Arts & Review

The violence in Northern Nigeria has claimed its first cultural festival, with the popular Durbar festival in Kano suspended over fears of insecurity, as well as the ill-health of the Emir, Alhaji Ado Bayero.

The decision by telecommunications giant, Globacom, to take up the sponsorship of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, is already generating excitement among upcoming writers. Adewale Oshodi reports.

Before now, only a few companies supported iterature, but with the announcement by Nigeria’s top telecommunications company, Globacom, to partner The Lumina Foundation in administering the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, then things are looking bright for the literary sector.

A review of E. Olu Abiala’s book, Trade Unions in Nigeria: Membership and Jurisdictional Scope.

Bola Essien-Nelson, a consistent blogger for the past three years has released a new book titled: The Diary of a Desperate Naija Woman in the Year 2011, her fourth book and her third in the Diary series. It will be the last in the motivational series that has been a bestseller since the first edition was published in 2010. The new book is available at Terra Kulture and Laterna Bookshop, all based on Victoria Island in Lagos and also online.

Since the writer posted her first blog in January 2009, her desire to write has continued to grow from strength to strength. The blog not only provides her with an outlet to air her heartfelt views but also an avenue to serve as a balm to troubled souls. Essien-Nelson draws from her everyday happy and sad experiences to produce pieces that encourage as well as share practical life tips to inspire her readers. At the end of the year in the last three years, the best of these pieces are compiled into a book.

Readers will learn from the writer’s matter-of-fact handling of issues in her home and environment. They will also deduce the love she has for writing and her desperation to be Christ-like in whatever situation she finds herself.

The pieces are at times funny, sometimes drawing tears and those who read between the lines will find there a woman in a struggle to connect with her true Christian self.  Essien-Nelson is down-to-earth, simple and honest and everyone who reads her book will fall in love with it instantly.

Born in Kano State, Essien-Nelson completed secondary school at Queens College in Lagos and graduated with first class honours in French from the University of Uyo (UNIUYO), Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State in 1987. The writer went on to obtain a master’s degree in French/English translation from the University of Ibadan (UI), Ibadan, Oyo State in 1990.

The writer, who describes herself as a working woman, mother and wife, says her source of inspiration is her family. Blessed with three children, Essien-Nelson, who said she is content and at peace in her home, explained that she lives for her husband and children but the pursuit of Christ-likeness is her main calling.

This is her fourth book and her third in the Diary series. The first was titled: The Diary of a Desperate Naija Woman in the year two thousand and 9, The Diary of a Desperate Naija Woman in the Year 20-Ten was to follow and then this latest and last Diary which also features pictures from the two hugely successful book reading events she organized last year.  To put it simply, Essien-Nelson is an ordinary person, like most of the people who will read The Diary of a Desperate Naija Woman in the Year 2011, chasing after an extraordinary God.