands, the apparently disparate strands are woven together with a master story-teller’s aplomb. 

CHRONICLES OF THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE ON EARTH, is a great and unputdownable read from start to finish.

Book Size: 6.1 inches x 9.2 inches (15.5 x 23.5cm)

Number of pages: 524 pages.




Thursday, November 18, 2010

Chinua Achebe Celebrates 80th Birthday

Chinua Achebe


The most celebrated Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe marked his 80th birthday on November 16.

The literary achievements of Achebe have made him one of the most outstanding humans on earth and his historical novel Things Fall Apart rated as one of the best novels of all time.

He has won more laurels than any African writer and he is the only Nigerian writer with over 30 honorary doctorate degrees. The only significant laurel he is yet to win is the highly coveted Nobel Prize for Literature.

Nigerians Report wishes Pa Chinua Achebe Happy 80th Birthday and many more happy returns of the day.



THE LISTED WORKS OF CHINUA ACHEBE:


Novels
Things Fall Apart (1958)
No Longer at Ease (1960)
Arrow of God (1964)
A Man of the People (1966)
Anthills of the Savannah (1987)


Short Stories
"Marriage Is A Private Affair" (1952)
"Dead Men's Path" (1953)
The Sacrificial Egg and Other Stories (1953)
"Civil Peace" (1971)
Girls at War and Other Stories (1973)
African Short Stories (editor, with C.L. Innes) (1985)
Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Stories (editor, with C.L. Innes) (1992)
The Voter


Poetry
Beware, Soul-Brother, and Other Poems (1971) (published in the US as Christmas at Biafra, and Other Poems, 1973)
Don't let him die: An anthology of memorial poems for Christopher Okigbo (editor, with Dubem Okafor) (1978)
Another Africa (1998)
Collected Poems Carcanet Press (2005)
Refugee Mother And Child
Vultures


Essays, Criticism and Political Commentary
The Novelist as Teacher (1965)
An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1975)
Morning Yet on Creation Day (1975)
The Trouble With Nigeria (1984)
Hopes and Impediments (1988)
Home and Exile (2000)
Education of a British protected Child (October 6, 2009)
“The Igbo and their Perception of God, Human Beings and Creation,” (2010) (forthcoming)

Children's Books
Chike and the River (1966)
How the Leopard Got His Claws (with John Iroaganachi) (1972)
The Flute (1975)
The Drum (1978)

You can buy any one the books by Chinua Achebe from AMAZON.



Wednesday, July 21, 2010

To Prof. Wole Soyinka @ 76



Our lionized sage Prof. Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel Prize winner in Literature is celebrating his 76th birthday (he was born on July 13, 1934) and he is going to launch a new political party called Democratic Front for Peoples Federation in September.

We recommend Okey Ndibe’s An Apology to Wole Soyinka published in his OFFSIDE MUSINGS column in the Daily Sun newspaper of Tuesday July 20, 2010. Ndibe recalled the daring revolutionary zeal of the lion-hearted Soyinka during the Nigerian civil war and his opposition to military tyranny and corruption in Nigeria.
Nigerians Report is wishing Wole Soyinka many happy returns of the day with more blessings from above with all our love.






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Friday, March 12, 2010

President Obama Donates $125,000 of Nobel Prize Money to American Indian College Fund


President Barack Obama received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on Thursday, December 10, 2009.

12 Mar 2010 01:35 Africa/Lagos

President Obama Donates $125,000 of Nobel Prize Money to American Indian College Fund

DENVER, March 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Obama announced today that he will donate $125,000 of his $1.4 million 2009 Nobel Peace Prize monies to the American Indian College Fund (the Fund). In a statement issued by the White House, Obama said of the Fund and nine other charity organizations that received donations from the president, "These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need. I'm proud to support their work."

"We are thrilled that President Obama has chosen to publicly acknowledge the work the American Indian College Fund is doing in Indian Country by sharing $125,000 of his prestigious Nobel Peace Prize award with us," said Richard B. Williams, President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. "As a result of President Obama's vision and leadership, through his donation to the Fund along with nine other outstanding charities, he is setting an example for how all Americans can help those less fortunate. The gift will be used to support Native scholarships at America's 33 accredited tribal colleges and universities."

According to the White House Statement, these charities include Fisher House, which provides housing for families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers; the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, which raises money for long-term relief efforts in Haiti after its earthquake; College Summit, which partners with elementary and middle schools and school districts to increase college enrollment and student preparation; the Posse Foundation, a scholarship organization which identifies public high school students with academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes; the United Negro College Fund, which helps 60,000 students yearly to attend college through scholarship and internship programs; the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the nation's leading Hispanic scholarship organization; the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, which supports and enables young Appalachians to pursue higher education though scholarship and leadership curriculum; AfriCare, which supports health and HIV/AIDS, food security and agriculture, and water resource development projects in 25 countries; and the Central Asia Institute, which promotes and supports community-based education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

About the American Indian College Fund

With its credo "Educating the Mind and Spirit," the American Indian College Fund is the nation's largest provider of private scholarships for American Indian students, providing an average of 6,000 scholarships annually for students seeking to better their lives and communities through education and support to the nation's 33 accredited tribal colleges and universities. For more information about the American Indian College Fund, please visit www.collegefund.org

Source: American Indian College Fund

CONTACT: Dina Horwedel, Director, Public Education, +1-303-430-5350
(direct), or +1-720-394-8073 (cell), dhorwedel@collegefund.org

Web Site: http://www.collegefund.org/

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Related report:
The President Donates Nobel Prize Money to Charity


Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton Offer An Engaging Look At How Identity Matters in Economic Decisions

10 Mar 2010 13:30 Africa/Lagos


Nobel Prize-Winning Economist George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton Offer An Engaging Look At How Identity Matters in Economic Decisions in Their New Book IDENTITY ECONOMICS

PRINCETON, N.J., March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof a letter insisting that his most recent paper was wrong. Identity, she argued, was the missing element that would help to explain why people--facing the same economic circumstances--would make different choices. This was the beginning of a fourteen-year collaboration--and of IDENTITY ECONOMICS.


People often make the choices that will define their lives--where to live, how many children to have, etc.--based on financial drawbacks and incentives. IDENTITY ECONOMICS: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being explores how our identities are shaped by our economic decisions and behavior. With this book, Akerlof & Kranton hope to take a giant step further on the path of behavioral economics. IDENTITY ECONOMICS is a new way to understand people's decisions--at work, at school, and at home. With it, we can better appreciate why incentives like stock options work or don't; why some schools succeed and others don't; why some cities and towns don't invest in their futures--and much, much more.


Fresh off his bestselling 2009 book Animal Spirits (new paperback edition out in March 2010), with Yale's Robert Shiller, Akerlof and co-author Kranton, push the limits of behavioral economics. IDENTITY ECONOMICS bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People's notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people's identity--their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be--may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives. And the limits placed by society on people's identity can also be crucial determinants of their economic well-being.


"In the regular economic discourse of markets and taxes, we often forget about the forces that truly make a large difference in our lives. In IDENTITY ECONOMICS we sit on an economic porch with Rachel Kranton and George Akerlof, observing what we care about most--our identity."


-- Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions


"This intriguing book shows how much can be learned when you add the tools of economics to the other intellectual resources now available for thinking about the power of identity. George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton report the results of technical modeling without immersing the reader in the technicalities. The result is an accessible work of commendable clarity."


-- Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of The Ethics of Identity


"In IDENTITY ECONOMICS, George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton team up to bring people and their passions into economic analysis. Moving away from conventional accounts, they propose a bold paradigm to explain why and how identity and social norms shape economic decision making. With verve and insight, the book transforms standard economic understandings of organizations, schools, gender segregation, and racial discrimination. This new enlightened economics opens up a bright future for serious collaboration between economists and sociologists."


-- Viviana A. Zelizer, author of The Purchase of Intimacy

About the Authors:

George A. Akerlof is the Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics. He is the coauthor, with Robert Shiller, of Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Rachel E. Kranton is Professor of Economics at Duke University.


IDENTITY ECONOMICS
How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being
George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton

Cloth $24.95 -- Pounds Sterling 16.95 | ISBN: 978-0-691-14648-5
200 pp. | 6 x 9 | 2 halftones

Publication Date: March 3, 2010

In North America:
Contact: Andrew DeSio
Phone: (609) 258-5165
Fax: (609) 258-1335
andrew_desio@press.princeton.edu


Source: Princeton University Press

CONTACT: Andrew DeSio of Princeton University Press, +1-609-258-5165,
andrew_desio@press.princeton.edu


Web Site: Princeton University Press


Friday, October 9, 2009

Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize



Barack Obama first African American President of the United States has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Paul Krugman Has Emerged as Obama's Toughest Liberal Critic

President Barack Obama thinks he is right, but according to the Newsweek Cover story, the famous economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman thinks Obama is wrong.
What do you think?



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In the April 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands March 30), "Obama is Wrong," Newsweek's Evan Thomas profiles Paul Krugman, who, as the debate over the rescue of the financial system unfolds, has emerged as Obama's toughest liberal critic. Plus: Michael Hirsh on how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appears to have settled into office; Dan Gross on financial linguistics; a profile of Peter Arnell; Newsweek's Business Roundtable; and the "diva-ization" of kids at a young age. (PRNewsFoto/Newsweek) NEW YORK, NY UNITED STATES 03/29/2009


29 Mar 2009 16:17 Africa/Lagos

NEWSWEEK Cover: Obama Is Wrong

Paul Krugman Has Emerged as Obama's Toughest Liberal Critic

What if Krugman's Criticism May be Right?

NEW YORK, March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- As the debate over the rescue of the financial system - which is crucial in stabilizing the economy and returning the country to prosperity - unfolds, Paul Krugman has emerged as President Barack Obama's toughest liberal critic, writes Newsweek Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas in his profile of Krugman in the current issue. Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, a professor at Princeton and a Nobel Prize winner in economics, was a scourge of the Bush administration, but has been critical, if not hostile, to the Obama White House, skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. As the debate continues, there are worries among the establishment that his "despair" over the administration's bailout plan might be right. "Krugman may be exaggerating the decay of the financial system or the devotion of Obama's team to preserving it. But what if he's right, or part right?," Thomas writes. "What if President Obama is squandering his only chance to step in and nationalize...the banks before they collapse altogether?," he writes in the April 6 Newsweek cover, "Obama Is Wrong" (on newsstands Monday, March 30).


(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090329/91457 )


There is little doubt that Krugman has become the voice of the loyal opposition, taking on the president from the left. In his twice-a-week column and his blog, Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman criticizes the Obamaites for trying to prop up a flawed financial system and he portrays Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other top officials as tools of Wall Street. The day Geithner announced the details of the administration's bank-rescue plan, Krugman described his "despair" that Obama "has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they're doing." The administration, naturally does not share Krugman's view, but the Obama White House is also careful not to provoke his wrath any more than necessary.


"Ideologically, Krugman is a European Social Democrat," Thomas writes. "In his published opinions, and perhaps his very being, Paul Krugman is anti- establishment." He hungers for what he calls "a new New Deal," and prides himself on his status as an outsider. Krugman generally applauds Obama's efforts to tax the rich in his budget and try for massive health-care reform. However, on the all-important questions of the financial system, he says he has not given up on the White House's seeing the merits of his argument - that the government must guarantee the liabilities of all the nation's banks and nationalize the big "zombie" banks - and do it fast. "The public wants to trust Obama," Krugman says. "This is still Bush's crisis. But if they wait, Obama will be blamed for a fair share of the problem." The question remains as to whether Krugman is right, which we won't know for a while to come.


(Read cover at www.Newsweek.com)


Cover: http://www.newsweek.com/id/191393


Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090329/91457
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN1
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Newsweek

CONTACT: Katherine Barna, +1-212-445-4859, of Newsweek


Web site: http://www.newsweek.msnbc.com/


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