sachaproject

Whether Nigerian Federal Government likes it or not, this BBC serie about Lagos I first found on Ghetto Radio website enables to understand what makes Lagos city so fascinating! How making a living confronted to overpopulation and poor economic conditions. Of course Lagos has its middle class and rich people but indeed life of the have-nots is more interesting to report.

Of course Lagos is not only a ghetto but ghettos are part of it. And despite problems and poor conditions, there’s to my mind a really strong optimism emerging from this documentary. While looking at it, knowing all the fuss it made, with the Federal Government lodging a complaint againt BBC about depicting Lagos as a slum, I was amazed. This film is on the contrary all about life and energy in Lagos from Ojota to Makoko, from Ajegunle to Ebutte-Metta with people filled with dreams in places where neither the western world nor the Nigerian elites could imagine somebody’s would be able to make a living. And not a single so-called expert in population and/or urbanism, or government official, to talk at their place! What really brings something fresh in it.

Actually it’s a strong and accurate picture of Lagos city which can drives you crazy as well as it can makes you stronger than ever. And to be honest I understand it annoyed FG, because there is at the same time dreams, revolt and despair in this documentary. What almost everyone who someday migrated to Lagos certainly experienced.

Welcome to Lagos from Oo Nwoye on Vimeo.

Find the episode 2 (and soon 3 ?) on YouTube.

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South Africa is a complex society. Shall a white extremist (Eugene Terreblanche) praising racial supremacy be killed and the media are going to the boil, rejecting the fault on publicity that followed Julius Malema barred from singing the old ANC revolutionary song ‘Ayesaba Amagwala‘ (meaning “the cowards are scared”) -aka ‘Kill the Boer’- by a Pretoria High Court’s ruling. The judges found it “unconstitutional”…

Music is thus held responsible for the murder of an Apartheid nostalgic, at the head of an extremist organization, the “Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging” (AWB). What if I say: and so? Who’s gonna cry for such a nazi guy? What if South African governments since 1994 have not been able to definitely eradicate these resurgences of deep Apartheid scares in SA society? Do young black people -agricultural workers in that very situation- have still to undergo being humiliated without reacting? Can music be held responsible?

Read more…

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