The name NIGERIA was coined by Miss Flora Shaw who was at the time a mistress to Nigeria’s administrator Lord Lugard. Ostensibly, the name was coined from the name of the river NIGER, a prominent river around the area. I say ostensibly because other...

Hi Blogville, Hi Instablogs. The writer is back from hibernation, with a short story, now published online here. Here is a personal encounter of a young man with a phlebotomist. I am very enthusiastic about the story for two reasons, and more. The...

Sussane Wenger, painter, sculpture and artist of Austrian origin, but who lived almost all her adult life in Osogbo, Nigeria has died in Osogbo on January 12, 2009 at 94. In the early sixties, when Nigeria was a young country just finding its feet...

THE OATH It is not news anymore that the President of the United States had to re-take his oath of office in private after bungling a chance to do so perfectly in the public eye on that cold day of January the 20th. Not his fault anyway. The Chief...

This year snuck up on me like a mischievous friend. I was seated - sprawled in fact - on my sofa with a goblet of a just invented martini when the new year got in. Snuck in, I say again. How could I have missed the countdown? I was busy talking,...

South African music legend Miriam Makeba has died in Italy. Johannesburg - South African singer Miriam Makeba has died aged 76 in Italy, her publicist told a local radio station on Monday. Talk Radio 702 said Makeba died of a heart attack shortly...

In April 2005 when I first visited the East African country called Kenya, I was moved by the citizen of that country’s constant reference to me as that one from the country that could produce the first black Pope in recent times. You would...

Today, while browsing for information for a paper which I am preparing for an upcoming international conference on computational linguistics, I came across this image that says a little more than a thousand words. A company which had depended on a...

In a not so surprising announcement - going by the Nobel Academy’s notoriety for secrecy - this year’s Nobel Literature Prize has gone to Frenchman Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. Clezio who in 1994 was shown a survey conducted by the French...

Here is an article on the favourites for this year’s prestigious prize for literature at the Nobel Academy. The pros and cons of each favourite and why there might actually be surprises.