editors-from-nigeria

"The gods go where we go,the palm fronds are props. We will call our gods with whatever is native to this planet, and they will answer. We know from experience that sometimes, they answer a little too well."

"Geological records show that millions of years ago, Arid was a green planet and there were only a few deserts in her solar overlap zone."

"...The current scientific consensus is that Arid’s desertification and the extinction of most of its lifeforms were likely due to a rare and destructive shift in its solar orbit, which triggered a series of dual solar hyper-flares."

"The abundance of organic matter is why the planet has so much fossil fuel deposits and a rich soil."

"All we need is some water and this whole planet would be one big, beautiful garden."

"If only Amadioha would bless us again. Bless us with the rainmaking gift of our fathers."

"Getting fresh palm fronds on this planet is rare, and even if we manage to find one, will the rain gods hear our chants at all, despite being light years away from home?"

"I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better."

"A vision of an Africa that shelters and respects individualism and for Africans, that the world’s opinion of us is redirected."

"She needed balance. Her own moon that would rise and fall with her, keeping her equilibrium, loving her unconditionally."

"Being different doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that you aren’t perfect as you are. It simply means getting special support so you can live your best life."

"The trauma she had endured often manifested itself as quiet tears once she was locked in her room, staring at her graveyard of photos."

"Brittany was the most challenging character for me because, as the author, we don’t share the same values, but she is completely valid."

"A lot of the feelings of isolation, lack of belonging, and exclusion Muna feels are real and raw for me."

"Many personal experiences were sprinkled throughout the book."

"I often say there is a huge difference between loving a Black woman versus taking directions from her as your boss or CEO."

"We are in fact all perfectly different, and what makes us different needs to be fully celebrated within society."

"My mother took her place very firmly as a leader in many structures, though in the"

"For you to be able to inform others and to educate them, you have to be informed yourself and be educated yourself."

"If northern Nigeria were its own country, it would have the world’s worst maternal mortality rate."

"Advocacy succeeds through two things: consistency and tenacity. You have to be patient and keep working."

"The oppression of women, economic or personal, is not solely a White-Black Race confrontation although the oppression of Black Women is deeply tied to the variable of race in the history of imperialism."

"The liberation of women is conceived as the desire of women to reduce men to housekeepers. Since most men despise manual work for feudal and middle class reasons, women’s liberation is feared as an effort by women to ‘feminise’ men, that is, degrade them."

"What we want in Africa is social transformation. It is not about warring with men, the reversal of role, or doing to men whatever women think that men have been doing for centuries, but it is trying to build a harmonious society."

"The transformation of African society is the responsibility of both men and women and it is also in their interest."

"We must remember that there were radical outlets for women in indigenous African cultures, and in our colonised societies, contact with Europe brought with it the inheritance of European movements and social concerns. So there were inheritors of the British suffragette movement in Nigeria, while my mother, a teacher's college professor, was a practitioner of many of the radical ideas of the Victorian period about women. My perceptions of gender hierarchies were sharp growing up. I was raised with a male sibling as well as female and male wards living with my mother. I was much of a tomboy then. I did not have any important position in my nuclear family of five children, meaning I was neither first nor last boy or girl. No position! I could also see that boys had advantages, even though my progressive mother made all the boys in her house, including my other brothers, do housework. They learned to sew, knit and embroider! She also made us share the housework with the house help or servants. She said her children could not grow up spoilt while others learnt to be effective and efficient. So from very young I had a healthy attitude towards class differences, having been raised to respect everybody in the work they did.Gender hierarchies were so sharp for me that I always wondered as a pre-teen whether marriage was a good idea. Many folktales and other forms of informal educational modes existed to help prepare women for accepting male dominance in marriage. I saw marriage in the Christian world I was in as restrictive, though my mother was a suffragette, if there was any such thing. I say "Christian" world because I could also see that women in the local, unWesternised society around us had different values and freedoms. Within Yoruba marriage, the woman was culturally expected to defer to the husband. Yet Christian marriage restricted Yoruba women of my mother's generation in an unusual way (dress, freedom of movement, association, and gainful work outside the home beyond the financial control of the husband). There were dignifying and structurally important roles for women in Yoruba culture, even within its patriarchal assumptions, and some would say, androgynous cultural practices and cosmology of the Yoruba, expressed in the philosophical fount to the culture that Ifa Divination Poetry with its thousands of verses. One argument is that women were weighted equally with men as human beings, but had to defer to men in certain contexts, while men deferred in others."

"Comfort first. I like to describe my style as “Nepa took light before I could decide what to wear so I just grabbed the closest thing to me and threw it on."

"Hmmm…. I think the top of which is starting and committing to a teen column in the magazine aged 13. Followed by the time I booked my first international interview with Grammy-nominated rapper, Wale, aged 19. There are so many little moments of pride and joy that I think back to on my 15-year journey with Genevieve Magazine."

"Do not apologise for who you are, but do not become complacent either."

"The digital platform allows us to do so much more and bring an even wider spectrum of content to our readers worldwide. It is an exciting digital journey we are on."

"Absolutely. I grew up watching how she worked. I have learnt from her ethics, her unrelenting spirit and – perhaps most importantly – her mistakes."

"What I appreciate is that my mother’s passion is hers, and it has not in any way been forced upon me. So I’m marching to my own beat but there is interestingly and excitingly that crossover on my journey."

"Yesterday, the Supreme Court put a final seal on the gubernatorial election by dismissing the review application of Mr David Lyon. The ruling APC candidate had won the election in the state before the recent Supreme Court judgement that due to multiple certificates (with different names) presented by his deputy, the votes accorded him be voided and his defeated PDP opponent be declared winner. That, of course, is pleasing to the PDP leaders who have been carrying their pot bellies from one embassy to another in an ill-advised campaign against the Supreme Court. Sadly, it has also led to a more sinister decision by a number of APC hoodlums to lay siege to the home of a supreme court Justice. But whichever way we look at the ugly developments, it is very disturbing that the integrity of judgements coming from our courts is being openly questioned. More worrying is that in Nigeria today, neither those who cast the ballots nor those who count them decide the outcome of a democratic process. The decision as to who represents the people is now with Judges."

"At the end, it is very clear that while the political parties must wean themselves of bad behaviour in the conduct of their primaries to nominate candidates for elections, both the Constitution and the Electoral Act would have to be amended. We cannot continue with a situation in which Judges will veto the choices of the electorate on the basis of technicalities. If this democracy is to survive, it is imperative that the judiciary as an institution and judges as individuals are not only impartial to those who appear before them but also that the wider public have the confidence that cases affecting their well-being will be decided fairly and in accordance with the law."

"Democracy, according to Ross Feingold , is considered the most legitimate form of government because the power of choice rests with the people. “But when this power dynamic is altered and citizens lose their influence, the legitimacy of the system is threatened”. That is where we are in Nigeria today because the choices made by citizens with their ballots are being increasingly rendered useless. And this threat to ‘the legitimacy on the system’ is coming from our courts, including the highest court in the country whose decisions are not only final but affect those of lower courts."